My feelings about this novel are quite mixed. It's such a sad book. So so so sad. If it wasn't an ARC, I would have quit about 30% in because it was hard to handle. I was dreading picking it up again each time.

With all of that being said, it's also a brilliant book. McFarlane's novels are always about so much more than the romance. Here it's a minor plot point. I wasn't even sure it was going to show up at all! This novel is about loss in many ways. Loss of a loved one but also loss of youth and letting go of what you thought your life should look like. Somehow amidst all the heaviness, she manages to fit in some fantastic humor too.

One thing I found inconsistent was that it's set in the UK, yet some adjustments were made for US readers. They talk about speed in miles per hour and all the fast food restaurants are American ones. It was jarring at times and took me out of the story because I was like,"wait a minute, where are we right now?"

Overall this one didn't land well for me. I think a lot of it is timing with issues in my personal life. Yet I recognize other readers are going to love it and think it's perfection. I recommend it for readers of romance, especially McFarlane's fans

Eve, Justin, Susie, and Ed have been best friends for years. when a tragedy happens. How do you go on when your life is irrevocably changed? Especially as secrets about your best friends are revealed? Eve is trying to find her way but what if what she always thought was true wasn't?

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC for an exchange of an honest review.

It was an enjoyable read. Excellent. A fun story, highly recommend it.

Just Last Night by Mhairi McFarlane was not your typical romcom book because the friendship of four friends changes in an instant one fateful night and secrets are revealed that will cause you to have all the feels contained in one book. You will want to yell at some characters and hug others.

I took many days to get through this book. Not because it was slow or uninteresting, but because it really made me feel. I kept thinking how I would feel in the situations that these friends are in. This story had a lot of avenues that worked perfectly together. This is my first of this author and I’m looking forward to reading more of their work.
Thank you to Netgalley and William Morrow books for the opportunity to enjoy this story.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

I’ve read a lot of Mhairi McFarlane’s books, and this book is one of my favorites. There’s a love story, but there’s also a tragedy that deeply affects the characters. I was impressed with the sensitivity that McFarlane showed with the characters, who deal the grief and guilt that comes with tragedy.
I highly recommend this book.

Wow. I wish I could go back and read this book again for the first time. I am a fan of Mhairi McFarlane, but this one blew me away. It took quite a few turns that I just was not expecting, and those turns punched me in the gut and made me do happy dances (different turns, different responses, before you think I'm weird). I honestly don't want to give away any more detail to the plot past the book summary, because I think going into this book without any idea for what will happen will make the best reading experience. I related very much to Eve in many ways, and the words that other characters spoke to her spoke to me too. I highlighted so much of the text. Just do yourself a favor and get your hands on a copy of this ASAP. I've already ordered myself a copy for my bookshelf so I can pick it up again.

This is Mhairi McFarlane's best one yet, and although it contains so many elements that we've seen her wield before – razor sharp dialogue, kooky characters, heartache, and fallible lovers – I felt she's mastered them all here.

We meet Eve and her friend group all in their 30s who have been pals since they were teens. They have crazy in-jokes, outrageous insults for each other, and a weekly bar trivia tradition. But after one night, their lives change forever.

Needless to say there's a huge plot point that I won't spoil, and it's handled incredibly well, and not as some one-off event. Instead, the reverberations are felt throughout the book among all the friends in what I felt authentic ways.

There is a romance, and I think it's supposed to be unexpected, although I didn't think it was. Nevertheless, I liked them together and actually wished for just a little bit more buildup. The feelings develop awfully quickly, and even though they're based on deep emotions and earning trust, I wasn't quite there with them the whole time.

There are so many squeal-worthy moments, both with the friends and the romance. Very satisfying & made me smile by the end.

A wonderful but heartbreaking story about grief, loss, and how relationships change as we get older. It took a little bit to get into but I enjoyed getting to know Eve and her friends. The depiction of the different family relationships was so well done that you couldn't help but feel for all those involved.

