Hot Dutch Daydream, by Kristy Boyce, follows Sage Cunningham, an American girl who is spending the summer nannying for a three-year-old Dutch boy in exchange for his mother, Sage’s mentor, flying her out to the Netherlands to intern under her and attend a conference. What Sage wasn’t expecting was for Dr. Reese to also have a teenage son at home, Ryland, who is Sage’s opposite in almost every way. When Ryland and Sage strike a deal where she will keep him focused on his art in exchange for his help with his half-brother, the two find themselves growing closer. The catch? Dr. Reese has made it absolutely clear that the two cannot date if Sage wants to continue working in her lab.

I will preface this review by saying that I absolutely loathed the book that this is a sequel to, Hot British Boyfriend, so I didn’t have overly high expectations going in, but I thought the summary sounded promising enough to give it a shot. Sage was just about the only tolerable character in the first book, so I allowed myself to be somewhat hopeful going in. I wasn’t expecting some great work of literary merit—just a cute, lighthearted romance to distract me on a Saturday morning, ideally with a decent enough plot and protagonist to not annoy me too much.

Unfortunately, I was wrong.

I do still really like Sage as a character. She is driven and goal-oriented and passionate about cancer research. She knows exactly what she wants to do in life and how to get it. I really enjoy how her character develops over the course of the book as she learns to be a little looser and easier on herself, both from her nannying job and from Ryland. I was particularly appreciative of this in comparison to Hot British Boyfriend, wherein the protagonist, Ellie, has basically only one personality trait, which was being boy-crazy; she quite literally does not care about anything else. Reading about Sage, who has so much character and personality independent of her romance story, was thus immensely refreshing from this author.

I did also like Ryland, the love interest. I’m a sucker for artistic characters in YA books, so I really enjoyed reading about his passion and efforts to make it into a career in spite of his parents’ doubts. He and Sage are cute together, though I definitely wish they had had more chemistry.

The biggest thing that annoyed me about this book was the forbidden romance aspect of it. It was not at all mentioned in the summary, so I wasn’t prepared going in, but I would not have requested the book if I knew it were the case. It is my absolute least favorite trope in contemporary fiction (I don’t mind it in fantasy), so realizing a couple chapters in that it was going to be the central conflict in the book was definitely not my favorite experience. I simply cannot justify in my mind Sage choosing a boy who she has known for only a handful of weeks over continuing to work in her dream lab. Would the characters in this book say that I’m not giving romance enough credit? Yes. Do I still stand by it? Absolutely. I’m all for not letting work dictate your life, but this was a case where I absolutely could not understand Sage’s priorities, particularly when she is openly defying the single condition of somebody who is doing a lot for her. It didn’t feel in character, it didn’t feel like a good message for teenagers, and it was absolutely miserable to read.

I really wanted to give this book a chance, but I think I’m going to have to accept that Boyce’s writing is simply not for me. Although I did really like Sage as a character (despite a lot of her choices), and I did think the love interest somewhat compelling, I am giving this book a very tentative 3 stars, though it might be closer to a 2.5.

Thanks to NetGalley and HarperTeen for providing me with a free eARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Hot Dutch Daydream releases on April 18, 2023.