You know that moment when you pick up a book based off the stunning cover? You think you're about to read something light? A feel-good romance? Well, that's how it started off for me, but I was completely unprepared for the emotional journey I was about to take. What I thought would be sweet and swoony based purely off the cover, turned out to be much deeper - more tender, gut-wrenching, and honestly, more rewarding than I would have imagined.

This book was a raw, beautiful exploration of grief, healing, and second chances. It's about what happens after the worst thing imaginable. About how love can anchor us when we are feeling lost, and how we can pick up the pieces, find ourselves again, even during the greatest pain.

Lenny (short for Helena Elena) is coping with the death of her best friend Lou. She is an emotional wreck, she hasn't been taking care of herself, she's been sleeping on the ferry and completely avoiding her pain & grief as much as possible. Her life takes a turn when she's hired to babysit Ainsley, whose mom Reese lives in Upper West Side - with one overprotective, obnoxious brother, Miles.

From the start, Miles & Lenny butt heads. He's skeptical of her skills, constantly on her case, and far from friendly. But over time, their dynamic evolves from enemies to a blossoming friendship. What makes their relationship compelling is how real it feels - it's not rushed - this is a slow burn! Their connection takes time to build, Miles and Lenny bond over grief, slowly working through a “Living Again” checklist Lou left behind: camping, concerts, trying new food, all the little joys that feel impossible when your heart is broken. Everyone deserves a Miles in their life - someone steady, compassionate, and patient.

What I loved most about this book is how it balanced heartbreak & hope. It's emotional and painful, but also filled with warmth, humor, and moments of pure joy. The writing is gorgeous, the pacing felt right, and the characters are incredibly relatable. If you've ever loved and lost, this will hit home for you. It's a reminder that it's okay to fall apart, and it's also okay to find joy again, even if it feels unimaginable and undeserving.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for the opportunity to read Promise Me Sunshine in exchange for my honest review.

I absolutely adored this book. Cara Bastone has such a gift for creating characters that feel real, complex, and deeply human. Lenny and Miles are both incredibly endearing in their own right, and their dynamic felt fresh and true to life. This isn’t a romance that relies on overused tropes or a predictable structure — it unfolds with the kind of slow-burn tension and emotional depth that makes you want to keep reading just one more chapter.

I appreciated how Promise Me Sunshine balances realism with romance. It has just the right touch of spice without losing its grounded, character-driven focus. The journey Lenny is on — both personally and romantically — is compelling and relatable. I found myself rooting for her and for Miles equally. They both felt like people I could know and care about.

While the supporting characters like Rica and Jeffy didn’t feel quite as developed for me, I’m hopeful that more depth might have been added in the final version. Even still, they served their purpose well in shaping the world around Lenny and Miles.

If you’re looking for a contemporary romance that feels authentic, a little messy in the best way, and full of heart, Promise Me Sunshine is for you. I can’t wait to see what Cara Bastone writes next.

This book broke my heart into pieces and put it back together again. I loved Miles. I loved Lenny. I loved all of it.

☀️Promise Me Sunshine ☀️
📆Pub date: 3/4/25

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was such a heartwarming story about Lenny who is grieving after losing her best friend.
She is struggling to move on. She meets Miles, who is the uncle of the girl she babysits for. Miles is a total grump until Lenny breaks down his barriers. These two become friends helping each other through their struggles.
Miles is so kind, patient and caring 🥹
I loved the chapters of Lenny and Lou’s past that really helps you know their relationship and the depth of the loss Lenny is feeling.
This was a slow burn that captivated me throughout the entire book. The audiobook was AMAZING!!! Cara Bastone is quickly becoming a favorite author and I can’t wait to read whatever she writes next!

Thank you @netgalley and @randomhouse for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Promise Me Sunshine by Cara Bastone ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

I don’t know how to explain this book other than it felt like a warm hug.

Promise Me Sunshine is a story about grief, healing, and how to keep on living. We follow Lenny on her journey as she tries to heal from the loss of her best friend. She takes a temporary babysitting job for a single mom, Reese, and daughter Ainsley. This is where we meet Miles, Ainsley’s uncle.

I love Lenny and Miles 🥹 they are both well rounded characters, and their journey from strangers to friends to more was so sweet. The banter was actually incredible and so realistic?? And Miles was a walking green flag- literally have nothing bad to say about him.

-grumpy/sunshine
-found family vibes
-slow burn

Would highly recommend! And I will definitely be checking out Cara’s other books!

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I knew this would make me cry and it did. I'm a crier so a book that deals primarily with grief is bound to bring the tears. Cara Bastone is a beautiful writer and I can see how so many readers have connected deeply with this story. That being said, it just never clicked for me and at times it was a struggle to get through.

There were parts I really enjoyed and I'll never think of a lone wolf howling at the moon the same way again.

I initially wasn't sure if I was going to like this book, but it did win me over about halfway through! I loved watching Miles get through to Lenny, and how Lenny helped him with Ainsley. Grief is tough but I felt that Cara Bastone did a great job and capturing feelings

I was completely invested in these characters from beginning to end. Lenny is struggling after the devastating loss of her best friend, who was more like a sister, and she’s barely holding things together. When she takes a temporary nanny job caring for a sweet girl named Ainsley, it sets her on a path of unexpected healing.

Enter Miles, Ainsley’s uncle, who strikes a heartfelt deal with Lenny: he’ll help her through her grief as her self-appointed "grief wingman" if she helps him connect with his niece. What follows is a tender, emotionally rich love story filled with depth, heart, and genuinely well-developed characters.

