This book is not a romance!

Joseph Carter stands three women up on Valentine's Day: Siobhan, his breakfast date and occasional hookup; Miranda at lunch, a woman who may or may not be his girlfriend; and Jane in the evening, a friend whom he promised he'd pretend to be her boyfriend for. Over the course of twelve months, each woman unpacks who Joseph Carter is, both to them and as a person, and makes a decision about what kind of future they can see with him.

I love Beth O'Leary, and she's really being done dirty by her marketing team. I don't think her last book was a romance, and this certainly is not, although it's being marketed as a rom-com. It's neither a rom nor a com! Folks are going to be mislead. But it is a good book, and one that puts an incredibly unique spin on its premise.

I'm grateful I knew going in that it wasn't a romance, because I would have spent a lot of the book much more confused than I was, which was the normal level of confusion you're supposed to feel as you're putting the pieces of the story together. If nothing else, this is a masterclass in slowly untwisting a very twisty plot.

I'd probably comp this to a book like The Dinner List or In Five Years, books that have a romantic subplot but are probably not genre romances. I liked it - not as much as I've liked some of her other books, if only because it was sad - and I'm going to be careful who I rec it to.

Thank you Berkley and NetGalley for the ARC!

CWs:

death of a narrative character, narrative character recounts a miscarriage, pregnancy scare, loss of a parent, workplace sexual harassment, parent with dementia, alcohol use.