My Best Friend’s Honeymoon by Meryl Wilsner is friends to lovers lesbian romance.

Elsie Hoffman and Ginny Holtz are life-long friends. When Elsie finally ends her relationship with her fiancé, she and Ginny go on the non-refundable honeymoon together. Their fun in the sun quickly turns to fun in the bedroom. But, the future of the relationship (and friendship) hangs in the balance by the time they board the flight home.

The characters are well-developed and likable. However, despite their long history together, they have a lack of communication that keeps them apart of the last part of the book. Their conflict was a bit contrived and readers do not get much of their romance once they figure things out.

The storyline is engaging but slow-paced. The transformation from friends to lovers is super quick and the story turns into a graphic sex-fest. They tropical honeymoon setting is vividly lifelike and realistic. Despite some great elements, My Best Friend’s Honeymoon is a middle of the road read. Hopefully, Meryl Wilsner’s next romance will be as enjoyable as their debut, Something to Talk About, which I really liked.

Meryl Wilsner never ceases to amaze me with her unbelievable mastery of the smut. The level of hot an bothered is unmatched. True talent at work.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press | St. Martin's Griffin and NetGalley for providing an eARC for a honest review.

3.5 I love Meryl Wilsner and they are an auto-read author of mine, so I was so excited about this book. I really enjoyed the premise, and I liked that it picked up quickly. The characters are likeable, if not a bit predictable, and I read it very quickly. The pacing was a bit weird, and I do feel like the spicy scenes came out of nowhere, which really took me out of the story. The story was sweet though, and I was rooting for the characters to get together, so I would give it 3.5 stars. Thanks for the opportunity to review!

Oooh I loved this book. Shortly after starting I knew I would love this book because I enjoyed both characters and their POVs and arcs individually. I did not have a favorite character and I fell for them both. I love how honestly and strong their friendship is and how it's the base for a truly strong relationship. I loved the set up and absolutely every character in this book (which is so rare). I had a lot of fun reading this book and the spice and representation were both fabulous.

I hope to read more books by this author!

Thank you St. Martin's Press for the copy of this book.
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Read if you like: friends to lovers
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When Elsie breaks off her engagement, she takes her best friend Ginny on her honeymoon, where they hook up and realize they have had feelings for each other all along.
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This was a cute friends to lovers story, but it was missing some of the tension and yearning that I love to see in a friends to lovers story, and would have liked to have seen more of this. I didn't love Elsie as much as I wanted too, but I did like Ginny!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is a very steamy romance between two best friends. Ginny and Elsie have been friends forever. Ginny is non-binary and has loved Elsie since middle school. Elsie is Pan and realizes she's not in love with her fiancé who has surprised her by planning their wedding for next week and booked a non refundable honeymoon. When she doesn't go through with the wedding she brings Ginny on the honeymoon instead at his insistence. Ginny says whatever Elsie wants she gets while their away and their chemistry takes over for the week. What happens when they come back though? Can they go back to being just friends after that amazing and steamy week?

Really enjoyed this one!

THIS IS A SPICY BOOK!

Elsie calls her engagement/wedding off, and her ex suggests she still goes on the honeymoon. With her best friend. Her best friend that’s secretly been pining for her their entire friendship.

Read this if you like:

miscommunication trope
high spice
honeymoon/travel vibes
friends to lovers
third act breakup
This is a f/nb romance with some frustrating miscommunication, hella spice, and a fun premise.

Rating: 4/5
I received the audio/book for my honest opinion.

What would you do if you learned that your fiancé has just planned your whole wedding without your input, sadly you start to realize that you might not truly love this man, and you call off your wedding. Then your ex-fiancé tells you that you should go on the honeymoon trip because it's non-refundable. You take your best friend Ginny. However, Elsie starts to realize why things really didn’t work with your fiancé because you have been in love with Ginny your whole life, and you’re worried that it would ruin everything.

Wow, just wow. I found the plot to be good, the characters were fun and exciting. I found the third act conflict to have been drawn out a little too long for me, but I understood why because Elise’s character doesn’t do anything fast, but also, I did enjoy that the characters had great character development during the time away from each other. During the honeymoon, they didn’t talk really about all their feelings, and to be honest the romance felt rushed to me. There wasn’t a buildup or anything, but I can say wow there is some spice in this book and I didn’t expect that. I found that the spice really just overshadowed the emotional side of the romance to really help make it believable for me.

I also received the audio of this book, and I enjoyed the dual narration. I found Blair Baker and Emily Shaw really helped me to connect with the characters. If you’re looking for a great audiobook, I would recommend this.

I want to thank NetGalley, SMP and Macmillian for the opportunity to review this book.

Wilsner knows how to write spicy romances with representation of sexuality spectrum. We have Elise, who breaks her engagement a week before getting married and goes to her non-refundable honeymoon with Ginny, her best friend.

