DNF @ 8% (but I was easily struggling since 0% and for sure since 2%)

I believe this is a debut and I wanted to give it more benefit of the doubt and time to cook, but I'm just not enjoying this read and can't imagine continuing will flip my opinion favorably. So, so sorry.

The writing here is rough and clunky and needed a few more passes with the editor. There's also a redundancy issue where the same details are over emphasized.

I love fall and small town romance! And am myself of the 'spooky all year' variety! So this should've been a perfect book for me based on the premise.

Thanks to NetGalley and Harlequin - Romance for an advanced reading copy of this book. Let’s Give Em Pumpkin To Talk About will be released on August 26, 2025.

Let’s give em pumpkin to talk about is a small town, forced proximity, slow burn romance. The FMC and MMC are definitely opposites attract. The spice is slow burn but once is starts, whew! A quick read, this romance will get you into the fall romance spirit!

Wow, I wish I had something nice to say about this book. More than once I questioned why I even continued reading it. The romance timeline was extremely rushed and felt forced. The actual sex was embarrassing to read- I mean who just invites a virtual stranger to watch them masturbate after two days of knowing each other?!

This one just wasn’t for me, but maybe I’m not the target audience for it.

I found this book to be interesting, but not one that I would need to read again. I personally do not like pumpkins, but the competitive nature of the book made that part tolerable. I did appreciate the characters and their flaws and how they were able to work through all of them. And I have plenty of friends that I would recommend this book to, but it was not really my type of book.

Looking for a cozy, fall-themed romance with spice, small-town charm, and classic rivals-to-lovers tension? Look no further, Let’s Give Em Pumpkin to Talk About delivers that and more! This story was the perfect example of the black-cat FMC x golden-retriever MMC dynamic and was topped off beautifully with a reverse grumpy x sunshine twist. All while being set against the scenic backdrop of autumn in rural Indiana. 🧡🌾🚜

Sadie Fox, a textile artist with a knack for growing pumpkins, returns home to help save her family’s legacy and possibly patch things up with her estranged dad. Enter Josh, the sweet, tech-savvy owner of Josh’s Squashes and her farming rival living right next door. Their banter-filled, hot & heavy romance had me grinning and rooting for them the whole way!

All the side characters were great as well. I loved the relationships amongst them, especially between Sadie and her sister Grace and of course her and her dad Stu. This was truly a story about healing and making peace with the past, for every character involved, and I really appreciated that. My only wish would’ve been for a little more. Some scenes felt a bit rushed, but overall the story’s warmth and heart shined through. I will definitely be reading more from Isabelle Popp in the future!

Lastly, a big thank you to the Shameless Romantics team and Harlequin Publishing for the opportunity to read this e-ARC via NetGalley!

I liked this story, but it seemed a little drug out to me. It was a cute, if very predictable ending. Would recommend to others looking for a fall vibe easy read.

Thanks so much to Isabelle Popp and Harlequin - Romance | Afterglow Books by Harlequin for the eARC of this book! This was a quick read and a perfect quick cozy fall read! I love how the MMC is the Sunshine and the FMC is the Grumpy in the Sunshine x Grumpy Troupe. This is one I will put on a re read list for the fall!

Thank you @harlequin for the gifted ARC and ALC! This book was such an adorably pleasant surprise!

I went into this book expecting a fluffy autumnal romcom that I could shut my brain off while reading, and was met with SO much more! I did use my brain a little and enjoyed every second!

While it was also a cozy autumnal romcom, there were some pretty heavy themes covering parental estrangement, climate change, community-building, anti-billionaire rhetoric, and even Indigenous knowledge for land cultivation! Also several conscious conversations about mental health and sustainable ways to self-care.

I really loved the chemistry between our protagonists and also enjoyed the stakes between them. While the stakes weren’t too high, I felt the conflict of hidden motives to be strong enough to really pull this out of that “cozy” category.

This is the perfect end-of-summer book leading up to fall!

The title alone had me immediately adding this read to my NetGalley requests! Once I read the description I was really excited for this book and it did not disappoint. I loved the small town vibe with the random tech-bro dropped in - growing up in the Silicon Valley had me imagining Josh looking exactly how he did before the author even dropped his actual physical description into the story. Sadie was a great FMC who felt much more solid in her sense of self than most of these former-small-town-now-big-city girls we usually read about in stories like this. The story was sweet and I love the specificity and quirks of Sadie being a textile artist, giant pumpkin growing, and Sadie's complicated family history lending itself to their meet-cute. From the wordplay in the title I expected this book to be more of a romcom than it was - while it had its funny moments it definitely leaned more of a regular romance with more angst than I anticipated. Overall I would have liked to see more actual relationship development between Sadie and Josh even with the hurdles they faced but it didn't stop me from enjoying the story and getting sucked right in with the characters. 4 stars overall!

