Super fun.

I love the reporter angel and honestly I don’t think we’ve seen it enough and makes for good rom com fodder.

Brynn was a bit irksome for half the book and I had a hard time believing the chemistry but I did come around.

I am super excited to see what this author comes up with next.

The Story: This book was just 'okay' to me. The FMC is generally unlikable and you have to *really* enjoy small town stories to get into this one. I just couldn't get into it and found myself listening out of obligation to review rather than enjoyment of the plot.

The Narration: This is my second book read by Talon David and probably my last. I severely dislike her tone and find the story boring when she reads it. Since the book is a dual POV, I wish a man would've been added to read Sebastian's part. I hate Talon's 'man voice.'

Brynn and Sebastian Hate Each Other by Bethany Turner earned a solid four out of five stars from me!

Thank you NetGalley, Bethany Turner, and Thomas Nelson publishing for providing me with an advanced copy of the audiobook ahead of the proposed September 5th, 2023 release date in exchange for an honest review.

📚Brynn Cornell has just been named America’s Ray of Sunshine by People magazine after landing the cohost position of SunUp, a national morning show. To boost viewer ratings, Brynn’s dialogue depicts her as a small town girl who is all sunshine and roses but an unfortunate hot mic accident proves otherwise. Believing to be off the air, Brynn shares a harsh, scathing review of her hometown of Adelaide Springs, Colorado. Going against her good-girl persona in that moment, it’s high time for some damage control.

Meanwhile, in Adelaide Springs the local City Council is ready to vote on matters when officials see the harsh, scathing review of their town from none other than their hometown heroine, Brynn Cornell. Alerted ahead of time about the situation, the City Council will now vote whether or not to allow Brynn to bring a camera crew to Adelaide Springs to redeem herself. Sebastian Sudworth, former reporter now partial ride share driver, City Council member, and Mayor sees this as an opportunity to lure tourists to their town which would also bring in much needed money for the town. The Council votes in favor of allowing Brynn to return while also nominating Sebastian as town liaison working with Brynn.

The two instantly clash but as their time in Adelaide Springs progresses, perhaps they will learn they’re not so different. Both have run from their past and are seeking more than the present is offering them.

✨This is the first book I’ve read from Bethany Turner and I was pleasantly surprised to see I already had Plot Twist from her in my TBR list!
I took one star away because I felt Brynn came off as the grumpy character more so than Sebastian who is listed as the grump. Brynn was a challenging character to like and connect with at times and seemed to deserve much of the frosty reception Sebastian and the town gave her. However, it was an entertaining and cute story at the end and one that kept my attention!

<i>Brynn and Sebastian Hate Each Other</i> is billed as a grumpy/sunshine hate-to-love romance. Unfortunately, the marketing wholly missed the mark on this one; it left me feeling as if I’d been baited and switched, because there is no such grumpy/sunshine dynamic present in this book.

Brynn is a heavily flawed mean girl. In Emily Henry’s <i>Book Lovers,</i> the main character is the quintessential Hallmark villain, who is a materialistic workaholic that inevitably loses boyfriend after boyfriend to the small town girl when they each take trips to the heartland. I loved that book, so it stands to reason that an anti-hero mean girl doesn’t put me off when she is poised as the heroine of a romance. In this case, however, it doesn’t work. This is due in part to the marketing not setting expectations correctly, which ultimately hampered my enjoyment of the novel.

I can’t pin all of my gripes onto the marketing, however. Perhaps a false sell could have been salvaged, had the writing depicted the heroine, Brynn, in all her flawed glory and then showed her arduous journey toward growth. Yet this is not the book I read. Brynn’s development happens statically; one minute, she’s a horrible cruel asshole who huffs and whines and rolls her eyes like a foot-stomping toddler—and the next, she’s tearfully embracing old friends she abandoned without a word decades ago and has reverted back to her old self. It’s dissatisfying. It’s a cop out. It’s a sign of an underdeveloped manuscript.

Because of that, this needed several more passes in the editing process before it was ready to be introduced to the world. Sebastian was an interesting enough love interest and, had the writing and the marketing been done right, I would have greatly enjoyed watching their hate-to-love romance unfold. However, both the romance and the character development were rushed, leaving every triumph over adversity in this to feel completely unearned.

Lastly, the audiobook narrator’s performance was decent. Her voice is not my cup of tea when I’m looking for a narrator I really like, however, she did a decent job.


<b>Spice Rating:</b> 🌶️ - Does Not Exceed Kissing

<b>Overall Rating:</b> 2 stars - Despite the massive issues laid out here, I was completely sucked into the story, so the writing didn’t fail me there.

