When I first started this book I couldn’t get into it- I’ll preface it by saying that I’m not sure why- maybe I was burnt out on contemporary romance? Maybe I was tired of reading books about sad, hot- mess FMC’s who finally find the perfect man to stitch them up and put them back together again? But I’m glad I took the time and came back because I ended up finishing this book within a couple days once I got into it. Ellie Palmer, I AM A FAN! Charlotte may have been falling a part in her relationship in the beginning of the book but her relationship with Ethan was so sweet and you could see that they were truly each other’s person. They looked out for each other, they balanced each other, they made each other brave. This was a good somewhat estranged best- friends to lovers story. Charlotte’s desire for predictability and steady and stable makes so much sense in the lense of how she saw her mother and unreliable, “go with the wind” father growing up. The fact that he was always chasing work and his family was kind of an afterthought, yet hanging on for dear life as he jetted around. It’s understandable that anything like that would make her run the other way, especially when it came from her best friend who never seemed to want to stay in one place. It was good to see how their early family life affected her sister Laurel as well. They were both coping with the mistakes and misgivings of their parents and yet they clung to each other and helped each other see the truth about life and how to form more healthy attachments. I love that both women got their Happily Ever After in the end, after they did some healing and growing separately and together. Peter and Laurel were great supporting characters and the ending was so sweet.

Tropes:
Childhood Best friends to lovers
Only one bed
Pen pals

Possible triggers:
Parental abandonment
Cheating
Great physical pain for side characters (getting caught in an animal trap and swamp foot, ew)

Sex is mentioned but it’s not quite open door- their are some steamy kissing/ make- out scenes described

Thank you so much for the early read on this one! I absolutely loved reading about Ethan and Charley's story. The friendship and slow burn romance. I loved the back and forth past and present so we can see it all evolve. Thank you!

This is such a sweet, friends-to-lovers romance with just the right amount of tension and pining.

Charley and Ethan are everything. Like, their friendship is so natural and fun (the banter!!), but you can sense the unresolved history between them. When they end up on a road trip together to stop Charley’s sister from getting married I knew I was going to eat up the forced proximity.

Also, can we talk about the emotional depth? This isn’t just a fluffy romance—it’s got real weight. Charley struggles through opening her heart up to real love after ending up divorced at a young age and more than that you can feel the fear she has at ruining her friendship with Ethan and that made the story come alive off the pages.

If you love childhood friends to lovers tropes then you need this book. Ellie Palmer’s writing is so warm and engaging—I felt like I was right there in the car with them.

P.S. That ending? PERFECTION. No spoilers, but wow, did I grin like an idiot.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC

This RomCom was laugh out loud, funny with relatable characters and great banter. I enjoyed the plot and where the story went. I found the MC related and the struggles the couple goes through. This gave me all the feels.

Recently slightly-estranged-but-reconciled best friends who’ve harbored secret pining feelings for each other for years go on a mini road trip. Whatever hijinks could happen?! Turns out, a lot. And not just with our main couple, Charley and Ethan.

I loved the friendship between C and E — it felt real and organic. Ellie wrote some really great conversations between them that teetered on familiar best friends with a little dash of sexual tension than platonically acceptable. When it came to the big climax between main couple, it felt like it was giving Jo and Laurie circa Little Women (2019) vibes, and in the best way.

That said, my main gripe is that too much was happening elsewhere (as hilarious as Wet Ted and the Mother Trucker situations were). I was constantly pulled out of Charley and Ethan trying to come to a reckoning of their friendship/blossoming relationship and then having to try and get reinvested again. The best part of a friends-to-lovers, secretly in love story is the actual yearning and pining so it didn’t work well for me that each time we were drawn out of their story to focus on someone else. Ellie created something special with Charley and Ethan and I just wanted to stay with them a little more to develop that.

I read Ellie’s debut and enjoyed it as well, so I was pleasantly pleased with the time I spent with this book. 3.5-4 ⭐️ A light, sunny day in the park kind of read, if there ever was one.

This book was such a delight. Charley is all stress and burnout and Ethan is living on vibes. Ethan could do with a little structure in his life, and Charley could use a true vacation. They seem like polar opposites, but it is actually why they are so great together.

What better way to reconsider your life choices than driving to the wilderness to break up your sisters wedding. Kidding, but not, because ultimately, it did help Charley to realize that she can have stability and fun. That upbringings don't have to define you. And that it is totally okay to not have your whole life figured out at 29.

