i>CW: Death of a partner/best friend/child from cancer, infidelity (not involving the MC’s relationship), parental abandonment. I received a digital ARC from Harper 360, One More Chapter via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. Thanks to the author, HarperCollins UK, One More Chapter, and NetGalley for the ARC. Opinions are mine. Previously her writing has been printed in The Sunday Times and the fabulous SUNLOUNGER summer anthologies. Find out about her new books at www.pernillehughes.com and follow her on Bookbub for the latest on sales https://www.bookbub.com/authors/perni... In between tears and smiles as I read, I also had proper heart flutters… The sign of seriously good story tell ing’ Jules Wake

Content warning: *mentions of terminal illness, mentions of death, some swearing, mentions of ‘adult’ themes* The grief aspect of this story is handled beautifully. I also really liked the way they come to realise that each has changed and matured over the course of the story, and that while they might not have been right for each other when they first met, they have grown into the sort of person the other one needs by the end of it. It's a total belter… I loved the slow burn and just the warmth and funniness of the writing. Was gagging for them to get it together’ Kirsty Greenwood, author of Big Sexy Love I do not even know where to begin. This is a relatively short story, a tale of love and survival told through a few distinct and memorable days in the lives of the main characters, BJ and Charlie, spread over 10 years. Charlie and Becca both love Ally - Charlie as a fiancée, Becca as best friend of many years - and her death, at a heartbreakingly youngI loved watching Becca and Charlie grow into themselves and through their grief, as well as watch their relationship change from one of distrust and disdain to one of genuine friendship and respect for each other. We follow Becca and Charlie in the years following Ally's death, we see their relationship grow from distaste to mutual respect to attraction. I thought the characters were really well written, likeable although definitely definitely flawed. We see the tenderness of friendship and we watch the relationship growing, another one that I flew through. He’d loved Ally and his heart broke when she died, but after his immediate free fall, he’d worked hard to re-establish himself, mend his heart and live again. He could remember her, he could miss her, but he couldn’t see the value in shaping his life around her. Setting his life in stone for her wouldn’t be a life well-lived.”

Hughes weaves together a very slow burn romance, as the enmity gives way to a tenuous detente, then friendship, before love - one which Becca continues to push away out of guilt and can't let go of her pride to see Charlie is the man for her. Before she moved to writing full-time, Pernille (pronounced Pernilla) Hughes studied Film & Literature at university. After graduating she went into advertising and later on to market Natural History films before working in Children’s television, which meant living in actual Teletubbyland for a while! From 2011–2015, she was a regular contributor for the Sunday Times column ‘Confessions of a Tourist’. She has two novels published to date PROBABLY THE BEST KISS IN THE WORLD and PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE (formerly published as Sweatpants At Tiffanie’s). Her next book TEN YEARS will be out in August 2022. TEN YEARS by Pernille Hughes will inevitably be compared to previously published books like ONE DAY by David Nicholls or Josie Silver’s ONE DAY IN DECEMBER. But TEN YEARS should in no way be classified as just another book where the reader gets tiny peeks into the character’s lives once a year because it was so much more than that.Tiffanie Trent is not having a great week. Gavin, her boyfriend, has dumped her unceremoniously on their tenth anniversary, leaving her heartbroken and homeless. This is an enemies to Lovers trope but with “A Night in December” feel. I couldn’t get enough of it I normally dislike enemies to lovers tropes but this this was genuine hate Becca and Charlie dislike rooted so deep in there history that when they starting feeling things they don’t know how to place it. Both characters are very flawed and damaged by the pain of loss and rejection from there own life experiences. About the Book ‘Some days I feel like I’ve lived more than one lifetime, so, couldn’t we be right for each other this time around?’ It's one of those books that grab you from the start, the kind you can't stop reading till the end and the kind that stays with you for a long time. Becca was Ally’s best friend. Charlie was Ally’s fiancé. Becca and Charlie can’t stand each other. But after Ally dies, her instructions from beyond the grave force them to work together to honor her final wishes. And soon (but not that soon) Becca and Charlie find that maybe they’re looking forward to seeing one another to carry out these tasks.

Given their mutual enmnity, the pair decide to space out the activities to one per year. Ally - forever the planner and organiser, was the glue that held them together after they all met at university. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you so much HarperCollins UK, One More Chapter, and NetGalley for this opportunity.

I absolutely loved this gorgeous, funny, touching book – it’s utterly romantic, with gloriously real characters you’ll fall in love with‘ Rachael Lucas In TEN YEARS, it's a long, very long, slow burn of somewhat mutual hatred for … ten years. Almost too excruciatingly slow. I know, I know. However - it was worth the wait. This book sets up a lot of potential pitfalls for itself, and your mileage may vary on whether you think the author manages to avoid them. Someone elsewhere said this romance relationship can sometimes feel like a throuple – who are Becca and Charlie to each other without Ally? Does it matter? What about the “girl code” – is it ever acceptable to date your dead best friend’s former fiancé? Becca’s version of grieving is to lean into it, to wallow in the pain, to press on the bruise. Charlie wants to find a way to move on, to get past the pain and feel like himself again. Once they realize there are feelings between them, that fundamental, philosophical difference on what they owe to the dead sets up the deeper conflict in the second half of the story. At times I wanted to grab Becca and Charlie's shoulders and talk some sense in to them. Thank goodness it took no more than ten years for them to see what is clearly in front of one another (as I wouldn't haven't been able to hold out much longer knowing they could go one more second apart from each other). One of the main things I liked is that for the first few chapters you think the story line will centre primarily around a tragic loss and how the characters adapt. However, it turns into something else, lighter hearted, entertaining yet still realistic in recognising how people cope differently with grief.