Review: I Knew You Were Trouble by Sandra Barker

This was such a cute romance with a fun twist on getting revenge against a serial dater! I didn’t realize at first that this book was part of a series, so there were definitely moments where I felt like I was missing some background details that would have given more context to the story.

I really enjoyed the dual POV format, following both Kate—who’s been burned and is ready for some payback—and Penny, who works for the matchmaking agency. Personally, I connected more with Kate’s storyline since it felt fresh to this book, while Penny’s perspective seemed more like a continuation from earlier installments.

One of my favorite parts was Kate and Willem’s quest to track down other women who had also been hurt by Jon so they could team up and unravel his lies. Their chemistry was fantastic, and I loved how their growing bond developed alongside the scheming and revenge plot.

I listened to the audiobook and thought the narration was solid, making the story an enjoyable experience overall.

Kate Whitaker has always believed in love, but when a stranger named Willem shows up on her doorstep, the news he has to share isn’t as exciting as his god-like looks might suggest. He’s come to tell her that Kate’s fiancé is also engaged to his sister.

Kate doesn't know how she didn’t see the red flags: Jon’s work as an airline pilot having him flying around the globe, the postponed dates, the huge rock of an engagement ring that isn’t her style at all.

Overcome with fury – and entranced by the Nordic god’s piercing blue eyes and quiet allure – Kate agrees to accompany Willem to his hometown of Amsterdam to help break the news to his sister. Yet what begins as a simple gesture of support soon twists into a deliciously devious plan to get back at Jon.

Kate is drawn into a world of retribution, revenge and – unexpectedly – romance. Because sometimes the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else…


Loved it. Will recommend to others

I came close to DNFing this book because the tone of it really grated on me but I did also find myself needing to know how it ended, so it was compelling in that sense. I would try another book by this author but the pace and writing of this one didn't work for me.

I enjoyed I Knew You Were Trouble by Sandy Barker and rated it five stars. The story is a fun and clever mix of revenge and romance that kept me hooked. Kate’s journey from heartbreak to empowerment, along with the charming and mysterious Willem, made this book a real delight to read.

I don't remember requesting this book but the premise does cute. I think the Taylor Swift themed book title and the cover drew me in as well.

Sassy, romantic, and full of chemistry 🎶💘. I Knew You Were Trouble is a fun, flirty enemies-to-lovers rom-com that hits all the right notes. Sandy Barker delivers sharp banter, laugh-out-loud moments, and sizzling tension that had me hooked from the first page. I adored the music references, lovable characters, and the emotional payoff. Perfect for fans of feel-good, music-infused romance.

If you're looking for a rom-com that serves up heartbreak with a side of hilariously satisfying revenge, then you've found your next binge-worthy read.

Kate Whitaker thought she had it all: the dreamy fiancé, the fairytale proposal, the jet-setting romance. Until a tall, brooding stranger named Willem shows up at her door and drops a truth bomb the size of her gaudy engagement ring: her perfect Jon is also engaged to his sister. Yikes.

From that moment on, the gloves come off – or, more accurately, the carry-ons get packed. Kate agrees to fly to Amsterdam with Willem to help break the news, but quickly finds herself swept up in a far more thrilling plan for retribution. And let's just say that Willem’s quiet charm and Viking vibes don’t exactly make it easy to stay focused on revenge…

This book is equal parts sassy and sincere. Kate is a relatable protagonist—funny, flawed, and furious in the best way. Willem is the ideal romantic foil: emotionally grounded, gorgeously stoic, and refreshingly respectful (even while plotting petty revenge). Their chemistry absolutely sizzles, and their banter had me grinning more than once.

The plot flirts with the outrageous (revenge tourism, anyone?) but never loses heart. Underneath the laughs and steamy tension is a story about self-respect, trusting your gut, and discovering that love sometimes finds you in the fallout.

I received a complimentary copy from NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving my review.

