If you enjoyed Jessica’s last book you’re going to love this one!

I pretty much devoured this one and would need a couple of weeks to recover from the emotional distress this book caused me. If ai could read it all over again, I definitely would!

Full length review will be posted on my IG and Goodreads closer to release date

OH MY GOD! I am rounding up because I had to put the book down towards the end because of how badlyyyyy I wanted to cry. I loveeed Georgia and Eli but more than that I loved how real their flaws were and how they perfectly explained what led them to make the decisions they did before the book started (their breakup and the events that led up to it).

The story follows a Georgia who broke up with her longtime friend and partner Eli 5 years ago and is now forced into a situation where they have to interact for the sake of their mutual friends wedding. It followed them coming into close proximity for essentially the first time since the breakup. With many things unresolved between them they work together to help throw the best wedding and along the way find their way back to each other.
I know a lot of people are probably saying that if they communicated they wouldn't have spent 5 years broken up but when you have such a deep fear that voicing your deeper thoughts and messing up will solidify the irrational fears you have about how your loved ones are better off without you or that you were right about not being 'worth it' it makes PERFECT sense. God Georgia resonated so deeply with me, we are kindred spirits both yearning for love truly. I still want to cry when I think about this story especially the scenes where she was shown by friends and Eli that she was loved flaws and all.


Thankyou to NetGalley and publisher for this ARC.

Georgia and and Eli have been friends since were fifteen. Friendship blossomed into romance but, insecurities from their past caught up with them and they split up. Now, five years later, their best friend Adam is getting married and, with one thing after another going wrong, he needs Eli and Georgia to work together to make the wedding the best it can be. A well thought out plot, which explores how the past can influence future lives, this was a funny and touching read. The ending took me (pleasantly) by surprise and I was glad I persevered. However, I thought felt that the middle got bogged down in Georgia's and Eli's physical attractions and I found myself skipping pages.

It’s rare to see a second chance romance these days and Jessica Joyce didn’t disappoint with The Ex Vows.
Eli and Georgia were soulmates and had the deepest, truest love for each other. I loved how they reclaimed a tentative friendship throughout the book. How they knew one another viscerally, their deepest fears and feelings.
Georgia is a character I think any girl in their twenties can relate to. There’s so much change happening around her. She feels out of touch with her friends, one of her best friends is getting married and starting a family and the other has moved in with her girlfriend. All the while Georgia is just trying to get by. Yearning for love and attention from her father and trying desperately to find it by clinging to her friends.
The relationship between Georgia and Eli is inevitable and I loved how realistic their story felt. They’ve not been together in five years but their memories are some of the happiest times. I absolutely adored the romance aspect. The paper rings Eli’s always made and all the revelations at the end!!
This book was so lovely to read. I’ve never read a book that has such a realistic representation of anxiety and I felt a deep connection to the characters in this story. It was so emotional and I cried quite a bit at different points as I sympathised with these characters. I loved the ending so much and really recommend to everyone!
Fans of Emily Henry’s Happy Place would love this!
Thankyou to Netgalley and Penguin Random house for this ARC.

Laughing, crying, frustration and happiness are all emotions you WILL feel when reading this novel. After reading 'you with a view' last year I quickly new that Jessica Joyce had a talent for writing and this proves it even more. I love second chance romance. Eli was in love with Georgia from the beginning to the end and I was in love with their story.

ARC REVIEW

Some spoilers!!!

4 🌟🌟🌟🌟

This is a story of Eli and Georgia...being broken up for 5 years after a split over job issues and miscommunication they get thrown back together for their mutual best friends wedding having to help with the arrangements when things do wrong.

I did really enjoy the story as a whole. The friendships in the story and the struggle with Georgia not wanting to move and miss her friends and lose that connection but also wanting to see what her new job had to offer. Also her struggling with her feelings for Eli after being apart for so long and not speaking and thinking that neither one didn't want to speak to the other.

I would have loved the wedding arranging part to take a bit more of a role as I felt that was supposed to be one of the big sections in the story and I loved the banter and relationship between Eli and Georgia to take off more as I loved seeing that grow.

