LOVE AT FIRST FLIGHT BY JO WATSON // spoiler-free book review: the fake dating rom-com that will literally fly you away!

Took me only like 3 months to get this post up but I simply cannot be gatekeeping this book for any longer? IM IN LOVE!!!!

Let’s fly right in!

No I will not stop using this word, Pippa needs to give me another synonym *hides*

Title: Love at First Flight
Author: Jo Watson
Page count: 368
Date published: 18 January 2024
Genre: Adult contemporary romance

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Synopsis:

Things Pippa her job, airplanes, synonyms and tropical fish.

Things Pippa does not enjoy: repeating patterns, tight clothes, people asking why she’s single and school reunions.

After four months of only speaking over intercom, when air-traffic controller Pippa Edwards finally meets pilot Andrew Boyce-Jones face-to-face, they discover they’ve got much more in common than simply working at the same airport. In fact . . . they both need a date. Tired of every relationship ending before it’s even begun, Pippa wants to evade the inevitable questions at her dreaded ten-year school reunion in Cape Town. And Andrew needs to get his well-meaning family off his back about settling down. The solution seems simple. A pact – a fake dating pact – for as long as it’s mutually beneficial. It’s perfect.

Or at least it would be if their very real attraction wasn’t about to make Pippa question everything she thought she wanted. . .

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Big thanks to Wordsworth Books for the review copy! All thoughts and opinions are my own.

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STAR RATING: (5 out of 5 stars)

We’re not running through the airport to catch the guy folks, he’s already there…

Okay I will admit I’m writing this review veryyyyy late so I’m relying on memory recall here. What I remember very clearly is that I read this outdoors (A++++ experience btw!!!) and that I absolutely devoured her (still recovering!!!)

Heaven only knows why it took me so long to read this book, because I knew I would love it, and love it I did. Did we expect more tbh? If you did then I don’t know what to tell you.

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Let’s start off with the setting because I won’t say I wasn’t expecting it, but it was also very refreshing? It’s set in South Africa (mostly at an airport for obvious reasons), but our characters have lives. And they do this crazy thing and leave their workplace and go to their homes in South Africa. Absolutely wild, and I loved it.

Also, when I say my outdoor reading experience was immersive, did I mention that there were planes flying above me? Truly exquisite, and suddenly I was interested in airplanes. Only Jo can do this. Says the girl who has shamefully only read one of her books. But let’s not dwell on the negatives.

Moment for the writing and maybe I have lost my review-writing ability because all I have to say that it was great seeing as I FLEW (!!) through this book. Great pun lmfao.

Alright, I’ll try harder,,, we’ll move onto dialogue because that was my favourite part by far. The conversations were awkward and witty and real, and that IS the best combo, argue with a wall. I’m serious, I will take no criticism in this regard.

For my trope girls, we’ve got workplace fake dating with a smidge of opposites attract and I truly ate it all up. Usually not my cuppa tea, but I think our two main characters just had some great chemistry that I didn’t mind too much. What I most enjoyed about the tropes is how the fake dating very quickly became peripheral and the two just became friends, and I’m a sl*t for friends to lovers!

Let’s talk about both Andrew’s and Pippa’s job because indeed I questioned my career choices for a second. And I didn’t know I needed this pilot x air-traffic-controller in my life but their world was far more interesting than mine. Enough said, really.

Great segue to talk about characters because I most polarising part of this book seems to be with Pippa’s characterisation, and I won’t lie and tell you she won’t throw you off guard at first. But what initially is jarring very quickly becomes endearing, and all of a sudden, you’re also in love with Pippa. Quite difficult not to be really, she’s low-key crazy, and it’s the best.

And then we have sir Andrew…. where is mine? Like, where do we sign up for them? Is there a queue? I’ll wait in line, no problem. You think I’m joking, but I’m feeling the loneliness these days, so I am willing to go an extra mile here. Alright fine, I’ll be serious for a second. Andrew was… such a chilled dude ngl. That sounds dumb, but he was literally just calm and collected and knew what he wanted, and it made him mesh really well with Pippa. Before I get weepy…

If you need to fly away for a weekend, here’s your book! Is it a romance, a comedy or a plane? Go read the book and you’ll find out *wink wink*

“How’s my favourite ATC today? This is Flightbird Six Zero Zero.”
“You really shouldn’t have favorites,” I said with a smile, even though he was my favourite pilot too.

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“I hope I don’t mess up my hair,” I said.
“I do,” he replied.
“Why?”
“Because then I would have to do it again.”

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“I don’t like it when people have fingers like King Charles – sausagey. It’s very off-putting. But you have good fingers.”
“Uh . . . thanks. I don’t think anyone has ever complimented my fingers before.”

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“Just trust me on this.”
“Trust you? I hardly know you.”
“And yet here we are. Ascending a staircase together to your school reunion.”

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“I don’t usually like people either. Like cats who find people who don’t like them, we people who usually don’t like other people tend to gravitate towards each other.”

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Sometimes it felt as if there was no barrier between me and the outside world. I was porous, the energy of the world rushing straight through my skin and into me. Rushing into my body unfiltered and ready to consume me. Other people’s skin acted like a barrier between their insides and the world around them, but mine did not. Everything penetrated me. In moments like these I needed some silence, some stillness to push back the world around me so I could breathe again.

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“I know you better than you think I know you.”

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“And when exactly did you fall in love with me?” I asked.
He shrugged casually. “I think there were a few times that I fell in love with you. Like when we were looking at the Vampire together, or when I saw you with your dogs, when I saw how scared you were of cats, when I first heard your little snoring noises, when I saw you with your family, saw you with my family, when we danced at the wedding, saw how good you were at swimming, how good you look naked, when you told me about ancient Greek penile sizes and wondered where merpeople’s sex organs were, and when you call me Flightbird Six Zero Zero.”
“I call you that all the time. I’ve called you that for months.”
“I know.”

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HAVE YOU READ THIS BOOK? WHAT DID YOU THINK? HAVE YOU READ ANY OF JO’S OTHER BOOKS? WHAT ARE YOUR FAVOURITES?