Book Description

In the vein of Emily Henry’s You and Me On Vacation, Love, Just In is a friends-to-lovers romance with just enough spice to heat up the summer.

Sydney TV news reporter Josephine “Josie” Larsen is approaching 30 and coming dangerously close to failing at life. Lost in a vortex of other people’s career milestones, engagement parties, and baby showers, Josie is perennially single, abandoned by her globetrotting family, and invisible to her boss – except for the one time he tuned in while she was mid-panic attack on live TV. As a punishment, Josie is shipped off to cover another reporter’s six-month leave at a regional bureau in Newcastle.

But Josie has more waiting for her in Newcastle than yawn-inducing stories about bicycle lane protests. The city is also the domain of Zac Jameson – her best friend since high school. This should be a happy turn of events, but Zac has barely spoken to Josie for the past two years. Not since his fiancée tragically died in his arms in a car accident and he left Sydney to try and cope with his grief.

Now thrown back into each other’s lives, Josie and Zac have to navigate their neglected friendship and secret attraction to each other while struggling with their careers and mental health.

Hilarious, sexy and heart-warming, this is the perfect romcom to sit on the shelves alongside Emily Henry, Sally Thorne and Ali Hazelwood.

My Review

If you like tropes, then this book might be right up your alley. It has so many top tropes: friends to lovers, slow burn, childhood friends… it’s tropes on tropes on tropes up in here.

The book is single perspective, and I’m always fascinated by this authorial decision because the standard is dual perspective. That said, there’s usually a GOOD reason for eliminating the love interest’s perspective and providing the reader with only the information the protagonist has. Yes, we—as readers—know that Josie and Zac are going to end up together, but not having that confirmed by Zac’s perspective opens us up to the possibility that he might not feel the same way. Of course, this involves some suspension of disbelief because the couple always ends up together at the end of the romance, but this book does a great job of building the tension with single perspective.

This book also plays around with the timeline. As I mentioned, Josie and Zac have been friends since they were young, and they’ve always had a “will they won’t they” dynamic, but it’s never worked out. Every other chapter is a flashback to some point in the past, pinpointing a moment that provides further context to their complicated dynamic.

I don’t want to give too much away, but I do think I need to share that this book deals with some heavy content; the description hints at some of the issues, but it’s much heavier than the typical romcom/contemporary romance. My ARC contained an Author’s Note that goes into more details, but it’s at the end of the book. I do hope that this Note is moved to the beginning of the book for the published edition.

I would recommend Love, Just In. Despite the heavy content at times, this book is a lot of fun. The banter between Josie and Zac is lively, and the flashbacks give an added layer to the narrative. I don’t want to take away from the effectiveness of the written word, but this would make a perfect series on a streaming Netflix—with the Australian accents, gorgeous settings, and the flashbacks, it would translate beautifully from page to screen!

I received a digital ARC of this book from Allen & Unwin/NetGalley