Clara has a path in life. Keep working at as a history professor, support her younger sister, and get tenure. What she doesn't expect is a blast from the past in the form of her former best friend, the one that got away, Teddy.

I loved this book! Here's what I loved:

The feel--This book has a cozy feel to it. I'm honestly not even sure why, but I felt like I was reading the story of an old friend. I loved the college setting but from the side of a professor! It has such a different feel and I was here for it.

Past and present--You get the past friendship of Clara and Teddy while also seeing them reconnect in the present. This helps add so much angst and emotions for the present chapters, You get a really good sense of why they aren't together and what went wrong (and right).

Second chance mixed with right person/wrong time--Both of these are top tier tropes for me! I thought Miller does them really well here. Yes, there is a bit of miscommunication, but it's more of "life got in the way" instead.

Overall, this was a really well-done emotional romance!

Thank you to the author and publisher for the gifted copy!

Clara has loved history since she was a teenage so it was not shocking when she became a history professor at a private liberal arts college right after grad school. She is happy and finally up for tenure when she is asked to share her office with a visiting professor. This professor happens to be Theodore Harrison, or Teddy, as Clara once knew him as back when they attended summer camp together over 10 years ago. The feelings she had for Teddy are starting to come back up and when they start to work on a project together, she realizes the feelings could easily repeat themselves.

This was such a cute read with the home school kids meeting at summer camp and staying in touch. As a regular summer camp kid, meeting friends each summer and staying in contact with them was one of the best parts. I do feel like Teddy came in out of no where but the dual timeline really helped explain their background. This was just a cozy fall read and I really enjoyed Clara as a FMC.

I didn't dislike this book but I feel like nothing much really happened. Teddy just kind of appeared and everything magically worked out. I didn't feel any connection between the two characters and any relationship talk honest felt awkward. I'm team Mindy on this one

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for the ARC of Given Our History by Kristyn J. Miller. All opinions are my own.

Given Our History is a second chance romance with dual timelines. It follows Clara and Teddy as they grow up together, lose touch, and then find themselves together again.

I usually love second chance romances, especially when they include scenes from the past.

My favorite part of this book was the chapters set in the past. I especially enjoyed the ones where Clara and Teddy were still teenagers.

While I thought this book was fine, I was disappointed in a few aspects.

The present-day storyline was very slow paced. Nothing really happened in it until after the halfway mark. I also don’t feel like Clara had really matured much from her teenage years; she was still making the same mistakes instead of learning from them.

I really liked Teddy as a character, but I thought that he deserved better than the way Clara treated him. He was patient and forgiving in ways that Clara didn’t deserve. I think in general, Clara was just a really hard character to root for because she seemed so selfish and so focused on a career that she didn’t even love that she threw away her relationships.

Overall, I would only recommend this book to some people if you like career-minded women and slower paced romances.

“Given Our History” is a tender, angsty story of childhood friends to estranged to lovers! When those tropes are combined with Dual Timeline storytelling, it’s the perfect recipe for me to love the book! Clara and Teddy grew up going to the same camp as kids, their friendship and love of history bonded them for years. Until it all ended after years of “will they, won’t they” and balancing their ambitious career pursuits. Many years later, Theo is a visiting researcher at the university where Clara is a history professor. Given their history, will they be able to reconnect and not repeat the past? I really enjoyed Clara and Teddy as main characters. The story had great themes of learning from history and applying those lessons to our life going forward.

For those who love:
🍂Autumn
🍂History
🍂Friends to Lovers
🍂Dual Timeline
🍂Academia
🍂Sisters
🍂Only One Office
🍂Forced Proximity
🍂Second-Chance

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC.

I’m just obsessed with Miller and her amazing writing!
After reading and absolutely loving Seven Rules for Breaking Hearts I knew I had to get my hands on Given Our History by Kristyn J. Miller. And y’all once again she did not disappoint.
I became so invested in Clara and Teddy's story I didn’t realize I was up so late reading it.
I got so lost in the writing and characters once I sat down to read I didn’t get back up.
The whole book felt very grounded in reality, which I appreciate.
The way Miller writes her characters was very compelling. The characters are so relatable and imperfect.
I loved reading and watching their journey unfold. Kristyn J. Miller’s prose is both evocative and thought-provoking.
I couldn’t have loved this story any more than did!

