To fall in love while breaking up

Synopsis

Ellie Shaw loves love. Unfortunately, she’s also an expert in break-ups. When a friend needs help with her ‘too nice to dump’ boyfriend, Ellie agrees to help. What she doesn’t expect is for American Dan to be kind, caring, to love dogs and look like a Disney hero. In other words, completely too good to be true.

She lets him down with grace and, encouraged by her friends, sets up Softer Landings, offering kinder, gentler break-ups.

A year later American Dan reappears in her life. With a new girlfriend. One who also decides he’s not the one for her.

The team hatch a plan to let Dan down easy, but while Ellie attempts to lead him gently away, real sparks start to fly. There’s just one big problem she can’t ignore. Can Ellie reveal that their romance is the result of an elaborate con without it feeling like a huge betrayal? Or is she about to star in the most awful dumping of all time?

My review

Ellie Shaw never expected to run a business specialised in breaking up. Whenever someone wants to break up with their partner, they can hire Ellie and her team of Softer Landings to break things up kindly and gently.
Ellie’s business started all when a friend needed help with her ‘too nice to dump’ and American boyfriend. And American Dan is just too good to be true.
When one year later, American Dan returns, Ellie is shocked when his girlfriend hires her to break up with Dan too.
While working on the best plan to ‘dump’ Dan, sparks start to fly around. But how can Ellie tell Dan the truth without breaking his heart? And convince him that she wasn’t pretending? 

A book with this title, how cannot it not trigger my interest? We have had all a break – up that didn’t go that well, so having a agency like Ellie’s for sure would have come in handy in those moments! 

And Ellie is also talking from experience, as her own break – up was a shocking one, and knows also from helping out her sister that there is a gentler way of breaking up.
Not only from knowing that she has helped her sister, and also her friend, it’s easy to see what kind of character Ellie is.
She is kind, caring and loving. Who else would agree to take a dog in house while the righteous owner is going away for a year?
But she is also insecure, which is shown in several occasions, like not telling her own family she is no longer in a relationship and not being sure that her colleagues are also real friends.  

She has met her perfect man in ‘American Dan’, but she knows he is of limits. Not only because you don’t start something with a former boyfriend of your friend, but also because when he returns after a year, he is in a relationship.
And I admired her how she respected those boundaries, even when it’s clear that he will be single again very quickly… 

Dan couldn’t be more perfect, just like Ellie says, he is the perfect Disney Hero. They like the same things, and the two of them just click somehow. And the way he fusses over lovely Gus the Dog, well, ovaries exploding alert!
However, there is something he is hiding. And while during the whole story we know something happened to him, but it’s only in the very end that we know the full details.
And while I felt sad for him, I also had to admit to have full admiration for how he has been and is still handling his situation. 

While I had my doubts about the agency itself (because no matter how handy it would be to have someone doing the breaking up for you, it also shows a level of maturity doing it yourself), this story shows us that your perfect match sees you and loves you for just the way you are. And while keeping something hidden, as you are afraid of the reaction is understandable, but you should never underestimate the understanding of the person you love. 

But in this story we see also each character, not only Ellie and Dan, mature, evolve in this story. Ellie learns to be more confident and open her heart, Dan learns that not everyone will pity him, but also the other side characters learn important lessons about living in the now, enjoying the time together and the true meaning of friendship.

I enjoyed reading this story, about lovely characters who deserve the world but have to learn to open up. And with some twists in this tale, it shows us to treasure what we have and enjoy all the beautiful bits. But most important, to just be yourself and trust those around you, because they love anyway, even when you don’t expect them to…