A lovely story and a lovely story and ending. Thank you @netgalley for the arc

*I’d like to thank NetGalley, Random House UK and Jessica Joyce for providing me with a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

“The Ex Vows” by Jessica Joyce is a contemporary, 2nd chance romance novel and tells the story of Georgia and Eli. They both met at 15 when Adam and their mutual friends introduced them to each other. Six years later they were dating, five years ago they broke up. The heartbreak lingers, yet Georgie and Eli vowed to each to keep their broken bits to themselves and fake a friendship for Adam. Now Adam is getting married, but everything that can go wrong goes wrong, and Georgie is here to save the day with her lists. And surprisingly Eli, her workaholic ex-boyfriend, offers help too. Stuck together at a vineyard planning the wedding of their best friends brings up old memories, and the sparks fly. But the reason they broke up still lingers, and Georgie has a new life set up ahead. Is there a 2nd chance for them, or is it finally time to let it go for good?

“The Ex Vows” is a touching story about grief, growth and second chances. Georgia, who was abandoned by her mother as a child, and grew up with a father glued to his work phone, always felt unworthy for the love of others. To compensate she became that friend who’s always there when needed, equipped with a list to undo the chaos and secure her friend’s love. Her hyper-independence as well as people pleasing tendencies made it hard for Eli who fought his own demons. Especially when Eli’s anxiety about financial stability turned him to an absolute workaholic blind for the needs of Georgia. Their break-up wasn’t sudden, it crept onto them.

I think the dynamic and aspects of Georgia and Eli’s relationship are very real and honest. They are both flawed and carry the burden of their childhood. They both needed some time to undo the damage before they could let each other in fully. I especially loved the fact that Eli recognised his own mistake in the relationship, and started working on himself. He also didn’t let Georgia flee their rekindled feelings, because she was simply scared. He held on, and that was exactly what Georgia needed: reassurance.

The longing between those two was almost unbearable (in a good way!). And the best part, everyone around them saw. Their friends knew before them that what they had never left, they just needed time to grow.

Georgia is such a relatable character. I think Joyce truly has a talent to take the turmoil that is your twenties into beautiful, hope giving stories about growing-up and figuring things out. Too well I can understand Georia’s fear about moving away from her friends and families, and her sentiment of feeling behind everyone else. I think many young women relate to her people pleasing tendencies which is a common struggle nowadays. Joyce does all of these themes total justice. And the best part, Joyce doesn’t dissolve all those struggles by the ending. No, she shows that one has to simply keep moving, and eventually it does get better. Sometimes the future we envision doesn’t look like the future we will have and that’s ok. Often the reality is even better.

On top of all the emotion and important life lessons is also a lot of passion. This novel will make you reach for a tissue to wipe your tears, and a few chapters later a blush will creep up your cheeks from all the steam. The intensity of the love scenes perfectly mirrors the intensity of all the emotions. It’s beautifully written. None of the more intimate scenes felt out of place.

I am usually not a crier when reading, but this story brought me to tears. It’s a very vulnerable story with so much more to it than romance. I can’t wait to see what Joyce writes next!

This book was amazing and I’m not lying. I hardly give books 5 stars anymore because so many fall flat but this one exceeded my expectations

My feelings:

I felt all the emotions while reading this book. I felt frustration when Georgia didn’t want ‘the reckoning’ to come even when it was needed. I was giggling and kicking my feet at all the cute moments with the two of them. I cried at the heartfelt conversations that were had with each other and friends. I felt seen by both the characters because I understand anxiety and how tough it can be and how it can ruin relationships. I also laughed because there was some funny moments in there. I loved their banter. I was just so in love with the whole story and how we got to see their relationship from before when they were besties to now. There was so much love and understanding in this book I loved it.

The characters:

At first I didn’t love our main girl Georgia but as the book went on I grew to understand her and even see a bit of myself in her. She had some serious anxiety over being too needy and losing the ones she loves if she asks for too much which ends up in her kinda distancing herself from them.

And for Eli he grew on me so quick too. I love him and his lil gold chain. Even though the book was only in the FMCs pov I could tell how much this man loved her. He was desperate for any interaction with her but didn’t push her to feel what he felt. Eli also has anxiety from his childhood surrounding work which also made him push away his nearest and dearest because he was consumed by it. OMG THE PAPER RINGS. Read this book just to find out why I put it in all caps.

Adam, Grace, Jamie and Adam’s family I also loved them and omg Adams wedding was the most romantic thing everrr.

Read the book!!!

I can’t say more until the book is released but omg if I had a book bf list (Like G and hers) Eli Mora would probably be in the top 10. His love for her was so damn amazing and cute and aghhhh. I want a man like him.

