This book has firmly established Cara Bastone as an automatic-buy author for me. I knew this one was going to hurt—and it did, but in the best way possible.

After losing her soulmate and best friend, Lenny is struggling to piece her life back together, with no clear idea of how to start. Consumed by grief, she’s overwhelmed and uncertain of how to move forward, questioning whether she’s capable of living without Lou.

While taking on odd babysitting jobs to pass the time, Lenny meets Miles, the uncle of one of her nannying clients. Like Lenny, Miles has also experienced profound grief. Further along in his own journey, he sets out to help Lenny process her loss while gently guiding her toward the possibility of living again. Miles helps Lenny face her emotions head-on by sharing his own experiences and, more importantly, by showing up—every single time. Though I’m not typically a fan of slow-burn romances, the care and respect Miles demonstrates in pursuing a relationship only when it’s right for Lenny is simply heartwarming.

This book is beautifully crafted. The way it captures Lenny’s alternating moments of joy and overwhelming grief, guilt, and sadness is written with such sincerity and depth. It challenged my perceptions of what it means to "move on." How does someone survive in a world without their person? How do you explain the love of your life to people who never met them? How can you navigate a city full of people having their best days while you’re enduring your worst? How do you keep going when you feel like you shouldn’t even be here? And how do you do it day after day with no reprieve?

This book was gut-wrenching, yet also incredibly funny. Lenny’s internal monologue and her banter with Miles were hilarious and provided moments of much-needed relief.

BRB, going to tell my best friend soulmate how much she means to me.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for the advanced copy of this book!

I was on the brink of tears multiple times throughout the book. A great book on grief and finding a way to live after losing someone you loved. I loved everything about this book.

Thank you Penguin Random House for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Ready or Not was the first book of Cara Bastone I've read, and it was an easy 5 stars for me, so I was super excited to read this. This book covers the heavy theme of grief (loss of best friend, off page but heavily focused on) but, it's handled so well. Lenny is struggling with the loss of her best friend from cancer. She takes a short term nanny gig and meets Miles. He is standoffish and rude, but she can't quite figure him out. He ends up offering to help her with her "live again" list if she can help him connect with his niece, Ainsley. Slowly, Miles and Lenny develop a friendship as they both begin to work through their grief.
This is my favorite friends to lovers I have EVER read. Lenny is a quirky, but real, FMC and Miles has a grumpy exterior but underneath- a heart of gold. This book is heavy, so I recommend going into it when you are in a good place, but it is absolutely fantastic.

Cara Bastone is officially an autobuy author for me. I bought a trophy copy!

"Every time I fall in love with you, there's lightening"

I don't think this book was for me. I'm just not a fan of the author's writing style, I think. It very much read like "this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened, and here's our texts." I didn't feel any chemistry between the FMC and MMC either. There was just something about the premise that wasn't believable to me. I ended up not finishing it.

I don't know how it was possible, but this book was a joy to read even though the central theme was grief. Cara Bastone has the incredible gift of creating a strong female lead who is honest, hilarious, and complex. Paired with Alex Finke's vocal talent, the audiobook is perfection. This book took me on an emotional roller coaster paired with humor and I loved it. Switching back and forth between the audio and digital versions was a treat, and I highly recommend any version of this story!

Quick recap without spoilers:
Living in NYC and making money as a babysitter, Lenny floats from one job to the next, trying her hardest to avoid returning to her apartment. When her best friend and solemate, Lou, died of cancer, Lenny couldn’t bear returning. After accepting a job with an adorable first grader living with her single mom, Lenny meets Miles, the almost-live-in grumpy uncle. Sadly understanding Lenny’s grief, Miles suggests he become her grief counselor and sidekick. The rest is romance history.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group and NetGalley for the advance copy. I will place my review on my Instagram page and Goodreads.

Oh Cara Bastone, never stop writing PLEASE. I absolutely adored this book. Lenny's exploration of grief was so well written and I loved the way Miles was supporting her through it. I have found that some romance books tend to lean a lot into women's fiction because they do not balance the romance into the book as well as I would like. I was so happy that this romance perfectly balanced Lenny's journey and the romance between her and Miles. His way of understanding her was truly beautiful. I also related heavily to his bluntness and the way that he shows that he cares. I would absolutely recommend this book.

I fell in love with every character in this book! Cara Bastone has beautifully written an emotional and sweet story. The moments of grief shared between the characters were so tender and I felt myself tearing up on numerous occasions. And Miles, the man that you are!! This book was equal parts heartbreaking and hilarious and I loved every second! Favorite romance book so far this year! 5⭐️

Thank you NetGalley for the E-Arc in exchange for an honest review!

