I didn’t think was possible to out do The Rom-Com Agenda but here we are with Hedging Your Bets by Jayne Denker!
I loved being back in the small town of Willow Cove with Gillian and Noah.
Cute, fun and lighthearted, couldn't get any better than that.
Denker’s writing is crisp and funny, the characters are fully engaging, and the story is delightful.
I adored this enemies-to-lovers romance story.
A small town, neighbors romance who are competing in a garden competition.
This is a solid rom-com and readers of this genre should enjoy this book.

Thank You NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

This was so adorable! It had a few parts that were a little bit of a miss for me but overall, I had a good time reading it and will be recommending it!

After enjoying The Rom-Com Agenda, I couldn't wait to get my hands on Hedging Your Bets. However, this installment of the Willow Cove romance series fell flat for me.

What Worked For Me
Once the story got started, I found I liked the couple. The banter was great. I also liked that the couple communicated like adults.

The small-town atmosphere was fantastic. Willow Cove is fantastic. I loved this about The Rom-Com Agenda, too. The elderly, nosy neighbors were perfectly meddling. They up'd the comedy level quite a bit. The other side characters are also great. Exactly what I expect of a small-town romance.

What Didn't Work For Me
The story took too long to get going. There is a whole "dating montage" that the female main character goes through. Each date is terrible. The men are terrible. They do and say terrible things. I did not find it enjoyable at all. It felt unnecessary to make them all fat-shaming jerks.

I found the reason for the couple being enemies unbelievable.

The male main character has some super cringy monologues.

Perfect for fans of:
Dual POV, Dual Narration
Small Town Romance
Closed Door, Low Spice
Enemies to Lovers
Competition
Cute, Nosy Elderly Neighbors
Gardening/Nature

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and St. Martin's Griffin for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Too cliche, tried way too hard to intertwine too many concepts / themes. Didn’t want to finish this one

I will not be giving feedback or posting a review until the Boycott of SMP ends and they give an adequate response to the demands.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC. This was a lovely, small-town, closed door romance with an enemies-to-lovers plot. Low spice but everything nice. This was adorable but I felt like I needed a little more chemistry from the main characters.

The storyline was cute--two neighbors feuding over garden spots and hedges while fighting their attraction for each other. I really liked the character of Noah. He was willing to apologize and willing to help Gillian out when one of her many dating explorations turned out to be awful...again. I loved that Gillian was a pharmacist and wasn't willing to take any guff off of men who thought she just "helped out the male pharmacist". That's a pretty unusual profession for a woman in a romcom.

What I really liked was that Noah was super supportive of Gillian and the important things she did in life. I think that was the main emphasis of the story for me.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the gifted copy. All thoughts are my own.

Thank you to NetGally and the publisher for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Overall, this was a very cute, closed door romance set in a small town with a fun enemies to lovers plot. The burn was slow, and I really enjoyed the buildup to our MC's finally getting together.

What took me out of this one was the constant mentioning of Gillian's weight. At first, the references to weight vs. health and men pointing out a fuller figured woman's eating habits did not take me out of the story. However, these references became so off-putting that I would end up skipping entire paragraphs/pages just to escape them.

Was this still an sweet story with really great banter? Absolutely. But is it a book I couldn't put down? Unfortunately, no.

Gillian is looking for love after a devastating heartbreak and broken marriage. Only she seems to be looking in all the wrong places...online. Noah is running from his old life and stumbles back into Willow Cove, the town he spent some summers. But when he is blackmailed into entering a gardening contest, he makes an enemy out of new neighbor Gillian.

First, I love Willow Cove. I fell in love with it in Denker's last novel and was so excited to see her revisit it! Gillian finally gets her love story in this one! She's such a great character. Literally the entire town lovers her...well mostly.

Noah was a great addition to the cast of characters in Willow Cove. He's unbalanced and searching for something that even he doesn't know what it is. It's really great to see him finally finding it as the book moves along.

All of the characters from The Rom-Com Agenda are back in this one, and while I loved seeing them again, I did miss some of the group banter that I loved In TRCA. But, I can't wait to read the next one!

All in all, a cute romcom, with body positive vibes and plants!

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the gifted copy. All my reviews are honest.

Enemies to Lovers? Yes, please. Oh, how I loved the frustrations between Gillian and Noah. At times I even laughed out loud. And that poor gnome stuck in the middle... Side characters in the form of close friends and meddling biddies round out this rom-com perfectly. I read it quickly and enjoyed every minute.

I received an advanced copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

it was...fine. it was a book that i read. it was bland and boring but it was still cute. the plot of the whole gardening thing…was weirdly incorporated.

Hedging Your Bets was a laugh out loud rom com, but I had a hard time staying interested in, because I didn't care for Gillian's character. She was difficult and not very friendly, and I had a hard time putting her and Noah together.
I loved the storyline. The dates that Gillian went on were so funny and made me laugh out loud, but all of that couldn't help me get over my dislike of Gillian.

