Contemporary romance. Standalone novel. Debut novel from one of my favorite fanfiction authors (known as LovesBitca8 on AO3). This one is a second-chance romance between Ama, a wedding planner who doesn’t believe in commitment, and Elliot, a florist who took over his father’s shop. The present-day chapters are told from Ama’s perspective, with past timeline chapters told from Elliot’s. In the present timeline, Ama has booked a high profile wedding that could elevate her career but has to work with Elliot on the florals, even though they haven’t spoken in about two years. In the past timeline, we get to see how they meet and get together, and it’s absolutely delightful reading Elliot’s self-deprecating awkwardness and internal monologue. In both timelines, we get to see Elliot’s gruff, but caring nature, and that he’s a total sap. (Think Luke Danes from Gilmore Girls, but younger and hotter, but still wearing plaid). This book had all the best emotionally written lines and you can feel Ama’s angst in the present day even if you don’t quite understand where it all went wrong. Amazing book and I’m super excited for more people to read it.

When I first read the premise for this book, it immediately intrigued me. The story and the tropes reeled me in. I literally read this in one sitting because I was so invested in Ama and Elliot, individually and as a couple.

I love when romances secretly tell a coming-of-age story. It was so satisfying seeing Ama become more confident in herself. I really enjoyed her journey and her character.

Elliot bloom. I swear I fall in love with every fictional man I read. Well, maybe not every single one. I loved his character. You get to see his grumpy exterior fade away when he lets Ama in and it’s the most beautiful thing.

I love that this was dual POV and that we got see both of the main characters' perspectives. It gives the story purpose and meaning. Ama and Elliot have great chemistry. There was angst and tension. Julie Soto delivers great spicy scenes in this. I do wish we got to see more of their emotional connection or just the emotional side of their relationship.

This isn’t just grumpy x sunshine but it’s also a second chance romance. I thought the alternating timelines was well done and I didn’t get confused at all.

I enjoyed the wedding planner and florist part of the story. It was interesting to learn about the industry and it made for a great setting in this book.

I do think that the first 1/4 or 1/3 of the book was slow in terms of pacing but the story definitely picks up as you keep reading.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Forever (Grand Central Publishing) for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC.

This was a fun read and I liked both main characters a lot. The wedding themes were so enjoyable and I thought the book was well-written! I liked the now and then feel as well.

Knocking off one star only because some aspects were a little cheesy.

I had to stop reading this book at 54%. The main characters have only interacted at most 3 times, and have said enough to each other to fill up maybe a full page. There is no possible way that enough work to be put in for a good second chance romance.

I don’t care about these characters enough to keep going with this one.

Yessssss. This book was everything I wanted. I really thought it was going to be super lame and cheesy (not a big fan of wedding centered romance books) but was so surprised! There was some real depth here and moments I genuinely got into my feels. It's weird but I could really envision everything described and the character arcs were believable.

Side note I love how much the author pays homage to her fanfiction start in the acknowledgements.

If you want a book like the 2001 Jennifer Lopez film, The Wedding Planner, with a bit of a twist, this book is for you! Ama Torres gives the EXACT wedding planner vibes as JLo in this movie, and as someone who loves The Wedding Planner, of course I loved this book!!! Also, Whitney gives me Jane Fonda from Monster-in-Law and that's all I have to say...

This second chance romance, with a dual timeline AND dual POV, tells a really deep yet fun and light story of a wedding planner (who never wants to be married) as she gets the wedding opportunity of a lifetime BUT she has to work with a florist...who is her ex...

I loved the format of this book! I usually don't comment about formats and the way things are written but I LOVE the anticipation created for the reader because of the fact that all throughout the book, Elliot's POV is flashbacks! We, as readers, cannot get a read on how Elliot is feeling about Ama in the moment AND we're also trying to piece together where everything went wrong! I also loved that while there is a happy ending, it is kind of open ended so we can imagine what we think will happen with Elliot and Ama!!!

"Forget Me Not" is a debut novel that gives readers a second chance romance storyline. Ama and Elliot spent months together, not labeling their time together, enjoying the moment. That is until Elliot pushes Ama for more, bringing their budding relationship crashing down. When the duo is tasked to work together to plan a wedding, they are forced to face their past.

I really enjoyed Elliot's chapters and POV but struggled with Ama. I found her to be robotic and a bit cold. Her lack of interest in love and HEA dates back to her mother's inability to commit, but I feel like she uses that as a crutch and as a reader, it gets old. I don't always need a leading lady with hearts in her eyes but a little softer character works better for me.

