I haven't read a good friends to lovers story in a while and this one was just what I was looking for! Make sure you check out the excerpt and enter the giveaway!
BLURRED LINES
Lauren Layne
Releasing Aug 25th, 2015
Loveswept
In
a novel that’s perfect for fans of Abbi Glines and Jessica Sorensen, USA
Today bestselling author Lauren Layne delivers a sexy take on the timeless
question: Can a guy and a girl really be “just friends”?
When
Parker Blanton meets Ben Olsen during her freshman year of college, the
connection is immediate—and platonic. Six years later, they’re still best
friends, sharing an apartment in Portland’s trendy Northwest District as they
happily settle into adult life. But when Parker’s boyfriend dumps her out of
the blue, she starts to wonder about Ben’s no-strings-attached approach to
dating. The trouble is, even with Ben as her wingman, Parker can’t seem to get
the hang of casual sex—until she tries it with him.
The
arrangement works perfectly . . . at first. The sex is mind-blowing, and their
friendship remains as solid as ever, without any of the usual messy romantic
entanglements. But when Parker’s ex decides he wants her back, Ben is shocked
by a fierce stab of possessiveness. And when Ben starts seeing a girl from
work, Parker finds herself plagued by unfamiliar jealousy. With their
friendship on the rocks for the first time, Parker and Ben face an alarming
truth: Maybe they can’t go back. And maybe, deep down, they never want to.
Excerpt
My
sophomore year of high school, I had a short-lived friendship with
this girl named Korie Hamilton.
She
was nice enough.
A
little too much purple eyeliner, a few too many likes
sprinkled throughout her constant chatter, but we had every class
together our first semester, so we kind of became friends by default.
Anyway,
Korie was forever yammering on and on about how her best friend on
the entire planet was Stephen Daniels, a boy she’d known for all of
four weeks before promoting him to BFF status.
Apparently
it was, like,
ohmigod, like, the best thing ever
to have a guy she could talk to without complicating things with
romantic entanglements.
Please.
Real
best friends can generally go more than a couple hours without
mentioning each other’s name, but Korie found a way to fit
Stephen’s name into every other sentence.
Just
friends
my ass.
I
guess technically
they were platonic for a while. Stephen had a girlfriend named Libby
Tittles, or something unfortunate like that, and Korie had this
on-again-off-again thing with her junior high boyfriend.
But
anyone who’s ever seen a movie, or watched TV, or just had basic
awareness of human interaction saw exactly where Korie and Stephen
were heading: Humpville.
Even
though Korie swore up and down that she didn’t like him like that,
both of their significant others were long gone by Thanksgiving of
sophomore year.
By
Christmas vacation, Korie wasn’t uttering quite so many likes.
Why?
Because Stephen’s tongue was in her mouth before school, after
school, and every freaking weekend.
But
we all know how this ends, right? Just a few short months later, not
only were Korie and Stephen no longer dating, they sure as hell
weren’t best
friends.
Their
short-lived romance and ensuing breakup barely even registered a blip
on the gossip chain, but I’d like to think it taught some of us
high school girls a valuable lesson:
Guys
and girls can’t be just friends. Or not best
friends, anyway.
Shit
gets too complicated.
But
let’s fast-forward a few years, shall we?
I’m
now twenty-four, and I have a public service announcement to make: I
was wrong.
Guys
and girls really can
be best friends.
It
is
possible to have a platonic relationship with a guy where there are
no romantic inklings, no sexual fantasies, and no naïve
proclamations of I
don’t like him like that
in a torturous attempt to hide an agonizing unrequited love.
How
do I know this? How do I know that a guy and a girl can be best
friends without romantic entanglements?
Well,
let’s see, I’ve been on the female end of one such platonic
relationship for six years now.
Six.
Years.
!
True
story:
Ben
Olsen and I met the summer before our first year at University of
Oregon during freshman orientation. We were assigned to the same
group in one of those terrible ice-breaking activities where you have
to put a sticky note on your head and guess what kind of safari
animal you are, or something, and we just . . .
Clicked?
I
don’t know why we clicked in the Hey,
you’re cool but I have no interest in boning you kind
of way, but we did.
Maybe
it was because I was in stupid insta-love with another guy in our
group. Or maybe because my ovaries were hyperaware that Ben’s
ridiculous good looks would lead to heartbreak. But whatever the
reason, we did the implausible.
We
became best friends.
And,
yes, every single one of my female friends has given me the exact
same warnings I gave Korie Hamilton way back when: It
won’t work.
My
friends are split down the middle on how it will actually go down,
but they’re all convinced that it will
go down.
Half
think that Ben and I are soulmates who are just biding our time until
marriage and babies.
The
other half think that we’re going to have too much to drink one
night, have awful sex, and never speak again.
Ben
and I proved them wrong when freshman year ended and our friendship
was still intact. Sophomore year? Repeat.
Junior
year, we really upped our game. Not only were we closer than ever,
but we became roommates.
It happened sort of by accident when one of his housemates backed out
at the last minute, and I belatedly realized I couldn’t bear one
more year of dorm food, so I moved in. And it worked.
So we did it again senior year.
Here
we are, two years after graduation, still living together, although
we’ve upgraded from crappy off-campus housing in Eugene to a
slightly less crappy two-bedroom house in the Northwest neighborhood
of Portland.
And
yes. Still platonic as ever, with not so much as a hint
of change in the air. I’m crazy in love with Lance Myers, my
boyfriend of five years, and Ben . . .
Well,
Ben’s on a rather awe-inspiring mission to seduce the entire female
population in western Oregon.
BUY NOW
Review
★★★★ stars
I love friends to lovers stories. There's already a relationship in place that just shifts from one to another. These days this trope isn't so prevalent with other themes being more popular. However, this tried and true formula always delivers.
Ben and Parker made a great couple even if they didn't know it. I loved getting into both of their heads and seeing how each approached their friendship. I knew when they got involved some of what was to come, because inevitably when you're so close to each other and live together things are going to get messy. At times it was hard watching them deal with their feelings because I knew they were going to make some big mistakes. However I like how they tried to work around what was keeping them apart just because they were so important to one another.
I read this book quickly. The story flowed smoothly and had my attention the entire time. There were some laughs, and some tears too, but I enjoyed it all. Lauren Layne did a great job at pacing the story. It felt completely plausible that two best friends who were platonic for years fell in love with each other in the span of a few weeks. The only thing I found hard to digest was one of the fights because they knew each other too well for that miscommunication to be the reason they weren't in each others lives anymore. If you love well written story with this theme, I suggest you check this book out!
*Thank you to the publisher for providing a copy via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own and I was not compensated for them in any manner.*
Lauren Layne is the USA Today Bestselling author of contemporary romance.
Prior to becoming an author, Lauren worked in e-commerce and web-marketing. In 2011, she and her husband moved from Seattle to New York City, where Lauren decided to pursue a full-time writing career. It took six months to get her first book deal (despite ardent assurances to her husband that it would only take three). Since then, Lauren's gone on to publish ten books, including the bestselling Stiletto series, with several more on the way in 2015.
Lauren currently lives in Chicago with her husband and spoiled Pomeranian. When not writing, you'll find her at happy hour, running at a doggedly slow pace, or trying to straighten her naturally curly hair.
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