Loved loved loved loved. I can’t say enough. Friends to lovers will forever be my everything and Charley and Ethan just did something to me that had me kicking my feet butterflies in my stomach. I love these two. I love their relationship with each other and their friendships with Petey and Laurel. I love a book with some found family tropes and this just warmed my heart. I so appreciated that they found a way to find a new way to be a part of one another’s lives rather than slotting themselves into something that wouldn’t have felt authentic for their characters. This one was so heartwarming. I absolutely adored Four Weekends and a Funeral too so it’s seeming like Ellie Palmer is going to become a must read author for me. I can’t reiterate enough how much I adored this and these two. Thank you for the ARC!

Anywhere with You by Ellie Palmer is a heartwarming and beautifully written romance that swept me away. The chemistry between the characters is undeniable, and their journey together is both touching and real. Palmer does a fantastic job of creating a story that’s emotional without feeling overly dramatic, and the pacing keeps the reader engaged throughout. If you're a fan of sweet, feel-good romances with lovable characters, this book is definitely worth reading.

A sweet dual timeline, childhood friends to lovers that explores all forms of love/relationships and gives you all the good feelings!
We get a quick read with realistic, disastrous and relatable characters that make you fall in love from the beginning. Their dynamic was great, but could have used more time exploring the tension and chemistry to really fall in love with their love alongside them. Overall a great cheeky little romance read that gives you a band of lovable characters, self discovery at its finest and realism of the complex dynamics we all experience in our relationships.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam Publishing for the ARC of this book. This is a super cute contemporary romance. This book actually had me laughing out loud at moments. I love the way sister relationships are represented it reminded me of my own sister and I. The only reason I didn’t rate this book higher was that I found Charlie’s self destructiveness obnoxious. I felt it was a little over the top and was extremely irritating how many times she kept sabotaging the one thing she always wanted. But I still highly recommend reading it!

So incredible! I gave thjs book five stars because it was such a sweet feeling read and I love childhood friends to lovers SO much!!

I have absolutely no idea how I was approved for this digital arc, but thank you so much Penguin Group Putnam!

Right...now my review. This wasn't for me, I just feel like it's really plain and didn't really stand out. So many books at the moment are diving into road trips, and second chance romances. But Anywhere With You isn't in the same category and doesn't have the same energy.

I really, truly loved this book and it has inspired me to go back and read the author's first novel!

I loved and strongly identified with Charley and Ethan and thought they were both real, endearing, authentically flawed characters. I found some of the side characters annoying at times (I think that was the point as this was written from Charley's perspective) but the author did a beautiful job of rounding them out and providing backstory to explain why everyone was making the choices they were and acting the way they were.

I admit to having a hard time with friends to lovers- it often is not my favorite trope because I find it very hard to do well. A lot of times the reason that friends can't be together feels thin or not believable but not in this book! This is friends to lovers done extremely well and I loved it!

I highly recommend this funny, endearing, thoughtful story!

Thank you so much to NetGalley, the publisher and author for the chance to read this advanced copy in exchange for my honest review!

I absolutely loved this book. It’s witty, charming, funny and so comfortable. Ellie’s able to describe places and people without using a million generic adjectives and I feel like I am there, with the people, in the moment. The character development is solid - at first I wasn’t sure I cared for the FMC, Charley, but because she actually gave us backstory and a real look into her, it was so much easier to understand and like her. The MMC, Ethan, is so sweet but also real with flaws. You can’t help but root so hard for them. This book had some of my favorite tropes - he falls first, only one bed. I just wanted to hug this book.

Ellie Palmer is a force - it’s hard to believe this is only her second book. She’s making a name for herself in a big way, and I cannot wait for more. Thank you to Putnam and NetGalley for this ARC.

Loved her first debut book and enjoyed this one too! It’s a romance but really a book about self discovery, about being willing to be seen, to take chances, to be vulnerable, embracing changes.

I would’ve loved to see dual POV on this because I loved Ethan and part way in I wanted to thump Charley on the head but hey she came around in the end! I think the workaholic part resonated deeply with the Silicon Valley life me (not that I was a workoholic but saw a lot of it) and what it means to really think about what you want in life.

