llamareads
Written on Jan 18, 2019
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. Eliza squeezed her hands into fists, Don’t look at me still echoing through her brain. What was wrong with her? Clearly, the stress of this day was making her too stupid to live.
Please don’t match me. Please think I’m a hideous hosebeast. Please. With the right—or in this case, wrong—mix of hormones and pheromones, this whole thing would stay a simple accident. But if their hormones and pheromones matched—a complex, confusing, poorly understood phenomenon called attraction—being injured would cause her to fall into deep and serious infatuation with the first person she saw.”
Eliza is a klutz, a capital K klutz. Rather than joining the family business, like her twin brother, Elijah, she’s instead making-do with a succession of temp jobs. After a paperwork snafu lands the family business in danger of closing, her father has a heart attack and her brother has to go overseas for a work trip, Eliza buckles up and agrees to take over the business for a month. Well, she just intends to answer phones and postpone the few appointments they have, that is. Until she finds out that the new laws on the book (yes, of course, they have laws for Cupid-ing, because it’s California) require her to get her provisional Cupid license to even file paperwork. Oh, and her mentor can’t be anyone in her family – but luckily her childhood best friend (and crush) is back in town… Forced into going through the process that brought her so much humiliation – and now with Jake, who still still has feelings for, having a front seat to her screw ups – she soon discovers that there’s something much worse going on than her bumbling attempts at enchantments…
“Eliza stared at the naked Mandroid on her desk. It was time to decide how badly she wanted to be licensed. Yes, she wanted it badly enough to study her ass off. Yes, she wanted it badly enough to put her entire life on hold. But did she want it badly enough to do this?
Yes. Yes, she did. Because at the end of the day, if she had to jerk off a robot to help her family, that was what she’d do.”
I loved Eliza, but I can see how she’d be a problem for some readers. She’s very insecure, and utterly convinced that everyone thinks she’s a failure. Part of the problem is that she’s very klutzy and her Cupid powers are also very strong. While most Cupids require some sort of injury involving blood to form an enchantment (like pricking a finger), dropping a chocolate bar on someone’s foot is enough for Eliza to enchant them. With all Eliza’s seen, she’s convinced that true Love – as opposed to an enchantment – doesn’t exist. A Cupid enchantment lasts for a specified amount of time, and only works if the two parties involved already had some sort of attraction to each other. Watching her attempt to control her powers while also managing her attraction to Jake was absolutely hilarious. Of course there’s a delightful series of screw-ups, including sexbots, addictive phone games, and a lovelorn sea mammal. The chemistry between Eliza and Jake was excellent, and I loved their relationship, possible enchantment and all. As for cons, it is very much on the light side, and some of the plot points verge on silly. The villain’s explanation for his dastardly plan is, well, simply ridiculous, but by that point I was so enchanted by the rest of the book that I just rolled my eyes and kept going.
Overall, this is the perfect little confection if you’re looking for something funny and sweet, and I will definitely keep my eyes out for the next book in the series!
I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.