This was a story about learning to live again after loss.

I really enjoyed this book. Miles was such an amazing lead, I could really see how much he cared for the people in his life. Lenny was a quirky and loving main character. I could feel her grief and worry about being able to live even though her other half had died. It was refreshing to see a story where it really did feel okay to move on from such a devastating loss. At first, Lenny seemed weary about moving on, but she got a sign from Lou that it was okay.

Me and my friends do a monthly book club, and I chose Promise Me Sunshine as our March pick and it was a total success. We met for book club night and it turns out a night with the girlies discussing this amazingly tender beautiful book was just what we all needed ✨

Promise Me Sunshine has been my favorite book club pick so far! I loved it so much, it has a little bit of everything, I laughed, I cried, I swooned and it made me appreciate my time with my best friends even more 💕 From now on, I will read anything and everything that @carabastone writes!

Thank you @prhaudio for the audiobook, Alex Finke @finkeboutit is an incredible narrator. And thank you @thedialpress for putting this one on my radar at the floral event! 💐

All the feelings 😭

This book made me feel how I felt when I read Looking For Alaska for the first time 15+ years ago.

So much grief. So much love. Done in such a delicate, tender, humorous way that now I'm crying again thinking about it.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

If you are looking for a book to break you apart and then put you back together - this is it!

TRIGGER WARNING: Grief

I don’t know that I can put into words all of the things this book made me feel. I cannot imagine having to deal with the loss of a best friend like Lenny did with Lou. My heart truly ached for our FMC trying to continue on in life without the comfort of the one person she had always had by her side.

The MMC Miles can only be described as a prince! This man was the best example of support after loss. The way he worked with Lenny step by step to heal her spirit was beautiful. Move over to all of your previous book boyfriends because this man deserves to be #1!

Next I will be going through all of Cara Bastone’s previous works! 🤩

Thank you NetGalley & Random House for gifting me an advanced reading copy of this book! Best ARC I’ve had the pleasure to read yet!

Cara Bastone excels at writing deeply down-to-earth romances where the stakes feel high but never melodramatic. Her latest is a masterpiece exploration of grief through which the romantic plot is part of the FMC’s healing journey but avoids suggesting she needed a man to come along to fix her. Miles is so perfect for Lenny because he’s been where she has - the survivors guilt, the disorientation, the inability to be able to grasp how to exist in the world without the one you love. And while the plot is undeniably focused on Lenny mourning the loss of her best friend, we also get such a lovely exploration of Miles’ relationship with his sister and niece. You just want to wrap yourself up in this one and have a good cry.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House/Dial Press for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

We meet our main character Lenny, who is grappling with the lost of her best friend. She feels as though she is just existing and isn't truly living. She decides to take a babysitting job for a single mother where she meets the moms brother Miles. Miles sees Lenny in a way that no one else did and he offers to help her fully live again as long as she can help him navigate his relationship with his niece. Cara Bastone does an incredible job of writing the characters and their development in a way that makes you feel like you are there with them. This story involves themes of grief, seeing the good in the hardest moments of life, and seeing others deeply.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for review

TY to Net Galley and Random House for the ARC. While I didn't love this story and characters as much as the author's previous book Ready or Not, I still loved this one. The male MC should be goals for anyone! Heavy emphasis on grief.

Overall good read.
Loved Miles character.
Lenny's development & growth was written well
I did not feel Lenny's grief however, and for me there was a disconnect on who her best friend was despite loving a random band and having cancer. I wanted to see more of their relationship, so perhaps more flashbacks would have improved the story for me.

Slow burn romance-which really worked for most of the book (I love a slow burn) but towards the end it felt dragged out.

I had really high expectations for this book after loving Bastone’s Ready or Not, and Promise Me Sunshine did not disappoint. What an achingly beautiful exploration of grief, friendship and love. The romance was so well integrated into the heavier themes. I absolutely loved it and did not want it to end (an epilogue would have been great!).

Lenny has recently lost her best friend to cancer and she's trying to learn to live without her wrapped in grief. She agrees to accept a weekend nanny job to hold her over while she tries to figure out how to move on with her life. When she meets young Ainsley, she's ready to spend the weekend with the free-spirit, lively child and did not realize she'd be doing this job while Ainsley's grumpy uncle Miles watches her every move. But it turns out that Miles has too lost loved ones and knows a little about the grieving process, while knowing absolutely nothing about how to interact with his young niece and her mother, his half-sister. So Lenny and Miles strike a deal - she'll teach him how to connect with Ainsley and he'll teach her how to live with the loss of a loved one.

