4.5 stars. ⭐️ I loved Ready or Not, so I was so excited to read Cara Bastone’s newest book. Promise Me Sunshine follows Lenny, who is living in New York City, working as a temporary babysitter, and trying to survive after the death of her dearest friend to cancer.

This book was such a good portrayal of the grieving process and the importance of relationships in healing. Loved the development of Miles’ relationship with his niece, Ainsley, and Lenny’s friendships with Jericho, Jeffy, and Rica. The slow burn of Miles and Lenny’s relationship from enemies to friends to lovers was also done so well and seemed realistic. I can’t wait to read anything else Cara writes!

Thanks to NetGalley and Dial Press for the ARC!

Wanted to start off by saying that Cara Bastone’s covers are stunning! This book definitely started slow & I wasn’t sure if I was gonna like it. BUT once I took a step back & realized it was soooo much more than a love story, I ate it up. This book talks heavily about grief & I think the author portrays it beautifully. Losing someone you love is never easy, and this book is SO realistic to how someone would handle it in real life. Miles & Lenny felt like real people & I love when that happens. I felt like I was there with them, going through the stages of grief alongside Lenny. Miles & Lenny are two amazing characters & I loved getting to see their growth throughout the book. I wish it hadn’t been a suuuuper slow burn but them getting together at the end was very worth it. One thing I really appreciated was the smut scenes not being super cringey like other romance books. The author went into detail without overdoing it. There were so many moments in this book where I laughed or smiled. But the book also pulled at my heartstrings & made me feel so many emotions. I definitely recommend this book! I especially recommend it if you’re a fan of Emily Henry (specifically Funny Story) because this book gave me allll those vibes!

<i>Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.</i>

4.5 stars rounded down

This be one of my favorite books that deals with grief and loss. I really love how both Miles and Lenny talk about grief and honestly there are a few solid very applicable takeaways on dealing with grief.

I also really loved that it wasn’t only a romantic love story but a love story about friendship, family, etc. I will definitely be reading more Cara Bastone.

4.5 ⭐️
This was heartfelt and sad and made me feel so many emotions as I was reading. the connection between Miles and Lenny was just so beautiful to read, how they understood each other so well and knew what the other needed. Lenny was a very unique fmc, totally different than what I am normally used to. she is so funny and wild and deals with her grief so differently. I love how the author wrote her, she seemed so real and tangible. Miles too, he was a very interesting character. he’s sweet and cares for Lenny so much even though he’s super grumpy on the outside. I only wish the author went a little more into Miles’s character and his relationship with Reese and Ainsley. I also think more flashbacks to Lenny and Lou’s relationship would be beneficial to see just how much Lenny loved her, and I think that would give the readers a more deeper connection to their relationship as well. made me cry a lot and was so heartwarming. the ending was just perfect. I need more of them!!

5 ⭐️ oh, how I loved this book. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC. Promise me Sunshine is a beautifully written love story between Lenny and Miles. It’s an enemies to friends to lovers.

Lenny has recently lost her life long best friend to cancer. Her life is grey and she’s barely living. She’s depressed and refuses to go back to her apartment because she lived there with Lou. Miles, having experienced loss himself, becomes her grief doula and literally brings her back to life. It was heartbreaking and felt like such a real portrayal of losing a loved one. My husband has cancer so this was definitely an emotional and heavy read for me.

It’s a slow burn, but it works with the storyline.

Cara really knows how to mold characters and their histories into a compelling don’t-want-to put down kind of love story. This book is 400 pages but certainly didn’t feel like it! Highly recommend if you enjoyed Ready or Not.

“I've been gifted with this day. Frozen in time. A day where everyone moves slowly and carefully. Where the world is cast in diamond. Where the sunshine, never promised, is achingly bright and cold and there's nowhere to hide.”

This was such a beautiful story about living truly after loss. The grief process and finding joy and life in other aspects of your life while not forgetting the person you lost.

I thought it was very beautiful and the romance that bloomed through the story was expected but still beautiful.

Loved it.

I got an advanced copy from @netgalley and @randomhouse in exchange for my honest opinion.
This book releases March 2025! Put it on your list!

In the beginning, I had a hard time relating to Lenny’s grief, and the interactions between Lenny and Miles were slow burning. I can’t pinpoint an exact moment, but at some point that all changed and I became enthralled by the story. The character growth was really well done in this book. Miles and Lenny were so good for each other, and I really wish I had a real life Miles to rely on.

