Review: Sonia Hartl’s HEARTBREAK FOR HIRE.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the complimentary ARC. All opinions provided are my own.

📖 Q: what’s your current read? I’m about 44% into Roan Parrish’s Lights on Knockbridge Lane.

Sonia Hartl’s Heartbreak for Hire was an interesting read for me for lots of reasons, including the fact that there are things I really liked about it & some things that didn’t quite work for me.

It’s bold & wry & comes out swinging at cutthroat academia—there’s also some quality steam, a hot + nerdy professor hero, & a heroine who’s adept at disguises & has a few epiphanies about her life & the direction it’s going in.

Brinkley Saunders wants to own her own gallery where she can sell her artwork but in the meantime she’s helping pull off revenge schemes at Heartbreak for Hire. She targets Egos (men whose professional egos have gotten out of control & who have grossly wronged their female coworkers), although her judgmental, emotionally unavailable mom—chair of a psychology dept—thinks she’s an admin assistant.

Then Brinkley is hired to target professor Markus Cavanaugh but she’s won over by his conversation & against her better judgement they end up hooking up. Until she runs away, reminded of what her job is.

Later, he shows up at Heartbreak for Hire, one of its newest hires.

I love how HRH goes after so many important topics including verbal & emotional abuse, toxic masculinity in the workplace, parental disappointment, & damaging behaviors & culture in academia. Also on my Very Much Enjoyed List is how Brinkley is snarky & daring—except when it comes to her gallery & confrontation—& Markus eats it up.

But the book doesn’t have quite the emotional resonance I wanted in some moments & the reconciliation feels somewhat rushed (& also I was a little bothered by how some of it comes about.)

On the whole I really enjoyed this one & Hartl’s style & I’m excited to see what she writes next!

4 ⭐️. Release date: 07/27

[ID: a person wearing a white & blue linen dress holds a copy of the book next to a bed of colorful zinnias.]