Series: The Wedding Date, Book 6
Publisher: Berkley
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Release Date: July 13, 2021
Source: Publisher
Buy it here: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Audible
Ben Stephens has never bothered with serious relationships. He has plenty of casual dates to keep him busy, family drama he’s trying to ignore and his advertising job to focus on. When Ben lands a huge ad campaign featuring movie star, Anna Gardiner, however, it’s hard to keep it purely professional. Anna is not just gorgeous and sexy, she’s also down to earth and considerate, and he can’t help flirting a little…
Anna Gardiner is on a mission: to make herself a household name, and this ad campaign will be a great distraction while she waits to hear if she’s booked her next movie. However, she didn’t expect Ben Stephens to be her biggest distraction. She knows mixing business with pleasure never works out, but why not indulge in a harmless flirtation?
But their light-hearted banter takes a turn for the serious when Ben helps Anna in a family emergency, and they reveal truths about themselves to each other, truths they’ve barely shared with those closest to them.
When the opportunity comes to turn their real-life fling into something more for the Hollywood spotlight, will Ben be content to play the background role in Anna’s life and leave when the cameras stop rolling? Or could he be the leading man she needs to craft their own Hollywood ending?
While We Were Dating is a Hollywood fairytale romance with a good heart and a sense of humor to go along with the glamour. It’s easy to fall into Anna and Ben’s romance thanks to the likeable characters and Jasmine Guillory’s engaging style.
One of my favorite things about The Wedding Date series is that it always features characters who are committed to their careers and a heroine and hero who support and respect their partner’s work. Anna is an Oscar-nominated actress who is focused on getting a role she loves and knows will take her career to the next level. While she courts the director and tries to sway the studio’s opinion, she’s in an ad campaign that Ben is leading up. Ben is smart, funny, and the two of them click right away. Light flirtation becomes something more real when Anna has a family emergency and Ben is there for her. Ben may have easy charm and not want to commit but he’s a person you’re grateful to have in your corner in a crisis. He doesn’t think twice about going out of his way to help Anna even when they barely know each other. He’s kind, which sounds like a bland word but really isn’t; in fact, it’s what grabbed me the most about Ben.
Anna is talented, funny, and though she’s a successful actress she’s totally relatable. She also has anxiety and after going through a year where she felt isolated and panicked before getting help, she’s managing better. I loved that Guillory focused on destigmatizing talking about mental health in While We Were Dating. Anna and Ben talk about mental health in an honest way. Ben is open about being in therapy and though Anna is more guarded (how could she not be as a famous actress?) when it’s just the two of them she’s also refreshingly vulnerable. This gave an emotional depth to what would otherwise be a fairly breezy fantasy of a love story. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed While We Were Dating. It’s flirty, sensual, and fast-paced with strong beats of emotional honesty.
FTC Disclosure: I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
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