BOTM Monday: How Freaking Romantic

Author: Emily Harding Title: How Freaking Romantic Publisher: Gallery Books Date Published: 07/01/2025

Read Dates: 07/22/2025- 07/23/2025
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This was my Book of the Month club pick for July. 

How Freaking Romantic is a single POV enemies-to-lovers romance. It centers around Bea, a stressed out law student and TA, who meets Nate when she storms into his office to yell at him for being an asshole while handling her friend’s divorce. Much to her dismay, Nate temporarily takes over the class she is TA for, putting them in close proximity until the sparks that are flying are different in nature!

I was familiar with Emily Harding as part of a writing duo but this is the first solo book of hers I’ve read. I loved it! I enjoyed the forced proximity workplace romance, I loved the found family aspect of Bea’s friend group, and I loved Nate and Bea together!

Beatrice Nilsson has a lot to be angry about. The wage gap, the pink tax, the repayment schedule on all those student loans…the list goes on. But that anger is also what makes her such a good friend—the perennial sidekick who fights for her loved ones’ happily ever after, even while conveniently neglecting her own. So when the marriage of her two best friends falls apart—and the divorce proceedings get ugly—Bea is ready to step in and help pick up the pieces.

First on her to-do list? Storm the office of Nathan Asher, her friend’s ex-husband’s lawyer, and tell him exactly what he can do with his divorce petition. But what should end with a few choice words and a slam of the door soon spirals into uncharted territory when Nathan shows up at her NYU Law office a few days later. As a newly-minted adjunct professor––and her new colleague––he proves to be annoyingly intelligent, relentlessly patient, and unfairly attractive. Bea still hates him, of course, but it’s not long before that hate begins to feel a lot like something else.

There’s just one when you’ve spent your life focusing on everyone else’s love story, it’s not easy to take the starring role in your own. And as uncomfortable truths emerge about the divorce that started it all, Bea must choose whose happily ever after to everyone else’s or her own.