“Love, Just In” follows the path of a friends-to-lovers romance, but this story is multi-layered, emotional and very serious. Josie and Zac aren’t trying to overcome simple disagreements that have kept them apart, but some tragic moments that keep threatening their future. Fourteen years ago, teenaged Zac asked Josie out, but she passed. She didn’t pass on remaining as his loyal friend, though, through university. But the passage of time since their school days has torn them apart: she’s a newscaster with bouts of crippling panic attacks and an irrational fear of getting cancer and dying young. Zac was a successful paramedic until he lost his girlfriend in a car accident — overwhelmed with grief, he moved from Sydney to Newcastle. Newcastle wasn’t in Josie’s plans until it’s the last chance she has to keep her career after an on-air meltdown. She’s there for just six months (still gripped by health anxiety and hypochondria), but she and Zac find themselves re-exploring their friendship as flawed adults.

If you’re drawn to romances with lots of laughter and bantering, this might not be for you. This is a thoughtful, well-written narrative about love, friendship, grief and mental health and it’s guaranteed to produce a few tears. Yet, you’ll be rooting for this couple all the way. 4 stars.

Literary Pet Peeve Checklist:
Green Eyes (only 2% of the real world, yet it seems like 90% of all fictional females): YES Although it’s Zac with the golden-green eyes.
Horticultural Faux Pas (plants out of season or growing zones, like daffodils in autumn or bougainvillea in Alaska): NO Josie’s friend Lola does bring herb a huge bouquet of native flowers.

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

This book was so much fun! First, it was great to get lost in a part of Australia that I'm not familiar with. It gave small-town romance but with a little bit of a twist in that, the main characters were best friends who didn't grow up in this particular small town. I also loved that even though the characters knew each other, they seemed to grow together throughout the book. You could see how they grew up as kids, but also grew together as adults. I love the theme of also finding out that maybe that thing you thought you always wanted (or didn't want) can change and turn into new desires that are just as fulfilling as you thought the original ones would be.

✨ 𝐵𝑜𝑜𝓀 𝑅𝑒𝓋𝒾𝑒𝓌 ✨
𝐿𝑜𝓋𝑒, 𝒥𝓊𝓈𝓉 𝐼𝓃
𝐵𝓎: 𝒩𝒶𝓉𝒶𝓁𝒾𝑒 𝑀𝓊𝓇𝓇𝒶𝓎
𝒫𝓊𝒷 𝒟𝒶𝓉𝑒: 𝒥𝒶𝓃𝓊𝒶𝓇𝓎 𝟥, 𝟤𝟢𝟤𝟦
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/ 𝟧

‘𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞’𝐬 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮, 𝐉𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐞 𝐋𝐚𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐧, 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭,’ 𝐙𝐚𝐜 𝐬𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭 𝐦𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐩𝐬. ‘𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐈’𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐚 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮. 𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈’𝐯𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈’𝐦 𝐡𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐥𝐲 𝐢𝐧 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐲𝐨𝐮. 𝐈𝐭’𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮.’

This book.. 😍! While this book being a flirty, fun romcom, it covered much more than that and Natalie Murray handled these subjects so well. It is a single POV although it felt like a dual POV and I really liked that. It made the book work. Josie and Zac have been best friends for fourteen years, but when an unexpected accident happened it caused them to drift apart for two years. Now Josie ends up in the same town as he is and why not finally have a reunion! A reunion filled with tension, angst, and spice.

This friends to lovers book was so heartwarming and I would recommend it to anyone! 🩵

𝒯𝒽𝒶𝓃𝓀 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒻𝑜𝓇 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓈 𝒶𝒹𝓋𝒶𝓃𝒸𝑒 𝓇𝑒𝒶𝒹𝑒𝓇𝓈 𝒸𝑜𝓅𝓎 𝒾𝓃 𝑒𝓍𝒸𝒽𝒶𝓃𝑔𝑒 𝒶𝓃 𝒽𝑜𝓃𝑒𝓈𝓉 𝓇𝑒𝓋𝒾𝑒𝓌.

Josie has health anxiety….she’s convinced that she has cancer even though she never had a positive test. She lives in Sydney and is a tv reporter. She has great friends and her best friend since she was in high school is Zac. He’s moved from Sydney to Newcastle to get away from the trauma of losing his ex fiancé 2 years earlier. The will they won’t they between Josie and Zac is a very slow burn and their story and Josie’s professional and anxiety journey seems like it goes on forever. I never warmed to the characters.

