Promise Me Sunshine is quirky and heartwarming but not your typical romance. You can’t help but fall in love with Miles as he helps Lenny emerge from the grief of losing her best friend. Such a great book!

Cara Bastone, you just gained a new fan (me)

Lenny lost her best friend, her absolute #1 person months ago and she's not coping well, to the point that she's not functioning like normal human anymore. but she's good with kids, so every other time she took short-term nannying job. that's where she met Miles, a tolerable-but-not-liked uncle of a kid she's nannying.

Miles was wary of Lenny on their first few meetings, but once he found out that she's grieving, he's offering a deal to Lenny: He's going to be her "grief wingman" and she'll help him be better at being around Ainsley & Reese. Though she's not interested, Miles was persistent, and she let him prove himself. turned out his help wasn't so bad...

I loved everything about this. It’s about learning to live again after losing someone dear. So naturally the general theme was heavy. But the writing was so good, weaved with playful and witty narrative. I knew early on that I’d like this. And I was right!

Lenny & Miles' dynamics were gentle, sweet, and endearing ughhh I love them so much. Were they neurodiverse, by any chance?? Because they kinda reminded me of Tilly (ADHD) & Ollie (autistic) from Tilly in Technicolor. but anyway. Ainsley & Reese were also lovely additions to the story, especially how they're significant to Miles character development.

The narrator was AMAZING, she's not only narrating but full-on ACTING. oh my god. the writing itself was already really good but combined with the audiobook it was a blast. i was alternately giggling weeping smirking choking up throughout the book, totally enjoying my time with the characters.

now this is definitely one of my top adult romances ever. going to check Ready or Not and definitely anticipating Cara's future books!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is a different take on rom com circling around grief and complicated family relationships. Lenny isn't doing well after losing her best friend to cancer recently. She can't go home, isn't eating, doesn't want to commit to nannying jobs anymore, she's sinking. Miles knows a lot about grief and offers to help Lenny through.

I absolutely loved this one. It's real and raw making you realize you can still live after losing the person you loved the most in the world.

I liked how different this book was compared to your typical rom com that's popular Right now. You could really feel Lenny's grief and transformation of her throughout the book. You could also feel Miles come around in his understanding and appreciation for Lenny. It was also really sweet to see Ainsley and Miles relationship develop.

4.5 stars

This book will make your heart ache and heal it at the same time. Just rereading my highlights is bringing back all the feelings.
I've recently witnessed my niece go through grief and I could see her in Lenny so many times and I wish she had a Miles in her life to help her through it (therapy was good too).

“You are not betraying her by healing,” he whispers directly into my ear. “You are honoring her. You are learning to love her exactly as she is. As someone who isn’t here anymore…That’s who she is now. And this journey through grief…It’s what we do for the great loves of our lives.”

“Something good for you.” He points at the oatmeal. “Something bad for you.” He points at the croissant. “And a change of scenery.” He points at the bakery. “Huh?” “It’s hard-won wisdom. A formula I figured out in my dark days. One I still need sometimes. When everything is going dark and you can’t understand why…when the grief catches up to you again…Or when your sister shouts at you and you feel like the world’s biggest tool. Just remember. Something good for you, something bad for you, and a change of scenery. That’s the winning formula.”

"This is a love story, I swear. This is what happens when you’ve promised someone you’ll live again."

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for the ARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

Do you know that feeling when you're reading a book, enjoying it, and them bam--all the feelings and it becomes a whole different reading experience? That was me and PROMISE ME SUNSHINE. I think about it every so often. The representation of grief? The slow-burn romance? The idea that someone can really save someone else, in all the ways that matter? The setting and friendships? All SO so well done.

Lenny is spiraling after her best friend's death. Lou was a sister in all but blood and Lenny is doing anything she can to escape feeling that kind of grief. She's even avoiding the apartment she and Lou shared. When she takes a short-term nannying job and meets Reese and her daughter, Ainsley, and Reese's half-brother, Miles, she stumbles into their unorthodox family and a friendship with Miles.

Wow, Miles. There's a quote about 3/4 through Promise Me Sunshine. Lenny is talking to her mom about her burgeoning feelings for Miles and says "that man walked into hell and dragged me back out." And I LOVED Miles for that. For seeing Lenny and holding space for her grief. For being a true friend when that's what she needed.

Cara Bastone is the kind of author who writes warm stories that are so easy to get lost in. I'm so thankful I read this book because it ended up being really moving and sweet. The romance was such a slow burn that it felt totally genuine and I loved watching Lenny fall in love with life again.

