What happens when two best friends decide to date each other as an experiment? BAD AT LOVE is a standalone friends-to-lovers romance from the NYT bestselling author of The Royals Next Door and Grave Matter.
She’s a free-spirited and disaster-prone beekeeper.
He’s a British commitment-phobic playboy.
Together, they’re about to rewrite the rules of love.
Marina is brilliant, blonde, and brutally honest—sometimes too honest. Her lack of filter and endearing clumsiness mean most men in LA don’t make it past the third date. To make matters more complicated, she’s still a virgin and convinced she’ll never crack the code of love, let alone find someone to give her V-card to.
Her best friend Lazarus is her complete opposite. Tall, tattooed, and pierced (where it counts) Laz is both a rockstar and a gone-viral poet that has women (and book deals) falling at his feet. But the serial monogamist gets bored quickly and has never committed to anyone for longer than a few months.
When Marina’s latest dating disaster leaves her more hopeless than ever, Laz proposes an unconventional solution: he’ll give her dating and intimacy lessons. They’ll date each other as an experiment to figure out exactly what’s going wrong.
On paper, it’s the perfect plan. In reality, things get complicated fast. As they navigate their own trauma and hangups, Marina and Laz discover that the line between friendship and something deeper isn’t as clear as they thought.
They might be bad at love, but they’re even worse at pretending they’re still just friends.
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Twinsie Kelly’s Review
There are so many things that I want to say about this book but dayum….whew! and OMG! There, all done. Just go read it. It is literally that easy.
Let’s face it, this story is a friends to lovers story so we all (for the most part) know how this is going to play out. But the journey getting there has so much depth and shallowness. LOL! Well, I guess what I am trying to say is that while there is a lot of big emotion, there are a ton of witty one liners and funny situations that will keep you turning the pages.
Marina is more of a shy type and when she gets nervous, she implodes. Laz, is definitely more outgoing and quite literally can’t settle down. The thing of it is, these two just get each other. They have become best friends. Nothing more, nothing less. And one day, Laz messes it all up by suggesting they date each other for learning opportunities and it immediately changes the dynamic between these two. The change is very much needed though. They finally get to experience each other on an entirely different playing field and touch each other’s personal lives in a way neither of them ever expected.
“I think because love and hate are the strongest emotions, people think they are interchangeable. And honestly, it’s easier to hate than to love. There is no risk in hate while love is based on risk. We just want to protect ourselves, that’s all.”
To me, this sums this book up completely. No one is bad at love. You just have to find your weirdo and hang on!
Definitely a page turner that will have you laughing out loud, doing a facepalm, grabbing a tissue for a tear or two, fanning yourself after a hot scene, and then yelling at the two of them to just get over themselves. It literally has everything except ghosts!
Karina Halle is a screenwriter, former music & travel journalist, and the New York Times bestselling author of Realm of Thieves, Grave Matter, & Blood Orange, as well as 80 other romances across all sub-genres, ranging from spicy rom coms to gothic horror and dark fantasy. Needless to say, whatever you’re into, she’s probably written an HEA for it. When she’s not traveling, she, her husband, and their pup Perry, split their time between a possibly haunted 120 year-old house in Victoria, BC, and their sailboat Norfinn.