This is more than a typical romance—it’s a beautifully layered story about loss, love, and the messy path to healing. I’d recommend it to readers looking for a deeper emotional read with romantic elements, and to book clubs that don’t mind a few open-door scenes. I’m already looking forward to diving into more of Bastone’s work.

What a brilliant story! Such a delight to read - even though the topic of grief is heavy. The topic was covered in such a way that balanced the world of romance and grief so beautifully. Especially giving a Live Life Again list for the readers at the end - so good!

This book was a powerful portrait of grief and someone coming out from the deep depths of those first few months. Lenny and Miles were complex and interesting characters, and I thought their journey was thought-provoking and worth reading.

Not your typical love story and probably a reflection of the type my soul yearns for. I adored the way this was written and all of the characters. Grief is something I’ve had to contend with a couple of times and it’s a sneaky bugger that can creep up on you when you least expect it. This book encapsulates grief so well and had me yearning for my own Miles who can see me beyond my facade and help me find my way back to me. This is so very rich in the depths of humanity. Please do yourself a favor and go read it!

This one had a slow start, but it grew on me. The grief in this story felt really real—each character was dealing with it in their own way, and I appreciated how gently that was handled. Lenny’s journey was messy and honest, and I liked the quiet connection that built between her and Miles. It’s a story about loss, healing, and figuring out how to start again, even when you don’t feel ready.

This was a frustrating one for me. It felt like an embarrassingly stereotypical romance novel. The grief arc felt more like a set dressing than something explored with nuance, and the characters were so messy and impulsive that I rolled my eyes more than I was rooting for them. The male lead had no discernible personality outside of serving as a prop for the female lead’s healing journey (ick), and her whole “quirky girl with no accountability” thing grated on me fast. There’s a difference between endearing and exhausting. If “he’s not grumpy, he’s misunderstood” is your thing, maybe you’ll have a better time with this, but it didn’t work for me. It wasn’t deep, it wasn’t sexy, and it wasn’t believable. I would have been satisfied if it had delivered on one of those fronts. Instead, I’m just confused about who this book was for.

Thanks to NetGalley and Dial Press Trade Paperback for access to this book.

Cara Bastone is becoming an auto-buy author for me, and I absolutely adored Promise Me Sunshine. Slow burns are my favorite type of romance because it allows the author time to truly establish a relationship between the two main characters. Lenny and Miles's story of loss and love was beautiful, and Lenny truly may be my favorite FMC of all time. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the eARC.

I first need to say thank you so much to netgalley for the arc of this book. This was even better than I imagined. Lenny and Miles were just so incredibly sweet and I found myself wanting to go through my kindle and hug them both.
This book truly shows all the hard parts of losing someone to love and I was crying for a lot of this book. While this story does deal with a lot of grief there was plenty of lighthearted and funny moments. Our FMC Lenny is so hilarious and I was laughing with her during a lot of this book too!
The romance between Lenny and Miles was a super slow burn but it was paced so incredibly well. I was thankful that we got to see them become friends first and working on healing themselves before starting a relationship. I absolutely adored them both so much.

I was talking about this book with a mutual because we both could not stop thinking about it and she described it as "heartwarmingly sad" and I think that's it. That is what this book is, hope and joy found in real human experience and somewhere romance along the way. Just the best of the very very best here and a book I'll be thinking about for quite a while.

A lovely, funny, heartbreaking look at grief, loss, and finding the sunshine again after terrible darkness. The friends-to-lovers, grumpy-sunshine tropes really work here, and the characters get a chance to shine. Touching and entertaining.

This is a novel about grief, consolation, and hope that also happens to contain a romance between two people who see each other brightly and clearly.

The slow burn of the romance is not drawn out, it builds with intention and care. Miles and Lenny’s relationship is a blooming flower: beautiful at every stage but somehow! with every petal unfolded, with every exposure of self! it keeps getting more beautiful until it is fully revealed and seen and it is vibrant.

The unrestricted representation of the ugliness of a feeling—a bone-deep feeling that is like a dull, constant thrum in the background of life—is perfection. I also adore how every character in this story serves a purpose and encapsulates it so well.

5 glowing, heart-squeezing stars! 💛
This book wrapped me up in its warmth and didn’t let go. It’s the kind of story that breaks you open in the softest way—grief, healing, love, friendship—it’s all here, and it’s done *beautifully*.

💛 *Tropes/Vibes I adored:*
✔️ Grumpy x Sunshine (Miles = the gentlest grump to ever grump)
✔️ Emotional slow burn 🔥
✔️ Found family 💌
✔️ Healing through love 🩹
✔️ A romance so pure it *hurts*

From the very first page, Lenny stole my heart. Her grief was so raw and real—watching her navigate life after the loss of her best friend was gut-wrenching and honest in a way that made me pause *so many* times just to breathe. And then Miles walks in… the quiet, awkward, glasses-wearing sweetheart who never says the right thing but *means* every word he says.

Their love story is slow, steady, and utterly soul-stirring. It’s in the small things: late-night conversations, ferry rides, shared silence. Miles is safe. Miles *sees* her. And Lenny? She learns to let herself be seen.

This is more than a romance. It’s a story about choosing to keep going when everything hurts. About allowing yourself to feel joy again. About finding home in unexpected places and people. Cara Bastone, you wizard of emotion—you’ve officially earned a forever fan.


Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for the ARC!

3.5 /5

Bastone is quickly becoming an auto-read author for me.

Promise me Sunshine, was sweet and a beautiful representation of grief. I loved Miles, although I am not sure people like him really.

A perfect friends for lovers. I think this book may have been improved with a dual point of view. I would have loved some of Miles perspective on his relationship with Reece.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!