ROMeANTICALLY CHALLENGED

By Marina Adair

ROMeANTICALLY CHALLENGED - Marina Adair
  • Release Date: 2020-07-28
  • Genre: Romantic Comedies
Score: 4
4
From 640 Ratings

Description

Amazon Best Romance of the Month 
Publishers Marketplace BuzzBooks: ROMANCE 2020-2021 pick
Fresh Fiction Fresh Pick

“Fun, flirty, and fresh!”
—Jill Shalvis, New York Times bestselling author

 
A witty, sexy, and charming story from the New York Times bestselling author of the St. Helena Vineyard series that fans of Emily Henry, Jen DeLuca, and Kate Clayborn will adore.
 
Growing up the lone Asian in a community of WASPs, Annie has always felt out of place.  Her solution?  Start a family of her own. Not easy when every man she’s dated, including her ex-fiancé, finds “his person” right after breaking up with Annie. Even worse than canceling the wedding eight weeks beforehand?  Learning the “other woman” plans to walk down the aisle wearing her wedding gown. New plan—find a fresh, man-free start. Too bad her exit strategy unexpectedly lands her working at a hospital in Rome, Rhode Island, rather than Rome, Italy, and sharing a cabin with a big, brooding, and annoyingly hot male roommate.
 
Home on medical leave after covering a literally explosive story in China, investigative photojournalist Emmitt embarks on his most important assignment—cementing his place in his daughter’s life. Three men and a baby might work in the movies, but with a stepdad and devoted uncle competing for Paisley’s attention, Emmitt has lost his place at the family table. Then there’s the adorably sexy squatter in his cabin, who poses another problem, one he’d very much like to solve up close and personal. But he can’t win—Annie has sworn off men, Paisley’s gone boy crazy, and Emmitt’s estranged father reappears with a secret that changes everything.
 
Annie and Emmitt are about to discover love comes in many forms, and sometimes the best families are the ones we make.

“Phenomenal…I highly recommend picking up a copy if this novel, it will have you crying, laughing and yelling but most of all you will end with a warm happy feeling that comes from reading a first class novel.”
—Harlequin Junkie, Recommended Read

 
“I cannot fully express how in awe I am with Marina Adair’s ability to create such complex and multi-faceted characters. “
—The Lit Buzz


“Marina Adair is a breath of fresh air…Don't miss a word from this magnificent author!”Darynda Jones, New York Times bestselling author
 
“Fans of Jill Shalvis and Susan Mallery will enjoy the modern family dynamic and small-town atmosphere.”
—Booklist

 
“An adorable, fun new contemporary romance series. Delightful.”
Library Journal

“A hilarious romantic comedy”
—Bookpage

 
“A delight…entertaining, endearing, and realistic.”
—Frolic

 
"A true gem."
—Fresh Fiction

Reviews

  • Great

    4
    By Caribbeanpiper
    Unexpected twist and turn
  • RomNtically challenge

    1
    By germainerouser
    Too much profanity! I do not recommend this book.
  • Wow!

    5
    By escamillalbi
    I could relate tontheain character's feelings of being out of place. The author touched on this with great perception and sensitivity. The story was wonderful and the characters realistic. What a wonderful love story.
  • RomeAntically Challenged

    4
    By PalatableDinner
    I liked how this book explored transracial identity and unlearning toxic masculine behaviors. Research is evident in the writing and the author takes the time needed to really develop characters that readers can empathize with. Beckett’s Grumpy Cat shirt is a mood and I need it. However, I did notice a few important typos and the text images weren’t formatted with dark mode in mind, despite it being a common feature of eBook apps. I wish Annie wasn’t attracted to Emmitt until after he stopped being toxic so it’d feel more authentic and less cliche. Also, Annie went to med school and understands relational power dynamics and the importance of communication, but for some reason thought simply going to a pot luck would magically fill the void within, not understanding that reclaiming her cultural heritage is a huge learning endeavor, and wasn’t already learning Vietnamese despite wanting to in this age of internet and smartphones. It is also worth noting that the whole “Chinese isn’t a language” is misleading, and a lot more complicated. Whether you consider it a language or not depends on how you define or differentiate language and dialect when there is no hard and fast definition, which would entail at least a surface level understanding of differences and similarities between languages/dialects and their written language, which would likely not be considered “common knowledge” and thus justify ignorance. I.e. Cantonese and Mandarin are considered by some to be dialects because they share a written language, Chinese, whereas others consider them separate languages because they’re phonetically very different, and still others who believe Chinese isn’t a language because it isn’t spoken, completely ignoring the existence of sign language. The list goes on and ultimately boils down to semantics. It is also my experience that asking if someone speaks Chinese isn’t weird, and whether they’re referring to Mandarin, Cantonese, either or, Toisanese etc is determined by context. I’ve been asked most if I “speak Chinese” by Chinese, often but not always because English is their second language, and I say all this as a product of Chinese diaspora who also struggled with their cultural identity and has been misidentified more than once, like Annie. Evidently enough this whole thing is highly variable from person to person and place to place. The stereotyping though was definitely ignorance.
  • Fun and heartwarming read!

    5
    By sherby1
    Thoroughly enjoyed reading the story of Ahn and Emmitt. Unexpectedly shed a few tears along the way.
  • I Thoroughly Enjoyed!

    4
    By Melzie61
    I found the story so well written that I think I finished the book in 4 days. I just kept wanting to keep reading it. You just got to know the characters like family and couldn’t wait to see what happened next. Thank you!
  • Romentically Challenged

    4
    By Tiggy/Cookie
    First time reading this author and I went by the ratings. Glad I did, because I enjoyed reading about all the characters in this book, would have really enjoyed for the book not to have ended.
  • Loved It

    5
    By Shaddie31
    I loved this book, the banter between characters and the raw emotions they feel. I couldn’t put this down! Cannot wait to read book number 2!
  • The title intrigued me and didn’t disappoint

    5
    By Fantasie Lace
    This story was the perfect balance of romance and drama. It kept me interested, crying and at some point... turned on! Love it
  • Good s as and very best👍👍👍

    5
    By rahravan
    Good