What a unique story and a fresh new voice in fiction. Danny is a tech start up bro, he is the coding half of the duo that started Pattern, a dating app that measures compatibility. Eve is a musician who comes from a Manhattan elite family, her brother co-founded the company with Danny. He is marrying a beautiful “influencer” and says things like “crushing it.” Danny is approaching the app and the compatibility score with a lot of thoughtfulness, and it is being used in very human, messy ways.
This is a really unique writing style that I will admit, it took me awhile to get used to. With razor sharp references, this seems to skip prose and descriptions in favor of rapid jumps to snippets of conversations. The narrative skips around in character and time frame rather abruptly, but once I got used to the style, I realized that I knew the characters in their complexity and relationships much more so than I would have expected in just a few hundred pages. This is one that grew on me over the course of me reading it. By the ending, you realize the commentary it is making on relationships, how they work, and how they are influenced by the modern age.
The best thing about this book is the rather complex conversation that it is having around AI, Algorithms, how we are relying upon our devices and some AI that has been programmed by some very very human and imperfect people.
I was lucky to approach this as an immersive read as I received both the ARC from Harlequin Trade as well as the ALC from Harlequin Audio. The audiobook performance was excellent, but audio-only could be a challenge to some readers due to the writing style. I personally did very much need the “eyeball” reading to keep track of where I was in the book.
Book to be published March 31, 2026. Thank you to NetGalley, Harlequin, and the author.
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