🌲 Caleb and Sarah 🌲

Thank you to NetGalley and penguin random house for letting me read a copy of OOTW early.

This book hit so close to home for me. I related to Sarah and her messy brain more than I would like to say. This book was sweet, giggly and heartwarming. BRB while I go reread chapter 14 over and over again. Thank you HBY for ripping my heart out, destroying it, SOMEHOW fixing it then putting it back. That was an emotional journey for me and I think everyone should go on that journey too!

I think the story could have had more depth, maybe more insight on the marriage and their “issues” or a display of Caleb coming to Sarah’s rescue more often. I loved the flashbacks, it made my reading experience soooo much more emotional. Also, I love that Win and Bo still got to be apart of the story too! I really thought HBY was going to do us dirty at the end and I was just as scared as Sarah the whole time.

This was a really emotional book for me, in the best ways. But I had to pause it at times. I wish I had my own Caleb 🩷

High school sweethearts, Sarah and Caleb, are in need of reigniting their spark and seek a nature counsel session. The friendships found throughout were beautiful, as well as the growth shown from each Sarah and Caleb. And I absolutely love when books are connected- so seeing Win, Bo, and August from Out on a Limb, was such a treat. I love the different relationship dynamics with all of them.

Sarah and Caleb were high school sweethearts and have been married for 17 years. Their relationship is starting to fray on the edges a little bit, worrying Sarah. When her best friend, Win, suggests the couple goes on an outdoor couples counseling trip they decide to go. Fighting with the woods along the way, the two of them meet new friends and rekindle the relationship they know and love.
I knew I was going to love this book, I mean Hannah Bonam Young just has the ability to write an amazing book, especially in a trope I’m usually not a fan of. I still don’t understand how I love Out on a Limb so much, but that’s a discussion for another time. I loved the time skips, the friendships, the conversations, the late night tent talks, all of it. I can guarantee that I will be rereading when my preorder copy comes in the mail. Because I absolutely did not expect to get my hands on an ARC… honestly this is probably the most excited I’ve been for an ARC.
Thank you so much to NetGalley and Dell Publishing for an eARC of this book!

Sarah and Caleb are high school sweethearts who have always been steady. Always been there for each other through the good and the bad, grief, accomplishments, and everything else along the way in their 17 years together. But now, Sarah is questioning whether she knows herself without him. Everything she's ever done...Caleb has been there to pick her up and fix everything. She decides to throw a charity gala to honor her late mother and to prove to herself and her peers that she can do big things on her own. She has a purpose. The event fails, and it's Caleb to the rescue...again. This brings up all of their issues, and doubt begins to come into view about their relationship. Are they still the same people there were when they got married? Are they still meant to be? To fix the relationship they decide to go on a wilderness-therapy retreat. They both want to be together and be right for each other and be able to be there for each other properly. This is a hilarious choice for two people were are not outdoorsy. Along with fighting for their marriage, they'll be fighting nature.

As someone who married their high school sweetheart, and has been married 14 years, I knew this book was going to massively break me. What I didn't realize is that Hannah's intro would already have me crying! "...to all of us who met their soulmates before they had a chance to fully meet themselves." I died right then.

Out on a Limb was my top book of last year, so I was very excited to dive back into that world of characters. We first meet Sarah and Caleb in OOAL, as Win and Bo's best friends. Sarah and Caleb throw a Halloween party each year and that is where the epic event of Win and Bo takes place. So, we have gotten to know these characters a little bit before hand. I love Sarah. Her chaotic energy and brain are so funny. She is truly all over the place. She can be a little rough, but she is such a lover and a softy for those she chooses. Then we have Caleb and his calm and sturdiness, he's such a care taker. They compliment each other so well. Caleb is her safe place. Their views of their relationship match their personalities perfectly. I loved their chemistry. I was laughing out loud throughout this book...these two in nature was really too good. The steam was definitely steaming. Oh my god THESE TWO had me. Jaws on the floor.

There were so many relatable moments for me between these two. I screamed over Caleb's long showers....That was too real. Also Caleb bringing along her kindle to retreat and Sarah thought that was the sweetest thing he's ever done. Obsessed. It's the little things. Their relationship just felt very honest, real and vulnerable...I really loved that.

