Lifelong best friends spend a fateful summer discovering what might happen if they were to be something more in this radiant, heart-clenching adult debut.
Laniah Thompson is a homebody who craves privacy. Issac Jordan is internet famous and spends his days followed by paparazzi. She runs a small business with her mom in her hometown. He runs an international brand.
And they've been best friends since childhood.
When Issac comes home to Providence for the first time in months and discovers Laniah's dream is slipping out of reach as she and her mom struggle to pay the bills at Wildly Green, their natural hair store, she refuses to take a dime from him. And so, he does what any self-respecting best friend would do: tells the world they're dating.
Suddenly business is booming, and Laniah agrees to his ridiculous plan to pretend to be lovers for the course of the summer. Just long enough to catch the eye of an investor and get her dream back on track, like she helped him do so many years ago, he reminds her.
Too soon, though, Laniah knows she's playing with fire, because for as long as they've been friends there's an undeniable pull they've never given in to. And as the lines between art and life—real and pretend—blur, it becomes harder and harder to see where friendship ends and something else begins....
Told over the course of three sizzling summer months, A Love Like the Sun is about shared history, those who make us our bravest selves, and love in its many forms.
Title : A Love Like The Sun
Author : Riss M. Neilson
Format : eARC
Page Count : 368
Genre : romance
Publisher : Berkley
Release Date : June 11, 2024
Reviewer : Hollis
Rating : ★ ★ ★
Hollis' 3 star review
I've been staring at this blinking cursor for way too long but I still don't know where to start. Maybe I used up all my words on my last (way too long and drawn out) review. Oh dear.
On the whole? I did like this. Some parts more than others. And some of those parts that didn't quite measure up (or measured up too high) were, unfortunately, the characters.
I didn't really have a great time with Laniah for the most part. I understood some of her motivations and worries but oblivious characters, who are repeatedly told they are oblivious to their face, are a struggle for me. Particularly when their internal monologue does not align with their actions and they are hypocritically frustrated when those around them go along with said actions as opposed to knowing what lies beneath. Because how can they. Then there was the constant harping over Issac's ex which drove me to do distraction.
But where I really got her, really felt for her, was with the storyline about her health. That frustrated me for her. It hurt to see what she was being told was all in her head and how she struggled to reason and reconcile that with her gut feelings (a terrible bit of irony and one I do not relish and am not being snarky about!) and, worst of all, seeing how this mirrored the author's experience, too. The health care system is really out there consistently letting women down and, unfortunately, that is even more prevalent for women of colour. Make. it. stop.
Shifting gears to Laniah's love interest and bestie Issac.. I mean. Here's another case of someone who is written just a little too perfectly. I have nothing to criticize because he is fantasy in written form. Which makes it hard to swallow. Some flaws to give him layers would've been nice. Too good, too perfect, is just unsettling in some ways. And for all the build-up to shifting gears into something more, all that worry and uncertainty, I wish we had felt some of that when they finally did become something more. But instead, once again, we have sex scenes that felt more for the reader than the characters.
Also maybe I'm just getting tired of the whole influencer celebrity insert trope. Because one other thing that Laniah had going for her? Being a homebody hermit who shied away from social media. Also also I'm getting tired of exes popping out of the woodwork and acting like moustache twirling villains. This isn't a reflection on Laniah of course just commentary in general.
But. But. I didn't mind the writing, even if I didn't like the writing of the characters, as there were some truly beautiful turns of phrase and descriptions woven throughout. And the way the author handled the grief element was really lovely and heartbreaking.
So there are plenty of positives here and I think this will mostly come down to personal preference and, as always, your mileage will forever vary.
** I received an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher (thank you!) in exchange for an honest review. **
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