This academic romance wasn't for me, but I do think that it is a strong read for anyone who loves a dual timeline romance that is both funny and nostalgic in a way that doesn't feel cheesy. It's well-written, the characters are likeable, and it's perfectly positioned for the fall (especially with that stunning cover)!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a great fall read that follows the typical trope of friends/lovers fall out of touch and reunite. The story follows Clara and is told through alternating timelines through her life as a homeschooled teen who meets her best friend and love of her life, Teddy, while at a sleepaway camp for other homeschooled kids. She is a lover of history and wants to teach at the college level. After falling out of touch with Teddy (no spoilers), he suddenly reappears in her life while working the college she teaches at for a semester as a visiting professor. The two are thrown back together and must work through their issues and decide where they take their relationship.

This would make a cute Hallmark movie!

If your looking for a nice fall academia book this one will check those boxes. I really enjoyed this book. I did feel like it took me a few chapters to really get into it but then it was really good and picked up quickly. I loved the setting, it made the perfect back drop for a fall romance.
The two main characters hadn't spoken in years and their initial meets were so inconvenient but set the story up for a good friends to lovers, second chance romance.
Overall I really enjoyed reading this during the fall months! And I would recommend it!

4.5 rounded to 5
this was such a cute second chance, best friends to lovers romance. I loved Carla and Teddy together. I loved that they understood each other and even if they don’t talk for a long time, they bounce right back to how it was before naturally. The academic setting was great and I loved the dual timelines as well. Another thing that was refreshing was the homeschool rep. it was nice to see that someone who is homeschooled can make it very far in their profession just as public/private school taught kids.

This is just as cozy of a romance as the cover led me to expect! I loved the university setting with the political machinations of academia as complicating factors. Teddy and Clara were a sweet couple and I loved how things worked out in the end. That being said, this was a little slow, and there wasn’t much payoff for the teasing of what happened between them in the past. It was very low-key and real life.

Thank you to the publisher - I received a complimentary eARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed Given Our History. I loved the chapters that went in the past. Teddy and Clara were both great characters.
It was my first book by Kristyn J. Miller but it won’t be my last.

I loved this book. Teddy and Clara were a delight to read. I loved how the book hopped between time periods and showing how their relationship had developed and how their previous friendship shaped their adult interactions. I enjoyed that this was focused around professors and was not the normal teacher / student trope.

ARC Review:

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Clara Fernsby and Theodore (Teddy) Harrison met at summer camp when they were just fourteen years old. One game of trivia and a failed three-legged race resulted in the two strangers becoming fast friends. Years later the pair struggled to maintain a platonic friendship when they each began to form romantic feelings. Not wanting to cross the line, Clara’s rejection of Teddy marked the beginning of the end. Will an unexpected job opportunity bring the two back together, or will it confirm some relationships aren’t meant to last?

Kristyn J. Miller’s, Given Our History, beautifully executes the dual timeline format. While the book starts off in the present, Miller sprinkles in glimpses of the past. In doing so, she is able to let readers into both the highs and lows that made/ make up Clara and Teddy’s relationship.

I love being able to traverse back and forth through timelines. I feel it is a key component in creating well rounded characters. Not only does it provide essential information, it helps me to relate and sympathize with them.

If you are in the mood for light academia, second chance romances and all the fall, cozy vibes this is the book for you.

Special thanks to Netgalley, St. Martin’s Press (Griffin), and Kristyn J Miller for allowing me to read this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

I love a second chance romance and this one was cute with great fall vibes! I always love a dual timeline that shows their relationship at both points in their lives.

I enjoyed this book and thought it had an original premise.

I usually like things set in a collegiate area and with the teachers/professors involved. This book gave that "trope" a fresh feel by being based more around two professors instead of a professor and student. In the case of Clara and Teddy, they have a history which leads them both to pre-judge the other person and make ignorant assumptions.

