Wow what an emotional journey!! I couldn't put down this book!! I really enjoyed this friends to lovers romance. I have to say this book had a lot more depth than most romance books and excellent characterization. The characters just felt so realistic. I definitely recommend this one.

A second chance romance spanning ten years.
Charlie and Becca meet at Uni, a one nighters happens and then Charlie falls for Ally - Beccas best friend.
Fast forward a few years and at the beginning of the book Ally has unfortunately died and Becca and Charlie have totally fallen out.
The problem being they now have to do tasks each year scattering Allys ashes.
Over the span of the book and the dual narrative Becca and Charlie come to life, seeing their ups and downs and how they interact with each other.
This is a story about grief and how it is dealt with, but also moving on and finding love again.

This year I made a decision not to read books if I'm not hooked by page 50. Well, I needn't have worried with Ten Years because I was hooked within the first few minutes of reading.

It is the story of the thin line between love and hate and how those who straddle that line shouldn't underestimate the power of both.

It is the story of Becca and Charlie - frenemies who have been brought together through tragedy and who have to weave in and out of each others lives whether they like it or not.

This is the perfect love to hate you story and I did not want it to end.

Ten Years by Pernille Hughes is available now.

For more information regarding Pernille Hughes (@pernillehuges) please visit her Twitter account.

For more information regarding Harper Collins (@HarperCollinsUK) please visit their Twitter account.

Ten years by Pernille Hughes is a heart-warming, touching, and completely magical love story. I don't think I have ever read such a romantic story before. Absolutely fantabulous story!

I suppose this story can be described in a sentence: If it is meant for you, it will come to you. Becca and Charlie never got along, or at least it seemed so, They were always bickering, mocking and arguing with each other. They never wanted to keep in touch after Ally's death. But Ally's bucket list forced them to meet - once every year. But as they start to complete the tasks, they grow closer, fall apart, call truce, fall apart once again...

Highly recommended!

This was an emotional and moving book. I really felt a Rollercoaster of feelings reading this,
With such lovable characters I felt invested in the plot all the way through.
A lovely book that I totally enjoyed.

When Charlie's fiance dies, her last wish was for her cucket list to be carried out by himself and her best friend, Becca over the next ten years. Becca and Charlie don't like each other at all, but are determined to do this for Ally.

This book is emotional, and touching, and a slow burn romance. I wasn't a big fan of it though, just because the subject matter of Ally's death wasn't my favorite vehicle for a love story.

Thank you to One More Chapter UK for providing me with an ARC of this book.

Thank you OMC and NetGalley for a Review Copy in exchange of an honest review.

First of all, I think there was a lot of potential in the story but it was unnecessarily dragged.

There is overlap between Enemies to Lovers and Friends to Lovers. More like a long process of first developing a friendship and then taking it into the romantic territory. The passage of time in the story was too long with not enough due consideration given to every instance the main characters interacted.

The development of the relationship was not up to the mark.

Good for a one time read though.

Ten Years is heartwarming, touching and emotive contemporary romance that revolves around Becca (Ally’s best friend) and Charlie (Ally’s fiance) who cannot stand each other, even at the funeral of Ally whom they loved most and connected them. They both are struggling with loss and grief and when after one year they receive email from Ally (not anything paranormal, she scheduled that) asking them to fulfill her dying wish by completing 5 items on her bucket list, they agree to keep aside their hatred for Ally and meet once a year to complete the task that begins their long Ten Years of relationship that help them to deal with loss, grief and moving on in life.

The writing is beautiful, gripping, and emotive with third person narrative from Becca and Charlie’s perspectives. As title suggest the story takes place in duration of ten years from Ally’s death in 2012 to 2022, with yearly chapters highlighting important events in both characters’ life along with their meets for the bucket list. There are intermittent past, a memory telling about Charlie and Ally’s relationship, Becca’s life, Becca’s relationship with both Ally and Charlie. It added more depth to story making us familiar with characters and understand their relationships and life better.

The plot is emotional rollercoaster dealing with serious subject of death, loss, grief, and struggle of small actors with layers of abandonment issues, loyalty, and second chance to life and happines.

Characters are heart of the story. Both characters are realistic, relatable, flawed and complex. As there is long duration of time we see the characters grow with every year. It was amazing to see how they turned from childish, bickering, and struggling individuals to wise, understanding, and successful adults (bickering still stays).

I loved Becca in first half of the book. It was easy to root for her. Abandonment from her parents since she was kid, her loneliness after Ally’s death, her struggle in acting career and not getting a decent role is touching and heartbreaking. I admired her tenacious iron will and self-deprecating nature. It amazed me every time she made a joke of her fall and weird roles she has to play to pay the bills, it was both tragic and often humorous.

