Written in the Stars

A Novel

By: Alexandria Bellefleur

Narrated by: Lauren Sweet

Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's Summary

With nods to Bridget Jones and Pride and Prejudice, a charming #ownvoices queer holiday rom-com debut about a free-spirited social media astrologer who agrees to fake a relationship with an uptight actuary until New Year's Eve—with results not even the stars could predict!

After a disastrous blind date, Darcy Lowell is desperate to stop her well-meaning brother from playing matchmaker ever again. Love—and the inevitable heartbreak—is the last thing she wants. So she fibs and says her latest setup was a success. Darcy doesn't expect her lie to bite her in the ass.

Elle Jones, one of the astrologers behind the popular Twitter account, Oh My Stars, dreams of finding her soul mate. But she knows it is most assuredly not Darcy... a no-nonsense stick-in-the-mud, who is way too analytical, punctual, and skeptical for someone as free-spirited as Elle. When Darcy's brother—and Elle's new business partner—expresses how happy he is that they hit it off, Elle is baffled. Was Darcy on the same date? Because... awkward.

When Darcy begs Elle to play along, she agrees to pretend they're dating to save face. But with a few conditions: Darcy must help Elle navigate her own overbearing family over the holidays and their arrangement expires on New Year's Eve. The last thing they expect is to develop real feelings during a fake relationship. 

But maybe opposites can attract when true love is written in the stars?

©2020 Alexandria Bellefleur (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers

Absolutely wonderful

This is quite possibly my favorite WLW romance I’ve ever read. I loved the touch of Pride and Prejudice in the book but also loved that it didn’t follow the P&P story outline. Made it much more enjoyable to listen.

I absolutely loved both the lead characters. Both were strong independent women who knew who they were and were not willing to change who they were for the sake of a relationship. There was no whiny inner monologue of “am I pretty enough “ and there wasn’t the trope of a silly miss understanding that could have been solved by a simple 5 second conversation. This was sweet and realistic while still being sexy as ever.
Also. The sexy times were wonderful and clearly written by a person who had actually been with a women.

I would be friends with both these women. I’m definitely more of an El. And I could fall for Darcy.

There is so much I loved about this book but I don’t want to give things away. I would definitely recommend buying this book any time of year but bonus it takes place around the holidays.

My only complaint is the Christmas song assigned to my birth sigh. Twelve days of Christmas is the worst Christmas song!

Read this book. It’s sweet and lovely.

Over it

I loved the story and the characters were well written I thought Elle was an interesting character.
Narration was excellent

I should've read this sooner.

I've read a few faux romances that turned into more but this book took on a very refreshing change. The inclusion of astrology. That is what caught my attention and I was all in from there. Darcy and Elle were the perfect pair to match as they feed off of one another to of course, finally realized their very real feelings for one another. Kuddos to Darcy's brother Brendon!

Best WLW I’ve read

I cannot recommend this queer romance enough. The characters are cute and lovable, and it’s got some of the hottest steamy scenes. It makes my queer heart so happy! The narrator is excellent as well, her character voices have excellent subtle differences so you can easily keep track of what character is speaking. I have re-listened to this book multiple times, and it makes me smile.

Cute story, some flimsy plot lines

*SPOILERS* I’ve never written a review before. I have read enough though to know you need to disclose **SPOILERS**

I bought this audio book last year. Listened to the narrator briefly. Stopped. Returned the audiobook and listened to something else. This year I stumbled upon the title again having completely forgotten about that prior experience. Still struggled big time with the narration but pushed through.

This is a cute book. I could see it as a movie with some plot revisions. As a queer woman my standards are pretty low since sapphic romances are usually period pieces, terrible, or well, nonexistent. Because of that I overlooked the fact that it features two cis, white, femme presenting, able bodied, women (some diversity would be nice). That said, I struggled with many of the plot points. Sure it makes sense why Darcy will benefit from the fake relationship but the benefits to El are flimsy at best. Later we see how difficult things are for El with her family but early on, without that character development, it seems just odd that she’d go along with it. You could kinda sorta tell she was pining for Darcy a bit but even that wasn’t super fleshed out and with the way Darcy treated her (so transactionally) it was hard to buy in. I mean El had a lot to lose with the career overlap (Brandon) and her tender heart.

The sex scenes are super hot. I was so in the moment that I can’t even remember if they were plausible but if you can’t already tell I’m not short on opinions or words so I think I’d remember if I thought it was unbelievable.

The whole calendar notification was dumb. Like make a real reason to have conflict. So was the emotional breakdown in bed and the ‘someone in my building is making pancakes’. Meh. So much potential there for plausible conflict. Every inch of conflict was so obviously solved that it left little in the way of the will-they-or-won’t-they suspense that’s so-bad-it’s-good in romance stories.

I have some great things to say about this book. Just further down and not yet.

I found the fight and break up to be super far fetched. I hate when it’s just a misunderstanding or someone having cold feet about opening up. I would’ve expected some wrongdoing of great significance. It’s not that the fight wasn’t bad nor was it that Darcy’s words to her mom with El listening were minor but it was just so obvious they’d literally have one conversation and be back together. Why Brandon even intervened at all is besides me. While we’re on Brandon or is Brendan (who cares) why is he so out of touch with Darcy’s feelings about their mom? And when are Brendan (or is it Brandon) and Margot going to fall in love? Is that the next book?