Would highly, highly recommend this book...along with all of Hannah's books because they are all so good. You'll have butterflies, you'll cry, you'll swoon, you will laugh...oh my god....you will always laugh. I loved that this book switched from past to present throughout the story. That really added so much depth to the story and characters. Perfect romcom. Always.

Thank you Netgalley for the advanced reading copy! This was a sweet story that I enjoyed by Hannah Bonam-Young. This is the follow up to Out on a Limb, which was one of my favorite reads this year. This story is very different, being a marriage in trouble plot, but it’s based on the best friend of the female main character from Out on a Limb. The love story is from a high school romance of Sarah and Caleb to marriage to hitting a rough spot so they go on a couples retreat in the woods to find each other again. I think that Bonam-Young is a master at inner thoughts and dialogue - she balances sadness and sweetness really well. Though this is four stars, I will say I think this book had too much going on - grief from a parent death of ALS, marriage issues, mental health issues, and issues at the retreat. But overall this was a sweet edition to Bonam-Young’s work and I will continue to read her - she’s a great romance writer. Side note, I have a parent who is dying from ALS right now, and the author did NOT get that experience correct - if any authors are thinking about writing about ALS experiences, please use a sensitivity reader (would be happy to help) or do more research. To be fair, almost every romance I have read does not get this right at all. Overall I recommend this book for fans of Bonam-Young, contemporary marriage in trouble romance, and hiking - they are out in the woods 🙂

I don't usually like to read books about couples whose marriage is in trouble because I don't enjoy the amount of conflict and sadness and I'd much rather read about couples falling in love. But I really wanted to read this book because I absolutely fell in love with Sarah and Caleb (Sarah in particular) in Out on a Limb. And Hannah Bonam-Young absolutely delivered here!

It was never in doubt how much Sarah and Caleb love each other, and I think that made the real difference here. That is, of course, helped along if you connected with them in the previous book. It's not strictly necessary, but I really recommend reading that one first! The conflicts between them were so understandable, and the flashbacks to the beginning of their relationship (a plot device I also usually dislike) only underlined both their love and the issues they were struggling with. I loved their deep and sometimes painful conversations, but Hannah also infused so much joy and humor into the story.

Bonus points for a very strong third act, and also the way Win and Bo were integrated into the story.

Out of the Woods comes out in January 2025, and I highly recommend it! Thank you to Dell and NetGalley for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest feedback.

Loved this! So tender and engaging. Love this author's writing style, and felt like this was a very realistic yet new depiction of long-term relationships and the realities of changing over time.

•Story ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
•Vibe ⛺️⛺️⛺️⛺️⛺️
•Writing ✏️✏️✏️✏️✏️
•Characters 🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼
•Spice 🌶️🌶️

•Description of the book:
Have you ever felt like you just haven’t had a successful-fulfilling life? Like everyone around you is doing great amazing things, and you’re just stuck… Well, Sarah Linwood feels the exact same way. After marrying her high school sweetheart and losing her mother to ALS, Sarah has just been stuck. Stuck in her productivity, her life, her feelings, in heartbreak, in mourning. Even with knowing that she absolutely loves her husband, she feels like an absolute failure and thus believes she isn’t enough and wants out. That is until her bestie, Win, recommends a couples camping/hiking retreat. Here she finds that she isn’t the only one that’s hurting, her husband is too. It’s up to both of them to figure out how to communicate and rekindle their flame before it’s too late.

Notable parts:
•Caleb being by Sarah’s side through the good and the bad times.
•Win & Sarah’s best friendship
•The beautiful relationship between Sarah and her mother
•Paper Airplane notes

•Thoughts:
As a 30 something year old currently facing some tough life trials, this book hit home. I don’t specifically love seeing or hearing that others are “suffering” or going through a midlife crisis, but it was beautiful reading that the bump in the road can always be crossed. That the small problems of today won’t be there tomorrow. That with a little bit of love, understand and patience, we can conquer it all.

Appropriate for who?
Adults, 18+

Would I recommend?
Absolutely yes yes and yes

Would I read the sequel?
If there was one, a million times yes.