Is there anything that gives us more of that sweet, angsty tension than being extremely hung up on your ex, the one that got away, only to be thrown back together for work? Just in time for wedding season comes Julie Soto’s Forget Me Not, a second-chance romance set in the world of Sacramento wedding planning.

Ama Torres is the best wedding planner in the business - whether or not she’s willing to admit it. She gets close to her clients and uses her people reading skills to gauge out the perfect wedding day. Her skills are so well-regarded, she is given the opportunity of a lifetime when she is asked to plan the wedding of a celebrity influencer and her politically-connected fiancée. The publicity surrounding the big day is exactly what Ama needs for her budding boutique business, and will give her the opportunity to expand. But because her clients want the best of the best, that means working with local florist/craftsman Elliot Bloom.

Who also happens to be Ama’s ex. And things did not end well.

The story is told from Ama and Elliot’s points of view, with Ama narrating the lead-up to the big wedding, and Elliot’s perspective occupying the flashbacks that show their first meeting, blossoming romance, and eventual heartbreak. This device works so, so well at keeping the tension running throughout, with the reader never quite sure what both of them are thinking in the moment, immersing us in the mystery of having someone and losing them without ever knowing why, or coming face to face with someone you still love, usure if they still love you.

There’s something deeply compelling in the way Soto writes the two of them reflecting on and yearning for the other. There’s an all-too-visceral heartache there that remains as a persistent thread throughout, manifesting in the little ways they show that they still care for one another as they each go through their own respective professional crises.

With a setting that feels so grounded and real, and characters whose inner conflicts and relationships have a healthy dose of authenticity to them, Soto skirts dynamics that might have otherwise felt played out. Ama is upbeat, but never naive. Elliot is broody but not rude. There’s a natural kindness to them both that will have you rooting for them to make it work.

Forget Me Not hits shelves July 11. Special thank you to Netgalley and Forever for the advance copy for review purposes.

I dove into this book one night, not expecting it to grab ahold of me like it did. I could not stop reading! I stayed up til 3 am and then spent the next day finishing the book. NO regrets!!

“Forget Me Not” is the cutest and funniest light hearted romcom that I’ve read in a while. Elliot and Ama had so many touching moments that pulled at my heartstrings and also made me laugh. I loved that I could imagine every moment very vividly in my mind. I preordered a physical copy for my bookshelf because I will be reading this one again!

5 stars!! Highly recommend if you enjoy the contemporary romance/romcom genre and any of the following:
🌸 Second chance romance
🌸Grumpy/sunshine characters
🌸Well written/placed spice
🌸Time jump storytelling
🌸Dual POV

Thank you so much to @netgalley @readforeverpub & @juliesotowrites for the opportunity to read and review an ebook copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

This was such a fun read! I know Julie Soto is a popular fanfic author, but I hadn’t read anything by her before this. Safe to say I plan to keep an eye out for more of her work.

Ama is a wedding planner who has just landed a celebrity wedding that could, if it goes well, launch her small business into the big leagues. But this exciting opportunity is dampened by the fact that her clients have chosen her ex to be their florist. Now Ama and Elliot have to work together on one of the biggest projects of their careers while pretending that things didn’t completely and devastatingly blow up between them a few years ago, and all with a television crew, Ama’s old boss, too many ex-siblings to count, and the ghosts of their pasts running circles around them.

The wedding provided such an interesting sandbox for the story to play in. It’s really fun when a romance story utilizes its parameters well (Soto had to come up with reasons for the florist to be involved in so many aspects of the wedding, and the whole venue situation was convincing for this) and this one did just that, though some of the behind-the-scenes of wedding planning was a bit exaggerated.

This book featured lots of tropes (grumpy/sunshine, dual POV, past & present timelines, second chance romance) but still felt grounded and didn’t rely heavily on tropes to do the heavy lifting a plot should.

Though it is dual POV, the present timeline was narrated entirely by Ama and the past by Elliot, and I think it would have been interesting to see both timelines from both characters’ POVs, so we could see each of their growth. This isn’t necessarily a weakness of the book, but just something I would be interested in. As is, having one character narrate each timeline created a nice contrast between them.

I found the backstories & motivations of each character solid, but found some of their personality descriptions a bit one-note. Elliot was grumpy but open to love and Ama was sunshine but a commitment-phobe and that’s all there is to say there really.

