3.5

I liked this but I think it feels a lot more heavy and serious than I typically want books like this to be.

The couple was sweet and I always prefer a quiet, thoughtful, leading man instead of the ones who are brimming with confidence and bravado.

Enjoyed the side plots about friendship too. ( )

Charming and whimsical. The twist at the end was a bit of an unwelcome surprise, but it made things wrap up neatly, so I didn't mind it.

#TogetherWeRead book for February 2021. ( )

I picked this up after reading a thread by Kate Clayborn about why romance novels often have purple prose (https://www.threads.net/@kateclayborn.author/post/C0WkZhGrqAt). I was like, this lady sounds smart! I'm going to read one of her books!

So it was just a coincidence that the heroine in this book had almost the exact same emotional issue as the heroine of the last romance novel I read, [b:Happy Place|61718053|Happy Place|Emily Henry|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1660145160l/61718053._SY75_.jpg|97321939]. Both women grew up with parents in a tense, unhappy marriage and as a result, never learned how to argue and work through a relationship problem in a healthy way. Weird! Like deja vu for me to read these back to back.

Anyway, I did in fact find Clayborn's writing a bit on the purple side, but when that happens in romance novels I just skim. Most of the book was fun, especially the frequent references to fonts (because Meg's job is hand-lettering journals for rich people).

I didn't find the hero, Reid, very appealing despite how Darcy-ish he was (serious, blunt, old-fashioned). His personality seemed to do a 180 as he fell in love with Meg and it didn't make sense to me (maybe I skimmed too much). He went from Darcy-ish to generic Nice Guy.

I also didn't love that the key to Meg's success in business at the end is having a rich boyfriend loan her money plus having a famous friend promote her products on social media. I'm happy for her, I guess, but it doesn't feel earned so much as dumb luck.

My quibbles aside, I think this a solid contemporary romance. The writing is a cut above and it was creative and dramatic enough to satisfy. ( )

Overall cute but nothing super special ( )

Love Lettering was sent to me by Kensington Publishing. This is my first book by Kate Clayborn. I enjoyed her style of writing, as she had me hooked on page one. I found the relationship between Reid and Meg so relatable and relevant to the average person. It was not an overly mushy hero driven story, but a slow and steady, good old fashioned relationship. My only reason for giving this book 4 stars instead of 5 is the author kind of lost me at times in the beginning with the sign game. I wasn't totally following the attraction of this, but in the end that didn't matter. With the turns and twists, and sweet relationships, I thoroughly enjoyed Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn. ( )