Y’all…Y’all. Get this book immediately. Mallory Marlowe knocked it out of the park. I was lucky enough to have a digital advanced reading copy, and I want to get the physical copy to have it on my shelf. It is a reread. Hallie is a producer for an online streaming company called Skroll. She is given the go-ahead to pitch her show. Her deadline is short. While brainstorming one night she stumbles across a late-night show and decides she could create a show about conspiracy theories, with the guest host of Cosmic Conspiracies. Hayden Hargrove has a podcast about conspiracy theories and is on the show to talk about Bigfoot might be an alien. Hallie doesn’t believe but she is sucked in by his “magnetic enthusiasm”. She decides he is what Skroll needs. She contacts him and they begin working together to create a show seeking out monsters and discussing conspiracy theories. Hallie wasn’t going to be one screen but their chemistry and playing off each other is electric and the show The Out There takes off.
Love and Other Conspiracies does remind me of the BuzzFeed Unsolved with Ryan and Shane. One is a believer and the other is a skeptic. I love that show, so occasionally I thought where she was sending them was very much following their episodes. A little dislike for me, but how her characters interacted made up for it.
Honestly, I feel like Mallory touched on difficult things with kid gloves. Hallie was in a horrid relationship for 3 years with her co-worker. He tore her down and said terrible things to her and about her. He destroyed her self-confidence. Being the producer and co-host of The Out There began to slowly repair what happened to her. Mallory gave a great timeline of how Hallie began to trust Hayden and allow herself to be with him. And during the spicy part, I was grateful. I have struggled with sexual trauma and Mallory wrote it in a way that gave other ladies like me hope. She was honest about how long it could take. How Mallory wrote Hallie and Hayden made me happy.
I highly recommend this book!
4 outta 5 coffee cups! (I really need to figure out my rating system)
Come back for what I read next!
Ashleigh