A beautiful story of grief and how people cope in different ways. Perfect if you enjoy books like ’One Day’ where you follow characters lives over a long period of time. A lovely read.

Thank you NetGalley and Harper Collins for the ARC.

“Some days I feel I’ve lived more than one lifetime, so, couldn’t we be right for each other this time around?”

________________________

Charlie and Becca loathe each other. The only reason they’ve ever tolerated each other is because of their mutual love of one person: Ally. Becca’s best friend from grade school and Charlie’s fiancée and the love of his life, Ally was the glue that tied the three of them together no matter how many barbs Charlie and Becca sent each other’s way. But then Ally succumbed to pancreatic cancer, shattering both of their lives and allowing them to finally go their separate ways. Until nearly one year after her passing when each received a scheduled email from the dearly departed herself asking them both to complete her bucket list and scatter her ashes at each of the final 5 resting places. Deciding to honor Ally in “the spirit of things”, Charlie and Becca choose to mark each anniversary of her passing with one of the bucket list items until they are all completed.

The book in whole follows them over the span of ten years alternating between Charlie and Becca’s perspectives and checking in with them each year as they complete a bucket list item, as well as on days when they run into each other over the course of that time (usually once between each anniversary). We see their ups and downs, their growth and regressions, the way they live, the way they love, the way they grieve, their mistakes, their successes, and ultimately them realizing that they are in fact perfect for each other…they just don’t know it yet.

I absolutely adored this book!! It gave me the emotions that crushed me in P.S. I Love You, the longing and the push/pull relationship that I adored in One Day, and the wit and chemistry that made 500 Days of Summer so memorable. Finishing it I immediately found myself looking for the rest of the author’s backlist and begging the movie gods to some day put this on the big screen because it was MADE for cinema.

What I loved the most about it was the perfect balance it managed to achieve even while spanning such a wide range of time and emotions. It was the perfect balance of rom-com meets heart wrenching dramedy. It made me tear up and then immediately burst into laughter before ultimately groaning in pain as Charlie and Becca passed each other like ships in the night. It balanced their journey forward with such large gaps of time in between chapters without being too tedious in its explanation of both Charlie and Becca’s prior history as well as what had transpired in their lives since we last checked in with them. It also managed to strike a satisfying pace, neither dragging or brushing over time in order to rush the conclusion of Charlie, Becca, and ultimately Ally’s journey.

I adored Charlie and Becca. Their characters were fun and their banter felt natural without their relationship feeling forced or contrite in any way. The growth they each experienced both personally and in their individual lives was realistic and wonderful with each grieving in their own way and then ultimately becoming better for it at their own paces. They each demonstrated completely different but very genuine ways that people can grieve such a devastating loss, especially over such a lengthy period of time which is not something we get to see very often in books. One of the sweetest touches I found was that the book both started and ended with Ally…though she was never alive during the book and only referred to in memory she was very much the thread that held the entire story together and I felt like I knew and understood her as much as any of the living characters in the story. To begin and end with her almost felt like a way for the readers to be able to honor her (such as Charlie and Becca) and almost gave the impression that Ally was explaining it all to us in closure before ultimately coming to rest once and for all.

The romance in this book was very good. Not really trope-y and very rom-com in style, but incredibly satisfying and sensual without taking us down to smut town. I love a good spice fest but this was a nice refresher and the steam in it was absolutely perfect for the story, setting, and characters. I’m not a fan of rom-coms just because I don’t enjoy the angst of “will they, won’t they” and then watching them finally come together to only walk back away from each other for petty, immature, or misunderstood reasons, but against the backdrop of each characters immaturity/young age and the jarring loss they each shared so suddenly it REALLY worked in this story. You didn’t want them to come together without struggle, you didn’t even want them together at all in the beginning because they were such different people. But by the end you were ripping your own heart out begging them to never let each other go and for them to have a long and happy ending not marred by any more devastation or loss.

Emotional content aside this book was also HILARIOUS!! The off the cuff jabs between Charlie and Becca were hilarious and entertaining and the misadventures they had while fulfilling Ally’s wishes were THE BEST. I won’t spoil it for you, but getting gin drunk on a tour trolley sounds like my kind of party!! Additionally I may be trading in the one bed trope for the one tent trope…just saying ;-)

All in all this book mashed together what I adored about so many other stories but gave them life and breath of its own with a satisfying ending that left me as the reader as happy as I could have possibly been. There wasn’t a thing about it that I didn’t adore and it has definitely swayed my heart back to the rom-com corner after years of avoiding it and playing hard to get. Might that have been Ally’s intention all along as well? We may never know ;-)

I would like to extend a huge thank you to NetGalley, HarperCollins UK, and to the author for sending me a copy of this beautiful book in exchange for my honest review. It was my pleasure!!

