The Ex Vows was one of my most anticipated reads after Jessica released her debut, You, with a view -last year. The Ex Vows is a masterpiece, to say it lightly. This book gripped me from the very beginning and left me feeling like someone squeezed my heart and then gave it a hug. This is second chance romance at its absolute BEST! Georgia and Eli have a history that jumps off the pages and makes you feel like you've been witnessing their love alongside them.
The story was unique, as the two are working to remedy their childhood bestfriends wedding together. I loved how she seamlessly included bits & pieces of their past, making you yearn for their endgame even more! I was able to connect with Georgia and Eli in many ways, both are strong & complex characters whose own issues are being healed.
This book is VERY pro therapy and it was wonderful to witness, as both characters go to therapy to heal after trauma.
Georgia's character was immediately very hard hitting for me, Jessica did a phenomenal job with how she portrayed someone with childhood trauma that impacts her every day life. I love how this book takes two people who are so wholeheartedly right for each other but needed to grow a bit in order to make it work again. Chapter 34-35 | was sobbing the whole time, at two AM!
I highly recommend this book to everyone, it's a romance book that has the undertones of how scary change & growing up is. I LOVE THIS BOOK. It will never leave my head. Especially the paper rings and little detalls, my gosh Also, the spice... was SO GOOD, it was intimate and included the perfect amount.

Jessica Joyce wows us all again in her sophomore novel 'The Ex Vows'. This book is so incredibly real and raw that it hits home. A beautiful depiction of what it means to fall in love.

tldr, i love them i love them i love them!!!

i have a new entrant to my ‘favorite books of all time’ tier!

this is a second chance romance, following georgia and eli, who broke up 5 years ago, and are now forced back together for their mutual best friend’s wedding. with this setup, you get the traditional humorous beats of a romcom, where they have to work together to fix the various things going wrong with the wedding itself, but it is mixed with this sweeping love story that just feels like soulmate love. what i particularly love about this book’s use of the second chance romance trope is that you don’t have to wait for long to find out what went wrong, which really opens up the story to the reader, because you are welcomed into that journey with them, knowing what it is that they need to work on together to get back on track.

i also really connected to georgia as a character, and i suspect others in their late twenties/early thirties might relate. she has complicated feelings about change, and having her friends be in different life stages than her. she pushes her needs to the background in favor of keeping the peace, she’s a list girl and i just truly get her on many levels. and within the story, you get glimpses into what shaped georgia and eli into the people they are now, and how those formative experiences trickled into their relationship dynamics too.

on the romance front, this has that trademark jessica joyce angst and tension, but it's also that type of romance where, they're aware where the other person is in a room, they just inherently understand what it is that the other needs, and specifically when it comes to their second chance, there is still that sense of knowing each other, but with the added benefit of getting to rediscover each other in a whole new way. plus there is truly the most romantic gesture ever in here, so much so that i’ve re-read that scene with each friend that has read the book, so!

Miss Jessica Joyce has done it again!! Jessica has this incredible ability to make her characters feel like real people. So many characters in contemporary romance are written to be idealized, almost cookie-cutter/perfect. But Jessica's characters feel like real people that I know in my own life. It's that special spark I notice in all of my favorite books. The Ex Vows is no exception! <3

This was a fun and emotional roller coaster of a ride! It's got friends to lovers, second chance relationship and a beautiful Napa wedding! You can tell the author is from the Bay Area because it had all the Bay Area vibes and diverse cast of characters as well. I was rooting for Georgia and Eli and loved their group of friends. There were some definite laugh out loud moments and I'm not a laugh out loud kind of reader but I sure did while reading this one. It's also great on audio. I'd say the middle felt a little long and kinda dragged but I'm glad I stuck with it because once the day of the wedding hit, it was fun chaos!

Thank you Netgalley and Berkley for the free e-book. My opinions are being left voluntarily. Is this my new favorite Jessica Joyce well yes I do think it is I love her writing the emotions the steam just top tier writing.

