On a Night Like This

This book was adorable!

Fran Cooper is feeling stuck in her life. When offered a job as a famous singer's PA to accompany her to the Crystal Ball, Fran takes a chance to try to figure out where she wants to go in her life. While things don't go as planned, Fran meets Evan at the Crystal Ball, where sparks fly. The two of them agree on a single magical night, no personal information shared. But what happens when the night ends and you want your fairytale?

The descriptions in this book are where Kelk really shines - from the Yacht to Fran's ballgowns to the Crystal Ball, I was transported into this glitzy world of the ultra-rich. I loved reading about all the insane activities to do at the Crystal Ball (very much reminiscent of the Met Gala).

I really loved how Evan and Juliette's respective characters were handled. Evan is your classic love interest prince-like character, but he has the nuance to not be flat. I really loved Juliette's character arc and how she wasn't just the diva that everyone expected her to be. Fran's own growth throughout the book was slow but I appreciated the steps that she took in her personal life after her experience in this book.

This book doesn't read like a standard romance, and you can see that from the pacing - you don't actually have the Crystal Ball until around the 50% mark, and then this one night is 30% of the book. I actually enjoyed the antics of the first half of the book with Fran trying to keep up with Juliette, and there's something to be said about developing a friendship in a book as well.

Unfortunately, what falls flat for me is how the romance gets handled post-Crystal Ball. We get a lot of Cinderella parallels up to this point, and then it felt a bit too grounded in reality afterward. When there were a few Hallmark movie style romantic gestures from Evan, it felt exactly if someone tried to do these gestures in real life rather than what you'd expect in a romance that spent a decent amount of time trying to portray an immediate "sparks fly" connection between these two characters. There's nothing wrong with a dose of realism, but in a book that tries to sell the romantic fairytale, it felt like it couldn't fully commit to the fantasy, and that was a bit disappointing.

Overall, I still really enjoyed this book, a solid four stars.

Thank you to Harper 360, HarperCollins, and NetGalley for the ARC.