Cute story and great narration. Reading the story about Brynn and Sebastian, the reader has some backstory, but it’s not necessary for this one. Laila and Cole have a great friendship and an unexpected situation happens where they are tested to look to see if there is more to it.

Thank you to Thomas Nelson and NetGalley for the ARC of this novel. I thought this was very cute for a beach time/vacation read. I have seen criticism of how long it took for these friends to realize they want to be romantically involved but these books are not meant to be reality. If you want to turn your brain off for a few hours and just be immersed in pop culture and New York sights, this can be the book for you. 3.25 stars.

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to review this title. Felt very predictable, Hallmark holiday movie like. Three stars.

Cutesy friends to lovers rom-com.

This was a quick and easy read for me in between my current fantasy series. I enjoyed the banter between the friend group and the storyline.

This book surprised me so much. It is so deeply romantic and it showcases the kind of love that endures a lifetime.

Cole and Laila are two single childhood best friends. Though they’ve been doing life together in their small Colorado town almost every single day for close to forty years, they’ve only ever been just friends. It’s safe to say their friendship is special to them both. But what happens when there’s an impending move that separates them by thousands of miles?

Chock full of American pop culture, this book is an ode to Nora Ephron romantic comedies. It’s a slow burn that embeds itself deeply in your heart. Cole and Laila’s love story has been happening almost their whole lives and each time they relay moments of the past, it’s like we’re falling in love with them all over again.

This is a good book. The two main characters are Laila and Cole. They have known each other all their lives. They are best friends. Cole’s grandfather dies and doesn’t leave the restaurant that Cole and Laila work at to Cole. He sold it. Cole is not sure what to do. His friends that live in New York offer Laila and Cole a trip to New York. They go and have a great time. They realize that they have feelings for each other. They fall in love.

I was a bit skeptical that Bethany Turner could keep me engaged through 350 pages (11 hours) of the ‘best friends to lovers’ trope in Cole and Laila Are Just Friends. But of course she had me cheering for these characters who I first met in Ms. Turner’s 2023 novel Brynn and Sebastian Hate Each Other. It’s not required to read Brynn and Seb first, but I recommend it so you’re familiar with everyone and their backstories.

This story plucks best friends Cole and Laila from their small town in the Colorado mountains and drops them into the fast pace of New York City. The author’s love for NYC and pop culture was evident in every chapter and enriched the novel. There was plenty of tension to keep me interested, even as I anticipated the happily-ever-after ending to this clean contemporary romance.

I enjoyed the audiobook narrated by Talon David (voicing Laila) and Andrew Eiden (voicing Cole). Thank you to Thomas Nelson and HarperCollins Christian Publishing for the review copies of this novel.

I had never read anything by this author before and this book was a pleasant surprise! Friends to lovers is my favorite trope and Cole and Laila were a great example of why this kind of pairing works, the deep connection they had and the support they showed for each other was clear. I would definitely like to read more books by this author!

4.5
Cole and Laila have been friends for their entire life. They've never really not had each other nearby with the brief exception of when Cole went to Culinary school for a few years in Denver, a few hours away from their home. When Cole's adopted step-grandfather dies and didn't leave the family restaurant to Cole, he realizes that he needs to get out of town and establish himself elsewhere. If the man he thought had always loved him, could betray him so easily, he can't spend time being surrounded by all of those missed chances. Laila offers to spend a week with Cole in NYC while he sees what his potential new home could be like. They spend time with their newlywed friends Brynn and Sebastian who are rich and famous. While Cole and Laila are faced with the first time they may not be within a few hours of each other, they start to wonder if maybe they missed out on something big between them.

Friends to lovers can be super satisfying and I felt like that was the case here. Although I find it a little hard to believe that Cole really had no memorable moments of thinking of his best friend in a "more than friends" way, the realization he has feels a bit believable especially for a guy that probably hadn't put much thought into it after spending his younger years reminding himself not to be weird about anything. Laila was a bit of an interesting character. She seems content with her small and calm life, free to do what makes her happy as well as spend as much time as she can with Cole whenever possible. Laila is much more in tune with her true feelings but would never do anything to change her relationship with Cole.