I did find the fact that Clara and Teddy had been apart for so long to be a bit frustrating. If only they'd stepped out and addressed the rumors. If they'd cleared the air, it would have been obvious that neither of them truly moved on.

“Given Our History” 4/5⭐️

I really enjoyed this book! First of all, it was a perfect, fall read. Secondly, I am a sucker for second-chance romance! The chapters alternate between past and present. I adored all of the love, pining, and tension throughout this book. 🥹

I felt so invested in Clara and Teddy’s story. The plot was incredibly well crafted. Clara especially felt like a real person, who was making decisions and experiencing emotions in the moment.

I highly recommend it if you’re looking for a lovely, romance read! 🫶🏻

3 stars- cute fall vibes, cute academia vibes, but I just didn’t connect with this one for some reason? Childhood friends to lovers is my fave trope, but I think I just didn’t connect with the main character, I still enjoyed the atmosphere though.

Such a sweet tale or miscommunication and assumptions. The characters were fun and endearing and I kept rooting for them to figure it out

It’s hard for me to discuss this book because, on one hand, I liked it. It was calm and sweet. On the other hand, it wasn’t nearly as satisfying as I hoped going into it.

I have found that I’m a friends to lovers fan. So I was excited to dive into this relationship with these characters and watch them fall in love. However, I didn’t exactly buy their “madly in love” part of the story. I enjoyed getting to know them and how they became friends. We know very early on that Clara and Teddy had some sort of falling out. The story works up to what seems will be a climatic reveal but, in the end, it left me feeling lukewarm. When they finally confess their feelings to one another, I felt so indifferent.

It’s not a bad book by any means. It just didn’t work for me and what I look for in romance books. I would give this author another try to see if it was just this book that didn’t wow me.

Assistant professor Clara Fernsby is nothing if not driven. She’s wanted to teach history since she was fourteen, and she hasn’t let anything stand in her way—not even the love of her life. And it all paid off in the end, because she landed a well-paid position at a private liberal arts college fresh out of grad school, and this year, she’s finally up for tenure.

When Theodore Harrison is brought on for the fall semester as a visiting scholar, it’s an unwelcome blast from Clara’s past. She hasn’t spoken to Teddy since a falling out ten years ago. Now that he’s here, she’s reminded of their shared history at every autumns spent at a sleepaway camp in the Blue Ridge Mountains, where she traded battered books and burned CDs with a quiet, dark-haired boy—and fell in love with him.


I enjoyed this book. It was a cute fluffy romance with fall vibes! I just wish the characters were a little more fleshed out.

Just not really for me, unfortunately. I didn't connect with either character - like I didn't really know them and what I did know didn't make me love them like I wanted to. The chemistry between them wasn't quite there for me as a result. I also felt like it was pretty slow - especially the modern timeline.

The cover of this gave me major cozy fall vibes. And the story did too. Nothing feels cozier than a college campus, a shared office and a relationship with lots of history in the past. Clara and Teddy were both homeschooled and met at a fall sleepaway camp for homeschoolers to be able to socialize with their peers. Both had strong motivations about the future. It was a dual timeline story, which is perfect for a book about two people with a long personal history. It allows the reader to access their backstory, how they built the friendship and how it fell apart, while also continuing to progress the story in present day and move their fragile relationship forward. It was a simple romance, no major dramas, just two people with a complex personal history, working through their pasts in the present so they can have a future.

I didn’t love this one.. but I didn’t hate it? It was a typical second chance rom-com, yet it felt like something was lacking. I just can’t put my finger on what yet..

Thank you Netgalley & St. Martin’s Press for the opportunity to read this ARC, even though I’m late to the party!

Second chance romance with a side of academia! I enjoyed the backstory and the first half of the book. It kind of fell apart for me in the second half and was a bit dull. Based off the cover, I was hoping for more of a “Fall” theme but the cover is very misleading and made me annoyed I saved it for my Fall comfort reading.

I loved every minute of this book. So good and entertaining. You fall in love with their history and history itself. A lovely academia friends to strangers to lovers.