Lenny lost her best friend to cancer and is now lost herself. Unable to return to the home they shared but in denial of needing help, she takes on temporary babysitting jobs to keep herself busy and uncommitted. But her latest job with Reese and her precocious daughter Ainsley comes with an unexpected bonus: grumpy Uncle Miles. He's the one who sees through all of Lenny's masks and offers her a chance to try to learn to live with her grief in exchange for lessons on how to be an uncle and have a place in Reese and Ainsley's lives.

This is a book about grief more than anything. The romance is there and sweet as can be, but be prepared to have a few good cries as Lenny starts in a dark place and goes back to it several times. Bastone understands grief and how it can hit you like a freight train out of nowhere, with all that pain sometimes bleeding off the page, even as you're seeing Miles put Lenny back together. I had to put it down a couple of times when the words on the page hit too close to home. But I was always happy to come back to see Lenny slowly come alive with every action that Miles helped her take, and it was even better when she was the one who began to take the initiative. It's a little bit of hope that there can indeed be fun and light after a terrible loss.

Delighted thanks to NetGalley and Dial Press Trade Paperback for the moving read!

Mixed feelings about this one. The beginning and end had me hooked, but I think 100+ pages could’ve been cut from the middle. Stayed for Miles. Thanks NetGalley for the ARC.

"This baby will not stop judging me."

Grieving the loss of her best friend, Lenny is barely holding herself together. She is doing temporary babysitting jobs, her latest with a great girl named Ainsley. She keeps it together for her. The problem - Ainsley's broody uncle Miles can see right through Lenny.

Miles is no stranger to grief and offers to help Lenny. He'll help her with her "live again" list if she helps him with Ainsley and her mom.

This book had some heavy parts. Lenny is really struggling with loss and depression. And Miles has his own share of problems. But I loved how the author handled the situations. I loved that they helped each other learn to live and overcome their struggles, and even find love.

Thank you so much to Random House Publishing and NetGalley for letting me read an ARC :)

This book is really, truly beautiful & sad & real & so funny all at the same time. This is a story of grief & healing. It’s about taking care of yourself & taking care of the people you love. Of knowing someone so perfectly & loving them just right. I think this is one that will stay with me for a long, long time.

This was a beautiful story of grief, love & friendship. After Lenny loses her best friend her world is falling apart. She meets Miles who agrees to be her grief guru & help her work through her grief and attempt to get her life back. The trade off is that Lenny will help Miles build a relationship with his sister and niece. Lenny & Miles have the journey of the lifetime together in this beautiful and touching story.

What an emotional read. Lenny is a character that is endlessly endearing. Her broken heart isn’t over a romance, but she’s lost a great love. Miles is a kindred spirit and he edges his way into her healing process. A beautiful story where strangers become friends and then romance blooms. I had several tearful moments as I read this story that explores grief and living after loss. I loved the New York setting such a stunning backdrop for this moving tale. Highly recommend.

No one's doing it like Cara Bastone. This is such a funny, gritty, heart-wrenching, redemptive story about grief and loss and love and joy. I couldn't put it down. Every time I finish one of her books, something I didn't even know was missing gets healed. Thank you!!

I absolutely LOVED this book!! the banter?? the chemistry?? the character development?? this is my favorite arc of the year so far and I will be forcing all of my friends to read this

I loved Bastone's previous novel, but this one fell a bit flat. I didn't love the romance and felt like the pacing was off. I think the grieving rep and storyline was done super well, so the romance felt unnecessary.

5 ⭐️

I can’t say enough good things about this book! I felt so many emotions and absolutely savored every bit of it.

Lenny is grieving the loss of her best friend, Lou, and not functioning very well in the process. She takes a temporary babysitting job for single mom, Reese, and her daughter, Ainsley.

“And saying ‘my friend died’ doesn’t convey what really—she was my sister. No. My A-team. My other half. And I’m so f*****g stupid because I didn’t realize she was my whole life until she was gone.”

Miles, Ainsley’s grumpy uncle, sees through Lenny’s hurt and makes a deal with her to help her through her grief if she can help him connect with his niece.

