Love at First by Kate Clayborn: Book Review

Released in February 2021, Love at First is the most recent book from Kate Clayborn. Kensington published this book set in Chicago. It is a combination of missed connections, enemies to lovers, and secret lovers rolled into one.

Synopsis

When he was a teen, Will Sterling hears a girl he believes is talking to him and is instantly in love. Sixteen years later, Will has inherited an apartment from an uncle he really didn’t know. Will doesn’t want the apartment but knows it needs to be cleaned and updated before he can do anything.

Nora Clarke is reeling from the loss of her Nonna and her downstairs neighbor, Donny. Suddenly, there’s a new guy in the building trying to change things. Nora recruits the other building residents to help her persuade him to keep things as they are.

Is it possible these two can both have what they want?

Positives

The supporting cast of characters is great. From Dr. Gerald Abraham to Jonah to Dee, the side characters are filled with personality.

The description of the setting is great. It’s easy to picture the interior of the apartment building, with the metallic-like wallpaper to the cherub sconces that line the hallways. Even the way the interior of Nora’s apartment is described, a combination of old and new, is easy to picture.

Negatives

The main characters, Will and Nora, seem kind of flat especially compared to the rest of the characters. They don’t seem to have much personality.

The love story just seems off. I can believe someone being smitten when they hear someone talk, but I don’t see that carrying on for sixteen years. Will and Nora went from kind of being enemies, to kind of being friends, to being lovers. And the shift from friend to lover was a pretty short shift, as it happened in the span of a few paragraphs.

My Opinions

I was introduced to this book through a list of upcoming releases on Goodreads back in January. The premise of the story grabbed my attention, and I was interested in reading it. Sadly, the book didn’t hold up for me. I didn’t love the book, but I didn’t hate it either. There were bits and pieces that I enjoyed reading. But I feel as though the not great outweighed the good.

I think my biggest issue, besides the lack of chemistry between the main characters, was the fact that story seemed to end about halfway through the book. The synopsis on Goodreads made it seem as though that was to be the whole story. The struggle over the changes Will wanted to make just stopped, and then the story seemed to change.

While the book is just over 300 pages in length, I feel it could have been shorter. I don’t think all of Nora’s struggles with change needed to be addressed in the book. At least not to the extent it was.

Some people love this book, others may dislike the book. I’m in the middle, and find it was just okay.

Looking for some more books to read? Check out my other book reviews and my monthly reading wrap-ups.