Thank You NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

I really enjoyed this! I love a dual timeline second chance story, and liked the characters a lot. It was so sweet how Clara and Theo got to know each other through the years and the way the info about their falling out was sprinkled made it hurt in the best way. I do wish there had been some more angst when they reconnected at the school--they seemed to jump back into friendship pretty quickly. Overall this was a sweet read, and the pacing was consistent enough that I breezed through it in a day!

A second-chance romance with a dual timeline is usually my jam – I love the angst and yearning, and the ways that stories unfold as the past and present combine in ways that deliver a huge punch of emotion as you go. And though Given Our History has a whole lot of things going for it—an academic setting, tons of pop culture references for elder Millennials, and a robust childhood friends to lovers pipeline—I found myself wanting more from it.

The story follows Clara, a history professor seeking tenure early, who learns that she needs to share her office with a visiting lecturer—who turns out to be Teddy Harrison, her childhood best friend and first love whom she hasn't spoken to in nearly a decade. Though there is so much potential here, I often felt the chemistry between Clara and Teddy was a bit lacking. I appreciated that their story was quiet, nuanced, and realistic—they were both homeschooled, met at a summer camp, and really forged their friendship through phone calls, snail mail, and then social media messages before their falling out—and there were a couple of stand-out scenes, but overall, I wish the emotion had been dialed up, providing swoonier moments and a deeper sense of satisfaction.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Given Our History
By: Kristyn J Miller
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Pub Date: 8/27/24

This was really cute! What becomes a friend to lovers romance really starts out as a second chance romance.
Two awkward teenagers meet at a camp for kids who are home-schooled. Clara is a big history buff who wants to become a professor one day. Theo learns his love of history from Clara and too can see himself teaching one day. They spend years being friends before trying to become more but the timing just isn’t right.
As they become adults, go off to college and deal with life as adults, they drift apart to the point where they don’t speak for years. When fate pulls them back together, working at the same college and being randomly assigned to share an office, can they work past their timing issues and be together?

I enjoyed this book. It's a good second chance romance story. I also liked the dual timeline so we could get their back story as well as the current one. Overall a good read.

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

This is simply the perfect example of a second chance romance. It’s dual timeline, so we see their relationship develop in the past as it develops, again, in the present. I would have loved an epilogue from Teddy’s POV, but I already know anything he’d have to say would be delightful. Thanks to SMP for the arc.

Kristyn J. Miller really shows her range as an author with her sophomore adult romance. Whereas Seven Rules for Breaking Hearts was an edgy/snarky romp perfect for the beach, Given Our History is cozy like a mug of hot chocolate with fall vibes. As a reader, I loved both of them. This dual timeline second chance romance is perfect for fans of Carly Fortune.

Romance set in the academic world. Two professors one on tenure track the other a guest professor who happen to be to be life long friends. More complicated than that they have a messy history with a failed romantic relationship.
This is my second Krystyn Miller novel and although enjoyable I’m still waiting for a story to hit that sweet spot. Perhaps it’s because both Clara and Teddy were home schooled and that caused a lack of socialization?. They didn’t have great communication skills even though they both realized they were each others end game. Clara was almost stoic putting career goals ahead of any other opportunity. Even when she was sobbing it was difficult feeling the emotion. Thankfully life events and perhaps friends and family manage to shake her out of her complacency. I really thought it was a close call. Grateful to Netgalley and St Martins Griffin for the read.

GIVEN OUR HISTORY – Kristyn J. Miller
St. Martin’s Griffin
ISBN: 978-1250861900
August 27, 2024
Contemporary Romance

Baltimore, Maryland – Present Day

Assistant Professor Clara Fernsby loves history and has all the college degrees to prove it. She is currently teaching history at the college level, which has allowed her the opportunity to apply for tenure. At the start of the new school year, she was informed that she would be sharing her office with a visiting scholar. Clara doesn’t ask his name, but she gets a funny feeling. That feeling comes to fruition when she discovers the visiting scholar is her old best friend, Theodore “Teddy” Harrison. Clara now feels like the walls from her past are closing in on her.

