Sunshine Alison ends up having to pack up her ex-boyfriend’s stuff after he tragically passes away. His best friend and grump Adam is also signed up for this task. All it took was four weekends and a funeral for them to fall in love and it was beautiful written and did not feel rushed at all, but felt a little like it was dragging for me. This was such a unique plot line that I wasn’t quite expecting. The chemistry the characters have is amazing! It is a perfect combination of grump + sunshine, enemies to lovers in forced proximity! Thank you the publisher, author, and NetGalley for this free eARC.

I wasn’t into the story very much at all. This is being pushed as a romance and I didn’t get much romance. What I did get was more of a woman who is going through something life changing and trying to figure it out. Also, the highlight was more her friendships than her romance relationship. I didn’t relate to our MFC which made it hard for me to enjoy her as the author intended.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a chance to red this but unfortunately it just wasn’t for me.

What a standout debut!! I loved the humor, heart and emotional depth in this unique, #ownvoices BCRA 1 story about recently dumped Allison who is dealing with the death of her ex and being forced to work on cleaning out his apartment with his grumpy best friend, Adam over the course of four weekends leading up to the Christmas holidays.

I loved that this book had quirky chapter titles, lots of pop culture references, a tight-knit friend group who likes to win pub trivia challenges, a secret he falls first MMC and a TON of While you were sleeping, fake dating your dead ex vibes!!

Main character, Allison is struggling in the face of her preventative double mastectomy, trying to live her life to the fullest doing things she 'thinks' she should be doing rather than things she actually enjoys doing. Adam helps Allison see that she's great just as she is and she needs to stop trying to live to please others.

Perfect for fans of books like Just playing house by Farah Heron (another #ownvoices BCRA romance). I am excited to read what this talented new author writes next and highly recommend not skipping over the author acknowledgements at the end. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy and @prhaudio for a complimentary ALC in exchange for my honest review!

Steam level: fade to black/closed door

I think this is being pushed as a romance? Loved the friendship trio in this book. Some parts of the story did not jive together but it was a quick and fine read. Thanks to Netgalley for the free advanced copy in exchange for an honest review, book publishes 8/6

Thank you to NetGalley and and G.P. Putnam for providing me a copy of this arc. I choose this arc because it filled a prompt of a debut author coming out with a book in the last 6 months of the year. This author has BRCA1 mutation and she incorporates it into the story. Sam has died and Ali tells a lie and pretends he is his girlfriend. Sam's best friend and Ali spend time together and develop a relationship. This story was good not much fluff but, would of love to known about Sam in the beginning, in name only he was mentioned.

This book was good, it made me laugh. Imagine finding the right guy at a wrong time. Dead wrong. No one knows her ex boyfriend broke up with her so she pretends to grieve at the funeral. Then packs up his apartment with the best friend. It was really good.

Thank you @bookedwiththeemilys for the #gifted e-arc and @prhaudio for the alc!

What a debut!

This book packs a lot. It has some heavy elements, but it’s also a very beautiful story.
Ellie’s voice is refreshing, it feels new, and it’s so dang funny. There were so many lines in this book that had me laughing out loud. I thought Alison and Jack were cute. At first, I was like this grump is a GRUMP, why is she wasting his time, and then surely enough, slowly he grew on me, and I was rooting for them. They had a lot of cute moments, and I thought how everything came together in the end was lovely.

I think the content warnings in this book are important to check out before reading, but I will share this book centers around grief and cancer.

Despite all of the weather talk, this book made me want to book a flight to Minnesota to see what it’s all about!

I was recommended "Four Weekends and a Funeral" by a friend and I am so happy I read it! This is my first read by Ellie Palmer and I loved her prose, wit, and millennial references.

We begin with Alison Mullally (I actually know someone with this name in real life lol) at the funeral of someone she once dated. The deceased's sister is so distraught that she asks Alison to pretend to have still been dating her brother at his time of death, to comfort the parents. I personally found this plot point a little flimsy, but it did not deter me from continuing!

The ensuing love story was adorable, believable, and fun to read. I really liked the romance here, and Alison's two best friends made me laugh out loud multiple times. I also thought the exploration of Alison's mastectomy, and how her diagnosis affected her decisions, was written with grace and respect. I really liked the character growth and symbolism included here.

My only other compliant was the pacing in the second half of the story. I felt as though the "four weekends" ended much too early, and the timing after this point seemed to slow down. Other than that, I had a really fun time with this book! I would recommend this to friends.