But she is not all kind and lovely, she is one angry and snarky woman who wouldn’t shy from being blunt and honest which is also understandable. All the angst and frustrations has to come out in some way and poor Charlie took the bitter burnt of it. It’s still a mystery if it was because she has feelings for Charlie but feels guilty as he was her best friend’ fiance but in my opinion, she wasn’t exactly aware of her feelings or knew she liked him until they completed almost all items on bucket list.

I really felt happy when she finally got the success she deserved but at the same time she really annoyed me in the second half. After knowing her, I agreed with Charlie, she feared being hurt and abandoned if she let anyone in her life. She kept pushing away happiness in her life and was kind of comfortable with misery. I really wanted to shake her when she didn’t give Charlie a chance and gave whole list of excuses to keep him away and said some bitter and nasty things. I liked when she finally gave herself time to accept where she is wrong.

Charlie at first wasn’t all charming except in looks. I didn’t understand why he didn’t like Becca, was always riled by her and felt eager to demean and fight with her. Becca was right about him from the beginning, he didn’t understand the struggle, he got everything in life easily, and he was indecisive person who was happy to go along with his partner or lover’s decisions or will flip a coin if he get many options. The only struggle he knew was his parents’ divorce and as story progressed I could see how it fanned his indecisive nature.

Even though I liked Becca for most of story, I found Charlie most interesting and loved his development. He grew on me as story progressed. Young Charlie was flirt, Charlie after Ally’s death was lost and was eager to move on in life, and Charlie after another failed relationship was wise, decent and changed person who saw his flaws and worked on making things right. And this Charlie, I could see isn’t indecisive but he has a tendency of dating or loving women who are controlling. It was amazing when he could recognize this and see why he found Becca different, loved her company, and how being with her he actually could be himself not molding into what someone else wanted. I also liked how he was realistic and reasonable about moving on in life, making Becca see she isn’t doing anything wrong by loving him and it’s not betrayal to Ally.

Author perfectly balanced serious subject of grieving process with fun and light moments. I loved the way Becca and Charlie completed the bucket list. I enjoy every moment of them together putting aside their differences and remembering Ally and their love for her. Wierd roles Becca got gave many laugh out loud moments. That wedding scene was epic.

Romance is slow burn with second chance arc and lots of banter. I wouldn’t even call this a romance as we see actual romance in second half of the story. Even with all the complexity that came with lots of switch from enemies to friends to back to enemies and then to lovers, I cheered for both characters and wished them happiness, even when Becca annoyed me with her dilemma.

Climax is filled with cliche, predictability and at the same time taking unexpected curve that kind of dragged the story but also was important for character development. I get why Becca was agry but at the same time I didn’t like her considering her feelings fake and not giving Charlie and happiness a chance. I don’t blame Charlie for what he did after that. I don’t exactly get how that last conversation changed Becca’s mind, at the same time I was glad her head was working in right direction. I liked the lovely, satisfying, feel-good ending with a little unexpected surprise.

Why 4 Stars-

Like I said, I wasn’t happy with Becca’s dilemma in third part and how much drama and scene she created after knowing the real reason behind bucket list. Some part of the story was a bit dragging.

Overall, Ten Years is touching, emotive, and beautifully written contemporary about second chance to life and happiness with enemies to lovers trope.

I definitely recommend this if you like,
Story dealing with loss and grief
Story takes place for long duration of time
Bucket list
Layer of abondonment issues
Second chance to life and happiness
Slowburn clean romance
Enemies to lovers trope
Realistic and realatble characters
Amazing character developement
Lots of banter and fun moments

TEN YEARS
By Pernille Hughes

Ten Years by Pernille Hughes is a beautifully written story about friends, friendship, love, and loss. It's about Becca and Charlie - and then Ally who is gone. Charlie's fiancee and Becca's best friend. A yearly task from Ally's bucket list joins these two together - though they would rather not, but through the years, they learn to care for each other, and hopefully from enemies to lovers.

Though this is truly a slow burn story, you find yourself cheering on for these two to realize they are meant for each other and actually are good for each other. Though it may have been about a dead friend and heartbreaking loss, this was hopeful and did tug at heart strings. I enjoyed it.

This is my first read of a one of Pernille Hughes books and what a treat it has been. It is well written, with heart-warming characters and plot, which makes for a lovely book.

Thank you HarperCollins, One more chapter and Netgalley for the arc!

A witty story with a tragic background.

I really enjoyed the writing style and the character development.
I usually don't like the 'enemies to lovers' trap, but this one was special.
I loved how the author wrote about the difficult and heavy subjects, but then made the reader smile.
The story really resonated with me because of some things that happened to me and reading this was a great way to deal with that type of stuff.

Such a good, light read. A bit sad to finish it. Loved the two main characters and their sparky relationship. Yes you knew where this was going but it didnt stop you savouring and enjoying every page.

This is not my normal genre but I really enjoyed this! I could really feel for the characters and their grief!