I loved this book. I went in expecting a fun romance and while it is a romance, it's also a touching story about love, loss, and grief. Lenny's grief was almost palpable, and her storyline is both heartwarming and heartbreaking, with a side of humor. This book made me laugh and cry. Lenny is relatable, silly, and smart. Miles is a grumpy cinnamon roll. The book is a ten.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group – Dial Press Trade Paperback for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

One thing I loved about this book is how the MMC looked at love. At one point he talks about how true/real love is something that grows and evolves with the couple. It made me really think about my relationship with my husband and how much we have evolved as we have grown older. Many times romances are about the intense love and the heat. I loved how this was the small things that made a relationship.

I loved Miles. He generally cares and he always makes sure to make sure those around him are ok. The way he showed he cares didn't always look like that to those around him. It is always the small things that they do that I love.

This book is also very raw when it comes to grief and everything that Lenny is going through after losing her best friend. The writing in this book you could feel what she was feeling. Seeing how grief has impacted her so much and the amount of struggle she is trying to overcome. The babysitter's job she got came at exactly the right moment she needed it.

This is a beautifully written book about grief, life, and love.

I fell in love with Bastone’s writing last year after reading Ready or Not, and this next read certainly didn’t disappoint. Highlights heavier topics than most contemporary romances, but that was definitely part of the reason why I enjoyed it so much - it allowed the story to feel truly human. Though the plot is centered around a mostly heavy subject, the story is still full of entertaining comedic relief moments - Lenny’s humor is truly my cup of tea.

This came highly recommended by a friend and I'm so glad I picked this up! Promise Me Sunshine has so many elements I love in my romance - friends to lover, slow burn, heartache in a multitude of senses that causes emotional growth.... So good! I loved Miles and Lenny together as well as individually. Lenny's grief was just so, so real and I'm impressed by how thoughtfully Cara Bastone navigated such a painful subject.

Lenny (Helen) and Miles are the main characters in a story about grief, moving on, friendships and an underlying slow burn romance. This story was SO slow in the first 1/3 of the book. BUT, I knew there was going to be a romance and it picked up the pace along the way.

Miles is a grumpy, cinnamon roll hero who has such patience while helping Lenny deal with her grief in her own way. He handles all of her meltdowns and you can tell when he actually develops more intense feelings for her.

Miles allows Lenny all the time and space she needs to learn to live again.

I really loved Miles. And I loved how Lenny guided him with his family issues.

But this book sparked all kinds of emotions, there was crying, laughter, angst, anger and those were my emotions as the reader.
And the sub characters supported the storytelling.

First of all, this is a grief book. There is nothing wrong with being a grief book, but I think sometimes things get billed wrong and I want to be clear that the romance is very much secondary. This is about loss and grief and getting through it.

Lenny lost her best friend who was her other half. Lenny is absolutely lost. She's no longer going back to her apartment, she's riding the ferry all night and bathing in public restrooms. She is not at all coping. Enter Miles - the stern kind of grumpy uncle to the girl Lenny is a temp nanny for. Miles is like why is this unkempt woman taking care of my niece. And then Miles is like, oh I will help you through grief and make sure you eat and be the person you can call at 2 am to sob to and also use my studio apartment to live in because I know you can't go home because memories. Miles is perfect and I would like one of those too please.

Lenny was fine and trying. I just did not get the quirk they gave her where she sees a man (ANY MAN) and immediately fantasizes a full life with them. Like she stares at length and the men can tell she's ogling them. It was so weird and didn't fit the rest of the book at all.

I have not experienced loss to the level that Lenny has but I know people have and for them this will resonate. The people I know who have experienced loss and read this book *loved* it. I guess I wasn't in a place for such a deep grief journey. But I am always in a place where I can appreciate a Miles.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy.

This was a gorgeous book about finding hope at the other end of loss and grief.

Six months ago, Lenny lost her lifelong best friend Lou, her constant companion, and she is still deep in grief. She can hardly stand to stay in their shared apartment, and to keep busy and try to pay her rent she is picking up short-term nannying jobs here and there. Her latest job takes her to single mom Reese and her daughter Ainsley. The job looks to be easy enough, except Ainsley's uncle Miles insists on sticking around and observing. What a creep, right?

After an accidental backpack spill, Miles discovers that Lenny's carrying around a book about grief and shares that he's read it too. He then offers to help Lenny through her grief and complete the list of things she is supposed to do after Lou's death to help her live again, IF Lenny stays on and works for Reese long term and helps Miles learn how to connect with Ainsley. Reluctantly, Lenny agrees, and a friendship begins to form.

