ARC Review – The Right Swipe by Alisha Rai

Ah! Sorry I’m a day late with Romance Monday this week! I finished moving over the weekend and it took away nearly all of my reading time. But don’t worry, I’m here with the latest romance that I’ve been reading, and it is just delightful.

By way of introduction, I read the first two books in Alisha Rai’s Forbidden Hearts trilogy and LOVED them. (For some reason I got busy and never finished the trilogy, so that’s going to be added to my list, for sure.) So I went into this book knowing I’d love the writing and the story ahead of time, because she’s so great at creating fictional worlds inside the real world. And I was NOT disappointed.

In The Right Swipe, Rhiannon Hunter is the founder and CEO of a dating app called Crush – I would say it’s comparable to Bumble in the real world. She’s pithy and sassy and what I always hope for in a romance heroine (in case you haven’t already picked up on that theme), and on top of that – did i mention she’s the CEO? That she developed the app? That she… also uses the app? *wink* And now she’s out to purchase Matchmaker to add to her dating app empire.

Three months earlier, she met up with a man named Samson who matched with her on her own app, a man who made her big promises about not being just a one night stand… only to stand her up when they were going to meet again. Rhiannon was hurt and angry about it, but she moved on, because what else is she supposed to do? She’s got a business to run. Until she’s at a conference, seeking out Matchmaker’s elusive CEO, and she realizes that they have a new spokesman who is trying to bring Matchmaker into the modern era of dating apps. Who is this new spokesman? None other than former professional football player Samson Lima.

Yes. The same Samson who stood her up three months earlier. And he wants her back, even though he’s working for one of her rivals.

3 Things I Loved

1. Rhiannon. Obviously! She’s smart and fun and a heroine I can get behind. I also just really love how Alisha Rai writes her heroines – even if I don’t like them in previous books in the series, I’ve always liked them in their own stories. But I liked Rhiannon from page one, when she lies her way into a party hosted by Matchmaker that she 100% isn’t supposed to be at. Bam! I was on board.
2. Samson. I don’t want to give away too much here, but Samson has some struggles in his life and they come out as the story goes on and we learn both of their backstories. And it made me love him more and more as the story progressed, and I always like that when I’m ready a tropey book.
3. The fictional dating app scene. You guys, the fictional (but clearly based on real life) dating app scene is so fun. What a cool world to set some romance novels in! I can’t wait for the next one!

Dislikes/Problematic Content

This book was super diverse, and I really loved that. Alisha Rai is pretty great about it general, but this one was especially fun – Rhiannon is black and Samson is Samoan, and a lot of the side characters are also people of color, but also just people. Normal people you’d see everyday. That’s what I love about it the most.

One trigger warning for you – there’s some talk of sexual assault in a #MeToo sense, so if that might be triggering for you, take care of yourself. The book is fun, but always take care of yourself.

Rating

A reminder of the rating scale:

• Red = DNF, I hated everything
• Orange = Ugh, no thank you
• Yellow = I mean, I’ve read worse, but there were problems
• Green = This was good! 
• Blue = Oh my gosh, I loved this book!
• Purple = This is the unicorn of books and I will be rereading it until the binding falls apart and EVERYONE should be reading it!

I’ve read some reviews of this book that were very not good, and I’m genuinely confused. I enjoyed every page, and I honestly wished I could read faster so that I could devour the book more thoroughly. So I’m going to go with my gut on this one – it was a great book, but I did love her Forbidden Hearts series more. With that, I’m going to give The Right Swipe a GREENISH-BLUE rating. So good!

Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Please keep them coming, because I’m loving them!

Happy reading!