This was my first Portia MacIntosh book and it was cute but there were times when I felt there was too much going on. Between the duel timeline, the decent size cast of friends, and the constant antics I struggled to find myself rooting for anyone but Cam. He was the glue that held the whole thing together. Overall I felt as though it was an easy summer read but could have easily benefitted from a few fewer things going on.

Thank you to Netgalley and Boldwood Books for providing this book as an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Portia MacIntosh does not disappoint yet again. This is a great summer vacation read! A group of friends who haven't seen each other in years, meet up for a luxurious vacation courtesy of one of the group member. This books is has a little of everything:
*Love triangle
*Travel to an exotic destination,
*The one that got away
*Second chance romance
* Some adventure and just a sprinkle of mystery.

Jas has just lost her job (not that she liked it) and has moved home with parents when she gets an invitation to an island on the coast of Italy, all expenses paid by her childhood best friend, Maxi. There she sees the whole gang has reunited. We follow this group through past memories and the present. Some secrets are reveals and some great fun is had. I definitely found myaelf laughing outloud at times. This is a great summer read! I really enjoy the cast of characters and all their (sometimes flawed) personalities. A really fun read! Rating: 3.5/5

3,5* Won't round to four stars because of a few things I'll explain below.

Are you feeling nostalgic and want to catch up with your teenage self? What's better than a dream vacation with your teenage-gang?

Jas has recently lost her job and her home without previous notice, she's kind of depressed while she's moving back with her parents. What better moment to get an invitation for a fantastic trip abroad to a magnificent italian villa, with all expence covered(!), by her long time best friend? Soon she discovers she's not the only one to have been invited, it has been extended to all their teenage gang and she'll find out who's going only at departure.

Long time buried feeling mixed with new one, things which were left behind get back again... old dynamics coming to life like time didn't pass.
The plot gets unraveled little by little alternating flashbacks to the present storyline.
They were a very solid group, thought they'd spend their future groing together, but something happened and everyone went his separate way.
The story is pleasant, enjoyable and nice, we're left guessing what happened in the past and how did it happen, but Jas seems like her old self, going back to teenage behaviour and she's thirty now... so, while we all get cold feet in life and don't trust ourself with bold choices, she really seems too naif and immature, and we can't really say better about the other characters, they all seem a little frozen in time when getting to the group dynamics, this is mostly why I didn't round the rating to four star.
It still is a perfect summer read if you feel a little nostalgic of old good times.

Thank you NetGalley and Boldwood books for providing this book as an ARC in exchange of an honest review.

Another light and fun read from Portia, I really look forward to reading her books when they come out. This was enjoyable with a cute high school failed romance then running through it. I thought the sex resort was a bit weird, I’m sure that could’ve been something better but I enjoyed the book and would recommend as a great beach read this summer x and I love the front cover 🤣

I want to thank Netgalley and the author for gifting me the ebook. First off the cover is very cute
I have read pretty much every book from this author and I have enjoyed them very much. This book did not disappoint. The characters were fun and engaging (some of them annoying at times) I loved the adventure of this book. There were so many twists and different adventures in this book and I loved every min of it.
The book is about friendships, forgiveness, and growing up. Highly recommend.

Thank you Net Galley for allowing me to receive this book for an honest review.

What a cute story! I enjoyed this one very much.

This story is about a group of high schol friends that get to get for a reunion and go the the Italy. But Jas runs into her love that got away.

As the week of fun starts there are secrets and a love triangle emerges again.
What would you do? Would you leave the past in the past or try again?

Such a fun summer read! Jas is hitting a low point in her life, just let go from her nanny job and moving back in with her parents, she is presented with the amazing opportunity to meet up with her old friends from high school for a summer trip in Italy! I loved the exploration of “what ifs” that were explored, as Jas reminisces about how her life could have changed based on her decisions back in high school. This is a breezy, enjoyable beach read perfect just in time for the warmer weather!

