I'll Sleep When I've Read... If You Ask Me by Libby Hubscher

Title: If You Ask Me
Author: Libby Hubscher
Publication: 8 March 2022
Format: Kindle eArc via NetGalley & Berkley

Amazon Description

When an advice columnist’s picture-perfect life implodes, she opts to go rogue in this hilarious, heartwarming romance from the author of Meet Me in Paradise.

Violet Covington pens Dear Sweetie, the most popular advice column in the state of North Carolina. She has an answer for how to politely handle any difficult situation…until she discovers her husband, Sam, has been cheating on her. Furious and out of sensible solutions, Violet leaves her filter at the door and turns to her column to air her own frustrations. The new, brutally honest Dear Sweetie goes viral, sending more shock waves through Violet’s life. When she burns Sam’s belongings in a front-yard, late-night bonfire, a smoking-hot firefighter named Dez shows up to douse the flames, and an unexpected fling quickly shows potential to become something longer lasting.

A lot of people want to see the old polished Violet return — including her boss, who finds her unpredictability hard to manage, and Sam, who’s begging for another chance. But Dez appreciates Violet just the way she is — in fact, he can’t get enough of her. The right answers don’t come easily when Violet finds herself at her own personal crossroads. But maybe, by getting real, Violet can write her own happy ending.

Ramble-y Teaserish Stuff

I came very close to turning down the offer to read Libby Hubscher's If You Ask Me when Berkley reached out. It's not historical. There's no mention at all of anything paranormal or supernatural or magical. No great mystery to be solved. It wasn't "my thing."

I pulled it up on my phone one Saturday morning when my 15 year old was home. It was several weeks ago so that way I would have plenty of time to send a "sorry -- it didn't work for me" and back out of the blog blitz if necessary. When my son finally sent me to bed late that night/very early the next morning, after I had finally set my phone back down after the last page, I realized that I was quite wrong about a lot of things. 

Okay, so it's not historical .... but there's magic in the transformation that occurs in the main character, Violet; there's the great mystery over whether things would work out in so many aspects of her life; there's no way I could have backed out of the chance to ooh and aah over this one. 

Most of all, I was wrong about it not being "my thing" because it was exactly the thing that I needed at the time. It has the perfect blend of snark and heartache and hope .... and teasable/sharable/quotable blips :

If you want to share whatever has kept you up past your bedtime because you just needed one more chapter ... or the entire book ... please comment! My TBR pile is already toppling, but I can always add more.