Ok does Darcy pass her FSA? I really thought she was going to fail, totally spin out, and unfairly blame El for everything and they’d break up only for Darcy to win her back with a grand gesture during a strong astrological period. Anyway, did the book address the FSA exam and I missed it? That part of Darcy’s storyline was pretty bad ass. I hope she passed and I loved reading about a woman who was driven and successful in a field dominated by men. Yay for women in STEM!

I thought the astrologer and the actuary was an interesting and alliterative pairing. I also loved El’s whole business storyline. Really delightful to see her win big!

What I LOVED about the book is that the queer character storylines did not revolve around the usual suspects: coming out, “straight” person falls for queer person, or coming out to disapproving family, etc. Basically no queer trauma and I really appreciated that. Just a love story that happens to be about two women who also happen to be total career badasses. I also loved that it kept my attention. If I’m thinking about the characters when I’m not listening I know the author is doing something right and these two popped into my mind a fair amount.

Ok first review written. If you hated this review sorry you’re still reading it?! Will I read her next book? Probably. Who am I kidding? Yes, I will for sure. And for my fellow friends who struggled with the narration I hate to say it but it’s the same narrator for the next one.

Sparks

fly every which way in this laugh out loud story. A quintessential modern lesbian romance novel with plenty of snark. Ms. Bellefleur had me at astrologer but add to that a stuffy, numbers geek who is definitely NOT a love interest and it has all the elements of a great ride. I can see why it was rated one of the best romance novels of 2020. Exquisitely performed by Lauren Sweet.

Okay but not engaging

I wanted to love this book but unfortunately it was kind of fell flat. I made more than half way through and realized there just wanted enough intrigue in it for me to keep going.

Stars Didn't Shine For Me

All the raves hooked me. But everything about the book just didn't do it for me. So much repeating of characters whiny thoughts was boring. The humor fell flat. The characters didn't seem to have much chemistry. And the narration was perfunctory, not compelling.

Gave me all the feels!

This is a sweet, fun and romantic story, with well developed and likeable characters. I couldn't put it down and absolutely didn't want it to end. If you love love then Written in the Stars is for you.

Cute but…

I like this book and it had some adorable parts in it but I feel a slight disconnect from the writing. I had a hard time picturing the characters, especially Darcy.
Something was forced and that became more apparent with the sex scenes. I skipped through like 99.9% of those parts but of what little I heard, it seemed like a fanfiction and didn’t have a real life feeling to it. I would have like the book more without those those scenes. The whole book was about love but those parts didn’t match up with the rest of the book.

It was worth the listen but I will probably never listen to it again.

Lesbian romance 👌

I never really understood why people like romance novels, after reading this book I now understand...i just had to find a gay romance novel.

Gorgeous

A lovely, romantic, lesbian romcom. Top notch writing, top notch story and top notch reader. Great production too. Could not ask for more. Loved it to bits

BUY IT

struggled with the first 10 minutes but so pleased I stuck with it, great characters that will make you laugh out loud, and damn this author can write, off to see if she has any other books right now.

A bright spot

It is nice getting to read a story where things don’t go smoothly, where live and family and so etimes your own thoughts get in the way.
And those all color our decisions, but with a little friendly nudge here and there and an understanding of oneself happiness is still an option. Or else just let the stars guide you.
A very enjoyable listening to this audiobook with a nice variety of voices by the narrator.
Recommend this one to those who like faux relationship stories, opposite attracts, and a little bit of hope.

A Story to Get Lost In

Very easy listening, getting invested in the characters comes naturally from the amazing voice performance to the gripping writing. From the author painting a perfect scene to the reader perfectly capturing the different characters and remaining consistent throughout. A loveable story and plot.

beautiful

the first part of the story is full of humour, very funny, a fake romance starts to appease family, when they meet elles' mother who complains elle hasn't lived to expectations, despite elles' success and being happy, elle and darcy start to become closer, darcy is terrified of being hurt again, and when her own mother shows up interfering, darcys' fears boil and she turns elle away.
the writing is superb, so real, I laughed and then cried not knowing how this would end.
the narrator is brilliant and impressive .
a definite read again.

It was just okay, sweet, but missing something

Struggled a bit to engage with the lack of plot n story. Very predictable throughout, though cute I'm surprised I finished it.

overall enjoyable

First I would like to say how im a big fan of opposite attract and slow burn romance stories. Highlighting the stress caused by many at the holiday season is good and added to the feels I got for Elle . I really did want to knock Darcy's brother head together with Elle family for being such idiots , that's great writing for you

I would of enjoyed more without all the harry potter references but perhaps I'm being unkind to the author and jkr toxic behaviour to part of our community wasn't so widely known when the book written . Perhaps its best to keep specifics when referencing other material to just the genre i.e the character liked fantasy books etc . Just a thought

i heart this

i love love love this 💗💗💗! but where is an epilogue when i need one?!?!? 🥺🥺🥺

and You Oughta Know by Alanis Morisette should be in the list of breakout songs

Mmm, yes. Very good

'You have the audacity to compare my life to a romantic comedy!?'

So this book was (imo) fucking excellent, pardon my french.

Loveable characters, diabetes inducing sweetness and charming dry wit, I really wanna say more but it's best if you listen yourself tbh.

Enjoy! x