I love buying books 🤭

On Kate Clayborn

Ok. So I know everyone knows how fabulous Kate is. Besides being brilliantly funny on Twitter (RIP? Are we saying RIP for this yet?) and also having a tremendous Substack that you should subscribe to, she just so happens to be one of the best contemporary romance novelists writing right now.

This is not hyperbole. Every time I sit down with a Kate Clayborn book, I think, "Good God. She is fucking great." (Her heroes also fuck great, iykwim)

It's hard to choose a favorite of her books -- I adore Love Lettering, which is lingering and romantic...and Love at First is so gorgeous...the writing, the romance, the wonderful world she builds for us to get cozy in for the duration of the book (both free right now in KU!). And Georgie, All Along, which is coming in January, is for sure one of my favorite romances of all time (preorder it right now is what I'm saying).

But I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for the Chance of a Lifetime series, which follows three best friends who go in on a lottery ticket and win. It's not enough money to quit jobs and buy islands (Did y'all see that $2 Billion dollar jackpot? Wild.), but it's enough to change lives. And each of the books in the series follows one of the friends making the choice to change her life. My favorite is Luck of the Draw, in which the heroine has to atone for her actions and, in doing so, trips into a fake relationship/forced proximity situation with a hero who is absolutely ON FIRE SEXY.

In very fun news, the first two books in the Chance of a Lifetime series are getting new covers! Kate revealed them today -- Beginner's Luck and Luck of the Draw -- and you can find them on shelves starting in December. LOOK HOW CUTE! They will make the best holiday gifts to the romance readers in your life!

Anyway. All this is to say, Kate writes bangers. And if you haven't read her, you should. Immediately.

There’s a new Kate Clayborn next week?????? I was just rereading Georgie, All Along and luxuriating in that world.

So pumped there’s a new book to look forward to!

Seven-timer Kate Clayborn returns to the Fated Mates studio (lol, jk there is no studio) to talk about about going home again in romance and to celebrate the launch of her new book, Georgie All Along, which you can get this week wherever books are sold! We talk about all the ins and outs of homecoming romances, what sends characters back to the beginning, what readers expect from these books, why they hit so hard and in so many ways, and how this trope intersects with small town romance. All that, and Sarah’s brought an X,Y chart to class.

You can find links to all the books we talked about in show notes.

My library is better than yours 😊

read my full review of georgie, all along by kate clayborn here.

In this heartfelt tale of one woman’s quest to reinvent herself, the acclaimed author of Love Lettering and Love at First delivers a poignant, witty reflection on how the hopes, dreams, and stories from our past shape our future . . .

Longtime personal assistant Georgie Mulcahy has made a career out of putting others before herself. When an unexpected upheaval sends her away from her hectic job in L.A. and back to her hometown, Georgie must confront an uncomfortable truth: her own wants and needs have always been a disconcertingly blank page.

But then Georgie comes across a forgotten artifact—a “friendfic” diary she wrote as a teenager, filled with possibilities she once imagined. To an overwhelmed Georgie, the diary’s simple, small-scale ideas are a lifeline—a guidebook for getting started on a new path.

Georgie’s plans hit a snag when she comes face to face with an unexpected roommate—Levi Fanning, onetime town troublemaker and current town hermit. But this quiet, grouchy man is more than just his reputation, and he offers to help Georgie with her quest. As the two make their way through her wishlist, Georgie begins to realize that what she truly wants might not be in the pages of her diary after all, but right by her side—if only they can both find a way to let go of the pasts that hold them back.

Honest and deeply emotional, Georgie, All Along is a smart, tender must-read for everyone who’s ever wondered about the life that got away . . .

my review:

A friend had recommended me this book and, trusting their judgment, I immediately requested it. And I’m so glad I did! Georgie, All Along was a sweet romance between two people who’ve spent their entire lives being misunderstood.

Georgie Mulcahy‘s back in her hometown, reeling from being let go from her long-time personal assistant role, having been told to go find herself. She’s ostensibly there to help her best friend Bel move into her new home and prepare for her new baby, but she arrives there to find that she’s got everything figured out. Bel unearths their old friend-fic, where the two of them had planned out their high school lives. Georgie sets out on a mission to accomplish everything in the journal, eventually with the help of Levi Fanning, whom she ends up being roommates with due to a misunderstanding.

I wasn’t aware that this was a dual-POV book going in, but I ended up really enjoying having both Georgie’s and Levi’s point-of-view! They’re both going through their own things: Georgie’s rediscovering herself and trying to accomplish the items on her list, while Levi is trying to make a life for himself in a town that only knows him by his bad reputation.

read my full review here.

