This is how you write a slow-burn romance!

Thank you to NetGalley, Cara Bastone, and Random House Publishing Group for a free ARC in exchange for my honest review!

The Plot:
Lenny and Lou were the best of friends until Lou passed away from cancer five years ago. Now Lenny is left alone, trying to find a way to live again. She takes babysitting jobs to avoid going back to the apartment they shared. This new babysitting job came with an extra uncle, a grumpy man named Miles.
Miles has also dealt with loss and has joined Lenny's mission to live again.

My Thoughts:
There was something about this book that I cannot figure out. The slow-burn was real and complex. The emotions and fears were prevalent throughout the whole book, but in a redeeming way. Each character had a solid identity and we truly got to watch them grow and overcome their obstacles.
It was so well written and I see what all the hype was about. We had two good characters who just wanted to get better and they had to get through real-life issues to get there.
I've been through loss before and those emotions were captured perfectly in Lenny.

I would easily recommend this book to anyone. It is a lovely romance, perfectly paced, and I adored these characters!

“He reminds me of a gravel road. At night. With nothing but headlights to show you what comes next.”

This will for sure be a favorite romance of the year for me.

What I liked:

This book is the slowest burn in the best way possible. We see Lenny & Miles go from strangers to friends to lovers in the most natural way. I typically don’t love a friends to lovers where the main characters are strangers at the beginning of the book, as I don’t feel like we get enough time with them as friends. Bastone wrote this relationship perfectly in a way that I truly believed in Miles & Lenny’s relationship.

The themes of grief and mourning were amazing. How do we move on when our person is gone? This book had me sobbing my damn eyes out.

Ainsley is a fantastic character. I do love a good kid in a book, and Ainsley was perfect.

What didn’t work for me:

Absolutely nothing

Thank you Net Galley, Cara Bastone, and Dial Press Trade Paperback for an E-ARC copy of this book. Friendship, grief, love, finding yourself again, and family. This book has it all! I love Lenny and Miles and from the start of the book, you can tell they will fall in love. Through their journey and how they help each other with grief while finding themselves after tragic losses, is so beautiful and a reminder to keep living through the challenging times. The characters, right to the bellman, are so amazing and all profoundly impact each other. I LOVED this book and can’t wait for my friends to read it!

Thank you Dial Press and NetGalley for the arc. All opinions are my own.

This was such a beautiful story about grief and love, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Cara did such a wonderful job of portraying Lenny’s grief throughout the book, and I loved seeing how Miles helped her throughout this difficult journey. This is a slow-burn, which I can sometimes struggle with, but seeing their relationship progress through friendship made their connection so much stronger. Overall, this was such a heartfelt story and I highly recommend!

My review will be shared to Instagram, TikTok and Amazon closer to release.

This is one of the best books I’ve read in a while. This was an amazing exploration of grief and friendship. Although it had its sad moments, it was also funny and entertaining with a wonderful romance. Miles is one of my favorite MMCs. I loved how strong and dependable he was for Lenny.

Promise Me Sunshine is another stunning work by Cara Bastone. The degree of difficulty in the way she crafts her characters and conflict is so impressive. This is a novel about grief and joy, about putting ourselves back together when we are met with seemingly impossible loss. And it’s about the people who are there to help us along the way. I loved Miles and Lenny and seeing their journey to each other.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the free ebook in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to #netgalley for allowing me an ARC of this novel. I really enjoyed it, it is well written and it is a believable story. It goes through the grief of the main character and how she manages through it with the help of a friend. I don't like to give anything away in my reviews because I think people should just read it.

I love the fact that Lenny always imagines her future with these random ass men that she’s never going to see again. It makes it even funnier that she’s not afraid to do it after Miles lets her know that everyone sees her looking at them weirdly. I can only imagine how expressive she is and what the hell these guys are thinking. Especially at the beginning when we know she’s grieving and her appearance is not as well thought out.
I loved the way Miles and Lenny’s romantic relationship developed and how they each had their own say about it. Friends to lovers is a great thing, but difficult when they’re both grieving. Their ending made me happy and smile. I felt as though Bastone was giving me a hug with the way she wrapped up this book.

This was another well-done romance from Cara Bastone. Funny banter and sweet chemistry interwoven with heavy themes of grief and loss which I think were handled very well.

Don’t let this beautiful, colorful, cutie cover fool you!! This is an emotionallllll book🥲 but it’s worth the pain❤️‍🩹

Lenny has just lost her best friend and she’s lost herself in the grief. She was left a “live again list” full of things to do to well…live again. But finding the courage/will to do those things? hard. enter Miles.

