3.75/5 stars

Set in Newcastle, this is a romance between best friends Josie (a news reporter with higher aspirations) and Zac (a paramedic). They haven't spoken for two years since Zac lost his fiancée in a car accident from which he is trying to mentally recover. Josie is ambitiously reaching for an anchor position while also struggling with panic attacks related to her health. As they end up back in the same city, they work toward rebuilding their friendship while also feeling a more intimate tug.

While overall this was a good read, I did often become frustrated with Josie's prolonged resistance to mental health therapy and also the ease in which she takes advice from a mutual friend about how to handle her relationship with Zac...without much input from Zac himself.

So, while I know that lots will enjoy this (understandably so), it just didn't quite leave me with all the warm fuzzies.

My sincere thanks to NetGalley and Allen and Unwin for providing the free early arc of Love, Just In for review. The opinions are strictly my own.

Unfortunately, I wasn't sympathetic toward Josie's anxiety over her health and wondered what Zac saw in her, but the longer I got into the story, the more I began to see why Josie felt as she did and what Zac saw in her. If for no other reason, that made this book worth reading as I became more empathetic toward those who feel excessive anxiety over health issues. Sometimes hard to read but glad I read it.

This book has me quite torn, some parts were enjoyable and other parts just fell flat. The writing style was well done and that was probably the saving grace for this book. At times, it felt a little too long and didn't keep my attention as well as I would have hoped. And the hardest part was that I didn't feel a lot of the chemistry between the main characters, it was a good book, but just not one that I would want to return to. Overall, a nice read, but not a favorite.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

LOVE, JUST IN by Natalie Murray
Release Date: 1/3/24

Genre: Romance

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I was super excited to get an advanced digital copy of Love, Just In!

This is a friends to lovers romance set in Australia that follows Josie, a tv news reporter who has recently had a major professional setback. She is temporarily relocating to another news station in order to try and revive her career. It just so happens that she is heading to the town that her childhood best friend, Zac had moved to two years ago. However, she has barely spoken to him in the two years they’ve lived apart. Now she is faced with trying to adjust to a new town and find her balance again with her career, while also trying to reconnect with her estranged best friend while wrestle with new feelings for him as well.

My thoughts:
I really ended up enjoying this! I’m not always the biggest fan of the friends to lovers trope but I thought it was actually really well done in this book. I found that I was really invested in the story from about the 30% mark and it was a page turner from there. I loved both Josie and Zac and I was really rooting for them throughout the story. I also have to mention that there was really good representation for a very specific type of anxiety (I don’t want to be any more specific and risk spoiling anything) and I thought that aspect was depicted very accurately.

Overall, this is a very entertaining and sweet story and I would definitely recommend it to romance fans. And this is perfect timing because it is set to release on January 3rd!

As much as I hate to do this, and especially on an ARC, this is a DNF for me. I'm at a little over halfway through and I absolutely can't take anymore of Josie. The book started strong and I thought other reviewers were wrong at first but there is no getting past how absolutely selfish and awful she is. I was going to stop at Chapter 23 but I decided to give it one more chapter and the line that did it for me was, "I hadn't realized how much pain Zac was still in over the accident." The accident of his fiancé dying in his arms. She thought he'd be over it in two years?! The fact that she would get in the car with someone who had been drinking and then not understand why he was so upset and act like a child towards him and be upset at him is baffling. Not to mention, they didn't speak because she says he shut her out AFTER LOSING HIS FIANCE BECAUSE SHE DIED IN HIS ARMS. He was two hours away and she never even physically went to check on him. She is awful and I can't root for her and I can't understand why Zac would want to be with her so if there is a HEA it would not be in my eyes because he deserves better.

Thank you to NetGalley and Allen & Unwin for the ARC. Sorry that the book was not for me.

Love, Just In is a friends-to-lovers tale with unexpected depth. Full of mental health representation and recovery from grief/ loss, it’s quite poignant, if occasionally bogged down with its own weight. I would have loved to see better communication between Josie and Zac-as well as more light moments- but I was still quite moved by their tale.

Thank you Natalie Murray, Allen & Unwin, and NetGalley for providing this ARC for review consideration. All opinions expressed are my own.

