An unpredictable and immersive read, The Back Up-Man was a book I enjoyed it short stints, but I feel longer hour + sessions would have made me love it more.

this cute rom-com is perfect for a cosy night in. At first, I was a little concerned that I wasn’t going to get on with this book as I struggled to connect to the story and Anya’s persona, but I kept coming back to it and ended up thoroughly enjoying it!
I really loved Anya, Georgia and Paddy’s friendship and I was hooked - I had a sneaky suspicion that she would end up with the person she did end up with (hehe) and I’m so glad she did! their story was so cute and he’s the perfect person - green flags all round.
I have previously enjoyed Phoebe Luckhurst’s books and I will continue to read them - she has a knack for nailing the rom-com style! I would really recommend this book to all!!
overall - adored it! I loved how Anya came into her own and her character growth thorough the story. <3

This was a fun book to read and it helps that it is based in Glasgow which is 30 mins from where I live so I knew where the characters where. I struggled reading this due to the way that the PDF was displayed however i was able to read the full book. This is a fun and relaxing book to read and i read it in 24 hours.

I struggled with this book a wee bit, finding it really slow to get going. I did not find the main character relatable, finding myself rolling her eyes at her ‘woe is me’ attitude.
I enjoyed her friends and sisters, but just found the dynamics fell a bit flat.
It did give me places I wanted to visit next time I’m in Glasgow though!

I really enjoyed this book. It’s packed full of humour, trauma, drama and just about everything else you look for in a book. Things could certainly be better for Anya Mackie when this book starts and she faces a few more challenges along the way but I enjoyed reading her story and came to love her as a character.

Anya is newly single and not happy in life, so when she finds an old note signed to say that her and old boyfriend Euan would marry at thirty if they were still single, she sets off to find him. She ends up with help from Jamie, an old school friend. He has his own reasons for trying to find Euan, but will the search lead to something unexpected for them both? a great read.

The Back Up Man was a fun read, I really liked the main characters and their escapades as they tried to locate Ewan. I enjoyed the main character’s emotional journey as she tried to sort out her life. Her experiences as a nanny were especially amusing.

It was an enjoyable read, and felt quite warm and cosy.

You get dumped, you decamp to stay with your awful cousin and you find your school yearbook with a scrawled pact from your sixth form boyfriend promising to get married if you are still single at 30. What's a girl to do? This was a lovely read with nice characters and a good ending.

Rate : ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre : Contemporary Romance
Author : Phoebe Luckhurst

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for this eARC in exchange for this honest review.

Upon reading the synopsis of this novel, I was immediately sucked in. Seeking out a high school sweetheart is always something I love, especially second chance romance as well as childhood friends/high school friends to lovers.

The book started off on a very sour note with our main girl, Anya, being hit with a very large stroke of bad luck. It seemed like it was one thing after another, first her breakup and then her quitting her job and then moving in with her weird cousin Clare who doesn’t seem the most friendliest of people. Although it seemed far fetched, you couldn’t help but feel sorry for Anya and wished that she would find her lucky streak soon enough.

We got to connect with the characters and get to know them. For me, if I can’t connect with a character (especially the main character), I find it hard to like the book. Anya was a great character and had plenty of development throughout the novel. Her dream of owning a catering company was something I was rooting for. I have to admit, I loved Paddy and wished he had more time within the book.

For me, the plot didn’t actually start until halfway through the novel. It was a slow beginning with many trips of bars and pubs that were more filler to me than having any hand at aiding the plot. So, unfortunately, it took me a while to get into the book.

Luckily, it picked up more once Jamie was introduced into the plot and their quest to find Euan took place. I enjoyed piecing everything together as I read along and couldn’t wait for them to find Euan again and finally reunite after not seeing each other for around twelve years. You were rooting for them to get there.

Another thing I didn’t like was that there wasn’t a lot of romance in the novel. The romance that was there, it wasn’t a lot and the end couple (although one I rooted for) we didn’t get to see much of them.

Despite that, I did enjoy the read and would recommend this to anyone who loved a bit of mystery alongside some romance but I, personally, wouldn’t read it again.

CW/TW : Use of alcohol, arguing

Really enjoyed this and if you liked The Lock In, you’ll love this one too! A cutesy romance with a bit of a fun mystery and cooking and meddlesome twins!

I really liked Anya and overall the whole story!! Her friend Paddy and sister Georgia were great too. A lot of the story was build up, and while the storyline through it was good, we didn’t even find out about the pact with Euan until 25% in, and then we only meet Jamie halfway?! So the whole premise of the book actually only takes place during half of it which kind of let it down a little for me!

