A novel of terrible first impressions, hilarious second chances, and the joy in finding your perfect match.

Dr. Briana Ortiz’s life is seriously flatlining. Her divorce is just about finalized, her brother’s running out of time to find a kidney donor, and that promotion she wants? Oh, that’s probably going to the new man-doctor who’s already registering eighty-friggin’-seven on Briana’s “pain in my ass” scale. But just when all systems are set to hate, Dr. Jacob Maddox completely flips the game . . . by sending Briana a letter.

And it’s a really good letter. Like the kind that proves that Jacob isn’t actually Satan. Worse, he might be this fantastically funny and subversively likeable guy who’s terrible at first impressions. Because suddenly he and Bri are exchanging letters, sharing lunch dates in her “sob closet,” and discussing the merits of freakishly tiny horses. But when Jacob decides to give Briana the best gift imaginable—a kidney for her brother—she wonders just how she can resist this quietly sexy new doctor . . . especially when he calls in a favor she can’t refuse.

I’m shocked to say this is the first Abby Jimenez book I’ve ever rated less than five stars. I went in expecting another knockout, because she has earned that trust from me after 5 books. Now, I want to be clear up front. I didn’t hate this book. I didn’t even dislike it. There was just one specific thing that kept tripping me up, and that thing kept me from fully falling in.

Briana Ortiz is a doctor and her life is in shambles. Her marriage is on its last legs, her brother is in desperate need of a kidney, and the promotion she’s been working toward looks like it’s going to the new guy on the floor instead of her. The new guy is Jacob Maddox, and on first impression, Briana decides he’s the worst. Then Jacob writes her a letter. They start writing back and forth, having lunch in the closet she retreats to when she needs to fall apart in private, and slowly turning into actual friends. Then he does something for her that I won’t spoil because it’s a huge moment. And he asks for something in return. That favor is where the fake dating piece of the book kicks in, and that’s where I started having issues.

It didn’t feel real to me. They commit to the ruse harder than the situation called for, and I kept getting pulled out of the book trying to figure out why. I know fake dating is a beloved trope. I know readers eat it up. But for this story, with these characters, the bit didn’t track for me. It felt like a setup that was leaning on the trope instead of earning it. That bothered me way more than it probably should have, and I’m willing to admit that’s partly a me thing.

Everything else, though, I really appreciated. The true-to-life issues both characters are juggling are written extremely well (and I would expect no less). The family dynamics are strong. Briana’s relationship with her brother is one of my favorite parts of the book. The stuff with the divorce, the workplace politics, the slow-motion feeling of your life unraveling while you’re supposed to be holding it together at work, all of that lands.

And then there’s Jacob, and boy did I feel seen with him. He’s dealing with painful social anxiety, and Jimenez writes that experience with so much care that I felt completely validated. I have the same thing. Most of the people in my life don’t really get how crippling it can be. They don’t understand why I sometimes need to pull back from things, and that lack of understanding makes me even more self-conscious, which makes me even more likely to disappear. Jimenez nails how that cycle works from the inside. The way one bad social moment can take up an entire afternoon, the way it shapes how people perceive him, all of it is exactly right. I applaud her for that. That representation alone made this book worth reading for me. Romance is genuinely not my usual genre, and the trope stuff is what bounces me out of these books most of the time, but the way Jimenez writes people who are actually dealing with real life is why I keep showing up.

So, yeah, I’m landing in a complicated place. The fake dating bugged me enough that I couldn’t get all the way to a five star love. But, the rest of the book did so much that I responded to that I still walked away glad I read it. Sometimes a book just hits one wrong note in the middle of a song you otherwise like, and that’s where I am with this one. Maybe I’ll revisit it someday and feel differently. People I trust adored this book, and I can see why. If you love a well-written romance with characters who are dealing with real, heavy stuff alongside the swoon, this one is absolutely worth your time. The fake dating just wasn’t my favorite here, but mileage may vary.

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