Ah this was such a beautiful, and gorgeous story of love, friendship, and second chances.

There was the appropriate trigger warning about chapter 15 which I appreciated. It was done with such sensitivity.

Avery and Josh were an amazing couple that I cheered for throughout the book. Avery had trust issues, her ex cheated on her, best friend Josh left 10 years ago to achieve his goals, and her parents marriage fell apart. Her father was a well renowned neurosurgeon and wanted a relationship with his daughter. Which he didn’t deserve. At one of her dad’s fundraising events she encountered Josh who had moved back to town. From there their relationship took a bumpy, beautiful, lovely, and yummy turn. The slow burn was deliciously hot. And the love story unraveled in a beautiful way. I also loved the supporting characters of Brooke and Miles. Her brother Miles was a great and supportive person for her.

By the way I loved the location of Toronto. It was such a beautiful and lovely city when I visited years ago. Now I want to go back.

My only small, itty bitty complaint was that 10 years with no texts, emails, or follows on Instagram was a bit odd. I mostly ignored that part. Otherwise it was a wonderful book about taking chances and trusting your partner. I cannot want for Mile’s book next year.
Overall, I absolutely loved this book and I definitely recommend this to everyone.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for my copy in exchange for my review.

Avery feels like she is constantly left behind. First it was her best friend Josh, then her boyfriend, and now her dad has this whole new life she just found out about. But what happens when she sees Josh again after 10 years?

Josh was her confidante, her best friend, the only one who knows some of her deep dark secrets, but when he breaks a promise and leaves her during their senior year Avery has no idea what to do.

When they see each other again Avery can’t help but stare and feel every emotion. Josh has his own demons and together he and Avery ahve ti work those out to be friends again. Though everyone can see they are meant for something more. When it seems like they will finally have everything, a job offer could interfere with it all. With emotions high and hearts on the line, can Josh and Avery work through it or will they be heart broken again?

This an open door, steamy romance, with a lot of mental health representation. From anxiety attacks, depression, and even dealing with sexual assault (though the author has a conten warning at the beginning of this to explain beautifully the reason behind this in the book).

I really loved this story. It's a cute second chance romance, and I loved the characters' dynamics. Even after all these years, the spark between them isn't gone. But the constant reminder that Josh might leave again makes everything a little bit more complicated. Because you wouldn't want to fall for somebody who might not be there tomorrow, or wouldn't you?

OMG, I loved this book soooo much that I am not even sure I can find the right words to describe it...but I'll try.
Here's what I absofreakinlutely loved about The Last Encore:
- Avery, the main female character.... so fragile and yet so strong. To use the author's words: Avery is not afraid to wear her heart on her sleeve and lead the way at the same time. God knows how much I love this kind of female characters!
- Josh, the main male character. Definitely an out of this world dreamy book boyfriend.
- Every single beautifully imperfect character of this book, basically.
- The love story between Avery and Josh. The chemistry between them was insaaane. I loved the honest and meaningful dialogues between them and the beautiful way in which their friendship turned into love. Plus, the mix of tenderness and spicyness in the love scenes was simply perfect!
- The respectful way in which the author deals with very important issues as depression, anxiety, grief, and sexual assault.
- The way the author portrays friendship and love in all their complicated beauty.
- The meaningful use of flashbacks.
- Favorire quote of the book: "Don't give him anything he cannot give back".
The only thing I should probably complain about is the fact that, because of this book, I'll be stuck forever in the hopeless search of a real-life man that could never measure up to such a perfect book boyfriend as Josh. Other than that, I feel like I could go on with my list of things I liked about this book for days. I actually think I am a little bit in love with The Last Encore.

Ps: finding out that Miles and Riley's book is coming up next year made me squeal with delight. I can't wait for it!

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

🎶The Last Encore🎶

By Élodie Colliard

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This super sweet debut novel is a second chance romance for photographer Avery and pianist Josh. The second they see each other after ten years apart the sparks are flying and I was desperate for these two to finally get it on, that slow burn was 🥵

The art for this book really helped it come to life in my mind. The cover is STUNNING and luckily we get to that green dress scene early on in the novel. For those lucky enough to get physical arcs, Elo gave out artwork for a later steamy scene which was also gorgeous. I could see the pair in my mind while reading and I wanted them together.

