While You Were Seething by. Charlotte Stein | ALC and ARC Review

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Spice Rating: 🌶️🌶️🌶️

Title: While You Were Seething

Author: Charlotte Stein

Format: eBook (NetGalley)

Pages: 320

Publication Date: 4/14/26

Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin

Categories: Contemporary, Romance

Disclaimer: **I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.**

Thank you to St. Martin’s Griffin for giving me a chance to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review!

The road to love is bumpy in Charlotte Stein’s WHILE YOU WERE SEETHING— a sexy and heartwarming contemporary romance filled with fake dating hijinks, delicious forced proximity, and top tier banter.

Daisy Emmett has been enemies with famous romance author Caleb Miller since they were in college together, and time hasn’t lessened their mutual loathing. So when she agrees to manoeuvre him through a PR disaster of his own making, she knows it’s not going to be easy. She just doesn’t realise how not easy until they somehow end up trapped in the same truck, on an endless road trip from one book tour stop to another, bantering and butting heads along the way.

Then, even more people appear to be mistaking her for the woman he dedicates all his books to. The love of his life, his adored beloved—the one who doesn’t actually exist. Now they’re trapped into pretending she does and that Daisy is her, each fake kiss and phoney embrace ratcheting up the tension to the point where enemies suddenly seems a lot closer to lovers than either of them would like.

Or so they’re telling themselves.

But sometimes it’s hard to be sure, when seething turns into something so much more…

Content Warning: violence

+ Daisy and Caleb were classmates and older student in college. Now Caleb is a famous romance writer, and Daisy runs a PR company and Caleb needs PR help. So right away these two do not get along. I listened to the audiobook for 60% of the book then switched to the ebook because I could read it faster. But the narrator did a great job and the audiobook was a better read than the ebook because for some reason there were some phrases while I was reading it and not listening to it than sounded a little awkward or off and I had to reread some sentences.

+~ There are flashbacks in the story to give us insight into how Daisy and Caleb were in college. But with the audiobook, I didn’t know we were in a flashback until a few moments in it.

+~ This is an enemies to lovers romance with fake dating and forced proximity. I loved the fake dating and forced proximity part, there was some funny part but I liked it because it forced Caleb to open up even if it was fake because that man is the grumpiest guy I have ever come across in books I think. Grumpy to the point he could barely communicate with Daisy and since that was his type of personality, I didn’t like him. He bottled a lot of things up and he wasn’t okay with touch or affection, even in the spicy scenes where he starts talking dirty and clearly is very aroused by Daisy, he pulls away right after, emotionally and physically and it was just cold. I liked the spice, I just didn’t like all the confusion about their relationship after. There are reasons for it that is explained at the end but even with the heartfelt explanations…Caleb was just not for me, he had so much repressed emotions it was frustrating to read. Bless Daisy for being patient, even if she had her own self-esteem issues too.

~ There was banter but even with the narrator doing a great job, the banter came off not playful and always ended up with Caleb angry or closed off. So even though some of it was fun, Daisy was always left perplexed – as I was. I didn’t love it.

~ There are pop cultural references to Chappell Roan songs, so if you don’t like pop culture in books, just be warned.

Final Thoughts:

I think this one was okay for me because I didn’t totally love Caleb. I know that’s just his personality but I found his character so frustrating. The spice was fun, and I enjoyed the fake dating and forced proximity parts plus there is an emotional moment at the end, but I just wish Caleb wasn’t so cold at times. Overall, an okay read for me but the narrator did a great job with the audiobook.

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