Happy pub day to Friends to Lovers by @sally.blakely! I’m so grateful to Harlequin Audio (@harlequinbooks) for an ALC of this one.

This dual timeline story is about life-long best friends Joni and Ren. Their families are so close, they even share a summer beach home. At some point, Joni and Ren agreed to always be each other’s plus ones for weddings. After college, Joni gets a job across the country and the two commit to keeping up the tradition so they can still see each other. This works until it doesn’t, and the chapters in the past reveal what caused the rift. In the present storyline, Joni’s sister is getting married and everyone’s gathered at the summer house. Except Joni and Ren haven’t seen each other or talked in two years and their families don’t know. Can they fix what went wrong between them in the short amount of time they have together?

I found this book absolutely delightful. I confess I’m a sucker for a good friends to lovers story, and this book highlighted all the reasons I love the trope. The shared history, the inside jokes, the banter you only get when you know someone really well, and the pining. On my god, the pining. I think the characters were really well fleshed out and I legitimately liked them both, as well as all the family side characters. I would love to sink into a family dynamic like this one. It would be remiss of me not to mention that the reason for the rift is annoying. I’m not sure there’s a way to keep two people apart so obviously meant to be together without the reason being annoying. But I didn’t care because by the time it was revealed, I was so invested in Joni and Ren that I let them off the hook. And I also really appreciated the way the characters handled things when everything came out.

Patti Muran narrates and she added so much sweetness and charm. I don’t know that she’s the right narrator for every book, but when she is right—like in this one—it’s perfection. I would highly recommend the audiobook.

This was an excellent book - very reminiscent of Emily Henry! I loved this narrator, the storyline, all of it. It has stuck with me well beyond finishing it. Highly recommend!

I went into this book never having heard of Sally Blakely before and I finished it knowing I am a fan. Her quirky characters, found and related family and second chances made this book such a fun read.

The ALC was narrated by Patti Muran. Patti brought an enjoyable energy to her narration and kept me engaged the whole time.

I feel like people who enjoy authors like Emily Henry would enjoy this book.

QUICK GLANCE-
My format: 🎧Audio (10 hours and 27 minutes) and📖ebook (352 pages)
Spice: 🌶️🌶️ (open door Chapter 22)
Language: 🤐🤐 mild/moderate

MY THOUGHTS-
This one took a minute to settle into; those dual timelines had me flipping back and forth, trying to keep my footing. The present unfolds by day of the week, while the past is tracked in years, and with both centered around weddings... let’s just say I had to recalibrate more than once. But once I found my groove, I was hooked. The wedding festivities, the chaotic joy, the cast of fun side characters—all so vivid and charming. But the heartbeat of this story? Joni and Ren.

Once inseparable, now navigating a rhythm of hellos and goodbyes, their shared history pulses through every page. I was completely wrapped up in the mystery of their fallout and the electric tension anytime we dipped back into the past.

If you’re into the nostalgic ache of People We Meet on Vacation or the breezy heartache of Summer Romance, this one hits that sweet, bittersweet note. It’s about growing alongside someone you love... and realizing they were always more than just your plus-one 💘

READ IF YOU LIKE-
💍Weddings
🫶Friends to Lovers
🔁Second chances
🏠Forced Proximity
⏳Dual Timeline

Thank you @netgalley for the advanced copy! I received the e-book and audio version of this book. Patti Murin really helped bring Joni’s emotions to life. I believe the narration is a big reason I enjoyed this cute summer read!

This was a cute, friends to lovers and second chance romance. The writing did not blow me away, but I was swept up in the characters and their stories. Ren and Joni were childhood friends who are each other’s permanent plus ones to weddings and other events. They are both wonderful characters that obviously loved each other, but could not see it or act upon it all the time. There was a lot of emotion as their story progressed. There were points of the story where I wanted to yell at Joni sometimes for some decisions she made. I listened to the audiobook and thought the narrators both did a great job. If you enjoy Emily Henry books, you will enjoy reading this one!

This book was fun to read and perfect for summer. It gave me the same vibes as People We Meet on Vacation which is one of my favorite books, so I ate this one up. Such a great rom com! The narrator was great for this audio as well! I can’t wait to read more from Sally.

