Okay so this is the first in my Spring/Summer NetGalley Project! I picked this one because I’m not sure why I never read it in the first place, because I love Loretta Hill! I’ve read all her previous full-length books. Unfortunately she hasn’t published anything in about five years but hopefully we see another book from her one day. This was a novella for Random House AU’s short-lived ebook imprint. In fact not only does this imprint not exist anymore but the specific publisher doesn’t exist in the same manner anymore either because Random House AU and Penguin merged years ago. This book is almost ten years old……and it’s not even close to the oldest book I still had on my NetGalley shelf!

Sarah Dubert has never had a partner on Valentine’s Day. She considers herself cursed, having been dumped, stood up, a victim of circumstances more than once, that always finds her either single or alone on the big day. She anticipates this year will be no different although her boss is demanding she bring someone to a charity dinner on Valentine’s Day so that he doesn’t have a spare seat at his table. He’s trying to woo someone for a big injection of cash or a merger or something and making himself look like a philanthropist is part of the plan. Sarah isn’t sure what to do until her friends set her up with an online dating profile. Surely out of all the men available, one will be suitable for a date.

The owner of Sarah’s favourite bar, Owen Black, is a player. They’ve watched him have numerous casual relationships and that isn’t Sarah’s deal. Owen offers to ‘help’ Sarah vet her online matches – and also steps in to assist her during a couple of disastrous dates. Sarah and Owen spend a lot of time talking and although Owen’s whole modus operandi is not to ever actually date anyone, he keeps sticking his nose in to “assist” Sarah (even though most of his suggestions are obvious sabotages!). Sarah’s job could be on the line if she doesn’t pull off this charity dinner and that includes making sure all the seats at the table are filled. But with one disastrous date after another, it’s not going well.

I often find it pretty hard to rate romance novellas because I like time for the romance to develop and novellas rarely give that in a way that is satisfactory. However I thought this did a really good job with the page count that it had in terms of letting the reader get to know both Sarah and Owen and understand where both were coming from in terms of what they wanted (or what they thought they wanted). I quite liked Owen’s keeping his bar life separate from his home life, for obvious reasons. And I think I also understood why he chose to have the casual interactions that he did, in order to protect someone who was very important to him. It’s quite possible that he hadn’t realised just how much time had passed or that other influences were really needed – or would be welcomed.

I enjoyed Sarah and her friends. The idea of hanging her job over her head if she doesn’t have a date was a bit much but without it Sarah probably would not have thrown herself so wholeheartedly into the online dating thing. As someone who finds the idea of online dating completely terrifying I can understand someone requiring extra motivation in order to wade into that minefield!

This was a quick, very fun read with likeable characters and an added depth that I wasn’t expecting. Hill was able to flesh out both characters well and give them underlying reasons for why they were doing what they did or had done what they did. You could also see the feelings developing too, and it was sweet.

Solid read.

7/10