I really enjoyed Nikki Payne’s debut Pride & Protest last year, so I was super excited to read Sex, Lies, and Sensibility. It’s a modern retelling of Sense and Sensibility, but you don’t have to be a fan of the original story to appreciate this one. It pays homage to Austen’s classic while integrating fresh and relevant characters and situations that make for a layered and engrossing read.

Nora and her sister inherit an abandoned beach house in rural Maine and have a deadline to turn a profit. They meet Bear and his cousin, who are tour guides in the area and use the abandoned house as their unofficial headquarters. Bear assumes the city girls won’t last more than a week, but Nora and Yanne are there to stay. What begins as a bit of animosity and distrust between Bear and Nora slowly turns to friendship and more as they work together and realize they can both profit from a combined venture. But secrets in their personal lives threaten the blossoming feelings they have toward each other. 

The characters in this story are fantastic! I love Nora and Bear. Each has an interesting and traumatic backstory, and they have to deal with so much. Duty to his community, a past relationship, a fledgling business, and so much more plague Bear, and Nora faces the shocking revelations learned at her father’s funeral, family troubles, a dilapidated inheritance on the brink of foreclosure, and a viral video from her past that continues to haunt her. They and their stories are dynamic and nuanced, as is their love story.

The secondary characters are compelling too, and I particularly liked Nora and Yanne’s relationship. Nora and Yanne have a strong sisterly bond even though they’re very different, and I like how the author explored the benefits as well as the difficulties that come with a close-knit sibling relationship. These women are very different in personality, goals, and ambitions, and I didn’t always like or understand Yanne, but I loved how she served as kind of a foil to Nora. It made both of their personalities really shine. Even the antagonists are super fun to hate, and there are a few to choose from. 

Of course, my favorite part of the story is the romance. Bear is a delight. He’s so tortured and lovely, and his sense of loyalty, duty, and selflessness is incredible. Nora is a strong woman with a tremendous amount of grit and perseverance. And the two of them together have so much chemistry! I loved their friends-to-lovers, slow-burning romance and so rooted for this couple to take a chance on each other. They both have secrets and things that hold them back from being completely vulnerable with each other, but they both grow and change because of their relationship with each other. I loved it. On top of that, something I really liked was how Bear respected Nora’s privacy and never pushed her to give more than she wanted. I love that and the way their love story unfolds. And their sexy times are STEAMY!!! I may have swooned a time or two. lol

A fresh spin on Jane Austen’s Classic Sense and Sensibility, Sex, Lies, and Sensibility includes powerful themes especially the messages about sexuality, gender roles, the exploitation of women, preserving culture and the environment, and the healing power of community. It also includes diverse characters, and mental health and disability rep. It’s a thoughtful and thought-provoking read that is balanced well with humor, heart, and a swoon-worthy romance.

Special thanks to NetGalley and Berkley Books for providing me with a copy of the book. All thoughts are my own.

I may be one of the few Romance readers that has never read any Jane Austen or seen any of the movie adaptations (with no plans to!), so I can't judge this book based on the re-telling aspect. I can say that if you love chaotic families, drama and MESS...this book is giving you all the over the top soap opera realness. If you're a reader that enjoyed The Art of Scandal by Regina Black,you'll want to get your hands on Nikki Payne's Sex, Lies and Sensibility. Nora and Bear were surrounded by all manner of personal, professional and familial drama and were doing their level best to fight their attraction. Reader: it did not work. But it was a ride watching them try!

This is a fun retelling with spice!! Granted, I’ve never read the original 🙈 oops. But this was a fun read and you won’t want to miss it!!

Thank you Berkley for the eARC!!!

Laugh out loud good. I adore this modern retelling and really felt connected to the main characters. Such a fun read.

A beautiful, contemporary retelling of Sense and Sensibility with the spice turned up to ten!

Slower paced, brimming with romance, comedy, and finding yourself, this is sophomore tale from Nikki Payne is a delight.

This book has great themes of community and family and how to support them, especially throughout tough times. It also had some delightful steamy scenes.

Despite this, I struggled with the book a bit. I liked Bear and Nora individually, but I had a hard time believing their romance. It was nice to see how much Bear cared for Nora and how he would do pretty much anything to help her, but I feel like I missed something in the development of their relationship and how they came to be so in love. I felt like I was being told things were happening rather than seeing them. I think the writing style may have just not been for me.

I did enjoy, though, seeing Nora regain her confidence throughout the story, resulting in what she hoped to accomplish with the inn at the end. However, I do wish we saw more of the renovation process of the inn because it almost felt like a background in the story when that was the only reason Nora was in Maine.

I think this could be the perfect book for someone else and I do look forward to reading other books from this author in the future!

As far as Jane Austen's retellings go, I have yet to read one that starts as dynamically as Sex, Lies and Sensibility. After Nora and Yanne find out that they’re their father’s “other family” at the funeral, they’ve bequeathed an inn in Maine that are tasked to fix up. If they fix it up, they can pay it and get 3 million. If they don’t, it goes to their wicked stepsister, and from there, it’s on.

