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Always You and Me
From the bestselling author of Fractured comes a moving, heart-mending and uplifting novel of love, hope and second chances.
Then…
On the eve of her wedding to Adam, Lily’s best friend Josh unexpectedly walked out of her life, and she hasn’t seen him since.
Lily and Adam are blissfully happy, until he falls ill. As she cares for him in his final hours, Adam asks her to make a mysterious promise: to find Josh—and forgive them both.
This winter…
Tracking Josh down isn’t easy, but fate seems determined to bring them together. Cut off in his remote Scottish cabin by a fierce snowstorm, Lily and Josh explore their tangled feelings for each other, stretching back over the decades. But when she discovers the shocking reason behind Adam’s unexpected last wish, she’ll need to trust her heart completely…
Can Lily and Josh choose love—and find forgiveness and lasting happiness together?
Always You and Me asks: Do you choose love? Or does love choose you?
Then…
On the eve of her wedding to Adam, Lily’s best friend Josh unexpectedly walked out of her life, and she hasn’t seen him since.
Lily and Adam are blissfully happy, until he falls ill. As she cares for him in his final hours, Adam asks her to make a mysterious promise: to find Josh—and forgive them both.
This winter…
Tracking Josh down isn’t easy, but fate seems determined to bring them together. Cut off in his remote Scottish cabin by a fierce snowstorm, Lily and Josh explore their tangled feelings for each other, stretching back over the decades. But when she discovers the shocking reason behind Adam’s unexpected last wish, she’ll need to trust her heart completely…
Can Lily and Josh choose love—and find forgiveness and lasting happiness together?
Always You and Me asks: Do you choose love? Or does love choose you?
397 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2025
7960 people are currently reading
13931 people want to read
About the author
Dani Atkins
25 books1,167 followersDani was born and brought up in Cockfosters- a small London suburb at the end of the Piccadilly Tube Line.
This served her well for commuting into the city, where from the age of 18 she worked in a succession of secretarial positions in companies as diverse as a BMW car dealership to the BBC. Dani spent her two hour commute avidly reading and dreamed that one day she would become an author herself.
When her two children grew up and left home, Dani set about turning this dream into reality and devoted her time to writing. She now lives in a rural Hertfordshire cottage with her husband, a soppy border collie dog and a haughty Siamese cat.
Her first novels FRACTURED (called THEN AND ALWAYS in the US) and THE STORY OF US published in 2014. In January 2016, her third novel, OUR SONG was published.
This served her well for commuting into the city, where from the age of 18 she worked in a succession of secretarial positions in companies as diverse as a BMW car dealership to the BBC. Dani spent her two hour commute avidly reading and dreamed that one day she would become an author herself.
When her two children grew up and left home, Dani set about turning this dream into reality and devoted her time to writing. She now lives in a rural Hertfordshire cottage with her husband, a soppy border collie dog and a haughty Siamese cat.
Her first novels FRACTURED (called THEN AND ALWAYS in the US) and THE STORY OF US published in 2014. In January 2016, her third novel, OUR SONG was published.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,811 reviews
March 4, 2025
♾️ infinity stars.
I had no expectations going into this book. In fact, I haven’t been able to enjoy romance books lately. This one stole my heart though.
This is for fans of the notebook. This book gave me the same feelings I had when I saw the Notebook for the first time. I want this to be made into a movie. Scratch that… it’s too detailed for a movie, it would need to be a mini series.
This book had me wanting to call my first love & tell him that I love him. In fact, this book should come with a warning. ‘Caution: this book may cause you to reach out to exes thinking your life can be like this’ 😂
Some people get one great love story. Some people never even get one. She got two. And I am jealous. Both men were perfect in their own way and perfect for her at different points in her life.
I will be thinking about this book for a long time. 🩷
Thank you to Amazon First Reads for the free advance copy.
I had no expectations going into this book. In fact, I haven’t been able to enjoy romance books lately. This one stole my heart though.
