Lola and Brighton were childhood sweethearts who were destined for happily ever after, that is until Brighton leaves Lola at the altar with no explanation. Five years and a comedy of coincidences later has Lola and Bright spending Christmas together. Lola wants to leave everything in the past but Brighton wants a chance to explain herself

I'm not entirely sure why, but I sort of think this might be my favourite Ashley Herring Blake novel to date. There was just something about this one that made me blow through it quickly despite being in a bit of a reading slump right now.

I really enjoyed how both girls were pursuing music but in pretty different ways, Brighton's plot with the Katies was particularly interesting but I wish we got a bit more of it. I'm a pretty vengeance-hungry person so I wasn't totally satisfied with the way that plot was resolved - not just the stolen song but Brighton being ousted from the band - it would have been nice to see the girls who didn't know the song was stolen to have a moment with Brighton later on.

I think this is probably my biggest criticism of the book in general, everything felt a little bit too surface-level. I think we needed more of an exploration of why Brighton had to leave, why Lola realised that she was in the wrong too, and more of a look into Lola's relationship with her absentee mother and how that impacted what happened with Brighton and her choices in the aftermath. It just felt like there were a lot of gold nuggets that could have been really drawn out to make the characters feel more developed and rich.

But all in al, I did really enjoy this one and I'll definitely be grabbing a physical copy to add to my AHB collection!

Thankyou to Netgalley and Hachette Australia & New Zealand for an arc in exchange for an honest review.