It’s Different This Time
By: Joss Richard
Genre: Romance (Open Door)
Pub Date: Sept 30, 2025
Rating: 4.5 ⭐️
I loved this book! If friends to lovers is one of your favorite tropes, add this one to your fall TBR! 🍂

Quick Summary:

After five years apart, two former roommates, Adam and June, end up living together again due to a wild legal situation. They are forced to confront their unresolved feelings as the story unfolds.

Second Chance
Dual Timeline
Friends to Lovers
NYC setting
Forced Proximity

My Thoughts:
I love second chance romance, but I’m not always a fan of friends to lovers. But this book did it right! Honestly, this is one you will want to binge in one sitting! The dual timeline kept me turning the pages to find out exactly what happened for Adam and June to have their falling out. I had that anxious feeling towards the end I usually only get with fantasy novels! If you are a fan of People We Meet on Vacation or The Ex Vows, I think you will love this one too!

Note: Review posted on Sept 22, 25 on Instagram, Anna Marie’s Book Club. I will plan to reshare on pub date.

An absolute must read for fall! Do yourself a favor & start this book on a nice cozy Saturday morning when you have nothing to do & nowhere to be because I genuinely considered calling in sick to devour this book! The dialogue flowed seamlessly. The FMC & MMC had me kicking my feet & crossing my fingers. The pace of the plot was quick from the start & never let up. This is everything I want from a romcom. One of the most entertaining books I’ve read this year. I can’t remember the last time I loved a book from a debut author this much. Joss Richard is officially a must read author for me & I hope there are many more books to come from her.


Big thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for allowing me to enjoy this ARC

June, an actress has just had her cancelled when she gets a call from a lawyer informing her that she has inherited a brownstone on Perry Street in NYC. It was the home she had with Adam, her best friend (until he wasn’t), and they had lived there together for years before she moved to LA. In order to acquire the property, June has to stay in NY for a month, and so she moves back into to Perry Street and is surprised when Adam moves back into as well. Now the two begin to reacquaint themselves with each other and the underlying feelings that were there before begin to reemerge.

I will always have a soft spot for books about NYC, chefs (Adam is a chef) and theater so it was inevitable that this book was going to work for me. I thought the author captured the west village beautifully, and with the flashbacks the reader got to see how their relationship begin and ended up. There was a big reveal in the book that I didn’t think quite met expectations but other than that this was a sweet second chance romance with great characters (and NYC being one of those characters). I liked the audio for this but I preferred to read this one. This is a great fall read.

4.25

Thank you to Ballantine and NetGalley for the ARC to review

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

IT’S DIFFERENT THIS TIME is a sweeping, second-chance romance that feels anything but like a debut. From the first page I was hooked and by the end my heart was completely full.

June and Adam’s journey—strangers ➜ roommates ➜ friends ➜ strangers again ➜ friends ➜ lovers—unfolds through a beautifully executed dual timeline that balances slow-burn tension with heartfelt emotion. Joss weaves their past and present together seamlessly, creating a push-and-pull of unspoken feelings, missed moments, and quiet yearning that kept me reading late into the night.

The chef x actress dynamic is a refreshing twist. I adored the foodie details (that kitchen date! the way Adam leans down to bite the doughnut—whew 😏🔥) and the theater backdrop added extra charm. Their genuine adoration practically leaps off the page, and the found-family element made every side character shine.

Joss also handles grief with remarkable care and compassion. I laughed, I swooned, and I cried. sometimes all at once. The writing carries the confidence of a seasoned author, and it’s hard to believe this is a debut.

Tropes you’ll love:
• Second chance romance
• Friends to lovers
• Slow burn
• Dual timelines
• Forced proximity
• Found family
• Chef x Actress

Adam Harper is officially my new book boyfriend. the pining, the devotion, the way he cares for June is everything. If you’re looking for a heartfelt, emotional romance that will leave you both swooning and misty-eyed, IT’S DIFFERENT THIS TIME is a must-read.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was a wonderful debut! It's a second chance, friends-to-lovers story that has the best fall vibes.

June and Adam meet, become roommates, and eventually best friends. But that was in the past. Now they are estranged and inheriting a house together. Can they be honest with each other about what went wrong and are they ready for a real relationship now?

This book was so well written, especially for a debut. This is friends-to-lovers done right! I loved Adam and June and their swoony relationship. They needed to just have a conversation about their feelings in the past timeline, but they were young and dumb. I loved how they overcame their fears to be together. There were also excellent secondary characters that felt fully developed. I especially loved Adam's family. The fall setting in NYC was perfect and really added to the story. I can't wait to see what this author delivers next.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dell for the e-book in exchange for my honest review.

