I discovered Amy Lea earlier this year and loved Exes & O's. The Catch is the follow up and doesn't disappoint.

Melanie meets Evan in a small fishing village when she arrives at the only available accommodation on the east coast of Canada. Heavily influenced by "While You Were Sleeping" and "The Proposal" which is no bad thing. Of course, there was only one bed, a shower moment, and a hot, grumpy fisherman who gets injured. Very hot and steamy too.

Thank you to Penguin Random House UK and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review.

4⭐️

I really liked this book! The relationship is a bit of a slow burn but that just added to the tension between the characters. I liked how healthy the relationship was and how well they communicated and the spice was great too.

After a trilogy with two incredible books, this book closes in style the stories of our favorite influencers. It is true that in comparison I think it is the book that I liked the least of the three, but as I think all three are super good books, the fact that I liked it the least does not mean that it is a bad book.

And it's impossible for me not to like a book that is an enemies to lovers. I may be basic, I accept that, but I really love this cliché, the tension between the characters and I just think it's a story that I love. And here I quite like how it all unfolds, it's true that it's not a great enemies, but the chemistry and tension between the characters is there and I adore it.

I have to process everything so I can tell you more, but it's just that this book is as worth reading as the previous two. I think Mel is a fairly unknown character in the previous books because we only see glimpses of her, and meeting her in this story was a very pleasant surprise.

Honestly, after the trilogy I am left with the feeling that Amy Lea has become an author who knows how to entertain me and above all make me connect with her stories. I will definitely read everything she publishes, because I love her writing.

Okay so now I have a new favourite of the year!

The Catch is everything you want in an enemies to lovers romance, the tension, bickering, lingering looks before the inevitable passion leading to love declarations.

I was worried I wouldn’t like Melanie’s character, I think although they once appeared quite glamorous, social media influencers don’t get the best rep, and at times can come across as really entitled or completely out of touch with what is happening. But Mel was flawed and I liked how she opened up little by little to show us the impact of a difficult childhood has had.

Evan was the same, brutish and snappy at the first meeting it didn’t take long for his kindness and caring nature to shine through. Again I liked the slow reveal of both characters backstories.

The romance was burning slowly, moving from enemies to fake fiancées to friends to lovers, it was a slow process and at times you forgot the plot only spanned the space of a week.

I liked how despite his hard exterior Evan was the first to open up about his feelings and he was quick to apologise and make the journey to compromise just to have Mel in his life.

I felt so invested in this love story that I felt the heartbreak myself. This was an easy five star read and one I know I’ll return to in the late summer months!

First of all, I would like to thank @netgalley
and the publisher for granting me access to this digital ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Expected pub: 13th February 2024

Rating: 4,5⭐️

Read if you like:

🛥Fake Dating,
🛥Grumpy x Sunshine,
🛥Small Town Romance,
🛥Found Family,
🛥Forced Proximity,
🛥Enemies to Lovers.

Amy Lea gathered all my favourite tropes, used her magic writing skills and created a delightful, heartwarming story.

On one hand, I could not put it down and i binge read it, on the other hand, I wanted it to last forver.

It's a fast paced love story of Mel, who accidently finds herself in B&B in Canada, and Evan who runs this B&B. It is a hate at the very first sight, at least it seems to be.
After a freaky accident at the sea, Evan is taken to the hospital. To be taken with him, Mel states that she is his finance and the whole love story begins.

If you a romance fan, you cannot afford to miss this book. I would give it 5⭐️ as the ending could be a bit different.

A great, entertaing story that made me laugh and cry.

💭Ugh, this book is too cute🥰! I absolutely adored it. Amy’s writing is so good I felt like I was watching it as a movie in my head whilst reading it. It literally is a hallmark movie (just not as cheesy) in a book! I want to live inside this book and visit the inn, walk round the town and meet an Evan (don’t tell my husband, book boyfriends don’t count okay….🙃😂).

💭I related to Mel at times with her family issues, and totally got how she felt about Evan’s family. It made me think about how I feel about my husbands family❤️.

Great romance! Enemies to loves and fake relationships, it does it all and it does it well! My only qualm was that when it came to the sex scene jt fell into old stereotypes of he’s so big, she’s so tight and it was a bit cringe but over all a very enjoyable read!

2 ⭐️

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book! As you can tell, I wasn’t the biggest fan of this book.

“The Catch” was a very disappointing read for me. The story revolves around Melanie, a struggling fashion influencer, and Evan, a grumpy fisherman with a deep dislike for Mel for absolutely no reason, other than she just came to his listed, but apparently not active, Airbnb listing.