Would I read more from this author?
Yes!

This book was so good! The story was so unique and heart felt! Hannah really makes you feel for the characters and it was so well done!

*Thank you to Dell and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review*

I think marriage in crisis may be one of my favorite tropes, especially when you do it like this. There's so much love in Hannah Bonam Young's writing. Caleb and Sarah love each other, but marriage takes work. Between a weeklong hike through the wilderness, a pesky abstinence rule, and all of the pent-up trauma from Sarah's mom dying, there's some real angst to process here. And process it we DO. (Also we get some delightful spicy tent scenes, meow!)

I loved how the focus of this book is on Sarah discovering her identity - who is she apart from a daughter or a wife? I think we've all felt lost at some point in our lives and that really hit home for me. This book is tough love followed by a warm HBY hug and hope for the future. Chef's kiss, utter perfection.

I absolutely adored this book! I loved that it followed a established marriage and was about strengthening love that was already there. Getting to watch Sarah and Caleb’s romance unfold on these pages was an honor. Hannah really captured the fact that even the best relationships falter sometimes and it’s okay for you to reroute your relationship and change together. Also really enjoyed the reappearance of Winnie, Bo and Gus!

I honestly cannot even begin to adequately express how much I loved this book. 𝙊𝙪𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙒𝙤𝙤𝙙𝙨 just spoke to me. I deeply related to the FMC, Sarah, and reading this book felt healing. Absolutely without a doubt one of my favorite reads of the year ♾️⭐️

I was so moved by Caleb + Sarah. They are so wholly and completely in love with one another and committed to making their marriage work, even if that means acknowledging hard truths. They showed tremendous strength by truly putting in the work to communicate and heal. This book was inspiring and really focuses on the realities of marriage.

𝙊𝙪𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙒𝙤𝙤𝙙𝙨 also deals with grief and loss. I was not prepared for the emotions I would feel. I was full on sobbing at one point. It’s beautifully done. This book seriously deserves all the stars. Please, please, please read this wonderful book!

ᴛʀᴏᴘᴇꜱ:
💘 Highschool Sweethearts
🫶🏼 Self Discovery (within marriage)
💍 Marriage in Trouble
🧁 Cinnamon Roll MMC
⏰ Now and Then Timeline

Thank you Hannah Bonam-Young, Random House Publishing, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of 𝙊𝙪𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙒𝙤𝙤𝙙𝙨.

“𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝚍𝚘𝚗'𝚝 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚋𝚎 𝚊𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚍. 𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝚍𝚘𝚗'𝚝 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚋𝚎 𝚎𝚡𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚘𝚛𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚊𝚛𝚢. 𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝚍𝚘𝚗'𝚝 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚍𝚘 𝚊𝚗𝚢𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐. 𝚃𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎'𝚜 𝚗𝚘 𝚜𝚑𝚊𝚖𝚎 𝚒𝚗 𝚕𝚒𝚟𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊 𝚌𝚊𝚛𝚎𝚏𝚛𝚎𝚎 𝚎𝚡𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎."

Hannah Bonam-Young is my favorite author, and this book was another 5-star read for me. This book follows Sarah and Caleb as they navigate their relationship. I love how real this book was and how vulnerable the characters were. As with all of Hannah's books, the characters seemed so real and authentic. I loved the updates about Bo and Win (from Out on a Limb) and seeing Sarah and Win's friendship continue to grow! Also, the flashbacks adding something really special to this book. I highly recommend this book, as well as all of Hannah's books! Thank you Random House Publishing Group- Ballantine for this ARC!

5 stars. No notes.

But actually this was the perfect book for me and was such a sweet Romance. Hannah is an auto-buy author, but for a good reason. It’s a fantastic read and if you’re a romance reader then you should preorder this ASAP!

Thank you Penguin House/Dell Romance for the eARC through NetGalley!

I’m thrilled that dell decided to bless me with an arc because I have been absolutely obsessed with reading this book since hby announced it. I mean a companion novel/sequel to out on a limb? Consider me sold.

