this book literally breathed life into me.

what a wonderful exploration of grief and love and what it takes to keep living.

this book does a beautiful job of having enough joy and comedy to pull you through an exploration of such a sad topic that connects every single human. grief is inescapable. we will all experience it.

this book shows you what happens when you keep floating.

i love that this book does not reinforce the idea that someone will save you. but rather, that someone who cares will be there to hold your hand when you want to stop swimming. someone who will answer your call.

it filled me with so many happy tears and i felt so deeply emotional at so many occasions. miles’ care for lenny was incredibly wholesome and something that truly made me feel alive.

this definitely becomes a favorite romance of mind. it’s so fantastical and i cannot wait to listen to it when an audiobook comes out.

Exquisite. I was nervous to start this one because I loved Ready or Not so much, and I just didn't think that Promise Me Sunshine could live up to it. Thankfully, I was wrong.

This is utterly complex in the way that real life is. Lenny is reeling, her best friend is dead and her life is falling to pieces. Miles agrees to help her finish her live-again list, somewhat against her wishes at first, but he grows on her. And grows. This is a very slow burn, but the chemistry and growing friendship between the leads means that I didn't mind at all. There isn't a third act breakup so it's a slow slide into forever that has a lot of really lovely and important things to say about love, loss, and learning to live in the world after everything changes.

This should have been heavy, and it had it's moments for sure, but it was also drenched in sunshine. Cara's narrative voice lends an intimate and light tone to scenes that could have bogged down under their own weight with a less skillful author. A few favorite moments were every time Lenny fell in love with a stranger at first sight, anytime Miles tried to endear himself to his seven year old niece, and how embedded in place every scene was.

This is one of those books that I simply cannot do justice with a review. I don't care that it's only January, I know this is going to be one of my top 5 reads of the year, so get your hands on it as soon as you can. It's that good.

Cara Bastone’s new romance, Promise Me Sunshine is a fantastic read, and a little bit out of the ordinary for a romance in my experience.

I do want to warn people that although I highly recommend this book, it may be very difficult for some people as a lot of the book deals with severe depression, and grief over the death of a close friend.

Promise Me Sunshine is such a mix of serious topics, and fun, humorous moments, it’s really hard to categorize it. In my opinion, it’s part drama, part romcom, and does a good job combining the two.

I will admit that the first quarter of the book was more difficult, because Lenny, the main character, was having such a hard time dealing with her best friend’s death. I felt so badly for her and what she was going through.

As she started to turn the corner, with the help of Miles, the story gets a little lighter, and easier to read, with some really fun moments.

If there was one problem I had with the story it was this. If Lenny looked as terrible as Miles’ reactions made it seem at times, why was anyone entrusting their children to her care. And why was no one else (besides her mother and Miles) asking her if she was okay?

Ignoring that issue, this was a really great read. Miles was such a great guy, so supportive of Lenny, and his niece and half-sister. It was really wonderful seeing all of their relationships grow.

I think Cara Bastone has now become one of my favourite authors and I’ll be looking forward to reading more of her work.

I really love Cara's writing. This story was a lot heavier than I expected but Cara still manages to bring her humor through. I definitely had some tears shed as someone who has gone through loss. I really enjoyed watching the characters blossom throughout the story.

links to come.

A beautiful, heart-wrenching and heart-warming story of working through grief and learning to live without someone you never dreamt of having to live without.

This is my second read from Cara, and I’m in love with this one! It was emotional, it had meaning, and I felt like it was just paced out so well. The characters were unique and it didn’t take much time for me to love them and all their quirks.
I loved that we get to see the relationships in this book develop over time, and it never feels rushed, just beautiful. I cannot WAIT to have a physical copy of this book because I will be re-reading it and annotating the heck out of it!

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House publishing, and Cara Bastone for the opportunity to read and review this amazing piece of work.

Edit: I felt like it was worth editing to add that this was my first five star of the year!!

Cara Bastone has the unfair power and ability to write men who absolutely love and adore their women and I'm here for it every time. Another book of her's where the mmc cares for, loves, adores, dotes on, and pushes the fmc towards doing what is best for herself. I highlighted so much (317 times to be exact) and swooned endlessly. Miles was there every step of the way to help Lenny find her new normal and watching them fall in love was everything.
Thank you to the publisher & Netgalley for the early review copy!

Cara Bastone has done it again! I absolutely adored Ready or Not, so I was beyond excited to get my hands on this one.

I loved watching Lenny and Miles together—their dynamic was equal parts heartwarming and hilarious. Lenny, in particular, completely stole my heart. She’s quirky, lovable, and even in the midst of her grief, she manages to bring light and laughter. Her banter with Miles had me grinning, especially when she pushed him out of his comfort zone despite his reluctance.

The way Lenny and Miles care for each other is so genuine, and their journey together is beautiful and sweet.

This book may just be my heart in human form. This book tore my heart out of my chest and put it back in and more full than it felt. Miles and Lenny, have my heart forever and ever and ever. I don’t think I’ve ever felt connected to characters more. I think everyone hopes to meet and have a miles of their own in this lifetime. I knew from the first chapter that this book was going to be an automatic 5 stars. I can’t wait for the world to have this one.