Georgie, All Along by Kate Clayborn

Georgie, All Along by: Kate Clayborn Longtime personal assistant Georgie Mulcahy has made a career out of putting others before herself. When an unexpected upheaval sends her away from her hectic job in L.A. and back to her hometown, Georgie must confront an uncomfortable truth: her own wants and needs have always been a disconcertingly blank page.  But then Georgie comes across a forgotten…

View On WordPress

BOOKS READ IN DECEMBER 2022

Review : Georgie, All Along by Kate Clayborn

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5 Stars

I loved this book. I was completely hooked from the start and it’s yet another page turner by Clayborn. This is a classic grumpy/sunshine story which is one of my favorite dynamics, and the dual POV lets you deep into the MCs thoughts and insecurities which I also love. At its heart it’s a hometown story about self-discovery that’s incredibly romantic, charming, angsty and poignant and I cried during the ending. It’s just so romantic!

Georgie is a personal assistant in Hollywood whose hectic job ends and she goes back to her hometown in Virginia to stay at her hippie parents house, only to find they have let Levi Fanning, a local who builds docks on the river, and his adorable dog Hank stay there. This turns into a “forced proximity” story that does not disappoint. Georgie finds her old “friendfic” wishlist notebook at her best friend’s house and decides to go back and do all the things she never did in order to find a new direction in life.

I fell in love with messy, spirited Georgie and troubled, handsome Levi (in fact, Leviiiiiiii is going on my list of Best Book Boyfriends) and his rescue dog Hank. Hank of course falls for Georgie instantly as she talks to him like he’s human, which is the cutest thing ever (and something I used to do with my beloved Leon). Since her best friend is too pregnant to participate, she invites Levi to do her wishlist with her which makes for some cute scenes that I won't spoil. Of course they both have past issues that they need to come to terms with and the character growth over the course of the book is lovely. The story proves that you don’t always need to have everything figured out in life. You can choose to live in the moment. You don’t need a plan. It's ok to be a little messy and chaotic. You can enjoy life as it comes, rekindle old connections, and choose love as a commitment.

I will definitely be listening to the audiobook when the book releases.

Out on January 24, 2023

••••••••

Thanks so much to NetGalley & Kensington for the ARC !!!

If you read and enjoyed "Things We Never Got Over" by Lucy Score, you might like "Georgie, All Along" by Kate Clayborn.

Georgie, All Along: "Honestly and deeply emotional, Georgie, All Along is a smart, tender must-read for everyone who's ever wondered about the life that got away..."

REVIEW: Georgie, All Along by Kate Clayborn

A wise and witty new novel that echoes with timely questions about love, career, reconciling with the past, and finding your path while knowing your true worth.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 5 out of 5. PUBLISHER: Kensington PUBLICATION DATE: January 24, 2033. GENRE: Romance / Contemporary Romance A big thank you to Kensington for providing me with a review copy in exchange of an honest review. I have been reading and hearing about this book for months. How fantastic it was, how it became a new favorite for a lot of readers, and so on, so when asked my Twitter…

View On WordPress

February reads 🤍

I'm only 70 pages into Georgie, All Along but I am SO charmed! I'm incredibly picky about het romance novels but I'm already head over heels for this one 😭

Book Notes: Georgie, All Along

To end February, Becca and I wanted to read and chat about Georgie, All Along, a new romance from Kate Clayborn, one of my favorite authors in the genre!

When Georgie Mulcahy finds herself unexpectedly unemployed from her PA job in L.A., she retreats to her hometown of Darentville, Virginia. Her immediate plan is house-sitting for her parents and helping her pregnant best friend baby-proof her house. But really Georgie is trying to figure out what direction her life should take next. Not an easy task when she has no clue what she wants, only how to organize the lives of others. Or when her parents double-book house sitters and Georgie ends up with handsomely taciturn Levi Fanning as her reluctant roommate, along with his adorable rescue dog, Hank. When she finds an old journal from her middle school days, filled with fictional musings of perfect high school days and dates with dreamy boyfriends, Georgie decides to use it to go on some adventures and maybe find herself along the way. Levi surprisingly offers to help and in the process Georgie gets to know the sweet (and quite sexy) side to a guy the whole town has written off.

Lori: Becca, so fun to read this with you! What were your first thoughts?

