This was not the book for me. I couldn't handle the weird toxic relationship that the FMC and MMC had, trying to make each other jealous while also not communicating. They were both so immature and I couldn't move past it... this was a DNF for me.

Thank you to the publishers for my advance copy.

'Love, Just In' by Natalie Murray was the wholesome Australian read I needed.
Josie and Zac have been the best of friends for a long time but haven't been in contact for two years. As the opportunity arises for Josie to move to Newcastle, so does the opportunity to rekindle her friendship with her best friend.
I fell in love with the main character, Josie. She was chaotic and made mistakes easily but loved fiercely. This story is a friends to lovers trope, however Murray managed to pull at my heart strings more than a few times and kept me guessing right until the very end. And whether they end up together... well you're just going to have to find out for yourself!
Please note that this book should have a trigger warning for talk about health anxiety and the topic of breast cancer. Natalie Murray wrote this beautifully and put a lot of research into these topics for her novel.
Thank you NetGalley, the author and Allen & Unwin for giving me an opportunity to read an advanced reader copy of this book.
4 stars!!

Thanks to Allen & Unwin along with NetGalley for providing me with an early copy to read and review.

This was not the usual romance novel as it tackled some heavy topics. The premise and setting were lovely, and it was easy to start falling for the male love interest.

I did find the story long in some parts, some issues were drug out a little too much for my taste and it was hard to completely connect with the main female character, but it was for sure an enjoyable read.

Love, Just In by Natalie Murray is a heartfelt and engrossing slow-burn second chance romance which also sensitively tackles anxiety and PTSD.

After anxiety causes her to freeze on air, TV reporter Josie is offered a short secondment to work in Newcastle, where her estranged childhood best friend Zac has been living for the past two years after losing his fiance.

Murray weaves in a slow-burn tension, as heartbroken Josie struggles with the loss of her longtime friendship with Zac who has cut her off all contact with her. During their awkward reunion I think my heart was in my mouth as I could almost feel the tension from the elephant in the room.

Through short flashbacks, we see the development of Zac and Josie's friendship, including 14 year old Josie turning down Zac. One of the most poignant was Josie's unanswered SMS to Zac when she really needed him. While these were short and sharp, I think most were repetitious and could've been removed. Perhaps the author could've used them as bonus content for her newsletter, I'd sign up!

If I had any quibbles it would be why did Zac say he was playing the field and was going to correct Meghan, yet later blushes when Josie refers to her as his girlfriend. Also I'd have liked to have seen instead of told that Josie was fantastic at her job.

Overall, Love, Just In was poignant, heartfelt and engrossing characters which had me glued to the page. The epilogue had me smiling. I'm really looking forward to Natalie Murray's next book.

Thanks to Allen & Unwin and NetGalley for the ARC.

Josie and Zac have been best friends since they were 14, but circumstances have made them drift apart of the past two years. When Josie is sent to work in Newcastle, she reaches out to Zac. Will they be able to re-establish their friendship? Is there more to their friendship?

#friendstolovers
#heartwarmingromance
#aussiewriters
#multipletimelines

This is an incredibly sweet and emotional read. The friends to lovers trope is a personal fave, and this one brings the best of that trope to life. The banter is great, the steam fabulous but it’s the development of the characters that I enjoyed most.

In the beginning, the switching of timelines from present to past was confusing, but it helped give a picture of Josie’s true feelings she denied for so long.

The mental health rep was well done, as was the rep of more serious health issues and troubling behaviour.

A great read. Thank you to @netgalley for the e-ARC of this book. This book is due for release in January 2024, make sure you add it to your TBR now.

What a fun, heartwarming, goofy, amusing friends-to-lovers Aussie romance. I thoroughly enjoyed this one. It's always nice to read a book that features places you're familiar with (this one is set in both Newcastle and Sydney) and I absolutely adore the friends-to-lovers trope, so I was pretty keen to read this one.

Zac and Josie have been best friends since they were kids, but now, in their late 20s, things have happened that tore them apart, time has passed, feelings have changed, and Josie arrives in town for work not knowing where they stand.

