It was meant to be the holiday of a lifetime, a chance to extend her travel blog, her best friends� wedding and perhaps, if her friends were correct, her own proposal…Until Samantha found herself on her way to Tobago alone � and single. She needed to rest. She didn’t need to come face to face with the most unhelpful man on the island.
Fed up with his corporate job, after years in New York, Roman was starting again in Tobago. The last thing he needed was a distraction, especially a free-spirited travel blogger. But something about Samantha inspired a protective instinct in Roman.
As Samantha and Roman spend more time together under the tropical sun, lines between friendship begin to blur, until secrets put everything they thought they had found in jeopardy and it will take every inch of Samantha’s strength to fight for what she truly wants.
Tropes; Black Romance Strangers to Friends to Lovers Reverse Grumpy/Sunshine Found Family Third Person Dual POV
I read this while on holiday in Spain and I have to say, I could kiss my self for making such a great decision. This was the perfect summer read and it was so much fun!
I am not going to lie, I went in with low expectations so it took me by surprise how much I enjoyed it.
This follows our heroine Samantha, who has just been dumped days before she has to fly to Tobago for her best friends wedding. Our hero, Roman, the best friend of the groom, is also one of the only single people at the wedding, so naturally Samantha and Roman were drawn to each other.
For the week that they are both in Tobago, they agree on a week long fling with no hard feelings at the end. But of course, this is a romance after all, they both start to develop feelings for each other.
Truthfully I am not the biggest fan of “insta love� scenarios like this but the author did a great job of making it feel realistic. I hate love confessions after knowing each to her for a week and this didn’t have that!!
I also loved the wedding and Tobago setting of the book. It just made it the perfect summer read.
Thank you Mills & Boon for sending me the ARC of Until I Met You in exchange for my honest review.
this summer romance was so slay, i read it in one sitting and now i wish i was in tobago 🥲
amber rose gill supremacy. my fave love island contestant ever <3
if you loved the vibes of the unhoneymoons but hated the red flags that ethan practically paraded then you will love this !
when samantha is dumped & has to go to her friend’s wedding alone, the last thing she expects is to feel a connection with the grumpy guy at the resort. after a less than nice introduction, she storms off only to find out that he’s the best friend of the groom and she’s stuck with him.
throw in some drama, rum & sun, sam & roman can’t keep their hands off each other and i’m obsessed.
the fluff & the angst was so good!!!!
samantha and roman are so sweet and i’m so soft for them. the way roman called her pretty girl made me MELT.
this book is genuinely just so perfect for summer and if it isn’t sunny where you are, this book will make you feel like it is <3
Let me preface this with the fact that I didn’t totally hate this book, but it also felt like a dumpster fire I couldn’t look away from.
I had no idea Amber Rose Gill had written a book, and if I’m brutally honest that (and the cartoon cover) was the only reason I picked it up on Sunday.
The storyline had so much potential when I read the blurb, but this just didn’t hit the mark for me. It felt rushed in places and unrealistic, even for a holiday romance.
Samantha didn’t have much to her other than the ‘feisty� comebacks and mildly helpful advice she gave her friends. Roman came across as a bit bland and boring too, I’ve walked away feeling like I don’t know either of the main characters all that well.
That being said, the story was easy to follow, and the spanner thrown in the works at the end was the slight twist that was needed (even though it could have been written better and has still left me with some questions). I would have loved to have seen the one and only sex scene not fade to black, I’m not saying it had to be top level smut, but just a little more than we got.
There are a handful of grammatical and spelling errors through the book, which I can overlook. Rushed editing at its finest! However� don’t get me started on the manta ray.
I picked up this book not realising who it was written by. I have big issues with books being written by celebrities because it’s giving you didn’t actually write it. Like when singers act. It’s not good.
This is awful story writing. The characters were completely unlikeable. “His smile waned� twice in a paragraph, it’s giving AI.
Sorry, I’ve just come back from a girls weekend where they didn’t stop saying “it’s giving�.
Yes. Awful book. Would not recommend. Took me so long to get through because it’s just pure drivel? Why was it so long. Got to like 60% of the way through and I was like how is there more to come? What more possibly needs to happen.
This one started a little slow for me but ultimately I liked it. In this book we're following Samantha who is busy performing bridesmaids duties for her best friend after a breakup. She meets Roman, who is one of the groom's friends and though they clash at first they soon begin a romance. Samantha wants Roman to open up more but he's reluctant and then drama with their friends as the wedding date gets closer is thrown into the mix. Over all this was an enjoyable story and I thought the depictions of Tobago as someone who has been there were pretty spot on. I just found myself frustrated at Roman at times and thought the backend of the book was a little overloaded with drama.
I wish I liked this more because Amber is so amazing but it just wasn’t that good lol Would have loved to see more thoughtful character development and also was sad that although the main characters were POC, you couldn’t tell other than from descriptions of their skin colour - it’s lit set in Tobago and I learnt nothing about the place, could have set this in Ibiza and it would have been the same 😃
So I didn’t completely hate the book, but I didn’t completely love it either.
I was actually a bit disappointed, the storyline sounded so good and had so much potential but just didn’t give off the vibes I wanted.
The characters were fine but I wanted more from them, at one point Roman says Sam is feisty but I didn’t see much of that side, and I would have liked to see more traits from them come out.
If I’m honest I struggle to read and keep interested until around chapter 14/15 But I did like the ending it was cute happily ever after end - and that’s why I gave it an extra star
Well I actually quite enjoyed this. I didn't know what to expect as I had no idea who amber Rose Gill was but knowing the book was set in Tobago intrigued me as a Trini. And learning her father is a Trini definitely made me want to read and see how the rep was. And I can say that Tobago was well portrayed.
