When the
baby-making ends will something else begin?
Josh and Gemma Make a Baby, an all new laugh-out-loud friends-to-lovers romantic comedy from bestselling author Sarah Ready is available now!
New Year’s Resolution:
Have a baby
Preferably with Josh Lewenthal
Meet Gemma Jacobs. She’s driven, energetic, and a positive thinker. She has a great career working for famed self-help guru Ian Fortune, she lives in a cute studio apartment in Manhattan, and her family is supportive and loving (albeit a little kooky). Her life is perfect. Absolutely wonderful.
Except for one tiny little thing.
After a decade of disastrous relationships and an infertility diagnosis, Gemma doesn’t want a Mr. Right (or even a Mr. Right Now), she just wants a baby.
And all she needs is an egg, some sperm, and IVF.
So Gemma makes a New Year’s resolution: have a baby.
Josh Lewenthal is a laid back, relaxed, find-the-humor-in-life kind of guy. The polar opposite of Gemma. He’s also her brother’s best friend. For the past twenty years Josh has attended every Jacobs’ family birthday, holiday, and event – he’s always around.
Gemma knows him. He’s nice (enough), he’s funny (-ish), he’s healthy (she thinks) and he didn’t burn any ants with a magnifying glass as a kid. Which, in Gemma’s mind, makes him the perfect option for a sperm donor.
So Gemma wants to make a deal. An unemotional, business-like arrangement. No commitments, just a baby.
To Gemma’s surprise, Josh agrees.
They have nothing in common, except their agreement to make a baby and their desire to keep things businesslike.
But
the thing about baby-making…it’s hard to keep it businesslike, it’s nearly
impossible to keep it unemotional, and it’s definitely impossible to keep your
heart out of the mix. Because when you’re making a baby together, things have a
way of starting to feel like you’re making other things too – like a life, and
a family, and love. And when the baby-making ends, you wish that everything
else didn’t have to end too.
Fall in love today!
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My Review:
3.5 STARS
This was my first book by this author. I loved the cover and the premise of the
book. It is written in first person from
Gemma’s POV. I really wish that we had
also gotten Josh’s POV, and I will explain why below.
Gemma is the biggest hot mess heroine ever. She makes Bridget Jones (and there are some
similarities) look like she had it all together. She lives her life in a way that skims the
surface without diving deep. She comes
across as a positive individual, but I felt like she was really using all the
positive mantras to avoid looking too closely at the reality around her. Instead,
she comes across as selfish, overly blunt, and sometimes outright mean to the
people around her: all in the guise of delivering truth. She decides to become a single mom and
overcome her infertility using IVF. She
convinces her brother’s best friend to be her donor. This is where I really wanted
the story to become a real love story.
Instead, everything continues to be all about Gemma. I think the story would have benefitted
greatly from Josh’s POV. His character
is likable, and the story is predictable enough that the reader can figure out
some of the plot points well ahead of Gemma, who is so self-focused. Josh is dealing with his own issues and his
character is exemplified by his actions.
He is unselfish, giving, caring, and he has a wonderful sense of humor
and an artist’s soul. Gemma does not
treat him nearly well enough, while he shows up for her time and time again. I
felt like Josh deserved so much better than Gemma.
The story tackles some difficult topics. As Gemma and Josh go through the IVF process,
there are a lot of feelings and experiences that are handled well within their
story. Gemma joins a fertility support
group and develops some strong female friendships along the way. There are a few laugh-out-loud moments, a few
moments with light heat, and a lot of feelings in this story. Overall, I felt the book was well-written as
it covers the fertility journey and deals with loss and grief along the way. My
biggest hurdle was Gemma. I tried to
like her, but I never found her likable.
Even at the end of the book, where she has grown some, I felt like she was
not quite there for me. I wanted so much more from her. I wanted so much more
for Josh. Though there are funny moments, I have a hard time calling this a rom
com.
I own at least one more book by this author that I have been
meaning to read, and I will at some point.
This particular book was just not my favorite.
TW: Fertility, Miscarriage, Loss of a loved one
Excerpt
Josh is on my bed.
What the heck?
It’s like he has some sort of
super-psychic power that lets him know when a woman needs him. I think about
him stealing my undies all those years ago and I realize that yes, he probably
does have a secret power. Some sort of man radar—mandar.
We haven’t really spoken in years, except for the
casual greeting at the New Year’s party or a “hi, how are you” at a random
friends and family get together. Yet here he is, right when I need him.
I step into my bedroom and shut the
door. Josh is spread out on my pink lace coverlet, his arms behind his head,
and his legs crossed—the picture of relaxation. He’s in his standard outfit,
faded jeans and a tight T-shirt depicting some obscure graphic novel character.
His black hair needs a trim and he has at least two days’ worth of dark stubble
on his face.
Even though I’m indifferent to him as
a person and I know for a fact he’s
not my type, my lady parts still clench. He’s that good looking.
He smirks at me, like he knows the effect he’s having.
Here’s the thing about Josh, he’s completely unable to take life seriously.
It’s like the whole universe is a funny joke to him, and he’s just living his
life so he can be amused.
When he graduated from high school he
was voted the most likely to succeed. He was captain of the football team, the
basketball team, homecoming king and the valedictorian. Everyone thought he was
going places. Especially me.
