Reviewed by Anabela
TITLE: Love and Linguistics
SERIES: Movie Magic Romances #2
AUTHOR: Tara Lain
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 218 pages
RELEASE DATE: November 26, 2019
BLURB:
In his neighborhood, El Martin stands out, and that can be life-threatening. Against the odds, he’s managed to graduate high school and then master IT. Now he’s desperate to get a good job to free his drunken dad and himself from the control of gang leader M2 and the drugs he sells. But with his piercings and his slang-ridden speech, El looks and sounds like a Bronx gangbanger, and potential employers won’t give him a second look. So when El hears about Henry Fairhaven, PhD, linguistics researcher and wealthy New York socialite, El takes his life in his hands to escape from M2 and ends up sleeping in the stairwell at Henry’s building, hoping to learn how to speak.
To Henry, who wants to prove himself as a scholar and not merely a rich dilettante, El isn’t only the most beautiful man he’s ever seen—he’s also the key to getting a paper published on Henry’s ground-breaking linguistics methods before a competitor beats him to the punch. But Henry doesn’t tell El the truth, and El thinks Henry’s helping him because he cares.
El’s dreams collide with Henry’s ambitions at the elegant Met Gala, where El captivates a prince of Silicon Valley. But the real collision comes when M2 tracks El down and Henry has to choose between the validation he craves and a future with the man he’s come to love.
REVIEW:
Love and Linguistics is Tara Lain’s take on 𝑀𝑦 𝐹𝑎𝑖𝑟 𝐿𝑎𝑑𝑦, and just like while watching the movie, the book kept a smile plastered on my face all through reading it.
It’s not all sunshine and roses, especially the beginning. I could feel El’s fear and despair to leave Bronx like a punch to the gut. He just wants out of gang life and away from danger. But the tone of the book becomes lighter, funnier once El meets Henry Fairhaven, PhD in linguistics, the man who agrees to help him improve how he presents himself and the way he speaks.
El wants just some speech lessons only to find himself swept into a race to turn him into some kind of socialite. Etiquette and dance classes with little or no use for his future, but allow El to make friends and get closer to Henry. It was cute, sweet and emotional to witness the transformative process, both from El’s and Henry’s POV. I laughed at the mistakes, I swooned at seeing them adorably oblivious to their crushes on each other and I cheered when they eventually admitted how much they fell in love.
A love story between the lowest of low class and the uppest of upper class, and the thing I appreciated most was that Tara Lain didn’t go to heavy on outlining the differences. As a matter of fact, the author didn’t go too heavy on anything. It’s all perfectly balanced: the drama, the fun, the sexiness, danger, ugliness and brightness. The exquisite combination of real and fairytale, of bad characters and meddling, helpful family and friends, all wrapped into a book that brought me so much joy to read.
RATING: 
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