I really loved how the story unfolds between the MFC and the MMC. I really enjoyed and had some good giggles reading this book.

3.5 ⭐️ In “Promise Me Sunshine” the fmc Lenny is in a very dark place after losing her best friend. Then, one day she takes a nannying job and meets the mmc Miles. Miles is the uncle to the little girl she’s taking care of. Miles see that she is struggling and offers to help her through her grief by crossing things off her “live again list” that her best friend gave her.

The themes on grief were done so beautifully. How to go on in life once you have lost someone so close to you. Bastone did a great job of showing us the dark place Lenny was in, but at the sometime giving comical relief to keep it light.

Lenny’s inner dialogue is hilarious and overall she’s a corky character. The writing is hilarious and had me chuckling. Though at times I did find the dialogue between characters cringy.

Even though this book is mainly focused on grief there is romance. I really appreciate the slow burn in this and when I say slow I mean really slow. I love when characters are falling in love without knowing they are. At first I found Miles a little weird and wasn’t sure if I would root for them to be together, but; once Miles character developed I found him super sweet and genuine. Miles is there for Lenny no matter what. I loved how gentle he was with her!

✨Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing for the advanced digital copy✨

5/5, 10/10 one million out of 10 I LOVED this so much. Cara Bastone is a "ready everything forever" kind of author for me and nobody is doing slow burn like her. By the end you want these two together so badly because what they've built and what they've done together has made such a beautiful and sweet and tender foundation for love. This is a gorgeous portrayal of what happens when you lose a soulmate and have to try, desperate and clawing, to put yourself back together again. I love these two so much, I'm so happy they found each other. Thank you NetGalley for this ARC copy I am eternally grateful!!

3.5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️.✨ This was a tender story of our main character Lenny coming to terms with the loss of her best friend Lou. Lenny as the FMC is a bit all over the place and I know a lot of it is due to the fact that she is grieving but I did find her overly quirky yet messy personality to be a little frustrating. I think because this is mainly a story about grief over her best friend Lou I wanted more flashbacks of their dynamic so that I could feel more connected to their "soulmate" friendship-- definitely would have been great as a dual timeline POV. The romance is more of a subplot but I did enjoy our MMC and what he brought to the story. None the less this was a sweet story and I enjoyed my time reading it! Thank you NetGalley for the ARC :)

3.5 Stars
This is a book about Lenny, a nanny who for the last six months has been grieving her best friend and roommate Lou's death from cancer. When she is hired to babysit Ainsley, she meets Miles, Ainsley's uncle who lives upstairs. Miles and Ainsley's mother, Reese, have a complicated family dynamic. Miles is immediately critical of Lenny, but when he realizes that she has been grieving, he offers to help her if she helps him bond with Ainsley. I actually enjoyed this book, but I could not get past the idea that no one realized how badly Lenny was struggling after Lou's death, and Lou's parents were not at all involved in cleaning out Lou's belongings.

No, but let me tell you about how this book is everything.

Cara Bastone knocks it out of the park with this one: her writing is phenomenal. This book is about friendship, grief and healing, and discovering love along the way. It felt way bigger than a romance book and it's power and meaning quietly snuck on me. You feel every single emotion Lenny feels so acutely and every piece of this novel is stitches together carefully. There were passages that had me in tears and then a chapter or two later, I was laughing out loud.

Lenny and Miles are soulmates in the most perfect sense. They have fantastic dialogue and inside jokes, that create a great layer of their foundation. The way they lean on each other (during the good and the not good) and grow in their friendship first is what dreams are made of. Cara might be the queen of friends to lovers, but I'll have to do more research to confirm. This is a slow burn (brace yourself), but their enemies to friends to lovers arc is so well done that the agony of waiting is so worth it.

While Ainsley and Reese were great additions and essential to Miles' character arc, but they didn't distract from the story of Lenny's grief, which is exactly how I think their characters should've functioned.

Miles has a lot of the characteristics of a golden retriever MMC, but he's also so serious and intentional, that now I'm wondering if a German shepherd MMC is thing? Is there another dog comparison I can make? (I'm open to discussion about this one.)

I don't really understand why the novel was separated in 3 parts and it broke up the flow of the novel, but that seems so trivial in the grand scheme of this book.

This is a heavy book and you really move through Lenny's (and Miles') grief alongside them, so please check the trigger warnings before diving in.

Tropes: enemies to friends to lovers, forced proximity, slow burn, family dynamics, grumpy/sunshine, friendship, grief, and solo POV.

*I received an e-ARC from NetGalley and The Dial Press in exchange for an honest review. THANK YOU FOR SUCH A GIFT

This was such an emotional read, and I can totally see why early readers are loving it so far! Promise Me Sunshine is a beautiful story about finding ways to live again after a loved one passes. Those who have been in Lenny's shoes know exactly how hard that can be, and I found myself crying in several places just because of how gut-wrenching her emotions were.

