This one gets an easy 5 stars from me because I absolutely adored the premise, the characters, all the food moments, the friendships, and of course, the happy ending.

I'm also going to give 5 stars to @the_reel_bookery for sharing a delicious lemon pie recipe with me that I made and shared with my family on the weekend. And thanks also to my dad for taking this book pic ❤️😂

The Seven Year Slip is somewhat similar to the level of suspension of belief in Ashley Poston's previous book The Dead Romantics, but it's entirely different too. It's a love story that isn't clear how it'll work out-because they meet in differing timelines. If that doesn't make sense, don't worry, it's not too hard to follow, but it did keep me flipping pages quickly because I needed Clementine and Iwan to make it work!!

This one is a perfect summer read, in my opinion, and you should consider it if you enjoy:

🍋 A main character who works in publishing but isn't sure it's for her forever
🍋 Excellent coworkers and friend group
🍋 Delicious descriptions of food and cooking
🍋 A NYC apartment with a magical element
🍋 Depth of character feelings including grief, rejection, and uncertainty about the path forward
🍋 A bit of a back and forth timeline that resolves 💛
🍋 Cute nicknames 😂❤️

Really loved this and was so grateful for the ARC. I hope it is beloved by many this summer!! Would love to chat about it when you read it!

This was just magical! I loved the character development and beautiful descriptions of the apartment. I wouldn’t usually read anything with a fantastical element but I really enjoyed this book. Iwan and Clementine’s love story was so engaging. The concept of the right place but the wrong time is wonderfully done.

This book has my heart. I loved it so much. Thank you to @netgalley for my copy of this wonderful story.
If you’re looking for a cute romance where you can love all the characters and get wrapped up in it then this is the one.

Imagine you’re mourning one of the most important people in your life, overworked and tired and then you meet the man of your dreams. Only to then realise he lives 7 years in the past. Yeah, this would be just my luck too 😂 This was such a clever idea and something different from the usual romance reads.
Main character Clementine (Lemon) was the loveliest character, I liked her instantly. But my god, Iwan was something else. I haven’t fallen this hard for a fictional character since Charlie in Book Lovers. He was somehow everything all in one. The chemistry between the two of them was just so cute and believable, I loved it.

I loved everything about it, including mother and f**ker. 🙃💛

Loved that this is a time travel novel, about a book publicist, set in NYC!

Clementine has inherited her late Aunt's apartment on the Upper East side. She had lots of travel adventures with her Aunt who she misses dearly. Her Aunt also had what seems to me a lot of sensible advice which Clementine shares with us.

Her Aunt had told her the apartment was magical - but that was just when she was little - surely? Except for the day Clementine arrives home from work and finds a strange man in the apartment. He doesn't know her Aunt is dead. In fact he says she has invited him to stay while she's away travelling.

This was a cute romantic story and a little escapist read into the publishing world and NYC. Falling for a man 7 years in the past when time travelling is hit and miss obviously proves a little difficult for sustaining a relationship. It doesn't hurt though that Iwan is a wannabe chef and cooks some amazing food.

Pure perfection, this book is beautiful and perfect.
.
The form is what is written, the prose, is beautiful from the first paragraph to the end. One can feel every color and sensation through Clementine. The pain of a broken heart for the loss of a loved one and the awakening of that moment of numbness through the flavors and emotions that Iwan awakens in her
.
Every moment and the use of the magical elements was beautiful, it made me want to scream "I want to see this movie and when I finish put it back again”
.
Clementine returns home after a hard day and wakes up to find a man in her kitchen, an attractive man who would be perfect if she wasn't heartbroken and tired
.
Clementine is forced to share her house with him and little by little he begins to awaken feelings that she thought were dead in her.
.
But time is complicated, and the perfect love lives seven years in the past.
.
I have read other books of her and this is by far my new favorite, I stayed glued to its pages and one after another I was living each sensation with Clementine and discovering her path to love and hope
.
.
Thanks to Ashley Poston and her team for give me a copy of this beautiful and amazing book in exchange for my voluntary and honest opinion

I’d like to thank NetGalley and HQ for approving me for an ARC of this book.

🍊Our story focuses on Clementine who is struggling after a recent bereavement. I loved Clementine from the start. She was fun, candid, a little lost but whole heartedly loveable.

💖This is a romance story, with a twist. Throw in some time travel and you have the modern day Time Traveller’s Wife, complete with all it’s heart break and emotion.

👨🏻Our male lead, Ewan, was very swoon-worthy. The chemistry was palpable and had me eagerly awaiting the inevitable.