This is for fans of the notebook. This book gave me the same feelings I had when I saw the Notebook for the first time. I want this to be made into a movie. Scratch that… it’s too detailed for a movie, it would need to be a mini series.
This book had me wanting to call my first love & tell him that I love him. In fact, this book should come with a warning. ‘Caution: this book may cause you to reach out to exes thinking your life can be like this’ 😂
Some people get one great love story. Some people never even get one. She got two. And I am jealous. Both men were perfect in their own way and perfect for her at different points in her life.
I will be thinking about this book for a long time. 🩷
Thank you to Amazon First Reads for the free advance copy.
February 9, 2025
A true tearjerker from beginning to end. I chose this as my “palate cleanser” read between my usual thrillers and WOW… i really wasn’t expecting to be full on sobbing from just the first 10 pages. I completely fell in love with Dani’s writing style and already can’t wait to read more of her books. This was packed with heaps of emotion & is without a doubt, one of the best second chance romance books I’ve ever read. The characters were very likeable and the use of alternating timelines worked so well. 4.5 stars rounded up :)
March 14, 2025
This book was literally SO DUMB. You could tell when the author wanted you to cry, but only because the plot was so ridiculously cliche and outlandish. I have so many things to say but I want my life to move on from this book.
There was no chemistry with Adam, Josh was actually just an asshole, Lily acted like his mother, and the child story line was so forced. Josh having A TATTOO OF LILY'S NAME is INSANE. Like what the fuck is going on here. Is he deranged? Because he acts like it. I don't understand why the author would alternate between timelines using chapters if she was just going to do it within chapters as well! What is this freaking book! Why did the last chapter not have a time jump specification like the rest of the book! Why does anyone like Lily when she's so dumb and boring!
I seriously need to start putting down books when I realize they're terrible. It's not fair to me. Good riddance to this... whatever it was.
PS: I came back to say this is not what hospice is like at all and shame on this author for her representation of it.
There was no chemistry with Adam, Josh was actually just an asshole, Lily acted like his mother, and the child story line was so forced. Josh having A TATTOO OF LILY'S NAME is INSANE. Like what the fuck is going on here. Is he deranged? Because he acts like it. I don't understand why the author would alternate between timelines using chapters if she was just going to do it within chapters as well! What is this freaking book! Why did the last chapter not have a time jump specification like the rest of the book! Why does anyone like Lily when she's so dumb and boring!
I seriously need to start putting down books when I realize they're terrible. It's not fair to me. Good riddance to this... whatever it was.
PS: I came back to say this is not what hospice is like at all and shame on this author for her representation of it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 6, 2025
4.5⭐️
Wow what a beautiful story this was. I got choked up a few times while reading. The way the author wove together the past and present was done so incredibly well.
When Lily’s husband Adam is at the end of his life he makes his wife make him a promise. The promise is to go and find her best friend Josh who she had a falling out with the week of her wedding years ago. Adam tells his wife to forgive her best friend Josh and to also forgive him her husband. Lily and Josh were lifelong friends who were always intertwined in one another’s lives until their bitter falling out. Josh is someone Lily has kept locked in heart for many years. While dealing with the grief of her husband a year after he passes she sets out to find Josh again to fulfill her promise to her late husband.
This was a beautiful story of love, friendship , loss , grief, forgiveness , and redemption. Highly recommend. Available on kindle unlimited.
Wow what a beautiful story this was. I got choked up a few times while reading. The way the author wove together the past and present was done so incredibly well.
When Lily’s husband Adam is at the end of his life he makes his wife make him a promise. The promise is to go and find her best friend Josh who she had a falling out with the week of her wedding years ago. Adam tells his wife to forgive her best friend Josh and to also forgive him her husband. Lily and Josh were lifelong friends who were always intertwined in one another’s lives until their bitter falling out. Josh is someone Lily has kept locked in heart for many years. While dealing with the grief of her husband a year after he passes she sets out to find Josh again to fulfill her promise to her late husband.
