Genre: Romance

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

When I describe my simple pleasures in life, they include New York bagels, Saturday night baseball, oat milk lattes, and books that make me audibly laugh. This book made me audibly laugh. Over, and over, and over again. B.K. Borison took the assignment of romcom and knocked it out of the park.

It wasn’t just funny, though I was laughing constantly, it was also surprisingly relatable to the realities of modern dating. Borison captures feelings of loneliness and hopelessness in a way that doesn’t drag you down, but instead feels raw and authentic. This book reminded me that you can be overflowing with love in your life, through friends, family, passions, and still long for a partner. Not because you’re incomplete without one, but because you want someone to share in all that love you already have.

First Time Caller is a slow burn romance (and I mean SLOW) that follows Lucie, a single mother, navigating her life while co-parenting her 12 year old daughter Maya.

Lucie’s world is already full of love, between her daughter, her ex, her friends, and her coworkers, but Maya can still sense her mom’s quiet loneliness. So, in secret, she calls into a late-night dating advice radio show on Lucie’s behalf when she’s supposed to be asleep. Of course, Lucie discovers her daughter’s little scheme the way all moms do, by catching her red-handed on the phone with a grown man, understandably alarmed at what she’s overhearing.

While on air of Baltimore’s Heartstrings radio show, instead of taking her daughter’s worry as an attack. Instead, she finds herself in conversation with the show’s host, Aiden Valentine, though not before accusing him of being a cult leader, of course.

What follows is a surprisingly raw, unfiltered exchange that strikes a chord with listeners and, once it goes viral, with millions more.

Honestly, it even struck a chord with me. I almost never dog ear pages, but I found myself doing it here, which feels borderline sacrilegious.

Lucie goes on to tell who she thinks is nine people listening –

“When the whole world tells you you’re silly for wanting the things you want, you start to believe them. You start to think that you’re not worth it. That if the things you’re waiting for do exist, they’re not for someone like you.”

The dialogue between Lucie, who craves magic, and Aiden, who doesn’t quite believe in it, is both witty and achingly vulnerable. It leaves not just the listeners but nearly the entire East Coast rooting for Lucie to find the love she deserves, including her friends, family, and coworkers, who begin to rally behind her in ways she never expected.

The result is Lucie breaking out of her comfort zone and joining Aiden in the booth. She becomes a recurring guest on Heartstrings, sharing what she wants in her dating life, offering advice to callers, and, without even realizing it, openly flirting with Aiden. Their banter has to be my favorite part of the book. I am a SUCKER for good banter.

Before long, she’s cycling through a string of disastrous dates, each one ending with Aiden swooping in to rescue her. Slowly, he begins to weave himself into her life. The chemistry is undeniable, their care for one another obvious to everyone, except them.

One of the reasons I loved this book so much is the way it captures the little moments of falling in love. The ones you don’t notice at the time but that stick with you later, the nervous overthinking, the sparks of excitement, the teasing humor, the ache of wanting to learn everything about someone because simply being near them isn’t enough.

To me, those moments are the most beautiful when they’re undefined, when you don’t yet know who this person will be in your life. There’s no agenda, just the raw rush of new love unfurling in real time.

The half-point off my rating comes down to one thing: my deep hatred for avoidant men. Especially the kind who lash out or mistreat people around them because they’re unhappy with themselves and can’t face their own emotions.

That said, this obviously has a happy ending (otherwise I’d still be fuming), so it’s not much of a spoiler to say Aiden redeems himself. He earns back points for how much he truly cares about Lucie, and for the fact that his realization didn’t come from seeing her with another man, it came from within. Yes, he ran, as most avoidant people do, but he turned around quickly, owned up to it, and actually did better.

I was recently in a relationship where I’d ask for needs to be met. I asked for care, for intention. Change did not happen, and he would always say when he was mad at me for my reaction to his actions “I’m here aren’t I?” or “this can’t all be my fault” or “sorry I’m not perfect”. I never asked him to be perfect, relationships aren’t perfect.

What defines love is knowing what makes your partner happy and making an effort to do it. Even if it goes against your natural instincts, because those are not inherent parts of who you are. How you respond to the criticism of your actions is. Showing up is important, but showing up with intention, with gentleness, with love, is what fosters a healthy relationship. Love is being able to admit when you’re wrong without an excuse tied to the apology.

Lucie wanted magic, and Aiden believed she was the magic. Love is believing in magic because you’ll never be too much for the right person, you just have to find them.

You’ll have to crack open the book yourself to soak up all the little details, but I can’t recommend it enough if you’re into a slow burn, (semi) forced-proximity romance that will have you laughing out loud, in the most literal sense.