😢 I did find myself shedding a tear or two towards then end, I was honestly moved at some of the final moments in the apartment.

⭐This was my first Ashley Poston, but it certainly won’t be my last.

“Because the things that mattered most never really left. The love stays. The love always stays, and so do we.”

This author is the queen of warm and fuzzy books that you cannot put down!

There is so much to love about this book, it is sweet and tender with a New York setting, travel, a grumpy chef, a peak into the publishing industry, family, and a dash of magical realism! What I loved most of all is this authors ability to write emotion. I really loved the way grief was dealt with and also the look at how we navigate growing up and changing as a person without loosing ourselves.

This book swings between past and present in such a brilliant way that at no point did I question the reality of the situation. I was so fully absorbed that every time Clementine opened the apartment door I held my breath in anticipation.

🌟 Review 🌟

"The Seven Year Slip" by Ashley Poston is a delightful and captivating novel that beautifully explores the complexities of love and the role of timing in our lives. The book introduces us to Clementine West, an overworked book publicist, who had the worst day of her life six months ago. As a result, she comes up with a plan to keep her heart safe, which involves staying busy, working hard, and taking no risks. However, her plan is thrown off balance when she finds a strange man standing in her kitchen one day. This man, with his kind eyes, crooked smile, and a recipe for the perfect lemon meringue pie, is the kind of man that Clementine could have fallen for before everything happened. The only problem is that he lives seven years in the past.

Despite the seemingly impossible situation, Clementine can't help but be drawn to this man. She finds herself taking risks and stepping outside of her comfort zone to be with him. As the story unfolds, we see how their relationship develops and how they navigate the challenges that come with living in different time periods. Poston's writing is witty, wise, and incredibly relatable. She captures the emotions and struggles of the characters in a way that makes them feel real and human.

One of the things that I particularly enjoyed about this book is the way it explores the theme of taking risks. Clementine learns that sometimes, to find happiness, we need to step outside of our comfort zones and take a chance on something or someone. This message is beautifully woven into the story and is something that I think many readers will be able to relate to.

Overall, "The Seven Year Slip" is a delightful read that will leave you feeling hopeful and inspired. Poston has crafted a story that is both heartwarming and thought-provoking, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a charming and engaging novel to curl up with.

I loved this book! The element of time travel added an interesting dimension to a contemporary New York romance, and the two lead characters were well-developed and likeable, successful and interesting without being the unrealistic beautiful billionaires that appear in so many romance novels.

A lovely light-hearted read. The story had a really interesting premise which made me want to read this even more. It was cosy, it was heart-warming. I honestly don't know what to say except I LOVED IT and you NEED to read this!

Okay I love a good time travel book so it was no brainer for me to request this one on Netgalley!

What really worked for me in this one was the way Poston dealt with grief. Death and grief are a huge thing in Seven Year Slip and some passages were so beautiful, producing so many emotions that I definitely teared up in places. Clementine is really struggling at the beginning of the novel and it was lovely to see her develop throughout.

Unfortunately I was not really in a romance mood when I read this one so I did struggle a bit in the beginning. It was a kind of on the predictable side and also Iwan's nickname for Clementine was REALLY overused to the point of being annoying 😅 but their relationship itself was very sweet!

Overall I loved the concept, but struggled a bit with the execution. Many thanks to HQ and Netgalley for the ARC.

Ashley Poston does it again in The Seven Year Slip. This was one of my most anticipated books of the year, and it exceeded every expectation that I had. The perfect blend of rom com and paranormal (I’m not even sure if this is the exact word I want) while still being modern and contemporary, this book gave me everything that I wanted.

Rating - 4.5 stars rounded off to 5

Time travel + magical elements + bookish theme + swoon worthy characters = perfect romance!        
       
Thanks NetGalley and HQ for the ARC!

Synopsis -

Clementine is a book publicist and her work is her life. As her aunt always said, she must always chase the moon and so she does. But when she finds an unknown man, in the kitchen of her aunt’s apartment, where she now lives, she is hit with love at first sight. But the only problem is that, this man only exists 7 years in the past, while she is 7 years in his future.        

Review -
       
Time travel based books are not my favourites, but boy this had me at its mercy! Going in blind, the premise felt so far from reality but yet firmly rooted in it - so genuine and mesmerisingly realistic
       
The combination of the gorgeous, charming chef - Iwan and a bookish, relatable MC – Clementine worked wonders. The author uses Clementine’s aunt’s apartment as the ‘magic carpet’ quite literally, to teleport us 7 years into the past and future- weaving the most heartwarming, tender and adorable love story around it.        
       
