Don’t Want You Like A Best Friend is the historical romance that wlw people have yearned for since the hype of Bridgerton. It is young women being who they are without the notions of men getting in the way. Just a genuinely fantastic story for anyone who wants to dip their toes into a historical romance.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC.

This was such a fun book. I was instantly hooked by the parent trap/bridgerton comparison to then top it off with a sapphic romance - icing on the cake. I will say i was stressed the ENTIRE time reading this book because I just wanted everyone to be happy and I couldn’t see how it would end up that way. I definitely enjoyed the ending and cackled at the last part as well. Very fun characters, love the MCs and probably loved the side characters even more. It was a very sweet read that I would love to add to my schools library.

Listen, if a book title is a lyric to a Taylor Swift song, I am going to read it.

After the death of her father, something she isn't particular upset about, Beth finds herself in her debutante season walking on a tightrope. Her father only left them so much money, and it is up to her to find a husband that will keep herself and her mother out of poverty, Only problem? Beth really doesn't want to be forced into a loveless, horrid relationship like her mother before her.

Enter Gwen, a bright, charming young lady whom Beth immediately takes a liking to, with Gwen feeling quite the same. Gwen is in her forth season, and is lucky to have a widowed father who is find with her not getting married. Once learning of Beth's situation, Gwen devises a plan so crazy it just has to work: set up their parents so the two don't ever have to get married. Things start to get complicated, however, when it is discovered that their parents seem to not like each other due to a history neither one wishes to explain. What's more? Gwen and Beth start falling in love hard, but it's not for the viscounts--it's with each other.

Don't Want You Like a Best Friend is a charming romance that takes many of the most entertaining elements of a victorian story and makes it sapphic. Pair that with the Parent Trap, romcom style plot line and you have a super fun story. Gwen and Beth are likable characters with vastly different personalities, something that I think alternating POV books should take note from. They are both incredibly fun to follow and both have different ways of going about their devious plan to get their parents together. It was a very entertaining romance to follow!

I will say that the story felt a little slow at times; some events felt like they were there to have more banter than really push the story along. I also went into this story expecting it to be a YA romance and OH, it was not that. That's on me though, and I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the more adult themes and scenes.

Overall, this was an impressive debut from this author, and if this book is the first in a series, which the ending implies, I am looking forward to what's to come!

Thanks to Netgalley for the advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review!

I'm a sucker for a good sapphic historical fiction. The Taylor Swift title reference makes it feel fresh and modern despite being a historical. Fans of romances will swoon over this book and the dynamic between Beth and Gwen.

"Don't Want You Like a Best Friend" is the first in what will be a series of romances set in... 1857-ish. I write 'ish' because while the date is specific, as is the fashion and the society rules, the history itself is very muddy and unclear, likely due to the social upheaval, war, slavery, and other subjects less simpatico with what's trying to be a charming, fluffy romance. And it is charming and fluffy! "Sapphic parent trap" is pretty accurate in terms of comps; "Don't Want You Like a Best Friend" focuses on two young women in their seasons. One is trying to find a husband due to her family's flagging wealth. The other is trying to put off marriage for as long as possible. Well, they meet, hit it off, and discover that their parents - both single - used to be an item way back when. Matchmaking is in order, and of course as they spend more time together, they start seeing each other in a new light...

"Don't Want You Like a Best Friend" wants the glitz and social rules and misogyny and homophobia of the time period to generate the angst it needs for the romance without really delving into the racism, which is an ODD choice. I'm probably overthinking it. The romance itself was cute, the side characters were lovely, I was probably more invested in the parents than the main couple, but all in all it was a great vacation read. I just had trouble turning my brain off for some of the worldbuilding.

3.5 out of 5 stars!

Don't Want You Like a Best Friend is dual-POV and follows two young women who are thrust into the debutante season. This is Gwen's fourth season and she is unbothered. This is Beth's first season and she needs to make a good match by the end of the season for the security it will provide for herself and her mother following the death of her father. The girls meet and quickly become the best of friends. And then, maybe more than friends...
The girls decide to play matchmaker between Gwen's father and Beth's mother who knew each other from their own debutante season.

I loved this book! I fell in love with the characters and the setting was the best! I especially loved the dual-POV.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to read this book early! I really enjoyed it. I thought the writing was very well done, and the story kept me interested. I believe my students/patrons would also love this book and will be acquiring it for the library!

This book was SO good! First off, it’s a friends to lovers, sapphic Parent Trap from the regency?? Yes to ALL of it. The scheming, the love, the SPICE! This book had so much yearning and excitement. Even though this is a romance so I knew it would have an HEA, it does SUCH a great job of making you think it won’t! Beth needs to marry or her mother and her will be destitute. Enter Gwen and her father, Beth’s mother’s ex and his daughter. They become fast friends, even as their parents are avoiding their own attraction and Beth is slated to marry one of the most boring men alive (?) with a tyrant of a father! What will happen next!! Like seriously the title ALONE had me wanting to read it but then the gorgeous cover too?? A plus to everyone involved.

