Mr. Wrong Number by Lynn Painter follows Olivia Marshall, a woman who seems to have the absolute worst luck. After accidentally burning down her apartment building while trying to burn love letters from her cheating ex-boyfriend, Olivia is forced to move in with her brother and his best friend, Colin Beck. While trying to get her life back together, she receives a random text from a wrong number—and what starts as a mistake quickly turns into a flirty texting relationship with the mysterious “Mr. Wrong Number.”
Of course, Mr. Wrong Number turns out to be Colin.
I loved the premise of this book. The idea of Olivia unknowingly flirting with the same man she’s living with was so fun, and I was waiting for the moment Colin finally realized who was on the other side of those messages. When Olivia is texting at the dinner table and Colin sees his own message come through on her phone, I was like, FINALLY!
Once Colin realizes Olivia is Miss Misdial, he tries to ghost her, but obviously that doesn’t exactly work—especially when they’re living under the same roof. Instead, he starts texting Olivia as himself, and their relationship begins to change. She’s falling for Colin without realizing he’s technically the same man she already developed a connection with through her phone.
I will say, though, this felt like one of the slower starts of the Lynn Painter books I’ve read. Once everything started coming together, I enjoyed it more, but my biggest issue was Olivia herself.
It wasn’t even her bad luck that bothered me. That was actually funny and part of the charm of the story. It was her attitude and the way she handled certain situations. Sometimes I just wanted to say, Girl, please.
She’s staying in someone else’s apartment and constantly creating chaos, messing things up, and acting like it isn’t a big deal. I know that’s supposed to be part of her quirky, disaster-prone personality, but after a while it stopped being cute to me.
Then there’s the situation with her job. Olivia gets hired to write a parenting column even though she isn’t actually a mom, and when the truth comes out, she immediately assumes Colin betrayed her because he was one of the only people who knew. She blows up at him, cuts him off, and basically decides her entire life is ruined again—only to discover Colin didn’t tell anyone.
And then she has to come back like, Oops, sorry.
That really summed up my frustration with Olivia. She constantly jumped to conclusions and reacted before thinking things through.
Now Colin? I loved Colin.
Even after discovering that Olivia is the woman he has been anonymously texting, he clearly can’t stay away from her. I liked watching their relationship develop outside of the texts and seeing him help Olivia get back on her feet, including helping her find an apartment.
Of course, eventually Olivia discovers that Colin is Mr. Wrong Number, and I completely understand why she feels betrayed. He knew who she was while she didn’t know who he was, so she had every right to be upset. At the same time, by that point I had already spent so much of the book watching Olivia make questionable decisions herself that I couldn’t completely turn against Colin.
And when Colin is basically telling her that he loves her and she refuses to believe him, only to change her mind when he’s about to leave, I was sitting there thinking, Olivia, do you know what you want?!
Ultimately, Olivia was probably my least favorite Lynn Painter female main character so far, and unfortunately, that affected how much I enjoyed the romance. I loved Colin, loved the wrong-number concept, and still really enjoy Lynn Painter’s writing style—I just couldn’t connect with Olivia.
Another thing I really liked is that Mr. Wrong Number is told in a dual point of view, so we get both Olivia and Colin’s perspectives. I especially enjoyed Colin’s chapters because we get to see what he’s thinking once he realizes Olivia is Miss Misdial and watch his feelings for her change. It also makes the whole secret identity situation more interesting because we know the truth before Olivia does.
Of course, we also get the dreaded third-act breakup—except this book almost felt like it had two third-act breakups. 😂 Olivia basically ditches this man twice! First, she assumes Colin is the one who exposed the truth about her parenting column and completely blows up at him without really giving him a chance to explain himself. Then, after they work through that situation, the truth about Colin being Mr. Wrong Number comes out and she cuts him off again. The second situation was definitely more understandable because Colin had been keeping a pretty big secret from her, but by that point I was like, Girl, how many times are we going to break this man’s heart?!
This wasn’t a bad book at all; it just wasn’t one of my favorites. If you love best friend’s brother, forced proximity, secret identity/wrong number romances, rich guy vibes, and grumpy-meets-chaotic-sunshine energy, this one is definitely worth trying.
For me, though? Colin deserved better.