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.

A great little romance that also deals with some big issues like trauma and anxiety.
I loved both Josie and Zac and their friendship, even though it was strained in their current time, the flashbacks showed how much they cared for one another.
Lindsey was the worst….there I said it

This was a cute friends to lovers romance set in Newcastle, Australia. I enjoyed the relationship between Josie and Zac and the best friend banter. This story is set in a dual timeline that jumps back and forth between the present and past events to provide the details and background to some of the current issues. There are a few content warnings (car accident, drunk driving). This was a nice escape read to the warm beaches of Australia while in the middle of winter in the Midwest. This would make a great beach vacation read!

Thank you to NetGalley and Allen & Unwin for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Friends to lovers, seems to be a common theme these days. I have to give the author credit for job well done, it can be hard to write without sounding like all the other ones out there. This was slow to get going but once I got into it, I could not put it down. I liked that the author touched on Medical Anxiety as myself lives with all the Anxiety. I found that I could relate to the main character and putting yourself out there is scary when your brain telling you something different.

Josie is almost thirty and feels like she should be at her career and life goals by now. But soon after on air panic attack on air she is sent to a small-town Newcastle to cover another reporter while they are on a six month leave, so she is back to square one. What should be the good news about this is her best friend lives in Newcastle, but they have barely talked for the last two years. Both dealing with mental health issues and needing each other more than anything right now. Which seems easy enough, but friendship and love can tangle this complicated web that you have to untangle. Are they brave enough?

Thank you to NetGalley and Allen & Unwin for copy of this book for my honest review.

Love, Just In, had an intriguing synopsis that drew me in. While there was a hint of a mysterious event that caused our two main characters to go from best friends to awkward acquaintances, I still had trouble staying interested. I usually read contemporary romance in one sitting but I kept putting this one down. The characters were very flat and I just couldn’t be less interested in them. The writing overall was good but the characters needed more depth.

A cute romance with a friends-to-lovers trope. Loved the Australian setting and the history that Josie and Zac shared. Theirs is a wholesome love built on shared trauma and I really loved that they were there for each other. Nice to read about just good characters that are nice people.

Love, love, love!! This was a delightful read that just squeezes your heart! It was so well written and the epitome of a great romance that you want all of your friends to read!

I don't know if it was just the wrong time for this book, but I wasn't thrilled with it. I can't say I won't try again, but for now I have to set this one aside

I read this ARC in exchange for an honest review. I think there were elements in this story that I didn’t enjoy, but it didn’t mean that others will feel the same. I have a lot of anxiety from getting cancer, so I could empathise with her feelings, but I didn’t want to relive it, if that makes sense. It was too realistic and feeling that anxiety wasn’t enjoyable for me.
The weird banter at the start with her and Zac felt like she’d treated him badly in the past, and she hadn’t been a particularly caring of his feelings.

Josie Larsen's been sent off to Newcastle after a major flub on Sydney news. It's not permanent but it feels like a demotion. One good thing is she will be able to reconnect with long-term best friend, Zac, who has been distant since his fiancé was killed in a car crash. But initially things are awkward with Zac and the job still feels like a demotion.

This friends=to-lovers story had characters who both had a lot of development in the course of the book. Josie had been dealing with health anxiety and Zac was dealing with guilt, among other things. I liked the way it addressed the health anxiety, and it did so in a realistic way. Anxiety isn't something that can be fixed easily so it was good to see how she reached the pathway to coping better with life without an instant cure. Along the way we meet several side characters, including roommates who like to walk around nude and friends having babies. There's a fair bit of humour mixed in the angst, for sure.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and give it 3.5 stars. Thank you to Netgalley and Allen and Unwin for the advanced reader copy. I have provided this review voluntarily.

*thank you to NetGalley and Allen & Unwin for a copy of this eARC in exchange for my review*

Josie and Zac. Sunbeam and Favorite. These cuties tangle in a battle of who-overthinks-the-most as they navigate the muddy waters of being roommates after fourteen years of friendship and two years apart. This friends-to-lovers romance was filled with so much more heart than I expected. The pair has to wrestle with past and present traumas and anxiety, and they slowly learn that they don’t have to do it alone.

If you’ve ever had a guy best friend who you’ve suddenly found attractive, you will find Josie’s situation humorously relatable. All of the awkwardness that comes with finding your friends attractive is on display here. And while this isn’t a rom-com, I had my share of giggles in the lighter moments.

Of course, this book has heavy moments too—addressing health anxiety in a way that was so particularly sensitive that I was truly moved. The amount of compassion that I developed as I was reading honestly surprised me. But what good is the message that you’re not alone, if the readers can’t feel it for themselves? Natalie Murray has expertly crafted a story that reaches out to her readers through a relationship filled with ups and downs and most of all real love and support.

AHEM, PLS NOTE:
- dual pov
- trouble 🐶
- bad jokes and lots of sarcasm
- sweet nicknames
- fake dating
- are we flirting??
- marriage pact 🤭
- forced proximity
- “I’ll be there.”
- #IsThisAKissingBook: open door

Josie and Zac have been best friends since they were teenagers. Zac tried to break through the friend zone once - and only once - and was quickly put back in his place.

Even after that, the two were inseparable. They roomed together in college. Josie introduced him to his fiance. Nothing could come between them.

Until the unthinkable happened and Zac's entire world shattered. Josie ends up left behind while he picked up the pieces.

Love, Just In is a relentless romance where your heart never stops pounding, wondering what's going to happen next. The flashbacks build up the relationship to the point where you're breathlessly waiting for them to get out of their own way. I DEVOURED this story and cheered when the slow burn finally exploded!

The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars was due to other woman/other man drama. It added to the tension which was nice but was taken a bit too far at times.

Fans of mild angst, witty banter, and second chances will fall in love with Zac and Josie!

Thank you, Natalie Murray and NetGalley, for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Love, Just In is about our FMC Josie reconnecting with her best friend, Zac after an incident 2 years prior had caused some distance between them. These characters didn’t have their lives together entirely which was nice, realistic and so relatable. There was a lot of tension and angst in this book- which I’m always here for! I swooned, I felt frustrated, I felt sad, I felt relief, right alongside the characters. I always feel like if a book can educate you while telling a story and making you feel, it’s a good one.

Please check out Natalie’s site for CW.