Jessica Joyce does it again, AGH. 💖

First off, THIS BOOK 📚 is what a second chance romance should truly be. What does that mean? It means that this book brings out the raw past but also doesn't sugarcoat the "will end up together" future timeline either. That's why this book was a 5-star read for me. 🌟 Jessica Joyce brought out the raw emotion of how it's okay to be hurt and to try and express those feelings even though 5 years have passed. AGH, I JUST WANT TO HUG THE CHARACTERS IN SO MANY SCENES and be like, "you will be okay." 🤗

Georgia and Eli have to work together to save their best friend's wedding 💍, and what better way than to go to the same vineyard that started it all 🍇. Five years is nothing when they've known each other for longer. The way you can see the tension, the chemistry, and the way they reopen to each other is so wholesome. It feels like time didn't pass between them when it did. Again, this book was a 5-star read because of how REAL and relatable it feels (their situation) despite the wedding shenanigans giving it more rom-com vibes 😂.

I recommend this book to anyone that loves a second chance romance but isn't afraid to read through a reckoning of emotions, because you will be giddy but also aching ❤️‍🩹

Fav Quote: "...We’re not strangers. We’re . . .” “Us.” That single word fuses me to him. A tiny voice whispers, oh hell, but I push it away. “We’re us.” He lets out a soft, slow breath. And then he says, “Then that’s enough.”

Tropes:
🍇Second Chance
🍇Forced Proximity
🍇Only One Cottage
🍇Found Family
🍇Mental Health Rep
🍇Single POV aka no present/past timeline THANK GOD

Thank you Berkley for giving me the opportunity to review this book, it really made my entire summer!

*Thank you to Berkley and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review*

Hi, this book is precious and everything to me. It's also an impeccable example of a second chance romance! Where most fall short is trying to force two characters together who haven't *changed* in any way. And man, Eli Mora has come a long way. He and Georgia have the kind of history that only comes from being childhood friends and lovers, but that also means there's a lot of baggage. But you also get adorable childhood nicknames like Peach, my heart!! As a workaholic with panic attacks and lover of to do lists, I identified so much with Eli and Georgia. Their pairing is anything but cursed! AND THE PAPER RINGS. The way I kicked my feet and squealed like a schoolgirl. Just the freaking cutest. (Also I want passionfruit cake now, thank youuuuu!!)

Wow, I loved this.

Two childhood best friends turned lovers turned exes who are forced to pair up together to save their best friend’s wedding from a string of bad luck.

Though I liked the fmc who is a mirrorball coded character, I truly loved Eli who showed the importance of a man stepping up and getting himself to therapy to better himself. The book also painted such a realistic picture of getting older and having friends in such different phases of life in your late twenties/early thirties. There’s also a dreamy setting and wonderful character arcs.

I keep going back and forth between 4 and 5 stars because unfortunately I do think the cast of characters was a little too big, there were a lotttttt of pop culture references (nearly too many), and many many mentions of a praise kink. Not a fan of things constantly being pointed out to readers, if that makes sense. But I’m overlooking those things bc everything else was just so good and this book is what it’s supposed to be, an enjoyable contemporary romance that’s perfect for the summer 🩷

- friends to lovers to estranged exes
- second chance romance
- forced proximity
- one bed trope
- anxiety/therapy rep
- single pov which i LOVE

Thank you to Net Galley, Berkley Romance, and Jessica Joyce for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

As a fan of second-chance romances, I was thrilled to get an early copy of "The Ex Vows", which follows estranged exes Georgia and Eli as they're forced to work together to save their best friend's wedding.

I wanted to love this book a bit more than what I did. I found the writing to be a bit too much telling and not enough showing, which I think is necessary when reading a top-notch romance. Some of the book dragged a bit during the middle preventing me from connecting to the characters and their relationships.

I think my biggest ick with the story was the "wedding curse". The more and more it was written about the more I wanted to toss the book into the trash.