🌅👫Twenty-something friends: up for more?😏

4-4.5🌟stars
Love, Just In is a good, slow burn, friends to lovers story set in Australia that covers some serious issues. Definitely not a romantic comedy, despite the cheerful cover art. It grew on me as I became more familiar with the two main characters, ambitious TV journalist Josie and her long-time friend Zac the paramedic. It has a super romantic finale and, unlike many friends to lovers romances I've read, here the female character is the one who remains supremely unaware that her best friend Zac has been carrying an unquenched torch for her since they were teenagers.

Josie is a Sydney gal and can't imagine not returning there to an upwardly mobile career after her six months in exile in Newcastle, a smaller Australian city up the coast from Sydney where Zac lives, after an on-air meltdown. Her career problems mesh with her health issues and anxiety. She's desperately afraid of developing fatal breast cancer like her aunt and grandmother. This aspect of the story was especially emotion- and thought-provoking. I particularly liked Josie's transformation as she moves from ignoring her worries to confronting them and sharing them with others.

Zac, who's come back into Jose's life a few years after a major loss, was a great character, very supportive and sympathetic, and so obviously needing more from Josie.

There's a good deal of realism in the career pitfalls, health issues and the way the couple seem to keep missing their chance. It's not a smooth sail but the way they deal with the barriers to a deeper connection make for a really appealing story.

I did find it a bit long and, since their history together through the years comes out in Josie's narrative POV, I did not find the chapters taking me back to their past particularly useful.

Thanks to Allen & Unwin and NetGalley for sharing a complimentary advance copy of the book; this is my voluntary and honest opinion.

I love the friends to lovers storyline. But this was so much more than that. There was serious topics mixed in the middle and that made this one so different then all the other romance books out there. It was very well written, just the right amount of seriousness and humor. I laughed out loud multiple times. It took me awhile to get into but once I was past the first chapter I couldn’t put it down.

DNF at 40%. This book wasn’t for me, I didn’t connect with the leads and I didn’t really like or understand their dynamics or their relationship. Josie is seems pretty unlikable, with shallow aspects and bad friend tendencies. I liked that the chapters that took place in the past were short but I didn’t like how those chapters jumped around in time. I am just not invested enough into the story to continue it at this time.

Love, Just In

𝚁𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐: 4⭐️
𝙶𝚎𝚗𝚛𝚎: contemporary romance📚

𝙼𝚢 𝚃𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚜:
A sweet yet emotional romance.

𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚒𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎:
Childhood friends to lovers
TV news reporter
Emotional reads
Complex characters
Australia setting
Themes of grief and friendship
Single POV
A few steamy scenes
Realistic plot
Second chance
Slow burn

𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝙸 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎𝚍:
Mental health/ anxiety rep
Cute dog
Character development

𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝙸 𝚍𝚒𝚍𝚗’𝚝 𝚌𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛:
Felt a little too long
Didn’t really feel the chemistry between them

I got this book as an arc from netgalley, and it definitely surprised me. This is a friends-to-lovers romance about Zac and Josie. I’m gonna be honest, I couldn’t stop reading this book. I think the anticipation of when Zac and Josie were going to get together kept me reading non-stop. I loved their banter and the way they joked around with each other. This book did have flashbacks to explain certain moments in the book, but they were always really short and just the memory of the exact moment the book was talking about. I really enjoyed that because sometimes a long flashback can just really take you out of the book and they seem unnecessary, but these were done really well. I will say that this book talked a lot about health anxiety; the main character has such bad health anxiety that she’s not able to perform at work sometimes. I think that’s an important issue to be talked about, but if you like your romance books to be strictly romance and nothing else, then this might not be the book for you. This book definitely had the vibe of an Emily Henry novel, but with some banter similar to Ali Hazelwood. I would’ve given this book 4.5 stars if I had the option, but I rounded down to 4 on goodreads since it wasn’t quite a 5 star for me.

I loved Zac and Josie’s relationship! Their past was a rollercoaster of being friend-zoned and wrong timing. After the traumatic loss of a partner, Zac had put a hold on his friendship with Josie. Now thrust into a life of close proximity, they can’t deny the spark of attraction that they’ve always chosen to ignore. Their chemistry on-page was amazing, and I loved that the author dove into some very real emotions and situations. Great read!