Speaking of Ama’s commitment issues: it felt a little hard to believe that she was perfectly happy being in a relationship as long as they didn’t officially label it a relationship. It would have been more believable if she had been resistant to any progressions that implied they were doing more than just hooking up but gradually warmed to them, rather than everything being fine until Elliot did The Thing that implied labels and she freaked out.

Overall enjoyed!

This book and I didn't hit it off like I had hoped. The premise seemed like a light and cute read, but something about it just seemed disjointed. The characters were difficult to fall in love with and the storyline had a choppy feel to it for me. I wanted to like this book and with the wedding planning and all it looked up my alley, but it just wasn't for me. Hoping others find it enjoyable, but this one fell flat.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

Synopsis: Ama Torres adores her job as a wedding planner but isn't exactly sold on the whole marriage thing. After all, her mother has been married more than a dozen times. Nevertheless, Ama is determined to make her couples' big day a roaring success. So, when celebrity duo Hazel and Jackie approach her to plan their wedding, she's both ecstatic and nervous. Little does she know, they've already enlisted Elliot Bloom as their florist – the very guy whose heart she broke. Now, it's not just their careers on the line but their tangled emotions too. And if that isn’t complicated enough, the two brides are playing matchmaker for Ama and Elliot, completely unaware of their shared history.

Read if you like
- second chance romance
- grumpy/sunshine
- workplace romance (she’s a wedding planner and he’s a florist)
- past/present timelines

Thoughts: I really enjoyed this second chance romance and thought it was a perfect summer read, especially as wedding season is starting! In this book not only do you get a great romance, but you get a glimpse into the wedding world, which is such a fun and different setting for a workplace romance. I also love how this was set in Sacramento and how the story transports you there. I also loved imagining the wedding, as well as all the florals Elliot was putting together.

Forget Me Not has dual POV, with most of the past chapters being in Elliot’s POV and most of the present being in Ama’s POV. There are amazing side characters, especially the two brides Jackie and Hazel. I loved them both and their relationship. This was also spicier than I anticipated which was a nice surprise!

There are still so many feelings between Elliot and Ama, and it is so clear that Eliott loves with his whole heart. I loved seeing the way he loves Ama. I wish we got a bit more about how they’re feeling in the present beyond work conversations and the wedding they are working on. I thought the ending was a bit rushed and felt a little under developed, which is why this isn’t a five star read for me. I also would have loved to get a bit more of Elliot’s personality beyond his career and relationship with Ama.

That being said, I still very much enjoyed this book and would recommend it, especially for anyone who enjoys second chance romance! I think this is Julie Soto's debut novel, and I'm excited to read more from her!

Thank you to the author, NetGalley and Forever publishing for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

When a wedding planner and florist who just happen to be exes are forced to plan a high profile wedding together... things are about to get complicated, especially because of the way their relationship ended... but could this be a second chance at romance? Ama Torres loves her job, she loves giving people the perfect wedding, despite the fact that she doesn’t believe in marriage herself. Elliot Bloom is a brooding florist who hates owning a flower shop, except he’s grown to love it.... and then his entire life is turned upside down when a very bright-eyed, dout-loving workaholic shows up at his door and steals his heart. Ama doesn’t do serious relationships, Elliot is firmly in the “forever” kind of relationship, yet what starts off as some light flirting soon turns into hook ups at weddings, to dates and working together and possibly something more..... yet the moment it does everything crashes, and now years later they have to face each other again and all the old complicated feelings come bubbling back, but can they make it work a second time? Will they want to give it a go again? This book was giving me gender switched “he’s just not that into you” Jennifer Aniston’s and Ben Affleck’s characters. Ama doesn’t want a serious relationship after seeing her mom go through 16 weddings and divorces, she so deeply believes that all relationships end and that if you get married it would end. Elliot wants nothing more than to be in a forever kind of relationship, he wants marriage, he wants a serious relationship despite his parents divorcing. They both have different perspectives on relationships, yet they both know there’s something between them and can’t help but fall for one another. Yet while being in a “relationship not relationship” and Elliot asks for more, Ama runs and now they are forced to see each other again and face the fall out of their relationship and where they stand and how they feel about each other now. While this was a good book and I did love seeing both their perspectives on their relationship, I just kind of wish there was more. We get to see Elliot’s pov from mostly the past about their relationship while Ama’s is all in the present. The book essentially ends with them finally getting back together but thats like exactly one chapter before the epilogue and I kind of wish there was more going on, more about how they’re handling being back together, more discussion on what exactly happened leading to their breakup and how they see their relationship going, and getting more moments of them actually still being in love with each other and such. It kind of just abruptly ends and I wish there was a bit more. Overall it was a cute second chance romance and I would definitely recommend it for people who enjoy that trope! I loved Elliot as a romantic lead and I enjoyed seeing how chaotic but adorable Ama was. I loved the flowers in this story and had fun with it!

