Entertaining friends-to-lovers story set in Australia. Josie is kind of a mess. She's a talented reporter but can't seem to get her life in any kind of order. She gets transferred to a smaller market where she hopes to kick start her career and win a better tv role back in Sydney. When she gets there, her best childhood friend Zac picks her up and Josie tries to kick start their friendship. I didn't completely buy their chemistry but I liked the story and I liked the subplot that examines mental health issues around health anxiety.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley in return for my honest review.

Love, Just In is an entertaining romance about best friends with bad romantic timing. Josie and Zac became instant friends in High School and Zac wanted more than friendship from Josie. Josie wasn't ready for romance with Zac then. Now they are adults and both living in Newcastle, Australia after spending several years apart. Josie is definitely interested in Zac, but worried that a full blown relationship will ruin their friendship. The novel is filled with interesting characters and sub plots that make this a fun read.

This is my first book of 2024, and I loved it so much! I am such a sucker for friends to lovers, especially when they have been best friends since they were in high school. I have a soft spot for when one of them has been pining for years, and that's the case with this book.

Josie is a news reporter in Sydney, but her dream is to be an anchor. When she has a panic attack on air, she is moved to a smaller town to work there. One benefit to being moved to Newcastle is that she will be closer to her best friend, Zac. Zac and Josie met in high school, but they haven't spoken much over the past two years. Tragedy struck for Zac, and he has been picking up the pieces after what happened.

Zac and Josie spend more time together, and she even starts to live with him because her roommate turns out to be a bit too much for her. Zac is a paramedic, and he tries to be there for Josie as she suffers with health anxiety. I hadn't heard a lot about health anxiety before, and the description was handled with care.

Zac and Josie have always been strictly in the friend zone (Except for the one time that he asked her out when they were both 14,) Things start to change as Josie sees him in a new light, and she discovers that maybe Zac's feelings for her have always been there.

This book tugged on my heartstrings and I felt so much with the angst, grief, and heartbreak. This is such an amazing story of the power of love, and I loved the slow burn steaminess too.

3.75 stars

I’ll begin this review by giving the highest of compliments - Love Just In feels like an Abby Jimenez novel. Both the writing style and plot remind me of her stuff. It’s funny, a little vulgar, and most importantly, has substance. By the end of the book, I wanted to just hug it (a phenomenon often observed when a reader finishes an Abby book).

While I loved the last half of the story, the first third was kinda painful to read. It’s a friends to lovers story, but in the first few chapters, I didn’t buy their friendship at all. I get that their relationship is supposed to be a little rocky but I think this portion of the story dragged a bit. The good news is that halfway through it’s like a switch flips and I’m on board, finally “buying” into their friendship. For readers who love a good friends-to-lovers trope, the slow and awkward start is worth it for the second half.

Impt note/content warning: Love Just In deals with some weighty issues, most notably health anxiety. I’d encourage potential readers to review content warnings before diving in

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the gifted copy. Opinions are my own.

Thank you to the publisher and net galley for the ARC of this book. all opinions are my own.
This was such a fun book! I absolutely loved reading it and I couldn't stop flipping through the pages. Definitely recommend!

I really enjoyed this story. I loved Josie and Zac as main characters and loved both their friendship and romantic relationship. I also really enjoyed the spice and didn’t feel as though it was forced or cringy. I really related to Josie’s struggles with anxiety. I don’t struggle with health anxiety, however I do struggle with other forms of anxiety and felt this depiction of anxiety was realistic and relatable.

I enjoyed this book but had gone in expecting a rom-com and found while there were some elements of that, there was a lot more to the story. I liked the characters and there were several scenes that made me laugh out loud. The history between Josie and Zac was full of a lot of emotions. I found Josie a bit self-centered, but she grew up in the story and on me by the time I got to the end. The book was entertaining and pulled on the heartstrings over missed opportunities. I received an advance copy from NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review.

This is a second chance, extremely slow burn romance. Josie Larsen is a television journalist waiting on her big break in the news world. When she gets transferred to Newcastle, she hopes this will be an opportunity to show what she can do. Josie suffers from severe health anxiety. Every time she has an ache or pain or cough, she believes she has a terminal illness. It is no laughing matter for her. It is very real and at times debilitating.