This was a beautiful story of love, friendship , loss , grief, forgiveness , and redemption. Highly recommend. Available on kindle unlimited.
April 18, 2025
I simply loved this book. Some of the quotes that really touched me are below.
———————————————————————-
“I learnt that you can’t outrun grief because it always knows where to find you.”
“Do you want to know one of the worst things about losing your husband? Nobody wants to hear about him.”
“And the thing he loved most . . . that was me. And he told me so, every single day. I always knew how he felt about me”
“The best man won, didn’t he . . . and then he got to be the groom.’ As closing lines go, I had to admit that one would be hard to beat.”
“If Adam loves you as much as I do, he’d want you to be happy.”
“Please think about it. Don’t marry the wrong man, even if it is for all the right reasons.”
“I was hit with two thoughts: I was losing him, and I never wanted to see him again for as long as I lived.”
“He occupied an entirely different place in my soul than the husband who I had loved–who I still loved.”
“Panic is a strange dish that goes from a moderate simmer to a raging boil almost without you noticing.”
“I guess neither of us will ever know what I might have said, because you never gave me the chance.”
“But life doesn’t let you rewrite history.”
“You shouldn’t change your dreams because they’re different from mine.”
“Sometimes I could hear the crack in his voice as we talked about the past we’d wasted and the future we’d never have.”
“I didn’t need to find the perfect man to be an ideal husband; I’d already found and then lost that. I also didn’t need a man who made my pulse race and filled my head with thoughts and dreams that could never be, because I’d found and lost that too.”
“I knew in this moment that I was ready for the next incredible, life-changing stage of my life to begin.”
“If something is meant to be yours, it will find its way to you.”
“A life you’d already known with a man who’d loved you so much he couldn’t bear the idea of you being left alone after he was gone.”
“Most people–if they’re lucky–get to have one amazing love story in their life. I’ve already had two.”
“How could you not have known that it would have been you, my love? It could only ever have been you?”
“I knew I was taking the final steps on a journey that had begun with a promise I’d made to another man.”
“Every piece Josh had ever made, going back years and years. Every single piece had my name on it. It wasn’t a random symbol like he’d told me; it was a heartfelt declaration, a testimony to his feelings, and it brought a lump to my throat.”
“I need to know that when we say goodbye you’re not going to be on your own, because I couldn’t bear the thought of that.”
———————————————————————-
“I learnt that you can’t outrun grief because it always knows where to find you.”
“Do you want to know one of the worst things about losing your husband? Nobody wants to hear about him.”
“And the thing he loved most . . . that was me. And he told me so, every single day. I always knew how he felt about me”
“The best man won, didn’t he . . . and then he got to be the groom.’ As closing lines go, I had to admit that one would be hard to beat.”
“If Adam loves you as much as I do, he’d want you to be happy.”
“Please think about it. Don’t marry the wrong man, even if it is for all the right reasons.”
“I was hit with two thoughts: I was losing him, and I never wanted to see him again for as long as I lived.”
“He occupied an entirely different place in my soul than the husband who I had loved–who I still loved.”
“Panic is a strange dish that goes from a moderate simmer to a raging boil almost without you noticing.”
“I guess neither of us will ever know what I might have said, because you never gave me the chance.”
“But life doesn’t let you rewrite history.”
“You shouldn’t change your dreams because they’re different from mine.”
“Sometimes I could hear the crack in his voice as we talked about the past we’d wasted and the future we’d never have.”
“I didn’t need to find the perfect man to be an ideal husband; I’d already found and then lost that. I also didn’t need a man who made my pulse race and filled my head with thoughts and dreams that could never be, because I’d found and lost that too.”
“I knew in this moment that I was ready for the next incredible, life-changing stage of my life to begin.”
“If something is meant to be yours, it will find its way to you.”
“A life you’d already known with a man who’d loved you so much he couldn’t bear the idea of you being left alone after he was gone.”