I received a copy from #NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

#JustLastNight #NetGalley

Just Last Night is a British contemporary with a romantic side plot that makes it likely to get miscategorized as a romance novel even though it really isn't one. It is a well done book about losing your best friend and trying to figure out how to move on from such a horrific loss and falling in love during the healing journey.

I think it's important to be really upfront that this is a grief novel because that truly is the impetus for the story. There's a prologue in the "After" but then you jump back for "Before" so it's clear but not clear at first what's coming. Anyway, basically, the book is about a group of friends, Ed, Justin, Eve, and Susie. They're at a trivia night like normal on a Thursday and things sort of go from there. I thought it was interesting how long it takes to get to "the Event" (the death), but it also made sense. You need time to get attached to one of the characters. The other thing you need to know is that Eve has been in love with Ed for more than a decade and it is... a lot. Once the event happens, Eve's grieving but also realizing that she maybe didn't know everything about the best friend that died and dealing with the funeral and the dead person's family.

I actually have a lot I want to say about this book, but it's difficult to say much without spoilers, so the tl;dr if you don't want spoilers is this: This book is good and interesting, but you'll need to like books with a little bit of mess in them. It doesn't overly pull on your heart strings, but it does say some poignant things about grief that I thought were really apt. The messy friendship dynamics were so interesting and this book had really incisive things to say about sort of being on the hook. Oh, and this book is funny despite the heavy content, but a lot of it is humor that could either totally work or really not work depending on the reader. Justin makes a lot of crass jokes.

Anyway, I had an ARC of this book from Netgalley and William Morrow so thanks so much to them, but I did listen to most of this book. Well, I went back and forth between the two. I do recommend the audio though. I thought it was well done.

CW: death of a friend, car accident, mention of physical child abuse, dementia, mention of parental abandonment

Mhairi McFarlane does it again! I am a huge fan of her funny, intelligent, insightful stories. They are romantic, but so much more. This time the theme is loss, grief and love. And the fact that sometimes there are important things you don’t realize about the people you think you know best. All of these serious topics are handled with quick wit, humor and great characters, Friends in McFarlane’s novels are an incredible strength. Their personalities and relationships add so much context, expanding our understanding of the main character and the environment she lives in. Just Last Night is an entertaining, thoughtful novel, full of brilliantly witty dialog. I was sad to get to the end.

I actually thought this was going to be more of a comedy type book but in fact it was so much more than that and it was absolutely brilliant. I have never read this author before but I certainly will be now,

What’s the best women’s fiction book you’ve read so far this year? Just Last Night by Mhairi McFarlane.

In the past I read McFarlane for her irreverent rom-coms, but this year she transcended that to a mash-up of rom-com/women’s fiction/chick-lit/literary. Just Last Night began with an obvious loss. The reader doesn’t know who our wonderful gothy heroine, Eve, has lost, but we know that the loss reverberates.

The narration takes us from the time that the four friends, Eve, Susie, Justin and Ed, met in their early schooling, through their university years till now when they’re on a trivia team along with Ed’s girlfriend, Hester. And then disaster strikes and Eve finds herself realizing that she doesn’t know her friends as well as she thought.

McFarlanes writing is so concise but relatable. I can’t tell you the many times that I teared up through this novel and then laughed. She just tweaked my emotions, end to end. She made me fall in love with these characters and then even Susie’s brother, the seemingly despicable Finlay, who was probably Eve’s lovely first kiss. (sigh)

Eve may be one of my most favorite characters of the entire year. I loved that she wore her rugged boots with her pretty dresses and her way of saying whatever came into her mind. And that Finlay said that he would have been probably been jailed if he’d ever said half the things she said. And that she cared about everyone and everything. I loved Eve!

When we get to the restaurant, my feet are sore but my heart lifts.

This could not be any more my thing if it was named Evelyn’s Actual Thing,” I say, under my breath.

Via Justin there is a lot of dark humor, which I very much enjoyed, some of which I can’t share because of spoiler. Justin is probably my second favorite character. He gives, he takes, he makes the most indelicate, most guffaw-worthy jokes. He is loyal to Eve, through and through.