What a lovely book! Pernille Hughes has an engaging voice and has developed two mult-layered, psychologically deep characters with flaws and foibles who you root for from beginning to end. Becca and Charlie can’t stand each other, but they love the same person: Ally. Becca’s best friend and Charlie’s fiancée, Ally dies and our first encounter with them is at her funeral. Over the next ten years, Becca and Charlie negotiate their grief and their relationship changes from contempt to…..something else. I devoured this book in a large gulp, rushing back to it at quiet times in the day for a few more pages. I’ll definitely read anything else this author writes. Wonderful.

“Ten Years” is a new read by Pernille Hughes, new author to this reader. This was one of those contemporary romances with a trope of enemy to lover that was different but refreshingly nice. The story was well-written and not difficult to read at all. It is a story that will tug at your heart, make you cry at times and make you smile.

The story begins with Ally and Charlie who are madly in love, but Ally is told she has cancer and in time she passes away, leaving Charlie (fiancé) in disarray over her death. Becca is Ally’s best friend who too is having difficulty dealing with the loss of her friend. As it happens, on the the one year anniversary of Ally's death, Charlie and Becca receive an email that directs them both to complete a bucket list together to fulfill Ally’s last dying wish. Charlie and Becca have never gotten along and now having to spend time together to complete this request brings quite a bit of angst between the two. Alas, they agree on a time to complete the bucket list. Through the process, they begin a relationship with one another that allows them to grieve and heal through the pain of loss. I loved how Charlie and Becca managed to develop in their journey and in their relationship with one another. Recommend.

Thank you NetGalley and Harper Collins, UK, One More Chapter for this ARC in exchange for my fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

I received an advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review

Such a sweet story. While there is some sadness, everything comes out all right in the end, and it is a pleasure to read and spend time with these characters.

Thank you to NetGalley and One More Chapter for providing this ARC of Ten Years by Pernille Hughes.

This book follows Charlie and Becca, who both loved Ally, but cannot stand one another. Charlie and Ally dated, while Ally and Becca were best friends. Following Ally's death after a long battle with cancer, Charlie and Ally decide to check one item off of Ally's bucket list a year, in honor of their love for her.

This book was a nice read, but read incredibly slowly for me. Even with the fun (for the reader) dynamic of Charlie and Becca bickering and getting on each others' nerves, I was struggling to feel the spark between our two main characters. Sometimes the conflict between the characters had me forgetting they were meant to be adults, as it sometimes felt very juvenile. I would recommend this book, but would make sure the reader knows it is quite slow paced.

DNF this book, i couldn't get through it. i feel like it had strong potential but didnt mean it which was highly disappointing. the formatting was also a bit off

I really loved and enjoyed Probably the best kids in the world but I couldn’t wrap my head around this story unfortunately. The heroine just annoyed me to no excuse and the overall story felt a bit over the top unnecessary scenes.

We can’t live them all unfortunately.
Very grateful to the publisher for my review copy

Becca and Ally were best friends. Charlie and Ally were engaged. Becca and Charlie loathe each other. After Ally dies, she asks Becca and Charlie to finish her bucket list together, scattering some of her ashes at each location. Love trumps hatred so each year Charlie and Becca meet up to carry out Ally's wishes on the anniversary of her death.

Becca and Charlie are both from broken homes, while Becca's mother walked away and left her with her grandmother (who also viewed her with indifference), Charlie's parents fought over custody of him. Charlie has the good looks and charm that have let him just walk into jobs without even trying while Becca is a struggling actress holding down a series of low-paid jobs while she struggles to find roles. Charlie is a people-pleaser, an appeaser, while Becca has learned not to rely on anyone for anything. Strangely though, Charlie feels no need to appease Becca, she's the only one he allows to see his anger and in return Becca gives him the unvarnished truth about his behaviour. Yet they are also supportive of each other, albeit on the quiet.

Some books you read and enjoy but then a day or two later you are a bit fuzzy on the details, whereas its nearly a week after I read this book and it has all come flooding back. I thoroughly enjoyed this, snarky behaviour, humour and sadness all wrapped up together in a thoughtful romance.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Ten Years was an emotional roller coaster. I found myself wiping tears away as early as the first five pages, and that was pretty consistent throughout the book. Additionally, I often found myself smiling and laughing as well. Especially poignant at a time in our world where, as a society, we are coping with loss more than most of us ever have in our lifetimes. It was gut wrenching and beautifully written.

