3.75 stars. Ready or Not by Cara Bastone was one of my favorite books from 2024 so Promise Me Sunshine was one of my most anticipated this year. This book didn't totally drive it home for me but I enjoyed reading Lenny's story progress and how her relationships developed with Miles and Ainsley.

Things that kept me from rating higher:
*The pace was a bit slow for me
*I wish there were more flashbacks to times with Lou
*I honestly felt Miles and Lenny would be better as best friends than lovers

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for this advanced copy in exchange for my honest review. Promise Me Sunshine publishes on March 4, 2025.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Pub. Date: 3.4.25

When a story hits so close to home… I absolutely sobbed.

I love that this book is so much more than just a romance. It’s raw and heartbreaking, and then it puts you back together again. Cara Bastone does a beautiful job describing the complex journey of grief and healing.

I will be back closer to publishing time with a longer review. If this book isn’t on your list, it should be!

Thank you to Random House Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC!

Thank you so much for this incredibly beautiful book. It was so comforting to read through a particularly tough time. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to have had an ARC and would give this book more than five stars if possible.

It’s taken me a while to write this review because there has been so much going on in the world. I will say, this is one that helped me escape for a bit but brought on some deep emotions. This book is incredibly beautiful and the growth of the two main characters is so lovely. It truly warmed my heart. I don’t know if it’s the fact that reality feels dark right now, but as I read this it felt like one of the most beautiful books that I have read. The story feels so real, and deals with deep connections through the grief process. If you only buy one book this year, this would be the one to get. I can’t wait for it to come out so we can all share the love for this wonderful book.

Thank you NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group, and Cara Bastone for an advanced readers copy for an honest review.

Pub Date: May 4, 2025

What's the Story?

Lenny, a born-and-raised New Yorker, is drowning in grief months after losing her best friend to cancer. She scrapes by with short-term nannying gigs, which is how she ends up looking after Ainsley—a precocious 7-year-old—and meeting her broody, socially awkward uncle, Miles. Miles is blunt, neurotic, and painfully bad at small talk, but after noticing Lenny’s grief support book, he makes her an offer: He’ll help her complete the list of challenges her best friend left behind to push her out of her grief—if she helps him bond with Ainsley.

What follows is a heartfelt journey of healing, human connection, and more than a few tears (fictional and mine). The Titanic scene is reenacted. Impulsive decisions lead to spur-of-the-moment tattoos. Heated traffic confrontations happen—because, NYC. And as Lenny takes on the city one challenge at a time, she starts to rediscover the joy in simply being alive.

My Thoughts: 5 Stars, No Notes

This was my first Cara Bastone book, and I’m officially obsessed. Her writing is effortlessly charming, balancing humor and gut-wrenching emotion in a way that feels so relatable. One minute I was laughing out loud; the next, I was ugly crying. It was that good.

The banter? Fantastic. The characters? Complex and deeply human. Lenny is a messy, grieving 20-something, and Miles is a broody, painfully literal overthinker who struggles with social interactions but means well. His love language? Acts of service. And damn, does he deliver.

The romance is a slow-burn, dislike-to-friends-to-lovers masterpiece, and I ate up every second of it. But beyond that, both Lenny’s journey of finding herself again and Miles’ attempt to build a relationship with his niece and half-sister were so well-developed and emotionally resonant. Just chef’s kiss, no notes.

Bottom line: This book is everything. If you love heartfelt, character-driven stories with humor, depth, and a slow-burn romance, Promise Me Sunshine needs to be on your radar. Releases March 4—don’t sleep on it!

Thanks to @NetGalley and @TheDialPress for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Live again. 😭

I’m over here still trying to contain my tears because this made me feel it all and then some. I was expecting some angst but truly did not expect to have my heart ripped out the way it. A story about grief, learning to push through life and finding joy again.

The friendship that begins between Lenny and Miles is so beautiful. A grumpy/sunshine kind of relationship that will pull you in and make you giggle at their banter. The way Miles just helps Lenny in completing the Live Again List while also honoring Lou and knowing how to approach Lenny was just everything. Top tier book boyfriend. I loved Lenny’s quirky personality and found the way she grieves to be relatable. Seeing her bloom again was just…everything. It fills you with hope.