The steamy scenes were 🌶! Girl knows exactly when to add a finger in the 🍑, my jaw dropped.

The best thing about this book is how consistently Elo describes Avery’s anxiety. It’s not a token panic attack and everything else is fine, Avery struggles every page with accepting her feelings, denying Josh’s obvious advances and forgiving those who’ve hurt her. I struggled with Avery’s stubbornness or denial at times (girl…why call him a friend with benefits if there was no 🍆) but I think it was consistent for her overthinking character. I still have a few lingering questions, like why was Josh gone so long if he wasn’t happy in Europe, but overall this was a fun read with the HEA I desperately wanted.

I can’t wait to read the Montreal love story. Toronto is great and all but both Elo and I live in the French capital of Canada and the bilingualism of Montreal is so unique I really want to see it come alive in her future work.

The Last Encore by Elodie Colliard
First off, that cover! It’s simply beautiful. I requested the book off of the cover alone. How amazing is it that the story was just as beautiful?! I found the book to be a very heartfelt and uplifting, yet fun. The characters were amazing. I connected with the main characters instantly. And the plot, … It was the perfect second chance romance book. I really enjoyed this one, it was hard to put down.
Many thanks to Elodie Colliard, NetGalley, and Victory Editing for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Omg I absolutely love these characters! If you havent read this you definitely need to. I love the plot. I cant wait to read more by this author 🥰

A fun, uplifting rom com about finding a person perfect for you. I found this very enjoyable and couldn't put it down!

The Last Encore by Elodie Colliard immediately snatched my attention with it's beautiful cover and then with the book description. It looked so promising and fun. A second chance romance that it's also childhood friends to lovers? Sign me up!
As excited I was for receiving this ARC, it still didn't do it for me entirely.
By all means, this book is very simple in it's writing choices and too quick in pace. For a book that is advertised as a second chance romance, I read no angst or conflict whatsoever between the return of the male love interest and their start all over. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Avery and Josh had been childhood friends with sparks and promises of more, when Josh decides to leave as a teenager and go to Europe in search of success and freedom, of his father's expectations and the grief, following his mother's death. It's been years and the two main characters are now almost in their 30s when they reconnect randomly, at a gala event.
By reading the first couple of chapters, you'd think Josh's leaving, as abrupt and heartbreaking as it was for Avery, happened with no explanation and reasoning behind it. Wrong. We pretty quickly get a flashback (that just felt dry, as we hadn't had a proper chance to connect to the characters yet) from Josh telling Avery and Brooke (forgot to mention her, they were an inseparable friendship trio) that he's leaving and why. As his so-called best friends since their early ages, you'd think they'll at least understand why he's doing it. They know all about his grief, all about the hardship he faces living at home. Nah. They both turn it into an entire thing about the two girls. And I get it, a person you love with your whole being leaving abruptly is definitely painful, but they weren't children. They were 16 and by all means knew how hard Josh's life had been lately.
This infuriated me so much. What's even worse is the way Brooke gives her goodbye to Josh - by being unnecessarily cruel and rejecting of any future communications between them. And would you know it, in the present of the book, she's all like nothing ever happened and wondering why Avery has a harder time reconnecting with Josh. So infuriating, as the flashback and the present scene had like, a couple of pages in between. I would've loved seeing Brooke growing up, being more understanding and gentle with time - that would've explained her instant acceptance to Josh's return better. But no, no charachter growth for side characters.
The love story was so simple and cringe - it felt like insta love, which is absurd for a second chance romance, the coddling of the MC was too much for me and I felt no tension, no desires and basicaly nothing between Josh and Avery after his return to Canada. It read like a first draft of a book, where the athour knows main things they want to happen but haven't figured out how to connect them properly.
Avery spends so much time (in the first couple of chapters) wondering how can she trust Josh again and if it's worth even having a friendship again with him, and yet, in no time, they're friends again and in a couple of pages are back to being intimate partners. There was lack of groveling, lack of stubborness and the supposed lack of trust, which just made the hopeful parts of the inner monologue feel insignificant to the plot.
After Josh and Avery got together again, with the lack of everything that makes a second chance romance worth it happening, everything is pretty boring. The romance aspect of this book was bad. Which should tell you a lot about a Romance book.
One thing I enjoyed how the author wrote was Avery's anxiety. It was relatable at places and important representation, but at some points I felt like it was used to move the relationship arc instead of giving us more depth of Avery's individual life. I did love how Brooke was there to help her through an anxiety or panic attack - good, gentle friends are the best thing that can happen to someone with anxiety.
I had a slight issue with the need of the author to include SA in the past. Sexual assault is a horrific thing that happens every day and a lot of readers appreciate proper handling of it in books. It just felt like it came out of nowhere - we had no signs of Avery being uncomfortable with anything until we get a flashback of said assault (which, thank you very much, was even more unnecessary). The author kinda skips how Avery was able to be in a years long serious relationship between Josh's departure as a teen and his return as an adult, and we had no information of the struggles she went through with being intimate with someone new. Instead, we get the intimacy troubles a decade later. And I don't mean to read as disrespectful - every surviver handles their intimate life in a different way and it's a thing that never goes away. SA can still affect a survivor's everyday life decades later too.
It just felt like another plot point to move the relationship arc. And I'm not a huge fan of that.
I do appreciate the mature scenes talking about mutual consent and pleasure. That made me happy.
Overall, this book was definitely not my favourite.

