Ten Trends to Seduce Your Bestfriend, an all-new quirky and witty laugh out loud romance from New York Times bestselling author Penny Reid, is now live!
Winnifred Gobaldi and Byron Visser are not best friends.
Yes, they’ve known each other for years, but they’re not even friendly. Winnie considers them more like casual, distant acquaintances who find each other barely tolerable, especially when he's being condescending (which is all the time).
The truth is, they have nothing in common. She’s a public school science teacher with stars in her eyes, and he’s a pretentious, joyless double PhD turned world-famous bestselling fiction author. She loves sharing her passion for promulgating women in STEM careers and building community via social media, and he eschews all socialization, virtual or otherwise. She’s looking for a side hustle to help pay down a mountain of student debt, and his financial portfolio is the stuff of fiduciary wet dreams. So why are they faking a #bestfriend relationship for millions of online spectators?
When a simple case of tit-for-tat trends between nonfriends leads to a wholly unexpected kind of pretend, nothing is simple. Sometimes, it takes a public audience to reveal the truth of private feelings, and rarely—very rarely—you should believe what you see online.
Ten Trends to Seduce Your Bestfriend is a full-length, complete standalone, adult contemporary romantic comedy.
***5 Stars***
This book was kind of everything. Fun, frustrating, fascinating, sweet, snarky and just all around an enjoyable ride from start to finish, even when things weren’t so enjoyable. Winnie and Byron kept me turning the pages to see what would happen next in their journey and left me wanting more when there were no more words to read.
Winnie and Bryon. Talk about two unique and fascinating characters. Winnie, I really liked from the start. Her passion for her job and sharing it with the world was what drew me in and her insecurities made it easy to relate to her. Byron took me a bit to warm up too. He’s either too blunt for his own good, or absolutely silent ~ which is a bluntness in and of itself. But once the way he looked at the world was explained, I totally got him and ended up loving him.
Their journey to their HEA is all kinds of slow burn, awkward, frustrating and heart palpating goodness. They both have a lot of things weighing on them and watching as they work through them, with the help of TikTok challenges and a great BFF, and finally seeing who the other person was, had me believing that they were exactly what the other never knew they needed. There were definitely bumps in their journey, but I liked how they worked them out and while I could have definitely done with more in the end, I loved where they were at when everything was said and done.
I’m a fan girl of the author and will read anything she puts out, and this one didn’t disappoint. It was a long read, word count/page count wise, but it was worth it and Winnie and Byron needed it all for their evolution. There are topics in here that may be triggers for some, but they were handled with care and respect. As for the supporting cast of characters, Amelia was awesome as was Serena. So, if you’re looking for some slow burn, at times awkward, goodness, then this is a must click for you.
~ Copy provided by SBPR & voluntarily reviewed ~
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“This is the video from yesterday.” My stomach did a weird thing at the sight of him, and the sight of me crawling on all fours toward him, and what came after. I blinked away from the replay, before the part where I’d forgotten we were being filmed. “Why would I be mad at you about this? I knew you were filming.”
“Look harder.”
My forehead wrinkled, giving my attention back to her phone. I didn’t know what she wanted me to see, but now the video was repeating and—
“OH MY GOD!” I grabbed the phone. “This—this is—”
“Shh! Yes.” Now Amelia looked around, presumably to make certain none of the Seattleites surrounding us felt a disturbance in the politeness force. “Yes. I recorded it live. I’m so, so, so sorry.”
I leaned forward. “So that means it’s been—”
“Posted since last night. That’s right.” She covered her face again, groaning. “I’m so sorry.”
My eyes caught on the number of views, and I stood from the table, my chair scraping noisily on the linoleum. “ONE MILLION VIEWS?”
“Sorry!” she whispered loudly to someone at a nearby table. “We’ll just—we’re leaving.” Amelia grabbed my laptop and notebook and tilted her head toward the exit. “Time to go, and it was one point three the last time I checked. Now get your bag.”
Numbly, I lowered her phone and grabbed for my backpack and coat, fumbling with the strap. My fingers didn’t seem to work. She walked around the table and placed a hand on my back, helping to usher me out of the quiet area and waiting until we were standing in the hall to say, “I’m so sorry. It was an accident.”
“I can’t . . .” I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t speak. One point three million views. What must Byron think? “Oh crap,” I whispered, my gaze swinging around the interior of the library, unable to settle. “What about Byron? Does he know? How is he going to feel about this?”
“I don’t know if he knows. I’ve been trying to call him all morning. He won’t pick up his phone, and I’m frankly a little scared to leave a voice mail. Since he’s not on social media, he might not know.” Stuffing my laptop and notebook into my backpack, Amelia put the strap on my shoulder and took her cell phone from where I still gripped it.
I immediately covered my face like I could hide from this. My cheeks were hot. As much time as I’d spent this morning coming to terms with Jeff’s decisions last night, I’d spent ZERO seconds thinking about my ridiculous reaction to Byron’s performance. I wouldn’t allow myself to think about it. What was the point? He’d been pretending, acting, playing a part, and—as per usual—I’d left the interaction feeling like a fool.
“We have to delete it,” I rasped, my mouth dry, my brain on fire. “Before he sees it and finds out, we have to delete it.”
“No! No. Don’t do that.” She pressed the phone to her chest.
“What? Why not?”
“Think for a second.” She pushed me toward the elevator. “If you delete it, it might become a whole thing. He’s a famous guy who millions of people are starving to know more about. He has no social media and suddenly he’s on TikTok with you? And this isn’t like your lab video from Friday, this is you two together, acting like you’re close friends crushing on each other. We need to call him—together—and tell him. But first we need him to answer his damn phone.” Amelia nodded at her own assertion while stabbing the elevator call button with her index finger.
“Call him? You want to call him together?” Oh God. I didn’t want to call him. I never wanted to talk to him again. “You don’t think he’ll want us to take it down ASAP? Like you said, millions of people want to know about him. Don’t you think he’ll view this as an invasion of privacy?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?” I flinched back. “I think you mean, most certainly yes.”
“No.” She pulled me by the arm into the elevator and pressed all the right buttons. “We should call him, leave a voice mail together where we tell him exactly what happened, and ask what he wants to do about it. If you take it down, it might create more difficulty for him than if you left it up and let it run its course.”
I covered my face again, leaning against the wall for support. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“Hey, on the bright side, you have over ten thousand new followers. That’s . . . something.”
I groaned. I would’ve given up every single one of my new followers if it would’ve somehow undone the posting of that video. What a nightmare.
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