Book Review | First-Time Caller

First-Time Caller

By B.K. Borison

Pan Macmillan  |  2025  |  420 pages

Aiden Valentine has a secret: he’s fallen out of love with love. And as the host of Baltimore’s romance hotline, that’s a bit of a problem. But when a young girl calls in to the station asking for dating advice for her mom Lucie, the interview goes viral, thrusting Aiden and Heartstrings into the limelight.

Lucie Stone thought she was doing just fine. She has a good job; an incredible family; and a smart, slightly devious kid. But when all of Baltimore is suddenly scrutinizing her love life—or lack thereof—she begins to question if she’s as happy as she thought. Maybe a little more romance wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

Everyone wants Lucie to find her happy ending. . . even the handsome, temperamental man calling the shots. But when sparks start to fly behind the scenes, Lucie must make the final call between the radio-sponsored happily ever after or the man in the headphones next to her.

---

Oof so I really wanted to like this one more than I did. I’ll keep my review relatively short because I don’t have a whole lot to say about it. 

Honestly, this was definitely a book I was drawn to due to online hype and the cover was so pastel and pretty. I still think it’s a super cute looking book and it brightens my bookcase substantially! 

As mentioned, there was a lot of hype for this book. I found that I kept seeing it on Bookstagram and Booktok and it was really highly rated. I kept seeing people rate it 5 stars and saying that it was one of their top reads and… no offense but like… did we read different books??

So, my main issue with the book was that it was slow. It just felt long and it took me quite a while to get into it. It took me almost 2 weeks to finish the book and that was because I had little to no interest in picking it back up, I’ll be honest. 

I didn’t mind the romance being a slow burn or a built up romance but it just felt like it was dragging most of the time. Even 150 pages in, I was skimming some sentences just to see where we were going with things.

In addition, and I actually had a number of followers DM me after I posted an initial IG story who were strongly in agreement, the plot was basically non existent. Beyond Aiden and Lucie’s romance story… there was literally nothing else going on in the book. There was no drama other than self inflicted problems and drama due to their own respective emotional withdrawal moments. 

It just felt veryyy filler and empty. There was no substance to the plot and it was a shame because I really liked the idea of the radio show. I love that whole vibe but I feel like more could have been done with it? You know, they mentioned the show was struggling. You could have had a whole plot point about not only the team trying to find Lucie’s happily ever after but actually, they had to elaborate and work to save the show together. 

It felt like plot points were half mentioned and then just died. For example, the fact Aiden’s mother has been ill a number of times - this was mentioned a lot and I get it was just to reiterate why he is closed off from emotions but I genuinely thought they were gonna make her sick again as something to test him and Lucie but not even that happened? Which fab because it would have been sad af but otherwise, I just found it lacking and boring in terms of overarching plot.

Now, please don’t get me wrong… I didn’t hate the book. I’ll go onto the few things I enjoyed in a moment but I just… I am not a fan of romance books that literally have nothing else going on. Even hallmark romance movies have some sort of side plot going on, y’know?

If it is purely romance for the sake of romance with no plot diversity… then it is a no, no from me.

Putting all that aside, I did really like the characters in the book. I found both Aiden and Lucie very relatable as main characters. I found their personalities to be believable and they were interesting within their own rights. 

I also found the book to be very giving in terms of romance; there were plenty of moments that made me grin at the book like an idiot and I felt that despite it is totally a rom-com style book, I did enjoy it as I found it wasn’t too over the top. Some romances feel a bit much and a bit tacky. I don’t like romances that really overplay it and are dramatic af. This didn’t feel like that too much and I appreciated it.

So yeah, overall, I don’t understand the 5 stars for this book if I am being brutally honest. It was only okay for me and it honestly would have been higher for stars if there had just been more involved. There was no story beyond them developing feelings for each other and whilst that was great, it was just… lacking overall.