Emma Lords YA books are mostly a hit for me so I was anticipating her adult romance debut of THE BREAKUP PACT. Sadly, this one didn’t work and I had to force myself to finish it.

The relationship/friendship and backstory between June and Levi didn’t make sense to me. When they finally got together I just wasn’t feeling the chemistry between them nor did I love any of the other friendships.

It pains me to say, but I would skip this book of Lords. She has too many other great books that you could better spend your time reading.

Emma Lord’s charm and storytelling shine in this new summery take on second chances, fake dating, and falling headfirst into love.

Growing up, June and Levi were inseparable, best friends, partners in crime, but never anything more. Now, after ten years and two humiliating and insanely public breakups, Levi is back in their hometown, and his proximity brings back all the conflicting, unresolved feelings June has for him and their friendship. When a photo of them goes viral, they hop on this opportunity by telling the world they’re dating, but what happens when sparks fly and, this time, June can’t brush the inevitable romantic pull to Levi aside?

I absolutely LOVED the small-town beachy setting with the shops on the boardwalk. It made me feel so nostalgic, warm, and giddy since the beach was one of my happy places growing up. I also adored all the dynamic relationships in this book—from siblings to best friends to romantic love, each was written with care and affection.

This book was also really funny! I loved Lord’s sense of humor and the depth she brings to her romances and stories. There was so much beneath the surface of this novel than a love story, but the romance was still a prominent part of the book. By the end, I definitely teared up and was rooting for June in all aspects of her life.

The only reason this wasn’t a five-star read was because the romantic conflict didn’t pan out the way I was hoping, but I am SO excited to read more adult romances from her in the future!

*Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.*

I've really enjoyed the previous Emma Lord books I've read, and her foray into adult romance here did not disappoint. The old best friends fake dating trope is a new favorite. I especially loved how much they pranked each other and made fun of each other the same way you would a childhood friend. They had just so much genuine fun with each other, so it wasn't all angst and pining—though that was there too, and was also enjoyable. The third act breakup was a bit drawn out and weird—like I wasn't sure what was going on with them and whether they were together or not for a bit—there was no clear break and it was all a bit hazy and confusing. But, in the end they were so cute together and I enjoyed myself and the beach town setting and all their little inside jokes and their adorable friends and family in the background. It was a sweet, cute story all around.

This book is more serious than the cute rom-com cover suggests. June and Levi were best friends as teenagers until a misunderstanding separated them. If you like that trope, you’ll probably like this book. I enjoyed the characters and the story.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC.

This is my first book by Emma Lord and while I normally love the second chance, friends to lovers set up this one just fell a little flat for me. I liked the set up, the characters were likeable though June irked me from time to time with her negative self talk; but after the third act big reveal, and Levi's inability to show strength or any sort of backbone, it just flatlined. The ending was what I'd expect from a romance but as I was finishing it I realized that I just didn't care where they ended up. Emma Lord is a good writer, the pacing of the book was good so it is probably just not the right timing for me to love this book.

Thank you SMP for the gifted ARC.

June and Levi, who grew up together, are both publicly "dumped" and when Levi returns to their hometown, they are seen together and pictures of them online dub them revenge ex's. The attention is good for June's struggling boardwalk business and Levi may benefit by making his former girlfriend jealous enough to make them get back together. Good story.

There was something about this book that didn’t quite connect with me. I have been trying to put my finger on it & I think it was the fact the the two main characters, Levi & June, were such good friends but let it just lapse for a long time without communication. There was also a really slow burn throughout the story. I enjoyed the side characters, like Sana & Mateo. I want to visit the cute town. I didn’t care for the exes of June & Levi, & I didn’t care for how much grace they were given by them. This was just an okay book for me.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for advanced copy and I give my review freely

Levi and June were friends in high school, secretly harboring crushes on each other. Until one day they weren’t anything as Levi left their hometown of Benson Beach for New York City. When they both experience humiliatingly public break-ups, Levi and June find solace in each other. A photo of them together goes viral and they find themselves branded the Revenge Exes. Fake dating each other will help them both get what they want so they go for it with some help from friends. It isn’t long before the very real feelings of their past come bubbling to the surface.

The Break-Up Pact is Emma Lord’s adult contemporary romance debut. I’ve read and really enjoyed several of her YA romances and I’m so glad she took the leap into adult! I really enjoyed this one and found it to be super bingeable and easy to read. I love a long time crush coming to fruition and I was really rooting for June and Levi the whole time.

It’s important to note that two of the core themes of this book are grief and infidelity. Levi had been best friends with June’s older sister Annie who died unexpectedly. Both June and Levi’s break-ups included being very publicly cheated on and it comes up often.