I enjoyed the characters and the raw feelings they shared to fight for each other.

Becca and Charlie have known each other since university and during that time they have a very strong dislike of each other.
The one thing they do have in common is Ally. Becca loves her best friend and Charlie loves his fiancé. They tolerate each other for Ally.
Sadly Ally passes away and from beyond the grave she tries to bring Becca and Charlie together.

I wanted to love this one but I didn’t. I feel the plot dragged and that there was no chemistry between Becca and Charlie.
Even the bickering got repetitive and boring and because of that it was hard to believe that they eventually fall in love.

Ten Years is the first book I have read by Pernille Hughes, but I will definitely watch for more. In this book we meet Becca and Charlie. They have known each other since their days at university where they had a one night stand. They ended up disliking each other immensely with the hope they would never see each other again. Fate gets in the way, when Charlie and Becca's best friend Ally become a couple eventually getting engaged. When Ally dies, they are both a mess and grieve her terrible. A year after her death, they are contacted by Ally's mother with a task. Ally has left them a bucket list, tasks to complete each year on the anniversary of her death. Her ashes have been placed into several bottles and they are tasked to scatter them all over, in places that mean something to Ally, Becca or Charles. Over the next ten years, they run into each other off and on and begin to see different sides to each other. Even with these tasks they continue to bicker, argue, mock and generally rub each other the wrong way. They eventually become friends, but can anything else work between them?

This was a wonderful romance story, a true enemies to friends to lovers trope. I loved the various tasks that Ally left for them. It took both of them out of their comfort zones at various times and they had to support each other somewhat to complete the list. They still had friends in common, so ran into each other at other times besides just the anniversaries. Their love for Ally was very different, one loving unconditionally and seeing Ally as perfect, the other loving Ally in spite of her flaws. Although Ally is dead, she is very much an important character in this story. I loved the banter/fighting between Charlie and Becca. At times I felt like it was just to irritate one another, not because they meant the words. At times I thought they were moving forward to a developing friendship, then something happens and they are back where they started. This story is set over ten years, so it was definitely not insta-love, but I think they had feelings for each other from the start, but could not and would not act on them because of Ally. I liked how Pernille Hughes portrayed grief in this story from not only Charlie and Becca, but also Ally's mother. I recommend this story to those who enjoy contemporary romance, stories where characters deal with grief and new beginnings.

Oh how right the reviews were on this one! Its a beautiful love story that unfolds over ten anguishing years. Loved this one!

To tell the truth, I found this book very hard to read, and didn't end up getting very far into it. This is not because of the writing style, which I actually enjoyed, but mostly because the book opens with a death from cancer. Cancer is a subject that I find very triggering, and I tried to push through as best I could because I was very very excited to read this book (as I love a good romance..). But, ultimately, I was not in the right headspace to do so which is a shame, as many of my fellow readers with whom I was reading this with said that they enjoyed it quite a lot! Perhaps I will revisit this book someday when I feel the time is right, but for now, it's not quite for me.

From the start you sense the chemistry between Becca and Charlie but can also see that it is buried under years of a complicated web of friendships. Grief is very raw at the beginning following the death of Ally, who was Becca's best friend and Charlie's fiancee. Ally seems to be a strong presence even though she is no longer alive. Her memory is very real to her friends and family. What you slowly begin to realise is that this influence might be not always a positive thing.

The story takes you over the years as Becca and Charlie try to follow ally's instructions each year. Her tasks throw them both together and as their lives criss cross, you can see their friendship developing. This is a romance with poignant moments but also humour. Over the years they meet new people but their shared love for Ally keeps them together. Their banter reconnects them when they meet up again. It is a lovely read which I can visualise as a delightful film.

In short: laughter and tears

There's a fine line between love and hate. Sometimes the people that rub us the wrong way are the ones that know us the best and challenge us to be the best versions of ourselves.

Becca and Charlie's commonality was Ally and upon her death vowed never to see each other again. That was until Ally's last wish resulted in meeting each year to celebrate her life. Taking part in life-changing adventures brought them back together. Shockingly a reunion awakened the truth and made them rethink their hatred. Will they take a chance on each other or will the thin thread keeping them bond together begin to unravel?

Thank you to #NetGalley and the publisher for the early edition of #TenYears in exchange for an honest review. From the start, Becca and Charlie's sparks sizzled through the pages. Leaning into disgust instead of attraction, each year their rekindled riles toppled their resolutions.

Thank you @rararesouces and @pernillehughes and NetGalley for letting me part of this tour and reviewing this book. Ten years is a very emotional read and you will definitely be on emotional rollcoaster with yourself and you really feel the characters sadness through the book. The story is about Becca and charlie who have just lost Ally. Ally was Becca best friend and Charlie girlfriend. Ally leaves them email and a letter asking them to do her bucket list and do one a year. This is romance but there is also sadness. You really see both characters develop through the book.