Huge thanks to Ellie Palmer, GP Putnam's, and NetGalley for an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

An enjoyable enough read- it could have been better in a lot of ways but it did keep manage to keep me engaged until,the end.

While at the funeral of her ex boyfriend, Alison realizes that he never told his family they broke up. In an effort to not make things awkward, she plays along for the day. This backfires when her ex’s mother asks his best friend, Adam, and Alison to clean out the condo so it can be sold. The two fall for each other over 4 weekends of cleaning.

There’s also BRCA representation. Alison has the gene and her mother had breast cancer. She’s dealing with a lot of survivors guilt.

It’s single POV, slow burn, and like 95% of the way closed door.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for my advanced digital copy!

Thanks to Putnam Books and NetGalley for the #gifted copy of this book!

Wow, this book was an unexpected favorite for me!

Four Weekends and a Funeral follows Alison Mullaly, a BRCA 1 gene carrier who is struggling to figure out who she wants to be with the new lease on life she was given after having a double masectomy. In her quest for finding adventure, she briefly dated Sam, a thrill seeking influencer. After Sam's untimely death, Alison attends the funeral and is surprised to find that his family thinks they were still together despite their breakup being weeks ago. Alison goes along with the ruse, even agreeing to help Sam's best friend Adam in cleaning out Sam's apartment over the next four weekends. Adam is uptight, grumpy, and just wants to get the job done. But after working in close quarters and getting to know each other better, Alison and Adam are surprised to find that maybe there's a little bit of a spark between the two of them.

I really really enjoyed this! I loved the steady progression between these two going from reserved strangers to close companions. Even though the time period was about a month, it felt like a reasonable amount of time for these two to get to know each other.

This book was so incredibly raw and vulnerable at times due to Alison's BRCA 1 journey at such a young age. It's incredibly intense to have a medical event change not only your lifestyle, but it also pushes you to question your own identity at times. I had a similar medical experience in my early 20s and I felt so lost at times in figuring out who I wanted to be. I think Ellie Palmer did an amazing job of combining the swoony romance with moments of guilt and grief.

I definitely felt like this this was a FANTASTIC debut for Ellie as her voice as an author was so consistent, clear, but also unique. It didn't read as a debut in any sort of way. It makes me really excited to see what she comes out with next as she is an author I'll be keeping an eye on!

Four Weekends and a Funeral comes out on August 6th, so mark your calendars and make sure to pick it up then!

Four Weekend and a Funeral by Ellie Palmer was a funny and entertaining read. I rarely laugh out loud when I read rom-coms but I actually giggled out loud at several points in this book. It's funny! I really appreciated that. Overall, it was a solid and well-written romance book and I can't wait to see what else Ellie Palmer writes. The characters were flushed out and felt very real. The side characters were just as entertaining, as well. I think there's a wide range of readers who will really enjoy this book and I cannot wait to recommend it to them.

thank you netgalley for the e-arc. omggggg i loved this! for a debut author; the writing itself, the fully realized and executed plot, delightful and thought out characters. i loved alison and how much of a full person she was. she wasn't just cancer, or just her job, or the guy she's dating. i also liked adam a lot, he was a conflicted person who thought things through rationally. when alison and adam had their fight after the cookie party, they talked it out instead of a typical third act breakup.

A rom com of an unexpected connection. Sam dumped Alison and then he died in an accident without telling anyone but his sister that he'd done it so when she goes to her funeral, she's embraced by his mother as his girlfriend and talked into clearing out his apartment with his best friend Adam. What a terrific character she is- a woman dealing with BRCA1 who loves trains and works as a transportation consultant. And she's got good friends in Maya and Chelsea. Adam well he's a Nordic carpenter who Ali jokes would make the perfect Hallmark hero. And as they work through the apartment, they find themselves coming together in more ways than one. Every time you think this is trope-y (and it is), there's a sweet or saucy surprise that makes you realize that Palmer is toying with the genre and bringing real heart to it. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. It's a terrific read.

4⭐
Genre ~ contemporary romance
Setting ~ Minnesota
Publication date ~ August 6, 2024
Publisher ~ G.P. Putnam's Sons
Est Page Count ~ 368 (29 chapters +e)
Audio length ~ 9 hours 40 minutes
Narrator ~ Karissa Vacker
POV ~ single 1st, present tense
Featuring ~ debut, dead friend, grumpy/sunshine, slow burn, no steamage

I was drawn to reading this book due to the fact that the main character carries the BRCA 1 mutation. I, like, our main character, Alison, and the author, Ellie, am a carrier, too. (See below for some BRCA facts I've added.)

