Great premise, and really well-drawn characters, although honestly did not love the final twist (but perhaps it just emphasized that all of the characters are complicated and flawed).

What an absolute page-turner!

Ten Years is the ultimate enemies to lovers read. With so much animosity between them, and so many unexpected twists and turns, I could not work out if or when Becca and Charlie would finally hit it off. These two were sizzling, in so many ways.

Pernille Hughes cleverly keeps you guessing, before pulling off THE PERFECT ending!

So many 'wow - I did not see that coming' moments! I loved every minute.

A year after her death, Ally’s best friend and her former fiancé are both tasked with completing the bucket list she never got to finish. The only problem? They can’t stand each other.

The book takes places over 10 years, navigating the relationship between Becca and Charlie as they deal with losing the person they loved most.

Unlike it’s synopsis suggests, this is not really an enemy to lovers romance, or even a romance at all. It is definitely slower plot-wise, and hard to get into. Though the emotions felt tangible and relatable, I so wished I could’ve connected more with the characters. I feel like I only know them surface-level, and the time jumps are probably a pretty big reason for that. I also felt like the enemy trope got tiring, and the dislike between the two felt overdone and silly after all the time that had passed.

That said, the author beautifully and deftly handed the hard topics of grief and loss, as well as healing and finding love after loss. Overall it was pretty heavy throughout, but the writing was quite lovely, so I would only recommend it if you’re not expecting something lighthearted or a romantic love story.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This book took a little while to get into but it was worth it. It was sad, funny and poignant as the characters remembered their friend Ally. The tasks on her bucket list were fun and the development of the romance between the two main characters was nice

I had really high hopes for this book, but it just fell a bit flat. The ups and the downs in Charlie and Becca’s relationship were interesting the first few times and then grew exhausting. The tasks that they were sent on were also cool (the festival, the bike race, the gin bus), so it was strange that the author just stopped at year four with it. The ending pulled me in a bit more, just to make me furious at the end with how it actually fully ends.

This book was an okay read. I was excited when I began to read as the trope was an interesting one and I thought that I might enjoy it. I did love the way the author wrote, so I'd like to read more by Hughes. However, I did find this really hard to get into and I also found the conenction between the leads to be lackluster.

Overall, the book was a okay read, but I'd definitely like to read more by this author, as I did enjoy her writing style.

The publisher kindly provided ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

This was a lovely read. Following 2 very different characters bound by the death of a firned it follows their journey through grief to a happy ending. Really lovely.

Thank you @netgalley, @onemorechapter and @pernillehughes for an advanced copy of this book.

This was a lovely but heartbreaking story following Charlie and Becca following the death of Ally, Charlie’s fiancée and Becca’s best friend. Charlie and Becca hate each other but when they are tasked with scattering Ally’s ashes, they find themselves spending time together for a day every year. 

At first, I wasn’t sure about the dynamic between Charlie and Becca, but as I saw them interact more without the snide insults, I began to really like them both. 

This book was a nice easy read but also dealt with important themes of grief and how it affects those close to the person who has died in different ways. Becca and Charlie both reacted very differently after Ally’s death, and a great source of tension for them is that they think the other ‘grieved wrong’, and they must explore this together to understand why the other reacted in the way they did.

Highly recommend when it comes out in August!

I have decided to dnf this one I'm just not a huge fan of the trope in this one and felt a little weird reading it just my personal opinion.I did however like the writing and I would try another book by this author in the future

By the time I started reading this book I had forgotten what it was about and I’m glad I had. If you don’t read the blurb it keeps you guessing more. It’s not very often that just a few pages in, a book makes you feel tearful but this certainly did! I enjoyed the characters and their journey and would recommend as a feel good read. Thank you to Netgalley and HarperCollins UK for this ARC copy

I found this book initially difficult to get into, perhaps due to the heavier emotional beginning than I had been expecting. However, once I got past this I enjoyed the story. It was well written and did an excellent job of tacking emotional topics such as grief. The relationship development between Charlie and Becca was a nice slow burn.
Overall this was an enjoyable and emotional read.

I received this book via NetGalley and give it my honest opinion.

This book was difficult to get in to but about half way through it was better, an emotional story about grief and friendship. If you persevere with it you may enjoy it. Not my normal read but ok in places.

i tried so hard to like this book. i'm not the biggest fan of a 'dead best friend's boyfriend' trope, but it seemed interesting so i decided to go with it. unfortunately, i almost stopped reading twice because the plot dragged out and i felt absolutely no chemistry between charlie and becca. for a book that is marketed as a romance, it fell flat and was disappointing.

brief plot: becca and charlie hate each other. the only connection between them is ally, becca's best friend and charlie's girlfriend. when she dies, ally leaves a bucket list for becca and charlie to complete. they do one task a year.

the thing is, the chemistry really had to be there for this case, more so than any book, because they met only a few times a year. it was an enemies-to-lovers trope with plenty of reasons for the 'enemies' part but was not convincing enough for me to believe that they actually moved to the 'lovers' part.

there was a lot more exposition in this book than most romance books, which made it feel more like a literary fiction than a romance book. i really think this book would have been better if it was marketed more as a lit fic on grief and moving on rather than a pure romance book, because everything felt forced. it felt like the author was giving readers reasons and trying to convince us that they were meant to be because there logically just wasn't any chemistry.

on top of that, i found becca and charlie both very dull and uninteresting and just so unlikeable.