“Most people–if they’re lucky–get to have one amazing love story in their life. I’ve already had two.”
“How could you not have known that it would have been you, my love? It could only ever have been you?”
“I knew I was taking the final steps on a journey that had begun with a promise I’d made to another man.”
“Every piece Josh had ever made, going back years and years. Every single piece had my name on it. It wasn’t a random symbol like he’d told me; it was a heartfelt declaration, a testimony to his feelings, and it brought a lump to my throat.”
“I need to know that when we say goodbye you’re not going to be on your own, because I couldn’t bear the thought of that.”
March 7, 2025
For real. I go hard with the spoilers in my review. You have been warned...
When deciding whether to get this book as my Amazon First Read, I read the reviews from other people, and *everyone* said they cried the first 10 pages and the last 10 pages...
And dammit, but I DID cry the first ten pages. Dogs always get me... Don't worry though! The dog is fine! But the way she describes Fletcher saying goodbye to his dad... that got to me. We always see the human saying goodbye to their pet, very rarely do we get to see the good doggo saying goodbye to their beloved owner. That moved me...
The rest of the novel was funny, cute, face-palm-inducing, and a tad predictable, but not enough to make me bored. I enjoyed our MFC and MMC interactions and the way their story is told through flashbacks and memories interwoven into the present.
I kind of checked out of the story on page 284, when the story pivots to her deciding she wants to have a baby all by herself to complete her life. Kids are really not my thing, and the idea that a whole love story or whole life only being "complete" with kids is kinda gross. So while I get her decision, it kind of made the rest of the book meh for me.
And yes, the last ten pages are very melancholy, but it is the end that we all will come to eventually, and she seems to have had a good life, so it seemed mostly bittersweet to me. No crying there.
Brass tacks: Would I buy this book if I hadn't gotten it through Amazon First Reads? Probably Not
Did I enjoy it? Yes, it was well written, gave me feels (that I didn't expect to have) and was a cute angsty romance. If that's your genre jam, I recommend it highly!
When deciding whether to get this book as my Amazon First Read, I read the reviews from other people, and *everyone* said they cried the first 10 pages and the last 10 pages...
And dammit, but I DID cry the first ten pages. Dogs always get me... Don't worry though! The dog is fine! But the way she describes Fletcher saying goodbye to his dad... that got to me. We always see the human saying goodbye to their pet, very rarely do we get to see the good doggo saying goodbye to their beloved owner. That moved me...
The rest of the novel was funny, cute, face-palm-inducing, and a tad predictable, but not enough to make me bored. I enjoyed our MFC and MMC interactions and the way their story is told through flashbacks and memories interwoven into the present.
I kind of checked out of the story on page 284, when the story pivots to her deciding she wants to have a baby all by herself to complete her life. Kids are really not my thing, and the idea that a whole love story or whole life only being "complete" with kids is kinda gross. So while I get her decision, it kind of made the rest of the book meh for me.
And yes, the last ten pages are very melancholy, but it is the end that we all will come to eventually, and she seems to have had a good life, so it seemed mostly bittersweet to me. No crying there.
Brass tacks: Would I buy this book if I hadn't gotten it through Amazon First Reads? Probably Not
Did I enjoy it? Yes, it was well written, gave me feels (that I didn't expect to have) and was a cute angsty romance. If that's your genre jam, I recommend it highly!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 3, 2025
*THROWS TOMATOES* BOOOOOOOOOOO
Spoilers ahead, but you know what hell yeah go ahead and read them because it will save you from wasting your time on this.
The book starts out with a wife saying goodbye to her dying husband AND BRINGING HIS DOG TO SAY GOODBYE IN HOSPICE. Halfway through the prologue, I stopped reading to go back to the description of the book to make sure I was reading a romance.
