The Book Swap was an unexpected journey of a novel that is an enemies to lovers romance and so much more. It poetically deals with grief, loss, and finding your way again after profound tragedy.

Erin is still mourning the loss of her best friend, Bonnie, who died tragically from cancer. Unable to move on, she persists in a job she hates and sub-par hookups with her roommate until her accidental donation of her favorite book, To Kill a Mockingbird, to a free library propels her into positive action. Erin is particularly devastated by the book's loss because it contains a treasured postcard from Bonnie. She is both relieved and intrigued when her copy of To Kill a Mockingbird shows up a week later in the free library, postcard inside, and fresh notes in the book's margins, responding to her own annotations inside the novel.

Erin and the "Mystery Man" that wrote the margin notes thus begin an unlikely friendship trading margin notes inside beloved classics including Great Expectations, The Great Gatsby, and Middlemarch. Literary analysis also gives way to more personal questions as Erin and the mysterious margin writer share musings about their hopes and dreams for the future and spark a potential new romance.

Just as Erin begins to feel that she is making forward progress, a startling realization about the "Mystery Man" threatens to upend everything that she believed to be true.

The Book Swap is a love letter to the transformational act of reading, the power of free libraries, and the hope of new beginnings. Do not miss this intriguing and special romance.

After a series of unfortunate events, Erin finds she’s accidentally dropped her favorite book off at the community library. She’s in a panic, returning to the library repeatedly until it finally shows up again. Only now, the margins aren’t just filled with her annotations; someone has responded!
So begins the You’ve Got Mail-esque second chance love story of Erin and James finding themselves, each other, and healing in the margins of their favorite books.
This book was an emotional rollercoaster so bring your handkerchief.

I was drawn to this book because of the cover and my love of little free libraries. Sadly, this book was a slog to get through. It took me more than two months to finish. I typically finish a book in a few days. The story felt disjointed and I never felt a connection to the characters. Erin was a bit selfish and insufferable at times. I also felt like the plot of writing in the margins has been done before. I’m sure many readers will enjoy this book, but it just wasn’t for me.

I had a rollercoaster of emotions with this story! At times it was very sweet and entertaining and other times I was really struggling to finish it. It took me a really long time to finish this book and that makes me kind of sad. Erin and James had a beautiful love story but I think at times it felt disjointed and was very easy to put down and not go back to until like a month later. The dialogue could be very fun at times! Overall I am glad I read this book but it dragged at parts. 2.75/5 (3 stars rounded up)

Thank you NetGalley and Grayson House for an ARC of this book! This book was published September 3, 2024.

First of all I love reading books about books and this story was very good. The character were likable and the this book was a cozy read for me. I definitely will read more books from this author.

The Book Swap by Tessa Bickers
Thank you NetGalley & Harlequin Trade Publishing for the free ebook ARC!
Review published on Instagram on 9/6/24

Books about books are one of my favorite things. And I love books with deep, complex characters and relationships. I also really love when an author highlights the intense, beautiful connection between female friends and this book delivers on all of the above. I found both of the main characters, Erin & James, to be likable and interesting and was just rooting for them so much. I laughed and cried and really enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend it to someone looking for a contemporary romance with deep characters and a beautiful story.

Imagine I’m on a remote beautiful beach on vacation and picking this book up based on the cover. I expected a fun light read, but what I got was so much more!

This was a heavy read but so well written. It did take me a minute to figure out if I wanted to continue. I am so glad I did! At the end, I felt so much it made me cry. That never happens!!! The gift of a writer is when the reader feels all the things and is physically moved. The writing style felt genuine. I look forward to more books by this author.

Thank you Netgalley for an ARC of this wonderful book. The opinions expressed are truly my own.

"The Book Swap" mixes themes of friendship, family, personal growth, and romance with a love of literature. Note I put romance last, because this is definitely low-spice and slow-burn romance, so if you're looking for hot and heavy dramatics, this is not the book to find that! The premise was super fun if you like books and written correspondence. Honestly I haven't even read most of the books referenced and I (1) still enjoyed the commentary and (2) am actually inspired to pick up some classics I've never read. The characters were well-developed, and I appreciated (as I usually do) that they were working through some of their own personal issues.

I really love the concept of this book- I don't think I've read another one like it! Now, I'm not one to annotate my books, but I do love the idea of finding annotations someone else wrote and falling in love with that person! Here's hoping the next time I go to the library there's a man whose annotated my next read! Beautifully written and such an original story!

I’m so grateful to have received this book as an ARC! It was so fun to read and watch the characters develop over the course of the book. I loved the use of the library as the primary communication and rekindling of Erin & James.