I think this one would’ve had the potential to go from like to love for me if it had been in dual pov. There were so many moments where I wished I knew what Levi was thinking and I think having that perspective would’ve really gotten me all in on this romance.

This book follows June and Levi who were high school friends who had a falling out. While they occasionally kept in contact over text, they run into each other in their hometown when both are dealing with public humiliating break ups. Together, they make a pact to date to help June’s scone shop sales and help Levi’s ex realize the mistake she made.

While I only know author Emma Lord in the YA space, her new adult romance novel had everything a romance fan needs. I enjoyed this friends turned lovers novel with some hints of spice. This is a fun summer beachy read and I was rooting for June and Levi from the beginning.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Check out this book releasing next week and I can’t wait to see where Emma Lord takes us next.

DNF at 45%. This one was just a bit too slow for me. I wasn’t drawn enough into the story or the main characters. Would have liked to see a dual POV maybe.

This book was definitely a me problem. I was bored and didn't care much about the characters. The chemistry between the MCs just wasn't there for me which is what led me to DNF.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to be an early reader. All thoughts are my own.

Emma Lord is a go-to read for me. I was excited to see that she was venturing into adult romance. I enjoyed “The Break Up Pact”. I think June and Levi had good chemistry and I liked the premise that they both wanted to get back at the exes who scorned them publicly. Though, I didn’t fully buy into the social media of it all. I loved Mateo and Sana as side characters, but June’s brother annoyed me with his demands for wedding planning. I don’t think he was more busy than she was that he couldn’t do anything for his own wedding. Then we don’t even get to see the wedding. It just rubbed me the wrong way.

I think the author tried to really flesh out the emotional piece of this story. Growing up, dealing with grief and learning to move on without forgetting. There was a lot of miscommunication at the beginning of the story that I think the characters really tried to break by the end. Overall, I enjoyed this book, but there was just something missing that I can’t put my finger on right now. 3.5 stars rounded to 4. Thank you, NetGalley for this eARC!

*I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. Thank you so much to NetGalley and Griffin for this ARC!*

Emma Lord is one of my absolute favorite authors, so I was thrilled when I got the ARC for her first adult romance, The Break-Up Pact! She is known for her humorous and heart-felt YA contemporary romances, so I had no doubt that she would knock it out of the park.

I really enjoyed the setting for this book! I’ve only been to New York once, and it was to the city. Getting to experience life in a New York beach town was so much fun! It’s not what I would normally picture, and that made it exciting for me. Also, June’s tea shop, Tea Tide, was the thing dreams are made of ❤️🫖 It would only have been more perfect if it were a tea/book shop, but I digress. The setting, and the cast of characters that populate the town, were lovely and made me fully want to visit this cute little seaside town in real life (if only, right?)

June and Levi were a fun couple to get to follow through their shenanigans. June certainly had her fair share of problems, including trying to live up to her sister’s memory and guard her heart from the guy who broke it 10 years ago. Levi was so sweet, and I felt for him. I will say, I got so frustrated that he kept trying to make it work with his ex, though. I just wanted him to fall head over heels for June right away, okay sue me?! The fake dating trope was fun, as it was a way to make their exes jealous, but also a way for June and Levi to reconnect after a 10 year estrangement. It gave me all the feels when they gradually started to thaw for one another.

I do wish that we had gotten more of June’s relationship with her brother, Dylan, in the book, but honestly, that is probably the most nit-picky thing I can say. We still got some lovely scenes between them, and we got lots of great character growth with June and her memories of Annie, her sister who passed years before.

Also, this book had the first spicy scene I’ve read from Emma Lord, and I thought it was really well done! There is really only one, so if you prefer your romance a little more clean with just a hint of spice, this is a good pick. It is certainly more of a slow burn in that way.

All in all, this had Lord’s trademark heart-warming family drama, sweet romance, and a good amount of shenanigans to keep things interesting. Pick up this book, and any of Lord’s other books, today and you won’t be disappointed 🥰

My Rating:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I gave The Break-Up Pact 5 Stars!

The Break-Up Pact is a contemporary romance novel about a twenty-seven-year-old woman who is dumped publicly on a reality show and joins forces with a childhood friend to get revenge.

Childhood friends June and Levi are both dumped publicly—Levi for the film star his fiancée falls for when she’s showing him a NYC apartment, and June when her boyfriend of a decade brings a camera crew home to tell her he fell in love with his reality show costar. Levi is back in their hometown while he figures out his relationship status, which throws him directly in June’s path, even though they’ve barely spoken in a decade. But when the internet sees photos of them together, they are deemed the “revenge exes,” and the extra attention sends customers flocking to June’s failing tea shop and makes Levi’s ex jealous. So, a fake relationship “pact” is hatched. But their past friendship and insane chemistry make it obvious to everyone who knows them (and the reader) that there is nothing fake about the “revenge exes.”

