This book was good, I’m glad I got to read it early and can’t wait to tell others about it .
I think they are gonna enjoy it just as much
Thank you

A short, light romance read. It would have been nice to get to know the love interest and characters in a deeper way, and Bake's exploration of other themes such as grief and reconciliation gave the overall plot more depth. The relevancy and exploration of online dating and love in your 30s were spot on.

4 ½ stars

'The Moment We Met' is such a sweet combination of two genres: contemporary fiction and romance. We follow Tiwanda, a 30 year old woman, on the path to opening her very own Black-owned business.

There is so much character development packed in such a small amount of pages.

I really enjoyed the way this book focused on our main character and her business, rather than solely on the romance, which was more of a background thing.

I found all the characters very unique and really connected with several of them. Benoit gives me major Adam Carlsen vibes from the Love Hypothesis, and I stand by that! Because there is a such a wide range of different people involved in this story, I found it hard to recognize their names at times, but by the end, I felt like I was part of a big wholesome family. Side note, there was one particular character I really did not like, even by the end!

It was amazing to see so much representation, books with POC characters are so rare nowadays, especially ones that also feature people with hearing problems. Personally, it was the first ever book I have read, which included characters using sign language.

It would be interesting to see how 'Met' actually works because I do have a few questions, but for now I'm pretending it's all magic. Another thing I struggled with was one of the love interest developments, I don't want to spoil anything, but it just felt super rushed and artificial, although I suppose that does sometimes occur in real life.

I feel so sad saying goodbye to these characters because I really did grow attached to them!

This entire book felt like the moment we met because I didn't feel like there was adequate enough time to get to know, or like, any of these characters.

I was so intrigued by the premise of this book --- an app that notifies someone when they met their potential soulmates --- but I didn't feel like the idea of the app or any of the relationships were well developed or explained enough to connect with a reader. There were so many characters and themes woven into this short book that I often felt like I was missing something as they bounced around.

Because of this, I had such a hard time getting to like the MC. I felt like her behavior could be brash and immature and only really developed in the last 15% of the book.

I will definitely try Camille Baker again but this book just wasn't the one for me.

This was a bit of a slow burn for me but ultimately I found myself rooting for Tiwanda both in her professional pursuits and her romantic pursuits. The only part that didn't completely land for me was the Met app aspect, don't know if it was really needed.

I really enjoyed reading The Moment We Met book.
I think that this book did an excellent job of touching upon a situation many people can relate to nowadays: someone who feels ‘stuck’ in many aspects of her life. I loved how realistic all the relationships were, especially the platonic and romantic ones.
Although I found the first half of the book a little slow, the second half really drew me in with how the relationships between the characters developed. Overall, I would highly recommend this book!
Many thanks to NetGalley for the e-ARC.

"𝙎𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙨 𝙖𝙧𝙚𝙣'𝙩 𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙 𝙗𝙮 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙬𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙠 𝙬𝙚 𝙠𝙣𝙤𝙬 𝙤𝙛 𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙨𝙚𝙡𝙫𝙚𝙨."

** Thank you to NetGalley, Lake Union Publishing and Camille Baker for giving me the opportunity to read and eARC version of this book in return for an honest review.**

Firstly, I want to mention that I haven't read the first book in series, "Have we met", prior to reading this one. I was able to start this book with "pair of fresh eyes" and I did not know how this Mat app came to be and how some relationships formed in the first book.

Secondly, I wanna say that the cover of this book is stunning and, to be honest, that is the first thing that attracted me to it. What I liked most about the book is how strong minded Tiwanda is and how she is always so well organized.

What made me not give the 5 stars is the fact that at some places in the book, but I guess that is because I haven't read the first book, I couldn't figure out what the story was about. Also there were soo many characters at some point that I had to read those parts a few times to figure out who is who. What I would have liked to have happened in this book is, I wish there was more about other things such as her falling for a guy, and anything else really and not just about her chocolates and soaps. What I am trying to say is that I needed more to the story itself.

All in all this is a very interesting story and it has a lot of potential. I will be looking forward to the new books in the future. One advice for everyone else tho, please read the first book in the series before this. I think that would have made me like this book more and probably understand some stuff in the story better.

I read the first book in the series, Have We Met a while ago as a "amazon First reads" a while ago and really enjoyed it. This was a decent follow up to the book. I will say that a person would have to have read the previous book to kind of understand who Tiwanda was. GReat follow up though

I received an ARC for my honest review. I really wanted to like this more than I did. I really struggled to keep track of all of the characters. I liked the premise, but the execution was for me.
I love the idea of soulmates and true love, this just needed a little bit of work.