This book was different from what I thought it would be. The cover gives off very cute romance read. This was so much more. Erin and James reconnect in such a unique cute way and it seems to be what they both needed while working out their own personal issues. Very emotional and deals with topics like loss and mental illness.

Thank you to NetGalley and Graydon Publishing for providing the ARC.

This one hit me hard in my feelings right from the beginning.

Erin and James are two former friends who had a horrible falling out and haven't spoken to each other since. This books focuses on how the path to forgiveness isn't linear - sometimes it's crooked and curled upon itself, so tangled that it's hard to see the other person's side. Erin is slow to forgive, queen of holding grudges as a result of her parental situation. James is desperate for her to understand that it wasn't about her. Meanwhile, they're both on a path of discovering themselves and what that journey means to them individually.

This book was devastating in parts and so uplifting in others. I cried so much right from the beginning and it never quite let up. Bickers' prose really shines - it is poignant and evocative. I quickly devoured every word and found myself wanting more. Erin and James are flawed and complicated characters, but never once did I feel like they got annoying or anything. Their lack of communication made sense, and their journey back to each other made sense, even as they were trying to understand themselves along the way.

Excellent read.

I had such high hopes for this book. 2 former flames reunite anonymously over books left at their little free library and fall back in love, what could go wrong? Well, I guess I’ll never really know. I DNF’d this at about 40%. To be honest, I couldn’t really stand either main character (especially James) and I feel like these people don’t need love, they need therapy.
Like Erin needed grief therapy 3 years ago when Bonnie died, and because she didn’t she should probably be on stronger meds for the hallucinations. Because lets be honest, if you’re checking the chair in your room to make sure someone is no longer sitting in it when you take your roommate to bed, and the “someone” you’re looking for is dead, thats crazy. That’s “see a Dr ASAP because you’re at least somewhat convinced a dead person is really there” crazy. It doesn’t help that she doesn’t have a job and has zero sense of self. Or respect. You don’t randomly hook up with your roommate when one or both of you have been drinking for months if you have respect for yourself.
James is actually worse in my opinion. James should have been in therapy as a child because of everything with his mom but he wasn’t and now he has a victim complex. Like the way he thinks and talks about his Dad and how his Dad gave up his one-hit-wonder career to deliver pizzas, which is terrible because the other kids at school decided it was lame AF, is crazy. The way he thinks about his mom? So much worse. I totally get having resentment towards a parent with severe mental health problems, I’ve been in those shoes, but this is beyond resentment to borderline hatred. He hates how she is and looks at every good day as just another day towards the bad days. He’s negative about the whole thing while also feeling insane amounts of guilt, and feeling like his brother is a terrible person for abandoning them to live in the US with his new family. Like bro, he grew up. That’s ok. Expected of kids even. But no, it has to be a direct slight against James.
Speaking of his mom, I feel so bad for her. Something clearly has messed with her head and I doubt she’s getting proper help for it. Why do I think that? Because when she told her son that if she had a knife she’d stab herself & kill herself he didn’t get her medical help, he just put all of the knives in the back of his car and drove away. No, just no. That is not how you handle that situation. You call a medical professional. Because that isn’t “just waiting for the meds to kick in” time, that’s “maybe mom should be committed so she can be in a safe environment getting meds that will work for her while she is in a place that will make sure she can’t commit suicide.” Like yeah, lets just leave her to be a potential danger to herself. That will certainly end well…
I’m sure this book probably delves deeper into their need for therapy and help, but I will never know. Because while all of this sounds quite enthralling it was actually quite boring. There were time jumps and sometimes the jump moved backwards, and there isn’t actually that much about the book swap going on so far (despite it apparently getting James back into writing his book).
Also, really? Just the classics? Could they be any more pretentious?
Also, also, really? They self identify with Perk of Being A Wallflower? Could they be any more millennial outcast?

3.5 rounded up

A beautifully moving second chance friends to lovers romance for book lovers of all ages. Erin is grieving the death of her friend and feeling lost and alone after a bad breakup and James is dealing with his mother's advancing dementia. Erin rashly decides to 'Marie Condo' her life and drops off a bunch of her books in a little free library only to later regret it. When she returns she finds someone has made notes in her copy of To kill a mockingbird and she decides to respond.

What follows is a series of anonymous exchanges between two supposed strangers as they form their own book club sharing bookish insights and asking one another important life questions. As Erin and James become more and more emotionally attached to one another, James is the first to realize he might know who the mystery women he's been writing actually is.

This was a tender story of forgiving oneself, moving on from the past and rekindling a joy for books and writing. Perfect for fans of authors like Poppy Alexander and good on audio too. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest review!