“I’m kind of a grief … expert, for lack of a better term. And I was thinking that in exchange for the babysitter lessons I could … help you get through this.” “How?” “I understand what you’re going through. Not the specifics, but the general idea. I literally know how to keep on living after …”

The way their relationship slowly develops is just so precious and beautiful. This is a true slow burn, where they become friends and confidants before lovers. Cara has a way of mixing humor into her books while addressing serious topics that helps them to feel not quite so heavy.

“Your ex-girlfriend’s brother is getting married, invited you, and you want to take …” I look down at myself. Mud-streaked, hanks of unwashed hair, overalls with a truly nonsensical number of shells in the pockets, dirt under my fingernails, a stretched-out NASA T-shirt. “A swamp thing as your plus one?” His eyes drop to my toes and back up to my hair. The corner of his mouth quirks up into a microscopic smile. “Yeah.”

Lenny is so quirky and absolutely hilarious, and Miles seems grumpy at first but he ends up being the best MMC I’ve read in a long time. He’s so nurturing and kind, and will drop everything to be by Lenny’s side at a moment’s notice.

“He treats you well?” “Mom, he walked into hell and dragged me back out.”

I’m so glad I read this one and can’t wait to meet Cara Bastone on her book tour in a few weeks! Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for the e-arc. All opinions are my own.

“Grief is a relationship,” he continues. “It’s the way we figure out how to keep loving them even though they’re gone. And in order to do that we have to keep on going. And going and going.”

This book is everything. The grief and the banter between FMC and MMC was so so good. I loved that the author directly handled healing and grief in this book and let it be talked about so so very well. This book was so well written and I will definitely be reading more by this Author

Another flawless romcom from Cara Bastone! Her ear for dialog is impeccable, with lines that are laugh-out-loud funny but still sound like something a person would actually say. Her characters have complexity and depth without losing their sweetness. In another writer's hands, Lenny could have been an irritating manic pixie dreamgirl. Instead, she is a heartbreakingly lovable hot mess you never stop rooting for. And while Miles seems a little too good to be true, he has enough rough edges to keep him grounded in reality. This is the second time Bastone has gotten me to read a book containing tropes I ordinarily avoid (unplanned pregnancy in the last one, cancer/grief in this one), and I am in awe of her ability to spin them into a story that's compelling, comforting, and ultimately uplifting.

Lenny is trying to get through this weird period in her life one day at a time. You see, she recently lost her best friend and doesn't quite know how to move on from that. Grief is overwhelming and the only thing keeping her going is her nannying gigs. Lenny moves from one family to the next to keep her busy and her mind away from her more obtrusive thoughts. Enter Miles: the uncle for the cute little girl that Lenny is nannying for. He's rude, always around and criticizes Lenny about everything. Yes, Miles comes across as a jerk, but he agrees to help Lenny with her grief if she agrees to help him get to know his niece better. And so an alliance is formed. But the more time these two spend together the more they get to know one another...will they part ways once they've gotten what they need from one another?

Cara Bastone's books are heavily character based and I loved getting to know Lenny and Miles and everything that made them them in Promise Me Sunshine. I love a book that has me laughing out loud one moment and then on the precipice of tears the next and Cara Bastone knows how to do that so well. I have so many passages highlighted that resonated with me. Grief is such a hard thing to write about and Cara Bastone does it so beautifully.

I loved loved loved the relationship between Miles and Lenny. They were hilarious and as their relationship progressed so sweet. These two knew exactly what made the other tick and were so patient with one another. Their slow progression from strangers to friends to lovers was done perfectly.

What a fantastic book! Always looking forward to more books by Cara Bastone.

5 stars!!!

I knew I would love this one and pre-ordered a copy. Then, I also needed the #BOTM edition which matches my copy of #ReadyOrNot which was also a 5-star read for me.

In this slow burn, we first meet Lenny, who is deep in grief after her bestie Lou died following a battle with cancer. Lenny is essentially avoiding her life. Her parents, her apartment, anything that Lou touched.

She lands a temp job as babysitter to Ainsley for single mom Reese. Along with that, she soon discovers, comes Ainsley’s Uncle Miles who seems to always be lurking and is kind of a jerk.

But Miles has a way of seeing her through, or maybe despite, her grief. He proposes a deal: He’ll help Lenny try to live again by checking off items on a list she has if she will help him connect better with Reese & Ainsley.

Navigating through grief is rarely a straight line. I cried right along with Lenny & with Miles too on their winding journey.

