I was looking forward to this friends to lovers, single dad romance, but the plot fell flat and and there were just too many issues for this to work for me. ~ Java Girl – Guilty Pleasures Book Reviews
Synopsis:
Ben Dalton has always been honest, except where his heart is concerned. He’s been in love with his best friend—saucy, smart-mouthed Aurelia Stark—forever. But Ben’s a planner, and timing has never been on his side. When he finally decides to make his move, Aurelia beats him to the punch with a move of her own—to a different town.
Aurelia loves her new life in the charming town of Harmony Pointe. She has a great apartment and her very own bookstore, and best of all, the sinfully hot, commitment-phobic friend she’s crushed on for years is no longer just around the corner. Maybe she’ll finally be able to leave her unrequited love behind and move on.
But when a baby is left on Ben’s front porch—a baby that is presumably his—Aurelia is there for him. Neither one knows the first thing about babies, but how hard can it be? Ben and Aurelia are catapulted into a world of love, laughter, and tracking down the baby mama, and it might even add up to a very happily ever after… just not one either of them expects.
I’ve heard such good things about Melissa Foster’s books, so I was excited to read Call Her Mine. Two of my favorite tropes—friends to lovers and single dad—in one book! Unfortunately, Ben is also a billionaire—my least favorite trope. But that’s okay—two out of three isn’t bad, right? I certainly won’t say this book is bad, but it didn’t work for me. Aurelia and Ben are both intelligent, successful (billionaire!) people who have been best friends and secretly in love with each other for ages. Well, it’s a secret to Ben and Aurelia, everyone else in their lives knows exactly how they feel about each other. Which brings us to my biggest issue with this story—lack of communication and misunderstandings. For me, this is just a contrived obstacle and I like it even less than I do billionaires. Add in their complete cluelessness and ineptitude with the baby left on Ben’s doorstep, as well as their insistence that only they can take care of Baby B, 24/7, even though Ben is a billionaire working on the biggest deal of his career and Aurelia is in the process of opening a bookstore, and I just had no patience for them. They were cute with the baby, and both fell hard and fast for her, but I didn’t understand why they didn’t ask for help or read a book. As a plot device to create an issue/obstacle for them, it just didn’t work for me. Aurelia was raised in a bookstore, worked in a bookstore, and was opening her own bookstore—why not consult a baby book? There are also other children in the family, so I had a hard time believing they were this clueless. I had a few other issues with the book, mostly small details that didn’t make sense or ring true. Half of their small town knows about the baby, but Ben is keeping her a secret from his parents. While I thought they made some questionable choices, I liked both Ben and Aurelia well enough to hope they would get their act together and confess their love for each other. Unfortunately, doing so lead to some of the most cringe-worthy sex talk I’ve ever read. I had to stop reading the sexy passages because Ben’s sexy talk was anything but sexy. This is the first book in a spin-off series, so fans of that series and Ms. Foster’s other books may enjoy seeing these characters finally get their book (that’s my impression-they’ve been secondary characters in other books, but I could be wrong), but it didn’t work for me.
2 stars