It’s a friends to lover and slow burn romance!🫶 but it’s also about learning to have fun again, finding new friends, how healing is never linear, the importance of taking care of yourself first but knowing when to lean on others🫂!!

I made so many highlights too!!✍️

It took me a bit to get into (~30%) but then I couldn’t put it down! At times Lenny was a bit awkward? but not in a way that made sense for her character? so it would take me out of it but I do really recommend!

Oh my goodness, Cara Bastone has done it again!! She had me crying within the first few chapters. The way she captured grief?? Perfection. I'm a sucker for a book set in NYC too. Just so lovely all around. Read this!!

I love the main characters in this book so much! I love Lenny’s witty personality, and I love how Miles loves every part of her. A beautiful story not only about romantic love, but also about family and grief.

I absolutely loved this one!

This story is filled with grief and healing that you can feel and I loved how realistic it felt. Though it’s an emotional read, there are light moments of joy and laughter. The romance feels so believable and Bastone does and amazing job building it up to make it feel real…

I don’t know, this was different, it felt good to just sit in the story and now that it’s over, i miss them.

I enjoyed Promise Me Sunshine. I liked the theme and message behind this book. I thought Bastone did an incredible job showcasing Lenny's grief. Lenny was a layered character. Her character arc was satisfying to read. Lenny was very quirky! I did find her a little hard to connect with at points. I adored Lenny's relationship with Miles. Miles was such a cinnamon roll character. I loved how sweet and vulnerable he was with Lenny. His little Nancy Drew diary was adorable. I liked how Lenny and Miles were there for each other. It was cute watching him become more comfortable with Ainsley. I liked Ainsley and Reese's characters. I liked that there was some resolution with that plot point. I was surprised by how long the slow burn was in this book. I didn't mind it! There were some funny bits in this book. My favorite was the family scene with the grappa. I wish we got to see more of Lenny's family. The only major gripe I had about this book was the ending. It felt very abrupt to me. When I turned the page on my e-arc, I was shocked to find the acknowledgements page. I wanted a few more pages at the end. Thank you to NetGalley and Dial Press Trade Paperback for the ARC.

Heartfelt healing through friendship!

A beautifully poignant journey of two people navigating immense loss in their lives. Through the strength of their friendship, they learn to live again, choosing hope over being defined by their grief.

The audiobook was phenomenal--it perfectly balanced moments of much-needed laughter with the emotional weight of the story, adding depth to every scene. This genuine grumpy/sunshine romance has forever claimed a piece of my heart.

Have you ever read a book that you felt so deeply in your soul?

Promise Me Sunshine by @carabastone was that book for me. I’m so grateful to @thedialpress for my #gifted early copy. This book was like a love letter to my heart. 💌

📌About the Book:
Lenny is 29, single and an absolute mess. Her best friend and soul sister died from cancer and she is floundering. When she takes a short term nanny gig for a sweet little girl, Ainsley, she meets Miles, Ainsley’s grumpy uncle.

But Miles sees through Lenny’s mess. He recognizes her grief and decides to help Lenny learn to live again. Going through her “live again” list, Miles and Lenny cross off one item at a time as they become friends. And as you can predict, they fall in love and it’s absolutely perfect!

💭My Thoughts:
Absolutely. PERFECT. Thanks to my girl Lindsey @tatted_book_babes for letting me spam her texts as I read!! Miles was the perfect man, and the way he let Lenny be herself and didn’t try to FIX her was perfect. As someone who lost their way through grief and forgot how to live, this book spoke to me on so many levels.

This book comes out March 4th. You NEED IT.

Lou is left in shambles after the loss of her best friend. Barley holding it together she meets Miles. The grumpy Uncle of the family she nannies for.
Both Miles and Lou have baggage and the shared trauma of losing a loved one. After starting off on the wrong foot they decide to help each other. Miles need help getting closer to his family and Lou needs help learning how to keep living and accomplish her "how to move on" list.
Together they embark on a journey of self-discovery, love, and friendship.

I truly loved this book for so many reasons. Cara has an incredible talent for melding New York City into a book accurately and so much so that it becomes another character in the story. As someone who use to live there the chance encounters and friendships made along the way are heartwarming and accurate! ALSO, I typically am not a fan of cultural references in books. They typically feel disingenuous, but these characters felt so real, and all of the references were perfect for who the character was (thank you for not mentioning Taylor Swift!).

