Librarian Marcela is devastated when her friend Ben, who she’s been crushing on for years, tells her he’s getting engaged to his girlfriend Alice. She forces herself to go to their engagement party and spots Ben’s football player brother Theo. Theo’s been in love with Alice since they were in high school, and is determined to reveal his feelings at the party. But Marcela manages to talk drunk Theo down, and whisks him away to her apartment. When they show up to brunch together the next day, everyone assumes they hooked up. Then they kiss to keep up the pretense and—uh oh—it’s amazing. So Marcela and Theo decide to continue the farce and maybe help each other get over their unrequited love. But what happens when their plan works, and their feelings are a lot more than just a rebound?

I enjoyed this story a lot. I think the setup of “she has to stop him from breaking up his brother’s engagement and fake dating is the solution” is a fun one. Theo is a sweetheart who gets a bad rap from his family, especially Ben. Marcela is a realistic character, and her supportive friendship with her bestie Angela is fantastic. I also love the Latinx and curvy rep. And who doesn’t love a YA librarian?

I adore this premise, but I got frustrated with Marcela at times. Logically I know it’s all part of her character arc, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to clear up a variety of miscommunications much earlier on in the story. And, since Theo has plenty of issues of his own to work through, I would have liked to see his POV too.

The Next Best Thing is a creative premise and an ode to librarians everywhere. If you are a fan of complex family dynamics and, of course, fake dating, you’ll enjoy Gabriella Gamez’s steamy debut romance.

This rebound romance gets mighty messy when it becomes a "love square." I found the main character of this one very relatable, with her self-doubts and love of books, and her "fling" was everything you'd want in a partner. This is a fun romance that will take you away from the daily trudges of life.

This book was very cute, with both steamy moments and other moments filled with drama. Thank you Forever for an ARC of this book.

This book was really cute and an easy read! I adored the main characters and thought their dynamic was fun. I was very happy to see the inclusion of a curvy, plus sized FMC and an MMc that thought she was perfect. I especially loved that she was a librarian and all the bookish elements that involved - a date in a library? eeek!

The actual plot left a little to be desired, it felt overly dramatic and messy and not sure it needed to be. Marcela has been in love with her best friend Ben since they tried dating 9 years ago in college but he’s getting engaged and she wants to be supportive. When his brother comes to town and it comes to light that he’s in love with Ben’s fiancé Alice, the two broken hearted parties agree to be each others rebounds in order to not break up the happy couple. What starts as a rouse turns into more and soon there’s lots of conflicting feelings.

Overall, I liked the resolution and glad Alice got what she needed in the end and that Marcela and Theo got their happy ever after.

Vibes:
They’re each others rebounds
FWB
Fake dating
Best friends brother
Ex NFL player
Librarian
Family drama

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Book about books and book lovers are my fav. Make it spicy and fake dating and that's just the cherry on top of the sundae. I also love me some good plus sized rep which this has in spades. So its no surprise to say I sped through this book. I didn't want to put it down. Marcie was just so relatable. And Theo was a perfect cinnamon roll counterpart. There was just enough angst between the two and their unrequited loves to draw you in, without it being too much drama. The way our MC's worked through their insecurities while building each other up it what I want to see in a relationship. As well as how Theo was such an open book and always completely honest with Marcie. Which is why it came as no shock that he fell first.

Chock full of spice, hilarity, emotion and all the feels this one is a definite recommend from me and I will be looking for furture books by Gamez. Huge thanks to forever pub and netgalley for my ARC in return for an honest review.

TW: gaslighting, fat phobia, toxic friendship, abandonment by parents

I really love how this book manages to combine deep discussion of important subjects with whimsical attractiveness. The journey of Marcela and Theo is about more than simply romance and butterflies—it's about facing fears, accepting change, and finding the guts to follow your passions. Not to mention the emotional rollercoaster that results from the highs and lows of character development, particularly from Ben's (Theo's brother and Marcellas unrequited love) regression, which gives the narrative a relatable level of depth.

From the beginning, Marcela and Theo's connection is evident, but what really makes their relationship unique is how genuine it is. Their relationship seems authentic and unadulterated, based on sincere fondness and regard for one another. I was rooting for both Theo and Marcella the entire book.

All in all this was a delightful surprise and I cannot wait to read more from this author. Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publisher for an earc in exchange for an honest review.

When Marcela’s best friend, Ben, gets engaged, Marcela knows it’s time to blow out the candle she’s been holding for him and find someone new. By some stroke of luck, Marcela finds out that Ben’s ex-NFL brother, Theo, harbors unrequited feelings for Ben’s fiancée and stops him from confessing his feelings. The next day everyone thinks that Theo and Marcela hooked up and well… that lie hides other truths that best stay hidden. But is there a chance at something more?

Rating 4/5 ⭐️s - This rom com, love square is equal parts funny and sweet. The things Theo and Marcela do to hide the truth is a touch ridiculous but the sense of longing and desperation seem to justify the comedy. I absolutely loved this pairing of a mixed race nerd x jock couple.