*Thanks Netgalley and Forever (Grand Central Publishing), Forever for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

💐 Book Review 💐

Forget Me Not by Julie Soto won't be one I'll soon forget.

✔️ Second Chance
✔️ Then and Now
✔️ Grumpy/Sunshine
✔️ Forced Proximity

I loved both characters. Yes, I'm a sucker for a Grumpy/Sunshine trope but adding that to a then-and-now second chance romance where you can see the difference between grumpy Elliot before (grumpy just because that's his M.O.) and grumpy Elliot now (the extra layer of pain from their breakup). It made the now portions of the book so deliciously angsty.

Ama, too, was a great character - a commitment-phobe wedding planner. I loved how take charge she was about most aspects of her life and meeting any difficulty head-on with her profession, but unable to think of her love life the same way.

This one hit all the marks - great swoony story, funny moments, and steamy scenes. 5⭐️

Steam 🔥🔥🔥
Banter 🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️
Swoon 💕💕💕💕💕

4.5 stars. I did not think this book was going to grab me the way that it did… but I couldn’t put it down!

Grumpy / sunshine. Second chance romance. Dual POV. Dual timeline. Forced proximity. Spice 🔥

I loved Elliott. He was the grumpiest sad boy and I loved him. “He’s always like that. Rude is his brand”. I’m so glad we got to read from his perspective. It added a lot of emotional depth.

Ama was so quirky and immediately likable. Her character development was excellent and she made me very hungry for donuts.

The way the dual timeline played out was perfect- kept me guessing and engaged.

I loved the wedding and flower details. The descriptions has me picturing everything and reminiscing about my own wedding.

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for the chance to review an advance copy.

Forget Me Not by Julie Soto is a second chance romance between a sunshine wedding planner and a grumpy tattooed florist. The story revolves around planning the wedding of a popular influencer forcing Ama and Elliot to work together years after their breakup. Forget Me Not by Julie Soto offers readers everything from a fast-paced storyline to fabulous character growth to a beautiful romance. Forget Me Not by Julie Soto is an amazing debut romance that will have readers looking forward to other novels written by Julie Soto.

What a surprise! I adored everything about this book - from the way it was told, the characters, the plot and the flowers! This follows Ama, a wedding planner who finally branched out on her own after working for a larger company for a long time, and Elliot, a florist who has taken over his father's flower shop. The wedding business brought these two together, but their chemistry kept Ama coming back to Elliot's shop. If you love adorable grumpy-sunshine stories, this is a good one for you!

It's told in a dual point of view with Ama's perspective told in the present and Elliott's perspective takes place as the two characters met and their relationship developed. I love dual POV stories because it adds so much more depth to the relationship and to the story.

I love weddings, which made this book so much more fun. Ama got a huge wedding for her new business, so most of the book follows her taking this wedding on and working to make her business bigger and better. It's so much fun to follow every step of how this wedding comes to be, and along the way Ama and Elliot - who have broken up in the present storyline, come back together and figure themselves out. One wants a long-term relationship and the other hates the idea of marriage.

I didn't give this a full five stars because I thought the ending felt a bit rushed. I would have loved to see more of Ama and Elliot together in the end after the wedding was over and things were wrapping up. Their story is so interesting that I wanted more!

Check out a complete review on the Pages n' Pages podcast Chapter 104 available on all streaming platforms.

I really enjoyed the first two-thirds! Much like other second chance romance books, including Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren, Forget Me Not by Julie Soto is told in a dual timeline (past and present). It stars Ama, a commitment-phobic wedding planner, and Elliot, a reluctant florist. I really like when books subvert gendered expectations, and this book does exactly that. Not only is Ama the commitment-phobe, but she is also the one to have broken Elliot's heart, instead of the other way around. In most second chance romance books (at least, in my experience), the boy broke the girl's heart, so it's always refreshing when an author mixes it up.