I really enjoyed the way this story was told. The POV changes allowed the reader to follow both Cole and Laila in their respective realizations of feelings as well as explain some of the various awkwardness they faced when having some of these conversations with each other. I also really enjoyed the two narrators for this. They both did a great job and dual narrators for dual POV is the best kind of production!

I really liked everything about the premise of this. Being best friends their entire lives? Laila supporting Cole who wants to move across the country to New York? Their deal? it was all really good and I was really looking forward to it. Unfortunately though, I didn't like it like I'd hoped. I did enjoy some of it, Cole and Laila's friendship was great and I liked the roles they played in each other's lives and I also liked how people around them were nice and supportive of them. I think my main problem with this book was the writing. It just wasn't for me, it felt like rants in between dialogue, changing between first and third person between the POVs was weird and the references that were so annoying because it was so overdone. I also did find it odd that it took them THAT LONG to recognize their feelings for each other with no serious relationships mentioned to keep that from happening, it was ridiculous really but I didn't give that much thought. Overall, I think it can work for other people but not for me unfortunately.
Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Cole and Laila Are Just Friends Bethany Turner is a sweet rom-com. Laila Olivet and Cole Kimball have been best friends since forever. They work together, know each other’s quirks and issues, and are rarely separated. Cole’s world is shattered after his grandfather’s death, and they take a trip to New York City to visit with old friends and make decisions. Will they ever be more than just friends?

I have been wondering about Cole and Laila since I first met them in Brynn and Sebastian Hate Each Other. I was very engaged in their friends to more story and enjoyed the dual POV, great dialogue, and chemistry between Laila and Cole. Their first true date was adorable and will become a classic.

The pop culture references, time in New York City, and sweet added to my enjoyment.
I highly recommend Cold and Laila are Just Friends and hope you add it to your TBR.

I was give a copy by the publisher and not required to write a positive review.

Cute friends to lovers storyline
I loved the theme of how sometimes it takes getting out of your comfort zone to see what you've been blind to for so long. It was neat to see a different age group - Cole and Laila are longtime best friends, approaching their 40s. This book was a love letter to New York in media/pop culture and had so many fun references. I loved getting to see Brynn and Sebastian and some of the other Adelaide Springs residents.

This was a sweet closed-door romance, I'd rate PG for kissing and mentions of death.

This contemporary romance, unsurprisingly, utilizes the friends-to-lovers trope, one which I enjoy. It's filled with some snappy dialogue, solid writing, and fun settings from mountainous Colorado to New York City. Cole and Laila's (eventual) romance is tender, sweet, and honest.

What kept Cole and Laila Are Just Friends from being a favorite was my inability to completely suspend disbelief. They'd been friends--intimate, touchy-feely, inseparable friends--for nearly four decades and hadn't considered the possibility of romance? Really? When they were snuggled together and easily declaring their love they never thought maybe that was more than a mere man-woman friendship?

Their cluelessness may have been easier to believe if they were much younger, and based on their behavior, they could easily have been twentysomethings. However, many of the PLETHORA of pop culture references throughout the book (some of which I didn't grasp) would fall flat for characters that young.

So, enjoyable but not entirely believable. I appreciated that it was a clean romance.

This is a sequel of sorts of the authoress´ previous novel "Brynn and Sebastian Hate Each Other", but you can read this book as a standalone when accepting the fact that Cole and Laila are friends like forever :)
Because this is a sweet story of how these two lifelong friends realize that they are, in reality, in love with each other. All this realizations feel like a movie, with all the magical New York-related movies/TV series sightseeings and mentions serving as a silvery screen background.
The story is like a cup of hot chocolate with a dollop of cream in a cold day, warming you up with its innocence (the characters are nearing 40! Yet you believe them their gentle romance) and loveliness.
There are also colder realities present, with Cole being adopted and now facing the very cold last will of his grandfather - does this mean that the old guy had never loved him, never accepted him as a family member?
But the overall tone is sweet. Expect a cute, uncomplicated read and prepare accordingly!:)

When Cole's life is upended he decides to move away from Adelaide Springs, and start over in the big city, but can he walk away from his best friend?

