Review: The Love Plot by Samantha Young

The Love Plot by Samantha Young
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was provided and ARC of this book via Netgalley from the author, the publisher, and Valentine PR. As always, all opinions expressed are my own.

I'm torn between giving this 4 & 5 stars. This was such a wonderful book, I loved Star and Rafe!

Did you know you can pay people to sit in line for you? Well that's what Star does when she is not dressing up as a princess or another character for a party or event. Star doesn't want much in life other than to be happy. She makes enough from her 2 jobs to cover expenses and support her lifestyle, she has a great groups of friends that act as her family and she doesn't really need much more than that. Enter Rafe Whitman...he is a veterinarian who give Star all kinds of feelings that she is not interested in. Rafe makes a poor first impression on Star at his nieces birthday party where she is performing as a princess. Rafe has it all, the looks, a successful veterinary practice, a trust fun, what he doesn't have is a steady relationship. While that isn't an issue for him, it is an issue for his mother and his sister in law who keep playing matchmaker. Star is his opposite in every way, so he proposes that they fake date to keep his family off of his back. Star is of course hesitant at first, but it will support her dreams of travelling and she decides to go along with it.

Star and Rafe couldn't have come from more different family backgrounds and that quickly becomes clear as they being their fake relationship ruse. What neither of them expected is that they would actually like one another. Star quickly becomes friends with Rafe's younger sister Gigi who is fun and eclectic. Rafe who is typically grumpy starts to smile a bit more and have a little fun. Star was brought up to believe that traditional relationships aren't natural so when Rafe turns the tables on her, she wants to run for the hills. She also doesn't want to put a wedge between him and his family because her free spirited ways are so different from their traditional ones.

This had wonderful character development. We get to see Star go through quite a bit. Some of her turmoil was self-imposed while some was not. She was doing what she thought was the right thing, even though no one asked her to. She made changes to her appearance and lifestyle because she thought it would make things better for other people, when it made her and the people who loved her miserable in the end. This was such a good lesson in being yourself and not pretending to be someone else for someone else. The lack of communication about what was going on between our couple could have prevented some of this, but that is actually pretty realistic when it comes to relationships. How many times do you tell your partner "Its fine" when it really isn't?

I really loved this grumpy-sunshine, opposites attract romance. It had great banter, which is something I love about Samantha Young's books. This has a moderate spice level. There are some spicy scenes but they aren't over the top and they don't overtake the book. If you are a fan of the author or romance in general I think you are going to enjoy this. It is low on the angst factor and I really fell in love with the characters.

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