This is a romantic comedy with a fun premise and a slow-burn romance. June and Levi have a strong connection that makes the reader shout, “Just kiss already!” It also explores the more serious topics of grief and loss, as both characters have been mourning the death of June’s sister, Annie, for the last two years, and June tries to honor her memory by keeping the tea shop open. There are a few things that frustrated me, like the characters creating their own roadblocks to “happily ever after,” and there was just something that felt unrealistic and convenient to the plot about their friend group and this small beach town. I also didn’t think it was necessary to give June such a dissatisfying previous decade-long relationship with Griffin (he never said “I love you” out loud the whole time they were together…what?) in order to make things with Levi seem so much better.

Overall, this is a cute contemporary romance that takes the “fake relationship” trope and gives it a fun reason to exist. I wished the characters wouldn’t be so stubborn and clueless sometimes, but it was still an enjoyable ride.

3.75 rounded to 4

3-3.5 stars. I wanted to love this book. I really, truly wanted to. The cover is so cute. I love a fake dating scheme and one geared to shut down terrible exes is even better. However, when both the main characters have attitudes towards their exes that are entirely too generous for those exes actions, it loses steam for me.

Let me use this space to share what I did like before I go more into what didn’t work for me. I do love the way Emma Lord turns a phrase. She’s got a way with words that strikes a chord with me. I thought she did a particularly good job with June’s grief over the sudden loss of her sister. She really captured the depth of those emotions and the aftermath left for those dealing with the loss. There was also a good dose of humor in the story, and the quippy dynamic between June and Levi was fun. Knowing this was Emma Lord’s first adult romance, I thought the intimacy between June and Levi was done well and flowed naturally when the time came for that scene.

The main problem for me was that I simply never really connected to June and Levi’s romantic relationship. I didn’t like that they both seemed mildly sympathetic to their exes despite being burned so publicly. I didn’t believe the reason for their decade-long distance having that kind of power. To me, it devalued the strength I was supposed to believe their friendship had. It felt more like neither of them cared enough to make more of an effort to resolve things. I particularly didn’t care much for Levi in general later in the book. I felt he lacked a backbone and conviction when it came to his relationship with June and how he handled things with his ex. Oh, and I felt cheated that so much of the book was focused on June and Levi helping plan a wedding that never happened on page.

Overall, Sana was my favorite character. This wasn’t a bad book, it just wasn’t a hit for me. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press/St. Martin’s Griffin for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Full of small town beachy vibes and a second chance, fake dating storyline, The Break-Up Pact was the perfect summer read. The book was filled with nostalgia for the main characters as they grapple with what went wrong in their friendship after childhood. Make no mistake, though, this story isn't all sunshine and rainbows. Grief and survivor's guilt are an ever-present theme throughout this book. Emma Lord did such a beautiful job of tackling these topics without bringing down the fun summer feel that is at the core of this story.

Oh my SCONES!!

Emma Lord has done it again. This time holding us by the fake-dating-trope-set-in-a-small-coastal-town-with-childhood-friends throat. The baked good combinations were strange, yet left me wondering if someone could possibly make something good out of them. This quick read was fun, delightful, & a perfect way to end summer!

(& Yes, I had to head to my own town’s bakery after to get scones!!!)

I loved this book SO MUCH. Emma Lord, please feel free to release 20 more adult romances and I will gobble them up. .

I will never tire of fake dating, I don’t care how unrealistic it is! The moment when they have to kiss to keep up pretenses….. just gorgeous.

June was the cutest FMC, and I got emotional each time she talked about her late sister. There’s really nothing like sisterhood, and thankfully I got to spend a week with my sister after finishing this book ❤️

Levi and June’s teasing playfulness and flirting was just absolute catnip, and I couldn’t have loved their dynamic more. Especially the double unrequited crushes! Are you kidding! The chemistry was so excellent and I could have read 200 more pages of them together.

I pulled back on reading YA, bc it makes me feel old, but now I want to catch up on Emma Lord’s other books!

Thank you, Netgalley, for allowing me to read and review this book. These opinions are completely my own.

I felt a strong connection to Sana in this book as I'm currently the cheerleader to my own June.

A fun beach read, that I would pass on to friends if I could. Not quite at You Have a Match level of rom-com fun, but a top contender

Second chance romance AND fake dating? Combing two tropes can be risky but it is handled with ease in this delightful romantic comedy. The characters have flaws but are still likeable and are dealing with real-world problems. The reader will not want to put this down in hopes that the characters can reach their HEA

Thank you to Net Galley and St. Martin’s Press for the eARC!