Another great installment in the Ever After agency series. I loved this book because the premise was so different from all the others. Our FMC Kate finds out that her long distance fiancé has at least one additional fiancé after the other fiancé's brother shows up at her doorstep to tell her. The comraderie, burgeoning feelings and Charlie's Angel level antics that ensue while trying to get back at the creep that thought he could get away with his plan gripped me throughout the book. I loved all the side characters and how they worked together while forming new, long lasting friendships. I also loved how Kate and William started having feelings for each other and were careful while they sorted out how they wanted to proceed. I loved all the travel elements and how it threw them together even more.

In the latest book in the Ever After Agency romance series, readers meet Kate Whitaker when she discovers that her fiance Jon is dating the sister of the stranger who just showed up at her house. Furious and determined to get even, Kate joins Willem (the stranger bearing the news) on a trip back to Amsterdam, his hometown, to explain things to his sister, but this conversation soon turns into a revenge plot that might just lead to romance. Including multiple perspectives and a few trips around Europe, readers will love the hilarity and emotion in this story and the ways in which Kate evolves, both on her own and in her growing relationship with Willem. The characters are, naturally, the stars of the novel, and Sandy Barker continues to bring all of her characters to life in incredible detail with deeply relatable quirks and personalities. A fantastic continuation of this hilarious rom-com series, fans of the previous books have to read this one and keep up with the rest of the series. With its fun and vibrant locations, hilarious yet emotional plot, and complex and capable characters, readers will love this new novel and struggle to put it down.

This review is being posted as part of the I Knew You Were Trouble blog tour hosted by Rachel’s Random Resources.

I Knew You Were Trouble is the latest fun romance from author Sandy Barker. This book follows a duped fiancée as she plots revenge against her cheating fiancé whilst finding herself finding love in a very unexpected place. We get to return to the Ever After Agency in this fifth instalment of the series, reuniting with some of the much-loved characters from earlier books as they help Kate with her revenge plot but can’t resist doing a bit of matchmaking for her along the way.

This is a very easy read you could easily get through in a single sitting. Sandy Barker nailed the blend of romance and the revenge plot point and the whole narrative was really well paced.
Whilst the book is mainly set in London, Kate does travel across Europe to find out the truth about her fiancé. Sandy Barker’s brilliant storytelling really immerses you in the settings and I particularly enjoyed the chapters set in Amsterdam as someone who visited recently.

Kate and Willem had great chemistry. Theirs is very much a slow-burn will they, won’t they romance with lots of yearning which was all really well written. There was a great forced proximity element to the story but I particularly loved the bit of meddling from the other characters which gave us a brilliant only one bed moment. This is a closed door romance but it doesn’t completely shy away from any spicier references, it’s more of a fade to black which worked well.

There’s also some brilliant supporting characters. If you like strong female characters you’ll love this book as there’s a brilliant girl power aspect as they seek revenge on the man who wronged them. Margot in particular had a brilliant personality and I’d love to return to her story in some capacity later in the series.

Overall, this is a fun and easy read and a great new addition to the Ever After Agency series.

Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
Spice Level: 🌶️🌶️ / 5 (Closed Door)

I have posted my review on my blog www.yourschloe.co.uk

*Thank you to NetGalley, Sandy Barker, Rachel’s Random Resources and Boldwood Books.

I think anyone who enjoys heartwarming novels will love this book. This is part of a series but works perfectly well as a stand alone

I Knew You Were Trouble by Sandy Barker is a super cute romcom full of betrayal, revenge, and self-discovery. I hadn’t read anything by Barker before and was a bit hesitant since this is book five in the series, but I’m so glad I gave it a try. While it references previous stories, this one stands well on its own.

The romance between Kate and Willem is adorable—Willem’s joy in introducing Kate to new foods and places really brings their relationship to life. Kate’s friendship with Margot is a highlight, showing a fierce, genuine bond. By the end, the group feels like a found family with Lucia, Adriana, and Poppy completing the circle.

I did find the early POV switches between Kate and Poppy a bit confusing, as their voices felt quite similar, but this improved quickly. Some Dutch phrases were used incorrectly,

This book features some classic romcom tropes that I enjoyed: one bed situations, will they/won’t they tension, forced proximity, and a satisfying revenge plot—all set in the vibrant city of Amsterdam.

