This book is one of my favorite tropes, friends to lovers. Zac and Josie were best friends that had grown apart as life and personal tragedies kept them away from each other. When Josie takes a temporary job in the city where Zac lives, they rekindle their friendship and it slowly turns into more. There is a lot of back and forth as they dance around being more than friends. It got tiring after a while and the book didn’t need 428 pages to come to the obvious conclusion. I wanted to like this book more, but I couldn’t warm up to Josie and Zac was too perfect.

Love, Just In was a DNF for me. The story, writing, and characters just did not grab my interest enough to keep going.

I think if you enjoy romances with characters around the 20-30-ish age group who are trying to figure out their messy lives, this may be a fit for you.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC for my review.

This one was cute. It was very easy to get through but I honestly don't have much to say other than that. I thought that the pining for one another was cute, but I just didn't care when they actually going to get together. It honestly might just be that I read this at the wrong time, so I will definitely come back to this one!

Josie is coming close to the age of thirty and very discouraged about her life. Her parents and sister have moved out of the country, her career isn’t going anywhere, and her love life isn’t going well either. Her last attempt at an on-air news presentation turned into a disaster when she froze on air. Now she is being sent to the Newcastle station temporarily and hopes to have a chance to prove herself again. The only good thing about Newcastle is that she will have a chance to reunite with her best friend Zac. They have been friends since their school days but haven’t been in touch since Zac left Sydney after a tragic event in his life. Both characters are well developed and quite complex. Both are forced to confront the issues in their lives that need to be resolved to move forward. I found it a good story that I had a hard time putting down.

Also reviewed on B&N under 1IrishEyes430 and Kobo under IrishEyes430

Friends to lovers
Second chance
Forced proximity
OW / OM drama
Slow burn
Steam factor 3/5
The story is laid out well. Good character development and no major plot holes.

Love, Just In by Natalie Murray is a friends to lovers trope romance. I had some difficulty believing the characters and their romance. It is set in a small Australian town north of Sydney and used a lot of Australian expressions and descriptions I wasn’t aware of or haven’t heard before and they kept taking me out of the story. The banter between the two main characters, Zac and Josie, felt really forced and even uncomfortable at times, especially from two characters we are to believe knew each other from 14 years old until they unite again at 28, after little communication for the previous two years. The story is told in two timelines and I also felt just as I tried to get into the story, the timeline swap made the pacing of the book stop and start again each time. Some of the flashbacks to 14 years prior could have been left out to help the pacing of this 462 page book. The good part of the story was when the protagonist opened up about her anxieties and insecurities which were more universal and relatable. I give the book 3⭐️⭐️⭐️s.

I thank NetGalley and the author and publisher for the advanced reader’s copy of this book.

I really enjoyed the book. I even cried a bit at the end. I think it had great pacing and I found that it was unique because they weren't your typical best friends to lovers. There was a history and some grief associated with their losing touch and then the emotional rollercoaster once they were back in each other's lives. I don't think the setting hinders or changes anything for me as a reader. I liked the different setting and imaging being there (I will get there one day!).

Love, Just In was slow to start and I struggled to stay interested because I did not care very much for Josie's character. Josie and Zac got their happy ending, but unfortunately overall it did not work me.

Described in the synopsis as "In the vein of Emily Henry's You and Me On Vacation". This would be an accurate summary as friends, who have barely spoken in 2 years, show their relationship through flashbacks of 3 (THREE) different timelines in a constant will they/won't they timeline of drama and miscommunication. They keep referencing something that happened, but it took waaaay too long to get to there that I almost didn't care about what happened anymore. Slow burn. Too slow. Author's notes at the end explain some of the book's plot points. Emily Henry did it better and I just didn't care for this one.

Written in alternating timelines, Love, Just In follows Josie, a newsreader, who has relocated to Newcastle from Sydney for work for six months, and Zac who has also moved to the area and is happy to help Josie find her feet. The book takes us on their somewhat awkward journey settling into their temporary homes. In addition to adjusting to her surroundings and a demanding new job, Josie finds herself struggling more than ever with anxiety about her health. The cherry on top, she's realizing how much she has drifted away from a long-time friend. Zac has his own strugges to juggle while also trying to help Josie.
This romance deals with health anxiety and cancer. Zac is a paramedic who is dealing with grief and past trauma. We witness a rekindling of friendship and follow through Josie's pov. The romance is definitely a slow burn, with a side of miscommunication and angst. I would have liked to get to witness more of this couple after the conflict resolved, but that's a nit-picky complaint.

Tropes: Friends to lovers, Second Chance, Mental Health, Slow Burn

I love a dual-timeline, and actually think it's a bit necessary in this sort of "we drifted apart" scenarios. This story handles very serious topics (mental health, PTSD, trauma, etc), so it definitely isn't a light and fluffy rom com. But not being fluffy doesn't mean it isn't hilarious, though. I think this was a really beautiful story of rekindling and overcoming.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ for Love, Just In by Natalie Murray. This is a cute and enjoyable romance.

Josie is a Sydney-based atV reporter who wants to get a lead role but suffers an on-air panic attack. She is sent to Newcastle for a 6-month gig. He best friend Zac lives in Newcastle but she hasn’t been as close to him for the last two years, following the death of his fiance.

I loved the interaction between Zac and Sophie and the author tackling mental health challenges. This was a fun read.

Thank you to the author, Allen & Unwin, and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my review.

Fairly predictable rom com but it was still a good read that I enjoyed it. It was also a quick read.

