A light, easy comfort read that centers around the familiar trope of swapping lives. A solid romance with good pacing and relatable characters. Predictable but in the best way. A fun summer read for me.

The House Swap starts with our two characters, James and Cassie, in not particularly good circumstances. She’s in turmoil trying to come up with the plot for her next book and he’s struggling when a relationship ends rather acrimoniously. In desperation, they each decide to try a house swap and end up paired.
Basic premise of so many movies/books. They swap lives, don’t particularly hit it off at first and appear quite different. Deep down, though, we sense a spark...and the book uncovers it, throwing them into different scenarios so we sense their compatibility and hope they eventually catch up.
There’s nothing really unexpected here. It’s emotional in places, and you have a pretty good idea where this will end up. Solid good fun, and a bit of light relief that will throw a little light into your life when you need it.
Thanks to NetGalley for granting me access to this in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Trigger Warning: Pregnancy & Miscarriage

This was a very cute romance with some fun plot lines and comedy in between. Even though it was predictable I enjoyed the main characters chemistry and their witty banter.

Thanks to Bookotoure and NetGalley for a copy to honestly review.

3.5 rounded up

This gave me diet ‘The Holiday’ vibes.
A cute premise of course, a house swap, lives intertwining, strangers finding someone from afar. I just didn’t get that emotional click, even when visited with some hard topics in the pages.
The super slow build up that leads to a racing finish, the romance between the characters, none of it sold to me that this couple was one made of everlasting true love stuff.
A good one time, but I won’t be revisiting.

This book is sweet, funny, and so heartfelt. At the beginning I disliked James, he was so damn rude, and such a horrible man, but then once you get to know him you start to really love him. I pretty much did what Cassie did and judged a book by its cover (she did the same thing when she met James.)

Ok let me sum up this amazing romance novel, Cassie has a new book deal, she has to travel to London for it, but she's finding it hard trying to find a place to stay and also something that wont be permanent. James wants to get away himself, then one of his friends told me him about SwapBNB, and this was exactly what he needed.

I was wondering how these two people are going to fall in love if they are swapping in different parts of the country. Anyway they make it work and their happy ending is so special, loved it.

Thank you netgalley for approving me to read this gem of a book. This book reminded me a lot of the movie The Holiday where Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz swap houses for the holiday season to escape their lives and wind up meeting Jack Black and Jude Law respectively. On the surface House Swap is very similar in overall premise, except with our house swappers we have a sort of enemies to friends to lovers story that manages to also pack in a bunch of personal growth, development and somehow also stays light and fun at the same time. I had a hard time putting this one down, both characters were relatable in some way and I loved reading how their house swap experiences helped them tackle various personal demons, grow as people and build their friendship.

I did think this whole story was rather lovely. I received an ARC via netgalley. I loved the setting ( between Maine and London). The beginning was a bit slow but it picks up quickly. I did like the love story but it went very quick from them getting together to the I love you part. Overall It was good. Needs some editing to tie it all together better. All opinions are my own.

The beginning of this book was kind of slow, but I ended up loving the story. My only hesitation is that I wanted the story to go more in depth in certain areas. It felt like it skipped around a lot. That being said, I loved the characters and their arc, both individually and together. Overall it was a good book! 3.75 stars!

Thank you to the author, Bookouture and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a quick and easy read, and altogether charming. Two individuals, each with a history that has given them a clear "no" to relationships, swap houses and of course also get involved in the life of the other. Yes, it's predictable, but the characters are well-defined, there's humor and great dialogue, and the story is well-written. Not to mention a slow-burn romance - what's not to like?

2 stars

I honestly wish I had better things to say about this book. I mean, it has so many tropes that I love - house swapping, one of the settings is British, we have a female writer trying to find herself.

*sigh* None of that added up to me enjoying this.

First of all, this book suffers from a surplus of telling and not showing. We never really get a build to anything - our main characters are painted as being immensely inconsiderate and in some cases, downright rude with only the thinnest of backstory for context. In fact, the hero is portrayed as such a jerk that I found his complete 180 completely jarring. When the romance eventually starts to develop, it feels so forced because again we get so little growth. The feelings practically come out of nowhere - we literally get an "I love you" almost immediately after a fade to black on their second kiss.

On top of all of that, the big plot twist to make sure that the characters eventually get their happily ever was a surprise baby that eventually made the hero realize that despite saying emphatically several times that he never wanted kids, he actually did want them if they were with the heroine. I normally don't hate this trope, but the way it was handled in this book felt so one-sided. Our hero has to change his entire worldview to be with the heroine while she is portrayed as not having to do any work on herself to be with him. To me, that's not a real partnership.

I'm sure there are people out there who will thoroughly enjoy this and I wish that I could have been one of them. Unfortunately, this just did not do it for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for an ARC of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review!

Thank you to Netgalley, Bookouture and Jo Lovett for gifting me a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

“He needs an escape. She needs an adventure.
So why not swap lives?”

