The Perfect Find

I cannot believe it took me this long to read Tia Williams’ The Perfect Find.

I ordered this book a few months back when it was on sale and it has been sitting idle on Kindle. Admittedly, I didn’t know much about Tia Williams but I saw Myleik reading this book on her snap chat and Luvvie also mentioned she read it in a day. When two of your favorite people mention a book, it is imperative that you buy it. Flying back to Florida last week, I decided that now was the perfect time to dive into this book.

The Perfect Find was SOOOO good. Jenna Jones was a famed fashion executive at Darling Magazine until an embarrassing breakup with her longtime fiance and subsequent breakdown forces her out of New York and back to her small town in Indiana. When she comes back to work for her cutthroat nemesis, Jenna sees that the game has changed quite a bit.

In The Perfect Find, Jenna not only has to find her place in this new digital age and fashion industry, but she has to evaluate what she really wants in her love life. Oh, and speaking of love life, let’s just say that she finds a cup of tea and then some in the sexy as hell and MUCH younger, Eric Combs.

What takes place in The Perfect Find is a perfect mesh of hilarity, sexual chemistry, and redefining love on your own terms at any age.

The Perfect Find read like a famed melodrama; it was a funny, sexy, angsty, and juicy read. Did I mention it was hilarious? It was like that rare perfect episode of General Hospital. I must save it and watch it (or in this case, read it) over and over again.

Between this book and Tia’s interview with Myleik on her podcast recently, she may just very well be one of my new favorite people.

Need a fantastic read that will make you laugh your ass off and remind you that you’re hopeless romantic? Pick up The Perfect Find ASAP.

I can't believe it took me so long to get this book in front of me. I can't believe that I waited until I was teased by a Netflix film version of the book to actually read the book. But I give myself some grace to say that I absolutely loved and needed this book at present. It was the most ideal haphazard HEA story I've read in awhile and I loved it. Kudos to Tia Williams for giving us black love and romance on a large scale.

In The Perfect Find, former well-known fashion editor Jenna Jones has had it all, well at least what she thought was "all". She was engaged to the man she believed to be her happily ever after, with her dream job and mostly ideal life. But when that all comes crashing down and she's forced to start over, having a slice of humble pie and begging for a position with her nemesis Darcy Vale at StyleZine.com hardly seems catastrophic. But this new arrangement there proves to be a bit much for Jenna as she realizes she is not only out of touch with the technology but also with the millennials who are naturally tech saavy. To keep up, she's been lying about even having TWITTERED and is even shopping at Walmart and pretending that her style finds are designer. It's all so much, she'll admit until she has a chance encounter with Eric Combs who is charismatic, fine, and to her surprise her new videographer on a project that's been handed to her by Darcy and her life changes drastically. He's also nearly half her age.

There is an energy to Eric's character that not only lights up the office environment but also brings a sense of fire and excitement to the storyline and I LOVE IT! Of course, he awakens Jenna too to a reality beyond her wildest imagination. Such a beautiful and compelling romance. And the ending was everything I wanted...I highly recommend.

NOW, I'll go watch the movie. 😁

I cannot say enough great things about this book! As someone who has always appreciated a good older woman/younger man love story, this one seemed like a no-brainer to me. But I was thoroughly surprised by just how much I enjoyed this ride. I could have read this novel in one or two days, but Williams’ writing was so sharp, observant, insightful and full of wit, I had to take my time and savor it. I found myself highlighting passage after passage, line after line, brilliant dialogue and hilarious observations about love, sex, fashion, publishing, getting older, dating younger, the intricacies of social status, life in New York – all of it. It was so rich and laden with so many priceless gems. I relished every page.

The story is complex and tense and relevant and sexy (Oh so sexy!) and everything a smart women’s fiction/romance should be. Williams’ characters leap off the page – multi-layered and dynamic with identifiable voices. Jenna became so real to me. Eric was an absolute dream. Each was so unique and authentic and likable, you could not help but root for them. Individually and together. The secondary characters – Jenna’s friends and colleagues, Eric’s best friend – were all so wonderfully and clearly painted. It was easy to imagine yourself moving through this cast of diverse eccentrics. Listening to their brilliant banter, laughing out loud, and loving it. And it really, really made me miss living in New York.

What an absolute joy it was to get lost in this world! Kudos, Tia! The Perfect Find, indeed!

