AHHH! I was holding my breath until the very last page. “Friends to Lovers” was stunning - full of yearning, love, and vulnerability. I loved every second of this book and it COMPLETELY wrecked me (THE ENDING Y’ALL UGH!😭). This book is everything I could’ve hoped for in a novel. Sally’s writing was so immersive, real, and honest - I felt like I was right there with Ren and Joni, watching their story unfold. Falling in love is such a brave, beautiful, and vulnerable act. To give your heart to someone and to receive theirs in return is one of the greatest honors we can have as humans. Stepping into the unknown is terrifying, but if you are lucky enough to have someone by your side who makes the world a little less terrifying… hold onto that. 💕🥹 “Friends to Lovers” captures all of this perfectly. Just WOW! 🥹💕 thank you @sally.blakely for sharing this beautiful story with the world - I can’t wait to see what you will create next 💕

Disclaimer: I received a free audio and ebook review copy of this book from Harlequin Audio and Harlequin Publishing (Canary Press). All thoughts and reviews are honest and my own.

Thank you to NetGalley and to Harlequin Audio for this alc in exchange for my honest review.

If you don't love friends to lovers then you should probably avoid this one. I found it to be perfect - it was sweet, emotional and just such a great feel-good romance. Jodi is a mess, and watching her come back from being fired from the job she gave everything to, and get to reunite with her former best friend? It was such a heartfelt arc for her!

This book is told in dual timelines - all we know is that she hasn't spoken to her former best friend in 2 years, and something bad happened, but now they're reunited at her sisters wedding. It was just a lot of fun watching them reconnect and get back together.

Such a perfect light read. I also absolutely adored the audio and getting to hear this story come to life!

You know the title alone made me pick this up. I’m an eternal friends to lovers fan. I love the additional depth it gives the relationship!
Another negative to going in blind to books is that sometimes you end up reading books very similar to each other back to back. 😅 I read 3 in a row that were very similar! 🙈 But, I still liked it.

This one reminded me a little of Happy Place and People We Meet on Vacation mixed together, with the timeline flashbacks and estranged friendship + relationship. I listened to it on audio and enjoyed the audiobook! Thank you @harlequinaudio for my review copy.

Perfect for you if you like:
Estranged best friends to lovers
Timeline flashbacks
Reunion romance - estranged
Forced proximity

This book was so cute! I loved the storyline! The family seemed a bit toxic but I think that is what made their relationship so much better. It was kind of a miscommunication trope book which isn’t my favorite, BUT it was for kind of nice reasoning so I was okay with it. This kind of gave me the same feeling as reading love and other words and I loved it! The narration was perfect and I think really added to the storyline! Overall a great read!

I want to thank the NetGalley and Sally Blakely for the opportunity to read Friends to Lovers as an ARC. While I really appreciate being granted early access, I ultimately wasn’t able to finish it as it didn’t quite hold my interest. I know many readers will connect with this story, but it just wasn’t the right fit for me personally. Wishing the author much success with its release!

Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to read this book! While I enjoyed parts of it, I ultimately felt the story as a whole wasn’t for me. It felt similar to People We Meet on Vacation in a lot of ways, but it did not have the same emotional impact. In this story, I just couldn’t see why the main characters were friends for so long without sharing their feelings. This made the relationship feel pretty unrealistic to me. I’d recommend this one to those who really love a friends to lovers romance!

This is a quick and fun read that I enjoyed for the most part I am not sure that I will go out and buy a copy of it for myself but I would definitely recommend it to friends

Genre: Contemporary Romance
Vibes: 💕😂☕📚🌆🎧💌✨🙄🍷
Rating: 3.25⭐
Tropes: friends-to-lovers / forced proximity / slow burn
🌶️🌶️/5 (open door)

Definitely a fun, light romance that stayed true to the title -- plenty of sweet, sometimes awkward moments between Ren and Joni toeing the line into something more. I liked the banter and the cozy vibe, but at times it felt predictable and I found myself thinking that the slow burn was a little too slow. Cute, but it didn’t blow me away.

I also was able to listen to the ALC for this title and the narration was solid but not standout. Parts of the narration cut in and out, not sure if it was the platform I was listening on. The voices were distinct enough to keep track of who was speaking, though I did catch myself zoning out. It works well as a background listen if you want something warm and easygoing, but not necessarily one you’ll be hanging onto every word of.

I absolutely loved this book! I have been loving friends to lovers lately, especially childhood friends to lovers. The shared history and connections always get me. This book is told in dual timelines. We see Joni and Ren, who were once the best of friends, now estranged, coming back together for Joni’s sister’s wedding. At the beginning of the book, you are in the dark as to why Joni and Ren are estranged. This mystery had me so intrigued about what happened. I loved seeing the sweet friendship between Joni and Ren in the past timelines and it was so heartwarming to see them come back together in the present. The characters were so relatable and I loved the tenderness between the two MCs. This book was just like a warm hug. I really enjoyed the found family aspects of this story as well. Such a sweet read! Patti did a great job with the narration. Definitely recommend giving this one a read or listen!

A true friends-to-lovers story with heat! These two characters were equally fun as they were annoying (the miscommunication trope hits again). Enjoyed the spice!! 3/5 🌶️🌶️🌶️

The narrator was great and engaging!

(Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the audio ARC in exchange for my honest review.)

Lifelong friends who take forever and a day to figure it all out. A friends to more, second chance, forced togetherness, a shared room as if they are still kids, invasive and opinionated parents and a lot of will they, won’t they. When Joni and Ren, who haven’t seen or spoken in quite some time, are back together for a family wedding, they have to pretend there is no rift in their friendship. A week of celebrations force them to deal with not only their feelings, but deal with everyone else's. A mostly sweet, if not at times frustrating, well narrated listen.

This was a confusing book with the back and forth and flashbacks, I loved the family friendship and history but I couldn't quite get to the romance.

“I can’t be in love with Ren, and yet, it’s overwhelmingly clear that I am, that I’ve always been.”

This was absolutely the cutest friends to lovers, second chance love story. It very much gave me the same vibes I get from Emily Henry’s writing. Ren and Joni are absolutely perfect for each other and their friendship evolving into love makes so much sense. The missed opportunities, their pining for each other, their time apart all hit just the right notes of love and heartbreak. And it made my heart so happy when they ended up together. Their story portrays the anguish of falling in love with your best friend when you don’t know how things will turn out or if things will ruin your friendship. I enjoyed the dual timeline and how it gave more insight into how their relationship has evolved and the reasons they lost touch with each other.

A perfect read for fans of Ali Hazelwood and Emily Henry! The characters were relatable and lovable; this was just the right book to cap off some of my summer reading. I can't wait to read more of Sally's books :)

Enjoyable read of trying to turn friends to lovers but a handsome stranger intervenes.

Thank you to NetGalley for this arc.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Friends to Lovers by Sally Blakely is a delightful slow-burn romance that captures the magic of friendship turning into love. The characters are relatable, the banter is fun, and the chemistry feels authentic. I enjoyed following their journey and was invested in their happy ending.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you so much to Harlequin Audio and NetGalley for this ALC of Friends to Lovers.

Every time I read a book about a specific trope, I think “this is my favorite one”… but seriously I think THIS is my favorite one. Ren and Joni are so so perfect for each other. The back and forth time line had me yearning for more of both stories. The pacing was perfect.

I saw a few other reviews say that this book was Happy Place meets People We Meet on Vacation, and I completely agree with that. Highly recommend this one for fans of Emily Henry. It was SO GOOD!

I listened to the audiobook, and thought the narrator did a great job.

I just finished Friends to Lovers by Sally Blakely, and my heart is still doing little flips! Sally Blakely has such a gift for capturing the magic of slow-burn romance, and this book is the perfect example.

The chemistry between the two main characters was everything—effortless, authentic, and full of the kind of tension that keeps you glued to the page. Watching them navigate the messy, wonderful transition from best friends to something more felt so real and relatable.

If you love stories that make you laugh, swoon, and believe in love, Friends to Lovers is a must-read. Sally Blakely knows how to deliver the ultimate feel-good romance, and I’ll definitely be recommending this to everyone I know!

A mixed bag if I ever saw one. Some instances and dialogues were genuinely so moving; I was close to tears. That was mostly the first huge chunk of the story. A lot of the tension and storyline tugged at my heartstrings. I'm a lover of the friends to lovers trope when done right. There's something so beautiful and heartwarming about two people knowing each other for years (decades in this case) and cherishing each other so much. And aside from romantic love, losing a cherished friend stings like hell. It's not something that you can brush past, it leaves a huge void in your life, and I appreciate that the author did justice in encapsulating how empty that feeling is, though a lot of those conversations and descriptions came much later in the book.

You gotta be really patient with this book. It's very slow burn. It's also got a bunch of shortcomings. I don't know what was happening with the timeline. I could never tell whether the story was in the past or present, whether there was a cut. This would've been easier with the ebook maybe, but listening to it made it absolutely impossible. I'm not a fan of the resolution. All this drama for that to be the justification of everything that went down between the two of them? I'm not a hater of the miscommunication trope. It's a real thing that happens, but the way it was done in this story threw me for a toss. Didn't make all the reading worth it. So much of it felt rushed, unnecessary, and plain annoying. There was a very long lead up to the "grand reveal", which was pretty random and not satisfying. It was certainly baffling to me, because I thoroughly enjoyed a lot of the writing midway.

Patti Murin did an excellent job of the narration, as always. I've loved listening to her perform Katherine Center's books, and she held up to my expectations on this one.

This story is told in a dual timeline, which gave me the chance to really connect with the characters and understand their journey. I loved seeing how their bond shaped them through the years and how much emotion could live in quiet moments and unspoken memories.

It features some of my favorite tropes: friends-to-lovers, second chances, a hint of angst, and a whole lot of heart. It’s the kind of romance that sneaks up on you and stays in your thoughts long after you’re done reading.

The audiobook was such a great experience. 𝑷𝒂𝒕𝒕𝒊 𝑴𝒖𝒓𝒊𝒏’𝒔 𝒏𝒂𝒓𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒑𝒖𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒅 𝒎𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒂𝒘𝒂𝒚 and gave so much warmth and depth to both Joni and Ren. 🎧✨

If you enjoy emotional, character-driven romances with strong connection and heartfelt storytelling, this one deserves a spot on your shelf.