Review - First Date by Gemma Amor

First Date
Gemma Amor
Datura, 10 February 2026
Available as: PB, 400pp audio, e   
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(PB): 9781915523808

I'm grateful to the publisher for  giving me access to an advance e-copy of First Date to consider for review. Apologies that I'm a little tardy publishing my review.

Amandine and Connor’s first date doesn’t go quite as they expected.

At one level, it’s not a surprise to Amandine. She never had high expectations, and she nearly bailed on the whole thing. Amor paints Amandine sympathetically, showing her psychology, her expectations that things will go badly - based on bitter experience, including the man who wanted to throw her down the stairs because he would “get off” on that. Behind all that is her sense of loss, after the accident that killed her parents and a growing certainty that she doesn't see the world quite as others do: she has trouble with life and resorts to coping mechanisms such "miracle words" to focus and channel the world where she needs it to be.

Amor also shows us Amandine’s determination, courage and ability to cope with a world that views her as, in Connor’s words, “neurospicy”. Naturally she’s wary of Connor. She tries to read the runes of his messaging. Is he texting her too much, a potential stalker? What does he mean by his emojis? Amandine anxiously watches for “red flags”, signs that, “the Internet” warns her, will perhaps disclose a bad man. 

But there are so many signs, and so many bad men. 

For his part, Connor also lacks confidence. He's still in his 30s and living with his dad. How can he take a woman home, even if things do go well? Will he put his foot in it? How much interest in Amandine is too much? How will she see him?

There is a tender story to be written of the two, their tentative first date - which actually goes well, until it doesn't - their growing attraction to one another, and the happily ever after to which it leads.

This isn’t, though, that book. 

Instead, Amor introduces us to a third person, never named, referred to as the “Lone Diner”. We see him from both Amandine’s and Connor’s perspectives. (Lots of red flags, she thinks. An unpleasant slob, he thinks). That’s bad enough.

We also though see his first person persona. This is just gross. I have to stress that was one of the most unpleasant reading experiences I’ve had for a long time, perhaps ever. Gemma Amor is a brilliant writer with a wonderful ability to write personality, psychology and, well, character. She is - as she proves here - as brilliant at that where the character is sleazy, vile and evil as where they are good, or even, just middling.

The result is an almost active experience of taint, as though even by following the Diner’s thought processes, his obsessive Internet creeping, his scorn for his wife, for women in general - as though even reading these things will corrupt, infect, debase. It’s simply visceral, a brilliant emotional achievement, an experience that will shake you, as you follow the story of those ill-fated would-be lovers. 

That atmosphere of darkness and horror is the true heart of this story, intensified by the ordeal that the Diner inflicts on Amandine and Connor. We hope they'll avoid it, somehow, that they will turn the tables. Even though we saw the endpoint of the Lone Diner's hate in the opening of the story, how much worse is it to follow the process, the working out of the horror?

A grim book, for sure, and I’d certainly want to point at potential triggers here for abuse, stalking, kidnapping, torture even. This won’t be for everyone. But if it is something you can bear to read, I’d strongly recommend it both as a story of courage and resilience and as a simply enthralling, stunning read from an author who’s just a real star. This is the book that kept me up past my bedtime, the book I just had to finish. The book that lurked in dark corners of my mind afterwards.

It's safe to say, you won't find any happily-ever-afters here, or redemption, or triumph. But what there is, makes it a spellbinding read.

For more information about First Date, see the publisher's website here.