There is a lot of focus on Clementine’s relationship with her aunt Annalea - a woman full of life, zeal and spirit. Her passion and positive attitude rubs off on Clementine, as she follows her aunt’s every word to the T, traveling the world, shaping her core being as a go-getter reaching for the moon.        
       
Poston so cleverly plays with the concept of time – making us feel as though it is a non-entity, seamlessly blending the past and the future, as though in a space continuum like trance.        
       
The romance itself is fun, sweet, sparked over some delicious food, filled with humor as well as moments of poignancy. It explores how love can evolve, how life morphs our personalities and mindsets over time and how these can have cascading effects on our future – raising the question – “Is finding true love a function of time or just the right timing?”       
       
So here I am - swooning and over the moon with this thought provoking rom-com with a 'timing' twist. 😍

😘Chef's kiss it is!

I was completely enchanted by The Dead Romantics last year and was so excited to get to dive into The Seven Year Slip this summer. It is a beautiful book - lightly magical and full of heart. Clementine and Iwan will melt your heart, but like The Dead Romantics, this book is about so much more than a romance. It deals with friends and grief and figuring yourself out and the reward is all the sweeter for having these big emotions swirled into the story. I loved how the magical elements never felt forced or out of place and I was fully a puddle by the end. Even the dedication spoke to me. Read this and fall in love with it too!

I’ve agonised over this one – after all, I really hate it when I read a major Spoiler in a book review and I’m aware that the blurb and most reviews are careful not to mention this aspect. But in all conscience, I don’t think I can proceed without giving a major trigger warning, as the book deals with the aftermath of a suicide. If you’ve had to grapple with this heartbreaking event, you may wish to give this one a miss. However, I would also say that Poston deals with the subject with sensitivity and perception and writes movingly about her own experience involving the suicide of a close relative at the end of the book.

I found this to be an interesting read. Initially, the book is rather low-key as Clementine is clearly pole-axed with grief. And as the book is written in first-person viewpoint, the fact that she is clearly massively struggling meant that while I sympathised, for the first section of the book, I found her somewhat closed off. The writing is very sensual – unsurprisingly, given that food is featured so heavily. But we also are aware of smells and lighting – and when Clementine blushes. It is a testament to Poston’s skill that this depth of description didn’t hold up the pace in any way.

Though I would mention that if you’re looking for foot-to-the-floor action, then this one isn’t for you. Plenty happens and the overall pace steadily picks up as the book progresses and Clementine begins to recover from her paralysing grief that has stopped her in her tracks. A large part of that is down to the romantic relationship with someone seven years in her past – but for me, while that relationship is both complicated and beautiful, it isn’t the narrative engine that powers this book. The relationship at the heart of this one is between Clementine and her dead aunt, who was a huge influence on her life when alive and now has left her bereft. Her recollections of their time together is moving and heartfelt and never, not once, did it tip into sentimentality.

In fact, Clementine’s clear-eyed take on the relationships in her life is frankly a tad unnerving. I can understand how she has made her way in a fast-paced, highly competitive field, like publishing. I thoroughly enjoyed the process of watching Clementine thawing out from the terrible grief that has held her frozen, which is powerful and accomplished. It brought to mind Susan Hill’s amazing book In the Springtime of the Year. Oddly enough, I found the timeslip aspect of the book – which was the reason that I actually wanted to read so badly – a tad annoying. I wasn’t convinced that throughout those long seven years, Iwan wouldn’t have made a concerted effort to track down Clementine. Other than that, I thought the romance was beautifully evoked and loved the ending, which I found very moving. Highly recommended for fans of books about the nature of life and living, including the shock of losing someone much beloved – including the giddying sensation of falling in love when you’re not expecting it. While I obtained an arc of The Seven Year Slip from the publishers via Netgalley, the opinions I have expressed are unbiased and my own.
9/10

I loved this read from Poston. It was an engaging romance story that is perfect for the summer.

The concept of this book is fun: Clementine appears to live in a “magic” apartment. She has inherited it from her late aunt, who explained that this apartment moves backwards in time by seven years. No more, no less and not something you can control. When Clementine heard this story when she was younger, she scoffed at her aunt’s stories, delighted however, that this was such a make-believe world. Yet, learning about her aunt’s lost love, Clementine notes the importance of one of her aunt’s rules – never fall in love.

Because this is what happens to Clementine, at a time when her life seems to be falling apart around her. Walking in to her apartment after one of those days at work, she encounters Iwan, who was staying there seven years previous when Clementine and her aunt were on holiday. Iwan is a charming young man who wants to make it big in the cooking industry, accepting that to start anywhere, it begins with being a pot-washer.

