Mhairi McFarlane

It's wild to read a book written in the early 2010s and have it already feel quite dated just on the basis of the lovingly described outfits (Twee dresses with birds on them! Tulle skirts over leggings! etc).

Anyway, this is very much in the Mhairi McFarlane mode: 30-something woman in a dead-end job realises her boyfriend is cheating on her, dumps him and changes her job and her life, and meets someone new along the way. I appreciate how McFarlane tries as much as possible to write about show more characters who've done bad things rather than characters who are capital-B bad, and to have her characters react in recognisably human ways to the things they experience, even if some of the genre tropes grate (concerning levels of alcohol consumption) and some of the more serious plot elements sit uneasily alongside the more lighthearted parts. show less

Fake dating!? Yes please! A favorite trope to read, when done well, and Mhairi McFarlane did it REALLY well. She actually takes the time and effort to dissect the effects of doing something like this. It's got a psychological toll, it's straight-up lying to people who truly care about you (what is worse than faking it for your parents? Or his? And do you tell your best friends? The more people you tell, the more you risk it all coming out...). The main character's biracial heritage is also show more tactfully handled, as is the unbearable grief of a breakup you never saw coming—and the rage-inducing revelations of what truly caused it, and what a shit her partner had truly been to her.

I actually liked the love interest, Jamie, from the get go, and enough that despite his comparatively small presence on the page, I found myself siding with him in some of his and Laurie's miscommunication spats. He's got a reputation that he earned, and the more the line between fake and real blurs, the more those preconceived notions become a problem. It's masterfully handled, and I thought truly well done.

However, nearly everything to do with their place of work and the people therein is horrible. I don't mean poorly written or badly done, but just... fucking ridiculous. Sadly I have seen workplaces that behave with similar misogyny and machismo, so I know they actually DO happen, but good lord. The Michaels and Kerrys of this book are the absolute worst, and I surely cannot be the only person who hoped that perhaps Laurie or Jamie would at some point accidently hip-check one of them a little violently by a tall hi-rise window that happened to be poorly affixed to the building. Whoopsiedoodle.

Overall a delightful read, and also, I'm a little salty about the mention of Gregg's there in the middle, because I'm about as far as you can get from a Gregg's geographically speaking, and I have wanted a bacon cheese pasty since I read that line. Damn it all. show less

I do like a good Chick Lit. Unfortunately, they are hard to find, the genre being, in this reader’s opinion, being mostly composed of trite, formulaic and lazily written stock pieces. Someone mentioned that Mhairi McFarlane’s novels were both fun and readable and so I gave It’s Not Me, It’s You a go.

I am so glad they were right. In It’s Not Me, It’s You, Delia is living a happy life in Newcastle. She loves her city, her incontinent dog, her flat, and especially her easy-going show more boyfriend. So her job’s not great, working on press releases and social media for the local council, but it pays well enough and at the end of the day, there’s home to go to. On their tenth anniversary, Delia proposes to her boyfriend, Paul, whose reaction is a little off, and then a lot off, sending Delia into a search to find out what really matters to her.

What’s fun about this book is that it’s less about Delia finding the right man (and whether or not the right man is the one she’s been with all along) than it is about her finding her feet (and confidence) in her working life and in how she relates to the people around her. And her group of friends is pleasantly diverse, from a successful lawyer as a flatmate, to a socially anxious guy who prefers to meet only online or on skype than in real life. Also, there is no shopping. show less

Pub. date 10/ 7/25

CW: MMC's former co-worker died by suicide before the story begins

3.5 stars. Cover Story is an engaging novel about two damaged, messy people, but I'm not quite sure it works as a romance. We have Bel, an investigative journalist, whose brassy give-no-f*cks personality is a smokescreen for pain and fear after 1) a bad breakup and 2) a former colleague-turned stalker. Connor is a lowly intern who gave up a profitable finance job (and possibly his ambitious girlfriend) to show more start over in a new field. She thinks he's a condescending wanker. He thinks she's a bit too extra. They have to examine these harsh first impressions when Connor is accidentally recruited into Bel's undercover plot to gather evidence against a sleazy politician. Of course, that means fake dating.

Although Bel and Connor are never rivals (as the book cover erroneously states), they really, really don't like each other for almost half of the book. YMMV, but it quickly grew tiresome for me to read about another mistaken assumption. When their relationship finally thaws, they become strong allies and friends. Sadly, they still assume the worst regarding their feelings about each other , and the professions of love occur at the 96% mark.

I still enjoyed the book despite its frustrations. McFarlane has a wicked sense of humor that illuminates even some of the book's darker moments. Bel is a wonderfully flawed character who has done some shitty things , including cheating on her former boyfriend because she was unhappy in the relationship and didn't know how to get out of it, but she's genuinely a caring individual who takes a huge personal and professional risk to help a traumatized young woman bring her harasser's behavior to light. Connor also has his weaknesses, including a large stick up his butt, but a lot of that is his "enduring hardships" persona that keeps him from obsessing about a horrible incident that ended his finance career. The emotional support they eventually find in each other is arguably more rewarding than their alleged romantic chemistry.

For various reasons, I haven't read a new Mhairi McFarlane book in more than three years. Cover Story reminded me why she is one of my few auto-read M/F romance authors.

ARC received from Net Galley and publisher. show less