Ex-footballer Alfie Harding does not like people. They want to talk to him and ask him questions he has no desire to give answers to. When he gets badgered into writing his memoirs, this grumpy man knows there’s no way he can write about himself. And finding someone who he’s willing to trust enough to do it seems to be an impossible task.
 
Mabel Willicker is one of the best ghostwriters around but even she’s not sure she wants to take on writing famous footballer Alfie Harding’s memoirs, especially since he’s already rejected 17 other writers. Their first meeting doesn’t go well at all, so Mabel is surprised when Alfie tracks her down and tells her he wants to work with her.
 
Things start to go sideways when Mabel is seen with Alfie and everyone assumes they’re a couple. To protect Alfie’s cover as the writer of his memoir, Mabel and Alfie pretend to be together but pretty soon the lines begin to blur and it’s hard to differentiate between fantasy and fiction.
 
WHEN GRUMPY MET SUNSHINE by Charlotte Stein had me laughing hard so often, I wasn’t sure I’d get through the book. Mabel is a bubbly, sunshine-filled character but she has a lot of self-esteem issues. For anyone who has watched Ted Lasso, Alfie is Roy Kent, which makes it hard for me to see the character as anyone else. This was my first book by Stein and while I enjoyed the comedic aspects of it, I had a really hard time with the writing style. It was repetitive at times, with too much focus on how the main characters were so different, and there was a one-year separation of the characters that just seemed too long for them to come back from. If you’re just looking for something that’ll do a great job of making you laugh WHEN GRUMPY MET SUNSHINE has the banter for you.