Synopsis: Sarah and Caleb are high school sweethearts. They’ve been through everything together since they were 14 including the heartbreaking death of Sarah’s mom. But after nearly two decades together, Sarah is starting to question who she is without her other half. (Cue tears y’all) Sarah and Caleb spontaneously end up on grueling trip in the woods designed to help couple through rough patches. Can they come out on the other side stronger?

Let’s just get this out of the way: I ate up the Bo/Win cameos. Every time they graced the scene my heart fluttered.

Okay back to Cay/Sar! This is dual timeline, so we got snippets of their past as they grew into a couple in addition to the present day storyline on the hiking trip. I’m a dual timeline hater so I didn’t love this but that’s a me thing. The writing was lovely so take that critique with a grain of salt.

HBY really helped us understand Sarah’s feelings in a way that felt real and relatable. The couple stuff almost felt too real at times, it hurt my heart!! I think I learned while reading OOTW that marriage in crisis hits too close to home.

Caleb Linwood - you are a sweetheart. Through and through. He’s not immune to having faults but he is good at heart. He was so in love with Sarah he would do anything for her.

All in all, it was such a solid book. I decide on 4 stars because it was a bit slow in the beginning and I felt a littttttle bored from time to time. Thank you to dell for the advanced copy!!!

”if you give me the space to grow, i’ll plant myself next to you. always.” ₊ ⊹

my thoughts┊this was beautiful! this little duology from hannah bonam-young is probably one of my all time favorites; the stories are so fun, the plots are always interesting, and the characters are flawed and complex and always make me fall for them!

i think this book solidifies the fact that the marriage in crisis trope is my favorite. i always thought it was second chance romance, but i feel like marriage in crisis has all the same components of second chance, but the characters stay in the relationship and are desperate to make it work, not walk away. there’s no other people or distance or anything, they’re committed to each other. yuuuup. i’ll eat it up every time.

i found myself relating to sarah’s character so much, i way more than i was anticipating. she has a few years on me, but i found her struggles mirrored mine and i really admired the way she pushed to resolve her issues. and caleb, ugh. he was such a sweet and genuine character; their relationship was honest and loving and not without its faults, but they both wanted to fix things and put in the work and there is nothing hotter!!!

i loved every bit of this. i simply cannot wait for this to be published, so that i can snag up a physical copy asap and reread it! i’ll be thinking about this one for a long time <3

I think this could be HBY best work to date, and I can’t believe I’m saying that considering how much I love Win and Bo.

Out of the Woods had a trope that I do not normally gravitate towards, marriage in trouble. I much prefer a happy ending. Have no fear, Caleb and Sarah very much live happily ever after… but not without putting in the hard work.

While on an outdoorsy couples retreat Caleb and Sarah realize more than ever how much they need each other, just not in the ways they knew. All Sarah ever wanted was to be the herself. She didn't need Caleb to be Clark Kent all the time (spoiler already: he still is but in the right place at the right time). Sarah needed to discover herself by reliving her past and present to really truly find the future of her marriage. Caleb was always the answer even if it took some blood, sweat, and tears to get there.

Hannah Bonam-Young really loves to tear my heart out with each book. I was so excited for Caleb and Sarah’s story and also so nervous - marriage in trouble is hard! But like with anything Hannah does, their book was raw and delicate and full of longing. The way Hannah manages to take ordinary characters and make them feel larger than life is so beautiful. There’s magic in the day to day and Hannah brings that to life like no other.

Full review will come closer to pub in January, but Caleb and Sarah gave me so much joy and hope. They grow together and apart, they ebb and flow and through it all have an undercurrent of love and respect that’s so critically THEM. Being married is hard. Being married as a young couple and then having to grow together is REALLY hard. My heart hurt in the best way watching them fumble and figure out their way to the new versions of themselves.

It also made me want to go camping. And I don’t camp.

Expect to laugh and cry quite a bit on this one. Beautiful written. This read tackles topics some may find difficult including loss of a parent, navigating grief, and marital conflict.

eARC via Netgalley.

I loved Sarah and Caleb in Out on a Limb, and I’m so glad we got to experience their story from the beginning. This book made me FEEL, and after finishing it, I immediately gave it 5 stars!