Dream On, Ramona Riley was an alright read for me. It grew on me as I read but it took me quite a while to get into it. A random example of something that threw me off… chapter one, there were 22 different names mentioned. Including three that were name drops of characters from previous books. I had to read it twice I was like oh my god who are all of these people 🤣. That’s a really minimal thing though but I never really was grabbed by the story or loved either of the main characters. Not a bad book by any means I just didn’t love it or like it that much.

Thank you to Berkley and Netgalley for this e-ARC!!

So good I had to preorder it to have on my shelf! Perfect quick and cute summer read. If AHB is writing it I'm reading it. Spicy famous x normal second chance romance. Not always a fan of a third act breakup but it worked for this story.

A great summer romance with nostalgic vibes for first kisses and following your dreams! This has all the good classic tropes of fake dating and missed connections with a supportive and positive queer joy and love.

This was good, i still love the bright falls seriously a lot better but this one was still super cute, very wholesome, cutesy small-town vibes (which is always a winner in my book).

And i love the way Ashley writes and how she crafts her characters, she gives them each their own special qualities and you can't help but love to hate some of them. While the famous person trope isn't normally a favorite, i felt for Dylan so hard, she truly had the childhood forced into the world of her parents and honestly somewhat groomed to be a certain type of character in the world of Hollywood and in turn growing up playing that identity, it unfortunately showed in a lot of faucets of her personality.

Ramona, oh man, I felt so connected to her in a lot of ways, always feeling like she needs to do what is best for everyone around her while burying her own dreams and it broke my heart a bit at how that consumed her life, but when the chance came along to change that, she was sure going to try.

Now, I will say the part I didn't love miscommunication in this book, I do, however, feel that all AHB's books do have some sort of miscommunication integrated into one of the characters personalities and that is definitely no different here.

It was a solid read though, and when it comes to queer romance AHB is fantastic and oooh the spice? CHEFS KISS, my gosh she is so good at it, I eat that up. Overall, I did really enjoy this read and i really love how Ashley creates her stories and the differences between the characters, you get so invested.

highly recommended quick read, that also had a bit of a trauma comfort aspect to it, very enjoyable and very loveable characters and town.

Thank you to Berkley and Netgalley for this e-ARC!!

Famous daughter of famous musician parents and small town woman looking to change up her life have a second chance at romance 18 years after their first kiss.

I love the bisexual x bisexual relationship in this book and all the different representation Herring-Blake includes in her books. I thought elements of Dream On, Ramona Riley were supremely tender (cutie friends, sister bonding) and the smut was top tier!!!!

My major qualm with this one was the factual feeding with a lot of telling not showing occurring. I also felt a lot of it to be repetitive and/or overly explaining irrelevant-feeling information.

If you’re into small town rom coms, famous x normal couple pairings, sapphic love, and a lot of communication issues pick this one up!!!

Before I get into my review, I first want to say thank you to Netgalley and Berkley Publishing Group for the ARC of “Dream On, Ramona Riley.”

Oh my god, this book was so good! I don’t even know where to start. AHB really outdid herself with this one. It’s cute, sweet, witty, and emotional! Not to mention the Easter eggs to her last books.

The chemistry between Ramona and Dylan was so good. It was on the next level. The entire time, I was rooting for them. This book had me giggling, laughing, and crying at so many different points throughout.

In conclusion, I think Ramona and Dylan deserve the damn world, and so does this book.

Thank you @prhaudio for the gifted audiobook and @netgalley & Berkeley for the eARC in exchange for my honest opinion!

Dream on, Ramona Riley by Ashley Herring Blake
Pub Date: 5/13/25
Format: ebook/audiobook
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Oh I just adore Ashley Herring Blake and everything she writes, and Ramona & Dylan’s story is no exception. Our main characters met briefly yearssss ago and it seems that fate has their paths crossing once again in the adorable New Hampshire town of Clover Lake!

Clover Lake is giving me similar vibes to those in BK Borison’s Lovelight series - it’s a quaint town where everything revolves around their small diner and other local businesses, and everyone knows everyone’s business. So when things shut down to film a movie adaptation of an Iris Kelly book (squealing at the Bright Falls nod), you know things are about to get interesting.

I really loved Ramona & Dylan’s love story. It is sweet and tender as they navigate who they really want to be to themselves, the world, and most importantly each other. And it is also hot as hell 🥵 I am almost always getting so swept up in Blake’s gorgeous stories that I forget how well fed she keeps us in her books!

The only thing holding me back from giving this 5 stars was the miscommunication trope leading to the third act breakup. It felt more plausible in this book than some others due to Dylan’s celebrity status, but it still felt a bit drawn out and frustrating as a reader. I think it was believable for the characters and their maturity levels, but I still felt like it impacted pacing in the third act for a 400 page romance novel. The ending was worth the journey though and I still really enjoyed the book!

