So, this book isn't perfect. I can stand back and look at it objectively and point out several things to critique.
For one, it's filled with cliches and plot contrivances meant to throw our Hero and heroine together. But I didn't care.
For another, it takes too long for the couple to get together and all the sex scenes are mostly fade-to-black. I usually like my romances nice and steamy. But I didn't care.
There is also the fact that this relationship technically starts as a one-night-stand where the Hero was cheating on his girlfriend with the heroine (she didn't know she was 'the other woman' at the time). And yeah, okay, I kind of cared about this one. It was obvious that he was a player when they first met. But the bulk of the story takes place years later, after he's grown up and stopped acting like a complete douchebag.
But at the end of the day, I really ended up enjoying this book. It was fun and sweet and I really liked the characters. And even though this book is full of romance tropes and cliches, it also gives some of them a twist that I ended up really appreciating.
I don't usually like friends-to-lovers romances, which is funny, because my husband and I were friends long before we were romantically involved with one another, and he's my favorite human. But for some reason it rarely works for me in book form. Too little tension, I guess. But it worked for me here, perhaps because we're only getting her perspective and it seems through most of the story like the feelings are unrequited (even though as the reader you assume that he does have feelings for her...this IS a romance, after all.).
I was also nervous that this book was going to make Lacey the awful, hateful girlfriend character complete with several scenes full of girl hate. When she ends up actually being a decent person and she and Melody become friends, I was very pleasantly surprised. It reminded me of the relationship between Rebecca and Valencia on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, with less musical numbers and borderline personality disorder.
The friendships in this book were something I really enjoyed reading, and I liked that even though the characters have complicated relationships and pasts, there is obviously affection there, even when the relationships transition from romantic to friendly.
I'm thankful I found this fun, fluffy story available on Overdrive and now I want to check out the rest of the series.