Review of The Perfect Match by Milena McKay

I’ve been raving about Milena McKay’s debut novel, The Delicate Things We Make, since I read it a couple of weeks ago, and recommending it to all my friends. I didn’t have to miss her writing for too long, as she’s already releasing another story. When I fall in love with an author’s first book, I always worry that I won’t like their second one as much. And so of course, I opened The Perfect Match with that niggling fear at the back of my mind. Ha! My anxiety was all for nought.

Not only did I love The Perfect Match, but I also loved that it’s so different from The Delicate Things We Make. McKay’s debut is a love story with a fundamental #MeToo component. It’s earnest and smart, much as its main character, Jamie. The Perfect Match, on the other hand, is light and fun and had me laughing right from the start. Before the start, actually. I laughed reading the chapter titles in the table of contents.

Abby Angellini is a brand new cupid and she’s all excited about her first Vegas Cupid Convention. Part of her enthusiasm stems from her hope of meeting Sabine Goddard. And meet her she will, though not the way she thought it would happen. And what’s so fascinating about Sabine Goddard? Besides her piercing green eyes in the picture in Abby’s Statistics textbook, Sabine has been holding the title of Queen of the Perfect Match for the last ten years, a crown she receives every year in Vegas from Aphrodite herself.

In Jae’s Sapphic Reading Challenge, there’s a Grumpy & Sunshine category. I’ve found my book for it. Abby is a permanent ray of sunshine, or, as everyone around her seems to think, following The Onion’s lead, a cinnamon roll. Sabine is an ice queen, a disillusioned cupid, who feels more comfortable with numbers – her day job is in finance – than with people.

There are a few secondary characters, other cupids – including Sabine’s ex and two sisters whose idea of cupidom is to launch as many arrows as possible, damn the consequences – and all sorts of gods and goddesses, some of whom teach at the Cupid Academy. The writing is as beautiful as in The Delicate Things We Make but much tighter, more on-point.

As I wrote above, I smiled a lot reading this novella, even laughed out loud a few times. It’s not all roses and cinnamon rolls however, there are also some very moving moments, there’s passion and, when the time finally comes, all the steam you can expect from experts in love and lust.

It didn’t take long for Milena McKay to make her mark. She is definitely on my list of authors to watch out for.