Josie and Zac are old friends that reconnect when Josie, a tv reporter from Sydney, is asked to take a temporary position in Newcastle for six months. Zac had moved there shortly after his fiancé died in a car crash. He and Josie lost touch over the past several years. The story of their friendship/romance is told between the past and the present.
It’s a good mix of fun and flirty, but with the depth of characters dealing with anxiety, health issues, and grief.

Thanks to NetGalley for the chance to read this book.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book! Would definitely recommend for fans of Emily Henry. Although was a flirty and fun romcom, it covered heavier subjects. It made the characters more complex both as individuals and as a couple, which I enjoyed. It was single POV and although I usually like dual POV more, it worked in this story. I didn't enjoy the time jumps throughout the book because it took me out of the moment and paused the building suspense. It also made the book a bit too long!

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I genuinely did not anticipate the book tapping into my emotions about mental health and creating a character who shares the same fears as me. Experiencing lapses of anxiety, particularly around the topic of death, is a constant for me. The fact that the author not only crafted a character who feels abnormal for experiencing this but is also hesitant, afraid, and reluctant to communicate these feelings is precisely why I'm awarding this book 5 stars. The author depicts emotions in their purest form, not just about mental health topics but also about grief, commitment, and the struggle of "planning your life out" while deceiving yourself when it's unnecessary.

And did I mention there's romance too and ✨A LOT OF IT✨? Elevating the book even further. Zac and Josie, best friends since high school, had an unexpected hiatus from talking for the last two years. Now, Josie finds herself in the same town as him, so naturally, a meetup is in order. WHAT A PERFECT REUNION, right? Well, nope. It's filled with tension, angst, spice, and everything nice 🔥🥹

The best way I can describe this book is that you'll be in the head of a very anxious girl whose sole desire is to be loved and to find the strength to acknowledge that she will be okay.

If you enjoy these tropes, I highly recommend reading the book:

☀️Best friends to lovers
☀️Forced Proximity (ish)
☀️Mental Health Topics
☀️Slow Burn
☀️He falls first (ish)
☀️News reporter x paramedic
☀️Past and Present Timeline

Spice Rate: 🌶️🌶️.5

Favorite Quote: "I'll see you later, sunbeam." MY HEART, AGH. Such a sentence with so much power.

Thank you NetGalley & Natalie Murray for the e-ARC!

This story was a little tough for me. I didn't enjoy the characters in their moments of growth throughout the book, and I found the main character, Josie, to be a bit of a child, and her ex-best friend Zac to be nothing but an enabler.

Josie is dealing with some major health anxieties, which while I can respect that she is dealing with something hard, it was hard to understand why she kept running away from getting things properly checked out AND why she kept running into the arms of someone who was so CLEARLY bad, not only for her but for women everywhere. She never had a good feeling about him, outside of "oh he smells nice" or something like that, and yet she kept spending time with this jerk, "leading" him on to make Zac jealous, and ultimately got into the car with someone she knew was drunk.

That behavior honestly turned me off from her character altogether.

As someone who has suffered from health anxiety for years, I loved this book. I loved how it treated the protagonist with care and empathy, and that the people around her took her seriously and with love. The romance was well-paced, and the characters were likeable and complex. I would definitely read this book again!

"Love, Just In" was a joy to read! This friends-to-lovers tale was heartwarming and sexy. Josie's inner monologue provided plenty of laugh-out-loud moments. The banter between Josie and Zac was sharp, with lots of flirty humour. More than that, the topic of health anxiety (and anxiety in general) was treated with sensitivity and provided meaningful insight to readers.

Thank you, NetGalley, for the ARC and the opportunity to review.

Thank you so much for the ARC!

I loved this childhood best friends to lovers romance! Josie and Zac were so cute! I really loved their friendship and the romance was top notch. Natalie is a master of angst and pining and she delivered both in this book.

I loved the quirky humor to break up the more serious parts. It's great to read mental health struggles represented and managed in a realistic way. Natalie handled several heavy topics in this novel in a very delicate and beautiful way.

Overall, this book was a great read and I loved the characters and the story!

I just finished Love, Just In and I honestly don’t even have words. It was such a beautiful journey with stellar character development. You won’t regret reading this book. It was so well done, I loved It!