This sucks.

I’m sorry

But this book review is not going up. I can’t in good conscience promote a book published by a company that allows a person in their marketing team who spews vile and hateful things.

Both Netgalley (when I reached out for guidance) and St Martin’s press (in the MONTHS that they have known about the situation) have been silent on the issue.

So I will be silent about this book.

If all my friends are not welcome at the table, if they aren’t safe at the table, why would I want to be there?

Gillian and Noah have a knack for annoying each other but they also have fantastic chemistry. Compromise is the lifeblood of any relationship.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 (3.5)
Steam Level: 🔥🔥 (closed door scenes)
Trigger Warning: brief mentions of fat shaming and divorce

Now that she's recovered from her divorce, Gillian Pritchard is trying out online dating in the hopes of getting a second chance at love. When Noah West moves in next door, he becomes an instant thorn in her side when he threatens the beautiful garden she's cultivated in her backyard. As Gillian dates one disappointing prospect after another, Noah keeps weaseling his way into her life. But it seems that Noah isn't as bad as she first thought, and soon Gillian begins to develop feelings for him. Maybe the man she thought she hated is really her true love in disguise.

After reading this author's debut novel, I was looking forward to heading back to the fictional town of Willow Cove for another sweet romance. I liked the sort of enemies vibe between Gillian and Noah and how they slowly overcame their initial dislike of one another. Unfortunately, the beginning was just missing something for me, which kept this from being a 4 star read. The second half was really sweet and had some great interactions and a natural progression of feelings between Gillian and Noah. They each had difficult breakups in the past and had to trust that their feelings for each other were genuine. And I liked how there wasn't a third act breakup! I'm pretty sure we'll be getting one more romance in this series, so, even though this one fell a bit short, I would love to read the next book by this author.

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

It was cute and funny. The initial snarky banter was pretty good!
Probably won't remember about this for days to come.


Thank you Netgally & Publisher for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

This was a cute small town, enemies to lovers romance! The book gave off a cute and cozy vibe throughout which is always nice!

This book is a grumpy x sunshine, enemies to lovers rom com. The two MC’s Gillian and Noah are neighbours.

It was ok, if somewhat predictable. I enjoyed the authors previous book (the rom com agenda) much more. In this book I felt that the MCs were a bit flat. There is chemistry between the two MC’s, but there wasn’t a gradual building of emotional attachment and mutual admiration that I enjoy in rom-coms.

In my opinion, the “old lady gang” who lived in the neighbourhood stole the show! I did appreciate the body positivity in this book, although I feel that the author kind of hit us over the head to make her point. I feel that a more subtle approach would have been more effective in getting her point across.

For me this book as ok, but not great. I enjoyed this authors previous book “the rom com agenda” much more. I will definitely be reading more by this author, but this book was just ok for me.

Thank you to St. Martins Press and Netgalley for providing me with an eARC of this book to read and review.

A rom com with a garden but I'm probably going to be the only one who found Noah immature and, frankly, rude - making him less than the rom com hero I was hoping for. Noah, after a breakup in California, impulsively sold his art gallery in California and bought a marina on the Saint Lawrence, apparently without checking the financials (seriously?). He also bought the house next door to Gillian, the town pharmacist and ace gardener who has been using dating apps. They clash when Noah pulls out the boxwood between their properties and then we're off though the ups and downs of life in a small town, complete with meddling neighbors, bad dates, and a bit of drama. This is meant to be a dual pov book but I never got a good sense of Gillian (who I was appalled by in the first chapter when she did the dance in front of the window- a woman living alone with a new neighbor? I'm not judging her morals just thinking about her safety) and I just didn't like Noah who conveyed much younger than he was meant to be. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. Over to others who might see something I did not.

After a recent break-up Noah West moves from California to Willow Cove, a small upper NY town, where he used to spend his summers. He purchases a local marina where he worked as a teen and his only family in town is his uncle. His next door neighbor is curvy Gillian Pritchard who is a pharmacist. Her garden is her bride and joy and she wants to win the annual garden competition. Their first meeting doesn’t go well when he rips out a hedge on his yard that is part of the yard’s garden design.

The story has cute moments, the gnome, and Gillian's supportive friends. I love the scene with Noah flirting and dancing holding the gnome. The older neighborhood busybodies are sweet but very one note with almost every conversation with Gillian being about her dating life. It is told from duel POV but I didn’t connect much as everything felt very surface level or one dimensional. And having an actually plotting villain makes that part of the plot silly. The story is closed door which is fine but I prefer more build up with more kissing and touches before the door shuts. If you enjoy small town, closed door romances with minimal angst this is entertaining and cute. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC and I am leaving a voluntary review.