3.75⭐️
This was a nice little cozy read.

It's definitely a great read for anyone in need of a clean, funny read.

This follows the story of Josie and her brother's best friend Wyatt.

Wyatt is a hockey player recovering from an injury. Josie's brother tricker her to go help Wyatt with his recovery

This is not my first Emma St.Claire and surely will not be my last.

☀️ grumpy x sunshine
⛵ enemies to lovers
🐶 brothers best friend
💛 clean romance

Josie is on her way for the annual Super Summer Sibling Extravaganza, but when she arrives at the address she is shocked. Her brother is nowhere to be seen and now she is alone at the creepy cottage. When she calls her brother Jacob to ask what's going on, he tells her it was all a ploy to get her to care for his client and best friend, Wyatt.

Wyatt is a famous hockey player and is now recovering from an injury on his foot. Josie has always hated Wyatt from the first time her brother took him home years ago. After some negotiations and money, Josie is persuaded to care for Wyatt for a few weeks.

After these few weeks, Josie started to like caring for Wyatt and decided to go with him on a sailing trip he was planning. This trip wasn’t smooth sailing. Every step of the way something went wrong, but with every step, or rather misstep they learned more about each other and got to know each other better.
Will they still hate each other after this trip or has this trip changed their feelings?

OMG! I loved this book so much. It was funny, cute and sweet but sometimes it was also serious. This book has everything I want in a book.
It felt like I was flying through the book. There was always something happening and there was never a dull moment.
I’m absolutely in love with the characters. I liked them all so much. The banter and the chemistry between Josie and Wyatt was amazing.
This is my first book by Emma St. Clair but I will definitely be reading more of her book. I recommend this book to anyone.

Thank you NetGalley and Thomas Nelson Fiction for the ARC. All opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

I was drawn in by the cute cover and clever title, and I'm a complete sucker for the brother's best friend trope.
I will say, I'm not sure why this is advertised as an enemies to lovers story, when you can tell from the beginning Wyatt has feelings for Josie. I would classify it more as a slow burn. And Josie's adversion to just jocks and not all men was slightly skewed, but I guess it could fall under the "trauma isn't linear" umbrella. There's also forced proximity, grumpy/sunshine, he falls first and hard, and a few more tropes I'm sure were thrown in for spice - since this book is a clean romance, that's all the spice you'll get.
Josie's humor really made her character stand out. Other than that, and her being a nurse, she was also compassionate (rescuing Jib and helping someone she mistakeningly thought hated her) and a great sister.
Wyatt didn't have much of a personality beyond being amazing at hockey (which we only see in videos of him playing since he's injured and it's the off season) and good at sailing. It could be because he's grief stricken in the beginning - both being injured so not knowing if he'll be able to play hockey again and losing his uncle who he was very close to. I feel like his only other personality trait was "foot in mouth disease" as they kept calling it and having feelings for Josie. I wish he would've been more fleshed out.
I did feel some parts were drawn out more than they should've been, but overall, I felt like the book flew by! I was listening and looked down to see I was at 79% and wondered if I'd missed part of the book.
I enjoyed the book a lot! Despite the murder cabin, it was a light-hearted and cozy read.

While having nothing to do with the author, I have been finding myself so annoyed recently with authors maing every love interest famous in some capacity. The story would've worked just fine without needing for Wyatt (?) to be a famous hockey star. Like, why does everyone have to be famous these days, my god? Other than that little tidbit, I think the book was good. Not my favorite read ever, but enjoyable nonetheless. I just wished there was more real drama, because the little drama that was there was brushed over quickly and very random, in my opinion.

Wyatt's (?) voice in the audiobook was not my favorite. It was so low and hard to hear a lot of the time.

This was a quick and sweet read!
I really enjoyed Wyatt and Josie’s love story—their chemistry was easy to root for. I do wish we’d gotten a bit more development in the romantic side of their relationship, but I loved watching their friendship grow throughout the book. Their connection felt genuine, and it made the eventual shift into romance feel natural, even if it was a little fast.

Gosh, I really wanted to love this book. The premise and tropes had so much potential and I could see some readers really enjoying this book.

Unfortunately, so many parts of it didn’t work for me. I’ll say this, if you don’t enjoy the miscommunication trope then I’d skip this one. Miscommunication doesn’t always bother me, but without miscommunication this book would’ve reached the end result in a couple chapters.

There are some TW’s around grief, loss of a loved one, and SA to be aware of.