Becca: First, I loved that Kate (the author) didn't lean too heavily into the miscommunication trope. I appreciate it so much. Having a misunderstanding be the central conflict, where the girl sees the guy with another girl and just assumes things and they never talk about it drives me insane. Georgie and Levi, on the other hand, act like adults. They take a few steps back, breathe and regroup, and then they communicate. I love it.

Lori: In every Kate Clayborn romance I’ve read, she is so good about giving her characters a depth that goes beyond the tropes. They are flawed human beings doing their best with where they are, usually with some emotional scars in their backstory. She never takes the easy way out with her plot lines. This is just one of the reasons I love her novels. Her characters are always three-dimensional. And she puts them in some interesting situations too.

Becca: Like how Georgie heads back to her hometown and immediately runs into all of the opinions that people had of her when she was in high school? How well do you think she handled that? What would you have done in her place?

Lori: I think in the beginning it’s really hard for Georgie to separate out what other people think of her and what she thinks of herself. To make a conscious choice to not let their opinions influence her. In a way, Levi has to go on a similar journey. He’s let other people, namely his dad, define him based on who he was in his younger years. Now he’s so conscious of not giving anyone a reason to think he’s like he’d been in the past. Speaking as a person who does work in the same town where I went to high school, and regularly runs into old classmates, what comes up most for me is the reminder that I’m not that person anymore. Which is kind of where both Georgie and Levi land in the end. But it’s also interesting that Georgie goes back to something from high school to help her figure out her next steps.

Becca: I personally love the way she kick-starts figuring out what she wants from life. I think it's such a fun idea, to go back and do things from her high school "fic", or bucket list. Do you think that was what allowed her to get to the point where she's okay with who she is?

Lori: I do. I think since she feels so lost and blank in the beginning, it was helpful for her to revisit some of the things she thought could happen in high school, even as she recognizes they are over the top. I liked her attitude going into it, not necessarily expecting firm answers, just wanting to get back to a place where she had some imagination for her future. And it turns out to be what reconnects her to who she is at her core.

Becca: Yes, Georgie's flightiness and inability to plan for the future, which everyone sees as a quirky bad habit, ends up being her saving grace. I love that she turned that “flaw” on its head and comes to accept it as a special part of who she is. So much of life is people asking you what you're going to do next.

Lori: So true.

Becca: It's nice to see a character who doesn't have it all planned out, and to have that shown as being okay. You don't always need to know what your next step is.

Lori: Such an unexpected conclusion for Georgie to reach, and one I love for her as well! As much as romance is about the happy ending, it was so refreshing that Georgie didn’t have her life tied up in a bow at the end.

Any romance readers should be sure to add Georgie, All Along to their TBR’s!

— Lori & Becca

Most Anticipated Books of 2023

Happy 2023! There are a lot of exciting books coming out this year and I thought I’d share a list of the ones I’m looking forward to the most! I know there are some missing, especially books coming out towards the end of 2022, like the next Guild Hunter book by Nalini Singh. As always, the release dates may change. *Also, some of these books are published by HarperCollins. Please support those…

View On WordPress

Kate Clayborn, All Along (and always)

Review: Georgie, All Along by Kate Clayborn (Kensington Books, 31 January 2023)

Add Georgie, All Along to the pantheon of Kate Clayborn comfort reads, because there's no doubt it warrants a place among her very best. Quiet but powerful, nuanced but unfussy, sexy but so sweet my heart squeezed like a sponge... this book is exactly what I want in a contemporary romance, and I already can't wait to read it again.

Three-sentence summary: After her hectic, high-octane job as a personal assistant in LA ends suddenly, Georgie Mulcahy returns to her VA hometown to figure out her next steps, using the teenage diary she and her bestie filled with their dreams for the future as a guide. Meanwhile, Levi Fanning, the town's reformed troublemaker, knows his future will unfold in an orderly fashion that allows him to prove -- to himself, his estranged family, everyone who ever knew his younger self -- that he's different from the young, angry, hurt teen who ruined everything all those years ago. When Georgie's messy quest for meaning intersects with Levi's orderly life, neither expects to find a friend -- and so much more -- in the other.

Georgie, All Along brings together all the best parts of Clayborn's writing: intricately realized small-town life; vivid, varied secondary characters; MCs you'll want to hold close to your soul; and complex, deeply-felt emotional arcs with authentic, satisfactory conclusions. Perfect for fans of Second First Impressions by Sally Thorne or The Soulmate Equation by Christina Lauren. 

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books for the advance copy.