Review: Love at First Sighting by Mallory Marlowe

I received this book via the publisher Berkley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of this review.

Love at First Sighting by Mallory Marlowe
Published by Berkley on 2025-08-12
Length: 351 pages
Reviewing eARC from the publisher Berkley
Rating:
Reading Challenges: #NGEW2025, 2025 New Release Challenge

A chance at love might not be out of this world in this astronomically charming romantic comedy from the USA Today bestselling author of Love and Other Conspiracies.

Los Angeles social media influencer El Martin seems to have a picture-perfect life. But what El wants more than anything is to find something real to make her heart race in a way it hasn’t in years. She doesn’t expect that feeling to come from capturing footage of an unidentified flying . . . thing, much less from the charming Man in Black who keeps following her around.

Agent Carter Brody is trying his best to keep the Private Intelligence Sector afloat by dragging their hopelessly out-of-date office into this century, even though what he really wants to do is follow in his father’s footsteps by identifying and hiding extraterrestrial sightings. He gets his chance after being assigned to El’s case and is stopped in his tracks not only by her ingenuity and confidence but also by an unnerving coincidence—her sighting looks eerily like what Carter himself saw right before a family tragedy.

The deeper El and Carter fall into the mystery, the harder it is for them to ignore their growing chemistry as their own alien feelings become dangerously terrestrial.

Love at First Sighting by Mallory Marlowe is a quirky, mystery romance featuring an influencer and man in black. El Martin has a pseudo-perfect persona online, promoting brands that fit into her online presence. After a late night photo shoot for some new yoga pants, El encounters something unbelievable. In desperation, she goes live on Instagram. Life as she knows it will never be the same.

I enjoyed this one. El is a fun character. She’s disillusioned with her life as an influencer, feeling numb to the world around her. When she encounters what she believes to be a UFO, something awakens inside of her. She no longer cares about her perfect online life. She cares about what is real and what she saw. When Agent Carter Brody shows up asking questions, she knows what she saw is real.

As much as I like El, I loved Carter. He is the epitome of the cinnamon-roll archetype. Carter is, for all intents and purposes, a man in black who works for a super secret government agency that keeps sightings of aliens and paranormal off social media and out of the news. When El’s live video reaches him, he is shook. Not because what she saw is real, but because it matches what he and his father saw just before his father’s death. Desperate for answers, Carter begs for her case. What he doesn’t plan on is falling for the girl.

This book is Marlowe’s sophomore novel and is set in the same world as Love and Other Conspiracies. While none of the characters cross over, some of the elements (like the social media and show from the first book) are mentioned here. I loved that. Like the first one, as an X-Files girlie, I loved the mystery and adventure that we see here. Carter and El are looking into something bigger than they realize, and it produces some explosive action scenes with some sweet romance thrown in.

Overall, I really enjoyed Love at First Sighting. It’s a fun, quirky contemporary romance read with some mystery, adventure, and paranormal thrown in. Perfect for the upcoming spooky season!

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