Natalie Murray's LOVE, JUST IN

Thanks to partners NetGalley and Allen and Unwin for the digital ARC of Natalie Murray’s Love, Just In. The book will be published on Wednesday!

Natalie Murray’s Love, Just In is the strongest friends-to-lovers romance I’ve read in a while. Set in Australia, it features Josie Larsen, a tv news reporter who is trying to earn a promotion to a regular spot on her Sydney news station. After an on-air fumble, she’s moved temporarily to a Newcastle station where her long-time best friend Zac Jameson lives.

The problem? She and Zac haven’t talked—not really—for two years, not since a tragedy reshaped Zac’s life and caused his move. So, while Josie is left with the memory of their friendship, which began when, at 13, he became her first friend at her new school, she’s worried that a memory may be all that’s left.

Josie and Zac navigate the complexities of renovating a friendship that had always been effortless while balancing career changes and challenges. They’re also each dating other people: Josie is casually seeing Zac’s ex-roommate (Zac is *not* a fan), and Zac has been dating Josie’s direct competition at work.

There are hints as to the trauma that caused the rift in their relationship, but Murray takes a while to peel back the layers of that event. Earlier in the plot, however, the author explores Josie’s health anxiety, which is related to the deaths of her aunt and grandmother and is an issue that Josie is contending with throughout the novel.

I thoroughly enjoyed the development of Josie and Zac’s relationship, the history of which is revealed in intermittent flashbacks, and I thought the more complicated backstories for both characters were handled with great sensitivity and power. The subtle shift from friendship to romance is revealed beautifully, and I stayed up way, way too late to finish this compelling romance.

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