Three guesses what this book is about??? Ok sure, the title doth giveth it away, BUT this book is far more than a mere title. If you’re looking for a funny, charming, slow burn romance with character growth, plenty of tropes, and the door 95% closed, then this book is for you.

Joni and Ren have been best friends for their entire lives. Their families have a beach house together, they went to school together, and nearly every integral memory contains the other person. There’s nothing that could ever break their bond - until something does. When their families gather together at the beach house for Joni’s sister’s wedding no one but the bride knows that the BFFs haven’t talked in over a year. As the estranged besties try to navigate their awkward reunion and play it normal for the weekend, the innate bond that always connected them proves to still exist. Can they find their way back to friendship, and possibly more?

While the transitions between present day and flashbacks got a little muddled for me, and the revelation of what happened between them was a very slow reveal, I really enjoyed this one. The narration was excellent and the chemistry was legit, I definitely recommend!

*I received a this audiobook arc complimentary. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.*

🩵Story Rating: ⭐️⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ 4/5
🩵Spice: 🌶️ 1/5
🩵Narration: 🎧🎧🎧🎧🎧 5/5
🩵Genre: Romance
🩵POV: First
🩵Theme: Friends to Lovers | Second Chance | Forced Proximity | Slow Burn
🩵Audiobook Narrator: Patti Murin
🩵Audiobook Length: 10 hours 26 minutes
🩵 Book Cover first thoughts: Cute beachy vibes cover

🩵 One Liner: heartfelt second-chance romance!

🩵 Story Review / Summary: Some of my favorite books are when there is either a dual POV or a dual timeline so that alone made this a great read for me. I thought this was beautifully written. I fell in love with Joni and Ren and I even liked the side characters, which sometimes I do not always! Joni kinda reminded me of Belly from TSITP because she is a little oblivious haha! I am excited to see what else comes from Sally Blakely! New fan definitely.

The audio was great, a bad audio can really hurt a book for me and I thought the narrator was perfect!

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Thank you to #NetGalley and Harlequin Audio ARC (Advance Reader Copy) of #FriendstoLovers by #SallyBlakely @sally.blakely
All opinions expressed in this review are my own. Publication date is July 22, 2025.
This review is being shared on NetGalley, Goodreads and Amazon (still pending).

This is definitely an Emily Henry style read. As i was reading it reminded me so much of her books and I am an Emily stan.

This had such emotional depth, and slow burn chemistry that I was not ready for when i started this book. The friends to lovers trope was so well written! The main characters were layered and lovable, but the rest of the characters were kinda irritating tho....

The only qualms i had with this book was that everyone and i mean EVERYONE sucked at communicating. There were so many secrets the whole damn book.

But overall I really enjoyed it, and would recommend it. This book is perfect for fans of People We Meet on Vacation or Happy Place.

Joni and Ren have always been best friends. They grew up in the same city and spent their summers at their families’ shared beach house. When Joni moved across the country for her dream job, they agreed that they would always be each other’s plus-ones. Now, Joni and Ren are reunited at the beach house for Joni’s sister’s wedding. They have not seen each other in more than two years since the last wedding they attended together did not go as planned.

I always love a good childhood friends-to-lovers book! Add in a second chance romance and a summer setting and I’m sold. Joni and Ren had such a sweet friendship with so much pining. The romance was so cute and I loved all the flashbacks to their wedding dates. This was such an adorable romance that would make a perfect beach read this summer!

What to expect:
🩵 Contemporary Romance
🩵 Childhood Best Friends
🩵 Second Chance
🩵 Only One Bed
🩵 Summer

Thank you to Sally Blakely, Harlequin Audio and NetGalley for providing this ALC in exchange for an honest review.

･ﾟ 𝙰𝚁𝙲 𝚁𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚎𝚠 ·˚˖‧
𝑻𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒌 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒕𝒐 𝑪𝒂𝒏𝒂𝒓𝒚 𝑺𝒕𝒓𝒆𝒆𝒕 𝑷𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒔, 𝑯𝒂𝒓𝒍𝒆𝒒𝒖𝒊𝒏 𝑨𝒖𝒅𝒊𝒐, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑵𝒆𝒕𝑮𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒚 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒗𝒊𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒆𝑨𝑹𝑪!