This was for sure a very slow burn. ALMOST a closed-door romance. But it felt right for the story and the characters, so I didn't mind.

Lenny, reeling from the loss of her best friend Lou, takes a babysitting job for single mom Reese and her daughter, Ainsley, only to clash with the brusque yet grief-savvy uncle, Miles. As they navigate their respective struggles, an unlikely partnership helps Lenny rediscover herself and find love amidst the healing process.

Promise Me Sunshine is the first book I’ve read by Cara Bastone. I have mixed feelings about it. The premise was unique and intriguing. The themes of grief and moving on were portrayed well. Lenny and Miles’s relationship seemed promising. I enjoyed watching their friendship develop and evolve into something more, but it didn’t seem strong enough. The second half of the book took an odd turn. The pacing felt uneven, with some scenes dragging unnecessarily, and some of the dialogue came off as cringey. While I appreciate a slow-burn romance, the way Lenny and Miles eventually came together felt disjointed. Lenny’s grief over her best friend was understandable, but at times her behavior seemed overly immature and frustrating. Her character development didn’t align well with the overall story. As for Miles, I found myself wanting more insight into his perspective as his character didn’t seem like fully fleshed out. In fact, many of the characters felt underdeveloped which detracted from the overall experience. Overall, I found it to be a decent read. People who are fans of friends-to-lovers might enjoy this.

Arc received from Netgalley for an honest review

3.5 Stars

Promise me Sunshine is about Lenny, a woman experiencing the grief of her close friend and doing her best to get through life with that loss lingering within her. It touches on hard topics and beautiful moments that we as reader experience alongside our characters.

Lenny herself is a character I found myself struggling to really love. How she handled her grief gave me no issue at all, since there is no exact way to grieve. It was her personality that was a little bit odd to say the least. She made up fantastical stories of almost every man she saw, going from their wedding day with children, to a bad breakup or divorce.

As a thirty year old who's also a kid at heart, Lenny felt a little too immature at times and I think some may find her unlikable because of that. Even with all of that said, I found Lenny to be a really interesting character, and the way she went through her feelings alongside Miles was heart wrenching and healing at the same time.

Lenny isn't perfect, she may be an odd ball, but she is dealing with something that everyone must experience sometime in their lives. I found her to be a strong character who handled the situation she was in as well as she could, and I really respected her for that.

Miles is the love interest of the story and I adored him. At first, he came off judgmental and rude, but considering his own situation and the way he handled it afterward, I was able to easily forgive this fluffball.

Miles is there for Lenny in a way a lot of us need, especially when going something as difficult as loss. He is kind, understanding, and always there for her. He had my entire heart and I loved the slow build up of romance that stemmed first out of friendship. It felt so real and genuine, which was my favourite part of this novel as a whole.

Miles isn't just there for Lenny, but she's there for him too, and seeing them grow and get close while standing by each others sides, and moving each other forward in life was beautiful to see.

I enjoyed this book overall, though I did feel Lenny's personality made some scenes a little awkward for me. Otherwise, I think this book is really important in regards to the topic of grief and healing after a loss, as well as the beauty of having a support system at your side to help you through it.

This is a very strong, powerful and sweet read for anyone who wishes for a slow burn romance with sweet characters, a little bit of tears, and a male protagonist you'd want to cuddle.

At this point, I’m fairly convinced Cara Bastone and her words exist to fully obliterate my soul and then tenderly hold me until I feel whole again.

If you were wondering if Ready or Not was some kind of fluke and maybe Cara couldn’t make you possibly feel that much a second time, you’re wrong.

Promise Me Sunshine is everything you want it to be and more. I have such a hard time even calling this a romance novel because while, yes, there is a romance plot, there is just so much more to this story.

The friends to lovers plot line is done impeccably. The connection that Lenny and Miles forge- and when I say forge I mean it; I mean hard earned, in front of a blazing fire, sweat-and-blood-and-tears forge, is so deeply emotional and transformative. Miles and Lenny are two very imperfect individuals who are drowning in grief and regret and pain and it’s written with such heart you can’t help but want to be a part of it with them.

I know so many people have raved about Miles as a character and undoubtedly he deserves it all. But I also so, so loved Lenny. I loved her tenacity and her unwillingness to give up. She was drowning, but fighting tooth and nail to keep her head just barely enough above water to keep surviving. And I loved her for that toughness and that determination.