After a lot of hostility from the MMC, with again, absolutely no reason, I just found him annoying. Why does this man grunts so much and doesn’t seem to be capable of any communication?

As a side note, this is why I usually struggle with grumpy x sunshine trope because I absolutely dislike a lack of dialogue from any character. It gives me cave man vibes.

But, back to the review. A day later, Mel of course doesn’t like Evan but cannot seem to shut up about how big and strong and handsome (and did I mention big?) and broad chested he is.

After an incident, Mel and Evan then start fake-dating and of course there’s the one bed trope. The more tropes we throw at this book, the better it will get… right? Wrong.

But anyhow, after this relationship kicks off, and mind you, we’re on like Day 2 or 3 at this point, Mel starts to have feelings for Evan. I absolutely dislike when characters start to have feelings after this short amount of time.

Why? Why can’t they acknowledge they’re attractive and find out more about each other over a significant amount of time? Like, give it at least three weeks, I beg you authors. What’s also irksome, is the fact that this is the opposites attract trope and, really, after 3 days we, as readers, are supposed to believe that Mel and Evans are meant to be despite not knowing each other at all?

Obviously, the predictability of the third-act breakup is… predictable. Especially given the foreshadowing which is set out from the get go.

I don’t have much else to say about this book, other than at one point I might have rolled my eyes too much and it started to hurt.

Fashion and lifestyle influencer, Mel immediately clashes with grumpy fisherman, Evan when she finds herself at his family’s shutdown B&B 🦞 Between a boating accident and a feuding family she suddenly finds herself appearing as his fake fiancée…

This book was exceedingly enjoyable, with a perfect balance of humour, emotion and slow-burn romance. Both main characters had a depth to them that enhanced the story. The angst developed beautifully and had me wishing for a grumpy, lumbersexual, fisherman book boyfriend to call my own!

A wonderful continuation of the previous two books.

This was a sweet and quick read!
I didn’t love the fake dating, but that’s just not for me! If you like that then this book is cute, and a lightly spicy read.

Amy is a cute writer and I love her books! But was it my fave? OK, I haven’t finished her first one yet (I started it last week but I needed to get this one finished) but … no.

I feel bad saying that. And I think it’s the fake dating trope that drops it for me.

I get why it happened. I get why Mel does it too – she’s swept away in the love and closeness of having a family, something she’s never really had.

It was easy to read, spice was alright (not a fade to black which I HATE!!!), and it was cute.

I already have physical copies of books one & two of the Influencers series so I will be buying this one come February 2024. An incomplete series is a no-no.

All-in-all I did enjoy this book. There’s nothing overall awful with it, or that made me feel like I couldn’t continue to read it – always good.

The bits I didn’t like are more a personal thing of what I like and don’t like in books. Each to their own!
But I do recommend you read this if you loved her other books, love the film The Proposal, and just love the he falls first trope…. Yeah, that’s there too!

In this series, I've disliked the first book, which didn't work for me. Then I gave the series a second chance and ended up really enjoying the second book. I was hoping to enjoy this third installment just as much, but it lands more middle of the road for me.

There were definitely things I enjoyed, but I found a lot of this book very hard to believe. Of course a romance is often going to be a little over the top with the banter, which is often really fun, but with this one I just wasn't buying their initial dislike for each other and how mean they were to each other, being total strangers. This made me lose my investment in the story, meaning the romance didn't quite land for me. I also didn't totally love both of the characters, they annoyed me at times, which was also an issue for me with the characters in book 1.

Absolutely loved this book!

The authors writing style is amazing!

I look forward to reading more from them!

Amy Lea hits the mark yet again! The third in her 'Influencer Series', we have another story full of fun and sexy tropes - I mean, who can resist a grumpy X sunshine, big city girl, small town guy, fake-dating story!
Influencer Melanie is sweet and so easy to like and root for. and her cheeriness is a wonderful counter-balance to gruff fisherman Evan, whose AirBnB she ends up at unespectedly.
Their banter-filled conversations and growing attraction are super enjoyable to read and the spice was just right for the book.
Definitely recommend.

The Catch by Amy Lea 📕

💫 “I need wood, first of all.” I nearly spit out my beer. “You need wood, huh?” His eyes snag mine and there’s a faint trace of a smile, likes he’s trying not to laugh, “Are you ten years old?”

Mel, a fashion influencer, takes a work trip to Canada in order to save her brand but ends up in a rural fishing village where she meets Evan. Evan takes an instant disliking to Mel and they end up at loggerheads. However, Evan ends up in hospital after a boating accident and Mel ends up calling herself his fiancé in order to be able to stay by his side. Once his family are involved, Mel agrees to stay in the village as his ‘fake fiancé’ as long as Evan helps her with her social media. Feelings start to emerge and soon Mel doesn’t want things to be fake any longer.