Trying to resist her feelings, Clementine grows closer to Iwan – until the apartment decides to move her back into the present – and with no Iwan. Yet, the fates intend for their paths to cross again, starting an unpredictable and non-linear relationship between the two. I loved how you could not foresee when the apartment would jump back into the past and when Clementine and Iwan re-discover themselves in the present, I was fascinated to see how this relationship would develop.

I loved all the bookish references in this novel, especially as Clementine works for a publishing house. It adds an extra dimension to the story and I felt a bit envious about all the access has to new and exciting books! She loves to paint, admittedly hasn’t done as much recently, and paints inside travel guides to reflect the adventures she took with her aunt. When Clementine takes up this hobby again, you know that she is starting to move forwards with her grief at last.

This was a great story. With a bit of magic thrown in there with the apartment, it is an innocent love-story about taking advantage of all opportunities as, if you live in an apartment like Clementine’s, who knows when they will present themselves again?

With thanks to HQ Digital and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A lovely and hopeful tale of reluctant time traveling love. This book takes no time in setting up an intriguing, paradoxical sort of love story that spans generations. I loved the publishing atmosphere, cameos from The Dead Romantics, and all the descriptions of Iwan's yummy food! Another knockout from Ash Poston- can't wait for whatever comes next!

“You need at least one big dream to keep going….and remember to chase the moon” wise words from a beloved aunt. Clementine isn’t looking for love but love does find her even though it might be a bit unconventional and not on time. This story was really sweet even though a bit predictable. Thank you Netgalley, HQ and the author for this eARC in exchange for my honest review. This book is recently published and available for purchase now

I really enjoyed this one.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Pub for my advanced copy of The Seven Year Slip!

What I Enjoyed-

✨ The Setting- NYC 🤩.
✨ The Magical Realism
✨ The Dual Timeline- Time Travel
✨ The Writing

Why This Wasn't a 5 ✨ For Me- I wasn't as invested in the romance as I wanted to be. I enjoyed Ashley Poston's previous book The Dead Romantics a little more.

Overall - Highly Recommend. I look forward to reading more books by this author.

The Seven Year Slip was such an enjoyable book to read, containing elements of fantasy (with a time travel concept at its heart) and romance but also a dreamy Manhattan atmosphere and an exploration of the worlds of publishing and of high-end restaurants.

It's the same universe, in fact, as in Poston's The Dead Romantics (the covers are nicely designed to compliment one another) with one or two characters appearing in passing, but the focus is very squarely on newcomer Clementine West. She's going through a difficult time after the death of her beloved aunt and her breakup with Nate.

Clementine is a publicist at Strauss & Adder, and her response to heartbreak - and other adverse life events - has been to throw herself into work, emulating super publisher Rhonda. This always worked before, any threat to Clementine's work-life balance being redressed by spontaneous globe-trotting summer holidays with Aunt Analea. With Analea dead (and we will discover the particular sad circumstances of that in due course) Clementine cancels this year's booking to Iceland, but as somebody recently said, proximity to death does bring a certain clarity and Clementine is still left pondering where she wants to be in her life.

Fortunately - perhaps - she's provided with a distraction when a handsome young man appears in her apartment (which was her aunt's apartment), looking for somewhere to stay while he follows his heart's desire to become a chef. What could seem rather creepy actually turns out quite fascinating as Iwan comes and goes and shares his lifestory, his ambitions, and his fears. Over the following months his life and Clementine's entwine and they share some happy times and intimate moments - but it's the wrong time for either to commit to the other.

There's a fair bit I'm, annoyingly, not telling you here because the way that Poston lays out her story is rather special not only in terms of the facts of what's going on but also in terms of Clementine's development as a person overall and her growth in self-knowledge in particular. And in fact in terms of of Iwan's too. Poston is absolutely masterful in tracking the developing relationship, a sort of running commentary being provided by Clementine's workmates with whom she is engaged in a contest to snag a new celebrity author and save the company. That quest in itself produces some hilarious moments - this book is often very funny and it can move from moments of great emotion to plain funny in a trice.

How things are tied up is completely brilliant both in terms of the sequence of events and also of emotional development. It would have been easy for the latter to be overshadowed by the clever central concept here, but Poston is just too good a writer to let this happen and instead she gives Clementine's situation added resonance - there is a magic in life which she expected but which is lacking and the loss of her Aunt seems like the universe's ultimate betrayal, so why not shut down and lose herself in work?

The answer to that question is what the story turns on. It is a funny, heartfelt, sharply observed and really just very clever book - it is sure to be a hit I think and it was just a joy to read.