I absolutely loved how Miles showed up time and time again for Lenny, with everything from lending an ear to making sure she eats. I feel like everyone should have someone like that; someone who unconditionally has your back no matter what life throws your way. Ainsley was so precious, I love her to pieces! Not one side character in this book felt like a side character either. They were all so well developed and they played such important roles in Lenny's journey that they felt like additional main characters.

This was my first book by Cara Bastone, and I look forward to reading her other books! She had such a unique writing style for me. If her other books make me cry and laugh as much as this one did, then I just know I'm going to love her.

Thank you so so much to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for sending me this ARC!

Promise Me Sunshine is a complex love story set in New York City. By complex I mean it’s character driven but well plotted and focuses on more than your basic love story. Lenny is recovering from the loss of her best friend Lou who passes away with cancer before the book begins. Lenny is barely surviving. Not coping with her grief. And spending her nights “sleeping” on the Staten Island Ferry instead of facing going back to the apartment she and Lou shared. The only thing that keeps Lenny going are her childcare jobs. When she shows up to nanny for a new client she meets grumpy, overbearing Miles who ends up being the one to help her deal with her grief and love again. I loved Lenny, she was a force in the book. Miles never really completely came through clearly as a character for me. He didn’t have a lot of personality and just seemed too quiet and dumbfounded for most of the book. I did love their story though and the chemistry between them got better as the book went on. I remember not loving the male main character in Bastone’s first book either so it may be just the way she writes men for me.

Clearly in the minority here but I DNF’d this book. I just couldn’t get into it. I am not a romance reader but if it’s doing something new or different it can work for me. I thought since this was more of a slow burn romance with grief as a major theme it would work for me but sadly I couldn’t connect to the main character and couldn’t get invested in this story. It didn’t seem plausible to me . I think that if you like the romance genre and normally read romances this may work for you because clearly there are a lot of reviewers loving it.

One of my favorite romance writers is back with another gem, releasing on March 4, 2025 🥹

SPOILER-FREE SYNOPSIS:
When Lenny's best friend and soul sister Lou dies after battling cancer, Lenny is completely consumed by grief. She can't eat, sleep, commit to a consistent job, talk to her parents, or step into the apartment she shared with Lou as her roommate. When she gets hired for a temporary gig babysitting single mother Reese's daughter Ainsley, Ainsley immediately takes a liking to her. While working, Lenny notices that Ainsley's uncle Miles is constantly around, but Reese and Ainsley always give him the cold shoulder. When Lenny opens up to Miles about her grief, he admits that he also battled with grief following the recent passings of his loved ones, and he offers Lenny a proposition - he'll help Lenny check items off her "live again" list if she helps him connect with his niece and develop a better relationship with her.

I absolutely loved this book. Grief is such a difficult topic to write and read about, but when written well, it just makes the story that much more impactful. Lenny was such a quirky character ("messy but not a mess," as Miles says), but I admired the way she loved so loyally and fiercely that I rooted for her every step of the way. As I kept reading, I personally felt the weight on my heart getting lighter and lighter as the book went on. Also, MILES. ❤️ Everyone deserves to have a Miles in their life, but everyone should also aspire to be a Miles FOR someone in their life. What an absolute gem of a man.

This book was a wonderful reminder of the importance of self love. I could totally see this being made into a really great movie one day. Also, the mad libs at the end made me cry.

Thank you to @netgalley and @thedialpress for this ARC!

Review: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Genre: adult romance, romantic comedy
Tropes: friends to lovers, slow burn
Trigger warnings: grief, cancer, loss of a loved one, complicated family dynamics

4.5 STARS - I requested an advanced copy of Promise Me Sunshine based solely on my love of the author's previous work - namely her Audible Originals short stories which made me an instant fan of Cara Bastone.

I jumped into this book without reading the blurb - not realizing it's about grief and the loss of a friend - and ended up reading it during an emotional month for me. It's been seven years since I lost my friend Kym to leukemia, so this book hit me hard emotionally.

Promise Me Sunshine is a sweet, slow burn love story with humour and heart that uses the Friends to Lovers and Grumpy vs Sunshine tropes. Miles and Lenny were cute together with Miles being a delightful 'cinnamon roll' of a guy with a grumpy exterior who sees through the facade Lenny puts on and relates to the impact grief has had on her life.

Through Lenny, we witness the complex and emotional journey of someone experiencing grief. We see how she's learned to mask her grief to get through her daily life and the toll it takes on her mental health, relationships and quality of life. Her journey is realistic, relatable and I appreciate that Bastone doesn't offer up an easy fix.

I read parts of this book with tears in my eyes and a huge lump in my throat. But I also found myself giggling because Bastone's sprinkles humour throughout this romance to add levity in a story that is a sensitive portrayal of loss that gives comfort and acknowledgement to people who are on their own grief journey.

Disclaimer: Thanks to Dial Press for the complimentary digital copy which was given in exchange for my honest review.

This review was posted on January 29, 2025 to my blog and social media accounts - including a video review on Instagram.

Beautiful story. Heartbreaking and hopeful. Raw and real- exploring grief. These characters (main and side) were perfect and messy. Loved this!
Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for the advanced digital copy.