My review 📖:
This is the third and final book in the influencer series and it has become my favourite one in the series (‘set on you’ a very close second!).

The main characters are written so well that I have a clear picture of them in my mind throughout. I really liked both of them; Mel has a great sarcastic sense of humour (much like mine so I could really relate) and she’s doing the best she can to be her best self given her turmoil upbringing. Evan is very caring, which is clear in the way he treats his family (and Mel eventually!), plus he has that alpha ‘aura’ about him together with a slight territorial side.

The book is set in a small town, which is one of my favourite types to read because nothing matches the intimacy a small town novel brings and there’s also just something about the alpha men that come from them!

I think the way this book approaches the whole influencer topic is great. It focusing on the ‘other side’, showing that not everything is as glitz and glamour as it might seem and that it won’t necessarily make you happy. Indeed, it’s your partner, family and friends that will.

The initial building of the characters, story and plot took a long time but once I got to about 30% of the way in I was hooked. There are several chapters where I laughed out loud and read over twice. The lighthouse chapter, in particular, was pure 🔥.
A few typos here and there, which I’m sure will be sorted before publishing.

Overall, a great way to end the influencer series!
What’s Amy Lea got in store for us next…

My score: 4.5/5 ⭐️

Publication date 15th February 2024 - available on pre-order!

I think I screamed in excitement when the email came through that I was being offered the opportunity to read this book in advance! As a big Amy Lea fan, I couldn’t wait to get started on this one!
Thank you @netgalley and @penguinukbooks for the eARC 🙂

Overall I found this novel very enjoyable. Light romance is not my preferred genre and this had a few characteristics typical of that category that I'm not found of. Mainly, the characters are very immature for their age, the plot was predictable, and heavy sex scenes were included that didn't further the plot, more so serving as "spice" for BookTok to swoon over.

However, it had many qualities that I loved too. It was quick, fun and easy to read. The small town setting was lovely and quite vivid. It was cosy and warm, with quite a few romantic moments that really hit the spot. I also really loved that the main character is a girly girl, and is embraced for it - too many books paint things like makeup as awful. It was refreshing to see it praised here, and in the right way - being typically girly/high maintenance isn't necessary to be attractive, but it's not a turnoff either.

I read this without having read the prior two books in the series, and I didn't feel lost, which was great. I would rate the book 3.5 stars overall. It's nothing revolutionary but it's an enjoyable palate cleanser and will definitely appeal to its target demographic.

There is nothing quite like a new Amy Lea book to get you out of your reading slump.

I'm a huge fan of Amy's influencer series, and The catch has not let me down. From the city lights, straight into the beautiful wild. A small town, enemies to lovers, fake boyfriend romance that makes you long for a romance like it.

It made me remember all the wonderful times me and my family have had, and how privileged, I am to have had this.

The deep feeling of loneliness you can feel, even when the world thinks you have it together, really resonated with me.

I honestly blitzed through this in half a day, and loved every minute.
5*.

The Catch - Amy Lea
3.5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

I have really enjoyed the influencer series and The Catch was a cute little story to round off the series 😊

I didn’t vibe with Melanie’s character as quickly as I did with Crystal or Tara but as the story progressed I found myself rooting for her more and more.
Evan turned into a great grumpy sunshine and the scenes between him and Melanie were gorgeous. Lea really managed to capture the lovable-ness between the two and these were the most heartwarming parts. I also really loved the intimate scenes in this books. They were written perfectly.


Special mention goes to Nana - the MVP - perfect character to bring that comedic balance.

Overall a perfect easy holiday read, I devoured it all on my flight back home. As much as there were a couple of parts I felt could have been more developed, I couldn’t put the book down and I will definitely be reading whatever Amy Lea puts out next 😊

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me the chance to read and review this ARC.
Was a great holiday read

This book is everything you’d expect and want from the genre. A bit of fun, likeable characters and some sad moments. Fits the genre perfectly.

3.75⭐️
I liked this book, I also read the arc for the previous book in the Influencer series so was excited when I realised that this book was also a part of that series. I think overall the plot was good, the fake engagement worked well and the extra scenes like them going whale watching and hiking didn’t feel like they were forced into the plot just for the sake of it. I will admit that Melanie did slightly annoy me at the beginning. Overall a decent book, no major surprises or plot twists but that matter because the book is a light hearted romance with a bit of spice