With this Kiss By Carrie Hope Fletcher Book Review

Welcome to my review of With this Kiss By Carrie Hope Fletcher. I was really looking forward to this sweet romance. I have never read Carrie Hope Fletcher’s books and only knew who she was recently after watching her on a TV programme. The synopsis looked good, though, and the cover is beautiful.

With This Kiss was released on 14th April 2022.

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If you knew how your love story ends, would you dare to begin?

From the outside, Lorelai is an ordinary young woman with a normal life. She loves reading, she works at the local cinema and she adores living with her best friend. But she carries a painful burden, something she’s kept hidden for years; whenever she kisses someone on the lips, she sees how they are going to die.

Lorelai has never known if she’s seeing what was always meant to be, or if her kiss is the thing that decides their destiny. And so, she hasn’t kissed anyone since she was eighteen.

Then she meets Grayson. Sweet, clever, funny Grayson. And for the first time in years she yearns for a man’s kiss. But she can’t…or can she? And if she does, should she try to intervene and change what she sees?

Spellbinding, magical and utterly original, With This Kiss is one love story you will never forget.

Carrie Hope Fletcher is an English actress, singer-songwriter, author and internet personality.

As a child, Fletcher played small roles on television and appeared in musical theatre in London’s West End.

 In 2015 she published a book called: All I Know Now: Wonderings and Reflections on Growing Up Gracefully, which was a Number 1 bestseller in the UK. Her debut novel On the Other Side was released on 14 July 2016. Her second novel All That She Can See was released on 13 July 2017. Her third novel When The Curtain Falls was released on 12 July 2018. Her fourth novel In The Time We Lost was released on 17 October 2019. She released her fifth novel and first children’s book, Into The Spotlight, on 17 September 2020.

With This Kiss is Fletcher’s sixth novel.

You can find her on Instagram and Twitter.

This initially drew me in well, I can’t even imagine how it might feel to see how someone dies when you kiss them on the lips, but this is life for Lorelai. I can ultimately see why this would put you off kissing again quite quickly, especially when you later realise that what you saw came true. I thought this was an excellent idea for a book and something I would love to read.

Well, let’s just say that, unfortunately, this didn’t live up to the initial excitement.

I loved Lorelai and her best friend, Joanie. Everyone needs a friend like Joanie. She is incredible, so supportive and will stand by Lorelai no matter what. On top of that, she’s a lovely, beautiful soul. They love living together and working at the old cinema; they have a dream friendship.

I really enjoyed how Lorelai developed her book club and met Grayson. He is her dream man and works hard to gain her trust and encourage her to date him. I loved his geekiness and the fact that they met via a book club. There are a variety of other characters and issues throughout the story, some of which are dealt with better than others.

However, I felt that the book dragged on, and I really struggled to push through to read the second half. So many things were mentioned, such as Lorelai’s love of writing screenplays from old books, which came up a few times but weren’t developed. What could have been a fully rounded novel about her life became more of a ‘will she, won’t she’ go out with Grayson. It annoyed me that she kept leading him on with the promise of explaining herself later, but then she wouldn’t.

I didn’t feel anything for any of the characters (aside from Joanie mentioned above), as they all felt flat. Also, the story doesn’t explain what drew Lorelai to Grayson in the first place; she notes that he is handsome, but otherwise, there wasn’t any particular reason she suddenly is thrown into a spin by him.

I did enjoy Lorelai’s eventual reconnecting with her mother after avoiding her parents for so long; this did provide an excellent lift to the story, which was definitely needed. However, I wish that the characters felt more realistic and fuller so that it bought the story to life a bit more., instead they felt a bit like they were put there to push the plot along.

This wasn’t a great start to a new author for me, and to be honest, I struggled to get through this one.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher for a free advanced reader copy (ARC) in exchange for an honest review.

Title	With this Kiss
Author	Carrie Hope Fletcher
Series	N/A
Format	eARC
Page Count	400 Pages
Genre	Fantasy Romance
Publisher	HQ
Release Date	14th April 2022