It’s Different This Time is a second chance love story. An actress at a crossroads in her career inherits a house with her roommate and former best friend, an up and coming NYC chef. The catch is that they have to wait a month to sign the papers and this leads to them sharing the beautiful brownstone during this time.

I loved this book so much. It will likely be my favorite of the year and Joss Richard is an auto buy author for me now. This book spoke to my soul on so many levels. I could not put it down. I cannot wait to meet the author at a nearby book signing.

Adjusted Rating: 3.5 stars!!!

This book started off so strong for me. It was one of the first books in weeks that actually pulled me in right away. I found myself focused on the story without caring about the page count or how long it was taking me to read. The introduction and setup were engaging, and I was genuinely intrigued to see where the plot would go.

Unfortunately, the momentum didn't last. Somewhere around the middle, the story started to drag, and the pacing lost its grip on my attention. It felt like the plot wasn't really moving forward, and the characters stopped holding my interest. By that point, I realized I didn't care much about whether their ending was happy or not, which was disappointing after such a promising beginning.

On the plus side, I'm a sucker for dual timelines, and this book did make use of that structure. At times, it added depth and kept me curious, but there were also sections that felt unnecessary and stretched out the story without adding much. As for the main character dynamics, I definitely expected more oomph from the FMC and MMC's backstory-the reveal was much softer than I'd hoped.

That said, I did like the way the book wrapped up, even if it was a little blah and predictable. The ending felt right for the story, and while the miscommunication and impulsive choices along the way weren't my favorite, I'm glad it landed the way it did.

Overall, it's a cute story—one that I could easily see being turned into a movie I'd watch (and probably rewatch), even if the reading experience itself lost some spark for me.

This was a phenomenal debut release! I loved how perfectly imperfect the main characters were, and related so much to the FMC, June. With the dual timeline, we get glimpses of June and Adam from the past and in the present. We see their relationship go from strangers to best friends, but never wanting to cross that line into something more. I was hooked from the start and it kept me wanting to know what happened between the two of them. With June's family history, it's easy to see why she struggles to feel like she's good enough. I loved her character growth and watching her journey to get to a spot where she finally feels deserving. Despite being in single POV, I could feel Adam pining for June from his actions and words.

The ending was perfect and definitely teared up a bit. I am looking forward for more from Joss because I'll definitely be picking up her next book!

All the stars. A love letter to NYC, and a beautiful second chance romance. June and Adam were strangers turned roommates, turned best friends. The dual timeline immerses you into their story and the writing is so beautiful and thoughtful. The classic friends to lovers question of "but what if we break up?" really was devastating for June and Adam, and it was gutting to see them battle that, especially amongst hard family situations. Their present day love story was filled with pining, unresolved feelings, tension, and sincerity. The brownstone they shared was the glue, their home, and filled with every memory, for better or worse. Their misunderstandings of each other were both infuriating and real, and I admired their maturity in communicating when it came time to decide if they were choosing each other.

Thank you so much Dell Romance for the e-ARC!
I love a good second chance romance - it’s one of my favorite tropes, and this turned out to be a pretty great one! The romance was so sweet, and I loved how the author chose to alternate the chapters between past & present - that doesn’t always work well, but here it was great and made the story executed so well. This book also has great, cozy fall vibes and was a great rom-com for this time of year! I definitely recommend picking it up when it comes out on the 30th.

Joss Richard’s It’s Different This Time is an impressive and heartfelt debut that swept me away. At its core, this is a second chance, friends to lovers romance layered with emotional depth, heart, and a touch of melancholy. The premise is irresistible: June and Adam, once roommates in a beloved New York brownstone, are reunited years later after the building’s owner leaves it to them and they end up living there together for a month while the details are sorted out. Richard masterfully weaves the present with flashbacks of their past, unraveling what went wrong between them while setting the stage for a tender and hopeful reunion.

The fall NYC backdrop gives this story an irresistible charm. The brownstone itself becomes a character—warm, vibrant, and infused with nostalgia—while the autumn atmosphere wraps the entire book in cozy yet bittersweet vibes. Richard also explores deeper themes of grief, complicated family relationships, and the sacrifices that come with chasing big dreams. Adam, an aspiring chef, is not only swoony but a supportive, grounding presence for June, an actress striving to carve out her own path. Their dynamic felt real, layered, and deeply satisfying to watch unfold.