This was a fun read. A bit on the slower side, but a really interesting spin on the “what-if” scenario of high school friends reuniting for a fun, drama-filled, exotic vacation. The immaturity of some of the characters was offputting, but also entirely relatable (we ALL know folks like that), and the contrast between the drama of the flashbacks vs the dramas of 32-year olds was entertaining.

This is my second book by Portia Macintosh and I thought it was brilliant.
The book didn’t go in the direction I expected and had a few twists thrown in along the way which only increased the humour.
I loved the characters and really felt like I was part of the friendship group.
What a brilliant feel good book I would definitely recommend buying for a fantastic summer read and hopefully there will be a sequel to see where everyone is in a few years time.
Thanks to Netgalley, Boldwood Books and Portia Macintosh for an early copy in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

Jas just lost her job as an au pair and has to move back in with her parents, start looking for a new job and find a new place to live. A once in a lifetime all-paid vacation with her old classmates and best friend sounds like an amazing getaway to reset and relax. Seeing her ex-boyfriend and the one that got away brings back all the feelings, drama and history between friends.

A light summer read but a bit forgettable, I did not connect to the characters as much as I hoped, some of them were immature and written in a way to add drama to the story that just didn’t work for me. The book skews quite younger than the thirty somethings described. I loved the original setting of an Italian island but unfortunately I was not sold on the romance. The second half got a bit weird and cringy with the sex resort and the dual timelines kept confusing me, I also thought it was odd to end on the flashback scene instead of the current/future timeline.

Thank you to NetGalley and Boldwood Books for an advance copy to review.

The plot of this novel takes a bit of a turn in a slightly surprising manner and really does not have too much substance. It follows a group of friends who reunite after 15 years at one of the group’s Italian villa. The premise is pretty thin and a few of the characters are interchangeable, but on the whole quite enjoyable. A quick summer read. Thanks to Boldwood books and Netgalley for an ARC of this novel.

Surely no one can resist a Portia MacIntosh book! They are just so good and I often find myself unable to help myself from laughing out loud.

As a teenager, Jasmine (Jas to her friends) didn’t expect to end up as a live-in Nanny teaching English to children but sadly that is what her life has become. Or at least it had until she finds herself out of a job and homeless.

Jas resigns herself to moving back home to live with her parents. However, life has other plans and she receives a gift from her old school friend, Maxi, which basically leads to her being invited on a luxurious all expenses paid holiday with Maxi and some of the old gang (DJ, Mikey, Cam and Clarky). Due to an unfortunate event this group of friends gave not seen each other in 15 years.

Cue love, laughter, tears and more laughter as you read this book and the exploits of Jas and her friends both now and 15 years ago.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced read copy of this book in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

Old friends meet up and go on holiday together but not everything goes to plan. Ramce and friendship and a few mishaps. A fun read. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me review this book.

I usually really enjoy MacIntosh’s romances, but this one just didn’t do it for me. I didn’t get much sense of Jas, the narrator, or why the guy she ends up with likes her so much. He’s much more appealing than she is. She is just rather blah. The best I can say about her is that she’s better than her group of friends, except for Cam, the love interest.

Jas has been in a nothing job as a nanny for a decade. It’s not clear why that is all she settled for. The whole plot of a group of friends getting together long after any of them had ever been together when they’re now 30 or so didn’t ring true. The silly, farcical things that happen on their supposedly dream vacation just didn’t interest me. Everyone was rather obnoxious on the trip, except for Cam and Jas, but that didn’t seem to be enough for them to fall in love with each other.

I voluntarily reviewed an advanced reader copy of this book that I received from Netgalley; however, the opinions are my own and I did not receive any compensation for my review.

This was your average cute, fluffy summer romance book and I was here for it! Did it wow me? No. But I did enjoy it!