My absolute favorite part? THE PAPER RINGS.

Jessica Joyce is a new auto-buy author for me! While I loved "You With a View" her sophmore release knocks it out of the PARK!

Georgia and Eli were high school sweethearts to college lovers who were surely destined for marriage, until one day they weren't. Their breakup is mysterious but has stuck with Georgia, she has created a strict set of rules to help them co-exist in their friend group. But when their best friend Adam's wedding starts to fall off the rails, Georgia and Eli must work together to save his wedding.

This book is heart-wrenching in the best way. The Ex Vows is a second-chance romance that doesn't shy away from tackling more intense themes. The book adresses mental health issues so beautifully and also from a male perspective which is a less represented demographic. Additionally, the book also takes on issues of trauma, parental neglect, growing up, and changing friendships. Ontop of all of this the writing is just so stunning! Anyone in the Bay area or who is a fan of the Napa region will LOVE the vivid descriptions of the settings. I found it so fun to hear all the towns I've been to name dropped in this book.

I tore through this book in one night it was so incredibly wonderful, I wish I could go back and read it again for the first time! If you love Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez I feel like this book has similar themes/concepts and would be a great pick for you!

✔️ Second Chance
✔️ Forced Proximity
✔️ Found Family
✔️ Love on Vacation
✔️ It's Just Sex

You, with a View was one of my top reads of last year so you know The Ex Vows was one of my most anticipated reads for this year. It was glorious - swoony, sexy, hilarious, and left me with so many warm fuzzy feelings. I love books about imperfect people working hard to be more whole and more happy.

The slow-burn was painfully good. I loved being in Georgia's head and deeply empathized with her working hard to protect herself from being hurt and figuring out that that's different from actually trying to be happy.

There were so many moments that I loved including:
- Eli's nickname for Georgia 😍 I love a good food-based nickname and this one is up there with Shortcake from Hating Game, Lemon from The Seven Year Slip, Plum from Beautiful Player
- the many scenes where Georgia and Eli are forced together, from the quick fake dating scene to woo a baker for their friend's wedding to dancing very closely to a prospective wedding band
- trying to hide their hooking up from their friend group to no avail (it reminded me of the supercut of Friends with each person finding out about Chandler and Monica)

I loved this book - thanks to @berkleyromance for the ebook and thanks to myself for pre-ordering my own signed and personalized copy. 5⭐️

Highly recommend this especially if your love language is words of affirmation (with a dual minor in quality time and acts of service).

Steam 🔥🔥🔥
Banter 🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️
Swoon 💕💕💕💕💕

I can say with complete sincerity that this is one of the best contemporary romances I’ve read in a long time and will absolutely be in my top reads of the year. It’s THAT good. Part of the reason I’ve been gravitating so much towards histrom lately is bc contemporary romance just hasn’t been doing it for me. It seems to lack romance to put it bluntly. I miss books that give me longing and tension and yearning glances and stolen touches and also really good character development and The Ex Vows has all of that and more in spades. Beyond being a very *romantic* second chance romance novel, it also showcases the importance of found family, of friendship love and how important that is to a person’s well being.

Georgia, a lover of lists and well used to being abandoned by people, is afraid of honest conversations and emotional vulnerability, afraid to ask for what she actually needs bc all to often, she’s not gotten it.

Eli, with his seemingly endless paper rings, a child of divorce who grew up with financial instability, is desperate to make sure his adult life is a far cry from the transient nature of his youth. These two love each other with a fierce devotion and complete abandonment until they break. And then 5 years later, they are forced to team up to save their mutual best friend’s disaster ridden wedding.

Winding it’s way from San Francisco to the hills of Napa, the prose is lush and gorgeous, the characters brightly drawn, flawed and endearing, the romance is sweet and tender and heart aching with the yearning (Eli Mora, man that you are,
with your paper rings and your ultimate list to end all lists).

