4.25 stars. A sweet friends-to-lovers and second-chance romance that keeps you in the edge of your chair - will they? Won’t they? The range of emotions you experience reading this is too many to count.

Frances and Callum Sutton have known each other since Frances met his sister, Dolly, at boarding school. Frances is returning to Ireland to attend Callum’s wedding. She’s never stopped living Callum but choices and circumstances somehow intervened to never “seal the deal” between them. Now it may be too late. What transpires over the book is the story of two “star-crossed” lovers who are coming-of-age and just trying to figure it all out. The intensity of their trying to figure it” out almost reads like a thriller.

Frances and Callum come off as real. Their struggles are the same as many of us. That’s what makes the book so good. The author cleverly tells their story with dialogue, text, letters and emails woven into present and post time events. In fact while in the past we often get updated to present events as the wedding draws closer. I kind of liked that.

I needed a break from some pretty intense reading I’d been doing of late so when I got invited by the publisher (my thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley) to read this book I jumped on it. I’m glad I did. Highly recommend.
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We Go Way Back is the kind of love story that sneaks up on you and refuses to let go. I was completely invested in Frances and Callum’s complicated, years-long journey—from homemade mixtapes and almost-kisses to heartbreak, loss, and all the moments that kept them circling around what they were too afraid to admit. I loved how this wasn’t just about whether they would finally find their way to each other, but about friendship, forgiveness, growing up, and figuring out what you truly want. The wedding weekend setting added just the right amount of tension, humor, and emotional chaos. Sexy, tender, funny, and beautifully heartfelt, this was an absolutely swoony second-chance romance that gave me all the feels.

This book was excellent. It has some great laugh out loud moments that keep the story going smoothly. I enjoyed the writing style and the characters. I definitely recommend it.


Thank to the publisher for sending me an eARC via NetGalley.

Frances hasn't had an easy life. To make matters even worse, she is currently attending the wedding of the love of her life and about to watch him marry someone else. With so much left unsaid, will Frances ever be able to truly move on?

This is an intense, emotional love story full of longing, regret, friendship, and learning to live life-I loved it! The characters and their conversations were painfully realistic. There was a lot of tension and the stakes felt so high. I found myself both rooting for Callum and Frances to be together and feeling fatigued by their back and forth. Highly recommend!

Thank you very much to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advanced copy.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for allowing me to read We Go Way Back. I loved this book. It is a beautifully written sometimes brutal story of family, love & friendship. Frances is so very relatable to someone who has had their world turned upside down by loss. This is a book that will stay with you long after you've finished it.

20 years ago, Frances and Callum, met while they were still in school. The attraction was instantaneous. Through the years they experienced the emotional merry go round of loving friendship and not acknowledging to each other that they were in helplessly in love. Once they admit the have always loved each other, there is a crack in the relationship.with each going their own way. Callum becomes engaged and Frances is invited to the wedding. She is urged to attend but would it be too awkward since she is still in love with Callum?

I don’t normally read romance novels though I did love this one. There is humor and hope throughout.

Thank you St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley

We Go Way Back by Niamh Connolly is the kind of romance that makes you want to scream at the characters one minute and hug them the next. Frances and Callum’s story is full of yearning, missed chances, complicated feelings, and the kind of emotional tension that had me desperately wanting to know how everything would unfold.

What I loved most was how real and messy their relationship felt. This isn’t a love story built on a few grand romantic gestures, but one shaped by years of friendship, shared history, grief, and choices that can’t always be undone. The alternating timelines slowly reveal how they got here, keeping you invested in both their past and the uncertainty of their present.

Beyond the romance, I appreciated how the story explored grief, mental health, loneliness, and the importance of friendship and found family. The characters are flawed and sometimes frustrating, but that’s also what makes their struggles feel so human and relatable.

This is a slow, emotional journey filled with angst and yearning, and it won’t necessarily leave you feeling warm and fuzzy. But if you love complicated relationships, second chances, and wondering whether love can overcome years of bad timing, this one is worth picking up.

Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the eARC!

I loved every minute of this book! Niamh Connolly puts a fresh twist on the nostalgic first love idea through the characters Frances and Callum, taking the reader along on their tumultuous, unpredictable, and live-changing relationship. I think everyone who reads this will be able to identify with some aspect of a lost or unrequited love that you never quite get over. Even up to the last chapter, I really didn't know what was going to happen, and the ending I thought I was okay with turned into the true ending that was even better! Full of angst, self-doubt, and emotional tension, We Go Way Back will give you all the feels through its engaging plot line and authenticity of its characters.

I don’t know why I was tuned in so much to the emotions of this book, but I was. I felt every emotion acutely, and by the end of it I felt like I had just walked through a natural disaster simulation in all the best ways possible. How there can be anything ‘best’ about a natural disaster, I will leave to you to find out.

This is such a vivid story with a rendition of love that feels so real to the touch but with all the maudlin-ness of reality. And up until the end I was clearly with Clare when she said on the phone to Frances, “It’s all very sad isn’t it?”

Doing(in this case; reading) the post mortem of a bad thing that ended fills you with righteous anger, it gives you something to work with. But for a good thing, it just hurts so fucking much.