And then there’s this wonderful description of Ed’s girlfriend, Hester:

She looks like a colorized picture has walked into black and white, kitchen sink realism film: skin the color of peaches and shimmering champagne-blond hair. She’s like a human Bellini.

I laughed a lot. I cried a lot. I enjoyed this book so, so very much. In some ways, you just wish reads like this would never end because the author has made you feel part of something bigger. Thank you, Mhairi, for this wonderful book.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Just Last Night does a beautiful job of crafting an intimate friend group made up of Eve, Justin, Susie, and Ed. The details that McFarlane includes to depict the intricacies of their history and their inside jokes were relatable, detailed, and often humorous. In fact, the humor and casual nature of the writing style was a huge selling point for me. It made me fly through this book.

Once the lives of the four friends have been painstakingly laid out for the reader, their lives are entirely upended and torn apart. I went into this book entirely blind and did not expect the tragedy that was coming. In the aftermath, our narrator Eve discovers deep seeded secrets that continue to send shockwaves through her life and make her question her relationships. It’s hard to go too in depth about this book without giving away what happens.

The books brings up abuse very near the end of the story. I felt like this really needed more time and to be addressed with much more depth in order to seem as powerful and believable as it could have. As written, it felt very much like a plot device and took a lot away from a story that I had really been enjoying up until that point.

This is a tough one to review without spoilers!
It’s a story about love, but not just the romantic kind. It’s a deep dive into friendship, grief, and the tangled web of family and relationships. It’s an exploration of loss, self discovery, and the people our souls seem to recognize.

Eve is part of a tight knit group of friends but hasn’t found the same success when it comes to love or career. When a tragic accident impacts her and the people she most cares about, she is forced to face some unpleasant truths about everything she thought was true. Circumstance pairs her with someone she knew long ago and she finds herself on a journey to rediscover herself and relearn all she thought she’d known about the people in her life.

It was a pleasure witnessing this journey. I found myself moved to tears, laughing in the next breath, and smiling the next. This isn’t the typical modern romance novel. There is a depth to it that I wasn’t expecting, and I’m grateful to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I'm going to start by I don't give many books 5 stars. I could really enjoy and love a book and not give it 5 stars. 4 Star books are some of my favorite books. BUT this one to me was a 5 Star read I was so impressed by this story.. The book focus around Eve, Justin, Susie, and Ed. (Eve is narrator)

This takes place on a normal Thursday night when the friends have trivia night at the pub. And in that one night everything changes.

I want to get into why and how things changes but I don't want to give anything away.

I went into this story thinking 1 of 2 things was going to happen and it just simply wasn't the case. This is a beautiful written story about forever friends. The highs and lows from being friends with someone most of your life and realizing you don't know everything. And the things you know about them and other people are sometimes different and not always in a bad way.

This is my 2nd book by Mhairi McFarlane and it wont be my last. This was story made me feel so much and it made me think of my own forever friends and life. I cannot recommend this book more. I've already bought the Audio to this book so I can listen to the words as well.


Thanks you so much NetGalley and especially to Harper Collins, Harper Fiction for this arc for an honest review

I first came upon Mhairi McFarlane through Don’t You Forget About Me (which I think is still my favorite of hers) and promptly read all of her books. They were yet another bright spot that got me through 2020. I will say, if you already like her books, this one is quite a bit darker than the others. A group of friends suffers a devastating loss (this isn’t giving anything away—you know this information very early on). Our MC Eve is heartbroken already, but is doubly grieved when long-held secrets are revealed. How can you be mad at a dead person? How do you get closure when you never had the chance to fight it out. It brings up the issue of whether we ever truly know even our closest family and friends. I really enjoyed this book but, while there are moments of levity (and so much longing!) it can be a difficult read. Can’t wait to see what #mhairimcfarlane does next! Thank you @netgalley and @harpercollins for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. Content warning for abuse. #bookstagram #bookstagram #closeddoor #stlreads #justlastnight #netgalley #netgalleyreview #harpercollins

I realized as I shelved this book in GR why this book is such a puzzle to me - I had checked 2 seemingly incompatible categories: "no romance," and "romance contemporary." I mean, obviously, it can't be both. But it sort of is. Look, if you are familiar with this author, you know that her stories weigh heavily in the "Women's Fiction" genre, but always tease a big romance that comes together at the V E R Y end of the story. I enjoy these teases of romance, but I'm always left wanting more, and since the author does such a terrific job with chemistry and swoony feelings, I'm bummed that she (or whomever advises her) limits these elements so ruthlessly in her novels. I digress.

