Title: Fool Me Once
Author: Ashley Winstead
Publication: April 5, 2022
Publisher: Graydon House
Genre: Romance
Pages: 368
SYNOPSIS: (From Goodreads)
Lee Stone is a twenty-first-century woman: she kicks butt at her job as a communications director at a women-run electric car company (that’s better than Tesla, thank you) and after work she is “Stoner,” drinking guys under the table and never letting any of them get too comfortable in her bed…
That’s because Lee’s learned one big lesson: never trust love. After four major heartbreaks set her straight, from her father cheating on her mom all the way to Ben Laderman in grad school—who wasn’t actually cheating, but she could have sworn he was, so she reciprocated in kind.
Then Ben shows up five years later, working as a policy expert for the most liberal governor in Texas history, just as Lee is trying to get a clean energy bill rolling. Things get complicated—and competitive as Lee and Ben are forced to work together. Tension builds just as old sparks reignite, fanning the flames for a romantic dustup the size of Texas.
REVIEW:
**A copy of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.**
When I got the spring review round up in my email and saw this book and the description, I knew that I needed to request and read it. I enjoy the lovers to “enemies” to lovers again. It adds a fair amount of tension between the characters and the storyline.
Lee is a PR person for a car company. She is heading up a Green Machine bill for the State of Texas that would replace government and city vehicles with electric cars. She is paired with Ben with whom she dated 5 years prior and they broke each other’s heart. I read the first half in large chunks and the last half I read all in one fell swoop. I needed to know how it ended. While I really enjoyed the book I did give it a 3 stars because the character of Lee really really aggravated me. I thought she was acting childish and overly dramatic. Usually a character with bad behavior would not bother me or affect my love of the story, but Lee was a bit over the top and made me almost want to put the book down and move on to something else. Don’t get me wrong, I did really enjoy the story but her character bothered me that much.
I will say that Lee didn’t really mature and grow as a person until like the last 4-5 chapters of the book. She did things that you wouldn’t think a grow adult would do including doing drugs and stuff like that. I really enjoyed the whole will-they won’t they tension that was laced throughout the books. I loved the family that Lee surrounds herself with. They all have her back and want her to succeed in her life. I really cheered for Lee and Ben and their relationship, they were really destined to be together. It may sound like I didn’t like the book but I really did enjoy the book, it was just the main characters. The book was well written and I loved the writing style. I will probably check out more books by this author.