I don’t do this often but I will buy this book in paper form for my keeper shelf. That’s how much I love it. I became a fan of this author with her debut, You, With a View but her second book has made me a FAN. This book gave me everything I wanted in a contemporary romance and then some. All the happy sighs and swoons, some tears and smiles, and the urge to hug these characters tight when the book was over.

something about me you should probably know is that I am simply a wh*re for second chances romances - the pining, the angst, the tension, the groveling, the nostalgia, the falling apart, coming back together, finding each other again, the soulmatism of it all - it's my kryptonite. And this book is second chance romance at its FINEST.

I adored You with a View and there are parts of that book that I think about every day but this book. THIS BOOK. is about to become a book that I unwillingly measure every other book against. In the most perfect of worlds, this is how I want all books to make me feel.

I love knowing, better yet, FEELING, from the very first page, that these two are soulmates. That they shared a love so real and big and deeply rooted that they'll never escape it. And the pain of being forced to face it, face them, and pretend you're not falling apart at the seams, even years later, is like candy to me. Eli and Georgia had me sobbing, smiling, tearing at my chest want to rip my heart out and hand it to them, sobbing again. This was beautiful. No ifs, ands, or buts. 10/10 no notes.

Jessica Joyce, the woman that you are, thank you for this.
I will simply be thinking about them forever.

hmmm, i have conflicting feelings on this one! i'll start with the disclaimer that second chance is one of my least favorite romance tropes. while i think this book was very well-written and i'd love to read more of jessica joyce's books in the future, i really struggled to connect with either the main character or the love interest in this book. i felt like we as the readers never truly got clear a sense of georgia and eli's past relationship, and because of that, it was difficult to root for them the second time around. in general, i'd say that i left the ex vows without a clear idea of who georgia, our mc, is as a person, which made it hard to fully invest myself in the story. that said, i thought the premise of the book was really fun, and i did enjoy reading about the various wedding mishaps our main characters had to solve. the ex vows also has a great cast of charming side characters, but again, i wish they had been fleshed out a bit more. overall, i did enjoy my experience reading this book, but the characters and their relationships were often lacking a bit of depth. if you're a fan of second chance romance, i think this is worth the read! but if, like me, that trope isn't your thing, i sadly don't think this book will persuade you otherwise.

This is another sweet and steamy read from Jessica Joyce! Second chance romance can be really hard to pull off, but Joyce succeeds here, interspersing tender flashbacks with tension-filled current ones. The over-the-top wedding drama adds a nice bit of humor to balance out the high relationship angst. A lovely summer read!

The Ex Vows was a beautiful second chance romance that featured flawed characters, all the angst, incredible emotional growth, and the sweetest love story.

Georgia and Eli were teenage friends before becoming lovers, but five years ago their young love imploded and left them devastated. Ever since then they keep a strict set of rules in order to maintain their friendship with their mutual best friend, Adam.

While reunited to save Adam’s wedding, which seems to be cursed with disaster after disaster, Georgia is desperately trying to cling to her list of rules. She hopes that keeping Eli at arm’s length will protect her still fragile heart.

Eli seems different, but he’s still the same man that Georgia never stopped loving. He’s determined to have an honest conversation with her about all the reasons that tore them apart, but Georgia is not sure her heart can survive it.

In forced proximity, revisiting the place they fell in love, and under pressure to pull off a wedding, Georgia and Eli must decide if their love is worth a second chance.

The Ex Vows has officially solidified Jessica Joyce’s place as one of my favorite contemporary romance authors.

🍇 Well, if this wasn’t one of my most favorite romance book endings, EVER! I loved it. Thank you so much to @berkleyromance for allowing me the pleasure of getting a sneak peek at this— it’s out July 16th!

