The first time Grace Travis met Noah Jansen, she fell for him. Literally. Two of the five dogs she was walking on the beach headed his way, thinking the man’s paddleboard was a big dog toy, and she couldn’t stop them fast enough to not get pulled down to the sand herself. She saw then that he was a rather good looking man. It wasn’t until later that she realized he was her neighbor, and that he would be trouble.
Grace worked several jobs to put herself through design school. She walked dogs, she worked at a coffee shop, and when her professor offered her a bonus to come paint faces at her daughter’s birthday party, Grace signed up to that too. But the thing she is most excited about is the bungalow at the beach that belongs to her. It had belonged to her grandparents, and when they passed, they left the bungalow to Grace, not to her mother. Grace had been waiting to move, making sure that Morty, her landlord, no longer needed her to be his caregiver. So when Morty started dating again, Grace felt it was okay to move on, and she called in some favors to help drag her few possessions to her new home.
Noah has just moved to L.A. from New York City. In the city, he has been a successful businessman, never wanting for a beautiful woman to attend lavish events on his arm. He had been successful, in part, working for his father. But he had also been undermined by his father in several real estate deals, and Noah finally got tired of that and moved across the country. He found a beautiful bungalow on the beach, and he intends to renovate it. He could add a pool and a great backyard, if he could get his next-door neighbor to sell her place. No one’s lived there the whole time he’s been in town, so he figures he could make a generous offer and then plan exactly where to put his new pool. He didn’t bet on Grave Travis.
When he sees the truck outside her place with the bedroom furniture, Noah goes over to introduce himself and make a generous offer. But as soon as he talks to Grace about selling, he realizes that it won’t be as easy as he first thought. This woman, this beautiful woman, refuses to even consider his offers and teases him about not being more hands-on. And later, when she’s watching him prune his hedges that are right by the fence separating their land, she inadvertently falls into the fence, landing at his feet once again. Noah can’t decide what to do with this infuriating, adorable, confusing woman.
But in an attempt to show his father that he’s doing just fine without him, Noah gets a prestigious design magazine to do an article on the renovation of his bungalow. But when the author of the piece sees a glimpse of the chemistry between him and Grace, she insists that Grace be in the piece also. Noah needs an interior designer, Grace is almost done with her design degree. The magazine writer insists that the article turns into a series of pieces, complete with interviews and videos, to show the before/middle/after of the bungalow’s transformation.
Grace is concerned about working so closely with Noah, as her senses go on full alert when he’s around. And he’s clearly attracted to her too. But they both need this renovation project to work out. Noah has something to prove to those who think he’s just riding along on his family’s money, and Grace is about to graduate and start her career. The magazine would be a big boost to her career, bringing in job offers she couldn’t dream of yet. But she’d have to get along with Noah and put her developing romantic feelings to the side. Could she do that, to make all her professional dreams come true? Or should she just follow her heart?
How to Love Your Neighbor is a charming rom com that blends the enemies-to-friends-to-lovers niche with the home renovation story. It’s sweet and complex and makes you happy. This is the follow-up to author Sophie Sullivan’s Ten Rules for Faking It. While either book could be read as a stand-alone, the men featured in these books are brothers, so this is a natural expansion of the world of Everly and Chris (the main characters in Ten Rules), and they show up a couple of times in this book as well.
I found Grace’s and Noah’s story absolutely charming. I loved the fix-it storyline, with Grace so willing to get her hands dirty to fix up her own bungalow and how she worked so hard to stay true to herself. Having read Ten Rules, I knew a little about Noah’s family and was happy to learn more about their father and how the brothers interacted with each other (btw, there is another brother, and a sister in the family also—could there be another book or even two in the works? Fingers crossed!).
I thought the family issues were realistic, and I was happy to see that Sullivan didn’t gloss over that, letting the characters feel the frustration fully to help them build better relationships that those they grew up with. It adds time and texture to the story, so there is more to this story than just the will-they-won’t-they story of the romance. I love Sullivan’s writing, and I think How to Love Your Neighbor is a beautiful rom com with depth and fun, and it’s a perfect novel to curl up with for a weekend.
Egalleys for How to Love Your Neighbor were provided by St. Martin’s Griffin through NetGalley, with many thanks.