If you are looking for a sexy but vulnerable romcom that has small town vibes but with a celebrity twist, I highly recommend grabbing this book for a beach read! I don’t think you can go wrong in either format with this one - narrator Gail Shalan did a wonderful job with the audiobook.

Local lesbian adores AHB book. In other news: sky blue, water wet.
I'd love to read this book for the first time again. I just adore how Blake writes characters that are messy in best ways,(escaping a breakup in a helicopter is iconic imo) and romances that leave me absolutely kicking my feet. Ramona finding it in her to start her life again, her sister's experience with their mom, Dylan allowing themselves to just be themselves, it was all so ridiculously good.

The Bright Falls series I enjoyed so much and I’ll just read everything this author writes now. Dream On, Ramona Riley is the latest release for Ashley Herring Blake. This is a sapphic romance where one heroine is an actress and the other is working in a small town diner and they have a bit of history! The whole “one of them is famous” set up isn’t always a personal fav of mine, celeb romances in general aren’t my fav thing, but this one worked for me.

This has a bit of hidden identity/miscommunication for a bit, basically they shared a kiss as teens and meet again as adults where Ramona remembers and Dylan doesn’t seem to (at first at least). This has a “movie being made in the small town” set up and it was cutesy! But let me tell you, the spice was spicy in this read! Holy moly, looking at you chapter 24 (and a lot of chapters after that too). The first bit of the book really had my attention, I think this book was way too long than it needed to be though so I wasn’t as invested in the second half. All in all, it was a solid new sapphic romance, but Delilah Green Doesn’t Care remains my fav from this author.

I received an ARC from the publisher, all thoughts in this review are my own.

CW: mentions of parental neglect, mentions of parental abandonment, mentions of drug use, discussions of sobriety

I’m forever a AHB Stan.. 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

Thank you to NetGalley and AHB for my advanced copy.

You tell me Ashley’s writing it and I’m immediately reading it!

Ramona and Dylan, our two FMCs, are brought back together in their 30’s after a chance encounter when they are just teenagers. Two very different women now, can they rekindle the feelings they once had?

I don’t know how Ashley does it, but every character she writes feels like an old friend. You laugh and cry with them, you feel their victories and their downfalls.

Dylan’s character arc - finding herself and healing past trauma was so refreshing. Ramona’s patience and love were everything Dylan needed.

Oh how I can’t wait for April’s story 😍

rating — 4.5 out of 5 stars.

when i want a good sapphic romance, i know i can always count on ashley herring blake to deliver. i was first introduced to her a few years ago, when delilah green was launched into the world – 2022 was the first year that i really got back into reading, and she made a profound impact on me as an instantly loyal reader. i hadn’t been exposed to all that many queer books before then, much less sapphic ones – so of course it was easy to fall in love with her characters and their little world! i always love an interconnected romance series, and they do such an excellent job with making both the characters and their world come to life.

reading an ashley herring blake book feels like hanging out with your own friends (granted, if they were in their 30s, but i have a lot of millennial friends so this stands true for me) – it’s comforting, familiar, and always welcome. when i sit down for a new book of hers, i know exactly what i’m getting, and i love that! ramona and dylan’s problems felt both realistic and understandable for their life situations, and the pacing was very well done. i also really appreciated how ramona being fat is treated as a neutral thing – because it is!! the bar is low, but i see that pretty rarely these days, so it was refreshing. overall, they knocked it out of the park once again! i’ll always be coming back to support ☺️

Thank you to PRH Audio for the ALC and Berkley for the free book. AHB is an auto-read author for me and this is the lowest I've ever rated a book by her (like literally all the others are 5 starrers). I'm just getting a bit tired of characters who purposefully lie to each other. For me this isn't a miscommunication trope (which isn't even a trope I necessarily dread anyway), there were no incorrect assumptions more like no chance for a character to even make a correct assumption because they're just lying. And I really thought this was going to be childhood friends to lovers but it's a bit more convoluted than that and I didn't really like the setup. Tons of characters are introduced all at once and like the Ramona's BFF gets an info dumping romantic backstory moment before the love interests of this book even meet.

I normally enjoy the celebrity trope, but something about the way this small town operated just seemed to clash and feel unrealistic. Which I hate saying because books should be allowed to be unrealistic and do I really know what a celeb would be like in this situation?? No. But still it kept pulling me out of the story.

Overall, the cover is gorgeous, AHB's writing does come through. This is worth a try also because the narrators do a great job. Just not my fav.