You may think you’ve read books about house swaps before but this one is definitely different. Through their house swap James and Cassie (two very opposite people) are forced to become enveloped into each others lives and through their relationship they are able to tackle their past demons to make way for their futures. I liked how this book tackled deeper topics like child loss, miscarriage, sibling loss, addiction and the influences those events can have on a persons life. I do have to admit though that I didn’t love the main character James - he’s a bit of a jerk from the start and although he evolves throughout the story (a bit too easily if Im being honest)… I’m still not head over heels for him. I also did not find the chemistry between the two main characters that intense or believable. Apparently they fell in love with each other in the book but I wasn’t feeling it between them at all. I was excited to read this romance but in the end this book fell a bit flat for me.

Reading this book was an unfortunate case of ‘it’s me and not you’ I was expecting a light, easy, flirty romance that gave me that breezy escape but it wasn’t what I was expecting. That’s not to say that it didn’t have its charms but I was hoping for a story to sweep my reading time up in another direction. Overall it was well written and thought out well but it wasn’t for me this time around. Sad but true.

4.5 stars!

This book is about two strangers who swap houses for a few months. James is from London and Cassie is from an island off the coast of Maine.

I loved this book! I really enjoyed Cassie and James’s characters. I loved seeing how they grew during the course of the book, especially James. It was fun reading about the island and Cassie’s animals. I really liked several of the side characters as well. There were many light, funny moments throughout the book that had me chuckling out loud. Overall I thought this was a really cute, fun book!

**I will add the link to my full review on Ideally Inspired Reviews as soon as it goes live!**


Ok, the premise of “The House Swap” by Jo Lovett is darling!! Think, my favorite movie, “The Holiday”, but the love interests don’t meet in their vacation locales. They are the ones doing the swapping! It would make a great movie, so someone should really get on that, just sayin’.



I will start by saying: if steam is your thing, this isn’t your book. Don’t get me wrong, there is tension and love galore, but there is a lack of actual description. wink*wink* However, this a perfect PG level romance book and I am here for it! Need a recommendation for your mother-in-law who asked out of the blue or your boss who is all-of-a-sudden super interested in your love of reading and wants a rec? This is it!

Now, if you are a steamy romance kind of reader, don’t count “The House Swap” out just yet! The storyline and writing style are great and, bonus, you get to learn some fun British lingo along the way! I might’ve spent a few years of my childhood in England, but it was fun learning some new terms/slang that I was unfamiliar with since it has been over 20 years since I was there.

…and, yes, the characters did speak with accents in my mind the Entire. Time. Hahahaha



My only major complaint is that I wish it was longer…or the beginning “swap” portion was shorter. Eh, scratch that! The build up and relationship development in the beginning of this book is totally worth it and just golden. So, yeah, we want a longer book, please!! The build was so good that I’d love to see just as much time and detail spent on the actual “being together” part.

Do yourself a favor and add “The House Swap” by Jo Lovett to your reading list and add it to your short list of recommendations for all readers!




**I will add the link to my full review on Ideally Inspired Reviews as soon as it goes live!

I loved this book! It was fun and funny and mostly believable. I liked the different perspectives of the characters, and how they discovered some things they might not have had they stayed in their own spots. I liked their personal growth. Super fun!

Sweet and escapist - a perfect pandemic read. A recommended purchase for collections where contemporary romance and light WF are popular

It was a perfectly cute and nice book. I really enjoyed it and it was a quick and perfect read for when i needed a little bit of escapist reading after a really hard book. However the premise is a little bit, been there done that. Not only is the uk to US house swap been expertly done already in one of my favorite movies, The Holiday, There was also quite a good book last year as well with the same premise, The Switch, which i reviewed here. If you take that concept away, its a nice romance, yet i wish we got to grow in their relationship with them. I feel like it was a bit rushed, like we were not ok and then thy were falling in love through text, but we hadn't had access to those. On the other side i really enjoyed both characters so it was easy to root for them

Cassie is a former lawyer turned writer who decided to leave her hometown, Glasgow, after a series of traumatizing events took place. Just as she gets her first book deal, she decides on acquiring a house and a plot of land in a private isle just outside of Boston (US), where she befriends Laura, an 80-year--old lady just lovely in her ways but with some sassy for the right times, and Dina, a 40-some mother, who gets a lot of fun by having one-night stands with handsome guys. After getting prompted by her agent, Cassie accepts to move back to the UK for a while, for researching purposes, and resolves to go for a home swap, an AirBNB-kind-of-service, where instead of renting a place, you swap houses with other people.

It's through SwapBNB that she meets James, a somewhat recluse economist, in his 30s, that is looking for some time away from his life in London, that just happens to be turned upside down because of some uncomfortable events. Beyond just trying to get some fresh air, he is set on looking for business opportunities while living abroad. At first, James is a very close-mouthed guy, who doesn't seem keen on getting to know other people and even less so be friendly to anyone other than his old friends.

For about half of the story, the characters are so much unlike each other that you just can't see how the romance part is going to turn out to be. Even though I was very interested in knowing how things would unfurl, up until Chapter 20, the story seems just impossible to develop into some love theme or anything close to that. I had to put down the book for a few days and rest a little, and somehow that worked and then the rest of the story just flowed kinda easier.

