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Once again, Cousens (Is She Really Going Out with Him?, 2024) proves that she can add an element of surprise and elevate a traditional rom-com to the next level. Her use of a sf twist may throw some of her fans for a loop, but readers will be rewarded with a sweet and witty romance with multifaceted characters and Cousens' trademark warmth. Chole Fairway seemed destined to succeed; at university she wrote and starred in plays. But ten years later, she’s still a production assistant, has gone through a bad breakup, and lives with her parents. At her wit’s end, she decides to try an exclusive dating service and is shocked when her first date is a smashing success. Rob is handsome, caring, funny, and charming. So she asks him to her ten-year college reunion. Her life has been a flop, but maybe a hot guy on her arm will give her the confidence she needs to face old and very successful friends. As she reconnects with her old crew, Chloe realizes that success doesn’t guarantee happiness, and that perhaps true love had been right there all along.

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Desperate to impress her classmates at their college reunion, a woman brings a robot boyfriend as her plus-one. Chloe Fairway feels like things couldn’t get worse. At 31, she’s living with her parents in the London suburbs, working as an assistant rather than a screenwriter, and stuck in the dating trenches. But then an old colleague recommends a mysterious dating service called Perfect Partners. Chloe figures it can’t hurt to try, so she books an appointment and is set up with Rob Dempsey, a gorgeous man who seems ideal. He’s kind, courteous, and can quoteBrideshead Revisited, her favorite book, from memory. But then she finds out the truth—Rob is a “state-of-the-art AI humanoid robot. An android. Physically, practically indistinguishable from a real person.” He’s been crafted to meet the exact specifications Chloe detailed in her 42-page questionnaire, the one where she said her ideal men were Fitzwilliam Darcy, Anthony Bridgerton, and Friedrich Bhaer, all men who are, notably, fictional. Chloe could never date a robot—that is, until she thinks about attending her college reunion in Oxford solo. Everyone else has an important career, like her old friend Sean Adler, now a big-time Hollywood director. Chloe resolves to bring Rob to her reunion and introduce him as her boyfriend, impressing all her Oxford friends (and, most importantly, Sean). Rob is the perfect partner, but as the weekend rolls on and she reconnects with people from her past, Chloe begins to wonder if perfection is all it’s cracked up to be. Cousens takes a truly bonkers premise and imbues it with the warmth and humor she’s known for in her romantic comedies. The idea of an AI boyfriend feels scarily real, but Cousens manages to keep things light even while examining what it means for humans to find deep connections with robots instead of each other. Rob is a character who elicits both sympathy and laughs, and the romantic plotline is surprising enough to keep things interesting. A science-fiction twist on romance that brings a whole lot of heart and humanity. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Publishers Weekly
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Cousens (Is She Really Going Out with Him) questions what makes the perfect man in this entertaining sci-fi-tinged rom-com. Chloe Fairway dreads her Oxford college reunion. Her fellow classmates are extremely successful, especially her former best friend turned Hollywood screenwriter, Sean Adler, while Chloe, who had great hopes of becoming a writer herself, is stuck working as a PA for a film producer and living with her parents in London. Not wanting to show up without at least a date, she signs up for secretive new dating service Perfect Partners, which promises to match her with her ideal guy. Rob Dempsey, the man she’s paired with, is exactly her type in both looks and personality and he’s demonstratively smitten with her. Chloe is thrilled—until she learns that Rob is a robot programmed to her exact specifications. Still, she takes him as her date to the reunion—where she reunites with both Sean and another friend, John Elton; reexamines their shared past; learns she can’t trust the glossy facades she sees on social media; and feels unexpected sparks with a perfectly imperfect man. Some serious suspension of disbelief is required, but Cousens has a lot of fun with her premise, and it’s easy to root for Chloe to find true love. Readers will be charmed. (Nov.)