I was really excited to read this book!
The description sounded great, a fake office romance turned real thing sounded witty and a d hilarious and steamy. It was not.

What I liked?
Laurie's relationship with her best friend Emily. They were the ‘true love’ part of this book and it was really sweet .

What I didn’t like?
The pacing of the book was slow, and I didn’t feel excited at any point.
I didn’t connect with the characters or the story.
I didn’t realise that the breakup between Laurie and her 18 year partner happens in the book, I thought this was the fun romp with an colleague/revenge/accidentally falling for the guy book. Which the second half of the book was I suppose. I just didn’t engage.

I think this book was wholly to serious for what I expected, and wanted.

I LOVED the story of Laurie, Dan and Jamie. Once again Mhairi McFarlane delivers a brilliant piece of commercial women's fiction. This is my new favourite of hers, with a strong, complex heroine and characters who are dealing with real issues in their lives.

Yet another brilliant read from Mhairi McFarlane, who always delights with romcoms that seem both plausible and magical in real life. The book is engaging, flows really well, and thoroughly gets across the emotions that going through a break-up after many years would experience.

Would recommend!

This book was a brilliant read and one that is perfect to escape for a few hours and loose yourself.
Characters that fall out of the pages of the book and make you fell apart of the story, the setting is lovely and captured well with words.
A great read. that I would highly recommend.

I'd been reading a few psychological thrillers, so the light-hearted romantic comedy that is 'If I Never Met You' by Mhairi McFarlane was just the book - with a teensy dose of reality just for good measure.
While Laurie is dreaming of the perfect future with her best friend and love-of-her-life, Tom unexpectedly ends the relationship over a meal-for-two. Laurie is left dazed and shell shocked, and worse, Tom is a work colleague so she will still have to work with him - and everyone else who knows them as a couple!
After a chance encounter in a lift with the charming and apparently womanising Jamie however, the two hatch a plan to fake a relationship; Laurie wants to show Tom what he is missing, and Jamie see Laurie's respected status at work as an opportunity to lose his rakish reputation as he chases a big promotion in the firm. In a nicely predictable plotline, the boundaries start to blur.
And the lesson? Social media once again plays a huge part in this story, padding out the fake relationship with fake staged photos and stories; your story can be as fake and glamourous as you want it to be, but we all still have to deal with reality!
I give this book 4 stars.

Absolutely loved this book. Loved Laurie, she thought she had it all but Dan then drops a bombshell....their relationship is over. Laurie is devastated..and sets herself up with a fake relationship with Jamie.. a bit of a Casanova. Things grow between then and she realises that he's not what he seems to be...
A really good feelgood novel.
First novel I've read by Mhairi MC Garland and I shall be keeping an eye out for more.
Highly recommend

My love affair with Mhairi McFarlane started in November 2012 when I read You Had Me At Hello, and it is still one of my all time favourite books. So every time she releases a new book, I'm there. I don't even need to read the blurb.

If I Never Met You reminded me of YHMAH sooo much, and I LOVED it! I don't know if it's because its also set in Manchester, the characters working in the legal field (I did wonder if hope Ben was going to crop up) or if it was the breakdown of a long term relationship, but whatever it was just added to my enjoyment of this book.

I loved Laurie and seeing her character grow throughout the story was very satisfying. She was a successful lawyer professionally, but in her personal life I felt she was quite downtrodden. She had a strained relationship with her mother, her father was a flake, and Dan had taken her for granted. When their relationship ended, Laurie was left wondering what she was going to do with her life. Having been with Dan since she was 18, she was suddenly single at 36, and her biological clock was ticking. As she takes stock of her life, her friends rally round but the main person who gives her the confidence to make changes to her life is Jamie.

Jamie is the office playboy, and no one takes him seriously. He has a reputation as heart breaker, but as the story progressed, you get to see the real Jamie and he was not the person everyone thought he was. He was kind, sensitive, fiercely protective of those he loves and perfect boyfriend material.
I won't go into the plot, but suffice to say the fake romance was very well done.
The supporting characters added to the story, I especially liked Hattie (Jamie's best friend) and Laurie's office BFF, Bharat.

As with all MM books, there's loveable characters, humour, angst, and slow burn romance which I love, and the end of the story happening far too quickly, leaving you wanting much much more.

4.5 stars

LOVED, LOVED LOVED IT!!!!
Mhairi McFarlane just knows how to write masterpieces with characters that you would love to be your friends in real life.

Such a heartwarming book! Really great bit of escapeism, hilarious, heartbreaking, all the best things that Mhairi McFarlane does so well!

I really, really enjoyed this. I was a little worried at the start that it was going to be a bit gloomy, because Laurie's breakup was really, really bleak - and being pretty near her age, I could really empathise with her. But once the faux-mance plot got underway, it was really, really great. I was worried that the resolution wouldn't be satisfying enough, but actually this was really neat. And for those of you who like a heroine who is older than the hero, this has that for you too!

A bit of a slow book to begin with but once it got going, it was a very enjoyable read with nice characters that you could get into.