Some favorite moments: the camping trip, getting their tattoo, the Disco bar, the talent show, when they finally are ready to proceed in their relationship, the first grappa dinner, the cameo from Ready or Not, Lenny living again, the FINALLY scene between them at the end. JUST EVERYTHING.

Thank you so much NetGalley and Random House for the ARC in exchange of an honest review!

ARC Review. Thanks to NetGalley and Random House/Dial Press for providing me with the advanced copy.

Our FMC Lenny has recently lost her best friend and is going through life by simply surviving. Almost a ghost herself, floating around from one short term nannying job to the next. At her most recent job, we meet our MMC Miles, the grumpy uncle of Lenny’s latest charge. By chance, Miles sees Lenny carrying a book about grief and he proposes a plan, he’ll help her learn to live again if she’ll help him get closer to his niece.

This was a beautiful and poignant story about learning to live again after an unspeakable loss. The depiction of grief and heartbreak was so emotional that I’ll be thinking about this book for a long time to come. I wish everyone had a Miles in their life.

The found family and relationships in this story were perfection. I can’t wait to read even more from this author.

This book is a hug. I think at some point, we have (or will) all experience a grief so deep that it physically hurts- so badly that you have to teach yourself how to live again. This book expresses this EXACTLY. Lenny is beautiful. Miles is beautiful. Their honesty and ability to speak each others’ language of grief was so wholesome and so real. This was everything I wanted it to be and more. This book is HOPE encapsulated.

This book was everything I wanted it to be and more. I fell in love with Cara Bastone’s writing in Ready or Not and somehow, this book was even better. I loved Lenny and the flashbacks of her relationship with Lou. I loved a female friendship being the first soul mate and a love story to follow with Miles. I loved how grumpy Miles was. I loved how much grief was present and raw and real. I felt like I knew these people.

5 shimmering golden stars🌟

this is easily one of the best books i’ve ever read. i thoroughly enjoyed it from the very start all the way through to the very end. cara bastones writing is so beautiful and she has the best way with words. i felt every single emotion you could possibly think of while reading this. i giggled at how hysterical lenny is, swooned at literally all things miles, and cried during some of the heavier parts. this book is very much so centered around grief, which is never an easy subject, and yet cara bastone executed all discussions surrounding it beautifully. getting to see both lenny & miles heal parts of themselves made my heart glow.

seeing some of lenny’s tough moments allowed me as a reader to fully comprehend what she was going through and how she was feeling. and seeing her be able to grow through those moments and find her sunshine again was so special. miles truly helped lenny through the toughest version of her life and was able to promise her sunshine on the other end. just like lenny was able to heal parts of miles he had locked and stored away and help him connect with his family.

i could talk about this book for hours i love them and everything about it so much🧡

What an emotional read. Lenny, our fmc, is grieving the lost of her best friend. Miles has promised to help her through her grief. Miles was that amazing mmc, I really wished we would of got some of his pov in a few chapters. While this was a great read, and since it was emotional read, I really wish when they did end up getting together, the romance was more closed doors. I feel the little spice that was shown almost ruined the book. 4 stars.

All the emotions! I laughed out loud, I cried, I swooned, and I'm pretty sure my heart actually hurt. Holy crap... I loved this book! I didn't think Cara could top Ready or Not, but I think this book might. The characters are so beautiful and multi-layer and real. We could all be so lucky to have a Miles...and a Lenny too! I didn't want this book to ever end. Loved the slow burn, and the entire story line. Reading this was a magical journey and love letter all wrapped into one!