*Received as a free ARC*
Another enjoyable AHB read, just in time for summer! I wasn't sure how into the famous person/normal person dynamic I'd be, but she pulled it off! The third act breakup wasn't too heinous. It was slightly spicier than I'd prefer, but I'm ace, most romance readers aren't. My one real complaint is that I'm not totally happy with the resolution of the Dylan and her parents plot. She had every right to be pissed off at them for her entire childhood. And I just feel like that got glossed over a bit in favor of the touchy feely reunion. Overall, well written and well enjoyed!

This was a classic AHB book through and through! As always the setting is so fun. Clover Lake was so cute!!! All the characters were so fun, I can’t wait to be back!! I LOVED seeing Iris! This was a sweet intro into a new set of characters in the AHB universe!!

I liked Dylan and Ramona! I liked that they were able to find each other again. Seeing them meet for the very first time was SO sweet! They were just two sad girls and they were able to find some real comfort in each other!! I did have a hard time seeing them really connecting in the present. They were both omitting the truth about things that really were kind of big deals for both of them. I normally love fake dating…but apparently only when they’re both in on it. And while it was obvious they both had big feelings for each other, I feel like all of the others things they had going on separately were a bigger deal??

Which leads me to say I really liked both of their characters arcs! I loved seeing Ramona finally get to follow her dreams, which is what the title is all about right!! And while I loved her and her family SO MUCH, and I loved that she didn’t regret her choices/the things she felt obligated to do, I really loved that she finally got what she deserved and more!! And Dylan’s journey was tough, but I feel like that’s on brand for an actress, and with how her parents were in the past, and with the world seemingly working against her for a story. But by the end she was able to reconcile with a lot of things and I thought it was done well!

Thanks to Berkley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Before I get into my review of “Dream On, Ramona Riley”, I’d like to thank NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for the early eARC!

Oh. My. God. As someone who has read all of Ashley Herring Blake’s books, this one is by far my new favorite.

One thing I loved is although this is a brand new series for AHB, she put in little Easter eggs for fans of her work. (Delilah, Iris, Stevie.)

Both of the main characters were so well written. I loved how both had their flaws but were still so insanely lovable and easy to connect to.

One thing I also appreciated was how cheesy this book was without being cringey. This book had me (literally) giggling and kicking my feet.

I seriously want to re-read this book over and over and over again!

This was my first book read by Ashley and it won't be the last. I devoured this! I truly enjoyed the mental health rep, and the spice was SPICIN' (in the best way possible).

Thank you Berkley Publishing Group and PRH Audio for the free advanced copies of this book.

Dream On, Ramona Riley was my first book by Ashley Herring Blake and a STEAMY sapphic romance featuring some of my favorite tropes.

This small town, grumpy x sunshine story follows Ramona and Dylan as they reunite unexpectedly after sharing a kiss one summer when they were teenagers. Ramona is now a pseudo-mom to her younger sister and Dylan is the Hollywood famous, wild only child of rockstar parents.

This book was cute, funny, steamy, and featured some excellent side characters. I loved Ramona, her older sister energy was so relatable and I loved watching her blossom throughout this book! Ashley Herring Blake set this story up well for a continuation of the series, and I can't wait.

I had high hopes for this one and it exceeded my expectations!

this was so good!
from being 13 and being each others first kiss and not seeing each other for years, to being adults whos paths cross again.

i ate this up!
i could not put it down to the point i was reading it at work🤭

this was cute, emotional and Ramona was written 100% for the eldest daughter who has to grow up too fast and put their dreams on hold.

highly recommend!

Another emotional journey from Ashley Herring Blake, with tons of character development and swoon worthy open door scenes. If you’ve liked her other works, you’ll love this one!

“She could forgive herself. She could start fresh, remake, redo, be, become.”

I just adore Ashley Herring Blake. Her books are so genuine and her characters always feel relatable, but complex enough that their growth journeys are compelling.

Both Dylan and Ramona have complicated, interesting backstories involving their families which is something that I think connected them when they were younger and again as adults. There is such an obvious chemistry between them, but still a lot of difficult feelings. Dylan coming back into Ramona’s life is unexpected, but blossoms into a burgeoning romance. And the fact that Dylan is there to shoot a movie adds a different pressure to everything. It was also really fun to get a little cameo from Iris and Stevie!

What I really loved was how they both resolve their feelings towards their parents. For Ramona, she’s still bitter about her mom walking out. She has this great conversation with her dad where he acknowledges her sacrifices while also encouraging her future. Dylan has always been in the shadow of her famous parents who never acted much like parents. She has held these feelings of neglect and abandonment, and finally has the conversations she needs to.

There is some miscommunication here, but it was written in a way that worked for these characters. It doesn’t feel trivial, and it builds into a significant and beautiful resolution. The last few chapters are just so well written and bring the entire story together. It doesn’t feel too neat and clean, and despite the nearly grand gesture, it feels realistic and grounded. This is another great book from Ashley Herring Blake.