The only problem is that once they arrive, the two are greeted by Native Abenaki cousins who are putting on a tour. While they don’t get along at first, it’s clear the sparks are flying for Bear and Nora. Eventually, the two agree to make the inn a mutually beneficial partnership and begin renovating.

As you might imagine, the inn needs many repairs, causing Bear to end up at the inn and be forced to be around Nora. While it takes a while for them to warm up to each other, the tension between them is so hot. I don’t know how Nikki Payne did it but those long looks and random kisses were enough to get me invested and want them to be together.

As with most romance, everything that can go wrong for these two does. Whether it’s repairs at the house, Bear being tethered to his duties, or Nora trying to do everything on her own, it feels like we’ll never get to see them happy. While the plot didn’t go the way I imagined, I will say that it was well worth the journey to get there.

Even though I’ve never read the source material, I can imagine that the drama is dialed up in the original. Regardless, Nikki Payne made it her own and put such a unique spin on a classic that you need to add it to your TBR. Whether you’re pulled in by the cover, the title, or the pitch, Sex, Lies and Sensibility will surprise you in more ways than one.

This was lovely. I liked the writing style. I liked the story and characters. I started off with a bang and I cried a few times. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone.

This was a very cute book! I really liked reading this story and all of the characters. Bear and Nora's relationship was a slow burn for sure, but worth it in the end. I felt like the miscommunication plot was heavily used here, which was somewhat annoying, Otherwise, I thought this was quirky, deep, funny and I read it within a few hours. I will definitely be reading more books by Nikki Payne in the future.

🫶🏽What worked for me
There are parts of this book that are hilarious! I would get the audiobook just to listen to a performance of the scene where Nora and Yanne first meet Bear and Moxie😂 The description of Brandon as a Steve Erkle who goes to the gym 💀 Bear and Nora have amazing chemistry! The steamy scenes were FIRE, like DAMN Nikki can write some spice! I do love how Nora took her experience and owned it in a way that could bring other victims together to heal.

🤷🏻‍♀️What didn’t work for me
Full disclosure, I haven't read Sense and Sensibility, so I'm not sure if certain aspects that don't work for me are related to the fact that this is a retelling.

I thought the beginning of the book was too dialogue heavy without enough description of what was happening in the physical surroundings, as well as Nora's thought process. It made the first few chapters feel rushed. By mid-book this was no longer a problem, but then the transitions/scenes didn't seem smooth to me. Like when Nora first meets Brandon, he shows up at her house holding a cup of coffee. She takes the coffee and burns her tongue while trying to arch her back and look sexy--I thought this was so funny but also, neither one of them had said anything yet until after she burned her tongue. It seems very odd and unnatural to just take a coffee from a total stranger that shows up at. your door before even saying, "hi." Scenes in the hospital also had the rough transitions. One minute we went from Nora swallowing back a sob to Bear asking her what she's reading and I don't know where this book suddenly came from, or if they're in the car or in the hospital as the scene is taking place. *I think a few sentences later it became more clear that they were in the car, but it just wasn't smooth as I read it*

I was really confused on how to feel about Bear because his personality was so contradicting and his situation with Lu was so weird. On the one hand, he is portrayed as the shy guy who stutters and is killing himself to take care of others. On the other hand, he's a cocky guy who kisses his biceps and has sex with Lu outside the first time they met. Overall, Bear told so many lies of omission that he was hard to root for. I didn't understand all the gratitude to Lu for initially agreeing to marry him, when she was only doing it for the money. Even though what happened to Lu was really messed up, it was frustrating that she seemed to do NOTHING to help herself out. Maybe she was unable relating to the disability claim she was trying to make, but whatever disability she had wasn't clear to me so I got the impression that she was bitter, lazy and overly dependent.

Yanne's free spirit personality was fun and amusing at first, but then it just got frustrating with the way she blowing money and leaving all the work for Nora to do. Overall, I ended up being so frustrated with the characters that it became hard to enjoy reading this book.

I love and appreciate how much work and thoughtfulness Nikki puts into her books. I love her love for Austen. Her retellings are smart and fun and refreshing. But this one didn't work for me. I appreciate the chance to support her and I will continue to do so!

Thank you too NetGalley and Berkeley publishing for my digital ARC. Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I loved reading a different plot line compared to some other recent romances that are being published. I loved how it was a race against the clock type of layout. I really enjoyed how they mixed in diverse characters as well still having their native backgrounds as part of the plot. Some financial topics and house lingo threw me off a little bit, but not enough to change my rating on this book. Overall, I really liked it and I will be recommending it for others to read, especially if they want a diverse character cast.

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley for providing me with an E-Arc in exchange for my honest thoughts <3

I fell in love, first, with Nora's audacity (she strips at her dad's funeral to prove a point folks)! Nikki Payne's character work is phenomenal. Whether we're talking about Nora and Bear or any of the side characters, they felt complete to me. I was living in the story with them.