Overall, a fun, engaging read with great banter and heart. I’m definitely going to read the rest of the series!

Book 5 in the Ever After Agency series.

Dual POV with the client and Poppy from the agency though I would rather be hearing the POV of the other person in the story, in this case, Willem.

I liked both Kate and Willem but I felt like Poppy and Kate's cousin Margot were both very judgemental when it came to Kate and Willem falling for each other. Sure, they don't want her to get hurt after having just found out her fiancé is also engaged to 2 other women, but it's not up to them to dictate what Kate should and shouldn't be doing. Especially Margot, after she became involved with the 2nd fiancé, Adriana, the same day she found out!

I also didn't really like the ending so much. I'm glad Jon got his comeuppance but there was no explanation as to why he did what he did and then just walks away like he's not in the wrong. There should have been more grovelling on his part. Plus I would have had each fiancé come in separately to really hammer home they all know about each other.

I felt like the reconnection with Kate and Willem was lacking as well. Every time Willem opened his mouth to say something he was interrupted so we never get to know what it was he had to say and he really should have said something more than just apologising for not handling their last encounter properly. After what Kate had been through with Jon, she deserved more of a declaration of love than what she got.

Thanks to NetGalley and Boldwood Books for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

Sandy Barker's latest visit to the Ever After Agency is as fun as ever, with some strong characters and some gorgeous settings. Kate's world is turned upside down when she is visited by a stranger. Willem has some news about her fiancé, Jon, which leads her across Europe and leads to her reassessing her life and making some new friendships. The Ever After Agency becomes involved in Kate's quest for revenge against her fiance who it seems has a string of identities, each with a new fiancée. This leads to you meeting up again with Poppy as she tries to help the women get closure.

Kate comes to realise that she needs to make changes in her life as Jon, the fiancé, has been stringing her along and she has unconsciously fallen into step with his needs, on his schedule. There are some amusing romcom tropes to recognise, including forced proximity and the one bed scenario. The only mystery seems to be is how Jon, the serial fiancé, has managed to hoodwink so many independent and attractive women.

In short: Will they, won't they?

I Knew You Were Trouble was not my favorite in the Ever After matchmaking series. Just like Jon, there were a lot of red flags. Insta love/lust is not my preferred trope so I didn’t really ship Kate and Willem, especially considering she was just engaged!! Kind of frustrating. Plus, Margot acted like an obnoxious, sex crazed teen instead of an older 30something. Kind of crass. 

This book had its moments (I adore all Poppy and Tristan scenes, plus all their friends and coworkers from previous books), which made up for the mediocre storyline.

I requested this by mistake thnking it to be part of antoher series. I have read multiple books in this series and the author does a good job in trying ot keep it as multi cultural as possible. THis story was not as interesting to me as I hoped. We know the couple in the very beginning and things just seem to be dragging from that point. I could only get to the fifty percent mark before I had to give up.
This series was not for me, but for fans of the series, this book would be a lot more interesting.

What a brilliant story to round off the excellent Ever After series with.

Just when you wonder what other situations a matchmaker could find themselves in, Sandy Barker outdoes herself with this caper.

For this time Poppy's case involves revenge, which is rather unusual for her.

Kate is the client, and she has just been informed that her fiancée is also engaged to another woman, and that there may be others out there too.

Her informant is the other fiancée's brother Willem, who is immensely good looking himself.

This kicks off a madcap story that is such a joy to read that also takes in Amsterdam, Verona, and various levels of duplicity.

I'm starting to really hope that the Ever After Agency's super sleuth is given her own book or spin off as I think she is fascinating character from the bits we have seen of her.

I loved this book a whole lot, the series as a whole a great deal and am sad to see it end. It's just such a great concept the whole way through and executed superbly.

Thank you to Boldwood Books and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily.

Thanks to NetGalley, Boldwood Books, and the author for the chance to read this book.

This is book 5 in the Ever After Agency series - I somehow missed book 4, so I need to go back for that one.

I loved that this was different from previous books, with Poppy needing to help with a revenge plan as the primary case objective and sneaking the HEA in as well. It was a quick and easy read.