Steam level: kissing only

Thank you, Netgalley, Tessa Bickers, and Harlequin Trade Publishing for the ebook! This was a story of finding oneself after a tragic loss. A story of regret and building back a life worth living and finding love along the way.

Oh Gosh I really really wanted to love this but it was a DNF at 60%. I found myself bored waiting for something to happen. I may pick it up again at some point but I just wasn’t feeling it.

First thank you to Harlequin and NetGalley for an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

Synopsis: Erin is struggling and turns to a little library by her house. She leaves a classic book with notes and ends up striking up a relationship with someone she has a history with.

What I liked: this book is so much more than a romance. Erin and James are more than your typical leads. They both have overcome so much and still dealing with a lot. I like how they learn from each other and bare their souls to each other first. I loved their family dynamics and how that shapes them. Of course being a reader I loved the books and their communication through them.

The Book Swap did such an amazing job of handling such heavy topics such as grief, having to deal with a mentally ill parent and finding one’s self and one’s purpose again. Although this is a romance book, it does not only talk about the romantic parts. It shows the sides of our two main characters in a different light than what normally comes from a romance book.

Oh boy. This book was... frustrating.

The characters, writing style, and overall plot just weren't it for me.

I can't say that I liked much about this book. I feel like I'm being really mean giving it a 1, but I just really did not enjoy myself and wanted to DNF it so many times (but felt committed to this ARC, so I didn't).

My feelings for this book were quickly coloured when we were introduced to our FMC, Erin. She's... a piece of work. I wouldn't call her a narcissist, but she's extremely self-centred and very unlikable. I usually don't mind unlikable main characters, but I couldn't stand Erin from the very first chapter. We're first introduced to Erin as she heads into work at a job she hates under the boss who apparently hates her (honestly, with what comes next, I think the boss's reasons for not liking Erin are kind of justified). The night before our first scene, Erin worked late into the night with a client, allowing them to sample clothing items. She then went home without cleaning up the mess they made in the communal workspace. In the morning, so the morning of our first scene, Erin's boss calls her out and tells her that she has to clean up the mess Erin made. Erin immediately starts complaining, claiming it's so unfair that she was called out for making the mess in the first place, and insists that everyone else should also be responsible for cleaning up the mess despite the fact that they didn't make it. Immediate ick.

My dislike for Erin only continued to grow from there. She complained incessantly and tried to make everything about her. I mean jfc, her best friend was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and Erin somehow found a way to make that about her too! I think there's a fine-line between an unlikable character and an insufferable one. Erin's character crosses that line. What makes it worse is that Bickers wrote it so that everyone is just so mean to Erin and makes her into a constant victim. I think the intended effect was to have us sympathize with her, but for me it was just aggravating.

As for the MMC? Flat. I couldn't tell you anything about him apart from the fact that he did something really hurtful to Erin in their teenage years, and the author wrote it off as "he was just young, boys will be boys". The only thing about James that was memorable at all was that he called Erin out for being so egregiously self-centered. That whole scene was very vindicating. Other than that, he (and Erin) display an abysmally low EQ. Maybe if you combined their EQs, they'd reach the double digits.

The writing style was very bizarre as well. It felt all over the place, and it was often hard to figure out how characters got from here to there, and when in the timeline events were happening. In the beginning of the book, Erin speaks to and interacts with the best friend (the one with terminal cancer), but a few chapters later, we find out that the best friend died before the start of the book?? I was so confused and had to double back to make sure I wasn't reading a paranormal romance.

Bickers tried to represent a variety of mental illnesses in her writing, but everything came off as performative. Now, I'm not saying that now one has experienced mental illness in the way that Bickers wrote it, I'm just saying that every single affliction was exaggerated for effect.

I just can't recommend this book to anyone. If you enjoyed it, I'm really glad that you did, I just couldn't find any redeeming qualities in it.

1.25 stars (the 0.25 is because there was nothing overtly offensive in this book, but I just can't make myself give it a 2 or even a 1.5).

My entire heart feels achey after this story. I love the way it deals with grief and the pain of moving on without a loved one. The way the little library even felt like a character was really clever writing.

The characters are so interesting, and the secret of who is behind the notes in the book is so much fun. It was really intriguing to see how they would get together. But as much as this was such a good romance, it was also so much about family, and healing the hurts caused in those relationships.

The entire thing was beautifully written. And left me feeling hopeful, with a small ache.


Death (friend); cancer(friend); broken friendships; bullying (past, on page); cheating (parent); divorce (parent); heart attack; pregnancy (side character) and birth;