Book ~ "Then I Met You" (2019) Matt Dunn

From Goodreads ~ Lisa’s dated a series of disastrous men; Simon’s loved and lost the girl of his dreams. She’s hoping fate might intervene in her love life; he’d prefer that it stopped meddling with his. 

Today they’re meeting, courtesy of the local paper’s ‘Blind Date’ feature – but while Lisa’s looking for that elusive ‘spark’, Simon’s sure lightning doesn’t strike twice. 

Will theirs be a love that’s written in the stars or merely another mismatch written up in the Gazette?

Jess works at a newspaper called The Gazette on a feature that matches people up on blind dates and then follows up with them afterwards to see how it goes.  Lisa is Jess' friend and agrees to go on one of the dates.  She has a history of dating losers who dump her and she's optimistically still looking for "the one".

Simon is still grieving over the loss of his relationship with Alice two years ago and is happy being alone.  Will is his best friend and Jess' boyfriend.  Will tricks Simon into the blind date with Jess and Will has no choice but to go through with it.

Things don't go well with between Lisa and Simon right from the start ... they are too different and want different things.  But for the sake of Jess' column, they do a redo of the date within hours, courtesy of Jess' corporate credit card.

I've read many books by this author and thought it was okay.  I usually find his books humourous but I thought this one was a bit of downer.  I found Lisa was so desperate to find someone and put up with losers.  Despite her new "seize the day" attitude, I didn't find her overly likable.  Simon was still trying to get over his relationship with Alice and wasn't overly enthusiastic to be stuck on a date with Lisa.  He seemed to have a dry sense of humour.

It was written in third person perspective from Lisa and Simon's points of view.  The story happens over 24 hours.  As a head's up, there is some swearing.