The death of Lenny's best friend Lou has caused her to feel completely lost. She's avoiding her parent's phone calls, the apartment she shared with Lou and the list of things she's supposed to do to start living again. She's even sleeping on the Staten Island Ferry. The only thing she can seem to do is temporary babysitting gigs and luckily she's just come upon the perfect one with overworked mom Reese and her precocious daughter Ainsley. In her time with Ainsley, Lenny is able to pretend she has it all together and then immediately break down on public transportation. However, Ainsley's grumpy uncle who always seems to be around is the one person who can see that she's barely holding on. Stricken with his own experience in grief, Miles offers to be that person for Lenny and help her start living again - crossing things off of her list included.

Cara Bastone.... You did it again. I absolutely adored "Ready or Not," especially because a surprise pregnancy trope is extremely hard to tackle. Amongst other romance readers I know, most avoid the trope all together, but Bastone was able to execute it perfectly. Now enter another subject that's a bit difficult to tackle: grief. For those who have been thrust into the dark place that is grief - it can be challenging to find a book or story that captures it so profoundly and accurately. I think that is what Bastone does here. Her characters are so complex, well rounded and real. You want to rip them out of the pages and give them a warm hug. You especially feel the depths of their grief and their emotions. There are other romance novels that attempt to write about and deal with grief - whether that is the death of a parent, friend or former partner. However, in these novels it is very much a "sprinkle" of grief that never quite gets there in describing it. Which maybe that is fine since it's a "romance" novel. What Bastone does in this novel is really take her time with grief - in explaining it, letting her characters feel and deal with it - and have it become a main character while the romance is an amazing, beautiful addition.

Cara Bastone is incredible and an author to watch. I look forward to her next work and can't wait for this to be formerly published as I will be getting myself a physical copy!

I really enjoyed Lenny’s story and journey through grief. I am also a sucker for friends to lovers, so when her grief guide, turned best friend, then turns lover, I was not mad. Cara didn’t shy away from the hard bits of grief, but she also balanced the story with sparks of humor to get you through. Overall, had a great time reading this one. My only critique- if you can call it that, I would have liked it to love I tiny bit faster.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for sharing this ARC!

Promise Me Sunshine is a beautifully crafted story that explores overcoming grief, healing, and finding love in unexpected ways. Be forewarned, it is loooooong and has one of the slowest slow burns I've ever read - but it is also incredibly heartwarming and makes you feel all the feels.

Promise Me Sunshine was truly one of the best books I've read all year. Bastone does such an incredible job depicting grief while also injecting this book with hope and joy. I loved every single page of this book and wouldn't change a single thing. Lenny's journey after losing her best friend to cancer is handled with such care without shying away from the fact that healing is not linear. I'm going to miss these characters so much now that I've finished the book.

If love means I’m-not-scared-off-by-your-worst-days unending care to you, this will speak to your soul. I adored Ready or Not last year, because it was such a beautifully unexpected take on the accidental pregnancy take, with gobs of nuance woven in. In Promise Me Sunshine, Cara Bastone handles the raw, gritty, doldrums of grief with a perfectly firm touch. We watch Miles and Lenny emerge from their respective darkness, and the blooming they find together is all the more meaningful after knowing how much they suffered. It’s not an easy, shiny, only-on-the-good-days-where-everything-magically-works-out type of story, Miles and Lenny’s love is for the rest of us.

I loved every single page of this book.

This is such a beautiful love story. A unique friends to lovers between Lenny and Miles. This story goes deep into grief that Lenny has from losing a loved one and also the grief Miles has had from losing loved ones. Their relationship starts off from disliking each other to slowly becoming friends to best friend’s to lovers while dealing with their loss and grief.

This story made me laugh and it made me cry. I really felt I got to truly know the characters. It was heartbreaking to feel Lennys despair and struggles at times - it felt so real. This book brought up the question of how do you live again after you lose a loved one. The author did a great job in showing the rawness of grief.

Both Lenny and Miles were strong and well developed characters. Once they got over their dislike for each other, they become fiercely committed to each other. So refreshing to have an amazingly well written romance story with a true to life experience.

I highly recommend this book to everyone. I would happily give it more than 5 ⭐️ !!!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC in exchange for my honest review. And thank you for turning me on to this author. I will continue to read more books for Cara Bastone.

Promise Me Sunshine
by Cara Bastone
Pub Date: Mar 4, 2025
Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
How do you find yourself after you lose the one you loved the most?

Grieving the loss of her best friend, a young woman’s life is turned upside down when she meets a grumpy stranger who swears he can help her live again, in this heartwarming, slow-burn romance.