Zac Jameson was Josie's best friend in high school and college. Zac wanted more from her years ago, but she held him in the friend zone. Zac's world was rocked a few years ago when his fiancee was killed in a car accident. He has just gotten back to a somewhat normal lifestyle. When Josie comes back to town, his perfect equilibrium is thrown off.

They both are dating other people, all while ignoring what is right in front of them. They have neglected their friendship for so long that they do not know how to get back to that place.

This was a slow burn romance, maybe a little too slow. I did enjoy the book and the characters, but I think the book could have been shortened and been just as good, or maybe I am just too impatient to wait for the good stuff. Both characters had some real issues that needed to be addressed. Zac was my favorite character. This guy was almost too good to be true. I really wanted to reach into the book and throttle Josie in a few scenes. I guess that old saying that you don't know what you got till it's gone is definitely true in this book. If you like a second chance romance, you will enjoy this one.

Thank you to Allen & Unwin and NetGalley for this ARC. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I received an ARC via NetGalley for an honest review. This is a friends to lovers trope. I rooted for Josie and Zac throughout the story. At times it felt like their HEA would never happen. There felt like a lot of inconsequential material that dragged the story down some.

Tried to get this one finished up before the ball dropped but it didn't happen, so this became my first finished read of 2024.

I actually really enjoyed this book! Friends to lovers is not normally my thing, but I think Josie and Zac were snarky enough and had enough of the unrequited love vibe to win me over.

Friends forever, teenage Josie shot young Zac down the one time he asked her to be more than friends. Fast forward years later and while their friendship has struggled the last few years due to a traumatic life event for Zac, the two wind up being in the same town again when Josie temporarily relocates for her TV news job. Told from two timelines (the past vs the present) the reader can clearly see that Zac has been pining for Josie for most of their friendship. While Josie has never admitted it, you can see at times she was interested in Zac too, but the timing was never right.

While there are lots of laughs and jokes (Zac's message tee collection is on point) the book does tackle some tough issues too. Drunk driving, loss of a loved one, cancer, and health anxiety are the main ones. I ultimately REALLY enjoyed how the author chose to tackle Josie's health anxiety. It made Josie grow as a character and made her more likable in my eyes. The world of TV is tough, but she was able to shine despite her hiccups. Zac was a gem and perfect in almost every way except for the guilt/shame that had been hanging over his head since the accident. That was the one area that I wished the author would have fleshed out a bit more but I think we were meant to think he had addressed it and was working through it.

Overall it was a cute, fun read that kept me entertained with perfectly imperfect characters that didn't back away from the hard things life threw at them.

If you like tropes, then this book might be right up your alley. It has so many top tropes: friends to lovers, slow burn, childhood friends… it’s tropes on tropes on tropes up in here.

The book is single perspective, and I’m always fascinated by this authorial decision because the standard is dual perspective. That said, there’s usually a GOOD reason for eliminating the love interest’s perspective and providing the reader with only the information the protagonist has. Yes, we—as readers—know that Josie and Zac are going to end up together, but not having that confirmed by Zac’s perspective opens us up to the possibility that he might not feel the same way. Of course, this involves some suspension of disbelief because the couple always ends up together at the end of the romance, but this book does a great job of building the tension with single perspective.

This book also plays around with the timeline. As I mentioned, Josie and Zac have been friends since they were young, and they’ve always had a “will they won’t they” dynamic, but it’s never worked out. Every other chapter is a flashback to some point in the past, pinpointing a moment that provides further context to their complicated dynamic.
I don’t want to give too much away, but I do think I need to share that this book deals with some heavy content; the description hints at some of the issues, but it’s much heavier than the typical romcom/contemporary romance. My ARC contained an Author’s Note that goes into more details, but it’s at the end of the book. I do hope that this Note is moved to the beginning of the book for the published edition.

I would recommend Love, Just In. Despite the heavy content at times, this book is a lot of fun. The banter between Josie and Zac is lively, and the flashbacks give an added layer to the narrative. I don’t want to take away from the effectiveness of the written word, but this would make a perfect series on a streaming Netflix—with the Australian accents, gorgeous settings, and the flashbacks, it would translate beautifully from page to screen!





I received a digital ARC of this book from Allen & Unwin/NetGalley

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! I think I struggled a little bit with the miscommunication trope in this book. However, I think the flashback scenes in the book were done very well, and slowly as the book went on, I continued to be surprised and see more and more character development. This made more of the story makes sense and made it more clear why these two friends were having the issues that they were having. So, while the beginning didn’t grip me as much as I initially thought that it would, I was thoroughly riveted by the end and would really recommend this book!