#PromiseMeSunshine #CaraBastone #5StarRead #SlowBurnRomance #Netgalley #BookOfTheMonthClub #BookReview

4.25 ⭐️
1 🌶️

Things I loved:
-Charming and quirky characters
-Laugh out loud humor
-The emotional depth of all of the characters/intricacies of their relationships
-Taking the front seat on a grief journey

Other thoughts:
-The slow burn felt a touch too slow for me at times. This is my second Cara Bastone book, I read the first on audio. I REALLY WISH I HAD AUDIO. I'm in line at the library for audio and I truly do think reading this book via audio will make me enjoy the slow burn so much more.
-I'm a Cara Bastone fan, I love her characters and their charm. There is just something so special about the worlds she creates.

A special thanks for Cara Bastone and Random House Publishing Group for this ARC. While the review copy is gifted, opinions are always my own.

At the beginning of the story, Lenny is taking on a new temporary nanny job to Ainsley because she can't settle in any one place since her best friend died of cancer. While at Ainsley's, she opens the door to the brooding Miles. After a number of mishaps with Miles, he assigns himself to be her personal guide to her grief. While closing out items on her bucket list of things to do to get over the loss of her friend, Lenny processes her grief and learns to live and love again. I love the messy, flawed and interesting heroines that Bastone creates. The grief over the loss of someone so important is well represented. Side characters including Miles are well established. I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys reading thoughtfully drawn, emotionally moving and yet still fun characters and their trials.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in return for my honest review.

“Home is where the heart is. My heart died in a cancer ward six months ago."

Promise Me Sunshine is the kind of book that takes you by surprise. The genre is Romance, but I would argue that this book is way more than that. This is a book about love that you discover outside of romantic love. This is a story about discovering that perhaps your greatest love is your best friend. Throughout the book, grief is ever present. It’s the true antagonist in this romance – an unwelcome shadow to our protagonist Lenny’s everyday life. As the book progresses, among these two gut-wrenching topics is a slow burn romantic love between Lenny and Miles, her grief deputy. By the time you finish this story, I think many will feel like I did – that the romance between Miles and Lenny was perhaps expected, but not actually necessary to the story.

By the time I was a ¼ of the way through this ARC, I had a hard time reading because I felt such a connection to the emotional arc of this story. I never wanted the story to end – or I suppose, I was concerned that the end wouldn’t live up to its emotional peak.

To summarize this story – this is a book about a woman who is left adrift after the death of her soulmate and best friend Lou. While taking odd nanny jobs to make ends meet, she meets Miles, a loner with an unexpected connection to the family that Lenny is helping. Lenny has family who loves her, but she is avoiding the emotional ricochet that going to her own apartment or seeing her family may cause. So she rides the Staten Island Ferry or dances at all night rave in order to disconnect from herself for just a little while.
Lenny’s grief is so painful and yet written so beautifully. I believe that even those of you reading who haven’t experienced death in their life should still be able to feel how realistic her grief is. But that is due to the reader’s knowledge of Lenny’s inner voice. On the outside, to Miles, she appears to be white knuckling her way through life. She appears disheveled and exhausted in a way that makes Miles think she is an addict of some sort and his concern for her drives them together.

Miles’ character is interesting. While we develop a love for him, at first he seems to be a weird interloper in his sister and niece’s lives. We learn quickly why his relationship with them is so distant and we root for him to figure out how to be a part of their lives. Because Miles is always there. He is a person that shows up for people, despite everything. He paused his own life to assist his sister and niece. And then when he sees they don’t *need* his help, he latches on to Lenny who isn’t asking for the help but clearly needs the assistance.

Miles devotion to helping Lenny get through her grief is incredible. He discovers a list that Lenny carries with her of things she needs to do now that she lost Lou. Miles ensures Lenny accomplishes it. Over the next few months, she accomplishes these things slowly while developing a relationship with Miles, who seems to never want anything in return but her compliance to the list. He helpfully keeps Lenny on track reminding her that this was something that Lou wanted for her.

I won’t summarize anymore of this story – I think it’s just so difficult to give a review of a story like this without acknowledging the reason it digs a hole in your heart and brain. But I will finish my thoughts on this book as such: If you were unaware of the genre before going into this book, you may be disappointed in the relationship that is developed between Miles and Lenny. Sure, it’s beautiful and EVERYONE loves a happily ever after, but his relationship with Lenny is MORE than the romantic relationship they seek in the end.

