I’m always interested in Sapphic romance that features woman in middle age, so I was immediately drawn to Mistakes Were Made. While the overall story was engaging and fun, I had trouble connecting with the characters and buying into the central love story. But it was a fun read with some great love scenes that I would recommend for a quick vacation read.
College senior Cassie is in an off-campus bar avoiding family weekend. Erin is in the same bar avoiding her ex-husband while he takes their daughter, a college freshman, out to dinner. An intense one-night stand ensues and that seems to be the end of it until both women show up to breakfast the next day to discover Cassie is the new best friend of Erin’s daughter. Though both seem to agree that a relationship is a bad idea, they have a hard time staying away from each other, despite being hundreds of miles apart. What ensues is a lot of sneaking around and a lot of insisting that the relationship is just a fling, which anyone who’s read a romance novel before knows is nonsense.
My two main issues with the book were that the central relationship didn’t seem like more than just a fling to me as the reader. Beyond some intense sexual chemistry, I didn’t see much of a connection. Then there’s the age gap issue. While I don’t think age gap relationships are inherently wrong, the fact that Cassie was only 22 years old made it tough for me to buy in. It did help that neither character seemed to act their age. Cassie is (of course) wise beyond her years and Erin does not behave like any almost 40-year-old doctor I have ever met. But if you like fun dialogue and VERY steamy sex scenes, you can absolutely suspend your disbelief and enjoy this as a fun beach read.