THIS BOOK. GO BUY IT. BUY 12 COPIES. I loved it so much oh my god. Firstly, thank you so very much to Random House and Dial Press for the ARC, it was absolutely incredible. As usual, all opinions are my own.
Promise Me Sunshine starts with Lenny, about 6 months after Lou, her best friend, platonic soulmate, and favorite person in the world has died from cancer. And Lenny doesn’t know how to live without her. Understandably, she’s struggling and doesn’t know how to move on, taking temporary nannying jobs and not doing much else.
At her most recent job, she runs right into a complicated family dynamic between Ainsley, the spunky 7-year old she’s nannying, Reece, her overworked mom, and Miles, Ainsley’s grumpy uncle. Miles is having trouble connecting to his family, something that Lenny seems to do effortlessly. After witnessing Lenny have a break-down, Miles proposes a deal: he’ll help Lenny get through her Live Again list left by Lou, if she helps him improve his relationships with his family. The rest of the story follows Lenny and Miles helping each other and falling in love along the way.
I fell in love with both of these characters. Miles is absolute perfection. He’s shy and kind of grumpy, but loves so fiercely and is so gentle with all of his girls, and it’s impossible not to root for him. This man is the definition of “if he wanted to, he would” and he and Lenny are one of the best examples of a friends to lovers romance that I’ve read in a while. Lenny is so charming and relateable, and her grief is so raw that her memories and descriptions of Lou made me sob multiple times. They fit so well together, and it’s so relieving when they finally get together. This is a slower burn, but the burn is SO GOOD and oh so worth it. There is a long spicy scene, but I didn’t feel that it was necessary to read.
The other characters all feel so real and vivid, and I’d love books about each and every one of them. They were so interesting and fun, and it would just be great to see more of them.
This was such a lovely, earnest, beautiful book that I just loved so much. My review on Instagram was posted on January 29th, and the Goodreads review was posted today.

I will forever read absolutely EVERYTHING Cara Bastone writes! She could make the ingredients and directions on a 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner bottle make me swoon. I was elated when I saw the email notification that I had been approved by NetGalley to read this ARC.

When I read Cara’s book Ready or Not, I became an instant fan. I saw parts of my own life scattered throughout those pages, so I was thrilled to jump into the Promise Me Sunshine world. It did not disappoint! It was so raw. It was so real. It never once felt cliché. I felt every single emotion as if I were living in this world.

Each character was so beautifully written that, when I finished the book, it left me wanting the story to keep going—not in a way that made it feel unfinished, but in a way that made me believe the characters’ lives continue on, even if their stories aren’t written down and published. Does that make sense?

All I can say is that this book was just right. I’m so grateful I was able to read the ARC, and the moment it’s published, I will be getting myself the shelf trophy!

Thank you so much to NetGalley & Dial Press!
And thank you, Cara, for writing this book. I love it more than I can possibly describe in a single review.

This book was fantastic! I couldn’t put it down, yet I didn’t want to rush through it. Lenny is grieving the loss of her best friend since childhood and she is broken. Not wanting to bring people down with her she chooses short temp jobs and ends up helping watch a young girl of a single mom. Enter said mom’s half brother Miles who knows what it’s like to walk through deep grief after his mom and cousin die. He agrees to help her through the loss and a beautiful friendship blossoms that is about as true and loyal as you can find. Lenny has to complete the “live again” list and Miles will do anything to help her with this task. “He walked into hell and dragged me back out” pretty much sums up Miles. He may be the best male lead character in any book I’ve read. This is my second book by Cara Bastone and she did it again! Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the e-book in exchange for my honest review. This will be out March 4th and should be on your buy/read list!

Promise Me Sunshine is a book about finding your way back into the light after loss. It was full of grief but also joy, and was a very unique love story! The writing felt choppy at times which I believe was intentional as it reflected the way the narrator was experiencing her own emotions.

I would have always described myself as a reader that needed a fast moving plot and that character driven books weren’t for me. That was until I read Ready or Not by Cara Bastone last year and she’s back with her emotional yet fun writing style in Promise Me Sunshine.

Grieving the loss of her best friend, a young woman’s life is turned upside down when she meets a grumpy stranger who swears he can help her live again.

Obviously this one is heavy but there’s just something about a grief story that sucks me right in. Leave it to Bastone to make one of the hardest stories to tell also end up being one of the funniest ones. I loved the characters and it was refreshing to have the loss be that of a friend as sometimes your best friend is the family you chose. I can’t put into words how much I loved the story and the narration was absolute perfection.

My only complaints were that at the beginning the male character bothered me a lot. He was a complete stranger and basically forced himself onto the female character and expected her to just fully trust him and call him at any point she was sad. That wasn’t realistic and gave me the immediate ick. But he did redeem himself so there’s that. The second thing was that it started to drag towards the end and I became slightlllly bored. (I also had this problem with Ready or Not as well).

Overall, this is a 4.5 star read that rounded up to 5 because I did wholeheartedly love this story and if you can read it, I highly recommend that you do!

