Friends to Lovers

Friends to lovers is one of my favourite tropes and with this book's beachy cover, it's a good pick for a summery read!

Initially, it had an Emily Henry's People We Meet on Vacation vibe with its 'friends to lovers' trope where two people meet up sporadically over the years only to fall in love. In this case, Ren and Joni, BFFs since childhood, decide to be each other's plus-ones for weddings. But try as it might, this book didn't have the magic of PWMOV.

I read this book for several days, struggled to get into it and ended up putting it down for several weeks. I picked it up again the other day because it bugged me to DNF an advanced copy and I wanted to know the big issue between Ren and Joni that tore them apart. After wading through a very slow-moving plot, barely there chemistry and their inability to have a simple conversation to clear things up, at 85% we finally find out the big issue! And it was disappointingly lackluster.

The story is told through Joni's POV and flashback chapters that weren't labelled clearly and along with the large secondary cast, the book just felt unnecessarily convoluted. Its heavy reliance on (silly!) miscommunication was simply the nail in the proverbial coffin.

This had all the ingredients for a sweet 'friends to lovers' romance but it had more angst than chemistry and didn't hit its mark with this reader. 

Disclaimer: Thanks to the NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary advanced digital copy of this book which was given in exchange for my honest review.

My Rating: 2 stars

Author: Sally Blakely

Genre: Romance, Contemporary Fiction

Type and Source: ebook from publisher via NetGalley

Publisher: Canary Street Press (Harlequin Trade)

First Published: July 22, 2025

Read: June 27 - July 27, 2025

Book Description from GoodReads: Best friends Joni and Ren have been inseparable since childhood. So when Joni moves across the country for her job, the two devise a creative way to stay in they’ll be each other’s plus-ones every year for wedding season, no matter what else is happening in their lives.

It’s a tradition that works, until a line is crossed and the friendship they once thought was forever is ruined.

Now Joni is back at their families’ shared summer home for her sister’s wedding, and she’s determined to make the week perfect, even if it means faking a friendship with Ren—and avoiding the truth of why they have to fake it in the first place. How hard can it be to pretend to be friends with the person who once knew you best?

But as sunny beach days together turn into starry nights, Joni begins to question what her life is without Ren in it. And when the wedding arrives, bringing past heartaches to the surface, she’ll be forced to decide if loving Ren means letting him go, or if theirs is a love story worth fighting for.