People will pick this up and think it's a cute romcom...which yes it is, but honestly it's mainly a book about grief and it's BEAUTIFUL! Cara Bastone has hit another homerun with book! If you like your romance books with a dose of heavier topics this is perfect...because of that I think this would be a good book for someone who wants to try the romance genre out for the first time! Shout out to netgalley for the ARC!

5⭐️ or maybe even 6 😂
I started this book over a month ago and had to hit pause because, honestly, some of this is really heavy. This book deals with grief like no book I have ever read. It’s raw and incredibly real. If you have grieved a loved one, this one is going to hit you hard, no doubt about it. But it is SUCH a beautiful story of healing and learning to live again after loss. I cried, and I laughed, and sometimes I laughed while I was sobbing. I just can’t express how much I loved this book and its characters. Lenny and Miles are just my favorite 🥹

This is the second book by Cara that I received as an arc, and I have absolutely loved everything by her. She’s hilarious, and she writes with her whole heart. Can’t wait to read more in the future.

Thank you to Dial Press and Netgalley for sending me an arc of this beautiful story.

I have no idea how to move on from this book. Seriously. It completely wrecked me in the best way possible.

At its core, this book is a beautifully raw exploration of love, loss, and trying to find your way through both when you feel totally unequipped. Bastone captures grief and healing so honestly that I couldn't help but feel every ounce of heartache/confusion/guilt right along with the characters. Grief is a great unifier in that way - maybe you won't relate exactly to this sort of loss, but to be human, is to know loss in some way.

Of course, among the heavy, there was light! Lenny and Miles...from strangers to the briefest of enemies(?) to friends to best friends to "oh my god when will they put me out of my misery" lovers; it's a real slow burn treat! Their story is one that sneaks up on you, one that makes you hold your breath, and would probably have even the most stoic of readers kicking their feet in anticipation.

This book is tender, messy(not a mess, IYKYK), and full of so much heart. It’s the kind of story that lingers long after you’ve turned the last page, leaving you staring at the ceiling, wondering how to function. I was an oscillating fan of laughter and tears from one chapter(sometimes line) to the next. There are a few threads I would've loved to tug on a bit more, but that's likely the greed speaking - 400+ pages went by way too fast, and I'd read 400+ more if I could.

All this to say: if you’re in the mood for something that will break you and put you back together, Promise Me Sunshine is a must-read.

*Thank you to NetGalley and RandomHouse for the E-Arc!*

This book was a journey of grief and self discovery. It showed how important platonic love and romantic love is. I am amazed at how Cara Bastone was able to write this realistic characters who feel like real life people. Absolutely ♾️ 🌟. A must read, especially for anyone going through the grieving process. Thank you Cara Bastone, Random House Publishing, and NetGalley for the ARC! My review was posted to GoodReads on 3/10/2025.

Amazing story, loved the friends to lover tropes, had me having a lot of emotions. I just loved it.

Friendship, grief and love are on a date with this book.

I was so pumped to read this bc I loved Ready or Not soooo much. This one felt so different from that one. I don’t feel like this could be considered romance. At its core, Promise Me Sunshine really a story of navigating and learning to live with grief, with a little love story baked in.

It wasn’t a very happy book. It was sad and there are definitely a lot of rough spots which you should be aware of if death/grief triggers you. There were some logistical things that did not make sense to me. Everyone definitely grieves differently and I think this book solidified that for me because the way Lenny handled her grief was very different from how I think I would handle it. So unfortunately, I couldn’t really connect with that. Other than that, I also felt like Lenny was pretty immature and the things she said and did mostly annoyed me.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it’s a bad book! I just don’t think it was for me. Still a very big fan of Cara Bastone and excited to read her next book, The Naked Eye, after reading the teaser!

One of my new favorite books???

I was absolutely blown away by this love story. It's the ultimate friends to lovers.

Cara has a way of writing that feels as if you're listening to someone telling a story.

Thank you to The Dial Press and NetGalley for the early copy.

∞⭐️

This book is just perfect, I loved every page! I laughed, I cried, I swooned, this story is a beautiful story of grief, friendship and love.

Lenny is in the depths of grief after losing her best friend. Miles is the uncle to the little girl Lenny is a nanny for. He recognizes the grief in Lenny, and offers to help guide her through it in exchange for help relating to his niece.

I saw so much of my younger self in Lenny. I have lived that kind of grief and know what it’s like to struggle to put one foot in front of the other. Lenny was so funny, and caring. I would be laughing about something she said or did on one page and then crying on the next when her grief struck. I want to be friends with Lenny.