Alison (30) & Adam team up to clear out their dead friend, Sam’s, house in order to take the burden off of his parents. Speaking of his parents, they think Alison was still Sam’s girlfriend when he died, but it turns out they have been broken up for weeks. She goes along with the ruse for quite a while to spare his mother’s feelings.

Being someone who understands all that Alison feels regarding her carrying the BRCA gene I felt that was well written and relatable. Her mother's character is relatable to me too since I have a daughter that could very well be positive, too. I don't think I'll be as overboard as she was, but time will tell how I'll react. It definitely gives you a new perspective on life when you get those positive results. She's already had a double mastectomy and is contemplating the removal of her fallopian tubes, ovaries and uterus. I can’t say I was fully on board with what she thought she was expected to do with her life, but to each their own. While it does a good job of bringing awareness it’s not going to be fully relatable to all readers with its heavier topic since it takes up more of the book then the actual romance portion.

I do like a good grump and Adam fits the bill in that department. He does take a little bit to warm up to, but once you do he’s like a big teddy bear that wears flannel and can’t get enough coffee. With that said, though, I didn’t fully feel their connection honestly. Maybe since it was a super slow burner.

Alison's friends were great side characters to help keep her in check, even if she didn’t want to listen to their advice. I love the trivia competitions they went to. They really take their trivia seriously and it was fun to read.

Overall, I really enjoyed the good banter in this debut. I look forward to reading more from Ellie in the future.

Narration notes:
I did not listen to this one, but am just giving the info above for reference.

*************************************************************
I always like to provide some information on this topic when the opportunity presents itself.

I had a preventative double mastectomy, an oophorectomy and had my uterus, cervix and fallopian tubes removed back in 2019 in order to reduce my cancer risks significantly (a full guarantee of never getting cancer is not possible).

BRCA1 vs BRCA2
Both mutations increase the risk of ovarian cancer, as well as pancreatic cancer. A BRCA1 mutation can also increase the risk of cervical, uterine, and colon cancer, while BRCA2 can increase the likelihood of stomach, gallbladder, and bile duct cancer, plus melanoma.

For example, about 50 out of 100 women with a BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation will get breast cancer by the time they turn 70 years old, compared to a probability of about 12% for the general population. In the general population, about 0.2–0.3% of people, or roughly 1 in 400, have a faulty BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene. However, the prevalence of BRCA gene mutations varies by ethnic group. For example, about 2% of people of Ashkenazi Jewish descent have a harmful variant in one of these genes, and among Ashkenazi Jewish women and men, about 1 in 40 have a BRCA1/2 gene mutation.

There are presently no reliable diagnostic test for ovarian cancer. The two tests available are the CA-125 blood test, which detects a marker in the blood, raised levels of which are associated with ovarian cancer; and trans-vaginal ultrasound, which uses sound waves to build up a picture of the ovaries, including any suspicious lumps ~ are not reliable, they detect only a minority of cancers.

If you remove the ovaries of a woman with a BRCA1 mutation early enough, you can almost halve the risk of her developing breast cancer.

For women with a mutation, the evidence suggests that MRI scanning combined with mammograms can be over 80% reliable. That is, it detects cancers in 80% of cases, while mammograms alone detect only 23% of tumors.

The gene was discovered around 2000.

Heat Factor: Closed door
Character Chemistry: They are both lustful and very frustrated with each other’s choices
Plot: Alison for some reason agrees to clean out her dead ex-boyfriend’s apartment with said dead ex-boyfriend’s best friend
Overall: Urgh

This is exactly the kind of contemporary romance that I find exceptionally irritating, at the precise level where I also feel the need to finish the book. (And then feel annoyed about it.) I have not figured out how to properly screen these books out of my reading life, because my irritation is based not on trope or anything that can be easily recognized by reading blurbs. Rather, it’s based on vibes.

Here’s what we’ve got:
- A single POV story, heroine’s perspective
- Heroine, for handwavy reasons, agrees to do something stupid, which puts her into an artificial forced proximity with the hero
- Heroine is going through some stuff
- Heroine is meant to be relatable, but I just want to tell her to stop

I think the last one is the crux of my problem: the heroine is meant to be relatable, as if I were talking to a friend. And I get pulled in just enough where there’s some emotional proximity, but I do not actually have the bandwidth to deal with her self-destructive bullshit. I spent many hours in my 20s and 30s on the phone with my actual real life friends, helping them process their stuff, and I do not want that in my romance novels.

(Sidenote: Of course many many romance novels include characters who are going through some stuff, and I as the reader am watching them process. But I want to be a voyeur, not a vicarious participant.)