I want to write so much more but this will turn into a novel about how much I love this book if I start bringing in things like how their eyes just lock onto each other and their hugs and how they were there for each other in the messy times.

Gimme all the mess and all the love

This book is a second chance romance which follows Georgia and Eli as they work to save their mutual best friend’s wedding following a string of disasters leading up to the wedding.

There were many positive aspects about this book. I really enjoyed how this book explored relationships (both romantic and platonic) and how they change over time. Relationships change as you age and grow, and it can be difficult to accept or face the fact that things aren’t the same as they used to be. Georgia’s worries about this topic felt very relatable. The author did a great job at writing what felt like very real friendships. I loved the maturity of Georgia & Eli. They were able to reflect and communicate clearly. Additionally, the book was well paced and there was some beautiful writing in this book.

With that being said, it felt a little ridiculous just how many things were going wrong for the wedding. It got to the point where I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. I also don’t feel like Eli & Georgia actually did that much to set up the wedding? It would have been nice to have a little more of a focus on that. The internal monologues were always a little too long and became repetitive. I found myself skim reading them at times.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and I will definitely be exploring more of this authors work in the future!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

We meet Georgia and Eli who broke up 5 years ago but have remained "friends" to avoid any awkwardness in their mutual friend circle. They have hardly seen each other in this time but when they are appointed best man and best woman for their best friend's wedding, they need to find a way to work together to stop the wedding from falling apart so they can give their best friend the happily ever after he deserves...the only problem, can they forget what happened in the past for long enough to make the dream a reality?

My favourite quote from the book (there were many but this in particular):

“We can be all those things—good, bad, easy and needy, okay or not on an endless cycle—and trust that the other will stay. Our circumstances are messy, but so is life. It doesn’t mean that we can’t love each other through it. We already are."

Gosh, please can I automatically be signed up to all Jessica Joyce books? This was my first and it is unforgettable. With romance, I adore a book when I can get into from the first page and that's what The Ex Vows delivered - I recommended it to my sister immediately because of the banter and the writing. This is written from Georgia's/single POV and Georgia is fun and so easy to love - what I found especially endearing is she is witty, the inner monologues are so relatable especially in many moments where she is panicking and trying not to be awkward (which just makes things more awkward). She is also someone who is self-deprecating and does not think she is worthy, it was so easy to relate to how she feels as a people-pleaser who often neglects and fails to communicate what she needs from others and just bottles all those feelings up. The character growth and development is beautiful. Nothing is jerky or abrupt and the story flows along taking the reader with it.

Jessica Joyce does this with all the characters though, all of them are so beautifully fleshed out and wonderful and you want to give them a hug. The writing makes you feel like you're reading a diary/talking to a best friend. It is just beautiful and witty; the plot is entertaining and comfortably paced - there were moments which had me laughing out loud, others where I was swooning. I enjoyed the build up of moments between Eli and Georgia, and the changing dynamic between the group of friends between school, college and as late adults was convincing.

Jessica Joyce is the Queen of writing Second Chance Romance trope in my opinion - I wasn't sure if I'd be a fan but the insights into Georgia/Eli's relationship that were threaded within the book were really poignant and well written and the placement of how they would appear/come to Georgia's mind in the book was meaningful. I finished this book in days and it felt like a breezy read, even where the author touches on more sensitive/deep topics and moments of reflection (this is not just a romance) - they are dealt with sincerity and there is understanding, a true love story that does not just exist between the protagonists.

Read this for:
- Second Chance Romance
- Friends To Lovers
- Forced Proximity
- Witty Banter (the one liners had me chuckling away)
- Found Family
- Mental Health/Anxiety Representation

I highly highly recommend Ex Vows! In fact, I am going to go and read You, With A View Now. This is my easiest 5-star this year.

Thank you NetGalley, Random House UK, Transworld Publishers and Jessica Joyce for an advanced copy of the book in exchange for an honest, unedited review.

This turned out to be yet another great love story to lose and find myself in.

After having read ‘You With A View’ by Jessica Joyce and absolutely loving it, I was very excited to get an advanced reader copy for this book. Thanks NetGalley and Penguin Random House UK!

This story is about Eli and Georgia, who have known and loved each other for a long time, but when we start the story they are no longer together. There is a lot of hurt between them and they haven’t seen one another in a while. But with their mutual best friend getting married…they have no choice but to team up to save his wedding. This wedding, by the way, is “cursed” because everything that can go wrong does. It’s kind of wild.