Lenny and Miles's friendship felt very real to me, and though Miles is awkward and sometimes jumps to wrong conclusions, he's also gentle and perceptive to what Lenny needs. I loved the slow buildup to the relationship, and the ways their friendship also influenced the complicated relationship between Miles, Ainsley, and Reese. There was just so much in this book and it was all good.

This is the first Cara Bastone book I've read and you'd better believe I'm adding anything else she's written to my list.

Promise Me Sunshine by Cara Bastone completely stole my heart. It’s the kind of book that makes you laugh, cry, and hug it when you’re done. Lenny is still trying to figure out life after losing her best friend, and then there’s Miles—grumpy, closed-off, but somehow exactly what she needs. Their slow-burn romance is so soft and real, and I loved every second of it.

The mix of grief, love, and found family is beautifully done, and even with the heavy moments, there’s so much warmth and hope. If you love emotional but cozy romances with characters who feel like real people, this one’s for you!

i struggled with this book a lot more than i thought i would. mainly - i thought having to read through the grief of losing a friend would destroy me, but instead my disdain for the main character REALLY made it hard to connect with the book.

the plot of the book was good. the list was a really fun aspect of this and i loved that a lot. i felt lenny’s journey through grief was really well written. i LOVED the pacing of hers and miles. i respect bastone’s understanding of grief enough to know lenny needed to become herself again before jumping into anything.

i loved miles. he was sweet, caring and attentive. he was, again, really well written. his support for lenny was admirable. they way he knew when to push and when to pull back, he was her strength until she found her own.

lenny - i didn’t hate her perse, but she annoyed me. so. much. they way she talked sometimes just reminded me of a toddler. 75% of the words coming out of her mouth had me cringing. at first i thought - maybe it’s just the millennial core that’s driving me crazy? but i think that her personality was a) not for me and b) not that well written.

now - i did love the pacing and lenny and miles’ relationship BUT i wish we saw more progression there. it kind of felt like suddenly they’re in love and need to do something about it. wish there was more a buildup.

also i feel the ending was very sudden. would of loved to see more of them in an epilogue, but im glad that miles at least got to meet lou by the end of the book.

overall - this was a fine read! it was still enjoyable, just a few grips.

4.5 stars
Sex: yes (a scene or two at the end)
Language: yes

It’s been a while since I’ve been sad to have a book end. I stayed up far too late to finish listening to this one. It’s mostly a story of grief and healing. It’s heavy and sad, but ultimately hopefully and really funny. The main character is absurdly quirky, like many of this author’s female leads, but I enjoy it. Lenny’s very best friend has died and she’s just not sure how ANYONE survives something like this. She’s floating through life, shutting out anyone who knows her, and faking it as much as she can, until she meets someone who recognizes her grief from first hand experience and decides he’s going to take it upon himself to coach her through it. There’s tough love and incredible tenderness. Miles offers Lenny a safe space where she can be 100% authentically broken and it was beautiful to watch. Lenny, despite her heart-wrenching sadness, is such a bright light. Thanks to NetGalley for the copy to review.

This slow burn romance is one of the sweetest books I’ve read in a long time. It has to be said the main focus is on grief and grieving & learning to live again after the loss of a loved one, so if you aren’t in the right mental space for this right now, skip it until you are.
From Goodreads: Lenny's a bit of a mess at the moment.
Her best friend, Lou, recently passed away after a battle with cancer, and her death has left Lenny feeling completely lost. She's avoiding her concerned parents, the apartment she shared with Lou, and the list of things she's supposed to do to help her live again. The only thing she can do is temporary babysitting gigs, and luckily, she just landed a great one, helping overworked, single mom Reese and her precocious daughter, Ainsley. It's not perfect: Ainsley's uncle, Miles, always seems to be around, and is kind of... a huge jerk. But if Lenny acts like she has it all together, maybe no one will notice she's falling apart. Miles sees right through her though. Turns out, he knows a lot about grief and, surprisingly, he offers her a proposition. He'll help her complete everything on her "live again" list if she'll help him connect with Ainsley and overcome his complicated relationship with Reese. Lenny doubts anything can fill the Lou has left behind, but she begins to spend more time with Miles, Lenny is surprised to discover that, sometimes, losing everything is only the first step to finding yourself.
While the main focus on this is grief there are several lighthearted moments and quite a few laugh out loud ones. All of the characters, including the side characters, are lovable and really make the book come to life.
The chemistry Lenny has with everyone who comes into her life is truly spectacular and watching her learn to live again is really something special.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for an advanced copy of this. Promise Me Sunshine hit the shelves on March 4.