Overall I liked the romance and all of the characters and side plots!

This is the first Phoebe Luckhurst book I’ve read and it didn’t disappoint. It was funny, easy to read and a little believable you could imagine someone actually doing this. I also loved the different food references and my mouth was watering especially at the sound of the brownies. I did find the book a little slow going at the start but once I got into it I was absorbed and couldn’t put it down.

The Back Up Man follows Anya who has broken up with her boyfriend and lost her job and has to go and live with her strange cousin - whilst sorting out her things she finds a pact from when she was a teenager which she signed with her then-boyfriend saying if they were both still single at 30, they’d get married.

She becomes determined to track him down and enlists the help of his friend who is also searching for him - for other reasons. The part about the ‘back up man’ really doesn’t happen until half way through, I went into this thinking it was a romantic comedy - but it’s not. It’s contemporary general fiction with a tiny romance subplot right at the very end.

It was an enjoyable read - but it wasn’t what I was expecting at all based on the synopsis.

This is an entertaining and hilarious rom-com, perfect if you want to laugh and escape this bleak reality.
Well plotted, interesting characters, a lot of humour.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

The Back Up Man is an entertaining romantic comedy, which is a lot of fun to read with many hilariously funny moments. The characters are likeable and also hugely relatable and I was was particularly drawn to Anya’s character, her love of cooking and her food blog.

Anya’s life has taken a turn for the worse after a breakup, losing her job and having to move out of her flat. However she soon begins to pull herself together and I became fully invested in her life as she gradually gets herself back on track. She becomes a childminder for a rather dysfunctional family and at the same time begins to focus on her catering business. I enjoyed following Anya’s and Jamie’s adventures to try to find Euan, a high school friend they have both lost touch with and need to find for their own reasons.

I was a little bit disappointed with the ending and although we had closure for Anya I was left feeling a little sad for her cousin Claire, whose small side story line was left wide open. This left me debating whether this might prompt a second book. That aside this book is a funny, entertaining and uplifting. It’s a joy to read, especially the delicious and mouth watering food references. I will definitely be seeking out recipes for Green Risotto with Hazelnuts and Kimchi fried rice. 3.5 stars.

Thank you to the publisher for the eARC to review.

This was a fun, easy read and I very much enjoyed it. Anya's life is falling apart - dumped by her long-term boyfriend she finds herself homeless when she has to move out of his flat, and she loses her job in dramatic fashion. In an attempt to make ends meet, she babysits for a somewhat dysfunctional family while she follows her passion and sets up her own catering business, and moves in with her rather smug cousin Clare. When she discovers a piece of paper and is reminded of a pact she and her high school crush Euan made, she decides to get in touch with him but he proves rather elusive - so when another school friend, Jamie, says he is also looking for him, they decide to team up to track him down.

Luckhurst has created some relatable and likeable characters, and I enjoyed Anya's relationship with her sister Georgie and best friend Paddy. Anya's and Jamie's escapades were very entertaining and it was nice to see Anya find herself, though her happy ever after ending perhaps felt a little too abrupt.

This was a light, fun read that felt like it could have carried a little more weight but it was enjoyable.

I read this book in one sitting and I couldn’t put it down, I did find it very slow to begin with before it even got to the ‘back up man’ bit we were nearly 50% way through the book. I think it would have been better if Jamie was introduced earlier so we could see the dynamic better.

The ending felt a little rushed and predictable, I wished the relationship in the end wasn’t so rushed so we could see something more blossom between them.

I did enjoy the book and will likely pick up a physical copy once released, it’s definitely an easy read romance that I think is rather relatable these days especially with women in their late 20s.
I enjoyed the the cooking aspect too and wished to read about how the events went down.

I Would like to thank netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book before publication.

It was a very pleasant afternoon book for that’s laced with romance tinged with humour and a little dash of women fiction. I had a very good time reading and undoubtedly going to recommend it to almost everyone I can.

I really enjoyed the story and the characters within it. This kept me going when I was really put off by all the copy errors - so many missing words, he's and she's muddled, and pretty much on every page. I hope this is all checked before going to print as it risks putting off people reading to the end, and it is worth getting there. Thanks to the author, publisher and netgalley for my arc.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an early copy in return for an honest review. I really enjoyed this novel and really felt the improvement from the author's last novel. This was a fun novel that provided some escapism from every day life.