<i>A big thank you to Netgalley and the publishers, Thomas Nelson and Zondervan Audio, for providing me with an advanced copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review!</i>

This book sounded really good, as my favorite trope is enemies to lovers, but it felt like the transition from enemies to lovers didn't really make sense. And a lot of the animosity felt forced.
This is the story of Brynn, who is about to have a promotion, but when they are live without her realizing, bashes her viewers and especially her hometown calling them all idiots. In order to fix her reputation, she proposes going to her hometown and recording the people there forgiving her so that her national viewers will as well. When she arrives, she lays into the pilot for not having great service, but it isn't the pilot. It's Sebastian. Sebastian is there to escort her and is, unbeknownst to her, an extremely famous and talented journalist. There is an immediate hatred that eventually becomes something else. It was okay, just not my style.

Thanks to NetGalley for this audiobook ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Classic enemies to lovers. Cute story, kept me engaged during a long drive.

This was such a cute. I could totally see this happening in real life. It kind of reminds me of sweet home Alabama, just by the fact that she hast to go back to her hometown. I kind of love the hometown vibe as well. Like the fact, they all really knew each other but somehow time kind of stopped. I also loved how they talked about PTSD and gave a little bit of Sebastian story as well. I would be interested in a back story issue on Sebastian. Or Mr. grumpy Bill and his wife’s love story

I absolutely loved this funny, fresh take on a small-town romance! Not only do we have a great pairing in Brynn and Sebastian, but getting to know the characters of Adelaide Falls was also a treat. I wish I could come visit for Township Days, but I'll settle for reading about it instead.

I loved this book!

Even if it's July and it's very hot, the book made me come back in the Christmas period with hot chocolate, snow and small enchanted villages!

The characters are really great, well characterised, real and funny!

I also really liked the narrator of the audio book and got me involved in the story!

Highly recommended book for the winter season!

Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with this ARC!

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review! This book sadly wasn't my cup of tea, due to the main character, Brynn, being so unlikable. I DNF about halfway through due to not caring about what happened to her.

This rating is based off the audiobook version. As for the reading portion, I thought that it was read well and was easy to listen to. The voices were well done and I enjoyed the voice acting.

Now, for the actual book:
This is a book I struggled with. I like the concept, the setting, and the idea of the characters but Brynn was just so incredibly unlikable. She was just such a massive jerk to everyone especially Sebastian that her thaw was not quite enough for me to warm to her. Her constant celebrity name dropping was exhausting and just added to how unrelatable she was.

I appreciated how open and vulnerable Brynn and Sebastian were with one another, but it didn't feel earned. I felt like they went from hating each other to making out without enough internal acknowledgement of their attraction to one another, especially on Brynn's side. I felt all the hate and not nearly enough love especially when it has "A love story" in its title.

I liked the epilogue but it also felt off that Sebastian Adalaide Springs. Yes, he did the avalanche news broadcast, but I needed more development for it to feel natural that he would just leave and then agree to be in the public eye again.

Overall, I just could not feel the love for this book. ⭐️⭐️

Sadly this was a DNF for me. I listened to about 2hrs of the audiobook and I couldn’t get into it. I don’t think it was the narrator. The sample I listened to gave me Weather Girl/Hating Game kind of vibes so I thought I’d be into it. It really lost me once we got into the small town parts which are usually my favourite part. I wish I could put my finger on what it was that I couldn’t connect with but I think it’s just a case of the wrong book for the wrong listener.

Super cute rom-com! At first, Brynn really annoyed me but that quickly changed once she became more self-aware and grew as a person. I liked the story line and how they each helped each other open up and grow! The narrator was great! I would recommend this book to anyone who likes witty rom-coms with a few deeper themes!

Talon David's narration of Brynn and Sebastian Hate Each Other is excellent. She created distinct voices for the principal characters. It was an enjoyable listen.

The story was a classic Hallmark-movie style small-town romance. The small town girl who made it big and left everything and everyone behind is forced to return to her hometown. The hero is a newcomer who prefers the simpler life after immense success. The book (particularly the second half) is enjoyable, especially if you don't think about it too much (as with Hallmark romance movies). There are *lots* of cultural references which could be a win or a lose depending on your preferences. I had trouble connecting with the characters. While the heroine said (many) unlikeable things in the first half, the small town and the hero seemed unnecessarily cruel and judgmental of her at times.

"Clean" romance with no explicit scenes.

3.5/5 rounding up for the audiobook narration.

Thanks to NetGalley and Thomas Nelson for the ARC audiobook. All opinions are my own.

Where are my Hallmark-movie-lovers at? This audiobook has all of it: big city hotshot returns to her small town, inevitably butting heads with the town’s only handsome & charming man.
In this enemies to lovers romance, listeners get to hear the perspectives of both the male and female main characters.

While it is all the cheesy & sappiness of quintessential hallmark, there’s also a depth and authenticity revealed in the characters through life’s challenges and circumstances.
It’s humorous at parts, lots of cultural and Hollywood references, and there’s good narration to the audiobook.
But only running the course of about a week, the story was a little quick to be at all believable. And I found myself rolling my eyes a few too many times. And there was a weird PTA meeting scene with alcohol overuse and joking about prostitution, which I found unsettling.

