Sophia Rose Reviews: Love and Other Conspiracies by Mallory Marlowe

 

Today Sophia Rose reviews, Love and Other Conspiracies by Mallory Marlow, a contemporary romance.
Enjoy!

Love and Other Conspiracies by Mallory Marlowe

Contemporary Romance

Publisher:  Berkley Romance

Published: 8.20.24

Pages:  367

Rating: 4.5 stars

Format: Trade Paperback

Source:  Berkley

Sellers:  Amazon 

ADD TO: GoodReads

GoodReads Blurb:

The hardest thing for a paranormal conspiracy theorist and a web series producer to believe in is finding love in this swoony debut romantic comedy.
 
Hallie Barrett's life has imploded after she's dumped by her hotshot ex, who also happens to be her coworker and the star of the online series she was producing. Without a new show to present for the company competition, she’ll be out of a job. But inspiration can come from the strangest places . . . like the most handsome guy she’s ever seen passionately discussing Bigfoot on a late-night docuseries.
 
Hayden Hargrove made a name for himself as a cryptid expert on his hit podcast, and is intrigued by the plucky, blue-haired producer who offers him the opportunity to lead his own web show. When the production team sees that Hayden’s solo on-screen presence is bad enough to make a ghost blanch, Hallie jumps on camera too, hitting him (and his cryptids) with a healthy dose of skepticism—and enough chemistry to electrify their show to the top of the competition.
 
As Hayden and Hallie investigate the unknown, they unearth feelings for each other that shake their beliefs to the core. In their search for Mothman, aliens, and the truth, the most elusive discovery might just be learning to love again.

 

Sophia Rose's Review:

With her career teetering on the edge and her love life up in flames, producer Hallie Barrett needs a crushing win for a show idea, dare she take a chance on the outlandish conspiracy and crypto lover, Hayden Hargrove?  Mallory Marlowe could have been writing her tenth book for all I knew based on her fun idea for a romance situation and the layered, engaging characters and the slowburn romance she penned, but in actuality this was a stellar debut.

 

Hallie is emotionally bruised and her self-confidence is as low as it gets after her ex did a number on her and he just happens to have his own successful show that she helped on for a few years.  Now, with the cutting edge world of producing shows, she has to prove to her bosses she deserves to keep her job. In panic mode, she is sitting up late mulling over the possibilities when she stumbles across a podcast and the topic is a doozy- aliens, conspiracies and legends that the podcaster poses do exist.  While Hayden may be crazy, she thinks he’s onto something for a show idea and recruits him. Her roomie and friend has faith in her, but she doesn’t start to have faith in herself until she finds herself in front of the camera with Hayden and swapping zippy dialogue and showing gathering fans the chemistry the pair have.  Will it be enough to overcome her crushing self-doubt and the egotistical, but popular ex and his show?

 

At first, I really felt Hallie’s dreary and bruised spirit and it was hard to read, but Hayden was just what she needed to come into her life.  I appreciated how the change was gradual, but they were both energized by their pairing.  Hallie’s struggles with- I’m calling it emotional and verbal abuse because that’s what Cade did to her- feeling adequate and worthy made it essential that she work through that before she could accept what Hayden was offering so this was slow burn though still very sexy. 

 

The show was off to a rocky start, but then they were playing off each other and the energy was real and came off the pages so that I could feel it, too.  I was cheering this pair on.  Hallie is a skeptic and Hayden a believer.  It was fun having them onsite and getting glimpses of their latest topic, but just as fun seeing how they were so good for each other.  She might not believe in Bigfoot, but Hallie was the first to draw out Hayden and believe in him just like he had her back all along the way even when her detestable ex tried to bad mouth her when they started to get some success.

 

All in all, I’m a fan, shipping Hayden and Hal right along with the rest of their followers.  I was grinning so many times particularly when their onscreen dialogue and the fun locales and topics were as entertaining as their growing romance.  Glad to see there is another book coming from Mallory Marlowe.  If you loved the X-Files or other shows that explore the bizzare and mysterious with a romance on the side, drop this one onto your reading stack for a sexy romance for spooky season.

 

Author Bio:

Mallory Marlowe is the USA Today Bestselling author of Love and Other Conspiracies. Seriously right-brained since childhood, her love of telling stories began with highly elaborate plots for her Barbie dolls and taking elementary school writing projects too seriously. She studied Writing for Film and TV at Emerson College. While romance is her truest love, she also loves to write across several genres from paranormal to fantasy to horror. When she isn’t writing, she’s likely reading, stuck in L.A. traffic, or fallen down a weird internet rabbit hole. She lives in Los Angeles, CA and writes video games by day.

Website:  https://www.mallorymarlowe.com/

Sophia’s Bio:

Sophia is a quiet though curious gal who dabbles in cooking, book reviewing, piano-playing, and gardening. Road trips and campouts, museums and monuments, restaurants and theaters are her jam. Encouraged and supported by an incredible man and loving family. A Northern Californian transplant to the Great Lakes Region of the US. Lover of Jane Austen, Baseball, Cats, Scooby Doo, and Chocolate.

As a lifelong reader, it was inevitable that Sophia would discover book blogs and the joy of blog reviewing. Sophia is a prolific reader and audiobook listener which allows her to experience so many wonderful books, authors, and narrators. Few genres are outside her reading tastes, but her true love is fiction particularly history, mystery, sci-fi, and romance. Though, sorry, no horror or she will run like Shaggy and Scooby.

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/sophia.rose.7587

Twitter: https://twitter.com/sophiarose1816

GoodReads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13418187.Sophia_Rose