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced reader’s copy of Love, Just In by Natalie Murray. I picked up this book after being in a reading slump following a very emotional book. I assumed it would be a light, quick read with not much substance. I was pleasantly surprised that this wasn’t the case.

The main characters, Josie and Zac, have been best friends for a very long time and as they realize they may have feelings for each that go beyond friendship, they go through some tough and confusing times. Each character in the book has depth and a unique set of very real problems.

The book brings a lot of realistic and widespread mental health issues to light, including grief and anxiety, making the characters relatable. There isn’t a single character in the book who “has it all” and that’s refreshing. Murray does a wonderful job of creating in-depth characters and navigating through the trials and tribulations of real life relationships.

Overall, 4/5 stars. Would recommend!

I enjoyed the writing style of this book but not the plot fully. This was not a rom-com. It was a good friends to lovers trope book though. The heroine, Josie, suffers from severe health anxiety and has a cancer scare during the book. Zac, her oldest friend, is lovable MMC who is still suffering from past trauma. These two have a slow burn relationship that pays off in the end.

I absolutely loved this book! I read through it so fast that I wanted more. I connected to the characters and they felt very real to me. The characters are best friends and are dealing with their own past traumas. Josie has crippling health anxiety and Zac is dealing with grief from a past relationship. Romance at it's finest, will read anything else by this author now!

Absolutely loved this book! Fans of Carly Fortune and Emily Henry’s work should definitely add this to their TBR. The start was slow but then it was a book I couldn’t put down and one of my top romcoms of the year! The main female character struggles with medical anxiety, similar to the author, which I found compelling and relatable. If you have severe medical anxiety this may be a trigger for you though. Zac and Josie are the cutest couple though and have the best banter! Highly recommend this book!

Thank you Netgalley for ARC in return for an honest review.

Consider me gobsmacked! This is a beautiful mash up of “The People We Meet on Vacation “ and “One Day in December “. The genuine BFF love between Zac and Josie reminded me so of Alex and Poppy that it had me in tears! Plus, the angst and the wanting and missed opportunities definitely has echoes of “One Day in December “ I think Ms. Murray executed this novel beautifully.

This was a friends to lovers, slow burn, and well worth the wait! I found myself up late at night, trying to stay awake to keep reading. Emotionally complex characters and yet, fun and easy to read. I’m personally not a fan of stories that keep cutting back to the past, as I don’t like to be pulled out of the moment. However, these flashbacks were short and sweet and each served a very strong purpose. Very enjoyable!

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.


<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/198484472-love-just-in" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="Love, Just In" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1694571310l/198484472._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/198484472-love-just-in">Love, Just In</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14829945.Natalie_Murray">Natalie Murray</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5895588416">4 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
This was a friends to lovers, slow burn, and well worth the wait! I found myself up late at night, trying to stay awake to keep reading. Emotionally complex characters and yet, fun and easy to read. I’m personally not a fan of stories that keep cutting back to the past, as I don’t like to be pulled out of the moment. However, these flashbacks were short and sweet and each served a very strong purpose. Very enjoyable!<br /><br />Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
<br/><br/>
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/10127425-missygirl">View all my reviews</a>

This was a great balance of rom com
and more serious issues. Of course I was rooting for Josie and Zac and Josie made me frustrated at times, but it was also
very relatable. Definitely gives Emily Henry vibes!

After having a mild panic attack on live television, reporter Josie Larsen is transferred to Newcastle to cover another reporter. But Newcastle happens to be home to Zac Jameson, Josie’s estranged best friend from high school. The two of them try and rekindle their friendship while fighting off the feelings they’ve had since high school.

This book was not really what I expected it to be. I walked into it thinking it was a romance, which wasn’t the right call because it read more like a general fiction novel. Basically what I’m saying here, is that if you walk into it thinking it’s a romance novel, it won’t be your favorite. If you walk into it thinking it’s a general fiction, it’ll be great.
Josie was a really good main character, although sometimes she did annoy me. Thankfully I was able to ignore those parts a lot of the time, so it didn’t bug me that much.
I really enjoyed how there were a lot of switches back to high school, though. Having those in there, really showed what their friendship was before they separated and it also helped understand what they were thinking about or going through in more detail. I also enjoyed how the author wrote those in specifically making sure the line of events matched what the characters were discussing or thinking about in present time, it really helped keep things in track.

Thank you to NetGalley and Allen and
Unwin for an eARC of this book