TW (from the author): sexual assault (rape), depression, anxiety, loss of a loved one

Thank you netgalley for giving me an arc for this
I had a hard time figuring out how to rate this tbh.
First of all I love the cover and I think this was a nice debut and that the author has potential.
I Loved the anxiety rep and that it was diverse. The book had very fun vibes.

What I didn’t like
For a second chance romance this one really lacked on the angst side.
Avery describes how the trio is really close but I didn’t get that from their interactions for example
- Avery gets jealous when she sees that josh was texting brooke
- how brooke acted about josh being back, Avery describes how brooke was so angry with josh but we don’t really get to see that instead it felt like it affected only Avery.
It just felt flat most of the time and the characters felt immature

The Last Encore
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: Romance
Format: Kindle eBook
Date Published: 11/1/22
Author: Elodie Colliard
Publisher: Victory Editing
Pages: 366
GR: 4.21

I requested a digital advanced readers copy from NetGalley and Victory Editing and providing my opinion voluntarily and unbiased.

Synopsis: What if love is the key? Avery Clark needs a break. Then her ex-best friend, Joshua Harding, ran into her during an event in Toronto, after he left her suddenly ten years ago, breaking the only promise he had swore he wouldn't. When an opportunity to grow her business falls into her lap, Avery decides to put her doubts and resentment aside and agrees to photograph Josh’s sister’s upcoming wedding. As they spend more and more time together, rediscovering each other and the people they turned into, Avery realizes that maybe, the spark she felt ten years ago wasn’t just a fleeting teenage phase. Could Avery take that leap of faith?

My Thoughts: This trope builds on a familiar one, second chance romance and friends to lovers (my personal favorite), the trope that most Hallmark Christmas movies are created from. The author does a fantastic job at representing mental health, so raw and authentic yet full of grace. While I do not personally suffer from anxiety, my daughter does, and it can be delibating. This is not your typical romance, it more of a beautiful story of how two friends got lost, come back together and realize they have always loved each other. The tone and setting are done so authentically that I felt like I was visiting Canada without leaving my living room. The characters were well fleshed out with depth, growth, endearing, chemistry, and so creatively written. The author’s writing style was complex, yet graceful, romantic, beautiful, and brilliant! This does not release until 11/1/22, however, I would highly recommend you preorder now!!

The Last Encore was less of a second chance and more of a ‘when will they.’ I thought the main characters, Avery, and Josh, had dated previously but they were best friends who were edging towards something more when Josh suddenly announced he was leaving Toronto for Europe.

I do like a good slow burn, tension-building friends to lovers tale, but they're one has hardly any slow, within days of Josh appearing back in Toronto, Avery had already jumped from being mad as hell, into his bed.

I only made it 53% of the way through this book. I didn’t like the characters, besides Brooke, I just found them lacking depth and the relationship between Josh and Avery was moving way too quickly already. I'm sorry to say I was not enjoying The Last Encore and decided to stop reading.