🍇 What to expect:
- friends to lovers who are NOW second chance romancing
- one bed
- mental health rep
- self journeys equally important as romantic journey
- lovable characters (both MC’s and the side characters)
- open door 🌶️🌶️
- laugh-out-loud banter
- a beautiful setting

🍇 In a genre that’s saturated with somewhat ‘predictable’ stories — this really sticks out. I thought the plot was incredibly original. I adored the characters and their journeys. And my, I just LOVED the end. I thought it was surprising and lovely and just very well done. I know a lot of you will be wanting to read this after loving ‘You With A View’ last summer— and I have a feeling @jessicajoycewrites will be cementing herself on a lot of ‘auto-read author’ lists after this follow up! Again, it’s out July 16th.

This is a solid follow up to You, With a View, which I thoroughly enjoyed. The wedding chaos/hijinx were a little over the top for me and distracted from Georgia & Eli's relationship. Because of all the wedding nonsense, it took me awhile to get into the story but once I did I really enjoyed the way that we learned more about Georgia & Eli and the struggles they faced during their 5 years apart and seeing them support one another is the stuff great romcoms are made of.

Many thanks to Berkley & Netgalley for the ARC.

Bury me in Jessica Joyce books. She is incredible. Her characters, her witty banter, the way she writes SPICE. I am obsessed with her books and she is now an auto-buy author for me. This book was incredible, a perfect second chance romance and I could not put it down. It's giving major Emily Henry energy in the fact that I cannot wait to shove it into all of my friends hands the DAY it comes out.

Thank you Berkley Romance for my copy! All thoughts are my own.

I have a confession. I didn’t love You, with a View. I know, I know. I feel like I am the only person who didn’t connect with that book. So, I wasn’t sure if I would like this author’s next book. But I kept seeing people whose reading tastes typically align with mine hyping it up. So, I took a chance and my goodness am I glad that I did. This book is so richly romantic. It pulls at your heart in a way that is so deep and beautiful it aches.

I have always loved second chance romances. There is something so beautiful about characters who know each other finding each other again, at a time when they are ready to accept each other into their lives in a new and lasting way. It’s a wonderful story that will have you laughing, crying, and swooning.

Synopsis:

“Georgia Woodward lives by her lists, none more so than the one about her ex, Eli Mora. It’s full of the ironclad dos and don’ts they’ve been following since she returned to the Bay Area after their cataclysmic breakup five years ago. With the wedding of their mutual best friend, Adam, looming, and them about to step into their roles as best woman and man, Georgia’s never needed it more. She refuses to threaten their tight-knit friend group with her messy—and still very present—feelings. The rules on that list will keep her cool, calm, and compartmentalized. What’s not on her list? Eli arriving from New York with a new rule-breaking attitude or the all-inclusive venue burning to the ground, leaving the bride and groom in dire straits. Nor does she anticipate Adam asking her and Eli to help him make a miracle happen. Together.As Georgia and Eli rush up to Napa Valley to pull off the perfect wedding, their old chemistry comes back in technicolor. Somewhere between cake tastings gone wrong, disastrous DJ auditions, and Eli’s heated attention, Georgia starts recognizing the man she fell in love with before. And if she lets herself break her rules, she might find what they’re building isn’t the something old that ruined them—it’s a chance at something new.” —NetGalley

What I Liked:

The Setting—I’ve said this before but for someone who had never been to Northern California or the Pacific Northwest, I am really obsessed with the idea of it. I loved the setting, from the winery to glimpses of their lives in New York to mentions of Seattle. Everything was so rich and fragrant, I felt like I was there.

The Writing—WOW the writing is incredible. The way Joyce weaved together the past and present was masterful.

The Pacing: Without needed “now and then” timelines, this book goes back and forth in time to show the reader how the relationship came to be, fell apart, and came back together. I am rarely on the edge of my seat reading romance but I was with this book.

The Characters—Georgia and Eli were wonderful leads to follow. I loved the magnetic quality but I also loved the side characters of this story so much. It was a group that felt like family and made me miss my college friends.

What Didn’t Work for Me:

I want to say nothing, but I still don’t know if this was a full 5 starts for me. I LOVED it but there was just a piece of magic missing for me to make it 5 stars. Which is picky and annoying of me, I am fully aware.

