Despite having mixed to negative feelings about B. K. Borison’s debut novel, Lovelight Farms, I genuinely always enjoyed her social media presence. The pastel colors of her books and photos, the joy she seems to always show when she talks about her books and characters — all of it was super charming to me. So I never quite gave up on this author, and my wait paid off… sort of.
First Time Caller is a story about Lucie, a mother who neglected her personal life outside of motherhood in favor of providing a good life for her child. But now that she has everything she wanted — a great support system, a great kid, a job she enjoys — she doesn’t know how to do things for herself. And especially, she doesn’t know how to go back to dating.
Then one night, her daughter makes a call to a dating radio show and asks the host to help her mother. This sets us off on this journey. Lucie makes a speech about wanting more out of love, about wanting the very best, a man of her dreams; not settling for the first decent guy that comes along. And this speech makes a big splash and goes viral because it ends up resonating with so many people.
On the other end of the line, we have our hero Aiden — a radio host who stumbled into his position and now sort of hates it, working for a failing radio station. And of course, Lucie’s speech going viral works in their favor.
So, they get her to co-host with Aiden while he sets her up on a bunch of dates in the hopes of finding her true love, only Aiden and Lucie seem to be falling for each other instead.
I found the writing in this one to be so, so much better than it was in Lovelight Farms. The repetition of what people look like, especially the side characters that are going to get their own books is almost completely gone (which makes me doubly excited for future books). The dialogue is also much better and more natural. Plus, the chemistry is fantastic in this one.
I loved all of the side characters as well. Lucie’s daughter is a joy to read about, and their little family — the father, and his husband — are so funny and charming. There are also Lucie’s coworkers, all of whom were excellent and well-written. It just makes you want to return to this world, which is something I didn’t feel for Lovelight Farms.
And the city is described in this wonderful way, especially the little street where Lucie and her daughter live.
The only thing that kind of bothered me is what always bothers me — the spicy scenes. I feel like this may not be the author’s fault, specifically, though, but more like she was pushed by the current market trends to make this more… generic. Aiden says literally the same things that every single hero in romance and romantasy says. You know which things I’m talking about if you read even one book from this genre recently.
But Aiden is not that type of a hero. He’s sweet and kind, and genuinely unique in the romance landscape — and then his personality takes a wild shift to this dominating, dirty-talking creature whenever spice is involved. Which would be fine if that matched who he was, but it doesn’t.
It kind of soured the experience for me, if I’m honest. Everything was so great up to that point — funny, too! But I had to skim most of the spicy scenes because they were just unreadable (sans the cringe, of course).
However, it was a good read overall. I love that it’s all about a radio station because I love radio and I’m so looking forward to the next book in this series. Would I recommend this one? Absolutely! Even if you have the same issues with the spice scenes I do, it’s such a funny, cozy romance that you’ll have a great time anyway.
Happy reading!
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