A fun friends to lovers rom-com. Fluffy and full of whimsy, Cole and Laila are adorable together, and I loved their playful rapport. Though it did seem rather unrealistic that at 38 and 39, and best friends their whole lives in a small town that they hadn't figured out that there might be more to their friendship a lot sooner! So in that regard it seemed longer than it needed to be and predictable, but in a comfortable favorite t-shirt kind of way.

Clean in a hallmark kind of way, but there were definitely moments that were more on the suggestive side. It was fun seeing Brynn and Sebastian after their wedding, as well the New York side of them. In the end it was a fun read, cute plot, and I liked the effort behind having older protagonists.

Also, I would like to note that while clean, it is marketed as a Christian fiction, and there isn't really any mention of Christian faith at all.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Just finished this novel. While I think I’m doing the author a disservice because I didn’t read the previous title in the series, I want to say that can sometimes authors make each book standalone enough that you can get by. I didn’t feel that way with this book. I definitely felt like I was missing a lot of information. I didn’t know anything about the other characters they kept referencing - I couldn’t figure out their relationships, their genders, their whereabouts…and their names kept coming up. It made me feel like when you know there were inside jokes I you weren’t a part of.
Back to this story. I felt it was unrealistic. An entire day pretending you don’t know your best friend? Honestly- even when I was a teenager with a lot of energy that was far fetched.
I’ve read a lot of books with the theme of “friends to more,” but this book just didn’t deliver on any heat, or feelings between the two.

Bethany's writing is very clunky. I did like their connection and friends to lovers but sometimes the writing can hurt my head

This story was definitely cute, but the romance aspect was ultimately lackluster. I’ll start with some issues that drove this feeling and then get into some details that were enjoyable and fitting to Cole and Laila’s dynamic. To start, it was difficult to accept their friendship that has lasted almost 40 years never once has been questioned, and then bam! a singular moment of ‘that’s weird, why have I never thought of that?’ catapults a full-fledged gf-bf date. I hardly ever felt that great, anticipatory, bubbling-up tension portrayed in friends-to-lovers. And maybe that’s why some readers will enjoy this, because they slip into a less platonic relationship so naturally, but I was hoping for more. Now, while Cole was juggling the idea of moving thousands of miles away from Laila, I could feel the deep sense that it’d be devastating. Yet the sole factor pushing them into dating was a dream. There are no regaling’s of ‘oh no! we have to share a bed’ before this trip, or close-call drunken nights, nothing. It’s never happened and suddenly it’s time to start a romantic relationship.

I went back and forth between 1:liking that when he’s leaving, they finally want to explore more, and 2:disliking that when he’s leaving states and states away, they want to rashly develop into more. How sensible is that? Hardly. However, it was very /them/ to try and hold onto each other in whatever possible way.

On a positive note, the slow burn was quintessential in a relationship development like that. Even though I wasn’t detecting practically anything other than friend vibes, they were incredibly prominent. I loved to see how Cole and Laila were so tied together and devoted. I also loved the no-epilogue. Usually, I’d never admit to that, but keeping everything suspended was a perfect end. To sum up, “Cole and Laila Are Just Friends” has the bones for such a strong romance, I just sadly, was not feeling it. Thank you to NetGalley, Thomas Nelson Fiction, and Bethany Turner for providing this complimentary eARC! All opinions in this review are my own.

3.5 ⭐️s!

I really liked this. A very sweet, feel good —although, I do agree with the reviews that it’s a little hard to imagine them being almost forty and forty+ with a 28 year timeline (especially with Cole’s temper tantrums), but even still, an enjoyable, sweet read. (and bonus points for the NYC + pop culture content!!)

*Kindly received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed the premise of this book and wanted to love it. But the characters read as 20-somethings, not nearly 40. It was sweet but I just didn’t love it