Cara Bastone can write a book boyfriend and Miles has made it to the top of my list. The way he takes care of Lenny is so sweet, he makes sure she eats, that she’s warm, that she has a safe place to sleep. He wanted to relate to his niece and it was so sweet to see him succeed with the help of Lenny.

The progression from strangers to friends to lovers was such a slow burn and again I loved it so much. I honestly could’ve read another 100 pages of this book.

Thus was such a heartbreaking yet heartwarming story of grief, loss and love after. Cara’s writing is super quirky, relatable and fub. Definitely a slow slow burn but I love that personally.

Tysm @prhaudio for the #gifted listening copy and @thedialpress for the early reading copy

I started this one on a walk last week and I have been OBSESSED ever since. If you can, I highly, highly recommend you read with your ears with this one. The narrator Alex Finke is phenomenal. If i could bold that and underline it I would. She brings the story to life in a way that is so endearing and I felt transformed on into the page with the characters. I have no idea what else she narrates but I will be looking into that immediately!

This is a standalone, slow burn romance that is going to get you in all your feels. It is for anyone that has ever struggled with grief and loss with the perfect balance of light and dark and serious and funny.

Lenny moved up there as one of my favorite characters of the year!

4.5 stars

I knew that after reading Ready or Not, I would pick up any book Cara Bastone writes. I lean towards dual POV romance books with deep character development and have a bit more spice. Promise Me Sunshine is not something I would usually love but once I picked it up, I couldn't put it down.

Lenny's best friend/soulmate Lou passed from cancer and nothing was ever the same. The main concept of this book is grief and getting through it. Enter Miles, who offers to help Lenny complete a checklist that Lou wrote for life after she passed.

Make sure to have a box of tissues when you read the book! This story is beautiful and deep and moving and will have you all in your feels.

Thank you so so SO much to Dial Press Trade and NetGalley for providing me this ARC.

Oh my God. This book had everything. The slow burn is so what I needed and something that I haven’t seen in a book in the contemporary genre in such a long time. The way Cara writes dialogue??? Is truly something to behold. Lenny and Miles have my whole heart, they’re vulnerability, they’re authenticity, their banter????!!! Oscar award winning shit, right there.

Truly, this book had me in tears. I loved seeing the development of Lenny as a character. I loved her relationship with Reese and Ainsley. Don’t even get me started on Miles. He is the perfect man. He is vulnerable. There is no toxic masculinity in that man. I am so happy that they found each other.

This book truly is a top three favorite of the year for me. This was such a delight to read, and I cannot wait to read red or not by Cara and oh my God this was just everything I wanted in the contemporary romance book. It was just this was this was so great. I am truly obsessed And I just I want more!!!

*slight spoilers ahead*

This is, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. An open lover letter to soulmates of all kind, but specifically platonic. The way Cara writes about grief is just so true to how it's felt for me in the past, that it really did hurt to read, but it was a really nice kind of hurt -- grief hurts, but it only hurts because you remember all of the love you have for the person you're missing and how can love not be beautiful?

Lenny's fear of feeling like she's never going to be able to live again without Lou but not wanting to heal from the grief she feels from her loss because she feels like it means she's forgetting her... ouchie. Not wanting to forget how this person smelled, their quirks, the sound of their voice, the secret jokes between you two, the language you've created with each other. I think the way Cara wrote about healing and how it looked for Lenny, was just so brilliant. It doesn't mean letting go, because I think no matter how much better you feel everyday, grief just sort of becomes an extension of you, but it manifests itself in better ways over time. In healthier ways.

Okay, I feel like I talk about grief a lot here (also, I'm becoming Iqra (my Lou) -- everything I've been consuming is filled with grief), so let's get to the other good stuff about this book: Miles and Ainsley. He learned a choreographed dance for his niece because she was sad her mom wouldn't make it to her event. HE LEARNED A CHOREOGRAPHED DANCE. HE. DOESN'T. DANCE. Do you get it?????? Let's talk more about Miles: His love language is obviously acts of service. Lenny hasn't eaten today? He's feeding her. Lenny can't sleep in her apartment anymore? He offers the empty apartment he still pays rent on, Lenny doesn't want to get off the ferry to sleep in a bed? Well, he's sleeping on the damn ferry too, I guess. Need me a freak like him. #AMEN.

I love this book so much. It feels like it's scrubbed me raw or peeled back my skin and forced me to generate new flesh or like it's broken me open in the best way. Please read it (if you haven't already. Actually, re-read it if you have anyway).

Xo