Okay, but this book was amazing?

Definitely the best friends to lovers historical romance I’ve ever read. Possibly the best friends to lovers romance, ever.

This was the love-child of A Room With a View by EM Forster and People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry—with only the best parts of both books and none of the meh parts. It was frigging perfect!

We had:
💖 Friends to lovers with so much heart squeezing friendship and then lovers compatibility 
💖 Sex lessons
💖 Epistolary
💖 Widowed curvy heroine
💖 A trip to Italy in 1901 + pretending to be married
💖 The hero doing something SO DUMB and groveling like his life depended on it (all while being a lovesick mess)

From the opening lines of our hero begging the heroine to marry him and her saying no—I was obsessed. This story had so much vulnerability and connection, so much growth. The flashbacks to their growing friendship and the epistolary elements through time weren’t cheap tricks, they heightened the story and deepened the significance of the present timeline.

This was unputdownable and I absolutely loved it!