Still a fun listen/read of this is your style of book!
Clean with no sex or language; just some alcohol use.

Thank you to Thomas Nelson Publishers and NetGalley for the complimentary audiobook in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Such a great romcom read! Brynn is a morning show tv host on the rise who unknowingly bashes her hometown on air. Trying to save face, she is sent to her hometown to film footage in the hopes of turning things around. She meets Sebastian, an ex reporter, here and their dislike of each other is immediate. The back and forth between Brynn and Seb is funny and adorable. I really enjoyed this story. The narrator did a great job. I prefer when stories have 2 narrators though.

Oops! A sweet, but sometimes cynical, morning news show anchor, Brynn, gets caught saying some unflattering things about her viewers and goes into damage control. Now she's back in her small hometown in Colorado that she fought so hard to get away from to prove she's the down home girl that viewers had loved. While there she confronts the ghosts of her past while meeting the town's only newcomer, Sebastian. Sebastian is a former fearless reporter who disappeared from the public eye without explanation. The two find themselves working together in a combative manner until all of that changes.

This was a fun, rom com type book. It very much reminded me of a Hallmark channel movie. It was fun and quick paced. I think it was the perfect beach read! Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy of this audiobook version!

I really enjoyed this rom-com! A national TV morning show host gets promoted and promptly get caught on a "hot mic" degrading her hometown. She has to make amends if she has any chance of keeping her job. She returns to the small town of Adelaide Springs, Colorado to do just that. Of course, it won't be that easy for her. She runs into handyman, bartender, city council member Sebastian and their relationship gets off to a rocky start. But will the fates smile upon them and bring the two together?

Even though the story may be kind of typical of some rom-coms, Bethany Turner does a wonderful job making it her own. The story is well-written. The characters (both main and supporting) were all well-developed. I could picture the whole story happening in my mind.

Thank you to Thomas Nelson/Zondervan Audio and NetGalley for an ARC audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

I'm incredibly biased in this review because of how much I adore the author!! This year will be her 2nd annual book tour stop at our store and she is an absolute joy to work with. I of course jumped to get my hands on it before the release. Thank you to Netgalley & Thomas Nelson and Zondervan Audio for an audiobook ARC of this clean rom-com. All opinions are my own and I am not paid for reviews.

You know that feeling you get when you're watching the Hallmark Christmas movies? There's just something about the Big City Girl going back to her Small Town and finding romance with the rugged handyman (or insert any super important small town member). If you giggle and swing your feet at that feeling, this book is for you!

Brynn is your famous Big City Girl who was the pride of her Small Town that she vowed to never return to. Except she's one of the hosts of the very popular national morning show and accidentally says how glad she is she left because they're a bunch of backwoods dummies who celebrate a really silly festival on a live feed. She's forced to go to her Small Town and grovel to the townspeople she grew up and apart with (while ensuring to film every charming bit as to get back in with the good graces of the American populace).

That's made harder by one of the town's 4 city counsel members and most eligible bachelor in town, who just happens to see through to Brynn's Sugar Honey Ice Tea routine, setting them up for the classic hostile-to-lovers pipeline. Of course, Brynn learns to love her Small Town again and find her true self all while begrudgingly falling in love with the mysterious city counsel member, who just happens to have just as tragic past as a Anderson Cooper/Ronan Farrow-type investigative reporter which he ran from. They balance each other through a completely clean rom-com and with a fun supporting cast of characters.

At the heart of the story is a lost woman looking for forgiveness, but what I think Bethany does great here is that the townspeople aren't mad at her for what she said, they're mad she left without giving them a why or a goodbye. Brynn doesn't need forgiveness in this story. Brynn and Sebastian find out what the story is truly about, which is being welcomed in community.

Don't miss this feel-good romance and make sure it goes on your Fall into Winter TBR! It'll pair perfectly with your hot tea and cozy blankets as the temperatures begin to drop.

I went in completely blind to this story, so I didn't know what to expect. Then I was confused and had to start the book over after a chapter and a half. Once I concentrated and figured out the logistics, I really enjoyed it.

It is a clean/sweet romance with enemies to more vibes. After I started reading and got confused, I looked at some reviews and saw that several didn't like Brynn. I got concerned but tried to not let those reviews cloud my judgment. I could see where she wasn't likeable to some, but I really felt the character growth she experienced. I was moved by her transformation, although I'm not sure I believe the time line in which it occurred. But overall I enjoyed it.

The story is a told in a very unusual way. It is a dual point of view book. But the female character is first person and the male character is third person. Since I was listening to the audio book and there is only one narrator, I thought this got confusing at times. The narrator herself did a nice job with the reading and characters. But the actual layout of the book was harder to follow, especially while listening.

I thank Netgalley, Thomas Nelson and Zondervan Audio for the advanced audio copy. I'm voluntarily leaving a review with my honest opinion.