Review: Love at First

Love at First by Kate Clayborn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

4.5 stars 

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. 

“It's the golden hour.” 

Will is fifteen when his mother takes him to the apartment of an uncle he never even knew existed. He's outside about to talk to a girl on a balcony, that unknowingly dropped tomatoes on his head, when he overhears his mother begging her brother to take him. His uncle refuses saying Will is probably like her, rash, reckless, and selfish. Hearing all this dramatically impacts Will and he decides then and there to grow-up, which he does as his mother and father cling even more to each other through his father's sickness and then the ten months after his father's death, his mother passes away too. When he sends her obituary to the uncle and never hears anything back, Will begins calling himself an orphan at seventeen. 

 The girl on the balcony from sixteen years ago, and the woman he met this morning. That...could not be. 

Nora loves her hour of quiet time on her balcony, four a.m., or the golden hour, as she likes to call it. When the person that inherited the downstairs apartment comes onto their patio, she can't help but try and take a peek. After accidentally knocking some potting soil on him, she meets Dr. Will Sterling. There's an instant awareness but after she inherited this apartment from her nonna, she and the other apartment dwellers are worried about this new guy, they love their little community and don't like change. When Will reveals that he plans on using the apartment as a sort of Airbnb, Nora declares war to get him to change his mind. She first plans to kill him with kindness but when that doesn't work, she plans on showing him how unsuitable this apartment building would feel to vacationers because of how weird and quirky the building dwellers are. It's a battle between two sides that can't help consorting with each other. 

Everything he saw when he looked at Nora, it was still a problem: his weakness, his past, his fear for how he figured he was destined to turn out, if he let himself get too close to her. 

Love At First, is a story that is all sweetly aching heart. The story fabric is woven a little differently, the set-up alludes to fate and soulmates, so the love between Will and Nora feels present by the third chapter. Since the love already feels developed, their journey is more about navigating the emotional pitfall maze to reach it. Will's parents all consuming loving each other to the point of ignoring him and then his abrupt loss of childhood has made him a self-sufficient but tender and scared to love man. Nora's parents were dedicated to their career but she had her grandmother and the apartment building's residents to create a family with. Their parental similarities and Will's gentle pushing to get Nora to accept change enough to live her own unique life and Nora showing him that human connection doesn't have to be scary showcased how well these two went together. 

She laughed quietly, the sound somehow so intimate. What else could it be, really, to laugh with someone in your bed? It felt like the most secret, private, special thing. It felt like a fever dream. She gave up on thinking there was anything normal or casual about it. 

Some of the first half had me questioning how Nora and Will already had these deep feelings, which I think is where the soulmates comes in, but the middle had the characters opening up more and layers get colored in and understanding why Nora and Will were the way they were becomes more clear. This story also had some of the best use of secondary characters I have ever read. They were stars in their own right and provided emotional heft not only in support of Nora and Will but the overall story. The residents of the apartment provided heartfelt depth to some of the underlining message of the importance of human connection and how valuable found family is. Gerald, Will's boss, who dances between a pseudo father and friend, ends up slyly softly giving the story and Will one of it's most important messages, that loving can be learned and unlearned, as long as you put the acknowledgment and effort in. 

You don't have to love people the way you learned to love at first. 

This enemies-to-lovers was all about the gentle emotions instead of sparking heat and it really worked. These two do have some open door bedroom scenes but I got the most hits to the heart when every time Nora made Will feel and that connection made him pull away in fear. Nora and Will's first two meetings, sixteen years apart, were sweetly cute but their second chance romance ending balcony scene, will have your heart aching in all the best ways. If you're looking for something a little quiet, a little soft, and a little subtle, Love At First will deliver. 

She thought about his laugh and his way of making conversation with almost anyone; she thought about the secret, tender heart that hid behind his practicality, and she thought about how he pushed her, so gently, in the directions she always wanted to go herself. She thought about the way she wanted him, the way she could be a certain version of herself with him, some different from who she was with anyone else in her life, ever.

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