Count Your Lucky Stars Review | Alexandria Bellefleur | Is It Worth Reading?

First love, second chance, and one very judgmental cat — Bellefleur closes out her Written in the Stars trilogy with the grump we’ve been waiting three books to watch fall.

If you love grumpy-sunshine banter, forced-proximity roommates, and a first-love reunion with genuine emotional stakes, Alexandria Bellefleur’s Count Your Lucky Stars belongs on your second-chance shelf. It is the Lambda Literary Award winner’s steamy send-off to Elle, Darcy, Brendon and the whole friend group — this time handing prickly, commitment-shy Margot her own happy ending with the girl who got away.

Our take: This is a warm, funny, genuinely spicy comfort read carried by sparkling prose and a beloved grump at its center — and it is also, by wide reader consensus, powered almost entirely by a miscommunication trope that Margot herself could resolve in a single honest conversation. Score it on cozy charm and chemistry and it soars; score it on plot tension and a rushed final act and it dips. At a 4.0 weighted average, both things are true at once.

The Evidence Scorecard

Every score below is backed by what readers and reviewers actually reported across Amazon, Goodreads and romance.io — not vibes.

Writing & Voice ★★★★☆

Evidence

• ✓ Entertainment Weekly praised Bellefleur’s “droll, distinct voice,” noting her “one-liners zing off the page.”
• ✓ Booklist gave the series a starred review for its “wit-infused writing”; Library Journal called her prose “sparkling.”
• ✓ Amazon reviewers repeatedly call the book “well-written” and “better than Written in the Stars” on the sentence level.
• ✓ The dissent: a romance.io reviewer found the dialogue “pedestrian” and the characters thinly described — a minority view, but a real one.

Dialogue & Banter ★★★★☆

Evidence

• ✓ The grumpy/sunshine dynamic is built on sharp back-and-forth; USA Today singled out the “palpable” chemistry between Margot and Olivia.
• ✓ Readers highlight Margot’s “no-nonsense, blunt” voice as the funniest thing in the book.
• ✓ The returning friend group (Elle, Darcy, Brendon) keeps the banter varied rather than two-hander claustrophobic.
• ✓ Humor peaks in the now-famous “cat scene,” cited by multiple reviewers as the most memorable moment.

Chemistry & Romance ★★★★☆

Evidence

• ✓ A four-star USA Today review calls Margot and Olivia “a perfect grumpy/sunshine pairing” whose chemistry “ramps up throughout.”
• ✓ The first-love / second-chance framing gives the attraction built-in history and yearning that readers found swoony.
• ✓ romance.io tags confirm the core draw: second chances, friends to lovers, forced proximity, grumpy & sunshine.
• ✓ Weakness noted by readers: the leads “aren’t really talking until the very end,” so the bond leans on heat more than conversation.

Heat ★★★★☆

Evidence

• ✓ romance.io rates it Steam 4/5 — “explicit, open door.” This is a spicy read, not fade-to-black.
• ✓ Booklist noted “scorchingly hot love scenes”; Library Journal cited “delicious dirty talk.”
• ✓ Amazon reviewers describe the steamy sections as “s-t-e-a-m-y” and “well done.”
• ✓ One caveat readers raised: at times “it felt like that’s all that was happening” — heat occasionally standing in for emotional progress.

Emotion & Depth ★★★☆☆

Evidence

• ✓ Readers finished it “through happy tears” and connected with Olivia’s people-pleasing and Margot’s abandonment fears.
• ✓ BookPage praised the “thoughtful conversations about relationships” underneath the comedy.
• ✓ The emotional engine — Margot’s fear of being left again — is real, but relies heavily on withheld communication rather than fresh conflict.
• ✓ A recurring critique: some found the characters “dull” or “flat,” feeling the depth was told more than shown.

Pacing ★★★☆☆

Evidence

• ✓ A four-star Amazon reviewer praised the steady pacing that avoids “timeline whiplash” common to second-chance books.
• ✓ But the same reviewer described the final act as “a train hurtling down the track sans brakes.”
• ✓ A DNF romance.io reviewer felt “the story dragged on and on” relative to how little plot detail was provided.
• ✓ Net effect: comfortable in the middle, uneven at the edges — slow to detail, then suddenly rushed.

Ending ★★★☆☆

Evidence

• ✓ The epilogue is a reader favorite — “great,” with beloved glimpses of Elle, Darcy and baby Lowell.
• ✓ But the resolution leans on a “grand gesture” that arrives fast after a book of avoidance.
• ✓ Because the central conflict is miscommunication, the fix can feel abrupt: one honest talk undoes 300 pages of tension.
• ✓ This is the single most common complaint and the main reason our Ending sub-score sits at 6.5.

