Review: Finding Mr. Write

Finding Mr. Write by Kelley Armstrong
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.3 stars 

Chris Stanton had a job interview. To be a writer. Or, at least, to play one for author photos. 

Finding Mr. Write was a story about what you'll do to achieve your dreams, with the complication of finding love along the way. Daphne has sent out her manuscript, a young adult story about a girl surviving in a zombie apocalypse but doesn't get any takers, until she creates a male pen name with a MFA. Suddenly there's a bidding war and Daphne finds herself planning with her bestfriend how “Zane Remington” can exist. 

Chris is trying to save his business and reputation after partnering with an old college buddy who, it's now revealed has a coke habit. When one of his accounting clients, who is a lawyer, offers to help but in return wants him to pose as an actor, posing as an author, he jumps at the chance. 

Daphne hates how she's regulated herself to the sidelines of her own success, Chris hates how pretending to be Zane could be keeping him from exploring these feelings he's having for Daphne, and both want to start mixing business with pleasure. 

He had something with Daphne. Something he’d been looking for, even if he hadn’t realized it. 

If you're already a Kelley Armstrong fan from her mysteries and thrillers, this would be a good pickup to dip your toe into rom-com. This did have a lighter side with Chris trying to pretend to be this tough outdoorsy guy, when he's really a math geek, with a specialty in baking brownies, and who matured into his looks really well. The subterfuge between him pretending to be an actor who can pull off a Zane type to Daphne, gets resolved in the first half, allowing them to be their selves and showcase some of the flirty by-play between them, which worked well. 

A sweet and smart guy who wasn’t afraid to get a little silly. 

As someone with both feet firmly planted in the romance genre, this had romance but more of the logistics, rather than heady, heavy emotion. These two are immediately physically attracted to each other and as they start to get to know one another, Chris having to stay at Daphne's cabin for a few days for a magazine shoot and going on a book tour together, they talk and start to realize they play off each other well. The problem is their working relationship, Chris pretending to be the author Daphne is and how Chris lives in Vancouver while Daphne lives in the Yukon. There's some emotional fear from Daphne's past over her last boyfriend saying he was all in but then bouncing after her mother was diagnosed with cancer that comes into play for a third act break-up but Chris, for his part, is mostly all-in right from the beginning, just wondering who will live where to make things work. This had both their povs, which I greatly enjoy, but it was written to keep a lot of the relationship development in their heads, we're told a lot but not shown to feel more. You'll also get some hot and heavy foreplay but then a slammed door in the face until the next morning for physical scenes. 

She took hold of the front of his shirt and pulled her to him, and before he fully registered what was happening, Daphne was kissing him. 

While the first half was setting up their working relationship, physical attraction, and getting to know, the second half has Daphne wanting to come clean that she's the real author. If you're an author reading this, the career workings, how men authors get treated differently and how the merry-go-round at publishing houses can be, will probably have you locked in and raising toasting a glass, as you drink deeply from it in commiseration. As a reader, it worked to fill out Daphne's character and world. There's a blackmail scene to force their resolution to Daphne and Chris' working relationship problem, Chris causing the third act breakup, and then some work by Chris but still felt like a quick forgive by Daphne. 

“That’s all this is,” he says. “Our first chapter. Pen to paper with the hope of finishing the story.” He met her gaze. “Do you want to start a story with me, Daphne?”

Like I said, if you're already an Armstrong fan, this would probably be a good pick to dip your toe into contemporary romance, a lot of the story focuses more on the logistics of how these two can be together, rather than heavy emotion development. This had cute light moments with some deeper commentary on what it means to be in the business of being a writer.

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