The Plus One was really hard to put down I was hooked from early in. Polly was a likeable character; I warmed up to her very quickly. She felt real to me, a bit like Bridget Jones, in fact this is who she reminded me of quite a bit, especially with the humor and the journalist job and the bad luck with men. I am sure we have all been there at some point though.

Polly’s best friend Lex is getting married and Polly is on the lookout for a potential plus one, this is not an easy feat as she finds out.

She is asked to interview Jasper, Marquess of Milton and her colleague has dated him before, she is not interested at all, well that is what she told herself before interviewing him. He works his charms and before long they are dating. This leads to a will he be her plus one or not and we end up in a bit of a spiral wondering for a while.

But this is not all that happens in this book, there is just so much, comedy, sadness, sex, anger and joy. The ending was quite unexpected, but that is all I am saying.

A fantastically written debut and Sophia Money-Coutts is a brilliant author. I would definitely recommend it. ( )

A little unsatisfying in one area, but overall a fun read.

Polly, a magazine journalist is assigned a puff piece to spend the weekend hunting and dining with a much coveted bachelor at his family’s palatial estate. Polly never suspected the weekend would turn into a relationship, at thirty her dating life hasn’t been all that active and this guy is from a different world compared to Polly’s humble background. While Polly navigates her new tentative joy in having a plus one, she also deals with a health scare for her beloved mom, her best friend’s upcoming wedding, and contemplates a career change.

The romantic relationships were where this book fell a little short for me. One of Polly’s relationships is mostly sex with very little getting to know one another, the other relationship there’s definitely a connection between the two however very few of the sparks I craved. Polly aptly compares her relationships to Marianne’s in Sense and Sensibility which is a book I enjoyed yet much like The Plus One the romance in Sense and Sensibility also isn’t one of the things I most enjoyed about it.

All the bits between Polly and her ailing mother were my favorites in this book, I liked how humorous and warm they were with one another, their love shone through in a much more genuine and engaging fashion than the romances managed. Between that strong sense of their small family and the author’s breezy way with words, I’ll be interested in reading more from her.

I received this book through a giveaway. ( )

Polly is a grand character, though she thinks/shares things QUITE literally...and if overthinking was a sport, she should have been signed up for it since birth! Honestly, I loved the humor, even when it strayed into the "adult" realm of things, and found myself stopping rather often to share a scene or chuckle with those around me. Now some of it may not be shareable depending on your audience...remember I said she is VERY literal, so there is no dancing around things going on here...but still, I was laughing. Oh and should I ever need to get into a latex catsuit, I've been sufficiently schooled. (OMG. LOL!) Anywho...

The majority of the story is filled with Polly's adventures through singledom with the possibly reformed playboy Marquess, Jasper. We see the ups, the downs, the stolen moments, and trivial banter, all while this romance is blossoming. I mean, he's fab alright, and turns heads wherever he goes, but sometimes you have to call a spade a spade. As much as I wanted to believe the fairytale aspect of it, I just couldn't quite put my faith in him. Even his past connection with her bestie La had me on edge...not that I thought she'd necessarily do something, but one never knows with circumstances, and green-eyed monsters...so when things turn the way they did, I was only half surprised. Now the ending though, that actually took me places I didn't see coming. I mean, I enjoyed the "show" and the fallout was handled well, but it felt a bit off. It didn't seem, even looking back, like it was leading to that particular outcome...so I wasn't displeased, I was just off kilter.

In the end, it was definitely out there, off the wall, and typically British...but I enjoyed it, even with the slight misstep at book's end. The humor was spot on, the transparency between friends applause worthy, and the characters well worth knowing. Recommended for ADULT readers of Contemporary Romance who love a good helping of humor pointed at the everyday trials and tribulations of adult life.


**eARC received for review; opinions are my own ( )

A very fast, slightly humorous, and sometimes frustrating read.
If you have read Bridget Jones's Diary then you have read this book -with a few changes! A little heavy on the sex, and what should have been a surprise twist at the end really wasn't...a little obvious for my taste.
*ARC supplied by the publisher ( )

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I love romance, and chick-literature. I love fast reads, and enjoyable nonsense. The cover looked so cute, and when I got approved the ARC on The Plus One from Sophia Money-Coutts on Netgalley, I was excited to read it. And then, it all started going downhill…

The Plus One is a book about Polly Spencer. She is thirty, single and works for Posh! Magazine. I didn’t like the Poly Spencer of now, and I thought, this might be a book where the main character is a lady with no self-respect, gets dumped, doesn’t have any ambition in life, and that’s okay.

People learn, people change, or if people don’t change, they start to be happy in their own world, without bothering what others think about it.

But Polly - she is all of these things, and on top of that she is not a happy bunny. She keeps complaining about things without trying to act on it, and her day consists of her checking if the phone has a message of her ‘crush’, and asking herself eighty-six times whether to send a message first or not.



I usually love these types of books, but not in cases where the character is just so… I don’t even have the words to explain.

And the book is full of words used too often (Shenanigans is such a lovely word, and Sophia destroyed it for me), lame pick up lines (‘I carry farm animals. I can manage you.’ - WHO SAYS THAT?), dialogues and useless waste of pages with people deciding what to eat:

‘So let’s get some onion bhajis to start. And then I’m going to have a butter chicken. And it comes with popadoms, right?’
‘Yes’ - I said, taking the menu from him.
‘And I’ll get the chicken jalfrezi. And plain rice. Mums, do we have any chutney?’
And it goes on…

At 42%, I decided to store this is my DNF stack. I really wish I had loved it, and I am so sad I didn't.

But life is too short to read the books you don’t like...
( )