This was such a sweet story! I was initially attracted by the title (cute!) and the setting, as I love the Northern Neck of Virginia. I enjoyed all of the references to and descriptions of familiar places in Virginia and the Carolinas. I also liked how the story incorporated sailing and felt that it wove nicely into Wyatt and Josie's love story. If All Else Sails was my first of Emma St. Clair's books and, after reading this one, I will definitely check out her other romances.

4.5 ⭐️

I was lucky enough to get to listen to the ARC audiobook of this novel, set to release in August!

This book was the ultimate witty, cozy romcom—and I loved every second of it! It follows a grumpy pro hockey player sidelined by a disc golf injury (yes, really) and the sunshiney elementary school nurse who ends up playing caretaker over summer break. Their dynamic is perfection, especially once they’re stuck together—along with the world’s sweetest dog—in forced proximity on a sailboat for four weeks. Cue the banter, heart-melting moments, and a million adorable outfits for the dog.

It nails the grumpy x sunshine trope, and the One Direction reference? Absolutely good for the soul. The dual POV narration was spot-on, with 5-star voice acting that made it even more enjoyable. Bonus points for lovable side characters and the fact that he fell first—chef’s kiss. The book had me laughing and giggling the whole time!

If you’re into slow-burn chemistry, cozy vibes, and a dog who kind of steals the show, this one’s for you.

I thought this closed door romance was cute. Lots of cute banter and quips. That being said, it did drag on a bit but I appreciated the forced proximity, grumpy-sunshine, sports rom com.
I appreciated the female narrator but could not stand the male narrator. He was far too exaggerated and I couldn't tell the emotions he was trying to convey. I cringed each time he came on and I was thankful that there were more chapters for Josie versus Wyatt.

This book was so good! I absolutely loved it! In this grumpy sunshine romance we meet Josie and Wyatt. Misunderstandings and years later they come together by Josie’s brother’s scheming. Josie accepts to help Wyatt as he recovers from an injury. They spend time and eventually go on a boat ride together, all the while sparks flying! The romance in this book was top notch! A clean read with great chemistry. The story was sweet, romantic, and funny, with just enough sizzle. I highly recommend this book and will be trying other books by this author! I received a digital copy of this book from NetGalley in trade for my honest opinion. My thoughts are my own.

This audiobook was so slow. I thought I was done and I was only at 50%. It started so cute and then just draggggggged.

I just finished this book today and sadly this book was a miss for me.

I actually was enjoying it a lot but I just felt like the book was drawn out for far too long and by the time I was finished with it I had zero interest in it. I know what happened at the end but I can’t even remember at this point as it was so dragged out.

I did enjoy the premise of the story though, brothers best friend and forced proximity are great and I did enjoy that aspect of it but the rest fell flat.

If you enjoy a slow burn that takes until the last part of the book, then you will love this.

I was also lucky to receive an early audio book of this one which was nice going between the two. I absolutely loved the female narrator and thought she did a great job of her part and everyone else’s. However I absolutely did not like the male narrator at all, so much so I just stopped paying attention to what he said which is bad.

“I received a complimentary copy of this book from NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.”

This contains an audiobook review.

This is a standalone, kisses only romcom by Emma St Clair. It features a character that was first introduced in a previous series of hers, but it is absolutely not necessary to have read that series to thoroughly enjoy this book.

Wyatt and Josie have chemistry out the wazoo. The banter between them is humorous. I appreciated the deeper touches of the story as well. There is healing achieved throughout the story for both characters. It was fun to take that journey with them.

One thing that I do want to mention, is that I did not read the blurb and am very glad that I didn't. It contains information that happens over halfway through the story. From the cover and title, some events could be guessed, but I personally hate being spoiled by blurbs. That's why I've stopped reading them, especially for authors I am familiar with their content or for books recommended to my by friends. That is another reason why my reviews are more vague than maybe other's are.

I listened to this book and enjoyed the narrators. It is a dual point of view book and has a male and female narrator for each point of view. They do not read as a duet, where each narrator reads all of the dialogue for their respective gender. They each read the entire chapter of the corresponding character's point of view. I found both of them easy to listen to and neither had annoying voices for the opposite gender.

I did receive an advanced copy of this audiobook from Thomas Nelson and Zondervan Fiction Audio via Netgalley. I am voluntarily leaving an honest review.

