by Rachel Lynn Solomon
Review: Rachel Lynn Solomon crafts a rom-com that's like literary ASMR for podcast aficionados and NPR nerds. Shay Goldstein has been a producer at her Seattle public radio station for almost 10 years, but her patience is challenged when hotshot Dominic Yun breezes in with his freshly minted journalism master's and gets major opportunities without paying his dues. But when Shay proposes a new show,
The Ex Talk, in which two exes will deliver relationship advice on air, she never anticipates that her struggling station's boss will decide she and Dominic are the perfect cohosts. Never mind that they haven't dated; their mutual loathing should do the trick. But after they start working together closely, Shay and Dominic can't help but feel a pull of attraction that could unravel everything they've worked so hard to build. Solomon delivers a sterling enemies-to-lovers tale, one that pulses with the delicious tension of dislike as a thinly veiled denial of fascination from the first page. It's a novel of stolen glances, hurried intimacy reached for like a life raft in a storm, and deeply felt connection. Both Dominic and Shay are trying to make sense of what it means to be an adult and to call a place home, carving space for themselves both personally and professionally. Shay is still wrestling with the all-consuming shadow of grief that has haunted her since her father died when she was 18, while Dominic is nursing the wounds of a devastating breakup. The last thing they expect is to find the sense of peace and comfort missing in their lives in each other. But what makes