Spice Rating 4/5 🌶️s - Several spicy scenes but nothing super risqué. I loved the body positivity in this book.

Congratulations Gabriella Gamez on your debut novel! I thoroughly enjoyed The Next Best Fling and look forward to reading your next book.

Marcela has been in love with her college best friend Ben for years. Now he’s engaged and Marcela is trying to move on. It just so happens Ben’s brother Theo is back in town and trying to get over Ben’s fiancé. When Marcela and Theo agree to see each other to help get over their feelings of the newly engaged couple. As Marcela and Theo spend time together they realize how blindsided they’ve been about each other due to Ben’s influence. But when Marcela sends an exposing text to Ben and his fiancé sees it, the love square implodes. Will Marcela go back to Ben like always or has Theo truly won her over?

This was an exciting romance that touches on heritage, family dynamics and what happens when we take off our rose tinted glasses. What a wonderful debut!

I was a bit weary about reading this because of the theme of the main characters being in love with other people. I am not a fan of the fake dating trope but this book was great. Ben is a total douche and I could not stand that guy. Theo is so sweet and caring for Marcela. At times I was whisper shouting for to wake up and tell Theo she loved him! I hate the back and forth etc but the ending was great. I loved that Marcela was plus size and a librarian. She was such a relatable character.

This was a really solid first book for the author's debut romance. The writing was good, the characters were well developed, and I liked the representation. I wasn't completely on board with our heroine pining over her best guy friend for almost a decade, and our hero pining over said best friend's fiancee for longer (and oh, did I mention the best friend and hero are brothers?!) - I was definitely shaking my head at these two multiple times. I also would have preferred dual POV, but that's just me - I always want dual POV. I will absolutely read this author again, and think this book will hit harder for you if you like slightly messier, more angsty contemporary romances.

This debut novel has some of my favorite things in a book- best friends brother, plus size FMC, and athlete MMC. I found Marcela to be relatable and as a librarian, she’s as obsessed with books as I am! Overall, I thought it was a cute read.

The Next Best Fling by Gabriella Gamez is a fun, sexy ride! Marcela Ortiz, a librarian secretly in love with her best friend, finds herself in a complicated situation when her friend gets engaged. Enter Theo Young, an ex-NFL player and brother of the groom, who plans to confess his feelings for the bride-to-be. Marcela convinces him to rethink his plan, and when they’re mistakenly thought to be a couple, they decide to play along.

What starts as a no-strings-attached cover-up quickly turns into something real. Marcela and Theo’s chemistry is undeniable, and their relationship is full of sizzling moments, from library aisles to late-night bars. Theo helps Marcela see herself through his eyes, her confidence blossoms and making her feel truly seen and cared for in a way she’s never had before.

Theo is unapologetic about his attraction and also respectful of their boundaries, you’ll just fall in love with him. The only downside for me in this story is the love triangle resolution, which felt a bit too convenient. Despite that, this debut is fast-paced, fun, and full of lovable characters. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for more from this author, especially as this series centers around librarians. What’s not to love?!

The Next Best Fling is the debut novel of Gabriella Gamez. I loved reading Marcela and Theo’s story and was rooting for them from the very beginning. The chemistry between the two of them leapt off the page. They might not be perfect, but could they be perfect for each other? Read The Next Best Fling to find out.
I loved that one of the main characters is someone who works at a library and absolutely loves to read any chance she gets. The characters were so relatable. I really liked Theo and Marcela’s characters a lot, which left me wondering what Marcela ever saw in Ben.

Marcela is secretly in love with her best friend Ben, who is about to propose to his girlfriend. But when Ben's handsome, former NFL star brother arrives, who happens to be in love with Ben's soon to be bride, Marcela finds herself in the middle of a very interesting fling.

This was such a fun read! I devoured it in a day! The chemistry between Theo and Marcela was perfectly sweet. I really loved how the author navigated through some touchy subjects like fat phobia, and friend breakups. It made the story so relatable.

This book is perfect for you if you love:

👫 Fake dating
📖 Library vibes
🏈 Football references
⚗️ Great chemistry

This is available now!

Thank you to Netgalley, Forever Publishing and Gabriella Gamez for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I’m always in for a romance that features a character who works in a library so I was excited to read The Next Best Fling by Gabriella Gamez, which was released on July 9. I wanted to love it but, ultimately, this debut novel let me down.

Here’s the book’s description:

Librarian Marcela Ortiz has been secretly in love with her best friend for years—and when he gets engaged, she knows it’s long past time to move on. But before she gets the chance, she has a bigger problem to contend with in the form of Theo Young, ex-NFL player and older brother of the man she’s in love with. When she discovers Theo's plans to confess his feelings for his brother’s fiancée at their engagement party, Marcela is quick to stop him—despite how tempting it is to let him run away with the bride-to-be. She manages to convince Theo to sleep off his drunken almost-mistake at her place and when they arrive at a family brunch the next day together, everyone wrongly assumes they hooked up.