Re-read & Comfort Value ★★★★☆

Evidence

• ✓ Widely described as a “warm hug” comfort read and a “great conclusion to the series.”
• ✓ Fans of the trilogy get a satisfying reunion of the whole cast, which rewards re-reads in order.
• ✓ Low-angst conflict (“not too extreme or drawn out”) makes it easy to revisit.
• ✓ Works as a standalone, but re-read value is highest for readers already invested in the friend group.

Quick Facts

Title	Count Your Lucky Stars
Author	Alexandria Bellefleur
Series	Written in the Stars #3 (reads as a standalone)
Publisher & Date	Avon · February 1, 2022
Length	384 pages
Genre	Contemporary sapphic rom-com
Tropes	Second chance, friends-to-lovers, first love, forced proximity/roommates, grumpy-sunshine
Heat	4/5 — explicit, open door
POV	Dual POV, third person
Ending	HEA (with epilogue)
Awards	By the Lambda Literary Award–winning author of Written in the Stars

You’ll Love This If…

• ✓ You adore a prickly, commitment-phobic grump slowly melting for a sunshine heroine.
• ✓ Forced-proximity roommates and a first-love reunion are your comfort-read catnip.
• ✓ You want genuinely spicy, open-door scenes alongside your rom-com humor.
• ✓ You’ve read Written in the Stars and Hang the Moon and want the friend group’s send-off.
• ✓ A low-angst conflict and a warm, tears-of-joy HEA sound perfect right now.

Avoid If…

• The miscommunication trope is a dealbreaker — this book runs almost entirely on it.
• You need external plot stakes (career, deadline) to actually affect the romance.
• You dislike endings that resolve fast via a single grand gesture.
• You want richly described, deeply layered characters over cozy vibes.
• You prefer closed-door or low-heat romance.

Book Synopsis

Margot Cooper does not do relationships — she tried once, it detonated, and casual hookups have suited her fine ever since. But with her whole friend group now paired off and engaged, she is starting to feel like a fifth wheel. Then, while touring a wedding venue as Brendon’s “Best Woman,” she comes face to face with Olivia Grant: her childhood best friend, her first love, her first everything — and, it turns out, the wedding planner she is about to be stuck working alongside.

Olivia’s last decade has not gone to plan either. Married and divorced by almost thirty, she is rebuilding in Seattle and cannot afford to blow this new job. When circumstances leave her without a place to live, Margot offers up her spare room — a textbook case of forced proximity that reawakens every spark the two of them once had. The trouble is that their first attempt at love ended in heartbreak, and Margot is terrified of being left again. Can two people who lost each other once count their lucky stars for a real second chance?

My Review

There is a specific pleasure in watching a series’ most guarded character finally get cornered by their own heart, and Count Your Lucky Stars delivers exactly that. Margot has been the sharp-tongued, loyal-to-a-fault best friend across the whole Written in the Stars trilogy, so handing her a first-love reunion — with the one person who ever got past her walls — is an emotionally satisfying way to close the group’s story. Bellefleur’s prose does the heavy lifting here: it is witty, warm, and “sparkling” in exactly the way critics from Entertainment Weekly to Booklist have described, and the grumpy/sunshine chemistry between Margot and Olivia is palpable from their first stunned eye-contact.

Where the book is honestly divisive is its engine. This is, as more than one reader bluntly put it, “miscommunication: the book.” Almost every beat of conflict traces back to Margot refusing to say one true thing out loud — which is a little tongue-in-cheek, since Margot openly complains about characters who won’t communicate. If that trope delights you, the yearning will land beautifully. If it frustrates you, you may spend chapters wanting to shake her. I landed in the middle: the pining is real and the payoff is sweet, but the romance leans on heat to carry stretches where the two leads simply are not talking.

The pacing follows suit. The middle is cozy and steady — mercifully free of the timeline whiplash that plagues a lot of second-chance novels — but the final act arrives like a “train hurtling down the track sans brakes,” closing threads in a rush of grand gesture. The epilogue, thankfully, is a genuine treat, checking in on Elle, Darcy and the extended family in a way longtime readers will love. And yes: the real scene-stealer is the cat, who earns every laugh reviewers keep crediting her with.

Judged as what it actually is — a low-angst, high-comfort, spicy series capstone — it succeeds. Judged as a tightly plotted drama, it wobbles. A 4.0 weighted average across more than 31,000 ratings feels exactly right: a little softer than the beloved Written in the Stars, but a warm, worthy goodbye to characters readers clearly adore.

