THE EX TALK by Rachel Lynn Solomon is a book that’s been on my radar ever since I heard about it. Who can resist a story about two enemies who band together to host a radio talk show? Dominic Yun is the hot new guy at the office, and he gets on Shay Goldstein’s nerves. But if she’s honest...does he really? When they team up as fake ‘exes’ to launch a new radio show, the nature of their relationship is really put to the test.

Shay’s lifelong shared dream with her deceased father is to be part of radio. Not just in the producer capacity that she has been, but she wants her voice to be heard...except she knows she doesn’t have a radio voice and very little hope of ever seeing that dream come to fruition. But when her station revamps in an effort to regain their audience, Shay’s boss is convinced her show idea could save the station, and bonus! It’s sure to thrust her into the vocal spotlight. But first, she has to convince Dominic to compromise his values by getting on board with this lie.

Straight out of the gate, this book was a boatload of fun. The way Shay silently fumes at Dominic while trying to convince herself she loathes him was something I loved reading! The ribbing about him constantly mentioning his master’s degree was a hoot. The way she thinks about him - his sexy forearms and how tall he was - kept me in stitches. Shay was such a fun character. I really enjoyed Dominic’s character, too, but he wasn’t an open book like Shay was, and he was a bit tougher to get to know. But he was so sweet and sexy from Shay’s point of view that it didn’t make it hard to be drawn to him, that’s for sure!

There were so many other aspects of this story that I also found enjoyable. For example, as a grown woman, Shay trying to deal with the fact that her mother would be remarrying soon and she’d be part of a blended family, another situation in which she felt she didn’t belong, was a joy to read. There was such poignancy in some of the conversations between Shay and her mother. She also had a complicated relationship with her best friend that needed to be dealt with, and adopting a dog didn’t pan out quite the way Shay was expecting. I love that she had so much going on in her life aside from her burgeoning romance with Dominic.

I found THE EX TALK  to be such a captivating read, and I cannot wait to find out what else Rachel Lynn Solomon has in store for Contemporary Romance readers!