I enjoyed the overall vibe of this book. There were flashbacks and memories; funny, goofy stuff that had me smiling as I read; funny moments, sexy moments, good tension and relatable awkwardness when you're trying to figure out if what you feel is friend-love or something more, trying to make sense of your growing attraction to someone you've never thought about in that way before.

On top of that, I thought the more serious topics of anxiety and grief were handled well. Overall, a great book and one I would definitely recommend. Thank you to NetGalley and Allen & Unwin for the opportunity to read and review it.

Love, Just in is a modern day second change/high school crushes reunite/friends to romance love story set in Sydney and Newcastle in Australia. The story at the heart of this book is one of friends facing challenges both together and apart as they navigate coming to terms with their feelings for each other after being best friends for many years. While the story itself is very sweet and impactful, I found the pacing at time to be quite slow and as such it took me quite a while to read this book. The pacing early on I found quite tedious but once in the last 1/3 of the book I just wanted to keep reading!

This book discusses health anxiety so may provide either comfort for others suffering from it so I will issue that caution to others facing it, it might be a good read for some and help them feel less alone in their journey but equally could be triggering. If you're on a journey with your own health anxiety, be mindful of yourself when reading this one.

An advanced reader copy of this book was provided to me by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own.

This book hits so one of my favorite tropes on the head. The friends to lovers is so well done here, and I absolutely appreciate the way that Natalie captures dealing with mental health as a professional woman. This is not an easy thing to capture, and I could feel Josie's anxiety through the words on the page several times.
While witty and fun to read, I often found myself frustrated with our main character's inability to make and follow through with a decision when it came to her love life. While I certainly understood the reasons for the back and forth, It grew a bit redundant for me, and what Josie puts Zac through took a toll on my ability to forge through and devour this one like I'd hoped!
Overall, it's a very fun read with several serious topics throughout including dealing with grief and medical anxiety. It's a unique twist on rom-com tropes.

This has some surprisingly dark and intense plot points for a friends to lovers rom com. Set in Australia, this is a medium fast paced read. I was medium on it overall,

Trigger warning for breast cancer, drunk driving.

Thank you for the advanced reader copy netgalley and Allen & Unwin.

Star Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Setting: Newcastle, Australia
Format: 📖
Release Date: January 3, 2024
Length: 464 pages

TV news reporter, Josie Larsen is at a crossroads in her life, she is about to turn thirty, her career and life are not going as she has expected .. she feels loss. Her parents retired and living in Thailand, her sister has a fantastic life in London, her friends are getting engaged and having babies. But the worse is her boss, he does not acknowledge her existing except that one time she has a panic attack live on TV. In retribution Josie is sent to Newcastle to fill in for another reporter that is on a six month leave. Here lies another problem, you see Josie best friend from high school, Zac Jameson, moved to Newcastle two years ago and contact between the two came to a standstill.

Zac moved from Sydney to Newcastle to manage his guilt and grief when his fiancée died in his on a car accident caused by a drunk driver.

Love, Just In is a slow burn romance story about two people dealing with some heavy issues .. cancer, health anxiety and drunk driving car accidents. In my opinion the book was too long and could have done with few chapters that dealt with Josie and Zac’s past, understand some of these past chapters were needed to understand our protagonists back story. On the whole the book was okay, I liked it but did not love it. I never felt that Josie and Zac had much chemistry and would not have been disappointment if they just remained friends.

Thank you, Natalie Murray, Allen & Unwin and NetGalley for providing me with a digital ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed in this review are my own. This novel is due to be released on January 3, 2024.

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Love, Just In by Natalie Murray. This is a new to me author.

Friends to lovers
Second chance
Forced proximity
OW / OM drama
Slow burn
Steam factor 3/5
The story is laid out well. Good character development and no major plot holes.
4 stars.

It took me a bit longer to finish this book than is typical for me. I struggled to get hooked on the story. The blurb doesn’t convey the level of angst and heartache the characters are contending with and proper trigger warnings need to be added. The story is told from Josie’s POV.