Definitely recommend this to romance lovers

5/5☆

this was my first ever jessica joyce book and it definitely wasn't what i expected it to be!

ever since all my friends started raving about you with a view, i knew i needed to check out jessica joyces work. thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the eARC, which i appreciate so much!!

i will say, it didn't love it, but that is a fault of my own. i am not at all a fan of second chance romance. i might even go so far as to say i hate it. there are very few second chance romances i've enjoyed and this is not one of them. and i weirdly also don't really like romance books that take place at weddings?? (oddly specific and for a reason !!). despite that, i did like other aspects of the book.

georgia and eli are amazingly written characters! they are just so achingly real and beautifully raw.. reading about them hurt but also healed. their development with not only how they grew individually, but also how THEIR relationship grew was incredible to read.

i loved reading the romance despite the second-chance-ness of it all. i can't deny the incredible longing they had for each other which was written amazingly by the way! i loved her writing, it's literally just the trope that does it for me. i loved so many other things besides the romance as well, and let me just warn you that this book is heartwarming but also heartbreaking. reading this was heartfelt, touching, inspiring, and nearly brought me to tears at times.

although i can appreciate the second chance romance- which i'm sure anybody else but me would love- it just wasn't the book for me. i did however love the more emotional side to the story, aside from the romance itself which was still sweet and beautiful.

not for me, but definitely could be for you!!

three and a half stars from me!

This book took me by surprise and if you only read it for the paper rings reference, it'll be worth it! A love story told through memories, and a second chance brought on by forced proximity, this was so much more than I was expecting and I'll definitely be reading it again. The audiobook is so good and brings the extra depth to each character, making them burrow into the heart of the reader.

I wouldn’t say second chance/get back with your ex tropes are normally something I’m drawn to in books. But I saw how many people really enjoyed this one and how much they love Jessica, and I couldn’t resist giving it a shot. FOMO!

I did thoroughly enjoy it and finished in only a few days. I loved the whole forced to work together x compete to save their best friend’s wedding and realize they’re actually still in love theme. It was very creative and entertaining. The characters were likable and relatable and you couldn’t help but cheer for them and an HEA. They also had real, complex issues and baggage they came with, which made me like the characters and story even more, because it was so realistic and in real life and romantic relationships, we deal with these things. It’s not all rainbows and butterflies always. I’m also obsessed with the fact the MMC loves puzzles because guess what I was doing when I started this audiobook having NO idea?!? Eli is my spirit animal obvi.

Overall, an easy, well written, and heartwarming read with a beautifully executed second chance story. I’d say it’s an above average romance book in my opinion and a great palette cleanser. Glad I read it!

Thanks so much to Jessica, Berkley and NetGalley for the e-galley!

This was another great romance from Jessica Joyce, who is quickly becoming an auto-buy author! Estranged exes Georgia and Eli must work together to save their best friend's cursed wedding in just one week at a vineyard that holds a lot of memories for the pair. This is a sweet and spicy second chance romance with a great friend-family group of characters.

OMG, the PAPER RINGS.

That's it. That's the review.

(Just kidding. BUT IT COULD BE, BECAUSE OMG, THE PAPER RINGS.)

The Ex Vows made me an absolute sloppy mess. (Apparently, this is a Pisces trait, or so this book has informed me?) There was an awful lot of snort laughing at the beginning, which shifted into not a little aggravation around the middle (we only get Georgia's POV and it's obvious that there's a lot going on with Eli that she's too afraid to ask him about and instead is filling in the blanks herself--for a while there I was terrified that this was going to turn into Happy Place part 2, but thankfully it didn't).

The day of Adam and Grace's wedding was a train wreck I couldn't look away from, but it had me sobbing and laughing (and laugh-sobbing) before it was over and then the last 25% of the book? I don't even have words. All the feels. So. Many. Feels. Thank goodness I'd already taken off my makeup for the day ;)

I've always been a second chance romance can *maybe* work, if given the right circumstances kind of girl, and good golly are THESE the right circumstances.

Rating: 4 1/2 stars / A

I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.

A steamy second chance romance about estranged exes who must work together to pull of their mutual best friend’s wedding after a string of misfortunes puts the big day in peril

I LOVED Eli and Georgia. The Ex Vows was sweet, sexy and everything you could want in a second chance romance. Eli and Georgia gave me all the feels. Their chemistry and connection was amazing. Best friends turned lovers, turned exes with all the feelings still brewing, despite trying to hide it from each other.

It was evident that Eli came to the wedding celebrations ready to win Georgia back and I was so there for it. This book touched on relationships, friendships, mental health and therapy in a way that was both endearing and moving. I loved how they both grew, apart from each other, so that when they reunited they were able to be stronger together.

Such an easy 5 stars!! Beautiful, perfect, amazing. What a freaking gift of a book. This might be the best second chance romance I’ve ever read. Georgia and Eli deserve the world. Ugh, I love Jessica Joyce’s writing so much.

Wow, this is going to end up being one of my top romance reads in 2024… The setting, the wedding bad luck, the tension, the paper rings... This second chance romance was perfect.

I loved it even more than 𝗬𝗼𝘂, 𝗪𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗔 𝗩𝗶𝗲𝘄 and that is saying a lot. Jessica Joyce, you are an auto-buy author in my book!

Thank you to @netgalley @berkleyromance for the advance e-copy!

I don't even know where to begin with this review because I read this book months ago, and while I still think about it and how it made me feel, I believe I've blocked it from my memory because of how gut-wrenching it was.

When I read *The Ex Vows*, I felt like my heart was shattered into a million pieces, only to be put back together in the end. That's exactly how Jessica Joyce’s book made me feel, and I absolutely love that. Eli and Georgia's (or Peach’s) connection was sexy and full of banter, with so much tension 😌. I loved every single aspect of the plot; the character development was top-notch. This is one hell of a second-chance romance novel that everyone should read!

In case you haven’t heard about this book—which I doubt—it’s about Eli and Georgia, estranged exes who are brought back together when their best friend is getting married. They are forced to save a doomed wedding after a series of disastrous events. To do so, they come together for their friend, following a set of rules made by Georgia, to peacefully help fix things. In the process, they are forced to confront the circumstances of their past.

If Jessica writes it, I am gonna read it and I will cry about it. This was phenomenal and a perfect second chance romance.

i FLEW through this which is impressive for me cause I never really binge read books. That being said, I don’t remember a single thing. I remember loving the characters and the anxiety rep. LOVED the second chance romance, but nothing really stood out to me to set it apart from a lot of the other romance novels I love

Did this just become my new favorite contemporary romance??

I absolutely adored the journey of these two characters finding each other, losing each other, and then finding their way back. Felt so real and genuine - almost like it happened to a friend of mine instead of a fictional character.

Found myself getting choked up multiple times by just how sweet this story is. Highly recommend for fans of second chance romance - this book absolutely nails everything good about romance.

There are some books that remind me of why I love reading romance. This is one of them. I am a huge fan of second chance romances however, I do think that they are not always written in a way that has me rooting for the characters to get back together. This is a perfect example of one that is done perfectly.

Eli and Georgia broke up five years ago and are reunited as their best friends are getting married. After several things go wrong with the wedding, they are tasked with helping their friends get things done last minute. It is a slow dance between the characters as they tip toe around their feelings and the intense chemistry they have for the other. It was the perfect balance of glimpses of them in the past and moments in the present that made me feel their connection and understand why the time apart was necessary for both of them. I could feel the growth of Eli's character even though he does not have POV chapters, which shows how talented the author is. I wouldn't say this was a particularly angsty romance, but it definitely had moments of angst and longing. There were times that my heart was in my stomach. And the tension?? HOT.

I was invested from the first page and was shocked when I realized the book was almost over. One of my favorite reads of the year.

This was absolutely amazing! Definitely one of my favourite romance reads of the year so far. There was so much chemistry and tension between Eli and Georgia througout the entire book, and I loved it so much. Jessica Joyce is such an amazing new romance author, and I can't wait to see what she writes next!! :)