In true Wilsner style, this one is spicy. I had a hard time with how both of them got sexy so quickly when Elsie just broke off her engagement. I needed more romance between the two.

I liked that story is told in both POV and Blair Baker and Emily Shaw did a good job with the narration. Though this wasn't a favorite, I will continue to read what Wilsner writes.

Thank you @youhadmeathea @macmillan.audio for a copy of this book.

Ginny and Elsie have been friends since they were 11 years old. Ginny loves woodworking and fostering dogs. She is not a fan of working her dull 9-to-5 graphic design job. Elsie loves her family and working for her family’s business, but she isn’t a fan of her soon-to-be husband. Things end up not panning out for Elsie and her fiancé, and he insists that she use their honeymoon and take Ginny so she’ll have her best friend there. A romantic getaway for two friends who don’t know they’re in love with each other can’t go wrong, can it?

I was really surprised to see that this book was receiving a lot of mid/bad reviews. A lot of people kept saying they didn’t feel the connection between Ginny and Elsie. IMO there is A LOT of chemistry between the MCs because more times than I can count, it is mentioned that they have pretty much been inseparable since childhood. Then, during the time they’re on Elsie’s honeymoon trip, it’s pretty spicy. Maybe because they’re not professing they’re love for each other at that time, people don’t see the connection. Or maybe because there is still a huge (no pun intended) stigma against plus-sized people. It was refreshing to not only see a plus-sized person on page, but they were also an MC who got the girl.

This was a book I couldn’t put down. Meryl is a known writer of spicy sapphic content, so this is another reason I couldn’t put the book down. There is a lot of fun flirtatious moments between Ginny and Elsie while they’re on the “honeymoon.” There are also some different dynamics used that you don’t usually see in a contemporary romance book.

“A fluke is one of the most common fish in the sea, so if you go fishing for a fluke, chances are, you just might catch one.” - Kevin Malone (The Office).

Read the book and you’ll understand the above quote.

A Meryl Wilsner novel is always cause for excitement. No one writes steam like they do.

A showrunner and her assistant, a college senior and her best friend's mom, two soccer teammates... all three of those pairings really worked for me. MY BEST FREND'S HONEYMOON is about two long-time best friends, one of whom already voiced romantic interest in the other. And this sort of friends to lovers just isn't catnip to me in the way all three of those other pairings were.

Still, Elsie and Ginny go to the Caribbean, which was so well written it made me want to go to an island tomorrow. But then Elsie rubs up against coral and says she was attacked by it, to which Ginny points out that she's the one who attacked the coral and Elsie makes a joke about blaming the victim (saying she's the victim, not the coral). That totally took me out of the story - you're not supposed to touch the coral! It can kill them! It's not cute to me that Elsie was too busy pictures to listen to the guide.

Anyway, not a personal fave, but I'm never going to not read something Meryl's written. Looking forward to the next!

Lots of spicy scenes in this book, and while I loved their friendship, I would have loved for us to get more about how their relationship would evolve as they went from best friends to a couple. I am glad that they were both able to take steps to accomplish some of their personal goals finally. Ginny was really passionate about their woodworking and fostering animals—two things which brought them so much joy. Elsie, on the other hand, had to work on being ok asking for what she wanted without giving in to things so easily just because she wanted to be accommodating to others.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the eARC!

I'm a huge Meryl Wilsner fan, with my two favorites being “Mistakes Were Made” and “Cleat Cute”. I swear I love their writing more and more with each book they write. I have always loved reading Meryl's books because their writing style is amazing. I adored the plot, and I loved reading about Elsie and Ginny's relationship. Not only do they write the hottest sex scenes ever, but their characters are so wonderfully fleshed out and well written. The spice is on fire! Ginny and Elsie have so much chemistry it's palpable! There was smoke coming off of my kindle reading some of these scenes. Ginny and Elsie's characters were so great, and I loved how cute they were - together and separately, but especially how much they loved each other. The friendship between Elsie and Ginny is sweet and adds the perfect first layer to their romance. Watching their friendship evolve into their intimacy was incredible. It was so clear that they were meant to be together. Their deep connection as friends gave them the feeling of safety when their relationship moved to something more physical. It gave them permission for the steamy, no holds barred sex when they finally gave into their chemistry. I loved Ginny's strength, they're physically strong, but their emotional strength also made me want to hug them. I loved that this was a dual POV. We were given great insight into both Ginny and Elsie’s thoughts and feelings, it really made it so easy to see why they loved each other so much. It was interesting to see the pining from both perspectives. They were both pining, but in very different ways. This book is a perfect mix of love, desire, and finding out who you are alone before making a life together with a partner. I wasn't a big fan of the conflict between Elsie and Ginny. The reasoning behind the conflict felt very forced, and after the good communication they had up to that point, it didn't go with what we had previously read about the characters. I understand the underlying issue about why the conflict happened, I didn't think the specific issue warranted such a large reaction, which was acknowledged in the book. It also wasn’t really a 3rd act breakup. It happened about 50% of the way through and Elsie and Ginny were kept apart way too long in my opinion. Because of that, the ending felt rushed, and I really wanted an epilogue to really wrap up the story. Thanks to Meryl Wilsner, Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for an e-arc in exchange for my thoughts. I eagerly await their next book!

