Title: Romantic FrictionAuthor: Lori Gold
Publication: May 6, 2025 by Mira
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Find it on: Amazon | Apple Books | Barnes & Noble | Google Play | Kobo
Rating: 3/5★
Sofie Wilde’s bestselling fantasy romance series has been breaking bestseller records and readers’ hearts for years. She’s primed to become a worldwide phenomenon as the tenth and final book is set to debut after the annual romance readers convention takes place in Chicago next week. As buzz continues to build toward the book’s release, Sofie is asked to headline the event for the first time, a career milestone. One she won’t let anyone take from her, especially “the next Sofie Wilde.”
That’s what they’re calling her—Hartley West, the self-published debut author who writes in the style of Sofie Wilde. Except she doesn’t actually “write” anything. After Hartley admits to using AI to create her novel, Sofie’s ready to watch Hartley be skewered on social media. Except in this unpredictable world, Hartley is instead lauded for being innovative, for being such a skilled editor to take what the AI churned out and massage it into a story that’s just as compelling as Sofie’s—maybe even more so.
After her unhinged rant unintentionally goes viral, Sofie loses her keynote, and she’s starting to lose all her support. That loss is Hartley’s gain—as her book sales start soaring, she’s given the headliner spot. Sofie is livid. And she’s not the only one. As the convention begins, Sofie is surrounded by fellow authors who also fear for their futures, their livelihoods, their art being stripped away, one AI prompt at a time. Something must be done. This has to be stopped. Now. With the clock ticking down to the keynote, Sofie enlists her fellow authors in a plan to stop Hartley, vowing, “‘The next Sofie Wilde’—over my dead body. Or hers.”
Romantic Friction by Lori Gold follows Sofie Wilde, a bestselling fantasy romance author who’s final book of her popular series is about to be published and on top of that she’s headlining a big romance readers convention in Chicago. This is obviously a big deal for her and would’ve been an exciting next step in her career if it wasn’t for “the next Sofie Wilde” aka Hartley West.
Hartley is a self-published new author and the next big thing. They call her the next Sofie Wilde because she writes in the stype of Sofie, earily so. And that’s when Hartley confesses to having used AI to write her book. Instead of being flooded with animosity and scorn on social media, like Sofie expected, Hartley is being praised and admired. Unable to believe this Sofie loses it and goes on a rant that inadvertently goes viral which eventually leads to her slowly losing any support she had. She starts working together with a few of her fellow authors to take Hartley down.
I’ll start with the positive. I loved how the story was very much set in the book community world with reader conventions and book signings, which as a reader in the book community for quite a while it felt really familiar to me. I also liked the commentary in this book about people using AI and usuing other authors’ writing style to write books. It’s a very timely topic and personally I’m very much against using AI in this kind of way, even for creating book covers. I enjoyed thinking about creativity and how can we safeguard authors and the book community in general from AI.
Where I started to lose the story a bit was with the character of Sofie herself and when it all took a rather silly yet alarming turn, in a criminal kind of way. Sofie wasn’t a likable character at all. But I also don’t think she is supposed to be likable so I don’t feel super bad about not liking her. She did have some growth eventually but not enough for me to really enjoy reading about her. Also, the turn that the story took was rather unexpected. Even bothering on the criminal and I just couldn’t like this either. I think it could’ve been funny but it just didn’t feel that way for me. Obviousy I’m not saying what happened because I don’t want to spoil it for potential reader. I just didn’t feel it, but I’m sure other readers will.
About the author:
Lori Gold is the author of ROMANTIC FRICTION, one of Zibby Media‘s “Most Anticipated Books of 2025.” She is also the author of an adult historical and four novels for young adults (all under Lori Goldstein). She currently lives outside of Boston, where she fosters a writing community through her creative writing classes, book coaching, and writing retreats.
Death to AI! Seriously, everything it do now is infiltrated by AI and it’s so depressing. Poor Sophie, even if she was unlikable, I would hate for someone to basically steal my work.
Definitely a timely topic and I do like that it is set in the book community, even if the main character is unlikeable.