❝ I think about all the ways he’s sound-tracked my life, tried to tell me things I didn’t know to look for in his meticulous playlists.❞

╰𝚂𝚙𝚘𝚒𝚕𝚎𝚛 𝙵𝚛𝚎𝚎╮

✦ Pub Date: 22 Jul 2025
✦ Rating: 3/5
✦ Genre: Romance
✦ POV: 1st Single
✦ Spice: 1/5
✦ Age: 16+

࣪ ִֶָ 𝙸𝚗𝚝𝚛𝚘 ·˚˖

Childhood best friends. One summer wedding, and the feelings they never really left behind.

·˚˖ 𝙼𝚢 𝚃𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚜 ˖˚·

Perfect for summer, cozy and light vibes, friendships, family, and issues that need to be worked through.
Thank you for the recommendation, Anna (@annareadit)!
But the book didn’t completely hook me — and that’s okay, it happens. I usually love this trope, and at first everything was going well, but the further I got, the more I started to lose interest...🫣

The writing is easy and flows quickly. There weren’t any intense emotional highs or lows, and even the second-chance aspect felt quite light.

I listened to the audiobook, and it added such a nice touch to the atmosphere. It was really pleasant to listen to.

·˚˖ 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚜 ˖˚·

▪︎ Joni — she didn’t annoy me, and at times I really understood her. The way she struggles to figure out what she wants, how she wants the best for everyone… but her silence makes it hard for others to truly see her.

▪︎ Ren — he’s such a comfort character, total green flag.
What I love about the friends-to-lovers trope is how well they know each other, and here we get to see their shared history, so it’s clear how much Ren truly cares about Joni.
I think it would’ve been even better if we had chapters from his POV too.

▪︎ Side characters — mostly friends and family, two families who found each other and became one big family, and I love that kind of dynamic.

࣪ ִֶָ ⊹ 𝙸𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 ·˚˖
↠Childhood bestfriends to lovers
↠Second chance
↠Forced proximity
↠Slow burn

I loved this story! The friends that are family aspect was one of my favorites. It gives late 90s early 00s chick flick in all the best ways. While I’ve been spoiled with duet narrations so much lately, it was hard only having one narrator but she did a great job grasping all the characters voices! I’ll leave you with, everyone needs a Wren in their life - all the green flags from this MMC!

This was a love for me and a total twist on "fake relationship" as a fake friendship after history.
Loved the writing and love Patti Murin - she's one of my favorite Narrators. However, the sound editing on this was rough- long spaces where I thought my phone had paused or was waiting for another chapter. At times it took away from the book.

This book is a nostalgic journey of childhood friendship to unrequited love. The FMC Joni adores her best friend Ren; they are inseparable and know each other’s thoughts and feelings just by a look. As they get older and mature, things get confusing when life gets complicated. They make a pack to be each others wedding “plus ones” to always have a reason to come together again.

As the story goes on, you learn that something has happened that has driven a wedge into their relationship. Something that Joni has a hard time processing and dealing with. This causes her to not only push away Ren, but her family as well.

This is obviously a friends to lovers story, but it’s also one of self discovery and adulting. Overall, this book gave me some feels thinking of crushes and childhood friends that are no longer in my life. A fun summer read about friendship and love.

While listening to the audiobook, I did think the narrator spoke too slowly and bumped up the speed significantly to be able to listen. I did have a hard time between chapters understanding which timeline we were in u til there was context.

If you’re an Emily Henry fan, Friends to Lovers by Sally Blakely absolutely belongs on your TBR. This book was lighthearted, fun, and had me smiling the whole way through. The chemistry between the characters was so natural and sweet, and the dual timeline added just the right amount of emotional depth. I’m a sucker for friends-to-lovers stories, and this one nailed the slow-burn connection and heartwarming payoff. A perfect beach read with all the romantic vibes I was hoping for!

Friends to Lovers by Sally Blakely follows Joni and Ren, two best friends who have a pact to attend weddings only with each other until two years ago when their friendship went wrong and they haven’t seen each other since then. The book is a dual timeline that tells you about the weddings they’ve attended and the wedding they are attending now. And by the way, none of their family know that they had a falling out so they have to pretend everything is good in front of their family. They also are trying to sort their lives out while maybe trying to regain their friendship after the incident.

I liked this book but I didn’t know this would be a dual timeline and I famously don’t like dual timelines so I had to deduct a star for that. I have seen criticism that it is Emily Henry’s People We Meet on Vacation reheated nachos and I mean, it’s true but I also love Emily Henry and this book was written really well so I’m giving it a pass for that. I loved the main characters, I love an oblivious FMC and a he-falls-first MMC and this book gives you exactly that.