My favorite book of 2025 hands down. Promise Me Sunshine had me hooked from the very first because it's not just a romance, it's so much more. At its heart, this is a powerful, raw story about grief. The messy, overwhelming kind that changes you forever.
Lenny’s journey through grief is honest and deep and watching her slowly find her way back to herself was both painful and beautiful. And then there’s Miles, pure green flag!!!!! He is kind and steady and paitent and perfect and shows up and is perfect perfect perfect. KINGGG.
Bastone does an amazing job balancing heavy emotions with humor and warmth. This book broke my heart and put it back together again. A truly special read that will stay with me forever.

Such an emotional story that portrayed grief, love, friendship, and self discovery SO BEAUTIFULLY!!

This book made me feel everything. This was my first Cara Bastone, and her writing was so beautiful. I know I will be picking up more of her books in the future.

I requested this arc from Net Galley because the cover and the description pulled me in. I was NOT disappointed. This was my first read from Cara Bastone and I am pleasantly looking forward to reading more. Grief is hard to write about but Cara did a fabulous job.

Miles, our MMC, is not your typical macho brooding leading male but he was the perfect fit. I loved his banter with Lenny and the way she wrote their story was so beautiful. It was a bit slow to start but picked up the pace and I ended up loving it. Highly recommend.

I LOVED this one. It was so well done. Favorite this year so far! She has this way of making some of the most realistic people that you can relate to that. I absolutely love. Never reminds me of 90s wrong comes, so nostalgic. I love the message of this book in the theme. Highly recommend!

Thanks to Netgalley and Dial Press a gifted copy of Promise Me Sunshine.

I’m a sucker for emotionally damaging read. This book definitely have a lot of emotions wasn’t the book for me. I did love the characters, I thought they were great. I’m not sure I felt connection with them. And I am not sure the romance between Miles and Lenny worked for me.

Beautiful story about overcoming grief and living life after losing a great love of your life. Lenny is lost after her best friend dies of cancer and this beautiful story follows her journey through her grief. She meets Miles, who has overcome his own grief and he helps guide her back to life. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!!

Beautiful love story. Please make sure to check the trigger warnings, but there's nothing Cara Bastone writes that i haven't loved. Lenny is on a healing journey after the lost of her bestfriend and she becomes a nanny where she meets Miles. Both are going through something and need each other to heal and repair. I cried, I laughed and cried again. Cara left no crumbs.

I absolutely adored this book. I adored seeing Lenny & Miles’ navigate their newfound friendship and watching it bloom. It was heart wrenching, heart warming & instantaneously heart grabbing. I deeply connected with Lenny, I found her hilariously silly. I felt for her, I felt with her as she learns to navigate her grief. And Miles was the broodingly sweet cherry on top.

I loved this book! I waited so long to read it for no good reason. This book was a perfect combination of humor, heart, swoon and hope. I loved the main characters and their connection together. Friends to lovers and slow burns are two of my favorite tropes and this book did them justice! I have shared a review post on this book on my Bookstagram and have it linked below.

I will read anything by Cara Bastone. I am absolutely obsessively swooning over this book. Lenny oh Lenny. I loved her. I felt for her. I cared for her. I wanted to give this girl a big ol hug. Miles too! These are two wonderful characters that deserve anything and everything good to happen to them. this book kind of hit me at the right time as I recently have lost my two grandfathers in the past 2 years. Grief is an ugly son-of-a-b. I think the author did an outstanding job representing how it can look different for everyone and how processes and working through it can be different for everyone. But at the end of the day, you can work through it and find yourself again. It is what that person you've lost would want for you. I definitely had some tears in this story, but a lot of laughter too. There was just so many good and happy things that happened in the book, but also a ton of really sad or tense times. I am blown away with how the author was able to perfectly balance both. I loved little Ainsley. She was so adorable. Most of all though, I loved Lenny and Mile's relationship, and I think that the way it progressed was perfecto. Round of applause to Cara Bastone.

Now I know that usually when I write ARC reviews, I try to post them before the novel actually comes out. In this case I received the copy of this book smack dab in the middle of exams/finals, and I am coming out of a MASSIVE reading slump. If I am being honest, my expectations of this book were relatively low. I had read “Ready or Not” a few months prior and thought it was very sweet. I requested this book on a whim. I chose to read this one after I DNF’ed another novel, l was just not in the mood to read. I have to say this, I am so glad I picked this book up. I think it is possible that this novel isn’t just one of my favourites of the year, but one of my all-time faves!

This book follows a woman named Lenny as she struggles to navigate through the grief of losing her best friend, Lou, to ovarian cancer. Lenny meets Miles, the uncle of the little girl (Ainsley) that she is nannying, and they strike a deal that will help Lenny move through her grief and Miles reconnect to Ainsley and Reese (Ainsley’s mom), the only family he has left.