Romance Profile

Pairing	Margot (prickly commitment-phobe) & Olivia (sunshine people-pleaser)
Dynamic	Grumpy × sunshine; first love reunited
Central conflict	Fear of abandonment & withheld communication
Spice	High — explicit, open door (4/5)
Slow burn?	Medium — history means the pull is immediate
Representation	Sapphic (F/F); bisexual lead

Emotional Profile

• ✓ Cozy, warm, and reliably funny more than heavy.
• ✓ Real yearning and pining rooted in a shared past.
• ✓ Tender in its treatment of people-pleasing and fear of being left.
• ✓ Occasional frustration if miscommunication tropes get under your skin.
• ✓ A happy-tears, feel-good landing.

Content Warnings

• Explicit on-page sexual content
• Divorce and its emotional aftermath
• A parent in poor health / caretaking stress
• Abandonment fears and past heartbreak
• Miscommunication-driven conflict

Book DNA

Vibe	Warm, witty, spicy comfort read
Setting	Contemporary Seattle
Pace	Steady middle, rushed finale
Comps	Delilah Green Doesn’t Care; Here We Go Again; Mistakes Were Made
Best for	Grumpy-sunshine and second-chance fans who want low angst and high heat

Similar Books You Might Enjoy

• Written in the Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur — the opposites-attract, fake-dating book that started the series.
• Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake — another grumpy-sunshine sapphic rom-com with a small-town reunion.
• The Fiancée Farce by Alexandria Bellefleur — more of Bellefleur’s spicy, banter-forward queer romance.
• One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston — if you want the same found-family warmth with a twist of magic.
• Here We Go Again by Alison Cochrun — a childhood-friends-to-enemies-to-lovers road-trip reunion in the same second-chance vein.

For more like this, visit our full guide to Sapphic Second Chance Romance Books — or dive deeper into our Second Chance Lesbian Romance: 25 Sapphic Books, Reviewed.

About the Author

Alexandria Bellefleur is a bestselling, award-winning author of swoony contemporary romance, best known for lovable grumps and the sunshine characters who bring them to their knees. A Pacific Northwesterner now based in New York City, she won a 2021 Lambda Literary Award and a Ripped Bodice Award for her debut, Written in the Stars. The Written in the Stars trilogy — Written in the Stars, Hang the Moon, and Count Your Lucky Stars — cemented her as a go-to name in queer rom-com.

Read more Alexandria Bellefleur reviews →

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Count Your Lucky Stars a standalone or do I need to read the series first?

It works as a standalone — the central romance is self-contained. That said, it is Book 3 of the Written in the Stars trilogy, and readers who’ve met Elle, Darcy and Brendon in the earlier books get far more out of the returning-cast moments and the epilogue.

Is Count Your Lucky Stars a spicy read?

Yes. romance.io rates it 4/5 steam — explicit, open door — and reviewers consistently describe the love scenes as genuinely steamy. It is not a fade-to-black romance.

What tropes does the book use?

Second chance, first love reunited, friends-to-lovers, forced proximity (roommates), and a classic grumpy-sunshine dynamic, all in a contemporary rom-com frame.

Is there a happy ending?

Yes — a full HEA with an epilogue that readers particularly love for its check-ins on the wider friend group.

Why isn’t the score higher given the strong writing?

The prose, humor and heat score very well, but the plot runs almost entirely on a miscommunication trope and resolves in a rushed final act. Those two recurring complaints are why the weighted average settles at 4.0 rather than higher.

Who are the main characters?

Margot Cooper, a blunt, commitment-averse woman who prefers casual hookups, and Olivia Grant, a warm, people-pleasing wedding planner rebuilding her life after a divorce — and Margot’s first love.

Is the romance sapphic / F/F?

Yes. It is a genuine sapphic romance between two women, with a bisexual lead in Margot.

Should I start with this book or Written in the Stars?

If you like reading in order, start with Written in the Stars. If you specifically want a second-chance, first-love reunion, you can begin here — it stands on its own.

Final Verdict

Count Your Lucky Stars is a warm, witty, satisfyingly spicy send-off to a beloved friend group — a comfort read that leans on sparkling prose and grumpy-sunshine chemistry rather than plot tension. Go in for the yearning, the humor, the heat, and the cat; adjust expectations for a miscommunication-driven conflict and a rushed finale. For fans of the trilogy and of low-angst sapphic rom-com, it is an easy recommend, and a fittingly hopeful close to the series. 4.0 / 5.

Where to Buy

Buy Count Your Lucky Stars on Amazon

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