Love At First Hate by A.R. Casella and Denise Grover Swank

 Huge thank you to the authors for the free eARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

Amazon

Synopsis from Goodreads: 

The first book in a new series by Denise Grover Swank and A.R. Casella, authors of the USA Today bestselling Asheville Brewing series.

She wants his story. He wants his secrecy. Too bad he can’t stay away from her.

Molly

Blogging about bad dates used to be fun, but a girl can only take so much foolishness. So I broke up with my job.

Okay, full disclosure, I was fired. It’s a long, sordid tale, involving my sourdough starter—RIP, Fred!—and my ex-boss’s serious lack of humor.

Newly funemployed and in need of a break, I go to Asheville to dogsit for my sister…and stumble onto a scoop big enough to put my fake-dating days behind me forever.

Augusta Glower, local success story, wrote a bestseller about the self-help group she started. People think her system works, and copycat Bad Luck Clubs have sprung up nationwide. Something feels off, though, and a little poking around by yours truly suggests she stole the idea.

There’s one problem. I have to prove it, and the guy she ripped off—super-hot house flipper Caleb Reynolds—seems to…well, hate me. Which is too bad since his secrets aren’t the only thing I’d like to peel away.

* * *

Cal

Molly O’Shea is my worst nightmare.

Is she sexy as sin? Well…yeah. Does she smell like honeysuckle and trouble? No doubt. Is she determined to dig up my secrets with a backhoe? I’m pretty sure she got a two-week rental. But I’ll never talk. If the reason I started the club gets out, my whole life will implode.

So why is she so damn irresistible?

Genre? Romance

Backlist? No. Publishes tomorrow - August 12, 2021

New to me Author? Nope. Absolute favorites.

What did I think?

You know that feeling you get when you see that your favorite movie franchise is adding yet another sequel or spin-off and you're like "Okay, I get it. I love this. But we can stop now."? Yeah, that's not what happened here AT ALL. Love At First Hate had the potential to be just a weird flop of a spin-off but, as always, A.R. Casella and Denise Grover Swank just full on hit it out of the park.

Cal (co-founder of the Bad Luck Club from the original series - Asheville Brewery) has had credit stolen from him for founding the club and he has no intention of setting the record straight in case anyone found out his secret. Molly is in town dog-sitting for her sister Maisie and out of boredom, starts investigating the Bad Luck Club to try to break into official investigative journaling. As you can probably guess, man-who-doesn't-want-his-secrets-spilled and investigative-journalist-set-on-finding-the-whole-truth don't really mesh. But *spoiler* (only not really, because look at the title and the fact that this is a romance book) this definitely fits the enemies-to-lovers trope in the best way.

Enemies-to-lovers isn't necessarily a trope I go looking for, so I don't have a ton of history with them, but I really did love reading about Cal and Molly. This book, like many of the others, is written through dual-perspective between our two main characters. It was so frustrating reading both of their thoughts when if they would just talk to each other, things would have been solved faster! And when I say frustrating, I mean I was like "Just tell her!" and kept reading to see if he did. I will absolutely read more of this series. I fell in love with all the quirky characters that were only just mentioned in the Asheville Brewery series. Definite 4.5 stars. These two are incredible co-authors.