Look, you put two women in petticoats and let them fall in love, I’m gonna read it. Which is how I’ve ended up gobbling down a couple of good sapphic period romances (one true original, honestly) and also a whole bunch of not-so-great ones. The thing that gets me most of all is when publishers go for the Austen comparison when the book itself is neither Austen-esque spiritually or Austen-esque plot-wise — but here! Finally! In a book titled with a Taylor Swift Reputation era lyric and endless comps to Parent Trap is the truly modern Austen lesbian love story I’ve been waiting for. A comedy of manners where everyone had their own distinct voice, and the heroines are full of wit and good humor, and everyone learns more about themselves and grows and gets braver and stronger. The decimation of patriarchal tradition. And hells bells, the longing! The pining! The desperation of knowing the love of your life is one letter away from disappearing from your world forever! The choice between a purgatory of sadness between moments of stolen incandescent happiness and a life of security. The housekeeper goading tomboy lesbian Gwen into making men cry! I’d give this ten billion stars if I could.

Thank you to Avon and Harper Voyager + NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC and provide an honest review.

I'm not usually a fan of historical romances but dang this one was pretty damn good! I really loved the characters and the dynamic they shared. I also loved how their schemes ending with them falling for eachother! hehe sooo cutee!! This book was fun, witty, and soo romantic!!! Also the cover is so beautiful!

What a truly delightful regency romance! I often do not find regency romance to be as enjoyable because it's just so straight so it was wonderful to read a book that is set in the time period tat was unabashedly queer! Gwen and Beth are a lovely, amusing, adorable couple fighting against the confines of their time and stations to eke out a way to be together.

Their parents and the supporting cast of characters (cousins, friends, household staffs we all funny and supportive and helpful schemers. I loved every bit of it!

✨Our secret moments in a crowded room. They got no idea about me and you.✨

AHHHH (ah, ha, ha, ha) this book was The Parent Trap x Historical Romance love child I never knew I need in my life!! I actually need like ten more Parent Trap-esque romances because the concept is just so dramatic and fun. Two relationships for the price of one (and there’s a bonus relationship plus another teaser)…so really FOUR relationships and I love and adore them all.

Gwen and Beth were lovely, a bit messy, and majorly obsessed with each other (which made me obsessed with them. While the title is Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend, I really enjoyed the friends to lovers aspect of their relationship. We saw their relationship/start on the page (not in the past) so I really connected to them both and how perfectly suited for each other they were. I’m also obsessed with their Hot™️ parents and could use a novella of their romance alone (I just know their bedroom chemistry was insane)!

My only major issue has nothing at all to do with the characters or the plot—both of which were perfection—but instead everything to do with <I>how</I> the book was written. I’m a major hater of third person present tense as it feels clunky, unnatural, and way too removed from the characters. It always feels like events and emotions are being told not shown. I basically spent the whole book mentally switching every other word to past tense. It worked better than I’d have thought possible, but I really wish it wouldn’t have been written in that style.

A minor issue I had was just some of the drama in the second half considering Beth was engaged for a good chunk of it…but it did hurt so good and I can’t really complain. Gwen (and her father) were both a mess in the way that I just love to see…I was just also a mess. It did make the grovel and reconciliation at the end all the sweeter though.

To sum it up, I don’t know if I should go watch The Parent Trap or listen to Taylor Swift to cure my book hangover. Seriously, what do I read next?? Seeing as this was such a sparkling debut, I absolutely cannot wait for book two. The teaser we got in the epilogue was delicious and just what I was hoping for!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/5 🌶️🌶️*/5

*There was one major scene plus a little extra here and there. Moderate level of detail was given and it was open door.


Thanks so much to the publisher for an eARC via NetGalley. All opinions are honest and my own.

Beth Demeroven is under a lot of pressure. If she doesn't find a successful match before the end of the season, her and her mother are going to be without a house, a future, without security. Determined to make it work, Beth attends a ball and meets Gwen Havenfort, a women in her fourth season who seemingly doesn't mind never being married if she can help it. When the two discover their parents fell in love but didn't marry because Lord Havenfort wasn't prestigious enough for Beth's grandparents, the two cracked a plan to get their parents to fall in love again. But there's a hitch: their parents seem to hate one another. Can Beth and Gwen get them back together before the end of the season? And what happens when the two women discover they fall in love with each other along the way?

