Title: Love At First Sighting
Author: Mallory Marlowe
Pub. Date: August 12th 2025
Genre: Paranormal/Contemporary Romance
Format: DRC
Publisher: Berkley
Pages: 352
☆☆DRC PROVIDED BY PUBLISHER IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW☆☆
GOODREADS | BARNES & NOBLE | LIBROFM | AMAZON
El Martin is rapidly growing her social media platform while living in a Los Angeles influencer house as a Lifestyle vlogger. In the middle of a culture obsessed with clicks and likes, El finds herself growing disenamoured with her career and the toxicity that comes with it. While trying to fulfill her commitment to one of her Fitness sponsorships, El ends up inadvertently capturing a flying object while recording a video. Against her better judgement and the unwritten rule of the influencer to not post anything unrelated to your feed’s specialty, El decides to follow her excitement and post it to her followers. The mass unfollowing begins but El tries to not focus on the loss too much and instead on the fact that she’s found the spark she’s been missing. What she doesn’t expect is to capture the attention of the Private Intelligence Sector who has assigned Agent Carter Brody to her case.
Agent Carter is working for PSI and like El, he too is not quite feeling it in his career of choice. He aspires to follow in his father’s footsteps working on finding and hiding extraterrestrials. After watching El’s viral video of an unidentified flying object, Carter feels this might be the opportunity he’s been waiting for. The unidentified object looks a lot like what he saw as a child right before tragedy struck his family. Living with more questions than answers, the mystery that has plagued him may now get solved.
After the absolute enjoyment I experienced with Mallory Marlowe’s first book Love and Other Conspiracies, I was stoked for Love At First Sighting. Following the paranormal vibes of its predecessor, our MC’s are catching sightings of UFO objects in the sky. This time however, the romance falls heavy on the insta lovey which led to less character depth and development. I had such a hard time connecting with the characters and their romance but figured I’d push through in hopes that the paranormal aspects would deliver. They admittedly fell short as well, instead we get some action scenes at the end but no real UFO sightings/experiences to make this one as fun as the first book and its legend of BigFoot. What I liked? El’s willingness to follow her excitement regardless of the outcome/fall out. Carter’s random photo ops without filters/touch-ups lead to her posting these raw unedited photos of herself. El’s comfort level with her social media image changed towards a more carefree live in the moment approach. I’m hoping the next Mallory Marlowe book returns to the fun strangeness that was Love and Other Conspiracies, maybe even a hate-to-love trope next time. Either way i will definitely be picking up the next one 😉
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Title: The Next Best Fling (Librarians In Love #1)
I’m always on the hunt for Latinx romance to feed my soul, these books typically have families as supporting characters and delicious dishes being cooked in the kitchen being served alongside the steamy romance. The Next Best Fling checked off all the boxes while also stirring my appetite for some authentic Mexican food. Marcela’s mother always having food on the stove or set aside for her was heart warming and made me think of my own dad who loved to feed his daughters. I also loved the library setting and actually seeing Marcela in her work environment where she thoughtfully chooses books for the Young Adult community reading in her branch. The fun nights of Cosplay she and her friend organize to really get kids excited to read and be a part of something had me smiling and wishing I had that as a teen. Marcela is one of the coolest FMC’s I’ve come across with the exception of the lack of transparency she had with Theo while he was confessing his years long feelings for the bride to be. They were in the same exact boat except Theo spent it mostly in the dark about Marcela’s feelings for his brother the groom. Other than this, I could relate to Marcela SO MUCH! her insecurities absolutely came into play while handling her feelings and it was empowering watching her come into the realization that she’s bad a**! and NOT undesirable. Theo being the sweet kind big guy that he is allowed Marcela to see she was settling before just by simply listening and observing all of the little things she loves. Instead of making someone the center of her world, she was being doted on like she deserved. Friends to Lovers is my favorite trope to read from and although there isn’t a foundation for their friendship, it does evolve as one first before it turn romantic. This is the first installment in the Librarians In Love series by Gabriella Gamez and I’m looking forward to reading more from this author.
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It seems only right that my first wrap up in a very long time coincides with the very first taste of cool weather here in New York City. While it was fun making my own Starbucks Oat milk Shaken Espressos at home, I’m ready for a lower maintenance hot cup of coffee this Fall. August was a month of spending time with friends, family and one VERY LONG road trip that ended up being an awesome time! it was also a month of consistently training my Brittany puppy Reese who is 8 months old and ready to tackle September’s hiking trails. Over on Bookstagram I get a lot of questions about Reese, so far he’s learned the commands sit, stay, drop it, paw, high five, down, and with me. His favorite words are eat, water, Dentastick, outside and go which he translates as run. Potty training was a labor of love but we’ve got him going outside every 8 hours/3x per day with no inside accidents *victory dance*
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