Hi Everyone,

Hope you’re all well, as always. I’ve had a lovely day off work today and got my hair done which I always enjoy. Having my hair played with makes me feel so relaxed, I always feel like I could fall asleep in the chair. I took my Kindle with me and had every intention of reading whilst there, but that didn’t happen. So I quickly got this book finished when I got home and now here we are.

Book 📖

Thank you to @bookandtonic for this advanced copy of Let’s Not Be Friends by @phoebemacleod21 in return for an honest review. Let’s Not Be Friends was published TODAY (23rd November 2022) and you can get a copy here.

Description 🔖

Sophie moved from the city to marry and live with her Prince Charming; or as close to that as she could get. James comes with a title; which Sophie inherits; and a farm, which Sophie would rather leave behind. Of course, Sophie is determined to make her happy ever after work, but that becomes difficult when she finds her husband in the stables, with the stable girl and they were tending to each other as opposed to the horses.

Sophie’s Mother in Law isn’t very supportive when she advises Sophie to just get on with it. After all, she should be grateful to have got the title and to be there on the farm. But what will Sophie choose to do? Is she in love enough to forgive James or will she relinquish her title and run back to the city?

General Thoughts 🤔

From the cover of this book alone, I was expecting a light hearted romantic comedy and thankfully, that is exactly what I got. I am very much into easy breezy books right now and Let’s Not Be Friends delivered on that. I will say that the story wasn’t completely believable and did have me pulling my “really?!” face a couple of times, but once I reminded myself it’s just that, a story, I got over it and just accepted it for what it was. Once I did that, I was able to enjoy and be entertained.

Characters 👫👭👬

So obviously, the story centres around Sophie and by the end of the book, I had really started to like her. I was a little bit worried at the start that she was going to be a timid pushover but I was so pleased when she proved that she had a back bone. I don’t think anyone could say that Sophie did not give opportunity for things to be different. If anything, she was a stronger person than me for sticking around when she did. On reflection, I admired her because she was able to walk away with her head held high.

Rosalind was well and truly the MIL from hell. I don’t think I could have even got to the point of marriage with a mother in law like her, never mind leaving everything I had known to go and live in such close proximity to her. Rosalind had very outdated and sexist views of how a marriage should work and I found it frightening to realise that people like her are still knocking about.

Writing Style ✍️

As I mentioned, there were parts of the story that I found unbelievable (I don’t know of any grown ups that enter into a full on relationship after one night). I would have liked for Sophie’s relationship with Elliot to have been developed a little more as it felt a tad bit rushed at the end. However, that aside, I really enjoyed this author’s tone and I loved that she was able to create lots of scenes that I could envisage vividly and had me laughing out loud. I want a rom com to whisk my brain away from reality to a certain extent and this book was able to do that.

Conclusion & Scoring 🎖

The cover drew my attention to this book as it made me think that what I would find inside would be entertaining, funny and a touch sappy. That’s what I wanted and it’s what I got. There are some delightfully funny scenes in this story and some lovely heart warming romantic ones. This is a fantastic book to lift spirits and it was nice to be reminded that not everything has to be serious all of the time.

😍😍😍😍😩