The Seat Filler

A quirky romance about a struggling dog groomer--with a kissing phobia--and the hunky actor, a celebrity crush, who steals her heart.

Sariah Wilson is a prolific romance writer. Her break-out novel, Roommaid, a feel-good romance, told a clever story about living life on your own terms and in pursuit of your own dreams.

 

In The Seat Filler, she delivers another fun, meet-cute rom-com. The story centers on Juliet Nolan, a quirky, single, struggling dog groomer—with a kissing phobia. During a Hollywood awards show, Juliet is asked to fill an empty seat during the program. This one small act leads to her meeting handsome, charismatic actor, Noah Douglas. An unexpected friendship develops between Juliet and Nolan that ultimately leads to--and challenges--romance.

 

Readers will be charmed by Wilson’s lively, brisk storytelling as she plunges readers directly into the comedic action, slowly peeling back hidden secrets of her characters.

The Seat Filler: A Novel by Sariah Wilson

Montlake, $12.95 Paperback, 978-1542025713, 319 pages

Publication Date: April 27, 2021

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

 

Would Like to Meet

Who can resist lively rom-coms in the vein of Nora Ephron? 

An aspiring talent agent sets out to prove to an Oscar-winning screenwriter that people can fall in love just as they do in the movies.

Debut author Rachel Winters hits all the right notes in Would Like to Meet. Single Londoner Evelyn Summers once dreamed of becoming a screenwriter. But she has settled into being the "longest-serving assistant in the industry," working for William Jonathan (Monty) Montgomery, an eccentric, high-powered, old-school talent agent. Things take a turn, however, when Monty reassures production duo Sam-and-Max that Evie can light a fire under screenwriter Ezra Chester and convince him to finish a script for which he's been contracted. Evie perceives Ezra--an "Academy Award winner, charitable heartthrob, and industry darling"--to be an "arrogant, insufferable arse." The stakes are raised when a possible promotion to agent is dangled before Evie. The problem, however, is that Ezra believes "Oscar winners... don't write rom-coms."

In order to get Ezra to fulfill his commitment on deadline and convince him to stop being so "short-sighted about the genre," Evie agrees to serve as his inspiration and "living proof." She proposes that she can meet a man the way it happens in rom-coms.

What ensues is a lively, laugh-out-loud story filled with raucous scenes of Evie's madcap meetings and zany mishaps in fulfilling her end of the bargain--from road trips to holidays to chance encounters. Everything that can go wrong does, including Evie making a child vomit, leaving her name and number in random books around London, and accidentally joining an erotic book group. Would Like to Meet is a fun and lively millennial rom-com with a heartfelt message that cleverly plays off tropes from a host of contemporary romance movies.

Would Like to Meet: A Novel by Rachel Winters

G.P. Putnam’s Sons, $16.00 Paperback, 9780525542315, 368 pages

Publication Date: December 3, 2019

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (December 10, 2019), link HERE