My Favorite Half-Night Stand

Christina Lauren

Gallery Books

December 4, 2018

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Blurb: Millie Morris has always been one of the guys. A UC Santa Barbara professor, she’s a female-serial-killer expert who’s quick with a deflection joke and terrible at getting personal. And she, just like her four best guy friends and fellow professors, is perma-single.

So when a routine university function turns into a black tie gala, Mille and her circle make a pact that they’ll join an online dating service to find plus-ones for the event. There’s only one hitch: after making the pact, Millie and one of the guys, Reid Campbell, secretly spend the sexiest half-night of their lives together, but mutually decide the friendship would be better off strictly platonic.

But online dating isn’t for the faint of heart. While the guys are inundated with quality matches and potential dates, Millie’s first profile attempt garners nothing but dick pics and creepers. Enter “Catherine”—Millie’s fictional profile persona, in whose make-believe shoes she can be more vulnerable than she’s ever been in person. Soon “Catherine” and Reid strike up a digital pen-pal-ship…but Millie can’t resist temptation in real life, either. Soon, Millie will have to face her worst fear—intimacy—or risk losing her best friend, forever.

Perfect for fans of Roxanne and She’s the Man, Christina Lauren’s latest romantic comedy is full of mistaken identities, hijinks, and a classic love story with a modern twist. Funny and fresh, you’ll want to swipe right on My Favorite Half-Night Stand.

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SASCHA DARLINGTON’S REVIEW

As readers, we are always excited about welcoming a great new author into our world, which is why I am so ecstatic to have found Christina Lauren. My only regret is: why didn’t I learn of her earlier?

Like Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating, which I reviewed here back in September (you can read the review here), the characters in My Favorite Half-Night Stand have foibles and eccentricities that make them understandable, completely human, and lovable. Online dating has been the subject of books, movies, and TV shows, but in the hands of Christina Lauren, it is fresh and so very appealing.

Millie, a professor who’s an expert on female serial killers, fits in with her group of guy friends. She doesn’t wear her heart on her sleeve, in fact, her feelings are very deeply hidden from everyone, including herself sometimes. The guys have always accepted her as she was.

The beginning of My Favorite Half-Night Stand reminded me a little of a TV show I loved, which probably few people saw because it was tucked away on TBS called My Boys, and one of the actors has the first name of “Reid” so maybe the authors saw and liked the show too, or it could just be a huge coincidence, wouldn’t be the first time. Poker may have been traded for Monopoly, but the drinking and jokes are there as well as the friends aspect. Millie is truly friends with these guys regardless of their gender, which is, here we go again: refreshing. That’s where the similarity between the TV show and book end. The guys in My Favorite Half-Night Stand are all scientists, which, again is such a nice change of pace from the norm.

Millie and Reid, the guy she’s been closest to, have a “half-night stand,” and things begin to change, as you would expect them too. This brings me to the next thing I love about Christina Lauren. In the two novels I’ve read, the guys never act like jerks. They are good guys and any falling out aspect between the couple comes out of a misunderstanding, not out of the hero being jerky. How many novels have we read and wondered: why would she ever tolerate such behavior, much less want to get back together with him? None of that here. It’s plainly obvious why she would want to get back with Reid.

Lastly, My Favorite Half-Night Stand is well written, intelligent, funny, compassionate, and definitely one of the best, if not the best romance I’ve read all year. If there were plot holes, I didn’t see them, in this novel where the storylines are all nicely tied together at the end. This is the kind of novel you pick up, become immediately immersed in, and then don’t want to put down when life calls.

If you like fresh, intelligent romantic comedies, this one is definitely for you!

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The publication date for My Favorite Half-Night Stand is December 4. You can pre-order from Amazon here.

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rating:

5 out of 5 butterflies

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