How Sweet It Is begins with Kate Sweet—a wedding event planner known as the “Queen of happily ever afters”— agreeing to plan a book launch for her publicist best friend as the movie adaptation for the book is being produced by Evan Everstone, whom is the main judge for the highly coveted EVPLEX event planning award. The only problem? The book launch is for Drake Matthews; a horror writer known as the “knight of nightmares”. Things get off to a rocky start when Kate accidently maims her new client and Drake vetoes every one of Kate’s “Spooktacular” book launch ideas. Meanwhile, the handsome Drake Matthews has a secret: he has writer’s block and the only thing he can seem to write is historical romance. When Drake realises that Kate may just be the inspiration he needs for his historical romance love interest, the pair form an unexpected truce—Drake will agree to all of Kate’s book launch plans with no argument and Kate will help Drake do “research” for his book. But, between a visit to a crypt, a pumpkin carving contest in Wizard of Oz costumes, and a trip to Niagara Falls, Kate and Drake’s professional relationship quickly starts to turn into something more.
How Sweet It Is is a slow burn “enemies to lovers” contemporary romance novel with sprinkles of humour. It deals with themes like appearance versus reality, expectations versus reality, love and heartbreak, work/life balance, and family. Fans of The Hating Game by Sally Thorne, Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston, Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert, and Written in the Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur will adore How Sweet It Is! The main takeaways were that you must be true to yourself and follow your heart; Kate becomes an event planner instead of going into her family’s medical practice and Drake starts writing historical romance even though it’s not what his horror fans have come to expect. Another inspiring message from the book that I really liked is: “It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice”.
One thing that I loved about this book were the funny moments that had me laughing out loud. For example, Kate’s terrified reaction to Drake’s pint-sized “attack dog” and Drake’s sketchy-looking tin man costume. The romantic scenes were great, such as Kate and Drake’s helicopter trip over top of Niagara Falls. I also loved the fact that Drake, dubbed the knight of nightmares, turns out to be a big softy. Lastly, without giving anything away, the end of this book was super romantic and very fitting!
To be honest, there wasn’t much that wasn’t enjoyable! Some minor cons were that I didn’t feel that the cover art really matched the plot or feeling of the book, Drake and Kate had a few misunderstandings that really could have been avoided, and we never got to find out if anything romantic happened between Kate’s publicist friend and Drake’s brother…maybe this could be a potential sequel!?
This was my first time reading Dylan Newton’s work and How Sweet It Is exceeded my expectations. Overall, I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to other romance readers!
How Sweet It Is is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of July 13th 2021.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
What happens when the queen of romance falls for the king of horror–you get a “laugh-out-loud” romantic comedy, perfect for fans of Beach Read. (Kirkus, starred review)
Event planner Kate Sweet is famous for creating the perfect happily-ever-after moment for her clients’ dream weddings. So how is it that her best friend has roped her into planning a bestselling horror writer’s book launch extravaganza? But the second Kate meets—or rather, accidentally maims—the drop-dead-hot Drake Matthews, her well-ordered life quickly transforms into an absolute nightmare.
Drake Matthews is tired of the spotlight and tired of his reputation as the Knight of Nightmares. He’s really a nice guy! But he’s not prepared for Kate, a fearless agent of chaos in steel-tipped stilettos, or for that sweet sting of attraction he feels for her. She’s inspiring him to take his writing in a whole new direction—one that no one expects. Because now Kate and Drake are changing up the rules, and this plot twist might just surprise everyone . . . including themselves.