"But with you, Len, when I met you..... I sort of feel like I met myself"
The romance is in the shedding of our worst selves and embracing our shadow in order to see to see the sunshine through the grief.

I'd like to thank Random House Publishing Group & Dial Press Trade Paperback, Cara Bastone, and Netgalley for providing me with this arc. This is my honest review.
I have never felt more grateful to have read a book in my life. At this time in my life, I needed this book. Promise me Sunshine is very personal to me, and I would recommend it to everyone I know. As a person healing from grief, I recommend it to other grievers, but also to privileged people who have not had to experience deep grief. This book can change anyone's perspective on grief; it shows the multidimensional effect grief can have on all relationships. If you are watching someone you love go through the process of grieving, I would recommend this story. If you are on your personal journey through grief, I would highly recommend. Of course this book was heavy for me, but it is filled with so much wisdom. The quotes, and advice (given through dialogue) will stick will me for my entire life.
The absolute perfection of balance between romance and mental health/ grief Bastone accomplished is masterful. I related to Lenny and Miles during their struggles and successes. Lenny was such a well-rounded character; she was very flawed while being extremely likeable. I've never read characters that even come close to Miles and Lenny. Bastone shaped Miles into being a perfect partner and a good man while still having him grow throughout the story. Lenny and Miles' connection is incomparable to any other romance.
I have only the highest praises for Cara Bastone. Thank you Cara, for creating this masterpiece for everyone, but especially for people like me and Lenny.

I loved Cara Bastone's Ready or Not last year and was thrilled to receive this ARC from NetGalley. I went in a little blind, expecting a feel-good rom com and am so happy to have been so pleasantly surprised. I'm so used to the BIG beautiful moments in a romance but in this book it was the small moments of reading about Lenny putting herself back together and seeing how much Miles cared for Lenny that hit me. I've been fortunate to have never experienced the soul wrenching grief of losing my own Lou but as someone in their mid- 30s there's an interesting sort of grief one has to process for the life you expected for yourself by this age. I was particularly struck by Miles telling Lenny about lone wolves:

So when you hear a wolf call, and then in the distance, you hear another wolf call back, do you know what that can be roughly translated as?” “What’s that?” “The first one saying, I’m here! I’m here! And then the other one says, Me too! Me too!”

Isn't that what we are all looking for? Someone to acknowledge that we're here too? I'll think of this book often and how it made me sob while also gently putting me back together along with Lenny. Cara Bastone, I'll read anything you put out!

Lenny’s world comes to a giant halt when her best friend dies of Cancer. Suddenly she is stuck in a cycle of sleepless nights and not wanting to go home. She begins taking babysitting jobs to try and get her feet back on the ground - here enters Miles. Miles meets Lenny at her first day babysitting for his niece Ainsley. Miles desperately needs Lenny’s help connecting with both Ainsley, and her mom (Miles’ sister) Reese. Through this connection, Lenny realizes she needs Miles’s help finding her way back to life.

I cried, I laughed, I LOVED LOVED LOVED LOVED this book. Lenny said it best - “Giddiness, disbelief, sadness, panic, happiness, fear, excitement, confusion” - all feelings I think I felt while reading 😂 reading this book was like reading a masterclass in grief; grief is not linear but it is relatable and was handled with the upmost care by Bastone. One of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read. My heart feels like it was stomped on while simultaneously being wrapped in a warm hug.

Bastone knows how to write dependable MMCs (first was Shep in Ready or Not) but I fear Miles takes the cake. I’m still swooning over him days later and think I will forever be in love.

Some would call this a slow burn but its much more than that. It’s two vulnerable people learning how to trust each other while healing and growing, finding safety in each other’s friendship, while navigating the darker parts of life together.

I highlighted too many quotes to share but these were just a few favorites of mine 💌

“Not strung out, just having a debilitating mental health crisis while navigating the most excruciating chapter of my life.”

“I marvel at the fact that anyone, ever, has the strength to get up off the floor.”

"You sound like you're defending me."
"Well, duh. Miles, you're my ..
.. Grief wingman? List doula? Only companion these days? Ace."

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Dial Press Trade Paperback and NetGalley for the ARC 💌