This book was not what I was expecting based on previous works by the author. It was a fun summer read that I wish I had the chance to read on a beach since that seems like the perfect location to take it all in. I loved the mystery element combined with the dual timelines and the romance mixed with the woman’s fiction energy. I kept reading in order to discover what the secrets were and was kept company by the great humour that was sprinkled throughout the book. I found the beginning a little slow and would have loved more romance but those are just my personal feelings on the book.

Thank you to Netgalley and BoldWood Books for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book started out slow, but once I was about 30% in, I couldn’t put it down. I was laughing out loud multiple times (the sex swing 🤣🤣). I really enjoyed the story. The characters and their antics were great. The relationships between them were relatable. A good reminder that you don’t always know everything going on in people’s lives, even the people we think we know the best.
Overall Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
Spice Level: 🌶️🌶️/5
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

What can go wrong when six secondary school friends reunite after nearly two decades apart at an Italian island villa? Apparently a ton if you ask Portia MacIntosh's Long Time No Sea. I received this book via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

The story starts with our protagonist Jas in a less than ideal situation: losing her job and moving home to live with her parent's in her 30s. Thankfully her childhood best mate Maxi comes through with just what Jas needs - an all expense paid tropical jaunt that they always talked of doing together. Sure, the friend group hasn't been together since the summer everything went wrong and they don't really talk, but this trip will be just what Jas needs.

And it is...if what she needed was reuniting with a toxic friend group that don't seem to have grown out of their selfish teenage behaviors or learned any better communication skills since their late teens. These people continue to exhibit explosive tempers and belittle one another constantly. I think a lot of my distaste for this novel was the relationships and how the main cast of characters treated one another.

Ignoring the complicated nature of long term friendships and what we're willing to put up with from people we love, the story overall just didn't grab my attention. Throughout reading it, the only emotion I felt was "eh". The switching between timelines did add an interesting layer to the story telling as bits and pieces of the "mystery" around that summer become clear to the reader, but the reveal fell flat for this reader. The lies and secrets felt overdramatized and all for really naught. But hey, in the end some folks found love.

If you're looking for a quick, light hearted, minimally emotional read then I can suggest this one.

Well, what can I say about new Portia McIntosh's book? The same as always, actually. It was a nice, relaxing read that had its moments, but this story left me thoughtless. I'm not sure what I think about it - do I think anything at all about it? Because it felt like a copy of all Portia's books, there was nothing new, she's following the same pattern in her books and you simply want to say, same old, same old. What irritates me slightly in her books is the fact that the main heroines are always the ultimate queen bees, everybody fights for their attention, they are always sooo attractive and all old flames want to be with them again. Not differently with Jasmine and believe me, there was nothing so special in her.

There is some humour in the story, but sometimes it fells to forced. The attempt of adding a bit of mystery to the story, mentioning "this evening" every few pages, well, not so completely successful. Nevertheless, the writing style is this what kept me going, because Portia McIntosh has a lighness to her writing and I enjoy it whole - heartedly.

Altogether, it was light and easy, but I am probably getting too old for Portia's books - I have a feeling her characters don't grow up. Too over - dramatic and with some issues within it that didn't sit with me, but if you're looking for a relaxing summery read with some moments in it, try this one. It is not that I didn't enjoy it, I just missed some depth and something new.

Portia MacIntosh delivers another laugh out loud summertime story! From the moment the author described the guys in the story as Chad Michael Murray from A Cinderella Story, Luke from the OC and Orlando Bloom lookalikes, she had my attention!

I am the same age as the characters, so I fully immersed myself into both the flashbacks and the current day shenanigans. I felt like Jas at the resort- maybe I'm not old, just boring. But their version of boring was far from it! The whole shipwreck experience turned sex hotel room was a hoot! 

I loved the storyline of reconnecting with old friends, especially at a gorgeous Italian villa, but some of the antics and personalities were borderline immature for 30 somethings! Overall, a quick fun read that made me want to text all my old friends for a summer holiday.

Also, I just love the cover and all of the covers of Portia MacIntosh's books!