There was a lot going on in this one. Samantha and Roman are our main characters but we got drama surrounding their friends who are getting married, things going on in Sam's friend group and a random surprise visitor to the end of the book that had me like ummmm whomst is this???
But I liked it. And can see this as a fun rom com movie with all the shenanigans. The romance was fast but I think it just worked here for me??? And I liked how it wrapped up.
I loved it and fell in love with the characters so easily. Each character had their own marvellousness and I was desperate to see how it all ended up! Highly recommend.
Omds this was so fun to read! So happy to have gotten this ARC from @millsandboon
Plot: Samantha, an aspiring travel blogger, is headed to Trinidad and Tobago for her best friend's wedding, and it should be a great and fun trip for her! Or at least it would be had she not been dumped days before she was meant to travel.
Now, she's basically the only single person on what has basically turned into a couples retreat 🙃 That is, until a chance meeting seems to stir something up in Samantha and has the potential for real love 🥺
Thoughts: At first, I didn't like Samatha. She came off whiny and seemed ready to pick a fight at any given moment. Then I was reminded of her situation and had to let it slide, mostly because she recognised it herself and fixed up 😂. Plus, she did loosen up and grow on me. She's practical, and like a lot of us (me, I am us), is a bit cautious, an overthinker, a worrier. But she has dreams, plans and is loyal to a t!
Roman, the groom's best friend, was probably my favourite character of the lot 😂 He was bold, direct, cheeky and light hearted. Oh and fit as heck! Everything about him screamed 'perfect'.
Though the two's first meet up isn't what anyone would call ideal, they moved past it and here, we get a classic friends to lovers experience that I loved!
The different dynamics between the other couples was also one of my favourite aspects of this book. Some pairs seemed unconventional, some seemed unbreakable, some seemed on the verge of breaking. Through the variety, I witnessed the realness of relationships and I love that this book didn't stray from the downs that can come from being "booed up".
There's also underlying drama and mystery laced all throughout the book, which kept me turning page after page trying to figure out exactly what was going on!
Definitely pick this book up on July 7th if you're looking for a summer of fun, love and a bit of messy drama 😏
I was gifted this book by Mills & Boon in exchange for an honest review.
2.5 stars.
I was really excited for this book. As a love island fan, and engaged by Ambers description of the book I definitely wanted to read it.
The book was light hearted, easy to read and a good summery vibe. I loved the diversity and the way I could sense Ambers personality and manner of speaking through the blog drafts. However, some of the dialogue felt forced and it didn’t really flow. I found characters other than Samantha lacking personality and so struggled through it a bit. It was very simplistic in its writing style and read like a YA novel.
This had so much potential but it was about as interesting as reading a shopping list � the writing had no personality and had lots of large paragraphs describing characters or backstory that made things feel slow and boring. It lacked finesse and style.
There were also some logic inconsistencies and ultimately that was the point where I stopped reading, I couldn’t see it getting any better.
I wanted to read this to support Amber. I forced myself to read it because I was sitting on a train for more than 2 hours and had nothing else to entertain myself with.
Right from the start this was not fun for me. Like I said in one of my updates, the general plot wasn’t really for me because I don’t really love instant love or romances about quick flings but my dislike for this goes deeper than that. We immediately see that this is written in the opposite of show don’t tell. Nothing is described for us and we just get statements on how things are or lists of what the characters are doing. Some sentences are very choppy and have THREE words. The descriptions of our characters� skin tones is annoying because I don’t want to read about someone’s caramel/cocoa/almond skin color. There were entire paragraphs throughout the book dedicated entirely to describing what the characters were wearing. If this was 2013 (and the book reads like it was written by a teenager in 2013), each outfit would come with a polyvore link. Also not a fan of the way the characters talked to each other. I don’t think real people have conversations like that and some conversations really made me laugh because of how ridiculous they were. There were many things teased along the way of being serious problems but when Samantha tried to get more information, someone else would say “it’s not my place to tell� and we wouldn’t find out. After hearing this so many different times about different topics, the anticipation was so built up for massive drama and then I would be disappointed by the big reveal.
Moving on to the characters. Romance aside because I just felt like everything was rushed into a one week timeline, I just didn’t care for Roman. Samantha’s character also felt like she had no direction or depth. I think if we had more descriptions of her actions rather than direct statements, this could’ve helped. There were also way too many side characters in this that I struggled to remember each of them and their role/relationship to our main character. On top of that, each side character brought their own problems that had to be solved and somehow Samantha was the one responsible for solving them, even for people she just met. And then these problems would be quickly resolved because those characters couldn’t clearly communicate without Samantha’s help. Samantha and her friends just don’t seem like people who should be friends based on how much they keep hidden from each other and how they keep gossiping about each other.
Overall, I did not enjoy this and I really wished I did. Genuinely want to know if this was edited and if so, maybe Amber needs to find a new editor if this is a career she wants to continue.
2.5 not horrible but also not good� the writing style was odd, the couple idk� the whole story stretched. i don’t know it just wasn’t exciting. i liked the setting though, wish i could go to a wedding in tobago
Felt like I’d been in a bit of reading slump lately and wanted something easy to read� along came this book and as simple as the writing was I throughly enjoyed it. It was just what I needed. Setting, characters, story it was right up my street and hopefully got me out of my slump
I read this on the way back from holiday and it makes me want to go on holiday to Trinidad and Tobago, loved the characters and diversity of this story.
I don't know why I didn't think that I was going to love this but from the first sentence, I was hooked. Such a cheesy plot but the characters make up for that and make it fun! I love Sam and Roman, but all other characters were intriguing as well.