One in a Million

One in a Million by Lindsey Kelk (2018)

Annie co-owns a social media company with her friend Miranda, and they are having a tough time making ends meet. When a guy from another office in their building challenges them to a bet, Annie can't pass it up. She agrees that she can take whoever next walks through the door and get them 20k Instagram followers in thirty days. If she does, she gets a month of free rent on her office, which they desperately need. Enter Dr. Samuel Page. A scruffy historian who has just been kicked out of his girlfriend's house and is now sleeping in his office, Sam is not at all interested in social media. But he is interested in selling the dry historical tome he has just published so he agrees to participate in the bet.

It's no mystery that Annie and Sam will have a romance - because this is a romance novel - but how they will get there is all the fun. She loves social media; he hates it. He just wants to be left alone; she wants to make him famous. Oh, and how she really got him to agree to the social media campaign? Promise to put him through a boyfriend bootcamp so he can win his ex-girlfriend back. What could possibly go wrong?

Because of the focus on social media culture, this is sure to be dated in no time, but right now it's an awful lot of fun. It's a little dramatic, maybe not entirely believable, but it's funny and entertaining and exactly the perfect book to have around while I was reading Mayflower for those times I needed to read something a little lighter.

Annie was a hard worker and good at her job I loved the focus on a small business run by two women who were kicking ass. Ok, so the social media campaign she started for Sam, calling him the Hip Historian, didn't make a ton of sense to me. Late in the book when she finally had a brilliant idea about what to do to finally get him a ton of followers, I couldn't figure out why that wasn't the first idea she had because to me it seemed obvious. But that was my only criticism. A lot of romances also tell the story from the hero's point of view and here it was all Annie, but I think that worked.

It was also very funny. For instance, Annie snagged a copy of Sam's book to use to research him and his interests and when Miranda starts reading it out loud and it immediately becomes obvious that it's dry and impenetrable, Annie suggests, "Maybe it's a horcrux." It was just filled with pop culture references and clever quips.

As you're thinking about nice weather and beach reading, you might want to consider bringing this book along with you. If you're looking for something light and fun and entertaining, this could easily fit the bill.