My Best Friend's Honeymoon by Meryl Wilsner

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🌶🌶🌶

Ginny and Elsie have been best friends since they were little kids, but both secretly had bigger feelings. When Elsie's engagement is called off, she decides to take Ginny on the nonrefundable honeymoon where those feelings finally come out.

What I liked:
This book explores a lot of nonbinary themes that I haven't seen in many books. I loved how Elsie and Ginny's friendship was portrayed in a way that showed how deeply they cared about and knew each other both before and after starting a romantic relationship. I also loved how both characters worked to explore what they really wanted in their lives before focusing on their relationship.

What I didn't like:
Some parts of the book felt like they dragged on for way too long. The build up to Elsie and Ginny expressing their feelings was supposed to build tension, but honestly got to the point where I just found them annoying. This happened later on in the book too where the disagreement dragged on way too long.

I really wanted to love *My Best Friend’s Honeymoon* because the premise had so much potential: a spontaneous trip, a touch of romance, and the emotional weight of grief and healing. While there were moments of genuine heart and some sweet chemistry, the pacing felt a little uneven, and I struggled to fully connect with the characters. It was a pleasant read overall, just not one that completely swept me away.

Thank you NetGalley and SMP for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Wilsner is a talent, but this is not their strongest book, in my opinion. The third act breakup arc didn't work for me, but the gender identity conversation was really good.

Thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for the ARC!

The title was exactly what you got in this story. The concept was good, I love a good “runaway fiancé” but the story? Was only okay… the main trope was miscommunication and the two MCs spend a good chunk of the story NOT TALKING ABOUT ANY FEELINGS. Instead of talking about feelings, or giving real estate to developing a strong relationship both before/after the main falling out, we spent SO MUCH TIME having sex. It was SO OFTEN. I’m almost certain 45% of the book was just sex. No talking, no feelings, no figuring out anything, just bed.

I loved the representation of a nonbinary MC and queerness, but we missed out on developing deeper characters and building a relationship for fucking on the FMC’s would-be honeymoon. I just wanted a lil more plot/substance to this.

Again, thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

4.25/5 stars

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!
My Best Friend’s Honeymoon is a romance between two best friends who end up going on a honeymoon trip together for a cancelled wedding.
This book was wonderfully spicy. I loved the way the smut scenes were used to break down Elsie’s people-pleasing tendencies and learning to put herself first. Also, they were just very well-written.
Elsie did make me want to cry for most of the first half of the book. I wanted to give her a hug and a stern lecture on her self-worth. Luckily, Ginny handled most of that for me.
One thing that was a little annoying throughout the book—though I didn’t mind how it played out in the end—was the fact that these two wouldn’t admit their damn feelings to each other. I get being afraid of rejection from your best friend, but you are literally on a romantic honeymoon having sex 24/7? Just tell her!!
Altogether, I did end up enjoying this. Not my favorite, but it was a much needed queer romance.

CW: sexual content; queerphobia

I am leaving my honest opinion voluntarily.

First, let me say that I love how beautifully the gender fluidity was written; it was seamless and non-confusing from the beginning. There was no need to explain it; it just was, and the world was okay with it, and no one had the awkward coming-out trope, and I loved it.

NOW. The story was what I expected until it wasn't, and it had me gagging and screaming because Meryl... girl... where did you take us?!? This book gave me everything I never knew I needed. The title suggests we will be dealing with relationships, which is no surprise. However, we also get a coming-of-age story, as we follow a childhood friendship and all that entails. We have familial expectations, and a character trying to find their place among a family of amazing individuals. And figuring out who you are on your own, what you stand for, and being bold enough to stand in your truth, all mixed together with uncertainty, miscommunication, and emotional verbal outbursts.

This book is amazing! I wasn't expecting to love this book, but I did!

Thank you, Netgalley, St. Martin's Press | St. Martin's Griffin, and Meryl Wilsner for the ARC of this beautifully written novel.

“My Best Friend’s Honeymoon” Review

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for a free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 stars, rounded up.

This book was so much fun! It was the right combination of sweet and spicy. I loved the main characters journeys, both together and as a couple. I appreciated the non-binary rep. Overall, I definitely recommend.