Annie Cassidy is obsessed with the magic of happy-ever-afters. When a movie crew comes to her home town to film a rom-com, there’s potential for two dreams to come true. She can finally work for a real Hollywood director, and maybe stumble into a real-life love story.
I’ll be completely honest, I didn’t make it through this book on the first try. It begins with a chapter-long backstory infodump that I lost interest in and patience with. I returned it to the library and moved on in my reading pile.
But every time I finished a good romance ebook, Waiting for Tom Hanks popped up as a recommended read. The fact that it was keeping company with so many favorites convinced me to give it another chance. I’m glad I did!
I pushed through the exposition and there, at the end of the first chapter, we meet Uncle Don and his Dungeons and Dragons group. I fully admit it, once an author brings in the nerds, I’m hooked.
The story is full of feel-good whimsy, alternating poking fun at the rom-com genre and bringing it to magical life. There’s the grumpy leading man who makes the worst first impression, the meet-cutes that keep trying, the quirky best friend, and the feisty heroine who needs to be swept away from her small town life of writing listicles about hemorrhoid treatments.
The complex layers of the broody hero give the story some depth, and the romantic tension is nicely developed. There’s some LOLcringe with a horrifying blind date, and lots of sweet disaster characters like Uncle Don and Dungeon Master Rick. But it’s the tongue-in-cheek play with romance tropes that gives this story its appeal. It’s fun, funny, sweet and steamy, and I’ll keep it in my re-read pile.
Visit the author Kerry Winfrey at https://www.kerrywinfrey.com/ and check for her books at your local library!