I had a really hard time feeling connected to James, and event sympathising with the indications that his past was filled with some terrible situation that made him become so sealed up. On the other hand, Cassie, Laura and Dina just became my favourite group of best friends. Cassie is just an amazing woman, so strong for enduring a lot of hard knocks and still living her life to the fullest. Laura is simply the best lady you could ask for as a neighbour, the kind that will always have some comfort food for times of distress and be there whenever you need her. And Dina is a really funny and lively woman, with a lot of saucy comments but also so much love and attention to give to friends (and also to her numerous lovers).

Although some parts felt just too fast-forward, the story is great for when you're looking for ways of distracting yourself with something that is funny, love-filled and comforting.

The House Swap was a lovely, sweet romance that I could certainly see as a film one day. The House Swap features Cassie and James, who for different reasons sign up to a house swap website to get away from it all. Cassie heads to James' swanky London apartment, while James finds himself in Cassie's quaint Maine home. Neither get exactly what they bargained for.
Initially thinking this would have The Holiday vibes, I was curious as to how the romance would work if the hero & heroine weren't in the same country. I was pleasantly surprised that it actually worked really well. It's obviously quite a slow-burn romance (it would have to be, with them on different continents!), but there was plenty of opportunites for banter, flirting and meaningful conversations.. Once they did break into actual romance, thinks moved rather quickly although I was quite surprised to discover this was a clean/closed-door romance. It's been a while since I read one of those, and I was genuinely confused for a while as to whether the couple had actually gone all the way!
I am a little on the fence with the final "conflict" in the story, which is why I gave this 4 stars instead of 5. It was ultimately satisfying but possibly a little predictable and I couldn't decide if I enjoyed it as a plot or not. Ultimately though, this was an enjoyable read, perfect for a cosy afternoon curled up with a good book.

I'm surprised by the overwhelmingly positive reviews for The House Swap. While I loved the premise of this book, it wasn't my favourite - disappointing, because it just sounds so darling and fun.

First things first, assuming you've read the blurb and are just hear for the dirt, I'm going to dive right in. The "hero" is a douche. A few chapters go by and we find out his entire job is buying distressed companies and making hoards of people redundant. A man comes to his flat and begs him to reconsider, since he's worked for this company for twenty-eight years and in three months, he'll have access to the pension he's been paying into for all that time. If he's made redundant now, he can't ever access that money. Our hero James - the guy we're supposed to root for - pauses in the foyer of his multi-million-dollar apartment and basically says "that's too bad but that's also life! I have to go! Please never bother me again with the fact that I just torpedoed your entire retirement!"

It's awful. This is mentioned once and basically never again. James is also callous about pretty much everything. When he swaps homes with Cassie because of his psychotic ex-girlfriend (and REALLY he NEVER caught a glimpse of her behaviour before? This was hugely far-fetched), she leaves him lots of helpful notes, puts new sheets on the bed and food in the freezer and even waits around so she can give him a tour. He's enormously rude to her, shocked that she would go to so much trouble (he stripped his own flat down to the basics and leaves her to buy everything she needs) and by and large, he's irritated by everyone he meets. How does this dude have friends?

Again, a douche.

Throughout the story, the plot is revealed solely through dialogue, which left me unmoored at times. Cassie is supposed to be an author of a successful book series, but she never writes, researches or spends any time on WHAT BROUGHT HER TO LONDON IN THE FIRST FUCKING PLACE. James doesn't seem to do much of anything besides complain about his surroundings. He plays around with the idea of destroying a wildlife habitat in order to put up a hotel for millenials who hate nature, but his dreams of ruining the landscape that Cassie loves are quashed.

There's also a large plot around Cassie's supposed infertility and her quest to undergo IVF. I admit her longing for a baby was alien to me (she never seemed to want an actual child, if that makes sense, just a squishy baby to cuddle - which, I get it, but that kid is going to grow up my dear) and I didn't find that it entirely fit with the plot, even though I can see how the author thought it would, since James is determined to be child-free.

Onto the "love story". Cassie and James apparently fall in love, though they sure didn't in my copy of the book. This is largely due to the time jumps. All of a sudden, a month has passed and Cassie and James have apparently been "talking every day"!! Well that's lovely! Would have been nice, as a reader, to be privy to that! It just felt lazy to me. We need to be shown the love, not just told about it. Not to mention, the dialogue between them doesn't sound like the way human beings talk. It's as if they're aliens trying out English for the first time.

The drama between them seems manufactured at best. [James' horrible childhood and his guilt complex feel like very tidy reasons for avoiding all intimacy but weirdly, he's totally like "I LOVE YOU" to Cassie while barely knowing her (which leads me to think he's best at surface relationships) but the fact that he doesn't want children is a dealbreaker for her. Really? I suppose I'd never give up my husband for the chance of a baby so this was weird for me, but she's clearly miserable, so. Not to mention, the miracle multiple pregnancies...!!! Like wtf. No. So unbelievable and icky. (hide spoiler)]

I wanted to like this very much, because the premise seemed so escapist and lovely, but the abundance of dialogue, time jumps, asshole hero who makes people redundant for a living and everything happening behind the scenes (please show me the characters falling in love!!!) make this a two-star read for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.