Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐💫
Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Release Date: January 14th, 2021
Add to Goodreads | Amazon.in (Available on KU)
BIRDIE: I’ll cancel it AFTER you’ve booked the other sleeper rooms. And reimburse you.
EDDIE: Don’t worry about it. Just cancel your tickets. I got this. Round trip. I’m on the Amtrak website right now.
BIRDIE: You don’t have to leave NYC when I do! You’ll hardly be able to spend any time with your Instagram girlfriend that you’ve never met!
EDDIE: It’s fine. She’ll be fine with it. Cancel your tickets.
BIRDIE: You aren’t going to stop texting me until I’ve canceled them, are you?
EDDIE: Damn right I’m not. Just do it. You can thank me later.
***
EDDIE: Um. Did you cancel your tickets?
BIRDIE: Yes, Edward. I canceled them.
EDDIE: Okay, because it turns out they only had one Family Bedroom from LA to Chicago. But the good news is I booked it for us. It’s the biggest room they had. The bad news is I booked it for us. And it’s the only sleeper room they have left now.
EDDIE: In related news, there was also only one room left from Chicago to New York.
EDDIE: Hands up if you’re excited! *man raising hand emoji*
BIRDIE: I am so mad at you right now.
***
BIRDIE: I’ve compiled a list of ground rules re shared train bedroom. Check your email, please read carefully, and refer to it again on the ninth of February. Thank you.
EDDIE: *nerd face emoji* Received. I have some notes.
“There’s the flash of awareness, the darkness and the nothingness, and then there’s just Birdie, calling me home.”
Kayley Loring is a wizard with words and storytelling, so it’s absolutely no surprise that this book was brilliant! If you, like me, read and loved A Very Bossy Christmas, then you’ve been not so patiently waiting to read all about Eddie and Birdie’s exploits. I gotta admit though, it didn’t have the same kick as I hoped, but it was still truly entertaining.
With Declan and Maddie, Loring created the most unlikely pair that made your brain explode with witty banter and sexy times. In Eddie and Birdie, she’s created a swoony and cute and freaking adorable best friends that you want to squish right from the start. We get a tease of it when we first meet Eddie, but nothing can prepare you for their awesomeness.
“I think I fell in love with you at first sight, Birdie. It just took me six years to realize it.”
Birdie (gosh, I love this name so much!) and Eddie have been best friends for six years – since they met in college – and they are complete opposites. Eddie is a Hollywood stud with abs for days and a sparkling, charming personality to match, while Birdie is a true blue nerd who gets off on museums and libraries and is just absolutely precious you want to stick her in your pocket. Their friendship is solid and they just know each other so well, it’s impossible to ignore how awesome that makes them all the time.
Every conversation they have is just so brilliantly written and completely hilarious. I laughed out loud a lot and gigglesnorted even more times, because that’s just how fantastic they are together. When we first meet Birdie, she’s so quiet and content with her own company, but I love this growth that she goes through once she and Eddie cross a whole heap of lines – including state lines. She becomes sexy, forward and naughty and it even catches Eddie off guard a little. But that’s what makes her so damn great as a character.
“I can live without the Cannavorgasms, I think. But I don’t want to live without Eddie in my life.”
Oh boy, the steam. *fans self* Even when they’re not naked together, it’s incredibly hot in scenes together. After all, they’re enclosed in a train for close to 40 hours as they go on this journey across the country. I wish I could make a glossary of all the jokes and words that these two invent over the course of their relationship, because I would want every dictionary in the world to include these in the future.
I was a little disappointed by the lack of conflict, because I expected Eddie’s relationship with that Instagram model to cause some drama. But it just didn’t. It was there and then it wasn’t and everything just fell into place nicely. While we got a whole lot of Cannavale family interactions and excitement the first time around, it’s a lot more minor this time, but it still packed a solid punch. Eddie and Declan’s mother is a riot, I would like her to be my friend, thanks.
A Very Friendly Valentine’s Day is a swoony, fluffy, steamy, cute best friends to lovers romance that will make you laugh, snort and fall head over heels in love. I also love everything about Kayley Loring’s writing style and I look forward to digging into more from her backlist and making a good dent in her previous books.
Thanks to Kayley Loring and Wildfire Marketing Solutions for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
anna reads here 