I’m sure anyone who follows my account closely might ask, “Sydney, why do you gravitate so much to novels that center around grief as a theme?”, and truthfully, I’ve been on quite a journey with grief myself over the past couple of years. This August will mark 5 years since one of my best friends died. I can’t say I dealt with my grief similarly to Lenny, but I could relate to so many of the things her character was. Wondering how much grief was affecting who you are as a person, what you do. The raw feeling that comes when you are suddenly reminded of them, or you see something they loved, and it leaves you feeling raw. All of these characteristics in Lenny made her feel refreshingly real. I feel that, at times, grief can be a giant symbolic metaphor in stories that leads to a universal truth. I like that Cara Bastone highlighted the messy side of it in this story. The crying at the Met, doing random things because that’s what they would want you to do, the guilt that comes with joy. I like that every reaction Lenny had was realistic. I also like the way that the novel highlights the fact that grief takes a long time to deal with. No magic band-aid makes it all go away; the only way out is through.

Miles was also such a lovely character. I feel like at the start of the novel, he felt more like a caricature than a character. Sort of just a mash-up of tropes in a character. The further you get into the novel, the more this makes sense. We are seeing him through Lenny’s eyes, and Lenny has this habit of imagining her romantic future with every man she meets. As she gets to know Miles, he begins to be more fleshed out. Miles is such a wonderful character because he’s just there for Lenny. He sees that she needs a friend, and he becomes one. It’s also nicer to see Lenny and Miles support each other as the book goes on.

Overall, I loved how bittersweet this book was. I think Bastone did a wonderful job portraying grief in this novel. Reading this book felt like someone wrapping a blanket around your shoulders and telling you it’s all going to be okay.

Thanks to Random House and Netgalley for this advance copy!

I feel like Bastones first novel hung on this decision that felt random but Promise Me Sunshine hangs on this two people who decide at the beginning they are going to help each other for no real good reason and the book goes from there. There were several elements that felt random (fantasies about falling in love with other people? Almost all of Miles's backstory) but when you eliminate that you get a novel of two people who need each other and lift each other up in beautiful ways. Miles and Lenny are amazing together and I love that he clearly falls first and then waits for her to catch up. This is an incredible portrait of grief and the way we move through grief to a state where we miss peopl but rejoin the world. It felt real and personal. Lenny is truly a mess and Miles used to be and I love how they grow together but at times it felt like the surgery could have paired back some of the quirk and still had a beautiful romance.

Initially I gave this book a 4.5 star, but the more I think about this book I realized it is a 5 star read for me. I still think about this book and the concept of grief in it and how it can linger for a long time and never really goes away. It’s so realistic, and I will definitely be rereading it whenever I have a major loss in my life. Not to mention the romance is sweet and the family dynamic with the MMC that had its own hurdle to jump. And I adore Ainsley! This book was pretty much perfect, and there are not many romance novels I put on my "need to read again" list!

Beautifully heartbreaking.

This book had been sitting on my TBR for way too long—and wow, I’m ashamed that I didn’t get to this sooner. It completely wrecked me, but it also put me back together.

At its heart, this is a story about grief—raw, honest, painful grief—and the courage it takes to start over again. It dives deep into the complexities of loss and the beauty that comes out of it. I’m a sucker for stories where people connect to each other through grief and shared pain, and this one delivered it perfectly! Call it trauma bonding if you want, but the connection between these characters? Powerful. Real. Unbreakable.

Lenny’s “Live Again” list? STAR OF THE SHOW. I wanted to make one myself and find someone to complete every task with me and then fall madly, irrevocably in love with me. Seriously, let a girl dream! I swooned so hard it was almost embarrassing.

And Miles… MILESSSSS. Behind the tough guy exterior, he was the softest cinnamon roll hero—an actual teddy bear! His quiet but steady loyalty and his devotion to those he cares for had me melting. And as for Lenny? A burst of sunshine even in her darkest hours. She carried so much pain but still managed to shine. I adored her from that very first page.

The romance was chef's kiss! Slow burn PERFECTION. The chemistry, the pacing, the tenderness—it all felt so genuine. The subtle romantic gestures, the little things they did for each other… they absolutely gutted me. I cried more than once just from how lovely they were together.

This read left me speechless. It’s one of those stories that lingers in your mind way after the last page. Charming, heart-wrenching, and completely unforgettable.

𝙏𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙠 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙪𝙗𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙉𝙚𝙩𝙂𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙮 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝘼𝙍𝘾!