First of all I was not aware this was a sequel, I felt like I caught on but wish there was something to indicate there was another book prior to this! I liked the character development in this book and that it didn't solely focus on Tiwanda's romantic interests but also coming of age and life in your 30s. This book also dealt with themes of grief and loss quite well. I felt like there wasn't as much romance as I was looking for but overall a nice read. Big things I liked was the cover (beauty), representation and inclusiveness and the plot of the protagonist's life outside of just romance.

Firstly, thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I loved the character development Tiwanda goes through and the representation in this book was so good. It really showed the struggles of opening your own small business and how hard it can be to juggle everything thats going on in your life from friendships, to romance, to your job/career.

However, I did spent the majority of the book confused as there are soooo many different characters and subplots, I never seemed to get a grasp on who was who and what was going on.

Overall 3⭐

I love that is isn't the typical romance novel. It felt very organic, the chemistry between friends, family, and the eventual love interest. It was quite lovely to experience. I liked this alot.

I loved this book so much! It was sweet and funny and utterly uncomprosing. After quitting her job to pursue her passion of opening a chocolate and soap classes business, an app calls Met pops up on her phone promising to help her meet her soulmate.

I generally don't love books where there is more than one love interest (unless it is a poly book!) however this book handled it really well where it felt as though all of the potential soulmates could be the endgame and I was kept guessing until the very last page.

This book also does a really good job of exploring the lasting legacy of grief and has simply beautiful themes of family.

My only criticism of this book was that I found the cast of more periphery characters a little difficult to keep track of however this could be because I haven't read the first book in this series. Regardless, this did not impact on my overall enjoyment.

I will definitely be keeping my eye out for book 3 and reading more from this author in the future ...

I very much enjoyed this book. Baker has a way of writing character’s that are not only fully fleshed out but effortlessly inclusive. It was interesting how the four matches fit different dimensions of Tiwanda’s character and how her final match truly is perfect for her. I thought the family conflict and small business plot points where well written and resolved well. Overall, I can’t wait to see who next gets sent the Met app next. This is book two in the unnamed Met app series, start with Corinne’s story, Have we Met?, to learn more about the app.

I received this eARC thanks to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing in exchange for an honest review

A continuation of “Have We Met” that once again finds someone using the app. A pro
For me that some readers may not like is they still don’t explain how the app really works. I think that’s the best way to go about it as it makes it less sci-fi and sticks with the romance. But that could be frustrating for some readers who may be like wondering why we don’t know more about the app and how it works. Another interesting part of the story was the large cast of characters. We meet and get to know a lot about side characters as the book is based around her choosing between multiple people. Sometimes we do get things that seem a little more filler information but overall I think the expanded world adds to what I enjoy about the book. Nice romance to enjoy with the predictability of contemporary romcoms.

I was so excited to read this, thankful for the gifted e copy. But unfortunately it fell flat. A total snoze fest

I LOVED this book. I don't want to spoil the story for readers, but it's told from such an unexpected perspective. It feels like a really unique romance novel. It's fresh, modern and inclusive of all kinds of identities. I had already read the author's first book, which I also really enjoyed. I might take half a star off because I felt some aspects of this book really relied on having read the previous novel, for instance the app, and many of the supporting characters who were not well explained in this book. It is possible to read this as a stand-alone but I think it wouldn't make quite as much sense.

That being said this is a great read. It's positive and inspirational, not just in terms of romance but also friendships and family relationships and career. It was great to read a romance without any internalised sexism or unhealthy power dynamics.

3.5 stars. The premise of this book was very interesting. We are following Tiwanda Harris as she tries to kickstart her business after leaving the ever draining corporate world. The entrepreneur receives a grant to start her business but it comes with mentors and other self-employed business prospects trying to start their business. The kick is she is also in the process of trying to find her match through an app called Met that promises four soul matches for Tiwanda and one of them is her soulmate. As she tries to kickstart her business and make it work, she is struggling through the matches and trying to figure out how they all come together in her life and mesh with her old friendships and her broken family that she is also trying to mend.

This book is more about overall relationships in a persons life and finding out who we really are then a true romance story. Its about finding balance in all our relationships and not having terms to define what exactly those relationships are. It's also about finding balance in our lives and pushing ourselves. I did enjoy this book but I was expecting more of a romance as that is what the synopsis implies. Overall, it was a good book and I enjoyed the main characters journey.