Beyond the romance, the supporting cast shines, adding richness and warmth that elevate the narrative. It’s rare for a debut to strike the perfect balance of heart, chemistry, and atmosphere, but Richard does exactly that. It’s Different This Time is equal parts tender, nostalgic, and romantic, a love story you’ll want to savor like your favorite fall comfort read.

It’s Different This Time is a sweet friends to lovers romcom set in New York City during the fall, and if that doesn’t sound like the most perfect book, I don’t know what does!

The story follows two roommates who move into a West Village brownstone as strangers and slowly become best friends. Told in a dual timeline, we see both their present-day lives after inheriting the brownstone, and the six years they spent living there starting more than a decade ago. Their friendship is one of the best I’ve ever read in a friend to lovers story. The characters are well developed, layered, and authentic, and that comes across in how their friendship develops. Everything about them and their love story felt SO real.

I can’t talk about this book and not mention the truly immaculate vibes. If you’ve been chasing the high of a Meg Ryan fall since first watching You’ve Got Mail, this book delivers. Between the cozy brownstone, leaf peeping in Central Park, gathering seasonal produce at the Unique Square farmers market, and testing out seasonal drinks, it feels like the perfect fall weekend in NYC.

The only thing I didn’t love was a third-act miscommunication that felt out of line with the characters as I’d come to know them (the curse of a well developed character!). It didn’t ruin the story for me but it would have otherwise been an infinity star read!

Read for
Friends to lovers
Found family
New York in the fall
Broadway performer X Michelin, Chef
Dual timeline, single POV

I really expected to love this based on the synopsis. It seemed right up my alley. The writing was fine and I really loved the setting. Unfortunately, overall it didn't work for me.

Even as quite the hopeless romantic, after over 50%, I was still wondering why I should be rooting for these two to be together. I think part of it was a personal disconnect from the FMC, which is the only POV. It all came together in the end as it should, but I personally found much of the journey in her head very frustrating. The pacing was also a little off for me. It's a dual timeline, and for ~60% of the book, the past/flashback chapters were more compelling to me than the current reconnection between these two characters. The current timeline progressed a little too slowly for me causing the book to feel a bit long to me.

I will still look for other stories in the future from this author, though. Truly, I had no issues with the writing itself and enjoyed the setting very much. This one just wasn't for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the digital ARC.

Thank you to Dell for providing me with an eARC for review.

I so wanted to give this book 5 whole stars, and for the majority of the book I thought that’s what I would give it. There was so much life and heart in this story and in these characters. And truly, this book transported me to New York City in the fall. The breadth of this narrative was so impressive, I felt like it perfectly mimicked the type of romcoms we’ve been missing and the pacing really set it apart from other adult romance novels.

However, this book was not without its faults. Unfortunately I really didn’t like the way the steamy scenes were written. They felt like they were being written by an author who was uncomfortable with describing sexual intimacy and personally I feel like the story would have benefitted from removing those scenes entirely. Don’t get me wrong, I love steamy scenes in romance novels! They just need to be as well written as the rest of the narrative is.

My other qualm with this book is that I felt like June didn’t go through nearly enough character development. She makes a lot of mistakes, as all humans do, but she never gives a true apology and never seems to really identify that she was the problem. Of course, Adam should have also been more honest with his feelings, but June was the queen of deliberate miscommunication. She rejected him, she didn’t want to commit, she could never be fully honest with him. And that’s fine at first, but I would have loved to see her develop more and come to understand what her weaknesses were and attempt to rectify them. Unfortunately, she doesn’t ever really do that and I suspect that her inability to be straightforward and honest not only with others but with herself will cause problems in her relationship with Adam.

Overall, if it hadn’t been for the lack of character development with June, I would have given this 5 stars. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would still recommend it to everyone. Can’t wait to see what this authors writes next!

3.5 stars rounded up.

Firstly, Extremely impressive work for a debut! Genuinely I would have no ideal the writing was beautiful, and Adam and June were extremely flushed out characters. The family dynamics and emotional themes felt extremely mature. I was instantly invested in Adam and June’s story and I did not want to put this book down. The dual timeline had me chomping at the bit to figure out their relationship and ultimately their downfall.

Adam and June’s relationship was genuinely sweet (up to a point), and I appreciated that this wasn’t a second chance romance in a traditional sense. However, around the 60% mark it lost me a bit. June’s justification for leaving NY came across as immature but I could justify as her being a 20 something and genuinely spiraling. However, once everything unraveled, it turned into a communication nightmare and genuinely felt like there was no character growth. The present day conflict was still rooted in poor communication which was exhausting and I had hoped they would have learned to communicate after nine years of knowing each other. The resolution happened really quickly and I wish we had more time to sit with it.