I couldn't put this down!! I was reading during every single free (and some not so free) second I had. Nora and Bears messy journey to love was as intense as it was beautiful. There were so many outside factors that should have kept them from each other, but they couldn't help it. I wholeheartedly believe they are soulmates. They would find their way to each other in any time.

Y'all this was slow burn but in the very best way. You could cut the tension between them with a knife. Oh yeah... and only one tent!?!? Bear is my new favorite book boyfriend. Like, sir, do you realize the feelings that you've made me have? I love love loved this so much <3

Nikki Payne is easily an auto-buy author for me! She writes fierce, passionate, and fun heroines that you root for! I had just as much fun with this retelling as Pride & Protest. I can’t wait to see what NP writes next!

I'll just start by saying it was smart, witty, funny, diverse, tender, sophisticated, and modern/current. And don't forget steamy!

So upon their father's death, Nora and her sister, Yanne, are forced out of their family home and their inheritance is a dilapidated inn at Barton Cove, Maine. They meet Bear (he's the good guy) and his cousins who agree to help them renovate. The bad guy is Jon who runs neighboring Willow Bee Inn (that made me laugh).

I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of the book but my absolute favorite were the Space Jam quotes and quizzes!

And now I have to read "Pride and Protest" since I'm hooked and I'm now a @nikkipaynebooks fan!

Easily the best romance book of this year.

Wow. Nikki Payne is so electric and magical. This book is romance perfection.
I could not put it down.

I ate up the two FMC's chemistry with a spoon and lapped it up with the bread. Because these two are the most powerful magnets I have read in such a long time.
The writing is exquisite. The supporting characters so vivid.
I am in love with this book.

"I want forever with you, starting today. This is the beginning of the rest of our life together. I want to marry you."

Nora is a great character with realistic issues that many women share.
Bear is a man of substance. A man full of dreams. A man dedicated to doing what is right.
Despite the chaos of the story, Nora and Bear's romance develops beautifully over the course of the story and you understand how these two stalwarts of their individual families find strength in each other.
The book is such an interesting spin on a classic story and it delves into important topics like reputation, identity, and responsibility. I definitely can’t wait to read more by this author.

Where to begin with this amazingness! I could not put this down. This spins premises and plot setups that I normally feel lukewarm about with masterful writing leaving me hooked. Sisters are tasked with renovating a broken down inn in a small town in Maine in a spiteful fools errand from an inheritance. If they don’t make a certain level of profit they’ll go bankrupt and the token villain of the story wins. This gets further complicated by small town politics and gossip when local business owner/tour guide Bear gets involved.

Like I said this is masterful. Renovation premise is a microtrope that can fall trap to too literal of details but not this story. This remains character driven and the reno is a backdrop. The writing and dialogue is genuinely funny, no cheesy rom com shenanigans here.

Nora has some heaviness from her past that affects romantic partnerships so it makes so much sense at how this unfolds as friends to lovers. Bear respects her boundaries and privacy and I just love when I love a slow burn. You can tell when an author is also a fan of romance when it unfolds in a way that isn’t just one thing, it isn’t just sexual tension or banter, etc it’s a mix of all the components of a healthy relationship that really shows a variety of expressions of intimacy. By the end you NEED them to be together because you can’t imagine it any other way.

This brings me to the drama. I love when a Jane Austen retelling brings the drama!! The stakes feel so high. You can feel the echoes of a historical romance at times throughout this in really fun ways. It makes this feel so true to the source inspiration to me. But at the same time you absolutely do not need to be familiar with Sense and Sensibility to enjoy this. I love the new topics we can examine in a contemporary context and the narrative changes possible because of that. This brings the question of what a hero and a victim looks like and how it can be based on who is telling the story. Bear and Nora’s personal growths are definitely different but converge on that overarching topic. I loved the healing they both needed to do. Acceptance was also a huge topic.

The side characters are also nuanced and I loved all the subplots, again reminiscent of Austen. Nikki always writes real people and I find it so impressive.

I enjoyed the Nikki’s debut Pride & Protest and I would recommend it but with a follow up like this one I feel like Nikki is really solidifying her place in auto-read authors for me and honing in on her craft. Thank you to Berkley for this eARC, this book was incredible.

I LOVED THIS STORY.
Nikki has a way of bringing real people with real problems to life and making it so easy to understand the classics by relating it to her audience.

I am so obsessed with Nora and Bear. They have my entire heart. It was so refreshing to see flawed characters work together to be better versions of themselves.

I was instantly drawn in watching Nora and Bear’s backstory unfold. They have great chemistry amidst a story about reputation and identity. Lots of humor, spice, and fantastic characterization. The S&S character names and tie-ins were *chef’s kiss* but you don’t need to know Austen to love story. Although when Yanne writes a poem to Bear mentioning dead leaves, I hope you’re the person who smiled to themself. And Brandon is definitely a robot accountant, but we love him.