Love in the City (Love in the City #1) by Jen Morris

“These books are full of mush that isn’t realistic, or whatever it was my mother said. But isn’t that the point? It’s escapism.”

Plot Summary

Have you ever stopped to look around at your life and realised nothing is how you want it?

Turning thirty has a way of making you take a good, hard look at your life. And I think we all know what any sensible adult does in that situation: tequila shots. Lots of them.

It’s okay, though, because I’ve finally escaped my tiny New Zealand hometown and my negative parents. And New York is better than my wildest fantasies.

So is Michael, the sexy single dad who lives in the apartment upstairs. And he’s featuring in my fantasies more and more—even if he’s a grump and I only ever seem to make a dork of myself in front of him. Ah well, a girl can dream.

Anyway, I’ve got a writing career to build, and writing about being single is fun. If that means swearing off men for a bit, that’s fine. I can totally do that. It’s just a tiny crush.

Besides… happily ever afters aren’t real. Are they?

My Review

This book follows Alex’s story, a 30 year old from New Zealand that, after being left by her boyfriend on her birthday, makes the sudden decision (a drunk one) of moving to New York to follow her writing dreams. When Alex arrives in New York though, things aren’t going too well for her. Besides discovering the apartment she rented doesn’t exist and she’s basically homeless, she spills her coffee on a very expensive shirt that belongs to a sexy but extremely grumpy man.

After getting help from one of her bff’s friends and with a roof above her head, Alex can’t believe that the grumpy and extremely sexy man is actually her new neighbour. He doesn’t seem too happy about that fact and becomes even less happy when Alex offers to share some of her pizza with his son.

When Alex gets to know Michael, the sexy and grumpy neighbour, she discovers he’s not that grumpy, he’s just fighting for the custody of his son.

After a very awkward scene, Alex discovers Michael is a famous writer and she’s ashamed of the books she likes to write. She loves romance, steamy ones, and gets inspired by Michael to write one about the two of them. The girl has a great imagination it seems. I liked to read about that fact because I also love more steamy romances and, at first, I also found them to be my guilty pleasure. That feeling eventually disappeared as I grew older (thankfully). I was the one who looked from side to side before picking up a book with a bared chest guy on the cover. Be proud of what you read. If you love it, go for it.

When Alex stumbles on a great opportunity for her career she does everything she can to take it. There’s only one problem: in order to write about being single she should stay single and that’s getting really hard to achieve when her feelings for Michael start showing,

This story started really strong. I loved how the author described Michael’s personality so well and the struggles of being a single father with a difficult ex-wife. He’s funny, attentive and amazing. I also enjoyed Alex’s character, although I found her self-estim super low. Girl, is it so hard to believe a beautiful and sexy older man can have feelings for you? Believe in yourself woman!

I hated her parents, they’re really awful people and I felt her best friend wasn’t mentioned more through the book. As being her best friend wasn’t she supposed to appear more often?

Regarding Michael’s son I don’t think he interacted enough. I didn’t feel his character. It’s like he was written only to intensify Michael’s personality and background. It was a shame indeed his relationship with Alex was more developed. We readers know he really liked her but we didn’t get to see much of their relationship.

I loved the ups and downs from Michael and Alex’s relationship, they were very well written. I enjoyed this book and will probably read the others in the series eventually.