Thank you for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for my honest review. I have posted to Goodreads on January 3rd, 2026.

It is hard to believe that this is Tracey Magruder’s debut! I read this in 4 hours because I just couldn’t put it down. I would pick up anything she writes without hesitation!

This cozy love story is deeply authentic. The characters feel achingly real, flaws and all, with journeys that are marked by genuine growth and healing rather than quick fixes. Both Sadie and Corbyn work through their individual trauma during the course of the book and the way they confront their individual trauma is handled with so much care and sensitivity.

The most powerful part of the story was that their love didn’t magically erase their struggles. Instead, we got to witness Sadie and Corbin be patient and supportive facing the challenges together. That realism made their connection feel even more meaningful and earned.

I loved the epilogue, but I wanted more of Sadie and Corbyn. Definitely hoping for a sequel! And the supporting characters were absolutely delightful. I would happily read their stories too.

Tracey, I can’t wait to see which stories you will tell next!

Very good quick read! Kept me wanting to read more from the beginning. I look forward to more books by this author !! Five stars!!

I read this in one sitting because I could not put it down! The slow burn with the grumpy(but really a big softie) mmc hit exactly the way I wanted it to! I loved everything about Between The Lines!

🖋️broody author mmc
❤️sunshine editor fmc
🏘️cozy English village vibes
📍missed connection

Thank you to the author and Netgalley for providing a digital review copy of this ebook in exchange for an honest review

Books about books are one of my favourite reading tropes, but it's hard to find a book that does them justice. So many books attempt the same, but the delivery falls flat, and it happens very rarely that I encounter a book that manages to capture the love, the devotion, that we booklovers feel for reading. Before we talk about love and romance, we gotta start with the love that started it all, which is the love for the written word, the love for reading, for writing. I felt the author's passion for her craft. I don't know how realistic the depiction of the editorial process is, and how much of it has been romanticized for the purpose of this novel, as I am merely an avid reader, not an author. I very much enjoyed this brief insight, even though it's a fictional one. Now, on the topic of the actual romance, this book blew me away. This book was the slowest of slow burns, it's a book of resentment turned to hesitant partners, turned to friendship, turned to love. This is not just enemies to lovers exploding in desire and lust, this was devotion, this was yearning, this was the degree of pining I desire in my romance books. And when, at the 70% mark, I already found myself weeping, and I'm not someone who cries easily, mind you, I knew I had found one of my favourite books I've ever read. I loved everything about it, I loved the tropes, but this book is more than it's tropes, I could list enemies to lovers, grumpy x sunshine, found family, cozy small-town vibes, I could list them all, but that would not tell you how amazing this book was, how much it moved me. But also, when we're talking about tropes, we also need to talk about vibes, and this book delivered. I could exactly envision the small-town English countryside, and when the characters spoke, I could hear the delivery as I envisioned it in my head. I didn't need an audiobook narrator to imagine what the characters sounded like, because I could hear them clearly in my head, and for someone who struggles imagining characters, that says a lot. I could go on and on about everything that was fantastic about this book, and I don't know if there's a word limit on this review, but I will tell you that it was utterly amazing, and that I can't wait to reread it time and time again. I have never found myself moved enough by sentences that I start highlighting them, but here I started highlighting the passages that made me stop and reread them again, so I could cherish them. I finally understand the urge people feel to annotate books. Thank you to the author to give me a book that will live rent-free in my head and my heart.