Actually, the other crux of the problem is that the stuff the heroine is going through is extremely obvious. If I am acutely aware, from the get-go, the ways in which the heroine is lying to herself / up in her bullshit, then watching her do the same thing over and over again for three hundred pages is draining. The author is not using subtle cues to point the reader toward the heroine’s journey. I want breadcrumbs to lead me on my path, not a neon arrow.

In this case, Alison is convinced that she must become the best version of herself, and that in order to do so, she must become a hiker. It is made clear to the reader, from the very first chapter, that she does not enjoy hiking. So when she spends the entirety of the book insisting that she’s going to go backpacking in Patagonia on a trip planned by her dead ex-boyfriend, and when her continued insistence on highlighting her outdoorsy stuff is a central source of conflict with everyone else…well, it was a lot. That’s enough, Alison.

Honestly, this story would have been better as a dual-POV story, because Adam is processing a lot of complex emotions about his relationship with dead ex-boyfriend (aka his best friend), which just gets info dumped on the reader during a fight scene / the black moment. The slow burn is neither slow nor subtle enough that Adam’s feelings for Alison are a mystery, so the potential for “what is he feeling??” angst isn’t there. Plus, getting into Adam’s head would give the reader a break from Alison.

Since reviews are meant to be for readers and not just for me to process my feelings, here are a few notes for readers:
- Alison has the BRCA breast cancer gene, so she had a preventative double mastectomy (hence her desire for self-improvement). There’s a lot of talk about her relationship to her new breasts as well as potential preventative medical interventions for ovarian cancer.
- Apparently the only thing Alison and her friends do together is play competitive bar trivia. Don’t get me wrong, trivia night is fun, but this is very intense.
- Alison loves trains, but is ashamed of having such a nerdy interest. Getting over this is part of her journey.
- Alison also really loves Christmas. She is one of those monsters who starts playing Christmas music on November 1.
- Adam is a hot carpenter who lives in Duluth. Obviously, there are many Hallmark Movie Christmas Special jokes to be made here.
- Alison and I cannot be friends because she’s all about Harrison Ford in Sabrina, when it is OBVIOUS that the only acceptable version of Sabrina is the one with Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn (evidence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB2ckiy_qlQ). Therefore, even if I were into this kind of book, I could not shepherd her through her crisis.

I voluntarily read and reviewed a complimentary copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. We disclose this in accordance with 16 CFR §255.

This review is also available at The Smut Report.

Ellie Palmer’s banter is H-O-T-T-O-G-O 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

I’m so proud of Ellie and her debut! I had so much fun noting all the Minnesota/midwest mentions and adored Allison and her friend group (I identify too much with competitive trivia diehard, Mara).

The depth of this book caught me off guard a bit. Allison and Adam deal with the grief of losing a friend and the guilt that accompanies their attraction. Allison also suffers from survivor’s guilt of “beating” cancer after her BRCA1 diagnosis. She struggles with what to do with her new lease on life and how to manage the existing and new relationships in her life.

CW/TW: cancer, death of a friend, car accident, grief, infertility, panic attack

Great first novel. I liked the storyline as it was one I had not read before. I like the family dynamics, looking after oneself, and not being satisfied with one's normal life.

Wow! Four Weekends and a Funeral has everything I could ask for in a novel! If you're a fan of the Grumpy x Sunshine trope, you're in for a treat because the MMC plays his grumpy role to perfection. At first, his grumpiness was a bit frustrating, which just goes to show how fantastic a writer Ellie Palmer is. The slow burn romance between the FMC and MMC is paced just right, keeping you eagerly turning the pages.

The self-discovery aspect of the novel is spot on. I found myself highlighting passages that resonated deeply with me and applying those insights to my own life. The FMC's discussion of having the BRCA 1 gene provided a perspective that sheds light on an important topic and could be relatable to many readers. The moments of friendship, both fun and challenging, add a rich layer to the story.

As someone born and raised in Minnesota, I loved being able to visualize all the familiar places mentioned in the book—Duluth in the fall is absolutely stunning, Union Depot, savoring a Juicy Lucy, and the unique delight of Spotted Cow beer (only available in Wisconsin!).

Although I'm a mood reader and thought this book would be perfect for fall/winter, I read it in July and was completely captivated. It even made me eager for the fall season to arrive! Fall in the Midwest is truly the best.

Ellie Palmer, thank you for a beautifully written debut novel! I can't wait to read more of your work.

I loved this book - not too cringey but still felt mushy in all the best ways. Wished there was more of the side characters I think that could have furthered the whole story.