After Tessa finds out her boyfriend Joe is cheating on her, she's reluctant to take the Paris vacation they booked. Especially since as a romance writer, she's been struggling with writer's block. But when she arrives in Paris to find his friend Ethan is sharing their apartment, she has to decide whether to trust in love again.

I really enjoyed that this book was very specifically British, with characters who not an American caricature of Brits (even if Ethan does love cricket!). I also really enjoyed the balance of Tessa's two best friends - Carly, the childhood best friend who is half of a devoted couple and settled, and Juliette, the French free spirit. I enjoyed that both characters were really there for Tessa in different, complementary ways. I also felt like Carly really gave us a glimpse into Tessa as a supportive friend, which was important when we didn't have a lot of information about who she was and what made her tick - except that she was from the North of England.

I do wish this book had explicitly named Joe's behaviours towards Tessa as emotional abuse. Controlling someone, telling them what to wear and how to behave is abusive, and I hope other people reading the book know that there are resources and supports for these behaviours - and that they can find their own happy endings.

3.75/5 rounded up

This was so cute!

Sometimes when you break up with your turd boyfriend that you planned a Paris vacation with you just need to go on that vacation alone (except sometimes said turd boyfriend's best friend shows up and you need to share that little Paris vacation with him while you try to find the motivation to write your book while also falling in love)...ya know...

Nobody pay attention to absolute lack of grammar in that sentence, I did that for the vibes. THE VIBES.

This was super cute and such a breeze, although there were some side characters that I really did not care about at all (especially Carly, sorry to Carly).

And I did think it was quite funny that the main characters were watching Emily in Paris together whilst in Paris. That was a very fun little touch.

Victoria Walters, I now want to read more from you.

Thanks to NetGalley for the e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review! My Goodreads review is up and my TikTok (Zoe_Lipman) review will be up at the end of the month with my monthly reading wrap-up.