The first 25% of the book —where the story is set up and the struggles fleshed out— felt kind of long and repetitive. Georgia’s hurt and Eli’s longing are on the surface and reiterated a few times, Georgia’s people pleasing tendencies come to the forefront several times too and this wedding…well it just continues to fall apart.

But once Eli and Georgia get to Blue Yonder (a vineyard/wedding venue where they spent a lot of time when they were younger) and start to fix their friends’ wedding, the story starts getting really good. We learn more about their past, the sparks start flying and the story just becomes more fun and also a lot deeper. I really loved it and towards the end I couldn’t put it down.

4 stars! If the beginning part hat been a bit more condensed, this would have been 5. It’s just a lovely story and I think parts of it will be relatable for anyone who’s ever been in long term relationship with their soul mate.

ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ?
ᴇᴠᴇʀʏᴛʜɪɴɢ
ᴀʟʟ ᴛʜᴇ ɢᴏᴏᴅ sᴛᴜғғ ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴇssʏ sᴛᴜғғ ᴇᴠᴇɴ ᴛʜᴇ ʙᴀᴅ sᴛᴜғғ. ɪ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴀʟʟ ᴏғ ɪᴛ

There are books that you like and enjoy and then there are books that you feel so close to the characters that you end up crying your eyes out for no apparent reason.

I am really picky with romance with the childhood friend trope. I do feel like sometimes the author do not analyse as much in depth the history as it should be, I can assure that this book was perfection 😍😭

Georgia and Eli broke up five years ago and have seen each other only a couple of times, so you would think they are over each other. Or at least they want all their friends to think that, especially their best friend Adam.

It’s Adam’s wedding and everything is going wrong so pretty much Eli and Georgia steps in and help the groom out but that means spending an entire week alone and together in the place where they first fall in love all those years ago….

🍑Childhood Best friends
🍑Second Chance
🍑Anxiety/ Panic attacks rep
🍑Forced Proximity
🍑Right person Wrong Time/Priorities

🍑 She helps him with a panic attack and he does the same later for her
🍑He knows her so well that he knows she’s not ready to discuss their past but still he shows up for her no matter what
🍑He writes down all the reason why he loves her for over 15 years
🍑He’s the first home she choose for herself
🍑He makes paper rings for her to replace them with the real thing
🍑He likes to do lists and he knows that’s her way to calm her anxiety down.

As a person who suffer daily with anxiety, I loved to see it portrait in this book and how real the character’s reaction to “normal things” was.

This book broke me. Especially to a scene at the very end where he helps her with sorting through things in a rational way.

I am a sucker for second chance romances, and this book didn't disappoint. It was my first time reading a Jessica Joyce book, and it won't be the last! I loved everything about this!

This book will stay with me because it voiced all my feelings of my own relationship and Georgia and Eli are just detailed, depth, real characters. I loved them. I love this book. I will be recommending it to everyone! I honestly couldn’t wait to read this after “You, with a view”, Jessica’s writing is just phenomenal. This book was perfection.

The Ex Vows follows exes Georgia and Eli as they are forced together to help salvage their best friend's wedding. Having broken up 5 years ago after Eli's workaholic tendencies, the two have pretended to be fine on the few occasions they have been together. However, this time, Eli isn't following their unspoken rules.

I was blown away by this story. There was so much hurt and so many emotions, it was just beautifully written.

Georgia has significant abandonment issues, and this made the breakdown of her and Eli's relationship sting even more. Now, she is seeing all of her friends hit new stages in life and is feeling left behind. These emotions are so relatable it's crazy, and I loved her growth, through her job especially.

I loved Eli so much. His fears of not being able to provide pushed him towards working over everything else, and whilst Georgia wasn't faultless, this was a big cause for their breakup. I loved the way he came back into her life and just threw the rulebook out the window. I was also so happy that this wasn't because of a revelation, but was rather years of hard work and therapy. This made everything more realistic and I believed they will make it now as a couple.

Their connection was brilliant, I loved the flashback moments, and the sweetness, and especially the way they needed to break in order to come back together. They both always loved each other, and it was both heartbreaking and beautiful.

Another hit from Jessica Joyce, I can't wait for the next one.

This was the type of book that you read and then immediately run to find all the other books that the author has written.

