💗💗1/2
The Name Game
Beth O’Leary
Publication Date: April 7th, 2026
Berkley Publishing Group
384 Pages
Amazon | Goodreads | Bookshop.org
Genre: Romance | Women’s Fiction
Beth O’Leary came up with a great idea for a book: a romantic comedy about two strangers who discover they share the exact same name (Charlie Jones). It has O’Leary’s typical mix of emotional depth and humour. One is a woman escaping grief and looking for a fresh start, and the other is a man recovering from heartbreak and trying to rebuild his life. Both accept what they think is their dream job: managing a farm shop on the remote Isle of Ormer. When they get there, they find that they have both been hired for the same position. No one knows how the mix-up happened, and neither wants to give up the job… so they’re forced into a solution. They have to share the job, the space, and the experience while the owners figure out who gets to stay.
The setup of this one is fun, and the book grabbed me and was engaging from the start. The forced closeness between the two Charlies has lots of humorous moments early on, some of them very awkward. The best part of the book is the atmosphere. The tiny island setting feels cozy, and I would even call it isolated. O’Leary also tries to balance humour with some heavy topics like grief, heartbreak, and trying to move on.
The pacing was uneven because the beginning sucked me in with the quirky premise, but the middle section drags because it’s just the same thing over and over again, and the conflict wore thin. Some of the emotional aspects didn’t hit their mark and the romance was very typical and predictable. The characters are likable but not especially memorable. Their chemistry is very slow to build and I just couldn’t see these two together.
Overall, this was an easy, enjoyable read with a unique premise. I would call it a middle-of-the-road contemporary romance. It isn’t anything new except for the same-name thing, and it didn’t have the emotional impact I was hoping for. This one had a really charming hook, but just couldn’t quite stick the landing for me. It’s always a bit of a letdown when a quirky premise loses its steam halfway through. I am going to go with my average rating of two and a half stars.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
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