It’s a beautifully written love story between Lenny and Miles. It's an in-depth exploration of grief and their whole relationship from meeting and disliking each other to slowly becoming friends to best friends to lovers while dealing with her grief and his family situation. It might also be the only friends to lovers romance I’ve ever enjoyed.
Great read!

Thank you to NetGalley, Cara Bastone, and the publishers for allowing me access to the e-Arc.

4.75 stars

This is an incredible story about grief and healing. I understand grief to an extent but not to the overwhelming and life-changing experience that the characters go through. Cara Bastone makes me laugh and cry while reading her books. These are the kind of romances that I love. The characters are well-developed. The story has depth to it. I know their romance will stick with me for a while. I will always pick up any of the books she writes in the future.

I highly recommend it!

Wow! This book was truly a ray of sunshine. The way that Bastone depicts grief is so real and raw. I love how this book didn’t just feel like a romance book, it felt like so much more. I have loved Bastone’s writing for a while now. Ready or Not was one of my favorite romance books of all time so I was so grateful to get this ARC. The only reason I didn’t give it the full five star rating is because the beginning felt super slow. I didn’t love the romance at the start and debated not finishing it. Once I hit about 20%, I fell in love with the characters and was so glad I stuck it out. Overall this was a hit!

I feel so lucky to have been given the chance to read this book in advance to its release. It was incredibly heartwarming! A glimpse of joy, amongst a hard time. Cara Bastone's writing took me by surprise because at the start of this book I was not taking it too seriously but slowly overtime it began to sneak up on me just how much I liked these characters. I was rooting for our protagonist, Lenny, to let go of her grief and embrace fully living her life. I became infatuated with the bond she forges with Miles Honey, his steady, unwavering presence was exactly what she and I needed. This book was full of silliness and hope and compassion. One of my new favorite romance books and I never could have seen it coming!

Firstly, thank you to Net Galley, Dial Press and Random House Publishing for this ARC. If you haven't read the Forever Yours trilogy, please do! It was my intro to Cara Bastone and I've been a huge fan since.

Now, this is a heavy and long read. I would definitely read trigger warnings or take your time with this one if you have struggled with grief. I normally read books in one or two sittings but it took me a couple days to get through this one. Partly because I was traveling and didn't want to cry in the Uber on my way to the airport and partly because it gave me the time to appreciate the slow burn in Lenny and Miles' friendship.

Lenny's sunshine to Miles' grump was really fun to see grow into genuine care and eventually love. Miles is THAT caretaker MMC. He likes taking care of Lenny and Lenny falls for him seeing his softer side. I would definitely say this is the most romance adjacent I've read from Cara Bastone. It veers a bit more into fiction than romance (which is totally okay) but I do want to let readers know that the love story almost feels second to the self-discovery and healing (which is more realistic anyway).

Overall, I enjoyed this read and it gave me a very hopeful feeling at the conclusion. I hope this read finds someone that could really use that.

I have not stopped thinking about this book since I finished it. i don't know how Cara Bastone does it, but this book made me laugh one page and then cry the next and then make me homesick for new York and also made me want to fall in love with my husband again. this book is honestly in a league of its own. i have so many parts of this book highlighted and I can't wait to share more when it gets closer to release day.
I know I said this in my mini review, but if you have read this, message me so we can play quote roulette and gush about how amazing this book is.
this brought me so much comfort, especially With the
state of the world rn. grief is so tricky to get right and this felt so raw and also so beautiful. you will NOT regret picking this one up.

Thank you NetGalley and Dial Press for gifting me with an eARC in exchange for my honest review.

The best books make you feel something, and Promise Me Sunshine made me feel EVERYTHING. This beautiful story about the nuances of grief and love, was so potent and filled with every emotion imaginable. It had me crying on a Wednesday afternoon, fully ensconced in catharsis and appreciation.

This story follows Lenny, in the midst of her grief, as she begins a new job where she meets Miles. Miles has experienced grief in his own life, and offers to help Lenny through hers in exchange for her help. As they navigate grief and a myriad of human emotions, their genuine connection is what allows the emotions to translate off paper.

Cara Bastone always makes me feel like I am reading her story at exactly the right time in my life. I felt the same way when I picked up Ready or Not. And Promise Me Sunshine was no different. I saw myself in Lou, in Lenny, and in Miles. The way each character so perfectly embodied their experience allowed me to identify with them on a deeper level. Thank you, Cara, for the heart that you put into this book. It was an honor to get to read it early🤍