Thank you SO much to Berkley Romance for the free copy of the book & ARC!
Thank you SO much to PRH Audio for the complimentary ALC!

This book will be out on June 17th.

And I am back on the Ashley Poston train! I am open about my struggling with connecting to A Novel Love Story (check out the reviews - there are fabulous ones!) but I became a forever fan with Seven Year Slip so I wasn't going to let one sour read turn me away. I am so happy to say that I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS ONE! I had heard from other reader friends to make sure I do the audio because it was fabulous and I did pair my text with the audio and Patti Murin as always knocked it out of the park! But what really sold it was how she incorporated some singing. Heck we even got a song that the whole book was working towards at the end.

I knew from the first chapter that this was a Stephanie book. Pretty much if there is celebrity/music/boyband anything in that realm in a book - I am going to love it. I even had texted my friend who already had read an advance copy and told her I was going to love it from the first chapter. The way that Poston crafted the start of the story just grabbed my attention right away.

"I can weather storms, bird - I want to weather them. With you. Beside you. So we don't have to do it alone."

She is known for having magical realism sprinkled into her romances and in this one it is just crafted so perfectly! She positioned these two characters who are total opposites but exist in the same world - Joni being a songwriter and Sebastian being a former boy bander/son of a rock star. By pure circumstance during a performance by Willa Grey the two are in a heated kiss but a man being a man opened his mouth and ruined it for them. But that kiss sparked a lot of magic ahead!

The magical realism in this was that Joni and Sebastian were able to be in each other thoughts. Except they didn't know that it was each other in their thoughts until Sebastian aka Sasha flies out to North Carolina to see Joni. I found the banter between their thoughts really funny especially because we are only in Joni's point of view and how she navigates having this voice in her head and her responding to it out in the wild.

Joni and Sebastian - sigh. They were so fun to read!! They bonded truly with being in each other thoughts. I love the protectiveness that Sebastian had over Joni even if it was done in the subtle way. You could tell that he did care about her. She did not want to have a relationship with him because of their work buttttt of course that never is the case in romance books. Even though they had gotten off on the wrong foot, Joni did come around to Sebastian and wanted to be in his company. "I think - I think I want something messy and complicated with you, Sasha. I think I want that very much."I was a little confused on when things were going well for them and a little thing called a hurricane was approaching, why she would suddenly push him away. It just didn't fit well in what was happening leading up to it. Probably my only hiccup when it came to them but not enough for me to change my feeling on the book.

"We were all made of up memories, anyway. Of ourselves, of other people. We were built on the songs sang to us and the songs we sang to ourselves, the songs we listened to with broke hearts and the ones we danced to at weddings."

This is a very music focus book this book also has a heavy dose of grief throughout it. The grief in this is for the loss of time and actively losing someone. Joni's mother has early onset dementia and she tries to stay up to date with what is happening in her mother's life but living in California has kept her away from really being around the reality of what her dad and brother go through. There was a beautiful chapter between Joni and her mother where her mother was very open and honest and told her stories that Joni had been wanting to her. And Joni was able to talk about her fears and regrets. It was just so beautiful and heartwarming.

If you couldn't tell I just love this book from start to finish and I was taking my time reading it because I just didn't want it to end.

PS - I love how the chapter titles are song/lyrics!