Ama hasn't worked with Elliot in over two years, not since she broke his heart. To both their chagrin, they now have to plan an entire (sapphic!!!) wedding together for Hazel, a celebrity/social media influencer, and her partner, Jackie. Jackie grew up with Elliot and is dead set on receiving his input, and not just on floral arrangements. I hope Soto one day writes Hazel and Jackie's story, because I fell in love with them both (especially Jackie) and their relationship.

Both Ama and Elliot, and even Hazel and Jackie (because they, too, are not always likable), are multi-dimensional characters. We can understand and sympathize with why Ama feels the way she does about marriage. I wouldn't call it relatable that her mother has been married 16 times (and counting), but I can see why this experience would leave her jaded. (In fact, I just looked up the world record for number of monogamous, legal marriages, and Linda Wolfe holds the record for women at 23, and Glynn Wolfe holds the record for men at 31. Yes, they were married to each other, though apparently only for publicity. Their marriage ended when Glynn died, and Linda never remarried. The more you know!) So, while this plot is a little unbelievable, it's certainly not implausible. Although I could sympathize with her, I wanted to shake Ama at times because of her unwillingness to see Elliot in a "forever" kind of way, even as she is simultaneously planning for their (business) future. I loved Elliot. He has a grumpy exterior but is just a soft, cuddly teddy bear on the inside.

I felt like Ama and Elliot's backstory was well-developed. Though their relationship started as purely physical, they unintentionally became emotionally intertwined, and we witness this progression. But their second chance was lackluster and anticlimactic. It felt rushed. There wasn't much buildup until the very end, and even at the end, it felt like more of a happy for now (HFN) than a happily ever after (HEA) because of its abruptness. I think there was too much emphasis placed on the wedding planning and not enough on their budding (haha) relationship. Suddenly, I was 90% of the way through the book, and present-day Ama and Elliot hadn't even reconciled, much less gotten back together. (There was no third act breakup to be had, because Ama and Elliot weren't even back together by the third act...) Once they did, the book was over immediately, minus a short, unsatisfying epilogue. To me, an epilogue is unsatisfying when it adds nothing to the story: when nothing of note has changed from the end of the final chapter to the beginning of the epilogue. The last one-third left me wanting more.

And let me be clear, I definitely think Soto would have been capable of "more." Her talent is obvious. I have a theory that fanfiction writers are among the most skilled in the profession, because they know how to write for a very specific audience. I will now use Soto as my case study. Besides the rushed ending, her story is perfectly paced in a way that keeps the reader engaged. Her dialogue completely sucked me in.

For a debut novel, this is pretty stellar. You know that if both Ali Hazelwood and Abby Jimenez recommend something, it's got to be worth reading (and it is!). It was gearing up to be a five-star read for me, but unfortunately, it fell just short. Regardless, I still 110% recommend that you read it!

Thank you so much to Forever (Grand Central Publishing) for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest, voluntary review.

This book pulled me into its bubble and I couldn’t stop until finished. Second chance romance with both the past and present timeline.

A major part of the story is Ama finding her way in her career after starting her own business. While writing this review I’m realizing how much was happening at once in here and I really did enjoy it. (The few issues I had with it were mostly personal preference and spoilery so I’ll save that for another time.)

Elliott is all the cat nip I could ever want. I’d like to keep him for myself, thank you very much. I’m

Overall, it was a sweet and quick read, I stayed up way too late because I was hooked and very much wanted them to be together.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC. All opinions freely (and happily) given by me

A bubbly, talkative, optimistic wedding planner and a grumpy quiet introverted florist. What's not to love?

Apparently a lot, for me. Elliot is the only reason this book got as high of ratings as it did. He is perfection. He deserved better.

I did not like Ama, the wedding planner/designer. I didn't not like how she treated Elliot, the florist, at all. Elliot deserved so much better. He was the perfect most wonderful book boyfriend. Ama was everything I dislike in a FMC. She shied away from emotional conversations, ran when things got difficult and used physical interactions to replace talking about the relationship with the MMC. He was often left wondering what just happened, where do I stand with this girl and why did she just jump me and then run away. If roles were reversed this book would NOT be okay.

I did not like the time jumps. I did not like that the only chapters from Elliot's POV were in the past. I could have used some perspective from him in the present and perspective from her in the past. It was all very frustrating.

"A novel from Ali Hazelwood's favorite author" should have been my first clue that I would not like this book.