Since Theo needs a cover for his feelings for the bride and Marcela needs a distraction from her unrequited feelings for the groom, they decide to roll with the lie. Until one late night at a bar, they take it a step further and discover a layer of attraction neither realized existed. Soon, they find themselves exploring the simmering chemistry between them, whether in library aisles or Marcela's bed. There are no boundaries for the rebound relationship they form—just a host of complicated feelings, messy familial dynamics, and uncovered secrets that threaten to tear them apart before they can even admit to themselves that their rebound is working. Maybe a little too well.

I know this is supposed to be a romance but…sitting here, trying to write about this book…none of the romance elements are coming back to me. I think because I just didn’t really “get” Marcela and Theo. I do think they’re good together but I just don’t think Gamez was clear enough in her writing. That may sound contradictory, I know. It’s just a little hard to put my finger on the specifics of why the love story was lacking for me.

I love a romance that has more to it than the two main characters falling in love (or serious like) over the course of a book. But the relationship Marcela had with Ben, one of her best friends and the person she’d been in love with for almost a decade? And all the BS he put everyone through over the course of his life? Oof. It was too much for this kind of story. He was a gaslighting, narcissistic asshole who didn’t deserve that many words written about him.

I work in a library. I’m pretty much always behind the scenes but I’m sometimes out and about on the desk, interacting with customers, tidying shelves. Therefore, I have a pretty good idea of what makes a library tick and tasks that need to be done and how well they should be done. Granted, I don’t know exactly how large the library was that Marcela worked at, but she should not have spent most of the day shelving books I through L. That’s just…no. That’s an extremely quick task for someone who’s good at shelving. It’s such an extremely small and, admittedly, stupid, thing to focus on but I think Gamez is just yet another author in a long line of authors who don’t really get what it takes to work in a library and tries to write too in depth about it. You’re a reader, since you’re here, and I bet you’ve probably been a life-long library user (if you’re not, get yourself to your local library immediately and sign up for a card). I also bet you have a somewhat glamourized idea of what working in library would be. I freely admit that I kind of did when I started back at a library almost three years ago. Things have changed. Libraries are being attacked from almost all sides for so many reasons and staff are working hard to keep libraries open, let alone the same, magical place you remember from when you were a kid. Gamez tried to touch on the book banning problems that are happening in the US but it never quite landed for me (maybe because I’m Canadian?). All of this isn’t a dealbreaker and others might not feel the same as I did. But I think all of this paired with a few other issues I had just meant it bothered me more than it probably should have.

The Next Best Fling was a big miss for me. I wanted to like Gabriella Gamez’s novel but I just couldn’t get past a lot of the issues I had with the characters. I might consider reading the next book in the Librarians in Love series but I’ll be, not surprisingly, checking it out from the library.

*An egalley of this novel was provided by the publisher, Forever, via Netgalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

The best friend was the actual worst and I hated him so much. The main couple was delightful. I enjoyed the banter, and the premise was absolutely amazing. Two people being in love with both the bride and the groom, and instead, ending up together, fantastic. What I didn't love is that he didn't know it was his own brother that she was hung up, despite her knowing some of the worst moments of his life. That knowledge imbalance, and the intentionality behind it, brought this down for me. This ended up being a level of messy that just wasn't for me.

Marcella has harbored feelings for her best friend, Ben, since college. She knows it's time to move on when he gets engaged to his longtime girlfriend, Alice. Then Ben's brother, Theo, steps in and he's always had a thing for Alica. It's messy. Marcella and Theo decide a no-strings-attached relationship is the best way to get over their unrequited crushes.

"The Next Best Fling" is cute and lighthearted but also has genuine depth and angst — all with a little bit of spice thrown in. We see Marcella truly develop and grow as a character. Plus, she's relatable as she struggles with self-confidence, fear of abandonment, etc. Theo's a giant cinnamon roll and Ben is absolute garbage.

The most standout thing for me was author Gabriella Gamez's portrayal of what it's like to be a plus-size woman. It's so real and relatable. Gamez depicts the complicated mix of self-awareness and size inclusivity/body positivity without making Marcela's weight feel like her only character-defining feature. Instead, Marcela is so much more — something I hope to see more of in the future.

Many thanks to the author, NetGalley and Forever Publishing for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

What a fantastic debut!

it's super horny in a delightful way that the cover is fantastic. As much as I spent a lot of the book cursing Ben I was so excited watching Theo and Marcela slowly fall for each other. The moving on from heavy pining has just been fantastic.

Adored so much of this. Including the big romantic gesture.

As a San Antonio girl, I loved reading about my city in a book. However, this book didn't totally grab my attention. Loved the messy love geometry though

This was a cute, fun, sweet story with a bit of spice mixed in! The main character faced relatable problems like self-confidence struggles, fear of abandonment, and unrequited feelings. They incorporated size inclusivity/body positivity without making weight the most important aspect of Marcela's character. Overall, it was an enjoyable read!