This is a change to my usual psychological thriller type books, and what a refreshing change it was. It had me laughing out loud. I recommend this book

I always know I’m going to laugh at a Mhairi McFarlane book and this one was no different. Laurie and Dan were the solid couple who had been together since they were 18 so when Dan decides he wants to find himself Laurie is left floundering wondering what she has done wrong. Having to work in the same office as Dan makes her a target for gossip so when she gets stuck in a lift with Jamie the office lothario she strikes up an unlikely friendship and finds an ally in Jamie. So when he suggests a plan that could help them both Laurie takes the plunge and goes ahead and finds there is much more to Jamie than she imagined. Laurie’s friendship with Emily is such great writing and shows that a relationship isn’t just with a partner. This is what family is and this shines through in this book. Such a great read.

When Laurie's partner of 18 years breaks up with her, she is left trying to figure out where it all went wrong. How could the man she has been with since university suddenly decide that children, marriage and settling down are not for him?

Within a few months Dan announces that his new girlfriend is pregnant and Laurie's confusion turns to frustration and anger.

Enter Jamie - a work colleague Laurie doesn't particularly like, not least because of his reputation as a womaniser.

While they are stuck in a lift together Jamie proposes they start a fake/for show romantic relationship. His motivation is to impress their bosses in a bid to become the next partner at their law firm. Laurie is hesitant, but agrees because she could do with some fun. That it will likely make her ex jealous doesn't hurt either!

While the faux-romance is central to the story, Mhairi McFarlane brilliantly weaves female friendships, feminism and Laurie's experience of being biracial into the plot giving us realistic characters even if the initial premise seems far-fetched. I really enjoyed it!

I love this author and she didn't disappoint in delivering a delicious, totally addictive, romance. Laurie has been with Dan for 18 years, until he announces he wants to break up and proceeds to hook-up shortly after. Its doubly hard because they work in the same law firm. In retaliation, Laurie begins a fake romance with the office man-whore to make Dan jealous. But lies have a habit of coming back to bite you and making life more complicated.
Mhairi created wonderful, detailed, believable characters that you fall in love with. Even the bit parts have character. And despite the plot being predictable and a bit cliched, the journey is filled with suspense and comedic twists. Its a wonderful, romping, holiday read that I thoroughly enjoyed and gave me my romance hit.

What an utter delight this book was. I particularly enjoyed the writing style and the plot flowed very well.
Laurie, the main character deals with a fair amount during this novel, the thing I love most is she’s a super kick-ass fighter.

It has been such a long time since I have read a contemporary romance, and this book was a brilliant reintroduction to the genre. With some really tough topics, serious themes and genuinely touching moments it was a great read.
I found the plot to be somewhat unrealistic... but arent all romances. But the character development more than made up for it, I found that I became so invested in the character so quickly, and that definitely made it a page-turner for me!
A big hit for this cold-hearted romance newbie.

What a fantastic read. The story of Laurie who split up with Dan after 18 years and is utterly heartbroken. Following her break up and recovery. Her relationships with her best mate and office colleagues. A really great read

Loved, loved, loved this book. It made me laugh out loud and made me cry. Another absolute belter from Mhairi. It’s only the 10th Jan but I’m sure this is going to be my best read of the year.

I found it! I finally found it! A rom com novel that didn't make me cringe! So many have done it before, and yet I keep coming back to the genre. Reading If I Never Met You, I never once rolled my eyes, sighed or gurned. That's some serious progress.

If I Never Met You has all the tropes of the rom com - the jilted lead, the steady man, the playboy love interest and the sassy best friend. But the difference here, is that this book had substance. I wouldn't say that it necessarily inverted any of those tropes, but MacFarlane fleshed them out - there was background, character, motivation. The story was good and the setting was real.

Laurie has been with her partner Dan for eighteen years. They're the unmarried couple in everyone's friendship group and are established as forever. That is, until Dan destablises things, leaving Laurie bewildered, lost and searching for answers. A chance meeting in a broken down lift with the office rogue, Jamie Carter, leads to the pair hatching a plan - a chance for Laurie to show Dan what he's lost, and Jamie to show that he's stable enough for a promotion. With a few posts on social media, they can get everyone believing that their fake office romance is real.

What made this better than all the rest though, is the weight behind it. Dan's break-up with Laurie felt real, and there was no prosecco-drinking, let's-hate-the-bastard moment with the flimsy best friend. Instead, Laurie is logical, pragmatic, broken, hurt and starts to take back control. She finds her own reason why, with the support of a real best friend, who she supports in turn (unlike so many rom com novels where the best gal pals are just a supporting act for the MC).

The bond that Laurie and Jamie form feels comfortable and real - he is attractive, but there's a lot substance to him than that, and Laurie and Jamie hold their own as their friendship and loyalty to each other develops. This loyalty also means that they defend and protect each other. There are some really heartfelt and touching scenes where their friendship adds strength to each other too - it's not just about the lust they feel, that in itself is a slow and steady build. They also drop in references to films, music, TV and events into conversation - like real people with real frames of reference!

The law office where they work is a much more interesting environment that then standard PR/Millennial stereotype, and requires a much more serious kind of character. Although with a level of misogyny that was rampantly uncomfortable.

(There are also some "bonus" traumas that are thrown in there for a couple of chapters at a time, however, which add to the backstory but aren't really dealt with beyond that).

I also loved the setting - Manchester. It is a genuine pleasure to a read a rom com that is not set in London, but is instead set in a realistic city (including real restaurants - I've eaten at Rudy's pizza!) with North West and Midlands links.

Aside from an ending that fell into the rom com trap, whilst trying to give a slightly more feminist twist, this book was everything that I was looking for, and I loved every page.