Now let me talk about the audiobook because I got to do immersive reading for this one and I don’t think I’d be rating it as high if I didn’t have the audiobook. I freaking loved the audiobook. I thought the narrator did such a wonderful job. It isn’t a duet but I thought that Patti Murin did such a great job that it didn’t need it.

I would recommend this book to anyone who liked PWMOV or likes books with he falls first mmc. I do not recommend this book to people who get angry when the FMC is oblivious because this book will make you mad.

Thank you to NetGalley, Harlequin Audio, Town Center Books, and Sally Blakely for giving me the opportunity to read this book ahead of publication in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

oh my god, i am so well 😭

after seeing this book everywhere for a while a friend of mine posted about how much she loved this read and that it would be one of her favorite reads of the year i IMMEDIATELY went to go download this audiobook not knowing anything about it and i am BEYOND happy i did.

the friendship between the two MCs, the YEARNING!!! the found family!!!! the setting!!!

let me tell you first - this cover is deceiving as all get out 😂. tell me why i thought this would be a cutie friends to lovers beach read and next thing i know im in shambles within the first ten chapters 😂 (i loved every minute of it too). i have not felt this kind of physical pain reading a second chance book since happy place, which i adored and have been chasing that high since so while i know this is said to be PWMOV vibes, i get happy place with a sprinkle of PWMOV 🙂‍↕️

i am a friends to lovers STAN, it is one of my favorite tropes and paired with second chance??? CHEFS KISS. i have been hitting a really hard reading slump lately in the sense that while i’m able to read, i havent been enjoying literally anything, until this book 😭🩵

joni and ren to put it quite plainly were made for each other, their friendship is such a beautiful thing to watch especially as they are navigating being in each others life’s once again.

it is no secret that im not the biggest dual timeline fan, more often than not it throws me out of the story and all i care about is getting back to the present pov but this book made the flashbacks feel SO seamless (and necessary, it didnt just happen to happen) that i actually really enjoyed that aspect and found myself wanting to get a little more of the past joni & ren.

overall, i had the best time binge listening to this book all day and im already looking forward to rereading this in the future. the writing and story telling was so phenomenal for me. i physically felt all of joni & rens pain and joy the entire time almost like i was there in the story with everyone. this being a debut novel on top of everything is just insane to me in the best way and i can already say that sally has an auto buy fan for life, i cant wait to see what gets put out next!! 🩵

The friends-to-lovers trope is hard to execute in my opinion but wow this one took it to a new level. I did enjoy this book at the beginning, but the further into it I got, the more frustrated I became with Joni and Ren. Once you quickly realize that they've clearly always been in love, the dual timeline flashback chapters just started to feel boring. I also felt very sad for Joni about her job and I was hoping that part of the plot would be wrapped up at the end. But we didn't get that even though it was a big part of the story.

Friends to Lovers is one of my absolute favorite tropes, and Joni and Ren's best friends to lovers journey was so well written. Joni and Ren grew up together, and they have always been each other's best friend. When Joni moves across the country for work, they make a deal to stay in each other's lives. They will be each other's plus one for weddings. The story is told through flashbacks over the past few years to show the weddings that they attended and ultimately what went wrong in their friendship.

After being inseparable for most of their lives, they haven't spoken in two and a half years. They reunite at the wedding of Joni's sister, and Joni and Ren have to face their feelings and past hurts to decide if they want to be in each other's lives again.

Having flashbacks allowed for the reader to get such deep insight into how things have changed for Joni over the past few years. I enjoyed seeing how much they cared for each other, and their story resolved in such a meaningful way.

Patti Murin narrated this book, and she brought such an emotional depth to the story. I felt like I was right there with Joni, and I was experiencing what she was going through.

absolutely love the friends to lovers trope, especially childhood friends to lovers, so I immediately knew I had to pick this one up. It also has a bit of a second chance romance happening as well which makes didn’t expect. The pacing and dual timeline really worked for me in this book. Joni and Ren are clearly meant for each other. I started off reading a physical copy of the book but when I saw Patti Murin was the narrator I switched to audio. As expected, the narration was great. Definitely recommend!