Lynn Painter delivers funny, charming banter and an opposites-attract tension in this heartwarming rom-com about divorce, trust, blended families, and vulnerability.
In Lynn Painter's rom-com Betting on You, rule-following seventeen-year-old Bailey and sarcastic, joking Charlie meet at a fraught moment--they're both leaving Alaska and coping with their parents' divorces. They're polar opposites, and they drive each other crazy.
Now they're living in the same hometown again, and, coincidentally, they're about to be working together at a bizarre hotel fun park.
But now that they're letting down their guards, commiserating about their complicated home lives, and speculating about the imagined private lives of the hotel guests, Bailey thinks Charlie is actually pretty fun, and she looks forward to her work shifts. Charlie is starting to see the appeal in Bailey's honesty and frank approach to communicating.
When Bailey and Charlie fake date in order to try to thwart the new relationship between Bailey's mom and her always-around boyfriend, Bailey realizes she's got feelings for Charlie. And Charlie's emotionally immature, but he's never let his guard down the way he does with Bailey.
But the hotel guests' romantic futures aren't the only ones Charlie has placed a bet on. When Bailey finds out that Charlie offhandedly asserted he could get her to fall for him, it threatens to doom any potential relationship between Charlie and Bailey before it can even start.
Painter delivers charming and funny banter, emotional growth, deep friendship, plausible missteps that keep the couple apart, heart-wrenching moments of vulnerability, and heartwarming looooove.
Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book?
Lynn Painter is the author of another rom-com I adored, Better Than the Movies, as well as Happily Never After, Accidentally Amy, Mr. Wrong Number, and other books I haven't yet read.