Character Authenticity: 5/5 Spice Rating: 2/5 Overall Rating: 4.5/5

Content Warnings:

panic attacks/anxiety

Thank you NetGalley for the eARC.

This was just okay for me. It’s a single POV second-chance romance, which admittedly is not my favorite trope. There’s a one bed situation as well. The story was fine, but the characters felt very one-dimensional. The FMC has no backbone & the MMC suffers from bad anxiety; the supporting characters were kinda just there.

The paper ring thing was cute with how the author made that come full circle (literally) at the end though.

This is now one of my favorite second chance romance novels! Jessica Joyce sure knows how to make me FEEL so many emotions. The characters were raw and so real. I loved the mental health rep as well. The last couple chapters had me in tears… I adored this book, and now I am listening to Paper Rings on repeat!🤭

I enjoyed Jessica Joyce's first novel, You with a View, so I was excited to receive a ARC from NetGalley of her second novel, The Ex Vows. The Ex Vows appealed to me because I love a good enemies to lovers, forced proximity romance. In this case, the "enemies" were Georgia and Eli, who, after an epic breakup, have some lingering "issues" with one another. Unfortunately unlike most couples who break up, and go their separate ways, never to see one another again, Georgia and Eli share a best friend. Determined to not let their breakup spill over into their friendship with bestie Adam, they decide that the best course of action is to ignore their true feelings and pretend everything is totally fine between them.
But they are about to face the ultimate test of their "truce." because Adam is getting married and due to some epic bad luck, he needs his two best friends to go to the family vineyard in Napa to make last minute arrangements for his wedding. Georgia and Eli are forced to spend some time alone together, do some creative problem solving and eventually face the lingering feelings that still exist between them.

This book reminded me so much of Emily Henry's Happy Place, but had it's own unique charm. The end did feel a bit rushed to me, but those looking for a grand declaration of love and a happily ever after will be very satisfied with the ending. Overall this was a fun and sexy second chance romance.

I really liked the author's debut YOU, WITH A VIEW as well as loved her novella A RISK WORTH TAKING, so I was eager to dive into her follow-up THE EX VOWS. I'm happy to say I enjoyed this one!

This is a second-chance romance that worked well for me. Georgia and Eli had been friends since they were teenagers but didn't move forward in their relationship until later in college. It's only been about five years since they split, but since they are both in the same friend group – particularly, they have a mutual best friend – they were still in each other's orbits and had some interactions. So them still holding on to feelings for the other and not completely moving on made sense to me in this instance.

The story and characters gave me similar vibes as Emily Henry's HAPPY PLACE but less heavy. There's no fake dating in THE EX VOWS, but there is angst, a close friend group, characters withholding their thoughts/feelings, and anxiety representation to name a few.

I liked the set-up and how it felt natural that Eli and Georgia would have to work together to help salvage their best friend Adam's wedding. I know people often have an issue with the miscommunication trope – which this probably borders – but I also think withholding thoughts and feelings is something many of us do. Both Georgia and Eli withhold things not only from each other but from their friends too. And sometimes it is just easier to not say anything – whether you're trying to just brush things off, or not make a big deal out of something, or not rock the boat, or whatever the reason. But then it just snowballs, all those little things become one big thing and before long it feels too difficult and too late to dig yourself out. I think these stories are good lessons for all of us, that open communication in any kind of relationship is vital and important.

I do wish the end of the book didn't wrap as quickly – it felt a bit rushed – but overall I really liked this one.

After reading and giving 5 stars to Jessica Joyce’s debut novel, You With A View, I couldn’t wait to read her next book, The Ex Vows. I think I loved it even more than YWAV! I just finished watching You Again and it definitely had the same second chance romance - exes with forced proximity - help their friends with their wedding vibes! Totally suggest reading this!! It’s so much fun! Thanks again @berkley and NetGalley for my digital ARC!