This book is NOT actually a romance - despite the love story that develops in the second half of the novel. Readers who read romance exclusively (or mostly) for the HEA, should be wary. There is a HFN - but it's supremely last minute and diminished by the authors decision to end the novel shortly after it happens.

Anywho. Just Last Night is ACTUALLY a story about friends and secrets and coming of age (even though these characters are slightly past the expiration date on this rite of passage). The writing is strong, the humorous elements are funny and slightly wicked and sharp, and the story hums along nicely most of the time. But the people we meet at the start of the story and the characters we know at the end, go through A LOT to figure out who they are and what they mean to each other before it's all said and done. Then there's a nasty little tragedy that happens right up at the start and an "oops! bet you didn't expect that total shitshow" big reveal near the conclusion, that cast a somber and somewhat depressing note to the whole endeavor.

I liked it? But not my favorite McFarlane. It's a tad too depressing and the swoons are TOO TOO underwhelming. Give us some more of the principal characters post BIG REVELATION and give Hester (I always think of Owen Meany and "Hester the Molester" when I hear this name. LOL) a few more set-downs. Also, more Justin. They're great. Less Ed.

Recommended with reservations.

My first novel by Mhairi McFarlane, but I’ll be on the lookout for more. This was heavy, yet sweet. I loved Eve, and was cheering for her from the start. Facing unfathomable loss, she forged a new path, keeping the oldest memories close at hand while opening her heart to a new future. This was a winding path through friendship, loss, love, and self-discovery and I enjoyed every emotional speed bump.

*I was honored to receive and read an ARC of this novel, via NetGalley and the author/publisher. All reviews and opinions are my own.*

5+ Stars!

Sons of beaches, this was good!

I’ve never done this before and I can’t see me doing it ever again, because I see no point in it. As we've all seen in every enemies-to-lovers story since 2016, comparisons are futile and subjective. Or, it’s simply become a publishers click bait. But if I was ever going to do it, this book deserves the honor. Wait...for...it... Just Last Night reminds me of why The Hating Game by Sally Thorne is an all-time favorite and why this one may become, as well. Maybe not in THG’s quirkiness, but definitely in regards to some of the quirky banter, snark, hidden insights, and above all else, the hero, Finlay!

This book was a bit more poignant (or should I say devastating) than the other McFarlane books I've read, but I loved the slow burn romance and the slow reveal of Fin’s true character - Gatsby-ish, saturnine, bloodless, misunderstood, unheard. Then, there's Evelyn. And to be fair, it's really her story. I've said it before, but this author writes some of the best heroines. They acknowledge their role and their complicity. Their growth is mountainous, as well as smart. Eve’s dialogue and internal musings were authentic and apt, even when they were misinterpreting. If I’m saying that of Eve, I have to say it of every character that played an important role in this book. They each shone brightly and were beautifully represented, regardless of their role. Not one over-the-top or idealized character. The reader got to see the best AND the worst of each person. Overall, the strength of this book is attributed to the main character of Evelyn, but where some of McFarlane’s books struggle to develop the secondary characters further, this book did not.

McFarlane, as a whole, has her characters, emotions, and honest reactions down to a science. I read this, often thinking, “Yes. That’s exactly what I would think or feel” or “I can understand this person even if they’re being a nob.” The declarations, the soul-sharing, the coming-to-Jesus moments were some of the most rewarding in any story I've read. In the end, Just Last Night was witty, poignant, and delightfully satisfying.