It took me about 40% in to start enjoying the book. It was very slow going in the beginning. Once it picked up a little, I was more interested. I think there was way too much jargon and building of the story that made it drag. The idea was cute and I really liked Will, but overall it was just an average read.

I fell in love with this book. I think a lot of people will be able tree relate to Cecily and that's what makes a great book.
I loved the ending and how she learned from the influencer that it's ok to do what you want and love.
Highly recommend.

After loving Evvie Drake, I was so excited to get an ARC of Linda’s newest book!
I LOVED the banter with Cecily & Will, and of course Buddy was a treat!
This book made me happy and giggly. I laughed out loud many times throughout. I thought Cecily was relatable in a lot of ways. Will was lovely. Eliza was unbearable, but understandably so!
The only downfall was a little too much audio/podcast talk.
Overall, I would re-read this and recommend to others! Can’t wait for Linda’s next one!

Back After This had everything you would want in a Rom Com. It was light, cute, fun, funny and an enjoyable easy read. Our main character was smart, self aware and quirky in the best ways. As the plot progressed through the podcast she was making, i really enjoyed where things were going. The real strength is what was happening behind the scenes & I loved watching her story with Will progress. Things sort of lost momentum toward the end. The wrap up just wasn’t as satisfying as the book deserved. But as a whole it was a fun, cute, clean romance that I think a lot of people will enjoy!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are mine alone.

Cecily is the yes woman at Palmetto where she works as a longtime podcast producer and audio editor. After her boyfriend leaves her and takes their show they created together to another company and another city, she's dreamed about her own show. Her boss at Palmetto barters the idea that if she does this one thing for him, she'll pilot her own show. But that one thing is putting herself out there with the help of an influencer/dating coach/selfhelp guru and podcasting it for the world to listen to. What happens when bad timing hits and you find a guy organically in the middle of twenty first dates? Chaos ensues.

I loved this book and the small twists and turns. It's a girl meets guy, girl loses guy, girl gets guy back BUT along the way, it does become a lesson in 'I want' and learning to do things for yourself and not just others.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC. Opinions are my own.

I enjoyed this book! I liked the characters, especially Will. I read it in two days. It’s a cute rom-com.

Good read with real characters, witty dialogue, and all the rom-com fun! Interesting look into the world of influencers and podcast creation!

The author's last book fell a little flat for me, but this book was so enjoyable. I was happy reading this! It was a sweet, engaging story with well-written characters that I was definitely rooting for. I was completely invested and loved the dynamic between Cecily and Eliza in addition to Cecily and Will. And Will. What a guy. This is a book that I will definitely recommend!

fine cute and quick rom com
is the premise a little iffy and the characters a little shallow? yeah, its a rom com
nothing groud-breaking, fun read. some things are just nice filler

Once I finished this book, I had to hug my e-reader. I fell in love with the characters. They made me laugh out loud and cheer for them. The relationship between the two main characters was believable, in both how it unfolded to their “happily ever after”. They were people with lives and emotional baggage they needed to work through. The meet cute even made me giggle.

It was also fun to learn more about podcasting and the behind the scenes work. I listen to Linda Holmes regularly on NPR. It was good to see her get to use her knowledge of audio broadcasting.

A podcast producer agrees to host a new series about modern dating—but will the show jeopardize her chance at finding real love?
Longtime podcast producer Cecily Foster has always operated behind the scenes. For years, she’s worked toward hosting her own show, putting everything, including her love life, on the backburner. So when her boss finally offers her the chance, she’s over the moon.
But there’s a catch. Actually, two
1) The show will be about Cecily’s dating life
2) Cecily will be mentored by renowned dating coach/life coach/influencer Eliza Cassidy.
Cecily would rather do anything else than put her singledom on display, especially since the last time she mixed work with romance the outcome was catastrophic. But when Cecily’s boss tells her that doing the show is the only way to protect her mentee's job, she realizes she has no other choice.
To make matters even more complicated, Cecily finds herself unable to stop thinking about Will, a photographer she serendipitously met while chasing a runaway dog down a busy street. Even though there are sparks between the two, Eliza forbids Cecily from dating Will, whom she believes is no better than Cecily's disappointing exes.
As Cecily struggles to balance her real romantic life and the one Eliza wants to create for her, she finds herself at a crossroads. Will she fall back into old patterns, or is this her chance to finally find love that lasts?

Another really good novel from Linda Holmes. She knows how to tell a story while building characters the readers will like. As the host of a podcast, she knows a little bit about podcasting and I appreciated the behind the scenes of it.
I really, really liked this book which makes it hard for me to write about. Cecily and Will are great characters and Holmes' love of dogs comes through with Buddy. Their meet-cute is one of the most original ones I've read recently.
Highly recommended.
4.5

A podcast producer turned podcast host records her way through twenty blind dates, all arranged by a larger-than-life influencer life coach. The only hiccup is Will, part-time dog rescuer, part-time Hot Waiter, part-time photographer. Everyone’s insists she shouldn’t fall for him, but she just can’t seem to stop running into him.

As a fan of Linda Holmes’ previous books, I was really excited for this one. The behind-the-scenes podcasting details were interesting and felt authentic, thanks to the author’s audio background. This book is a great pick for when you want to relax with a lighthearted, feel-good read.