Thanks NetGalley for my ARC!

really like the childhood friends to lovers and dual timeline! This story was so cute and I enjoyed it

Tentatively giving this 4 stars, but I think that this is one of those ARCs that I will need to reread the final published version, because the ARC that I read felt very much like a rough draft compared to Ellie Palmer's previous book (which I absolutely loved). I actually had to re-read Ch 1-3 because the ARC required so much focus for me to understand what was going on. I think we don't get enough details about Ethan to understand him earlier in the book, and I feel like I'm missing a lot of details about Ethan and Charley's dynamic, because I just wasn't really feeling any chemistry between them until maybe half way through the book. Especially from Charley's end, she spends so much of the first part of the book claiming she never had feelings for Ethan, but then finally admits that she did have some thoughts but thats right before she finally kisses him, and it kind of threw me for a loop. There's also a few transitions that felt a bit rough, like when Ethan sprains his ankle and they are discussing that but then suddenly it shifts to more emotional topics in just a few short lines. I don't know how to describe it but it felt like the version I read was missing the final polish, or the magic that really sucks you into an amazing rom-com (like Ellie's first book did). I'm really hoping that in the 6 months between when I was approved for this ARC (early Feb) and the official release date in August, there will be some more edits to the writing that will help this book really shine like I think it has the potential to.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy. All opinions are my own.

I just finished Four Weekends and a Funeral (which i loved!) so i was thrilled to get a copy of Ellie Palmer’s next book, Anywhere With You. I loved Anyone But You the movie so the nod to that was cute! This was a sweet story. I loved the big ending. Can’t wait to read whatever she writes next!!

I loved Ellie Palmer’s Four Weekends and a Funeral and couldn't wait to read her next book!
Anywhere With You has Palmer's writing style, wit, and complex characters.

This book follows Charley and Ethan, childhood/best friends to lovers, and my GOSH the pining from Ethan and all the little ways he tried to show Charley his feelings. But they have different lifestyle dreams so how can they mesh??
Charley's sister, Laurel and Ethan's friend, Petey have an on-again-off-again relationship that serves as a foil to Charley.
And Charley and Laurel have baggage and wounds from their parents, which they express in different ways.
The sister love was real <3 The friendships were real <3 It was a delight reading about these characters, their adventures, and the lessons they learned along the way.

I was laughing out loud at the truck stop scene, the naked run-in scene, the quip about Ted's foot, Petey's tattoos, and other moments.

I enjoyed all the behind the scene reveals toward the end on why things happened, but also when unspooling them in the flashbacks.

Overall I recommend this book :)

If someone where to ask my immediate first thoughts after finishing “Anywhere With You” they’d be Big Yikes, Stay Away. And yes I do totally understand how mean that is, but it comes with the territory of being a reviewer and these are my thoughts. And trust me I’m bummed about this because I actually enjoyed Ellie Palmers first book “Four Weekends and a Funeral”. However, reading her second book felt like I was a reading a book by a totally different author.

Let’s get my biggest issue out of the way and sadly that falls with our MFC Charley. I should’ve known we would be in trouble the entire book when I read the opening chapters and the first thought running through my head was “Girl, you deserve your husband leaving you, I would’ve left your sorry butt as well”. The entire book I found Charley to be an immature toddler stuck in an adult body. To top it off she had the emotional depth as a bucket of concrete. I kept hoping she would get better as the book progressed but sadly that never happened. Honestly the girl needed therapy, but decided nah let’s jump into a new relationship instead because that will always go over well. To make matters worse, Charley kept doing things that are one of my biggest book pet peeves. And that’s constantly “sticking your foot in your mouth”. For those not used to that southern saying the regular phrase is “speaking without thinking”. Charley repeatedly said things to intentionally hurt those closest to her. Charley doing it once or twice I can maybe forgive. But doing it the entire freaking book. Nope, no way I find no redemption in that.

Now the only bright side to this entire book was our MMC Ethan. If Ethan wasn’t in this book I would’ve DNF at the 20% mark. But because he was I pushed through. Honestly after finishing the book I wish Ethan wasn’t fictional. Because the first thing I’d tell him would be to run for the hills. Charley is in no way shape or form deserves him. That girl will break his heart eventually and this man doesn’t deserve that, he deserves the world. But since this is a work fiction I just have to smile l, nod and move on to the next.

Overall, I cannot recommend this book which does bum me out. Because again I loved Ellie Palmers first book. So if you were to take anything from my review go read her other book. Now even though this one by Ellie wasn’t my favorite I still plan to keep reading her books and I can’t wait to see what she does next. Lastly big Thank you to NetGalley & Putnam Books for providing me an ARC to read and review.