Thank you to Natalie Murray, Allen & Unwin, and NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

It was a cute read. I enjoyed the way they approached health anxiety and healing from trauma. I am here for all of the representation. It's so needed. Miscommunication isn't my favorite trope but I feel it was done well here. All in all, cute story about a sweet couple.

I could not put this book down. At midnight I told the husband I was going to sleep. At 2am, once I'd finished the book, I actually did.

This is the story of Zac and Josie, best friends since high school, but some life altering things have put a damper in the past two years of their friendship. Josie ends up moving to the town where Zac is living and she is really hoping to rekindle their closeness.

Josie is a newscaster, Zac is a paramedic, and their careers seem to be what keeps them moving one foot in front of the other. Antics ensue because apparently Newcastle is the secret homeland to nudists, and Josie ends up having to stay with Zac for a few weeks.

Of course this is in the best friends to lovers trope, but it is SO MUCH MORE. The tension was palpable, and I could not go to sleep not knowing how this ended. Highly recommend this book, and will be pestering all my friends that like this genre to read it.

It takes Josie long enough to figure out a major part of the book and then she almost messes it up.
I did think she took Zac too much for granted and then gave him very mixed signals.
I understand the worry and apprehension she faced but she had him all along.
It’s a good story but it also shows that one shouldn’t wait to grab life with both hands and just live.

*4.5

This was really slow but it worked for these characters. He was still getting over his fiancees death and needed that time to process. They were so obviously in love with each other, it was kind of funny. It was new to her so I enjoyed seeing her question having these types of feelings for her best friend. I do wish that we saw more of them actually together.

I received an arc through netgalley.

Jodie Larsen is a reporter for a busy news station in Sydney and is being sent to a station in a smaller city for six months to cover an absence, following a gaff during a live report. Her best friend Zac moved there after his fiancé died in a car accident two years ago and he cut off contact. She is hoping to rebuild their friendship while she proves her worth at the station. Without giving any spoilers, this is a well written story about friendship. I would give it 4.5 stars.

This was SUCH a cute read, and I really really enjoyed it. Friends-to-lovers, second chance romance? Sign me up!

Love, Just In follows Josie, a woman who is quickly approaching 30 and feels like she is behind on everything in life. She is single, alone since all of her family has left Australia, and most recently feeling like she royally messed up her career by having a panic attack on live TV. So, when she is shipped off to Newcastle from Sydney to cover another reporter who is on leave for 6 months, she sees it as a punishment. But, in reality, it’s an opportunity in more ways then one. She is given the chance to prove herself to the higher ups at the network, and she is given the chance to reconnect with her childhood best friend, Zac. What Josie isn’t expecting is for sparks to fly and for her to have to navigate the attraction that she feels on top of everything else in her life.

I really enjoyed the relationship between Zac and Josie. Granted, I really like friends-to-lovers and second chance romance in general, but something about their relationship was really excellent. I think it might have been how they both were navigating their own forms of anxiety, and supporting each other through that. Granted, I don’t LOVE miscommunication trope, and I feel like there was also quite a bit of that, as they just didn’t talk to each other about their emotions quite often. However, I think overall their relationship was very enjoyable.

However, I think the thing that genuinely was the biggest selling point for me, was Josie’s health anxiety. I have quite a few people in my life with varying levels of health anxiety, and I feel like that isn’t something that you see represented in romance noels very often, especially in a good way. I think that Natalie did a wonderful job portraying health anxiety and the way it can really affect someone’s life. Because at the end of the day, it isn’t just “stop worrying about it, you’re fine”, because you genuinely find a way to attribute every little thing that is wrong to something more serious, and a lot of time the stress and anxiety can then manifest into physical, and just make everything worse.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it. It was a solid 4.5 stars for me!

I really enjoyed this read. I liked watching Zac and Josie's friendship blossom throughout the years. I also liked that the story switched between present and past years to help show that friendship growth. It was a nice happy ending

Josephine & Zac have been best friends for 14 years, until Zac moved away 2 years ago after a traumatic loss. Josephine has temporarily relocated to where Zac now lives, and they’re trying to put their friendship back together.

✅ set in Australia
✅ they’re both late 20s
✅dual timelines give you a look at their friendship over the years
✅ childhood friends to lovers
🌶️: slowish burn (2/3rd of the way through)

There are some content warnings (an off-page death from cancer and another off-page death in a car accident), so please read with care if you have triggers.