Linda Holmes does it again! A snappy rom com full of deep character development with a side of man's best friend (dog) in quite possible the best meet-cute ever. This book is about a woman who works for company that does podcast and BOY - did I learn a lot about what goes into developing a podcast. The amount of recording, the editing, etc. I had no idea. Cecily is single and her ex is a big time podcaster (ouch!) but that doesn't stop her. Her boss pitches a new podcast idea highlighting her dating life which seems really cringy (I mean, that is cringy right?) but somehow it works and forces her to get out of her shell a bit. Simultaneously,. she meets Will who is kind of the opposite and a bit of a floater... .trying to figure out how life. But they have chemistry and form a real friendship. There is also Will's giant Great Dane that cannot be ignored. Holmes is able to create such a delicate balance of banter and move the plot along - I think I finished this in two days.

Back After This by Linda Holmes

Oh man, what a combination, caped (you'll have to read it to find out), hot waiter and a goofy, knows he's all that, Great Dane. What more could one ask for?

The thing is, Cecily Foster loves what she does. She's a fantastic podcaster producer, really good at what she does, so good that everyone is glad to let her do all the work and give her almost no credit for doing it. It's happened to her in a very big way in the past and it's still happening to her now. But she has dreams and plans although she tries not to dream too big since her biggest dreams have been crushed in the most devastating ways. One thing that Cecily has decided is that she will never date a man who might be intimidated by her skills, work success, and dedication to her job. She will only date men who are extremely successful, career driven, and who will have no inclination to be jealous of her job or steal her work.

Enter hot waiter, yeah, that's going to go nowhere. He doesn't meet the man with a high career goal criteria but also, against her protests and will, Cecily is going to be the star of a podcast series where she has twenty blind dates so she's off the market with anyone else for a while. She's only doing this to keep her best friend's job safe, Cecily has to make this work or more than one person could lose their job. Since Cecily's podcast dating mentor thinks the hot waiter is an example of all Cecily's dating failures, he's off the table to consider at all! So no hot waiter, no making plans to meet up with him! Only random accidental meet cutes allowed (not really allowed but a nice way to get around bossy mentor if they happen).

This is a cute story, I like Cecily and I adore the hot waiter and Buddy, the Great Dane. Cecily is far from perfect and it's trying to be perfect in an obsessive compulsive way when it comes to work and men that have led to the unsatisfactory imperfections of her life. I enjoyed watching Cecily figure out what is important, face the fact that a lot of people she's known are not at all what they appear on their carefully curated surfaces, and that she needs new rules for herself and life. This was a fun buddy read with Jayme and DeAnn.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine | Ballantine Books and NetGalley for this ARC.

There were parts of this book I liked. Mostly when Will was involved. When Will wasn’t involved we mostly got Cecily and her people-pleasing tendencies driving us crazy. Cecily is a podcaster who is unsure of herself in most regards. She feels she needs to sacrifice herself over and over to save her podcasting company, to help an influencer, to save her friend’s job. You want to just shake her and say “No Cecily, all that stuff has nothing to do with you”. It is a cute premise. It reminded me of a podcast I listened to “Monica and Jess love boys” and of Christina Lauren’s “The True Love Experiment”. The problem is because Cecily is so self-sacrificing it’s hard to hold my interest and I found myself taking a lot of breaks while reading this book. I wish we were able to dive a little more into Eliza and explore her character more rather than just the annoying foil to Cecily but wait she’s not so bad plot at the end.

Thank you NetGalley, Linda Holmes, and Ballatine Books for an advanced digital copy of this book.

This was a lighthearted story line, that allowed character development, with the reader falling for the main characters with every punch. While mildly predictable, it was still a great read.

This book was so incredibly enjoyable. I love podcasts so much so reading a book that gave a bit of a background to podcasts was so fun. Cecily's journey through the book was aggravating at points mainly because I could see myself in some of the ways she gave up what she wanted for the benefit of others. The love story intertwined in the book was so rewarding because you could see Cecily learn so much about herself. I read the book very fast because honestly, I just couldn't put it down. I think it would make a really great book club book because the themes throughout of personal growth, losing yourself in relationships, and stepping out of your comfort zone could really lead to interesting and energetic discussions.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for the review copy!

I'm a fan of Linda Holmes's previous work so I was excited to read this. It's a really sweet romance. I also enjoyed learning more about audio production! I love a book that I can finish in a day.

I started this one and got to about 35% before I really stalled out. This book is really heavy on the podcast content and not as much on a plot that felt cohesive or compelling. The message seemed to be a lot of "look how hard running a podcast is" which is definitely a pretty common topic of a lot of books today. Not my favorite one of hers, but isn't stopping me from trying others!

Linda Holmes has a knack for many things, and writing romance novels is one of them. She creates characters and a storyline you care about, leverages romance hallmarks in a way that is more cozy than trite, and peppers in laugh-out-loud dialogue (I LOVE her dialogue). Back After This is probably my favorite of hers so far, with its three-dimensional protagonist and quietly hunky love interest. The premise -- a sort of speed-dating podcast series -- is fertile ground for her to show off her sense of humor and drive the plot forward with ups and downs. Loved it.