•𝐀𝐋𝐂 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰•

{𝑰𝒇 𝑨𝒍𝒍 𝑬𝒍𝒔𝒆 𝑺𝒂𝒊𝒍𝒔}

“𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚝𝚠𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚑𝚊𝚝𝚎 𝚒𝚜 𝚙𝚊𝚙𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗.”

⛵️ Release Date: August 5, 2025 ⛵️
.
.
.
In all honesty, this book was a bit of a disappointment. I was really hoping for more than just your everyday generic rom-com, but sadly, I didn’t feel like it was anything special. So while it was full of comedy and romance, it was lacking that extra spark that makes an ordinary book extraordinary.

I will say, the beginning was fabulous! I thought it was hilarious the way everything played out, but then the book started to feel a bit repetitive and draggy. Every chapter had something either funny, romantic, or touching pertaining to the chapter title, so as soon as you read the title, you knew what to expect. I’d rather go into a chapter blind and be pleasantly surprised by what takes place.

I struggled to feel any real chemistry between Wyatt and Josie. Yes, they were clearly into each other, but the ✨sparks✨ were lacking. I’m probably just too picky, but that’s what I get for reading an insane amount of romcoms 🙈

I wouldn’t say this book was bad by any means; it simply wasn’t for me. So you should definitely give it a read to decide for yourself what you think of it!

The narrators did a great job with the audiobook and made it very easy to listen to!

Top Moments:
⚓️ Murder cottage
⚓️ Being detained by cops
⚓️ Wyatt fever-flirting
⚓️ Mutant pigs
⚓️ Poison oak reaction
⚓️ Impromptu mother/daughter shopping spree
⚓️ The Cool Whip container
⚓️ Princess JibJabberwocky
⚓️ Jib’s outfits
⚓️ Boat shoes
⚓️ The storm
.
.
.
I received a complimentary alc from NetGalley and Thomas Nelson and Zondervan Fiction Audio. All opinions are purely my own.

This book was so fun and such an adventure. The best enemies to lovers with so much banter. The opening chapter had me laughing with the meet-cute experience. Every summer Josie and her brother meet up on an adventure of a trip. This year he sent her on an adventure and instead of her brother she finds his best friend, Wyatt.

The audiobook was narrated by Andi Arndt and Patrick Zeller. These two voices were so perfect for Josie and Wyatt. The banter between these two was perfect! Such a great swoony worth, fun beach read.

Thank you, NetGalley, for providing the opportunity to read this ARC!

If All Else Sails* presents an enemies-to-lovers romance featuring Josie, a school nurse, and her brother's best friend, Wyatt, a hockey player. Following an injury, Josie's brother persuades her to care for Wyatt during his recovery.
Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy *If All Else Sails* as much as I had hoped. I struggled to connect with both Wyatt and Josie, and I didn’t feel the chemistry between them. The story didn’t fully engage me, and I wasn’t particularly fond of the male narrator, which likely contributed to my experience.

I really genuinely enjoyed this book. I didn't know too much going into it but I'm thankful to have been given an ARC. I have to say it's really the best feeling ever when a book does NOT have a third act break up! To be honest, this book was pretty low drama throughout. I liked the relationships between Josie and her brother. I am a SUCKER for a man who has been down bad since the beginning and the FMC just has no clue at all. This book was cozy and good vibes all around. It was the nice short calm read I needed in between my other very stressful books. The only thing I didn't really love was the male narrator. He wasn't a bad narrator I just felt that his voice sounded much older than the character was supposed to be and it really interfered with how I pictured him. I would 100% read another book from this author, in fact I'm kind of hoping that she has something up her sleeve for Josie's brother.

I loved this plot so much and the characters were extremely likable. My only issue was the audiobook itself, I felt like I could barely hear the male narrator. I didn’t have the issue with Josie’s chapters at all,

If All Else Sails by Emma St. Clair was a cute and entertaining listen that brought plenty of laughs and charm. The story doesn’t aim to be life-changing, but it absolutely succeeds as a feel-good romantic comedy. The humor landed well, and the banter kept things moving at a fun pace.

I really enjoyed the sailing backdrop—it added a unique element that made the story feel fresh and different from the typical rom-com setting. It was fun to be immersed in that world, even if I’m not a sailor myself.

Thank you Netgalley and publisher for this review. 3.5 stars.

"If All Else Sails" is a charming and engaging read! Emma St. Clair delivers a sweet and funny romance with delightful characters in Sydney and Graham. The banter is top-notch, and the small-town setting adds to the cozy feel. While perhaps not groundbreaking, it's a thoroughly enjoyable story that will leave you with a smile.