I was given a copy of this book as an ARC by the author for an honest review. I got about 14% into the book and I’m just not feeling the book. The characters are flat and while I found out after agreeing to review the book that I was reading an unedited copy, it’s just too hard for my brain to follow in the state it is in.

It's one of those books that grab you from the start, the kind you can't stop reading till the end and the kind that stays with you for a long time.

Ten Years starts with a funeral. Ally, a best friend to Becca and fiance to Charlie died. They are both devastated, but that does stop them from bickering. They both loved Ally, but hate each other with passion. Their path part after the funeral and they both deal with her death in their own way.

One year after they both get a message. It's Ally's last wish. She had a bucket list of things she couldn't do and asked them to do it for her.

Each year on the anniversary of the death, they cross one thing off the list. Some activities bring them closer, some farther apart, but either way, they don't seem to be able to stay away from each other.

It's a slow burn romance, but worth it in the end.

I was lost in the story and loved every page of it!

Oh my word. What a lovely book. Wasn’t sure I was going to like it at first but it grew on me and I couldn’t put it down in the end. The will they won’t they of Charlie and Becca with the help(?) of Ally. Oh how I was wanting them to get together. And meeting up every year showed how they’d grown and changed, or had they? A very original love story. I loved it

Thank you NETGALLEY and Harper collins for arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is an enemies to Lovers trope but with “A Night in December” feel. I couldn’t get enough of it I normally dislike enemies to lovers tropes but this this was genuine hate Becca and Charlie dislike rooted so deep in there history that when they starting feeling things they don’t know how to place it. Both characters are very flawed and damaged by the pain of loss and rejection from there own life experiences.

They are tied to each other by the death of Charlie fiancé and Becca best friend Ally who after her death has then going out and living the life she wanted for herself.

I love Enemy to lover books and so this is right up my street. I really enjoyed this book it was well written with a good storyline and well developed characters. It was both heartwrenching and heartwarming at times with the ability to lmake me feel sad and upkifted at the same time.

This is a beautifully written enemies to lovers story. Its has echoes of David Nicholl's One Day, which was what drew me to it in the sense that the story unfolds over a period of ten years but the relationship between the characters is founded around the death of a mutual friend which makes the story very different and poignant all the way through. I came away feeling as if they were friends of mine, so brilliantly are their characters depicted, from Charlie's inability to make any decision himself to Becca's feisty refusal to allow anyone close enough to really know her. There was a real sense of them maturing and growing over the ten years. From starting the book feeling as if the only way they would end up together was via some clumsy cliches and a lot of forgiveness and doortmatish behaviour on both sides, their relationship was perfectly nuanced and believeable and had me willing them on until the very last page. I loved it.

DNF 50%.

I rarely, believe me, abandon books even if I'm not enjoying them. It's something I don't like to do, because I'm always hoping for improvement as I go on reading.
Here, that's what didn't happen with Ten Years, in fact, the further I went with the pages, the worse things got.
I'll start by saying that the synopsis lies. Despite the ugly cover, the plot had captured my attention and I didn't think twice about requesting the arc. Imagine my delight once the book landed on my kindle....
When it comes to books where you cry, I'm always at the forefront, ready to dehydrate myself between the pages of a story that will make me suffer.
Which didn't happen here. I preferred to stop reading to avoid getting into reader's block, it's only February and I still have many books to devote time to.

This ARC was provided to me via Kindle, HarperCollins UK and by #NetGalley. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

Lovely characters and a delightful story

I adore second chance romances with every fiber of my being so thank you to NetGalley and One More Chapter for the ARC of this book. I wanted to like this book more than I did. This book was reminiscent of People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry and I was so excited to proceed because that is one of my favorite books of all time except it just ended up being so slow and honestly pretty frustrating. I already have a hard time getting behind "enemies" to lovers in contemporary romance and I just could not bring myself to care about Becca and Charlie and their love. I always gravitate towards a story about grief and its exploration but here, I was just sad that I couldn't get behind any of the characters or will myself to enjoy the drawn-out plot. There were so many unnecessary chapters, contributing to how the story just drags. Overall, I just wouldn't read this again and it didn't leave that great of an impression for me as far as second chance romance goes.

Thank you for sending me this book to review. I found it an enjoyable & engaging read. It follows Becca & Charlie over 10 years, from the death of Ally. Ally was her best friend & his fiancee.. Although the ending is predictable, the route to it isn't so much. This doesn't take away from the enjoyment of reading it.