Josie and Zac are friends, former best friends. They drifted apart after Zac suffered a horrific loss.
Josie is a reporter in Sydney. She temporarily relocates for an assignment, putting her in Zac’s new hometown. She is desperate to make an impression and win an opportunity for advancement at her station. She is also hoping to reconnect with Zac and find her best friend again.

Josie suffers from what she calls ‘health anxiety’, which at times is debilitating and holding her back from enjoying her life. Zac has his own struggles, he is slowly finding his footing and rebuilding his life and career. Having Josie in town seems to be a mixed blessing. He clearly wants to spend time with her, yet it’s evident he’s holding back, leaving Josie very confused and more anxious.

The author spent a considerable amount of time sharing & explaining their history, which is told in flashbacks between the past and present. Josie and Zac needed to trust in themselves and each other, to open up and have the hard conversations they have avoided for the past several years. Until they do that neither one will truly be happy. The epilogue was an happy emotional bonus.

The constant focus on Josie’s health and mental state was at times overwhelming. I appreciated the author’s note at the end, explaining how this subject was a personal one for her.

What a delightful read. Although both lead characters struggle with their own demons, this book was thoroughly enjoyable. Light hearted and totally relatable while also exploring mental health, grief and the joys of dating and relationships. I struggled to put it down. I look forward to reading more by Natalie Murray.

Love, Just In is the first book I have read written by Natalie Murray. It has smart likable characters who have been childhood friends. However, the daily grind and the trauma in their lives have taken their toil on these two. This “Friends to Forever More” story is written with care, love and all the feels.

Life can be difficult for all as this story reminds us. Friends help and so does love. It is not always easy but worth the work. You will love Josie and Zac who learn not to give up on friendship, love and hope.

An ARC of the book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley which I voluntarily chose to read and review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This was a really sweet tale of friendship and second chances at getting love right. There were some sad themes but they were handled well and it was comforting to read.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity for this arc.

I think the author did a good job covering health anxiety in this book. This is a book for best friend to lovers troupe readers. This book was a slow burn and I struggled to get into the characters which made it a long read for me.

Thank you Netgalley for allowing me to read and enjoy this book. I had a wonderful time going through the motions with these characters and watching them navigate through their friendship / relationship.

Thank you Netgally for the ARC of this one. I *loved* it.

Rounding down to 4 because everything wraps up a little too neatly, and sometimes the characters were a little cheesy but it was the love story I didn’t know that I needed.

I relate SO WELL with the main character who is a hypochondriac to the Nth degree and convinced everything is cancer.

And the love story had me hooked from the very beginning, rooting for Zac and Josie to get together and screaming at them when they were being idiots.

So good & a little spicy warning at ~ 60% 😅

Initially I was drawn to this book because of the cover, I'm a sucker for a cartoon cover and this is so bright it just draws you in.
Love, Just In is set in Newcastle, Australia which is my hometown! I was born in Newcastle and have always lived within an hours drive. I love seeing all the local suburbs pop up in this book, it make it super sentimental.
The FMC Josie suffers from major health anxiety which is something I can closely relate to. I feel like I was honestly MEANT to read this book!
This book made me feel less alien and that's an incredible feeling when your mind wanders off and you feel alone in your anxiety.
One of my favourite tropes is friends-to-lovers and this book hit that brief HARD. It was a beautiful journey that Josie and Zac went on, it made turning pages super easy and enjoyable.
This is a book that I will always recommend.
Thankyou to NetGalley, Allen & Unwin and Natalie Murray for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I can't wait to buy it and re-read it again!

Really liked this friends-to-lovers story! The flashbacks weren’t sequential but worked because they flowed with the present. I thought Josie and Zac were great main characters. They were well written and you could see why each was acting/thinking the way they were. It was more of a slow burn but really worked.

There are some heavier topics in this like grief and health anxiety. The author did a great job tackling them both and it added to the story.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC!

This books is a sweet best friends to lovers romance with flashbacks! It also tackles some pretty heavy things.

Sometimes with this trope I feel like the backstory can be really underdeveloped, but I think this author did such a good job of capturing emotions and explaining the why behind them. I loved both the MCs because of it.

I laughed. I cried. Loved it!