Second chance romance is usually not my favorite. Until I read "The Ex Vows." Now I'm a huge fan. Because the way that this book was written, the plot and the characters and the setting, was absolutely perfect. I picked it up and absolutely could not put it down until the very last page.

Georgia was such a fun and interesting FMC. I could relate to every single one of her decisions, even if I would have made different ones. And Eli- this MMC broke my heart in so many different ways, but I was rooting for him the whole time. Their relationship- in the past and the present- was both heartbreaking and heartwarming. The angst and the tension was phenomenal.

And let's not forget the friendships, because those were just as incredible as the romance. The way that this friend group showed up for each other, loved each other so deeply, and supported each other without being overbearing was amazing. It transformed this book from just a romance book into a tender, emotional journey for both Georgia and Eli.

I have not been able to stop thinking about this book since I finished it; this will be one of those rare books that I'll go back and reread time and time again. I'm going to spend this summer recommending this book to everyone who loves romance books.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this arc. All opinions are my own.

Thank you for sharing The Ex Vows with me. I loved Jessica Joyce’s first book and was so excited for her newest. Forgot and Eli did not disappoint. I was in love with both from the very beginning and everything about this story was amazing. I can’t wait to see what Joyce does next.

3.5⭐️

This was my first Jessica Joyce book and it definitely lived up to the hype! Second Chance Romance has become one of my favourite tropes lately, and it was done so well!

It was such a beautiful story full of tension, love, chemistry, spice and the best banter. Georgia and Eli were both such loveable and relatable characters, that you couldn’t help it but fall in love with their story.

I’m not a fan of Single POV, so I do wish it had been Dual POV, I think it would have made more of an impact on the story.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

Tropes:
- Second Chance
- Friends to Lovers
- Single POV
- Forced Proximity
- It was always you

The perfect second chance romance to read in the summer.

Georgia and Eli's best friend is about to get married, they're his best people so it's in their duties to make sure the wedding will go as smoothly as possible, right? The problem is everything about the wedding is going wrong and Georgia and Eli haven't really been friends since they broke up 5 years previously. With the wedding rushing towards them can they work together to fix everything and what happens when there feelings for each other start to get tangled in the mess too.

I really enjoyed this book, it was easy going, easy to follow and had the most amazing hate to love banter between the two main characters (and an unexpected dirty mouth from the mmc). Second chance romance isn't always my favourite trope but within this book it was done perfectly, the slow build up of the main characters coming back together and the way they had the perfect mix of knowing each other and learning who they had become over the last five years was incredibly tender and emotional.
A highlight for me was the way the author promoted therapy and self-help in regards to anxiety and how Georgia and Eli had to learn what was best for them as individuals and how to love themselves first before they could think about re-entering a relationship and we certainly love to see independence and growth in a book!

The way the author not only managed to write a romance but also include life long friendship groups I thought was truly touching. I always love a found family element in book and this one was no different. The way the friends relied on each other and how it showed how friendship groups can shift and change over the years but be no less important was a fantastic added element to the story and can be transferred over into real life.

The only reason I didn't give this book a higher rating is because although I did thoroughly enjoy it, I didn't enjoy it as much as I enjoyed Jessica Joyce's previous book 'You with a View' that being said I would highly recommend this book and cant wait to read more of her work.

I’m going to start by saying that second chance romance is not really a troupe I’m drawn to but I read You with a View at the beginning of the year and fell in love with Jessica's writing so I had to give this book a try.

I knew from just reading the prologue I was going to love this story. Georgia and Elis’ best friend Adam is getting married and after a series of misfortune, they must go up to Napa a week before the wedding and try and iron out all the problems that have come up. The only problem is they haven’t spent more than a few hours in each other’s company since their relationship imploded 5 years ago.
Georgia and Eli were a complete joy to read, right away I could tell that both characters still had the feels for each other and even though there is no POV from Eli I could still feel his love for Georgia, it was beautifully executed. Along with the love though, there was a lot of pain and trauma that they were both working through. This story is so emotionally charged. I found myself sympathising with both of what

Georgia and Eli had been through. I was rooting for them though to the very end. There are also a lot of humorous moments sprinkled throughout that balanced out some of the sadness.

Overall, this was a beautifully crafted story and I enjoyed everything about it. I would definitely give it a try if you are a fan of second-chance romance. I can’t wait for everyone to fall in love with Georgia and Eli like I did.