I did really like the epilogue being set six years later, though, I think it grounds the romance and made it feel more realistic. Overall, this was a phenomenal debut with raw, real adult emotions and a romance I was rooting for, but the heavy reliance on miscommunication did dampen my overall enjoyment. Still, as a first book I’ll absolutely be picking up more from this author in the future!

Thank you to NetGalley, Ballantine Dell, and Joss Richard for the chance to read this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

Excuse me? A debut! No way! The chemistry between our MCs radiated off the page from their first meeting in the bookstore to the VERY end. This is a second chance romance- and the alternating timelines were paced beautifully. I was so stressed and invested when things were falling apart the first time (as they do in a second chance romance) I had to get out of the house and go for a walk before I could watch it crumble!

The elements of the MCs careers in theater and fine dining were both detailed so well that I've had the RENT & Les Mis soundtracks embedded in my head for days AND I've been having fun in the kitchen again. That's pretty cool, right!?

As a mortgage/banking/property ownership professional- the legal issue that brought these two together is non-existent in reality. There was no lien/debt on the home- so the bank wasn't going to/couldn't take the house-- but the government could as an unclaimed asset, but I digress. Fiction is for suspension of reality so just disregard me, please.

Characters | 10
Atmosphere/Setting | 10
Writing Style | 9
Plot | 9
Intrigue | 10
Logic/Relationships | 9
Enjoyment | 10
|
Average Score: | 9.571428571
CAWPILE rating method used. All credit to creator Book Roast on YouTube! |
|
|
Does the title make sense to the story? | Yes!
|
Intimacy. Does it: |
Add to the story/chemistry: | YES!
Detract from the story: | No
exist as spice for spice's sake: | No
Is the intimacy skippable if desired? | I think so....

A dreamy fall season in NY. Its different this Time is a beautiful second chance romance. I give it 4.5 stars (rounded to 5). When June's TV show gets canceled and her old brownstone comes back to her, she leaves LA and moves to NY to live with her old roommate Adam. After all the years, Adam and June are reunited again. Its Different this Time is a beautiful story about love, family, grief, and connection.

I truly enjoyed this book, I read it all in one day. It drew me in instantly and I really enjoyed reading about June and Adam's current and past timeline.

Thank you kindly to Netgalley for the ARC!

I knew this book was going to be five stars from the first 10% of the book. I grieved the time I spent away from this book, all I wanted to do was read it. The story is genuinely so funny and utterly heartbreaking. I laughed, cried, and sometimes did both at the same time.

eeks
- Adam Harper is my dream man I think
- I really relate to june in a deep way, not in a ‘moving in with my old fling thing’ but the way she’s so vulnerable and emotional, I just get it
- I literally had not a thought in my head while reading this book I was just so into it
- The tension!! ugh my heart!! Usually the will they won't they makes me so upset but this book just delivered in a way I haven't had before.


icks
- had a trope I usually hate but this time it was actually quite tolerable in a "it has to happen in a rom com" type of way


Overall this books deserves way more than five stars. I immediately bought a copy of it when I finished. This book comes out in one week and if you haven't preordered it yet, go do it right now!! I am on a HIGH right now knowing how good this book is before it comes out!! This ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 stars!

I loved it. Such a cute/feel good second chance romance.

Perfect for the fall season. The setting of New York in the fall was absolute perfection.

I loved the dual timelines, I couldn’t put this one down. The only reason it is not a 5 star was because of that the miscommunication at the end. Other than that it was amazing.

Thank you NetGalley and Ballantine for this eARC.

Looking for a second romance between close friends (big emphasis on the close) with a fall NYC setting? It's Different This Time by Joss Richard is here to deliver!

June and Adam are basically roommates + best friends + two people who kept tripping over their own emotions for years until they are forced together in the same house again. I quickly fell in love with this book right from the beginning and really liked the dual timeline of the past and present. I thought the author did an amazing job integrating the timelines to keep you entertained throughout the story.

I personally found June to be messy, hopeful, anxious, bold, and also the kind you root for even when you kind of want to shake her. Adam, the main MMC was definitely swoon-worthy, but I didn't really find myself swooning over him? The story conflict is rooted in miscommunication and I felt like Adam kind of followed along with the rest of the story vs. standing out on his own?

If you like second‑chance romance, slow burn, worn‑in friendship, emotional tension, and dramatic leaps forward after long pauses, this book is the one to grab!

Thank you to Ballantine (Dell) for the early e-ARC of this book! I can't wait to check out more of Joss Richard's writing!