Sandy Barker offers the reader the most delightful and fun romance in every book! The book as a whole is nuts with one man having 3 fiancés! Oh, the stories he tells to each. Despite this all happening, the women easily become quick friends and unite against their fiancé finding a creative way to get back at him. All the while, there is a new love story that developing; one which has its own quick start . The banter, the delightful experiences and the ever increasing intense draw makes this book a wonderful read!

The Ever After Agency series is so charming. Even though the book is part of a series, it remains a standalone. As always, I adore the characters and what happens in the book. It is a fun, entertaining and a great addition to the series.

The fifth and final (for now) installment in Sandy Barker’s “Happily Ever After Agency” series finds Poppy Dean, in her all Australian glory, not acting as London’s top matchmaker, as she has heretofore, but as an avenger, a love avenger, as it were. I Knew You were Trouble begins with Kate being approached by a very tall, very hot, and very Dutch stranger - Willem - who then proceeds to blow up her life in a decidedly un-Dutch and certainly un-British way. The Thor look-alike drops the bomb that Kate’s fiance, Jon, is also engaged to his sister, Adriana, who resides in Amsterdam. Kate’s initial reaction is dubious, as would be expected, until Willem, a cybersecurity expert, provides her with a full-on dossier of iron-clad proof of her fiance’s philandering ways. As Kate, buoyed by her cousin / bestie Margot and a few bottles of vino, combs through her whirlwind romance with Jon, she realizes she willingly ignored more than a few red flags about her (not a) pilot fiance. To add insult to injury, Kate matched with Jon through an agency, not Poppy’s, though she was simultaneously a client with her while she engaged a rival matchmaking company - Perfect Partners, who clearly didn’t vet this con artist. Thus, Poppy, who narrates alongside Kate, is drawn back into the mix (as are all her coworkers, whom we’ve come to know and, at times, love - looking at you, Ursula) as Kate approaches her not looking for her real happily ever after but some good ol’ fashioned revenge. While Poppy initially balks, she is inevitably drawn into a scheme that not only calls upon her expertise as a former psychologist and current matchmaker but also requires her to go undercover to reel in Jon once it’s discovered that there’s another woman in the mix, Lucia, Verona-based artist and soon-to-be unwitting fiance number three.

After experiencing chemistry with Willem at their initial meeting that has Kate asking “Jon, who?”, she takes him up on his plea to come to Amsterdam - in person - to prove to his sister, who’s in denial, that she not only exists but has been conned by Jon as well. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Willem looks like Chris Hemsworth and has a protective (i.e. alpha) streak and has been deemed, by the charmingly outspoken Margot, as the one to get under to get over Jon’s deception. So, straight-laced project manager Kate, who clearly PLAYS BY THE RULES, finds herself on a train to Amsterdam, her cousin in tow, to confront Adriana. After her initial disbelief, fiance number two decides she wants in on a revenge plan and Kate, acting in a decidedly un-Kate way, finds herself on the phone with Poppy, putting an Oceans 8-inspired revenge plan in motion. For his part, Willem is decidedly against going down the revenge route (men!) and spars with Kate over it. She, however, tamps down her lust and holds her own against the large and, again, hot!, Dutchman, heating things up even more for all their sparring, which, as we romcom aficionados know, is straight-up foreplay.

When Poppy et al at the Happily Ever After Agency realize that Jon has a third fiance to be in the wings, the revenge plot - and Kate’s fledgling feelings for Willem - is kicked into overdrive. Rushing to Verona to save Lucia from falling prey to Jon’s, well, Jon-ness, Barker treats us to both forced proximity and an almost-one-be-trope as Willem’s Airbnb booking provides fodder for Kate’s libido and our romcom-aginations (just go with it). Alas, Lucia has closed her gallery without warning, how very Italian!, and Kate and Willem are left to their own devices. The more she gets to know him, however, the more Kate realizes that her feelings are larger than lust, and she starts to head Poppy and Margot’s warnings that IT’S TOO SOON to be experiencing such strong emotions about her fiance’s other fiance’s brother. Especially as she’s, ya know, still technically engaged to the lying bastard whose pilot cover story makes all his time away wooing other women (a number that now includes Poppy playing an Australian non-profit manager to rope Jon into the revenge scheme that involves him donating a huge chunk of money to a charity that he’d be appalled by, if he only knew) quite easy to do.

