ARC Review: That First Night
Hey y’all, I’m back with another advance review! This time for a 2023 contemporary romance debut dropping April 18th! I read That First Night by Jenn McMahon, and am here to tell you all the things I felt while I was reading it. Sound good? Okay great, perfect, wonderful.
I’d like to thank Jenn for the advance copy, thoughts below are my own, enjoy!
The finger-bang to forever pipeline is alive and well my friends. (LOL oh man I do crack myself up sometimes.) So, this starts out with our MCs meeting at a fancy AF gala. Peyton is attending only to be a good friend, and would MUCH rather be at home baking cookies. And Thomas is attending, well because he’s Thomas Ford, billionaire hot man™ that is giving back.
Thomas (our rich man-clown) is at the bar with his siblings and best-friend being like “relationships, never heard of her”, and then quite literally is struck-dumb by seeing Peyton from across the room. So lol big fella, enjoy what’s coming your way.
They end up doing all kinds of hand-stuff outside the ballroom hosting the gala. Which like at this point I was like okay I am here for a man who knows how to use his hands. She excuses herself to tidy up in the bathroom and Mr. I-Dont-Do-Relationships is feeling pretty proud of himself at this point. He’s interested, enough in wanting to keep messing around with her, that is until the fire-alarm starts blaring, and chaos ensues.
He immediately starts hustling through the throngs of gala-goers to find this woman he is very much not attached to (he is). And pals, he isn’t able to find her!
We pick up 5 years later (gasp right?!). Peyton has moved back to the city after some intense family grief (see my content warning note below) and is ready to “start over” with the help of Kali and Avery (who really are the OTT lunatics every friend group should have). Through some clever plotting Peyton gets set up with a job interview for a nanny position, and heads off to meet the little boy.
You know where this is going right? Well would you look at that, it’s Thomas! They are both frozen in some weird horny liminal space when they see each other, and from there this hits a lot of the beats I was hoping for:
Super cute (extremely bright), very precocious child
He’s hot, then cold, then hot, then…
He’s like “you have to move in here to do this job!”
He’s jealous over a sweatshirt (lol I wont spoil this but LOL, clown)
He takes care of her needs (inside and outside the bedroom)
She loves his son and it makes his chest feel weird™
There is some (what I would consider) unneeded 3rd act compounding drama (I’m looking at you Sheila), coupled with a really sad life event. Which I was kinda like, you know what one or the other please. Not both. This kinda dragged things out a bit when I was getting eager to get to their HEA.
I did want to mention that my ARC didn’t include content warnings, but I would encourage folks to read with care and caution. As this touches on topics that may bring up big feelings for folks, including abandonment of a child, death of a parent, and a grandparent with terminal cancer. Be gentle with yourself as you read, ok!
I think there will be lots of folks that will enjoy the absolute heck out of this one! It's funny, and sweet, with just a dash of OTT rich people stuff, and of course some classic romance book moments that will absolutely stick with folks. If this sounds like something you might be into grab That First Night on pre-order so you’ll have it when it drops at retailers April 18th 2023.
Yours in HEA’s
Kels