The tl;dr is that husband dies young, begs wife to go see her long-lost childhood best friend and make things right with him. Aforementioned friend has of course loved her his whole life, and now lives in a remote cabin in the woods of Scotland, hoping to never see her again. He can't have kids, she's always wanted them, yada yada yada, he stayed away, blah blah blah.
The entire story hinges on there being a baby, when there wasn't, and then there was (using the dead husbands frozen sperm). We get one final chapter -- the only from his perspective -- where he is next to her on her death bed and their son comes to say goodbye. He (MMC) then begs her to go find her first husband in the afterlife?????? She dies at 70 which is still young what the hell?
Dawg there was hardly a smile in this entire book. I can't comment on the writing because quite frankly I've read terribly written fanfic with better stories than this. The whole experience has PMO in the worst way.
Spoilers ahead, but you know what hell yeah go ahead and read them because it will save you from wasting your time on this.
The book starts out with a wife saying goodbye to her dying husband AND BRINGING HIS DOG TO SAY GOODBYE IN HOSPICE. Halfway through the prologue, I stopped reading to go back to the description of the book to make sure I was reading a romance.
The tl;dr is that husband dies young, begs wife to go see her long-lost childhood best friend and make things right with him. Aforementioned friend has of course loved her his whole life, and now lives in a remote cabin in the woods of Scotland, hoping to never see her again. He can't have kids, she's always wanted them, yada yada yada, he stayed away, blah blah blah.
The entire story hinges on there being a baby, when there wasn't, and then there was (using the dead husbands frozen sperm). We get one final chapter -- the only from his perspective -- where he is next to her on her death bed and their son comes to say goodbye. He (MMC) then begs her to go find her first husband in the afterlife?????? She dies at 70 which is still young what the hell?
Dawg there was hardly a smile in this entire book. I can't comment on the writing because quite frankly I've read terribly written fanfic with better stories than this. The whole experience has PMO in the worst way.
March 19, 2025
4.5 Stars!!
I haven’t read such a complete book like this in a very long time. The way the author molded past and present together really took my breath away. Literally perfect.
Lily, Adam, and Josh were written so imperfectly that for some moments while reading I thought they were real. Truly loved the author’s writing and this has truly cemented my love for second chance romances!
Perfect for those who loved ‘One True Loves’ by Taylor Jenkins Reid and the love story components of ‘The Unmaking of June Farrow’ by Adrienne Young.
P.S. Loved the banter and European slang so much!!
I haven’t read such a complete book like this in a very long time. The way the author molded past and present together really took my breath away. Literally perfect.
Lily, Adam, and Josh were written so imperfectly that for some moments while reading I thought they were real. Truly loved the author’s writing and this has truly cemented my love for second chance romances!
Perfect for those who loved ‘One True Loves’ by Taylor Jenkins Reid and the love story components of ‘The Unmaking of June Farrow’ by Adrienne Young.
P.S. Loved the banter and European slang so much!!
August 14, 2025
I AM ABSOLUTELY GUTTED.
This book just kept ripping my heart out and stomping on it. It got sadder and sadder and then when you thought it was getting better, it broke my heart again.
The ending was so many mixed feelings, but I cried so hard! Are you team Josh or team Adam??
This book just kept ripping my heart out and stomping on it. It got sadder and sadder and then when you thought it was getting better, it broke my heart again.
The ending was so many mixed feelings, but I cried so hard! Are you team Josh or team Adam??
June 23, 2025
A great story about true love. Lily, Josh and Adam were definitely meant to be in each other’s lives. It was emotional but also lighthearted at times. The characters were okay but I sadly wasn’t feeling any chemistry between the three of them. Also the miscommunication was too much. Overall I enjoyed the story but also left wanting more.
April 4, 2025
Wow, this book is a rollercoaster of emotions that starts right at the beginning and lasts right until the end. From reading the synopsis, I figured this book would be emotional but I wasn't quite prepared to cry several times while reading. I really enjoyed reading about and getting to know each character but I have to say that Josh was my favorite. I think the author definitely has a way of making the reader happy and sad all at the same time because why was I smiling and crying at the same time?