I know a lot of people loved this book but I just found it okay.

The theme was unoriginal - boy and girl are close friends from childhood but cannot make that step from friendship to romance. Both of them are longing to do so but think the other one does not. Fair enough but this went on for over four hundred pages during which they were frequently actively unkind to each other. Especially Josie. Now there is a character you would not want to know in real life.

Basically I think my real issue was the length of the book. The subject matter just did not warrant so many pages and it became tedious. I made it to the end with some relief.

I loved the romance between Josie and Zac, but I felt that there were too many flashbacks. It could have benefited from a faster plot line, but I appreciated the authors note at the end explaining how personal it was for her. I can definitely tell that through her writing. She is a new to me author and I will be following her next works!

I'm so glad that I took a chance on a new-to-me author when a golden opportunity to snatch this up emerged. What a terrific friends-to-lovers tale with more weight than your typical romance due to its subplots sensitively covering health anxiety, trauma and grief. I really enjoyed central characters Josie and Zac and reading about their long friendship through the events unfolding in the present interspersed with jumps back to important moments that they shared during different years in the past; the tagline of "one missed chance" is technically correct, but there are many smaller fleeting opportunities revealed along the way. At close to 500 pages, the book feels a touch long and Zac's hesitation during the final act became repetitive, but overall I found this to be an incredibly rewarding read. While it would have been nice to receive more of the story from Zac's perspective, relaying it primarily from Josie's point of view allowed for Murray to effectively convey the oppressive effects of her spiraling thoughts about dying of cancer. I loved how the book came full circle to a train station during both the final scene and epilogue.

I didn’t even get a chance to read this before it was archived. Usually things aren’t archived until after publication date. It’s too bad because it sounded really cute and was looking forward to reading it. I usually wait to read them until right before pub day, so that way my thoughts are fresh. I’ll still check it out after it is released. I have to give a star rating to submit, so three it is. I feel like that’s pretty neutral.

I absolutely loved this book! Loved the friends to lovers and the banter back and forth. Josie was a wonderful female lead character. Zac was a very likable character. There was so much anticipation on the two characters getting together that I was totally enveloped. I highly recommend this book if you enjoy contemporary romance.

Thank you to Allen & Unwin and NetGalley for an advance copy for my honest review

Taking place in Australia, Love, Just In primarily focuses on Josie and her best friend, Zac. A reporter, Josie is sent to a remote television station for six months after a major on-air gaffe. Luckily for her, her best friend from high school, Zac, lives there. The two lost touch in recent years after a tragedy took Zac's fiance's life, and he needed time to recoup and recover.

Over the course of the six months, the two face their emotions, many of which are holding them back from finding career success and love. After Josie has an epiphany about her feelings, the two have to figure out what their future holds.

A cute rom com that also delves into anxiety and grief, looking to perhaps normalize these feelings, I recommend it when you want something with a little depth but also want the romantic formula.

4-4.5 stars. While friends to lovers tends to be my least favorite trope, I enjoyed this one. Josie and Zac have been friends for decades, but as of late, there’s been more distance between them geographically and metaphorically. When a snafu at work sends Josie to Newcastle where Zac lives, they have the chance to rekindle that lost connection.

Normally a heroine like Josie would annoy me, but I found her to be relatable and also a bit careless at times. Mainly she would ignore any undertones of the more-than-friends feelings with Zac and keep things platonic, but now she is seeing him again with new eyes. Before anything romantic can take place, they have to get their friendship back.

I loved Zac, he wore the coolest tees with fun messages and is an all around stellar guy who has some issues he is still overcoming. Yet he is solid in his support for Josie. Any awkwardness between them stems from the elephant in the room that they navigate carefully around. There’s humor, wit and angst, as well as definite sparks and chemistry between two people who are tiptoeing quietly into it. They both make their fair share of mistakes, but what doesn’t change is their need to have the other person in their life be number one. Zac is truly swoon worthy and Josie really comes into her own by the end and shows true growth and maturity once she faces her insecurities. As a duo, they really are unstoppable together.

While the cover leads the reader to believe that it is going to be a light read, the depth of characters was such a fresh take on the romcom genre. A captivating and engaging story.