On the Corner of Love and Hate
By: Nora Bocci
Published Year: 2019
Publisher: Gallery Books
Pages: 336
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This in no way shape or form influenced my opinion of this book.
Summary (Provided by Goodreads): What’s a campaign manager’s worst nightmare? A smooth-talking charmer who’s never met a scandal that he didn’t like.
When Emmanuelle Peroni’s father—and mayor of her town—asks her to help rehab Cooper Endicott’s image, she’s horrified. Cooper drives her crazy in every way possible. But he’s also her father’s protégé, and she can’t say no to him without him finding out the reason why: Cooper and her have a messy past. So Emmanuelle reluctantly launches her father’s grand plan to get this Casanova someone to settle down with and help him lose his lothario reputation.
Cooper Endicott wanted to run for Mayor, but he never wanted the drama that went with it. Now that he’s on the political hamster wheel, the other candidates are digging up everything from his past. Even though he’s doing all the right things, his colorful love life is the sticking point for many of the conservative voters. He wants to win, badly, and he knows that if he wants any chance of getting a vote from the female population, he needs to change his image. The only problem? He might just be falling in love with the one person he promised not to pursue: the Mayor’s off-limits daughter.
First Impressions
I initially heard about this book through some of my favorite authors, Christina Lauren. When they recommended a romance novel, I was intrigued because I love their novels. The cover is fine. I honestly don’t know, whether or not I would have picked it up based off of the cover alone. The summary immediately hooked me though, because I am a sucker for hate to love stories.
What I thought
Cooper and Emma were friends growing up. Life got in the way and now, even though they work together, they bicker and Emma claims to hate Cooper. Cooper decides to run for Mayor of their hometown in which Emma’s dad has been Mayor for the past 23 years. Emma and her father back Cooper, and Emma ends up running his campaign.
This is a bit of an interesting book for me to review. I didn’t get as pulled into it as I thought I would, but in the end I did really enjoy it. It look me about a month to read this book and I think in the end that kind of helped me? I had a lot of other books that I was reading and had to get read by certain dates, so this became my background book that I would read when I didn’t have my other books around. But in the end, I think that helped because it made me feel like I had known Cooper and Emma for a long time. I became more invested in the slow pace of their relationship and I really got behind them by the end.
I loved the energy between Cooper and Emma. Cooper is a bit of a cocky womanizer but he’s a genuinely good guy. Emma is the mayor’s daughter and is good at her job. When Cooper doesn’t do his part of the job, she gets irritated with them and I enjoyed their banter.
The other part of this story I enjoyed was the suspense of who was going to with the mayoral election. I liked the tension between Cooper and the other candidate. In fact, I wouldn’t have minded a little bit more. There were bits and piece that seemed like they were going somewhere seedy that were never touched on again.
While I wouldn’t put this book on the same level as the Christina Lauren books, it was still a well written romance. The smut level is very low, so if you want a romance story that is all about the relationship development and not a lot of physical romance, I would recommend checking this out. Since it is the first in a series, I am looking forward to the next books. The town is adorable and I liked Cooper and Emma’s friends, Nick and Henry, so I would love to read their stories of finding love.