Although there were a few moments I found very cringey/cheesy I overall really enjoyed this! I don’t read a lot of romance books but this one did a really good job at keeping my attention. I also appreciated the way the author executed the build up, it made me want to keep reading. I stayed up way too late just so I could finish this

3.5 ⭐️!
I really enjoyed this one, it was super fun & adorable yet still managed to deal with serious subjects in an honest & raw way!

Tropes/themes
- set in Australia
- childhood friends -> lovers
- cute doggo side character
- single POV (excluding the epilogue)
- second chance
- forced proximity

I really tried for this but could just not get into it. I can't pinpoint what was wrong, exactly, I just couldn't get through more than a few pages at a time.

Book Review:

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Love, Just In is a friends-to-lovers, second chance romance featuring heath anxiety representation.

Natalie Murray perfectly depicts anxiety through Josie, the female protagonist. As someone who has struggled with anxiety for the majority of my life, I can attest to how well written this book is. While I loved getting to see myself represented on the written page, I found my anxiety began to rise as I read. For this reason I think this story would be instrumental for friends, family, and loved ones of anxiety sufferers to read. It would shed light on what someone with anxiety goes through on a daily basis and open the door for healthy communication.

As much as I loved this story, I vacillated between loving and hating the female protagonist. While Josie is a complex character whose anxiety directly impacted her life choices, she willingly self sabotaged her own happiness time and time again. I wanted her to see that she was worthy of personal and professional success. Luckily by the end of the story I felt at peace with her as a character.

Special thanks to Netgalley, Natalie Murray, and Allen and Unwin for allowing me to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

I was so excited to read this after seeing it compared to emily henry, one of my favorite authors! there were some aspects that I really enjoyed.

fun setting- sunny australia

variety of characters- funny roommates and supportive female friendships

the best tropes- childhood friends to lovers and forced proximity

unfortunately, I had a hard time connecting to the main characters and their specific traumas but that’s not to say someone else might enjoy the ptsd and health anxiety representation. overall, I felt it was a bit too long but the ending redeemed itself!

thank you to net galley for the arc!

This is a fun, best friends to lovers romance featuring a television news reporter named Josie who has been kind of banished from her Sydney role to fill in for someone in a regional position after an on-air brain freeze. If you have health anxiety, which this book addresses in quite prolonged and great detail, I would issue a gentle warning to consider if you are in the right space to handle exploring it, especially if like Josie, your health anxiety revolves around cancer. It’s a very strong feature in the book, Josie has some very severe health anxiety where she is convinced something is very wrong with her and she’s often paralysed by panic attacks or freezes when she has to cover medical stories. It’s honestly very confronting and I’m not saying it’s not well done, but it’s a lot, even for someone who has only a mild health anxiety.

In moving to Newcastle to work for NBN NRN, Josie gets the chance to reconnect with Zac, her best friend all throughout high school, university and adulthood until two years ago when Zac went through a tragedy and basically retreated from Sydney away from his life (and Josie) to heal. When they do reconnect in Newcastle, it is equal parts kind of awkward and them trying to reconnect and get their dynamic going. The dynamic is frustrated by what is pretty clearly some obvious attraction on Josie’s part, who is seeing her best friend in a whole new light and well….look, lots of feelings on Zac’s part. They’re also both trying to date other people and Josie is determined to be ‘this is Zac, he’s your best friend, nothing more’.

I enjoyed a lot about this although I could’ve done without the “lol, Newcastle is so tiny/a backwater/what do people even do here?” attitude. Obviously Newcastle isn’t Sydney, but it’s not exactly blink and you miss it. I lived in Newcastle between 2003 and 2006 and it was busy and growing then (and an amazing place to live, I love Newcastle and miss it dearly). I might’ve found it a bit more believable if I didn’t find out that Josie did her undergrad in Bathurst and lived there for three years……a town which is significantly smaller than Newcastle, about a tenth of the size.

Apart from that and the fact that this book feels too long at 464p, I did like the majority of the story. I enjoyed Zac and Josie, their backstory and their attempts to find their way in where their friendship lies after 2 years of Zac kind of disappearing. There’s a lot of reasons for why Zac has done that and I felt like it was portrayed very well as was the growing sexual tension in their relationship. The angst is good, as is Josie’s questioning of herself and what she really wants as well as the concern that they will damage their friendship if they get this wrong. I also liked the portrayal of Josie’s job and her struggles with where she fits in and what she wants out of her career. She wants to present but has struggled a couple of times live on camera and this is a definite demotion although it’s in an area that would give her a good chance to shine. I also appreciated that for the most part it’s a supportive work environment. Josie is best friends with the main on-air presenter in Sydney, who also wants Josie to replace her when she takes leave. Josie finds support in Newcastle too, especially once she confides the struggle she’s having with anxiety and the one person she doesn’t click with isn’t about them being in competition at work but more an external factor.

For me, this is how you do friends to lovers. And there’s a great balance of romance with the other issues of career and finding yourself and also, the mental health exploration. Both Zac and Josie have had mental health struggles and both are supportive of the other and determined to be there, even when it feels like things are going wrong in the blurred lines of their friendship. I found Zac to be a great love interest, I just feel like it could definitely have trimmed up a bit in length. Maybe the flashbacks weren’t really required.

7/10

I would recommend this as a summer read especially if you need a mental getaway this is it..
The main female character, Josie annoyed me just a bit, but no complaints about the main male character, Zac. Love, Just In is a friends-to-lovers romance, close proximity, friends since high school so if this is your jam you will love it.