Comfort Read by Dylan Morrison

Title: Comfort Read (Cedar Falls #1)
Author: Dylan Morrison
Publisher: Storm Publishing
Release Date: October 8, 2026
Genre(s): Contemporary Romance
Page Count: 272
Reviewed by: Crabbypatty
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Blurb:

Kit Forrest is officially the saddest man in Cedar Falls. A year after his boyfriend turned down his proposal and left town, Kit’s beloved bookstore is falling down around him. The old brick firehouse has overstuffed shelves, a resident orange cat with an attitude problem… and repairs Kit can’t begin to afford.

Sage Ballard is a hometown boy who got famous, then became a tabloid disaster, and now urgently needs a nice, ordinary boyfriend to convince one very rich investor he’s a changed man. Three months of fake dating, and Sawyer’s Books will get the cash injection it needs to survive. And it’s not like he has to actually be nice to the guy, right?

Kit thinks Sage is a rude, sunglasses-indoors diva. Sage thinks Kit is an earnest nerd who talks too much. But then something shifts. Sage starts turning up at the bookstore for no particular reason. Kit starts saving him the good armchair. And the cat—who bites everyone—won’t leave Sage alone.

By the time the first snow falls, pretending has begun to feel a bit too real. Which would be wonderful, if the whole thing weren’t built on lies. You know what they say about small towns and secrets…

Perfect for fans of KJ Charles, Alexis Hall and Zarah Detand, you can expect:

Fake dating
Celebrity x ordinary guy
Grumpy x sunshine
Small-town romance
Forced proximity / only one bed
Cozy bookstore setting
Slow-burn romance
Autumn vibes

I devoured this book in one sitting, finishing it up under the covers with my Kindle. Sure, you’ll need to suspend a bit of disbelief, but it’s easy to become quickly involved in this story of Kit Forrest, the saddest man in Cedar Falls, NY and Sage Ballard, homegrown Hollywood star, Sawyer’s Bookstore (a beloved bookstore, formerly an 1880’s firehouse), bookstore resident Throgmorten the cat with his very own “Incident Tracker: Weirdly Suspicious Cat Behavior” dry-erase board and a cavalcade of very interesting secondary characters. This is, indeed, a comfort read.

It started with renting out his historic bookstore for a media event, and before Kit knew it, he had agreed to become Sage Ballard’s fake boyfriend in order to help Sage secure funding for a movie that would allow him to move from acting to directing. Sage is very distant and prickly, and as we learn along the way, entirely justified in protecting himself. Kit could have been just an annoyingly cheerful Mary Sue, but his character has heart and the confidence to speak his mind to Sage in ways that really matter.

I loved Kit’s POV throughout and would have liked to also gotten Sage’s POV, which would have helped to better flesh out his character and give us more insights rather than waiting until almost the end of the novel for vital clues and background. There are just a few sex scenes here, but nothing graphic on-page. Unfortunately, there is a HUGE misunderstanding with no communication (one of my BIG pet peeves) in the later part of the book that really seems out of the place with the overall feel of the book. But Kit’s efforts, even after Sage totally shut him out, gives the book a happy ending that it really deserves. 4 stars.

I received an ARC from the Publisher, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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