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Kiss Her Once for Me: A Novel

Kiss Her Once for Me
by Alison Cochrun
Pub Date – 11/1/22
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“The author of the “swoon-worthy debut” (Harper’s Bazaar) The Charm Offensive returns with a festive romantic comedy about a woman who fakes an engagement with her landlord…only to fall for his sister.”

I love fake dating/engagement stories and this one was definitely a “love trapezoid”

This book comes out tomorrow and please add this to your holiday list! 

I loved the author’s note that it started as a Bill Pullman While you Were Sleeping Vibe and turned into focusing a little more towards a fear of failure. I definitely related to Ellie in this fear as everything I tried to do in my 20’s scared the shit out of me and when you fail you feel like everything is over. But getting past your fear and yourself to see that you learned a lesson and to move in a different frame of mind takes losing something important or something snapping into place.

In my 40’s I just throw stuff at the wall to see if they stick (slime does) or cross my fingers while maniacally smiling.

OMG I have read a lot of books lately with toxic parents that feel that you owe them something for all the time and money that you spent on them and it always makes my heart hurt. Makes me think of that trend when you insult yourself then you show a picture or your younger baby self and say you are saying it to them. You will always feel like a little one with your parents as your memories compound and bounce off each other. You’re never more vulnerable than with a parent or sibling and to have them abuse that is despicable. I am talking to you Linds.

I would always ask my Dad,  how will I ever pay you back for all of this, and he would say Pay it Forward to your kids and their friends. As he would treat my friends to movies and theme parks, etc. Wish we all had a Larry and a Janet.

I loved Ellie and Jack’s chemistry and of course the crazy circumstance that would see them in a cabin with her fake fiance is stuff that happened to me in my 20’s. Oh the stories I could tell living in SF. And Andrew – Jack’s brother had some things he was trying to deny as well. Loved that twist! Don’t know if I saw it coming but I was hoping.

Thank you @atriabooks and @netgalley for the e-ARC for my honest and voluntary review.

Happy Halloween everyone!
❓What is your favorite holiday or season?
I definitely love to dress up. Today I will be a garden gnome. I was a goddess on Friday night and a pirate on Saturday. If putting on tight jeans, boots and a pirate hat makes you a pirate lol.

Synopsis:

The author of the “swoon-worthy debut” (Harper’s Bazaar) The Charm Offensive returns with a festive romantic comedy about a woman who fakes an engagement with her landlord…only to fall for his sister.

One year ago, recent Portland transplant Ellie Oliver had her dream job in animation and a Christmas Eve meet-cute with a woman at a bookstore that led her to fall in love over the course of a single night. But after a betrayal the next morning and the loss of her job soon after, she finds herself adrift, alone, and desperate for money.

Finding work at a local coffee shop, she’s just getting through the days—until Andrew, the shop’s landlord, proposes a shocking, drunken plan: a marriage of convenience that will give him his recent inheritance and alleviate Ellie’s financial woes and isolation. They make a plan to spend the holidays together at his family cabin to keep up the ruse. But when Andrew introduces his new fiancée to his sister, Ellie is shocked to discover it’s Jack—the mysterious woman she fell for over the course of one magical Christmas Eve the year before. Now, Ellie must choose between the safety of a fake relationship and the risk of something real.

Perfect for fans of Written in the Stars and One Day in December, Kiss Her Once for Me is the queer holiday rom-com that you’ll want to cozy up with next to the fire.