By a Thread: A Grumpy Boss Romantic Comedy Paperback – April 22, 2020

You know how I found this book? A screen shot of a one-star review posted in a book rec Facebook group.The reader who shared the SS said the review made her giggle (reviewer's name was blocked out from what I remember) and instantly one-click. Evidently, the reviewer thought this book would've been a perfect 5-star had it not been for the copious amounts of explicit smut. 🤭👀 👀 👀 👀To each their own and all that, but I meannnn...did someone say COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF EXPLICIT SMUT?I ran and one-clicked, too. 🤣 **shrugs**Unfortunately for me, the book then sat on my Kindle for several weeks while I raced through one of my own deadlines. BUT I finally got to it, and sweet baby Jesus—or cheeses as Ally would say—I must now read everything Lucy Score has ever written. When I tell you I was blown away—I was blown tf away. The writing style is absolutely immaculate. It flows and it's just so easy to read and follow. Miss Score is hella talented and I cannot wait to devour her backlist! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻Okay, okay, I'm done rambling and singing my praises. 😅 Onto the story!"I knew many things in that moment. I didn't like her. I didn't want to like her. I had no intention of treating her as anything but an annoyance. Yet non of that quelled my desire to be near her."We all have a favorite trope, right? Mine will always and forever be enemies to lovers. The angst, the tension, the "I hate your guts but I wanna get IN your guts" is IT for me. I adore it. 😍 By a Thread was a perfect contemporary rom-comish version of it. I don't know if Lucy intended to make this a rom-com, but I lost count of how many times I literally cackled out loud. The beginning with the pepperonis had me on the floor. The banter between Ally and Dom was just 💋🤌🏻 Their chemistry—even during the hating phase—was 🔥 And when they finally got together? Oh, honey...I was swooooooning."Was grumpy and rude suddenly the new hot? My v*gina seemed to think so."Ally is my kinda girl and the type of FMC I LIVE to read about in an E2L. She's not a doormat by any means, thank feck for that! She takes absolutely no shiz, isn't afraid/doesn't cower from Dominic, and...AND she's thick and curvy. 😩 YAS QUEEN. Plus, the last name Morales hints to the fact she's Latina and, helloooo, ya girl is Latina sooo... ✊🏻 #representationmattersOh, yeah, and she's a graphic designer (another thing I have in common with her, so more bonus points there.) I also loved the fact that, despite everything terrible going on her life, she chooses to the glass half full and believes things will get better. Not in a naive way, just in a refreshing optimistic way. She's literally sunshine and fire, and I just adored her from head to freaking toe.Now Dominic... Dominic-freaking-Russo... The man is one delicious alphahole, I'll tell you that. But there were several occasions where I found myself wanting to strangle him—and no, not in the good way. 😒 The man is fecked up. He's been let down by his father and used by women in the past. He's got baggage, ya know? But he literally hauls that baggage around everywhere and uses it as a shield, keeping people away at all costs. I get wanting to guard your heart and spare yourself disappointment, but at some point, you gotta man tf up and realize that baggage doesn't make you. Watching him unravel for Ally, though, was a beautiful sight 😏 and in the end, he proved himself—and proved he had a huge, generous heart—which is all we can ask for in the MMC."I was the beast to my mother's beauty. The monster to the heroine. When they looked at me, they saw my father."Some of my favorite background characters include Dom's mom (who had a very unique name), Gola, Linus, Ruth, and Missie. I liked Faith, too, but she wasn't around enough for me to really get to know her, which I did find a little odd since she's supposed to be Ally's best friend. In any case, I enjoyed something from each of these characters. They added that extra oomph to the plot with their presence and witty commentary.Overall, I fell head over heels for this book and these characters. I loved the fashion magazine part of the plot (had never read anything like that before) and the circumstances that led Ally to working there. As aforementioned the funny bits made me literally LOL, the angsty "I hate you" moments had me clapping excitedly in anticipation, the swoony moments were everything, and the smut...🥵 it was explicit but not erotica level, though there were quite a few scenes, so it was spicy enough for me. Now I will say, the last 20% had me stressed, and I do mean S-T-R-E-S-S-E-D. In the end, it all worked out obviously, but omg I was having a mini-panic attack. And the ending 😭💖 gahhh, I loved it so much! Charming and Maleficent forever! 💞"This moment of heaven was worth a lifetime of misery."If you're looking for a contemporary E2L with a rom-com feel, you need this book in your life! 🥰Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️Spice: 🌶🌶🌶Drama: 🔥Dark/possibly triggering content: None

I was interested in this book when I saw the main characters were not the typical 20-30 somethings. This was a first read of this author by me. Overall, I had no technical problems with the book. Few to no errors, character growth - at least on the part of the Hero was great; the heroine - slightly less and growth took a while.Overall: if you can get past some of the immaturity and utter nonsense that occurs, it's not a bad read. It's not a deep book that left me with a book hangover. I'd give the author another try, skeptically.Possible spoilers ahead:Pros:great snark between really everyone at some point but especially our leadsconversations flowed wellloved that everyone had jobs that had to be attended to - hey, money usually has to come from somewhereinteresting cast of characterssteam - when it finally got there (I think it was about 60-70% mark that it finally got there)great tension on everyone's partcomedy -a lot of comedythe ending where it's disclosed pregnancy was not for our heroine after having one. Too many books make pregnancy seem like a glorious, wonderful, fun thing. Guess what? It's not always. Sometimes it's a nightmare of discomfort from the start.Cons:the strip club scene. I agree, the heroine didn't want to strip for money or for fun Her friend knew it, so why didn't she force her to take money without doing so? This scene was really immature and selfish in my opinion.The ending. To me, it was a little rushed to wrap things up and ultimately was nothing more than pandering to our current PC climate. Especially with his mother. Really? Bombshell: She's gay. Why? Why couldn't these women have just been friends? But no, we have to pander to the PC climate.