A tragic stunning example of love in times of deep grief.

Cara writes another poignant romance. It should be your run of the mill romance and yet it’s not. It’s SO much more.

If you need a good deep cathartic cry, read this. If you’re feeling like you don’t matter, read this. If you don’t know how to move forward, read this. If you need to remember the importance of the “little things in life”, read this.

Lenny lost her platonic best friend soul mate and she’s living day by day. Until, she gets a nanny job with a little girl named Ainsley. Ainsley’s uncle Miles, refuses to leave the pair alone. Miles and Lenny strike a deal, he’ll help Lenny with her grief and Lenny will help him bond with Ainsley. Soon enough, the lines blur and we forget who is helping who.

Read if you like:
🐺Matching tattoos
🗽NYC
🍝Your family’s long ass Italian dinners
🏡Forced proximity
🪣The bucket list movie
❤️‍🔥Slow burn
☹️Emotional romance
🫂Found family

Quotes:

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

"Every time i fall in love with you there's lightning"
"There's only you. Lenny. Every time.. it's just you" he says, muffled as he kisses me. "And you." He kisses me again. "And you."

"But with you, Len, when I met you..... I sort of feel like I met myself"

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

"Grief is a relationship. 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. You're not betraying her by healing, 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 great loves of our lives"

"I'm never sleeping when I close my eyes like this with you."
"Then what are you doing?"
"Committing the moment to memory."

"why should I be scared of kissing you, Miles? I'd just be getting even closer to the safest place in the whole world."

“Lenny, when I look at your face, I feel like I’m finally home after a really long day at work.”

Lenny annoyed me quite a bit at the start of the book to the point I almost wanted to DNF. I was not a fan of her schtick. I really, really enjoyed Ready or Not last year though, so I stuck with it. I noticed around 36% that she’d grown on me, the thing that was annoying me the most had calmed down, and Miles had a balancing effect. I actually would have really liked a bit of Miles’ POV in this story, because Lenny was a LOT and he did not say a whole lot with his words. The side characters were fun, but some of them fell away a good bit as the story progressed. Lenny is sad, she’s isolated herself from mostly everyone except Miles, and that (rightfully) put a damper on the “romance” through a lot of the book, but Miles is quietly solid in his care and affection. By the time we got to the spice, I was over it. The ending was about as weak as the beginning for me. The best parts were definitely in the middle Overall, I sadly did not love this as much as Ready or Not, but it is worth a read if you’re in the mood for a less conventional romance.

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

A huge thank you to Random House for letting me read this early! Cara Bastone has recently made her way on to my list of favorite authors. Her stories and characters are so rich and complex.

Promise Me Sunshine is a beautiful story of love and grief. We meet Lenny, drowning in grief and struggling to get through the day to day. Miles comes in, a lifeboat to get her through. We see so much growth from both Lenny and Miles and their love story was unbelievable. The chemistry was to die for, and the things Miles says oh man. He is the picture of a perfect book boyfriend. Cannot recommend this book enough, I cried, I laughed, I swooned and it was the BEST time!

It will be so hard for me to say just how much I loved this book, and I'm going to preemptively apologize for whatever romance I read next because it will be hard to follow up!

After loving Ready or Not, I was so excited to get approved for this arc and I TORE through it. Reading this book felt like being comforted with a cozy blanket and a hot cup of tea after a long, hard day. At its core, it's about all the different types of love that exist: familial love, plantic love, and of course romantic love. It's also such an honest portrayal of grief and the work that goes into moving on and finding the joy in life again after loss.

Also, with the current trend in romance novels focusing heavily on smut, I adored this absolute slow burn (and I mean like the last few chapters slow). The romance in this story is built on friendship, trust, and loving someone even when they are at their lowest point. I was DYING for Miles and Lenny to kiss and was kicking my feet when they finally did. Miles is a wonderful example of what it means to love and care for someone, ow to be there through hardship, and absolutely zero toxic masculinity. There was no miscommunication, 3rd act breakup, or any unnecessary drama to move the plot along.

My only tiny complaint is that I would have wanted more Lenny and Lou's flashbacks in the last act of the story, but it doesn't take away from how much I loved this book.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Random House for the arc. I can't wait to get my hands on the physical copy once it comes out next month!