Anyway, if you are in the mood for a tear-jerking, heartfelt love story(ies?), look no further.
Thank you NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for providing a digital copy in exchange for an honest review.
Anyway, if you are in the mood for a tear-jerking, heartfelt love story(ies?), look no further.
Thank you NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for providing a digital copy in exchange for an honest review.
September 13, 2025
2½★, the ending got to me a little, but the random time jump and the miscommunication… yeah, not my fav
May 12, 2025
Snore!!!!!!!
💤💤💤💤
Did I read the same book as everyone else????
Dani Atkins is a gifted writer, so perhaps my expectations were too high.
I enjoyed bits and pieces of Dani Atkins' prose.
Overall, this "death wish/domestic romance" book was a slow-paced sleeper.
The book's ending was a tear-jerker but it took waaaay too long to get there.
I listened to the audiobook, expertly narrated by Elizabeth Knowelden.
Nobody bats 1000% and I will still be looking forward to Dani Atkins' future releases.
May 11, 2025
Slow, but not in a bad way. You just had to go with the flow of the story, lazily down the river, for basically two love stories to unfold at different times. Thankfully not a love triangle because I did love both the guys introduced by our fmc, who narrates the whole book. I listened to this one and our fmc is British so I loved the accent and slang from our narrator.
April 15, 2025
This book gives you all the feels.. cute story.
September 4, 2025
My grandmother's face upon finishing this book: 😭😭😭😭😭😭
My face upon finishing this book: 🥴🥴😵💫😵💫🥴🥴
No. No no no no no. Gram called me IN TEARS when she finished this book. ‼️ In my opinion, it turned out to be a really shitty version of The Notebook. Let me save you some time: Woman's husband dies. Woman decides to have a baby using dead husband's sperm. Woman reconnects with her childhood love (with dead husband's permission via a written letter) and THEY RAISE THE BABY TOGETHER. Nahhhhhh, dawg. Count me out. 🏃🏻♀️
My face upon finishing this book: 🥴🥴😵💫😵💫🥴🥴
No. No no no no no. Gram called me IN TEARS when she finished this book. ‼️ In my opinion, it turned out to be a really shitty version of The Notebook. Let me save you some time: Woman's husband dies. Woman decides to have a baby using dead husband's sperm. Woman reconnects with her childhood love (with dead husband's permission via a written letter) and THEY RAISE THE BABY TOGETHER. Nahhhhhh, dawg. Count me out. 🏃🏻♀️
May 4, 2025
Miscommunication tropes are not my thing. Therapy would have been very beneficial for these characters.
August 14, 2025
3.5 Stars rounded down.
March 12, 2025
I must not have been paying attention - but it took. me 164 pages (Kindle) to understand that this was a romance story. I didn't love it. The characters were boring! The love story was boring. The "bad blood" between Lily and Josh was a little dramatic for the situation and Josh's severe refusal to see or talk to Lily - even when he knew what happened to her husband - seemed immature. The husband Adam seemed like a good guy but Lily and Adam were only together 6 years or so and I just couldn't feel as much sympathy for her as I should have been able to when he died. The push and pull when Lily and Josh finally met up was lengthy and after a while I was like "just get together or don't get together but let this story end." I did like the ending. There was nothing shocking that really rocked my boat as a reader. I got if for free from Amazon.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 5, 2025
Second chance
Forced proximity
Single POV
Predictably lovely book.
Emotional rollercoaster
You will cry while reading but sometimes you need a good cry. This book covers grief very well.
Overall I enjoyed the book I would recommend it to a friend
Forced proximity
Single POV
Predictably lovely book.
Emotional rollercoaster
You will cry while reading but sometimes you need a good cry. This book covers grief very well.
