living. Real estate agents love me, and my work stands on its own merits.
decades. I didn’t even know there was a more… lascivious definition of the
term.
intervention. My last unemployment check was in the bank. I was desperate. Rent
was due. The ad said cash paid at the end of the day.
in making a certain kind of movie. Turns out a “fluffer” doesn’t arrange
decorative pillows on a couch.
helping other people to be hard.
movie set. Will Lotham – my high school crush. The owner of the house where
we’re filming. Illegally. In a vacation rental.
staging gig turned into a nightmare involving pictures of me with a naked star,
Will rescuing me from an arrest, and a humiliating lesson in my own naivete.
what’s easier than I ever imagined?
Sunny Shelly’s Review: 4 Stars
This book is laugh-out-loud funny from the start! The comedy of errors that leads to Mallory and Will crossing paths a decade after she crushed on him — hard! — in high school was hysterical. I was reading late at night in bed and had to try to stifle my laughs.
Besides the funny writing by Julia Kent, the premise of this story was quite original: Professional home stager Mal answers a Craigslist ad for a “fluffer” — an old name for her profession — and has no idea that she’s just accepted a job on a porn set. Illegally filming in the rental home owned by her high school crush, Will. A few days later, Will hires Mallory (who needs a job, desperately) to stage homes for his real estate company. It’s a perfect win/win — and the sexual tension simmers between them with every flirty exchange.
There is such a wonderful slow burn between Will and Mal, which I loved. He really worked for her, and that made his confession to her at the end of the book all the more sweeter. Their exchanges were hysterical, and I thought they were a really well-rounded couple.
The secondary characters in this book were wonderfully quirky as well. Mal’s mom had me in stitches, and her friends Fiona and Perky are the kinds of girlfriends everyone needs in their tribe. And I absolutely loved the set-up in the bonus epilogue for Perky’s upcoming book with her ex!
Fluffy is actually the first book of Julia Kent’s that I’ve read, and now I know why she is a romcom queen. I will defintely be on the lookout for the rest of this series! I received an advanced copy and voluntarily left a review.
tonight. I have a date,” I blurt out, remembering David. The dating app. The
asshole who isn’t an asshole.
haven’t met him, so that judgment remains withheld.
Will asks, intrigued.
date. You know, that thing where you go out with someone who has no intention
of really getting to know you and you spend the entire time eating bread that
doesn’t taste as good as your date claims and trying to decide whether to
initiate rescue-text sequences with your mom.”
your idea of a date?”
actual experience of every date I’ve had since college.”
dating the wrong guys.” He holds my gaze for just a little too long. I look
away.
keep fishing in the pond if I ever want to catch a different one.”
the way you talk to your dates, I am beginning to understand why they all turn
out so badly.”
accuse me of being a bad date. I’m a great date! I Google the guy in advance
and read his LinkedIn profile. I make sure I don’t wear super-tall heels in
case he lied about his height on his dating profile. I pretend to care about
all his hobbies and don’t reveal that I’m secretly tallying all the
micro-aggressions he’s sending my way during appetizers and wine. And if he
makes it to dessert, well–” I falter.
it to dessert, do you?” Will asks, eyebrows up. He drops them quickly, wincing.
not that I don’t. He doesn’t!”
you?”
It’s just that he always has a thing.”
emergency. Or a dog with a twisted bowel. Or a grandma in the ER.”
guys used the twisted-canine-intestine thing?”
sit down and sag against his teenage desk, elbows sliding forward, fingers deep
in my hair. “I looked it up. There’s an entire subreddit devoted to inventive
ways to get out of a bad date.”
here you are.” He leans against the edge of his desk. “Trying again.”
masochist.”
gleam. “Maybe you should start your dates with that line. ‘Hi. I’m Mallory
Monahan. I’m a masochist.’ You’d definitely make it to dessert.”
writes romantic comedy with an edge. From billionaires to BBWs to new adult
rock stars, Julia finds a sensual, goofy joy in every contemporary romance she
writes. Unlike Shannon from Shopping for
a Billionaire, she did not meet her husband after dropping her phone in a
men’s room toilet (and he isn’t a billionaire). She lives in New England with
her husband and three sons in a household where the toilet seat is never, ever,
down.
