Book Review: The Bookworm’s Guide to Dating by Emma Hart

RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars

THE BOOKWORM’S GUIDE TO DATING (The Bookworm’s Guide Book #1) by Emma Hart is the first book in a new contemporary rom/com series. The main heroines are three friends who own a bookstore in a small town in Montana and their long-time friends. The secondary humor comes from the retirement home where all their grandparents live.

Kinsley Lane is a bookworm and proud of it. She loves analyzing relationships in romance novels and is afraid she will never find a real-life man who will understand and love her for her awkward introverted self. For her birthday, she decides to start dating. She lets her friends convince her to sign up for dating apps on-line and has her brother’s best-friend volunteer to play matchmaker. She is not sure why he is helping, but if he can find one who meets her very specific guidelines and helps her with her awkwardness, she is in.

Josh Carter offers to help Kinsley find a boyfriend. He helps set Kinsley up and even takes her on a practice date, but there is something important he is not telling her. He is hoping by finding Kinsley a boyfriend, he will quit obsessing over her. He made a pact with her brother years ago that neither of them would date the other’s sisters, but Josh finds the bookish Kinsley is the one he wants.

This is a quick read full of laughter, love and quirky realistic characters. Kinsley and Josh’s banter and texting felt pitch perfect and their relationship developed at a realistic pace. The sex scenes were explicit, but not gratuitous. I loved the scenes in the bookshop between the three friends and all the bookish references. The secondary characters are all part of the three girls lives and add to the small town feel of everyone knowing everyone else. The secondary comedy plotline of the retirement home where all the grandparents live and have their own dramas had me laughing out loud.

I can highly recommend this first in the series rom/com and I am looking forward to the next!

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Author Bio and Social Media

Emma Hart is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over twenty novels and has been translated into several different languages. She first put fingers to keys at the age of eighteen after her husband told her she read too much and should write her own.
Four years later, she’s still figuring out what he meant when he said she ‘read too much.’

She prides herself on writing smart smut that’s filled with dry wit, snappy, sarcastic comebacks, but lots of heart… And sex. Sometimes, she kills people. (Disclaimer: In books. But if you bug her, she’ll use your name for the victims.)

You can find her online at www.emmahart.org, www.facebook.com/emmahartbooks, or join her reader group at http://bit.ly/EmmaHartsHartbreakers.