Glass Half Full
Katia Rose
(Barflies, #2)
Publication date: January 8th 2020
Genres: Adult, Comedy, Contemporary, Romance

You win some, you lose some.

Back at home with half a college degree after the fiasco of the century sent her packing, it’s safe to say that Renee Nyobé is losing some. She’s a hot mess, and not the cute kind. No, if hot messes had categories, hers would be ‘littering the stairs of the metro station with your sweaty underwear because you were too busy rushing to the job interview you’re already late for to zip up your yoga bag.’

A job—any job—is just what she needs to get her life back on track, and it might as well be at Montreal’s most famous dive bar, Taverne Toulouse.

Dylan Trottard is winning some. As Taverne Toulouse’s new manager, he’s got one rule for himself: don’t screw up. Following that rule gets a lot harder when the woman he’s spent the past three years trying to forget starts working behind the bar.

They were never supposed to want each other, and they sure as hell aren’t supposed to want each other now. She’s the girl that got away before he even had her, and he’s the guy she didn’t think would ever give her a second glance.

Now they can’t keep their eyes off one another, and the stakes are even higher than before. There’s a lot to lose, but as the pull between them gets harder and harder to ignore, Renee and Dylan start asking how much winning is worth.

Glass Half Full is part of the Barflies series, a set of standalone romantic comedies that chronicle the lives and loves of the staff at a Montreal dive bar.

—

My Review

Welcome to my stop on the book blitz tour for Katia Rose’s second in her Barflies series, Glass Half Full. Once again we are back in Montreal at the beloved dive bar, Taverne Toulouse, but this time the focus is on longtime employee and new manager, Dylan Trottard and a blast from his past, Renee Nyobé. After meeting years earlier during poetry slams, Renee and Dylan never expected to bump into one another again. But when Renee starts working as a bartender at the Taverne, each of them realizes that the old attraction and chemistry between them is still there.

I absolutely loved the first in this series, The Bar Next Door, so I was really excited to read this follow-up novel about Dylan. As in the first novel, Katia Rose absolutely kills it as far as character development! As engaging and entertaining as the novel is, it doesn’t feel like a fictional story about fictional characters. Dylan, Renee, and everyone else in the novel feels like normal, everyday people – which I love.

Not trying to write any spoilers, but the basic premise of the novel is this… Dylan is struggling with his new responsibilities as a manager and worried about letting people down. Renee is sort of starting over after leaving college and coming home. And most importantly, Dylan and Renee are finally confronting feelings they felt years ago that never really went away. There’s enough conflict to keep things interesting, there’s a wonderful amount of romantic tension, and of course, with a Barflies novel – there are plenty of silly and funny moments along the way. Even better is both Dylan and Renee’s poems that are scattered here and there throughout the novel. Beautiful words from such beautifully complex characters!

I’m not sure I loved Glass Half Full as much as I did The Bar Next Door, but it is still a wonderful book that I highly recommend. Katia Rose is proving to be a consistently talented author that I look forward to reading more from in the future!

*Thanks to Xpresso Books for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion!

EXCERPT:

“I always wondered something,” she continues when it’s clear I can’t speak. “That night, did you…Were you…Did you want to kiss me?”

I wanted to do more than kiss her. I wanted to breathe her in. I wanted to inhale her.

“It would have been a bad idea,” I manage to get out through my clenched jaw. She’s staring up at me through those damn eyelashes, and all I can think about is her mouth, her neck, that inch of her gorgeous bare shoulders I can see before they meet with the edge of her coat.

“I’m glad you didn’t.”

Everything grinds to a halt.

Shit, shit, shit.

“I’m glad you didn’t,” she repeats, “because I wasn’t ready for you to kiss me then, not like I am now.”

Author Bio:

Katia Rose is not much of a Pina Colada person, but she does like getting caught in the rain. She prefers her romance served steamy with a side of smart, and is a sucker for quirky characters. A habit of jetting off to distant countries means she’s rarely in one place for very long, but she calls the frigid northland that is Canada home.

Website / Goodreads / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram