Anna loves what she does. As an instructor at a yoga studio, she loves finding the spiritual connection between mind and body and teaching others how to appreciate the skin they're in. When her employer decides she must sell the studio Anna decides it's her time to step up into adulthood and apply for a loan to buy the studio herself. This drive for success doesn't leave much time outside of the few girl’s night events she wouldn't cancel for the world with her two besties and best sister. That doesn't leave a lot of room for romance. So, when she receives an email meant for someone else from a man who intrigues her from salutation calling the reader "Little Shit" to the Tolkien references within its lines. Driven by a force unknown to her she replies to the email to correct the writer on their error in email recipient. Thus begins a correspondence she starts to depend on daily. Her heart starts to become invested in that little new email icon more and more as she gets to know the man behind the screen.
Liam is a casual guy. As an ER surgeon resident, he has no time for anything else. His previous relationships have proven that women require more time than he is able to give at this time. He figures nothing will come of a little harmless flirting with an online entity that seems to match him wit for wit. But as he starts to crave more and more from the mystery email lady, he fears he may not be able to keep things as platonic as he should. It becomes glowingly obvious he's in trouble when he comes face-to-face with Anna. Suddenly keeping her in the friend zone becomes increasingly harder. Will Liam and Anna be able to keep their friendship from falling to shambles under the immense attraction they have formed between each other? Or were they doomed from the first very start?
I am a carnivorous, junk food loving, woman who eats more protein than her full-grown man of a husband. So, the "no meat for me" vibe Anna had, made me wrinkle my nose a bit. But the author had a way of making her female protagonist very new-age-ish without having it be the defining factor of her overall. It was a good balance. The talk of the relationship between food and health made me want to set my kettle corn popcorn aside in a dejected sort of way but it was a way of connecting the characters that I wouldn't have really thought about if I were authoring a book of the like. Anna and Liam were just the right amount of different while also having a lot of similarities that made their relationship seem real and normal.
The story is described as a slow-burn which I completely agree. The buildup between the two characters with the determination to keep each other firmly in the friend zone was almost infuriating. I just wanted them to fall on each other's faces and rid themselves of all the tension that they had building between the pages that even had me squirming. Be prepared to be as frustrated as the characters most of the time.
I would recommend all of Sigal Ehrlich's books.
All of them are fantastic and by Mist@ke is another vivacious
feather in her cap of fine new adult romance.
