Ink & Lies by S L Jennings

The plot behind the book was one that was fairly easy to get a handle on, in fact it was obvious right off the bat where it was headed, the interest was going to be the journey they took getting there and boy did they like to beat around the bush!

So friends to lovers, not a new concept but factor in the detail that he is the one who secretly writes women’s market romance novels and you know you have a man that is far from shy when it comes to getting his needs met between the sheets.

August Rhys (or Hope to his female audience) is a writer, yep a “proper” writer but having failed to set the literary world alight with his “proper” books he turned to romance and everything he wrote turned to gold but his alter ego is a well-guarded secret and he would like to keep it that way.

Fi is his right hand woman, his confidant and his BFF, and as hard as he might try to deny it, although I am not sure that deny is the proper word because that would imply that he actually understood what he felt for her and honestly I don’t think he did, to me he was completely blinkered by just how much she did meant to him, until it became crystal clear that he wasn’t going to have her all to himself anymore.

I loved the fact the story was told from August’s point of view, that he struggled to articulate what was going on at times, it was all so engaging, he was a smart mouthed man, who might be great at writing a love story but not so hot at being in one.

I liked Fi, her bite, her fire she was a feisty little character who knew that he wasn’t going to be anything other than her best friend.

Despite the fact her heart told her she loved him more than just as her BFF, she knew she loved him enough to let him go and in doing so she thought she had found her happiness, but broke their friendship in the process.

The story didn’t exactly fall flat but it did have a dip or two along the way, I was looking for a bit more than I got at points but then I reminded myself that this was a rom com and when I took that perspective, I was left with a story that was true to form, strong enough to hold its own and engaging enough to mean that if asked for an introduction to the genre, this would be a fairly strong contender.