Overall I enjoyed the book I would recommend it to a friend
June 7, 2025
This book hooks you from the beginning as Lily loses her husband Adam to cancer. He made her promise to service the car regularly, to take that trip to Australia that they had planned, and finally to find her best friend Josh and forgive them both. A year later, she's kept the first two promises, but that third one has eluded her. Josh doesn't want to be found. Lily is persistent and finally figures out where he is. She drops in on him, in a remote forest in rural Scotland, in the middle of a snowstorm. Of course, she gets stuck there. Will she figure out what happened to drive them apart? And can she and Josh find their way back to being friends or more?
This is an emotional tale. Both the prologue and epilogue are both gut-wrenching. The author weaves the story skillfully as she takes the reader through the backstory with both Adam and Josh. This is a friends to enemies to lovers story that was a good balance of sad and sweet. It has a lot to say about grief and forgiveness. I will be looking to read more from this author.
First Reads selection
Quotes I liked:
I learnt that you can't outrun grief because it always knows where to find you, but you can keep yourself so busy that it can only squeeze into the gaps of your life, instead of burying you under an avalanche of sadness.
They edit him out of every conversation because they believe it'll be too painful for you to talk about him. But really, the most painful thing of all is never getting to talk about him.
When something's important, you have to fight for it.
...if something is meant for you, it will find its way to you when the time is right.
This is an emotional tale. Both the prologue and epilogue are both gut-wrenching. The author weaves the story skillfully as she takes the reader through the backstory with both Adam and Josh. This is a friends to enemies to lovers story that was a good balance of sad and sweet. It has a lot to say about grief and forgiveness. I will be looking to read more from this author.
First Reads selection
Quotes I liked:
I learnt that you can't outrun grief because it always knows where to find you, but you can keep yourself so busy that it can only squeeze into the gaps of your life, instead of burying you under an avalanche of sadness.
They edit him out of every conversation because they believe it'll be too painful for you to talk about him. But really, the most painful thing of all is never getting to talk about him.
When something's important, you have to fight for it.
...if something is meant for you, it will find its way to you when the time is right.
June 4, 2025
this was kinda… devastating??? but in a good way 😭 i liked the alternating timelines and the spanning of time in the present so that the story didn’t feel too rushed
April 23, 2025
4.5 ⭐️
This was such a beautiful story and had me in tears several times. I’m not sure if I’ve ever cried so hard by page 7 before 😭
If you are a fan of The Notebook, I think you’ll love this book.
This was such a beautiful story and had me in tears several times. I’m not sure if I’ve ever cried so hard by page 7 before 😭
If you are a fan of The Notebook, I think you’ll love this book.
April 23, 2025
I went into this blindly & just wanting an easy palette cleanser & it exceeded my expectations! This was so “The Notebook” coded & I ate every bit of it up. The first like 10 pages already have you balling & it immediately sucks you right into the story. You have a love triangle that’s friends to lovers to enemies to lovers again. And the ending was just ugh so emotional🥺 Amazing 10/10!!
April 14, 2025
I haven't rage-quit a book in some time, but I suppose it's bound to happen when you're reading relatively large volumes. "Always You and Me" is book 79 for the year so far, so maybe it was coming for me.
First off, provenance. I don't think this would have been a book I'd normally pick up. I read romance; I read contemporary romance; what I don't normally read is drama for the sake of drama. But this was on Prime Reading, it was free, and it was advertised as a romance. So like the fool I am, I gave it a shot.
Secondly: flashbacks. I have a difficult relationship with character-driven narrative and a profound hatred for lazy narrative. It's the reason I don't much care for many changing POVs, and apparently the reason I'm growing to hate flashbacks. I have seen very well-done flashbacks in the works of Mark Lawrence, notably his Broken Empire series and the Book of the Ancestor trilogy. In those two series, the flashbacks are used to tell non-linear stories, and it makes it worth your time to commit to the separate timelines.
