Rating: 4.5 Stars

Publisher: Moonlight & Love Songs Press

Genre: Gay Romance

Tags: Contemporary, Big City/Small Town, Holiday, Opposites Attract, Romance, Very Slow Burn

Length: 298 Pages

Reviewer: Cindi

Purchase At: Amazon

Blurb –

It’s hard to stop thinking about someone when you’re sleeping in his bed.

Bestselling spy novelist George Knight has an ex-boyfriend’s wedding he’d rather avoid, a deadline closing in, and a blank page that’s starting to feel personal.

Owen Wilde has a quiet life he loves in small-town Vermont, crafting handmade wooden pieces in his workshop. It would be perfect if his ex’s parting words didn’t still sting.

Enter Owen’s cousin and George’s best friend, Zoe, who comes up with the perfect solution to both their problems: a housing swap for the holidays! George gets a quiet cabin. Owen gets a New York apartment and a vacation he didn’t ask for. (It’s very, very hard to say no to Zoe.)

Except George and Owen can’t seem to leave each other alone. One email turns into many. Texts pile up. And somewhere between late-night conversations and living in each other’s spaces, they each start to feel more seen than they have in a long time, even though they’ve never actually met.

I Could Write a Book is a slow burn MM romance with witty banter, cozy winter vibes, surprise connection, and a slightly meddling found family. A queer Christmas rom com for fans of feel-good, low angst romance.

Review –

George Knight is a successful author with serious writing block. The deadline for his latest spy novel is quickly approaching, and he’s nowhere near done with it. His editor is breathing down his neck, but the words simply won’t come. It doesn’t help that his ex-boyfriend will be getting married soon on New Year’s Eve in New York City, where George lives.

Owen Wilde lives in a small cabin in a tiny town in Vermont. The blurb says he makes handmade wooden pieces in his workshop, but it’s much more than that. Extremely talented, he’s an artist in his own right. He may not have an ex about to get married to another man, but he does have an ex, Beau. Apparently Beau thought Owen was too boring for him, and he made a point in letting Owen know it before he left.

While Luca, George’s ex, seemed decent enough, Beau most definitely did not.

Then there’s Zoe, Owen’s cousin and George’s best friend, who comes up with the perfect solution for both men – who have never met, by the way. They would trade places, with Owen going to New York City for a couple of weeks, and George going to Vermont during those same weeks. That would get George away while the wedding festivities are happening, and Owen would be able to get away from the Beau situation. Strangely, both men agree. But, then again, Zoe doesn’t believe in the word no.

“You told George Knight he could live in my place?”

“Yes, and that you’d stay in his. Water the plants. Bring in the newspaper. Dust his Goodreads Choice Award.”

Zoe was one of those extremely annoying types who talks over everybody, and makes decisions for them. It was kind of funny in the beginning, but it stopped being that way at around the 20% mark. She got much worse as the story played out.

George and Owen trade places, and before long they’re settled in. Well, as much as Zoe will allow anyway. While George is trying to finish his novel, Zoe is sending him annoying memes all day long as so-called encouragement. That’s nothing compared to poor Owen. Since Zoe lives in New York City, she makes it her mission to plan every single minute of every single day Owen is there. He’s not a stranger to big cities, as he grew up relatively nearby in Boston, having moved to Vermont when he inherited the cabin from an uncle.

George and Owen’s relationship of sorts begins with one email that turns into dozens of emails between them. Later, there are texts. Owen is aware of what George looks like because he’s a well-known author. George has no idea what Owen looks like until much later. Not that it really mattered much. By the time he saw a photo, he was already falling for the stranger whose bed he’d been sleeping in for several days. That was quite mutual, though Owen was still dealing with all the bad things Beau had said to him. He’s convinced that no famous author would be interested in a ‘boring’ small town guy like him.

He would be very wrong.

Outside of the spy novel George is working on, he also has a secret project that nobody knows about. He’s been writing a historical gay romance that Owen accidentally finds while looking for something else in George’s home. He couldn’t get into the spy stuff, but he was very into the romance.

George and Owen go back and forth with texts that turn into a phone call after Beau makes a surprising appearance at Owen’s place. Let’s just say that by the time George was done with Beau, he left with his tail between his legs. It was beautiful.

There are other characters who keep the book entertaining. There are Raj and Marty, George’s New York neighbors, who take to Owen right off. They were great. In Vermont, there was Ruth, an eighty-something owner of the general store. There was also Allie, who worked for the fire department and had met George during a call that was kind of funny. Lastly, there was Carol, the town’s librarian who recognized George right off. Those three ladies were hilarious.

I really enjoyed this. The conversations between George and Owen, whether by email, text, or phone, were nice. They got to know each other gradually, which turned into a sweet friendship before it turned into anything else. They do, obviously, eventually meet in person, which was also really nice. Unfortunately, since Zoe is Zoe, there’s an emergency of sorts that has them rushing to fix her mistake literally moments after they meet. All of that was okay, if a little silly. During the Zoe is Zoe moment, a couple being stuck in an elevator is mentioned. Those guys are from Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off, a very short story by the author that was released in 2024. That wasn’t much of a story, and it cuts off at 81% before going into an excerpt from I Could Write A Book. You can find my quickie Goodreads review of that book here. I wouldn’t even call that story a HFN.

My only issue with this book, other than Zoe, is that George and Owen had very little in-person time before it was over. There was an epilogue that showed them exactly a year later, but I would’ve liked to have seen more before that. The book went from showing as they got to know each other to telling after they actually met. Even so, I enjoyed the book. I loved both guys, who were as different as night and day. Zoe, as annoying as she was, did bring them together, so I give her that.

This is my first by this author.