What first caught my attention with this book was the stunning cover, which I'm still not completely over tbh. Okay, let's talk about the book.

The Last Encore is presented as a second-chance romance between two former bestfriends. I was expecting a lot of groveling from the love-interest and tension between the two. And that's definitely NOT what we get here. I feel like Avery forgives Josh way too soon (almost immediately actually), which, come on: the dude disappeared for 10 years, he deserves hell and should have begged on his knees. We're told that Avery had a hard time getting over him (even though they were never more than friends at the time, but we could clearly see that they meant more to each other).
That was really my main problem with this book, their relationship moved way too fast because of that. In a sense, I kinda get it, since they were basically in love with each other and their feelings didn't really go away in the decade they were apart. But yeah: Josh should have grovelled. Hard.

That being said, I still liked Josh and Avery's relationship. Avery has a hard time opening up and letting people in (for good reasons), and I really liked how the author approached the subject. Both characters have a really sweet relationship, Josh is so understanding with Avery's anxiety and that warmed my heart.

I dived into this book expecting a sweet and steamy read, and that's what we got. The characters were so authentic, I loved the discourse on mental health, and you can tell that the author put a lot of herself into this book.

Overall, this was a good read, and even though there were some things that bothered me (re: the absence of groveling on Josh's part), I'd still recommend it, and will probably read the author's next book!

The Last Encore is a book that fell onto my radar purely by chance. And I ended up liking this quite a lot. I love reading second-chance romances, especially when it involves two best friends. I loved how Avery's anxiety was dealt with; it felt like a very realistic portrayal of what it can be like. And I loved how caring and kind Josh was; when he first showed up, I was not too sure how I would feel about him, but I end up really liking him in the end. I would have loved to have more scenes of Avery and Josh's friendship, but overall, this was a pretty fun read!

As a fan of childhood friends to lovers and second chance, I was anxious for the opportunity to read this book.

Overall, it is a plausible book. The author just needed a bit more time to work on the characters and story flow because both can make this a bummer read.

There's always space to improve and I will keep an eye on the future releases.

I loved the premise of this book but sadly the execution fell a bit short for me.

Avery and Josh are high school best friends that get their second chance at love during a chance meeting. There is so much opportunity for pining and forgiveness, for watching the characters actually learn to forgive, and I felt that I didn’t get that. I never felt myself feel attached to any one character…Avery struggles with her relationship with her father, however, every scene with him falls extremely flat and I found myself not really experiencing the struggle of the characters but just having to take the author’s word for “this is how things are.” I think a deeper dive into the familial relationships could have done this book a service. I did appreciate how the author addressed sexual trauma in the book and definitely mental health throughout the book. Overall it was a 3 ⭐️ read for me!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this novel.

First off, I love any book that comes with its own playlist!

I thought Elodie did a fanstatic job with Avery and Josh. It was beautiful to see their characters grow throughout the book and overcome their past struggles.

There were some deep, real emotions in this book: sexual assualt and anxiety. Elodie made notes in the beginning of the book for trigger warnings. Elodie thank you for sharing your story with us!

Excited for the next story with Miles.

I LOVED this book! Josh and Avery were one of the cutest couples ever! I loved the way that they moved through issues together and the way that mental health was discussed throughout the book! I can’t wait to read the next book!

I DNF’d after 25% in. The main character’s a “omg I’m so clumsy” girl who spills coffee on herself, champagne on someone else, and trips - all within the first 18% and all separate instances. I just couldn’t do it.

This is a second chance romance with the friends to lovers trope. I was immediately drawn in by the stunning cover but sadly this book didn’t do it for me.

Avery and Josh were childhood best friends until Josh moved across the world and left Avery heartbroken. Fast forward ten years and Josh is suddenly back in Toronto and trying to re-enter Avery’s world. Despite being upset and questioning if Josh can be trusted to stick around, Avery forgives him in no time and their friendship quickly begins to turn romantic. IMO the lack of grovelling from the hero was a missed opportunity. The ‘will they, won’t they’ aspect of second chance romances and the tension that builds is my favourite and that just wasn’t there in this book. The characters got together so early on that the back and forth between them quickly got boring and it was difficult to stick with the story.

Thank you to Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

2.5 stars