After more plotting and lusting (and plotting over how to be okay with lusting while fresh off a completely farcical engagement), Kate and Willem find themselves in Verona, the redux, when they have a mere 24 hour window to convince Lucia, who’s returned home, that Jon is the bastardo that he is. Poppy and her team, however, realizing Kate’s feelings for Willem might not be the knee-jerk rebound reaction they initially warned her away from, have revisited the forced proximity from their first weekend in Verona and upped the ante by deleting their reservation for a second room. Yup. One bed trope. For real this time.

After easily convincing Lucia that Jon is a conniving manchild and that she should come to Amsterdam to meet fiance number two, Willem makes a move on Kate and oh how those floodgates open. Kate, living this new daring life in which seducing a modern-day Norse, okay, Dutch, god, is par for the course, makes her move and it pays off. For both her and the reader, as it were. Granted, Barker’s spice-level is more on the paprika side (seriously, why do recipes even call for this maroon imposter?) she ups her game, as it were, with a still relatively chaste sex scene that confirms that the chemistry between our MCs runs both ways. When the two leave the hotel, holding hands (swoon), lest they run into Jon and ruin the whole Ocean’s 8 revenge plot, Willem invites Kate back to Amsterdam so they can continue their round of sexual Olympics they began in Verona. And here, dear reader, is where the inevitable dark moment occurs.

After Adriana, who, heretofore, had been keen on Kate, is clearly more than chuffed that her fiance’s first fiance is fucking her brother (alliteration!), and Kate gets her own bombshell revelation that cousin Margot has been more than friendly with the jilted gorgeous Dutchwoman (Dutchess?), Kate has a meltdown. A decidedly un-British, meltdown in which she essentially declares that she’s just using Willem for rebound sex. In. Front. Of. Him.

Alas, though it’s the death knell for what was shaping up to be Kate’s HEA, she realizes that her newfound sisterhood with Adriana, Lucia, and Poppy, who’s alter-ego Penny has pulled off the honey trap and convinced Jon to part ways with that extravagant sum, which is really just a drop in the bucket for someone like him: not a pilot or geologist or art enthusiast or any of the other personas he’s adopted to juggle his three (and counting) women but a spoiled trust-fund baby. All is right with the world when Kate, speaking on behalf of Lucia and Adriana and, to a lesser extent, Poppy, lays into Jon and he realizes that he’s not only been outed but had, now having to donate over a million pounds to an arts (gasp!) charity for the next decade. Or all would be right, however, except for that whole Willem probably hates her and she’ll never find love again thing. Though she lost her man, she gained a sisterhood and a new sense of self, which, at the end of the day, is probably worth more than experiencing nightly sexual gymnastics with a Marvel hero wannabe.

And thus ends Barker’s five-book cycle.

Kidding, of course. After Kate realizes that she should be on a flight back to Amsterdam rather than toasting with the ladies, she literally runs out of the London hotel and smack into a broad expanse of chest that belongs to none other than her very own Thor (in a callback to their meetcute in the first chapter). Barker doesn’t string us along much more than she has to, which is a nice reprieve given how most of her earlier books in the series have seemed to, and Kate and Willem confess their feelings, get their shared HEA, and have a whole bunch of hot sex (that we’re told about, at least) in their epilogue. And Poppy, having successfully matched a couple after all, finishes her own arc that’s been building over the past few stories, is finally pregnant, bringing her own HEA to an end, for now, at least. Let’s see if Barker’s really done with her antipodal matchmaker. For my money, which, granted, isn’t much, I wouldn’t say no to another heartfelt romance featuring a cast of characters who’ve been fleshed out enough to feel like friends you’re okay saying goodbye to even if you really hope that you’ll see them again in the not-so-distant future.