Josh and Gemma Make a Baby

Sarah Ready

Dec 2021 · Josh and Gemma Book 1 · Swift & Lewis Publishing LLC · Narrated by Erin Mallon

About this audiobook

New Year's Resolution:

Have a baby

Preferably with Josh Lewenthal

Meet Gemma Jacobs. She's driven, energetic, and a positive thinker. She has a great career working for famed self-help guru Ian Fortune, she lives in a cute studio apartment in Manhattan, and her family is supportive and loving (albeit a little kooky). Her life is perfect. Absolutely wonderful.

Except for one tiny little thing.

After a decade of disastrous relationships and an infertility diagnosis, Gemma doesn't want a Mr. Right (or even a Mr. Right Now), she just wants a baby.

And all she needs is an egg, some sperm, and IVF.

So Gemma makes a New Year's resolution: have a baby.

Josh Lewenthal is a laid back, relaxed, find-the-humor-in-life kind of guy. The polar opposite of Gemma. He's also her brother's best friend. For the past twenty years Josh has attended every Jacobs' family birthday, holiday, and event – he's always around.

Gemma knows him. He's nice (enough), he's funny (-ish), he's healthy (she thinks) and he didn't burn any ants with a magnifying glass as a kid. Which, in Gemma's mind, makes him the perfect option for a sperm donor.

So Gemma wants to make a deal. An unemotional, businesslike arrangement. No commitments, just a baby.

To Gemma's surprise, Josh agrees.

They have nothing in common, except their agreement to make a baby and their desire to keep things businesslike.

But the thing about baby-making...it's hard to keep it businesslike, it's nearly impossible to keep it unemotional, and it's definitely impossible to keep your heart out of the mix. Because when you're making a baby together, things have a way of starting to feel like you're making other things too – like a life, and a family, and love. And when the baby-making ends, you wish that everything else didn't have to end too.

Ratings and reviews

I couldn't put this down once I started reading this cute romantic story of Gemma and Josh. Gemma a nice girl in a small town at the age of thirty-two makes a New Year Resolution, one she's determined not to break. After her divorce from Jeremy, she finds out she's "non gratis" in the dating scene. Gemma decides she wants a child and goes to a local infertility doctor blurting out Josh as the donor. Josh who grew-up being the "bad boy" in town that the mother's warn their daughters about is back and staying at his parents' basement. Josh has a business making web comics and is the best friend of her brother, Dylan. When Gemma approaches Josh about her wish, what occurs is a cute enjoyable story with likable characters, touches of humor and angst, and an engaging romance in a well written story. I also loved the quotes introducing the chapters. This was my first book I've read by Sarah Ready, and I totally enjoyed this ARC that I received via Goodreads.

I loved the authors series set in Romeo, NY so I was eager to see if this was similar. It was a great story and the characters were really engaging, I just felt that there was a bit too much artistic licence with regards to Gemma and Josh's solving of their problems. The wait time for IVF and so on was super fast, like TV fast. I know I'm Scottish but surely the requirements to get IVF aren't that different? But it was great to see fertility, miscarriages, and endometriosis being discussed. As someone who has suffered from these things myself it was great to see them in the open and not being hidden away. Yes, they are painful subjects but they do need to be brought into the "open" as it were. This was the epitome of the slow-burn, these 2 have been dancing around each other for decades! Gemma will be like Marmite to some folk - you'll love her or hate her. She has a blinkered worldview and is a bit naive. She's so focused on one thing, having a baby, that everything else passes her by. Sad that we didn't get to see Josh POV - it would have been nice to know what was running through his head. The supporting cast was a bit hit or miss for me but they added to the story and gave the characters some depth . Gemma's mum was a complete beatch and the townsfolk - well I would gladly smack a few of them around for the way Gemma and her body became the topic of gossip. TW: Infertility/Miscarriages/Body Shaming

Laugh out loud funny, in all the right places. Heart-breaking and tender, right where you need it. And sweetly romantic throughout the whole darn thing. Sarah Ready's Josh and Gemma Make a Baby blew me away with just how perfect it is. Gemma is real and quirky, and easy to identify with. And Josh is just about the sweetest thing ever. It’s a super adorable, sorta second chance, romance, and 100% beautiful. This is a couple you really want to cheer for! The audio version is flawlessly performed by Erin Mallon. She gets Gemma just right, and infuses so much humor into this supporting cast! Absolutely wonderful.

About the author

Author Sarah Ready writes contemporary romance and romantic comedy. Her books have been described as "euphoric", "heartwarming" and "laugh out loud". Her debut novel The Fall in Love Checklist was hailed as "the unicorn read of 2020". She loves to write fast-paced, emotionally compelling romances about quirky, smart women and the men who love them. Before writing romance full-time Sarah had lots of fun teaching at an Ivy League. Then she realized she could have even more fun writing romance. Her favorite things after writing are adventuring and travel. You'll frequently find her using her degree at a dino dig site, crawling into a cave, snorkeling, or on horseback riding through the jungle - all fodder for her next book. She's lived in Scotland, Norway, Portugal, Switzerland and NYC. She currently lives in the Caribbean with her water-obsessed pup and her awesome family. You can visit her online at www.sarahready.com