From the description, 'Ten Years' is described as a very different book than it actually is. Which I think is a shame, because the real focus on grief is actually one of the stronger points, whilst the actual romance itself I felt was lacking. Both the main characters I found extremely unlikable, and despite the attempt at a slow-burn, I did not feel any chemistry between them, and honestly struggle to see how their relationship would work long-term. The pacing of the novel also felt strange, as it definitely dragged, whilst also I found missing vital parts. I felt at some points more connected with the side characters than the protagonists.
There were some brighter points, and I did enjoy the realistic portrayal of Becca's acting career though, despite the fact that this was slightly undermined by her quick and sudden rise to fame. I had similar feels about how Charlie was shown with his difficulties of moving on- there were points where I loved it, but making his new wife quickly turn to a typical evil jealous woman felt very easy and unrealistic.

Thank you to NetGalley and One More Chapter for the eARC.

Ten Years follows Becca and Charlie as they meet once a year after Ally, Charlie's fiancé and Becca's best friend, dies. The two travel around the world, scattering Ally's ashes as they go. And somewhere along the way, things between them change.

This book took me a while to get into, it wasn't until about the 30% mark that I was a bit more interested. I think it's because this book was actually a lot heavier than I'd anticipated. I thought that it was more of a contemporary romance, because there was romance at the forefront of it, but it was more about Charlie and Becca's journey with grief. For me, I would have preferred it if the romance between Charlie and Becca wasn't a part of the story, I really wasn't feeling it. I think I found it hard to connect to them as a couple because they were only together every year for a year, so when they started declaring their love for each other it felt a bit false. The book discussed grief throughout so I didn't really feel very loved up. I do think romance books should discuss important and even taboo topics, I just think that there definitely needs to be a balance.
I also didn't really like Becca or Charlie as people. Becca was selfish but I preferred her to Charlie. Charlie on the other hand I found really difficult to actually enjoy reading about. He kept on going from girl to girl, which I have absolutely no issue with, but it meant that I didn't particularly care when he got with Becca and it didn't feel special at all.

Overall, this book concept is really refreshing and I think that was great that in terms of talking about dealing with grief, but as a love story I wasn't really feeling it.

Ten Years is a sprawling story of grief and hope. However, it just wasn’t for me; I found the pacing of the plot odd and the characters quite static and unlikable. Charlie, in particular, is an unusually unpleasant romantic lead who makes awkward choices. Both he and Becca are emotionally immature, making it difficult to sympathize with them. Many of the minor plot lines are also introduced and concluded with little consequence or fanfare, lengthening the novel without adding substantial depth to the story or characters.

I think the topic of grief was handled well, but the characters' reactions to their loss were juvenile and unsympathetic. Hughes as the narrator addresses grief with tact and nuance, which is what makes her characters' unsympathetic reactions to their loss all the more puzzling and frustrating.

Ultimately, I do admire Hughes’s ability to tell a story over so many years of ups and downs, but I wish the characters were more developed and sympathetic. As always, just because this novel wasn't for me doesn't mean it won't be for you!

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins UK, One More Chapter for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

An emotional read with a positive undercurrent. The book is intrinsically about bereavement and grief and the ways that different people deal with it whilst not losing the love for the person who has died. Quite entertaining in parts with a feisty female lead character, Becca, who is a little bit too spiky at times opposite a more relaxed male character in Charlie. The book covers the period of 10 years following the death of Ally, Charlie's fiancée and Becca's best friend. Slightly different and quite engaging as they struggle with their own moving on processes whilst maintaining an intolerance of each other when they come together to remember Ally

I wanted to love this book. It is a very different romance story with the start beginning with a funeral and this is where we meet our 2 main characters. I just really didn't like the two of them as characters and thus I just couldn't root for them at all. I understand it was complex due to them both loving and mourning the same person but I found them both selfish and equally unlikeable. It's still a good story though and this is probably just my own personal opinion.

This is a highly original story that had me hooked from the very first page. The author brings to the page two real, complex and well-drawn characters that I championed all the way through. This is a true slow burn and I loved seeing how the characters evolved each time they met up - how they change as people and how their relationship evolves.

No spoilers but a VERY satisfying ending , including a lovely twist. An absolute must read.

Amazing. I will be looking out for more from this author.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.