What do we have here, though? We get treated to a lot of flashbacks in this book -- did I mention it's a romance about a second chance romance? -- and it seems that they give us some insight into how Lily fell in love. With her dead husband. And with this dude called Josh, who's apparently the love interest. Don't get me wrong, I think adding grief to a romance story is an interesting take, but there's a delicate balance, and walking me through how the heroine fell in love with someone else isn't conducive to that delicate balancing act.
At the point of my rage-quit, 40% into the book, approximately nothing has happened. Lily eventually pulled her finger -- we get it's she's grieving -- to do this significant task that her dead husband set out for her, which shockingly is to go back to the man she had an enormous row with before her marriage. She's now in forced proximity with Josh, who doesn't want to talk to her. We don't know why. We don't know the contents of this horrible fight they supposedly had, and we have no clue why it even matters.
I used Gemini to scour the internet and give me some spoilers because I'm not sticking around to read them for myself.
And that's about all that I could uncover from the great and wonderous internet. Not many people have dissected this book at length, and those who have attempted to are gushing about how meaningful and well put together the plot is. Your mileage may vary, but this did absolutely nothing for me, and seeing as NOT A SINGLE THING has happened by the 40% mark, can you really blame me?
Best of luck if you embark. I recommend you don't.
First off, provenance. I don't think this would have been a book I'd normally pick up. I read romance; I read contemporary romance; what I don't normally read is drama for the sake of drama. But this was on Prime Reading, it was free, and it was advertised as a romance. So like the fool I am, I gave it a shot.
Secondly: flashbacks. I have a difficult relationship with character-driven narrative and a profound hatred for lazy narrative. It's the reason I don't much care for many changing POVs, and apparently the reason I'm growing to hate flashbacks. I have seen very well-done flashbacks in the works of Mark Lawrence, notably his Broken Empire series and the Book of the Ancestor trilogy. In those two series, the flashbacks are used to tell non-linear stories, and it makes it worth your time to commit to the separate timelines.
What do we have here, though? We get treated to a lot of flashbacks in this book -- did I mention it's a romance about a second chance romance? -- and it seems that they give us some insight into how Lily fell in love. With her dead husband. And with this dude called Josh, who's apparently the love interest. Don't get me wrong, I think adding grief to a romance story is an interesting take, but there's a delicate balance, and walking me through how the heroine fell in love with someone else isn't conducive to that delicate balancing act.
At the point of my rage-quit, 40% into the book, approximately nothing has happened. Lily eventually pulled her finger -- we get it's she's grieving -- to do this significant task that her dead husband set out for her, which shockingly is to go back to the man she had an enormous row with before her marriage. She's now in forced proximity with Josh, who doesn't want to talk to her. We don't know why. We don't know the contents of this horrible fight they supposedly had, and we have no clue why it even matters.
I used Gemini to scour the internet and give me some spoilers because I'm not sticking around to read them for myself.
And that's about all that I could uncover from the great and wonderous internet. Not many people have dissected this book at length, and those who have attempted to are gushing about how meaningful and well put together the plot is. Your mileage may vary, but this did absolutely nothing for me, and seeing as NOT A SINGLE THING has happened by the 40% mark, can you really blame me?
Best of luck if you embark. I recommend you don't.
April 1, 2025
*March 2025 Amazon Prime First Read
March 10, 2025
get your tissues
You will cry within the first ten pages and again at the end of the book.
The middle of the story was not very interesting. It took up until 81% to find out what the conflict was. The beginning and the end was the best part of the book.
You will cry within the first ten pages and again at the end of the book.
The middle of the story was not very interesting. It took up until 81% to find out what the conflict was. The beginning and the end was the best part of the book.
March 18, 2025
An emotional roller coaster ride from start to finish. Only wish that the main character who owns a cake decorating business included a recipe or two somewhere in the story.
March 26, 2025
This is a book I should have stopped reading early on, but I kept reading because of some reviews I read. It was a mistake to force myself to finish it as it was solidly "Not For Me."
May 1, 2025
Started the book being 100% team Adam, finished the book liking not a single character
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