3 stars

This will be a great book to get you in the mood for fall. I loved the vibes. The story was just ok for me. I would totally still recommend it but it’s not one I would put on a re-read list. It was a nice short easy to read small town rom-com

Thank you to HQN Shameless Romantics for the opportunity to read this book

I thought it was an amazing book. I loved everything about this book. Reminds me of a chick flick with pumpkin patches. I would have to say it's such a relatable FMC character. I also enjoyed the MMC character, as he was written in this book.

3.5 stars. Quick read with dual POVs. I liked it but didn't love it overall, which I think was because the beginning didn't feel as compelling to me as the rest of the book and it set the tone early. I didn't really connect fully with either character as they were both a little too trope-y. Sadie was very much the guarded "grumpy," and even though Josh was the much more open "sunshine" I still found him a little hard to gauge sometimes. It did get better over time, though. Definitely insta-lust, once the sexual content got started it ramped up pretty fast and it was a little disorienting. Surprisingly, I enjoyed the amount of thought and detail put into the competitive pumpkin farming aspect (and the fabric artistry), which elevated this a bit beyond your typical fluffy romance. In fact, both characters' extremely niche interests made them feel more relatable to me as characters (as did their healthy and unabashed talk about the benefits of therapy). Nice amount of dry humor throughout. While not fully the book for me, this book is perfect for fans of instant-attraction, opposites-attract romance with an HEA. Publishes August 26, 2025. This review is based on an a complimentary eARC of the book, all opinions are my own.

Let's Give 'Em Pumpkin to Talk About is a fun book to get you in the Fall mood. It's got pumpkin patches, a small town pumpkin growing contest, child returns to the family farm, and of course a romance that grows right along with the pumpkins! Sadie and Josh add just the right amount of spice too.

If you like small town vibes, pumpkin patches, grumpy/sunshine, opposites attract and a little spice then you will love this book!

Thank you Net Galley, Isabelle Popp and Harlequin Romance for providing an ARC in exchange for honest thoughts.

I really enjoyed this read! I always love the fall season so much and the hallmark vibes it gives off is just absolutely adorable! The grumpy FMC and the sunshine MMC dynamic is so good and not something I’m use to reading! I will definitely have to read more. This author did great and I hope to read more by her!

Opposites attract-or do they? Find out in this delightful fall romance.


The story was cute and fun, and gave everything I needed it to=fun relationship moments, lots of fall, and of course, pumpkins. A perfect fall romance read.

A very sweet premise of a "golden retriever" man and "black cat" woman falling in love as they compete to grow the largest pumpkin and overcome the various tragedies and small-town goings-on as they grow closer and fall in love. I really enjoyed the first part of the book, as characters and relevant story detail were presented and explored, but unfortunately the multi-week time jumps threw me for a loop after the expositional stage. A few of the friendly relationships were very well written as they developed the reader's understanding of Sadie's internal life and motivations, but Josh's main friendship didn't feel like it got quite as much time to perform the same purpose, like it was only there to elevate Josh's mistakes. Both Sadie and Josh were a delight to read when they got goofy and sappy about the other, and I liked how they communicated when they felt the time was right to share their respective relationship traumas. I think the story would have benefitted from being slightly longer, which is not something I often say about a book.

I adored this cute and autumnal romance! Full of humor and heart, seasonal romance readers are going to love this!

This book will definitely appeal to some readers—it just didn’t quite hit the mark for me personally. I can see younger adult readers, especially those who enjoy an Emo vibe, connecting more with the story and characters.

I usually enjoy the grumpy/sunshine trope, but I’m starting to realize that it doesn’t work as well for me when the FMC (female main character) is the grumpy one. That dynamic just didn’t click for me here.

That said, the cover is absolutely adorable, and the premise had a lot of promise. There were some spicy moments sprinkled throughout, but they felt a bit sporadic and didn’t quite flow with the rest of the story.

Overall, while this wasn’t quite my cup of tea, I can still see others really enjoying it. A solid 3-star read.

This was such a fun, autumnal romance! It definitely provided the cozy fall vibes that I was missing, with a side of spice!

Thank you so much for providing me with a copy of the ARC!

Let's Give 'Em Pumpkin to Talk About is a dual POV black cat/golden retriever romance. Sadie is a textile artist who left Indiana and her father's pumpkin farm as soon as she could, but she gets called back home when her father has to leave the farm unattended to go take care of his injured brother. Once home, she finds her father's prized pumpkin patch destroyed, and meets the sunshiney new neighbor Josh when he rides (literally) to the rescue. Josh is entralled by Sadie, her penchant for black clothes and her prickly personality, and the two form an unlikely partnership. But Sadie has a life back in California, and a small farm in Indiana is just a pit stop!

This was a fantastic read! I loved the complicated relationships that Sadie had with people in her life, and her searching out the good memories that she had pushed out of her mind over the years. I loved how absolutely gone Josh was for her and the way that neither of them hid their true selves from the other. The absolute honesty of their interactions was a breath of fresh air. I will definitely be on the lookout for more from this author..

Read dates: 07/20/2025- 07/21/2025
Goodreads review: 07/21/2025
Instagram review: 07/22/2025
Blog review: 08/26/2025