April Whittier works in a field dominated by men and she is used to smothering her personality and femininity behind a steady, solemn demeanor. When she accepts an offer in a new company she is pleased that her new co-workers share their personalities, hobbies, and weekend fun. April, too has a secret life filled with her love of a popular television program and in fact she writes fanfiction and has quite a large following. She decides to take the leap and post her homemade Lavinia cosplay costume… with her in it. She gets a HUGE reaction but not all of it’s good. There are fat-shaming comments that she deletes, not letting those haters get her down. There is one surprising comment from Marcus Caster-Rupp one of the actor’s on the show saying how gorgeous she is and asking her on a date. Knowing it’s probably for publicity purposes doesn’t stop April from accepting and she’s totally surprised that there’s more hidden behind his beautiful persona that she may just want to know better.

I am not familiar with the fanfiction world at all but each chapter starts with a story from that world and I have to admit that I’m curious! As April and Marcus both write in that world, the reader gets plenty of insight into their characters in that fantasy world as well as the real life they live in. The tv show is kind of like a Game of Thrones but using Greek mythology characters, and while that was slightly confusing the fanfiction definitely helped clarify what and who these popular tv characters had been and were becoming. It was entertaining as well as helpful! These quick chapter prologues also gave the reader insight into what was happening inside April and Marcus’s heads, rather than using an internal monologue.

I loved many things about this book but what I loved the most was that the characters were so real. April was a big girl who was happy with who she was and was not going to change herself to fit someone else’s wants and needs. Marcus was an exceptionally fit man who looked to be not so bright, but was in fact very smart. Both characters were dealing from trauma from their childhoods and had triggers that the other person walked sensitively around. Can avoiding topics last a lifetime? No, so you know there are some situations that arise in this book that make both characters face those triggers. Each situation was very well written by Olivia Dade, making me emotionally react and involved. I love romance novels but sometimes they are not story driven. Never fear, Spoiler Alert has heat but more importantly there is a lot of story!

Our two main characters were so likable but really, so were all of their friends. There were some great chapters giving us hints into the second novel of the series revolving around Alex and his keeper Lauren that put it at the top of my TBR. Olivia Dade has scored a winner with this series and I am definitely taking a look at her backlog to see if there are any others that may be just as good. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

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