What can't I say about this book? Characterization and dialog are Alban's strongpoint. Beth and Gwen are fantastic and their banter more so. They feel like believable early twenty something women in the Victorian era, and I loved their banter and their feelings for one another The problem I often have with historical romance is when the main character woman character and/or their love interest feel like they are modern people plopped into the historical era, with modern ideas and the strong ability to stand up for their feminist values. Beth, Gwen, and other characters feel like real Victorians, and I really appreciate that. The slow process of their feelings felt believable, as well, and the relationships with each other and other characters felt genuine. I could pinpoint everyone's motivations and could see why everyone got along. I wanted the parents to get together just as much as I wanted Beth and Gwen to get together. Everyone, from the side characters to the main ones, made me not want to put this book down.

I also really loved the inclusion of the real life Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857. It's a strong plot point and made the characters feel even concrete in their setting! Lord Havenfort fighting for the Act after seeing his love Lady Demeroven falling into an abusive relationship with no escape made me want to cry. That's love, folks.

I did have a problem with some of the plot though. Beth and Gwen's scheming made no sense and towards the end, it's like the two of them completely give up their scheming and the plot point is completely dropped until the last chapter. They were SUCCEEDING! Their plan was WORKING! Their parents were falling for each other again, why stop now? I wish motivations could have been explained better. I also really didn't like the epilogue, but I logically know is a set up for a sequel (which, please know I will read if it's written!) I just didn't understand why the plot completely drops for a good few chapters. It feels like the characters realize way too late that, oh yeah, they had a plan, didn't they. It's a little hilarious, though, how bad Beth and Gwen are at scheming!

Overall, I loved this. Gwen and Beth are lovely and I fell in love with not just them, but their parents' romance, the queer side characters. I feel like Alban's strength is not only in characterization and dialogue, but in creating a realistic victorian setting as well. No, Gwen and Beth can't marry one another, and the queer side characters can't be open about their love, but there's an understanding and exploration of this pain. It made me thankful that I can be queer in present day, to express my love in the open now.

Thank you Netgalley, for easy access to Alban's "Don't Want You Like a Best Friend." It was such a fun read and I will recommend it to other readers who want to quench their Bridgerton fix!

Beth and Gwen are young women out in the marriage mart and although Gwen is in her fourth year she's in no rush to be anyone's wife. Both their parents had been friends in their youth and both of them becoming friends puts their parents back into each other's orbit once again. There is romance in the air and when they try to get their parents to fall in love with each other the love spell may be working way too well because Beth and Gwen are also also finding themselves falling as well. I loved this story. Each perspective from that of both Beth and Gwen was great and gave insight into their lives, needs and hopes throughout the story. I loved their friendship that grew into something more because it was a lovely friendship that brought them to a space of something more.

Thank you Avon for this eARC!! HISTORICAL!! SAPPHIC!!! ROMANCE!! This book was a dream from start to finish. It was a little bit Bridgerton, a little bit Parent Trap and a whole lot of sapphic wonderful ness! They simply live each-other so much and exist in a world where they have to fight to be able to keep that love and all you want to do as a reader is see them have that. I am utterly obsessed, what a wonderful read. And the end is set up for a sequel that I must have this very moment!

I literally couldn't get through the first ten pages. The formatting drove me insane instantly. Sections are labeled as a characters perspective, and then exclusively written in third person and we are bombarded with Each characters name it makes it feel like they're the kind of people refusing to say I. First person perspective is your friend. I can't say anything for the story because this drove me so batty I couldn't continue

This was a lot of fun to read! Gwen and Beth weren't the most compelling part of the story for me, but I really enjoyed almost all of the supporting characters (especially the Parent-Trap second chance romance between their parents and the sweet-but-not-dull romance between Albie and Meredith). I also appreciated the details in this book -- what does one actually do when one attends Ascot or a boat race on the Thames? Do you get to sit down? What if you have to go to the bathroom? Something that really struck me was the depiction of the physical reality of wearing Victorian-era gowns -- the layers! the undergarments! the hoop skirts! -- and how hard it was to move around (then again, great opportunities for surreptitious hand-holding). Massive kudos for also acknowledging that people, even glamorous belles of the season, do occasionally perspire. This may seem like an odd facet of the book to fixate on, but I thought it showed real skill and commitment. I'll definitely look forward to more historicals from Alban!

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review.

A lovely, light read by Emma Alban! The story was a tad on the cheesey side, but am I already excited for a sequel, yes. So that means it's a win! :D

Great Queer romance! The interaction between Beth and Gwen is not to be missed. Sharp, witty dialogue, a complex twisty plot., and told with enough detail to give life to the historical setting.

named after a lyric from dress by taylor swift. sapphic bridgerton. parent trap. all the best things rolled into one sweet romcom. i would recommend!