Thank you to NetGalley, Lake Union Publishing, and Camille Baker for giving me the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book in return for an honest review 📚

Rating: 2/5

<i> “Even a shortened stick can be formed into a weapon against the things that have hurt me.” </i>

To start with what I liked first, it is only right to start with the book cover. It drew me in immediately and looked like the kind of book I would enjoy reading or, at least, would want to know more about. I had no previous experience with this author but upon reading the summary I could instantly recognise a unique concept that would make for a very interesting story.

‘The Moment we Met’ concerns our main character, Tiwanda, as she juggles various aspects of her life that prove to be challenging in their own ways: work, family, friendship, and romance. The societal pressures Tiwanda experiences can easily be related to by the reader, especially when it comes chasing dreams and not fitting into the norm. Within this same vein, the story also greatly celebrates diversity.

Unfortunately, however, the cons outweighed the pros for me and my reading experience with this book. Right from the start, I felt like, as a reader, I wasn’t given the adequate opportunity and time to fall in love with the characters. I am not sure if they feature in any of the author’s other books, but seeing as I was reading this with a fresh set of eyes I felt that I was expected to know them already. This, topped with the fact that there is an overwhelming amount of characters mentioned throughout the story, made the narration feel very two-dimensional for me. I was getting easily confused who is who, and who had said that and why this person is saying this. I think this story would have been ten times more enjoyable if half of the characters didn’t exist and I didn’t have to keep up with remembering so many names and their roles to the main character.

Secondly, I wouldn’t go so far to say that the main character was unlikable- but, even by the end of the story, I felt like I still barely knew her. A lot of her actions took me by surprise and she was very dismissing and poorly-mannered at times (which seemed to magically turn around in the last twenty pages of the book). Her negativity- whilst I understand stems from her previous experiences in life and more often than not has a legitimate reason behind it- was still exhausting and unpleasant to read through.

‘The Moment we Met’, whilst perfectly capturing a new adult life, tried to do everything at once. I wasn’t sure from which genre lens I should view this story. The focus is on everything and nothing all at once, heavily backed up by staccato sentences of info-dumping paragraphs. I found myself often asking which information was important and which wasn’t? It was pretty difficult to differentiate.

As for the romance, I think the story would greatly benefit if it where to be better sectioned and took the time to give equal attention to all four potential love interests. Whilst I was content as a reader with whom Tiwanda chose, it was still very predictable due to the fact that her choice was allocated much more attention than any of the other love interests. The romance part of the story could have been better structured in general. The general pacing was equally as very difficult to keep up with, especially in between chapters.

Finally, I felt like for most of the book we are only told about her passion for chocolate and soap making, and only really ever see her doing either until the final half of the story. It was hard to imagine her being so passionate about kick-starting the business surrounding the two when we barely see her actively pursuing and indulging in them.

In conclusion, I think both this universe has a lot of potential and I still enjoyed my time reading it, and I will certainly still be looking out for more of Camille Baker’s future works!

When Tiwanda quits her stressful job to instead fulfill her dream of opening her own small, black-owned business and applies for extra funds and mentoring, a dating app that is supposed to find her four soul mates doesn’t quite fit into her meticulous planning. However, she learns to embrace the chances life offers her - and maybe even she will learn to believe in love.

The premise sounded very interesting to me but - although, disclaimer, I haven’t read the first book and it might well be explained there - it bothered me that it was never explained how the Met app actually worked. Why do the matches not have to be registered on the app to be chosen? Where does the app get its information from? What criteria are the matches based on? It almost seemed a bit paranormal at points which I didn’t particularly care for. I wish there had been some kind of explanation for all that.

This book also had an insane amount of characters that all played a role for some subplots. To be honest, I couldn’t keep track of who was who for half of the time, and I think it were just way too many characters for only 250 pages. There were also so many different subplots that all seemed to be a bit rushed in one way or another. What really made it difficult for me to keep reading was how impersonal the story felt due to these points and the writing style. I just didn’t care for any of the characters all that much.

What I really did like about the book, however, was all the representation and the character development Tiwanda went through. The struggles of opening a small business were highlighted as well as her struggle to cope with the loss of her parents and the resulting clashes between the two sides of her family, the way she learned to take chances and live in the moment and open up to love.

All in all this was an interesting premise that in my opinion could have been written better and with way fewer characters. It was kind of obvious who of the matches would be endgame and the rushed end of Tiwanda‘s relationship with one of the other matches was one of the things that bothered me the most (and I also don’t see the need for the dog sickness subplot - it just took away pages that could have been used to develop the rest of the plot better). Anyway! I especially liked that there was deaf representation as that is something I don’t usually see a lot of.

3/5 stars.