After he graduated from college he
took a job at a tech start-up, worked his way up the ranks to VP, and then
according to my brother, he just woke up one day and decided to quit. He walked
into the office, took a box out of the supply closet, packed up his desk, and
walked out. Ever since then he’s been doing his web comic thing. But I guess if
he’s living with his dad again, it’s not going all that well.
I look him over. The thing is, I’m
not sussing him out as a prospective husband, I don’t care about his career
goals, how big his paycheck is, or whether he lives in his dad’s basement. I
don’t care about his potential or non-potential as a life mate. I’m thinking
about his genetics. And his genetics are just fine.
I close the door with a sharp snick.
“What are you doing on my bed?” I
ask.
His eyes, always full of sharp
intelligence, take in my sauce-covered dress and the blush still lingering on
my cheeks.
“What are you doing covered in
barbecue?” A small smile flits over his lips and his forehead wrinkles as he
takes in my appearance.
My outfit from earlier is folded in a neat pile and
sitting on my dresser. Josh starts to stand up.
“Stay there. I need to talk to you.”
I decide that rather than risk him
leaving while I change, I’ll talk to him covered in sauce.
“Alright.” He scoots over and pats my
bed.
I give him a look and he shrugs.
“Sorry. I was up all night finishing a storyboard. Whenever I stayed the night
with Dylan, your mom would always give me your bed to sleep in. I didn’t think,
it just seemed natural to…”
He trails off when he sees the
expression on my face. I’m not sure how I feel about the fact that Josh has
apparently been sleeping in my childhood bedroom for years.
I look at my dresser and realize that
my teenage diary is in the top drawer hidden under my underwear. My skin
prickles with, yup, that’s embarrassment. I look at the dresser then at Josh,
but he doesn’t seem any different than usual. Maybe he’s not a snooper.
Probably, yes, probably he never read it. Because if he had…errr…my teenage
self was not shy about fantasizing about him.
I settle onto the mattress next to
him.
He clears his throat and scoots over.
“So what’s up?”
Oh God.
Am I really going to do this?
Can I do this?
It seemed perfectly reasonable and
normal when I was planning it out after my doctor’s appointment. I looked more
into donor sperm and weighed the benefits and detriments of donor versus Josh.
Every way I looked at it, Josh came out on top.
He gives me a funny look. “Gemma?
What’s up? You alright?”
“I need your sperm,” I blurt out.
Josh starts to choke, then he coughs.
His face turns red and he hits his chest.
Oh no. I’ve killed him.
He coughs and his eyes water.
I slap his back and he shakes his
head.
Maybe I shouldn’t have just blurted
it out like that, but I was nervous and I didn’t think.
Finally, he takes a wheezing breath
and says, “Come again?”
“I…I need your sperm?”
I smile at him. The look he gives me
makes my hand fly to my mouth in an effort to contain the laugh bubbling up
from my chest. Oh jeez, I’ve lost my brain. I should’ve written talking points
or a speech or something.
“You want to have sex?” Josh asks. He
looks really confused. “Gemma. You really have to work on your pick-up lines.”
I shake my head. But he’s already
starting to lift his shirt up. I catch a glimpse of rock-hard abs. “If you want
to, we can. But we’ll have to hurry. The New Year’s Resolution reading is soon.
We have maybe ten minutes. Not that I can’t blow your mind in ten minutes.”
I scoot back and make a strangled
sound.
He takes in my expression and starts
to snicker.
“Kidding. Gemma, I’m kidding,” he
says, and he drops his shirt.
I nod and blow out a long,
mind-clearing breath. “Sorry, I didn’t say that right. What I meant to say was,
ummm, we’ve known each other a long time.”
“Twenty-four years,” he agrees.
“Right. We grew up in the same town.
Went to the same school. You’re my brother’s best friend. You come to our
holiday parties, birthdays. You’re always around.”
I scrutinize his face to see if he
gets where I’m going. Unfortunately, he just looks confused.
“I feel like I know you pretty well.
I can say that you’re a decent guy.”
He frowns. “Thanks.”
“If I ask you something, do you
promise not to tell Dylan, or anybody?”
Josh leans back and studies me. “Gem,
I don’t think we should have sex.”
I close my eyes. “No. No, jeez.
Obviously. Ugh, did it once, got the T-shirt.”
I open one eye and look at him, then
I open the other.
He grins at me. “The T-shirt huh?”
About Sarah
Ready
Author Sarah Ready writes contemporary romance and romantic comedy. Her books have been described as “euphoric”, “heartwarming” and “laugh out loud”. Her debut novel The Fall in Love Checklist was hailed as “the unicorn read of 2020”. She loves to write fast-paced, emotionally compelling romances about quirky, smart women and the men who love them.
Before writing romance full-time Sarah had
lots of fun teaching at an Ivy League. Then she realized she could have even
more fun writing romance. Her favorite things after writing are adventuring and
travel. You’ll frequently find her using her degree at a dino dig site,
crawling into a cave, snorkeling, or on horseback riding through the jungle –
all fodder for her next book. She’s lived in Scotland, Norway, Portugal,
Switzerland and NYC. She currently lives in the Caribbean with her
water-obsessed pup and her awesome family.
You can visit her online at www.sarahready.com
Connect with
Sarah
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