From the bestselling author of BookTok sensation Chasing Love comes a cozy and steamy enemies-to-lovers romance following a café owner and her best friend’s billionaire brother as they’re forced to work together to plan the best wedding imaginable.
Eva Woods is perfectly content with her quiet life in the picturesque town of Cinnamon Springs, where she owns a café infamous for its mouthwatering donuts. There’s even a cute new doctor in town that has caught the eyes of everyone, Eva included. But when her best friend, Maddy, asks Eva to join forces with her brother for the sake of her upcoming wedding, Eva’s quaint life is upended. Cold and rigid, Aston is the man who broke Eva’s heart back in high school. He’s also one of the country’s hottest billionaires.
With both Aston and Eva trying to outdo each other and stake claim as Maddy’s right hand man, the competition heats up. As their annoyance grows, so does their attraction, eventually culminating in a steamy night together in Aston’s New York penthouse. When Eva realizes her feelings may be a little harder to ignore than she had originally thought, she slips back to Cinnamon Springs and leaves Aston wondering what happened.
When the wedding day finally arrives and brings more than just flowers and cake, Eva and Aston are forced to finally reckon with their undeniable chemistry—and attempt to save a marriage.
Eva Woods is perfectly content with her quiet life in the picturesque town of Cinnamon Springs, where she owns a café infamous for its mouthwatering donuts. There’s even a cute new doctor in town that has caught the eyes of everyone, Eva included. But when her best friend, Maddy, asks Eva to join forces with her brother for the sake of her upcoming wedding, Eva’s quaint life is upended. Cold and rigid, Aston is the man who broke Eva’s heart back in high school. He’s also one of the country’s hottest billionaires.
With both Aston and Eva trying to outdo each other and stake claim as Maddy’s right hand man, the competition heats up. As their annoyance grows, so does their attraction, eventually culminating in a steamy night together in Aston’s New York penthouse. When Eva realizes her feelings may be a little harder to ignore than she had originally thought, she slips back to Cinnamon Springs and leaves Aston wondering what happened.
When the wedding day finally arrives and brings more than just flowers and cake, Eva and Aston are forced to finally reckon with their undeniable chemistry—and attempt to save a marriage.
Title: How to Break my Heart (Cinnamon Springs #1)
Author: Kat T. Masen
Publisher: Atria
Expected Publication Date: September 23, 2025
Review:
Thank you to Atria and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this title to read and give my honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.
Is the summary intriguing? Sure is! I love me some enemies to lovers, best friend's brother angst. And then dual POV? That always works so well for me with romance books. Was the execution good? Absolutely not. While the initial flashback chapter pulled me in, the rest of the story slowly dissolved into a relationship that was toxic and, to be honest, left me wondering where the chemistry was.
The MMC, Aston, is a possessive jerk who feels he has some kind of claim over the FMC, Eva. I'm not sure why, or how, since they haven't seen or talked in many years. Because they had one encounter in high school that makes her his and no one else can touch her? Nope, not buying it. And the author did try to insert some of Aston's family trauma into the story to help flesh out his character but it really didn't do what it intended to do. I could not excuse his behavior because of his upbringing when he has zero understanding of how to try to heal himself or even want to do it. Couple that with zero build up to this happening and then it was just strung out throughout the book and made me mad. He's a walking red flag with no substance.
Eva has some good qualities but she too easily gives into Aston's possessive nature. I truly felt all their scenes together were forced. He's all "mine mine mine" and she's like "Ok, yes!" But there was no slow burn building up to it and it just struck me as toxic.
And the writing? So much telling and not a bit of showing. I need to feel the characters are hot and bothered for each other, not be told about how all the body parts react and the magnetic pull that is there. Again, where is the substance.
I almost DNF'd many times but pushed myself to finish. In the end, it was not worth it for me. I was bored of reading the same scene over and over again and never getting anywhere. The plot, which was centered around Eva's best friend and Aston's sister's, Maddy's, wedding, was just not there. None of the planning scenes leant anything to the story line. I felt like they were inserted so the author could get to the next sexy/spicy scene. And since these scenes gave little to the actual plot, the pacing was completely uneven.
Even though this one hits many tropes I like, the lack of depth and development with the characters, the cheesy spice scenes, and the juvenile exchanges between the adult characters just made it utterly unenjoyable for me. Perhaps others will like the more surface level relationship of this book but I need a little more to keep me rooting for the couple.
Author:
Born and bred in Sydney Australia, Kat T. Masen is a mother to four crazy boys and wife to one sane husband. Growing up in a generation where social media and fancy gadgets didn’t exist, she enjoyed reading from an early age and found herself immersed in these stories. After meeting friends on twitter who loved to read as much as she did, her passion to write began and the friendships continued on despite the distance. “I’m known to be crazy and humorous. Show me the most random picture of a dog in a wig and I’ll be laughing for days.”
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