I had this book on my TBR for a bit because I loved the premise and it fit right into my OW/YM reading hunt/journey that I've been on for the past 4 years. TBR kept growing and somehow I didn't get to it but recently I saw 3 recs. In the last 2 weeks, 2 of which came from people whose opinion I trust so I dived in and the only regret i have is not reading it sooner. I thought the first book I'd read from Miss William would be Seven Days but I'm glad it was this one

This book is everything. It is so delicious, i wanted to speed up and slow down all at once. Ms Williams is my first new author for 2022 and even though January hasn't even finished, it's hard to imagine another new find I'll be this luck to get again this year and absolutely become obsessed with!

Eric & Jenna are a beautiful whirlwind that you will want to get lost in willingly. There's witty banter, jokes that are so genius and funny you'll be laughing out loud like a crazy person at times and heat for days. This is what I love in a book, characters that are so fully developed in a plot that is so good I'm reading and rereading simultaneously.

Eric was just so refreshing. Once he and Jenna gave in to what they felt, he was completely in. I still cannot get over how completely profound his love for Jenna was and how honest and vulnerable he was about it. He was hot, smart, funny, dominant, articulate and unapologetic and I consumed everything about him. Love him so hard, total BBF goals. Jenna was beautiful, brilliant, fashionable and knew everything and everyone that mattered in the industry and she wasn't afraid to start over. she was bold and confident in her choices and really authentic with the issues a lot of women face once they hit 40. I absolutely loved that none of those issues were body insecurities, I can't recall reading an OW/YM trope where at some point the woman didn't feel some real sense of insecurity about some part of her body. It was very refreshing.

I highly recommend this book. I read it in just under 2 days and if it wasn't for work i would've just killed it in a day.....it was that good for me.

Felt this quote in my soul "The older I get, the more I wonder if the secret to true happiness is knowing which dreams to let go of."

This one feels like soulmates! I'll admit I was a tad concerned about the 19 year age gap. I think because for me I'm the same age as Jenna and I could never imagine dating and falling in love with a 22 year old. But so many times in the book I would forget the age difference. They literally were just made for each other. Their connection was beautiful. Not just their sexual chemistry (and believe me they definitely had that), but their bond was so apparent. I loved how they loved and respected each other. Now of course there were times I definitely remembered the difference and honestly I was worried right up until the end that there wouldn't be an HEA or that the HEA would be them individually living the lives that they dreamed of separately. This book definitely felt like a love letter to New York and fashion; I've seen it described as Black Sex and The City and I would agree to that to an extent. I love that this book follows an "older" herione. I adored Jenna and felt like I could really relate to her on so many things. I thought I would like Eric but in the end I loved him. And definitely could see why Jenna fell so hard. I loved the premise, the drama, how both characters used their past ( trauma, heartbreak, and general life experiences) to know what they wanted from they wanted in their lives. The friend group was fantastic, both Eric and Jenna had a solid crew and it was lovely to see. Especially with the age difference how your friends really do become your family. The perfect Find did everything I love about romance, it was so sweet and swoony; it was steamy and there were so many funny moments. I will say that for me there were some things that took me out of the story (not many trigger warnings IMO, but there was a lot of fat shaming, and death of a parent (not on page), but ultimately I'm happy I finally got to this one and I am so excited that this is being made into a movie and I can not wait to watch it (probably repeatedly).

It took me about 9 months to finish. It was somewhat entertaining, but I don’t recommend it. The first half was mind numbing as in boring and kinda of corny. I was OVER all the name drops and found it completely unbelievable that a woman in fashion- an industry dependent on visual marketing- doesn’t know what Instagram is or how to turn on a laptop. She’s been out the game so long, broke as a joke, living in a busted apartment and yet all the high fashion people and models are clamoring for her return… the same lady who doesn’t know what social media is. Ok. It was difficult understanding which character was saying what. The sentence structure was confusing and there are several typos that may require you to read the entire paragraph over to understand. I liked the banter between all the characters, and Darcy particularly cracked me up, but a 40 something year old woman absolutely losing it over a 20 year old boy is ridiculous.

What are the chances of forever love? Jenna and Eric should not be in love. Not only is Eric the son of Jenna's longtime nemesis, but he's 20 years younger than her and not ready for any of the things she wants. And yet, they develop this passionate, mature love that has very distinct challenges but defies the odds. It almost feels like a coming of age story for both characters because of their personal development. And that's what I love about this book. Tia Williams has a knack for tugging on your heartstrings and making you believe in the best type of love. A love full of true friendship and total acceptance. A love where they speak each other's language. If you're a romantic like me, you'll wistfully laud "Erica" as the newest ship to root for.