Clara and Teddy first met spending autumns together at a sleepaway camp in the Blue Ridge Mountains as teenagers. They clicked and continued to keep in contact with each other even when they were not in camp. Their friendship lasted for years, and in GIVEN OUR HISTORY, it flips from the present day to various stages of their past. Clara had one goal in life: to finish her education and get a job at a university. She rarely veered away from her goals, and it was something she had in common with Teddy. After all, his ambitions were the same as hers…until they weren’t. At one point, her friendship with Teddy spilled over into a romance but it ended badly. With him back in Clara’s life, she is afraid of falling in love, but she may again lose the man she cares a lot for.

When Clara’s father had an accident years ago, she watched her mother go to work and she began to take care of her sister, who currently lives with her as she attends college. Clara hopes that by winning tenure she can get tuition breaks for her sister. Is she too focused on what she wants and not what she needs? Teddy is back, and the friendship resumes, as does the attraction that slowly built years ago. He will be leaving in six months, which means they will be saying goodbye again. Is that the extent of their relationship? Go into and out of each other’s lives?

GIVEN OUR HISTORY is a poignant tale of discovering your true feelings after spending your life thinking there was only one path. Clara clearly loves Teddy, but she doesn’t see a future for them. He has goals, yet they don’t apparently mesh with hers. Will something happen to make her change her mind? GIVEN OUR HISTORY is beautifully told and is a fascinating tale that you don’t want to miss.

Patti Fischer
Romance Reviews Today

I enjoyed this dual timeline, second-chance, friends-to-lovers romance. It had cozy, fall vibes reminiscent of starting a new semester. Thank you to NetGalley, the author and St. Martin's Press for this e-ARC.

What a cute second chance story! Teddy and Clara were meant to be from the start. Even tho the reader can tell this is who should be together it took a bit of time to get to the HEA they deserved. This story is a dual timeline so we get to follow these two throughout their friendship and all of the ugly with all of the good. I found the secondary characters to be just as entertaining as our main two and they added a lot of great content to make to story well rounded. The love in this story runs deep between Teddy and Clara and you can’t help but to root for them. I found ,shelf liking Teddy a lot more than Clara at times. Her hardheadedness was a turn off for me and some of the situations made me dislike her. Even tho there were moments that I didn’t enjoy some of the characters actions this was still a solid book. Thank you to St. Martins Press and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this!

What a perfect book for this season! I loved so many things about this book. The fall vibes (perfect for late August when I started reading it!), the millennial references (peppered all throughout.. ahh nostalgia), the fact that it was set in academia. I loved the FMC. I really enjoy reading romances where the FMC has a good head on her shoulders, she may be figuring it out but she is also confident in herself and her decision-making. Miller definitely achieves this with Clara.

Where this book fell a bit short for me was with the MMC, Teddy. He just did not feel fully fleshed out. I did not understand his reasoning or point of view until near the end, and even then I wanted more. Unfortunately this left me feeling a bit unsure about their relationship and their HEA. Which if we are being honest, is the point of a romance novel.

Overall, I enjoyed and would recommend this book. Especially as a transitional read into fall!

I love an academic romance and I love a second chance romance so this book is truly the best of both worlds. The flashbacks and references will make any 90s kid happy. This book was a quick and easy read.

What can i say other than there’s no point where i’ll ever dislike a book with second chance, it’s one of my favorite tropes to read and Given our history did not disappoint, especially when you add academic romance. I WILL OBSESS OVER THAT ANY DAY! Clara and theo were able to give me that 2000’s romcom feel, but also make me sympathize with their past and their hardships. I can see myself rereading this book in the future when i need a lighthearted read to make me giggle and kick my feet with romance.

It started off strong. I enjoyed the prologue but then the details between past and present lost me. Even though the chapters are titled between past and present, I think in the flow of reading it wasn't as clear and I found myself confused. I also felt like the conflict of Clare's sister and her tuition was a bit forced. I don't know, I didn't like that little detail of the sister being what was fueling her to tenure, I feel like it caused the conflict to go off track only to be quickly resolved. I did like the chemistry between Clare and Teddy but again not sure I fully grasp why they went their seperate ways in the first place.