"The Near Miss" falls short of its promise as a compelling romantic comedy, offering a formulaic storyline with little originality or depth. The characters of Wren and Nick lack depth and complexity, feeling more like caricatures than fully realized individuals. The plot relies heavily on contrived coincidences and predictable tropes, making it difficult for readers to become truly invested in the outcome. Despite attempts at humor and charm, the novel ultimately feels stale and uninspired. While it may provide fleeting entertainment for fans of the genre, discerning readers seeking a more engaging and meaningful read are likely to be disappointed by "The Near Miss."

What a sweet escape! I got the ARC from NetGalley and I was so pleasantly surprised by this sweet rom-com following Nick and Wren (along with their family and friends Travis, Libby, Alan and Edie) and all the potential places they should have met but didn’t …until they do! It took awhile for them to actually meet but fate has a way of getting them together finally. I had no expectations and couldn’t put it down. Worth a read if you want a pure romantic escape!

The Near Miss tells the story of Wren and Nick, who after almost running into each other begin to experience a series of extremely bad luck and absurd incidents. When they finally meet on a trip to Italy the connection is almost instant between the pair but they do not realize just how close they have been before.

I enjoyed this book, but the number of near misses and how long this continues through the story was a bit disappointing. The supporting characters of Libby, Travis, Edie and Alan were all wonderful and they helped with the amount of time these characters spent apart. Nick and Wren have fantastic chemistry and when they are in a scene together it pops off the page but unfortunately they spent too much time not interacting. I felt that had we had a bit more time of them falling more in love and how they would interact into each other's lives. Knowing this is the author's first novel has me very hopeful to see what more comes after this.

The Near Miss is a dual POV romance following Wren and Nick as they each experience accidents and close calls that we come to find are very interrelated. It’s a story about fate bringing people together which I love as a concept!

That said I think it was a bit hard to follow and the “near misses” went on a little long before Wren and Nick even met. I would’ve loved more of them as a couple.

Overall a cute romance with low spice.

Thank you Netgalley and Bookouture for the ARC!

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷
⊹ ࣪ ˖ <b>2 stars</b>



: ̗̀➛ <i>”sparks of light faded from
the sky as he kissed her.”</i>



thank you to netgalley and the author for providing with with an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.



: ̗̀➛ <i>”it was eletric, and the fireworks on the harbour were nothing compared to the sparks that now flew between them.”</i>



₊ ⊹.𖥔 ݁ ˖ <b>my thoughts.</b> i’m going to try my best to be critical <s>even though i find it so hard to be</s> but i just really didn’t enjoy this. disaster after disaster kept happening and it just felt super made-up and horrific honestly. i do like the idea of this book in being no matter how connected you are, you don’t meet the person until it’s the right time. i just feel as though it was executed poorly. i found quite a lot of the dialogue cringey for example nick’s brother saying <i>”sorry,bro. trigger warning.”</i> like what?? i also didn’t feel a spark between nick and wren and nick kinda gave me the ick. i found this book really slow to get in to and i never really got into it. i just wanted it to be over to be honest. they didn’t meet until at least halfway into the book and spent barely any chapters together.


: ̗̀➛ <i>”she felt as inevitable to him as the sun coming up in the morning and setting at night.”</i>



₊ ⊹.𖥔 ݁ ˖ <b>plot.</b> this is a story about fate, and how people meet when they’re supposed to. this story follows wren and nick. who keep having accidents caused by each other, but don’t end up meeting yet. when wren breaks up with her boyfriend, she goes on their planned holiday alone. and coincidentally runs into
nick. where they get to know each other well, but in the midst of chaos, don’t get each other’s numbers. they’re unsure if they’ll ever find each other again and then realise they live in the same city.


: ̗̀➛ <i>”how many different ways had wren been in his life without him even being aware?”</i>



₊ ⊹.𖥔 ݁ ˖ <b>characters.</b>


.˚₊<b>wren</b>
: ̗̀➛ i liked wren, she was a cute character, she was very likeable. she works for a local journalist company and lives a quiet, simple life. she’s in a toxic relationship with her boyfriend alex, who controls most aspects of her life.

.˚₊<b>nick</b>
: ̗̀➛ nick is a single dad, who isn’t allowed to spend much time with his daughter due to not having his own house. he stays with his brother. he works as a handyman and was raised by his nanna due to his mom always travelling and he doesn’t know his dad.

.˚₊<b>side characters</b>
: ̗̀➛ i loved libby, she was super cute and i liked her and wren’s friendship. travis just annoyed me a bit honestly. the side characters in this book weren’t all that interesting.

Do you believe in fate? After reading this book you surely will. This story follows journalist Wren and handyman Nick who every time they cross paths nearly kill each other in a zipper merch kind of way.
Their first near miss incident and indirect encounter is when Nick installs a new window and accidentally drops a sheet of glass, and missing Wren before it shatters before her on the pavement.
From there on Nick and Wren experience a tandem of near deaths, up until their current circumstances lead them to cross paths again in Capri, Italy.
Nick and Wren soon find out their lives are even more entwined than they could ever imagine.

This Romance Comedy starts slow but once I got into the characters individual stories and their situations I didn’t want to put the book down and needed to know what the next near miss would look like.
It was so refreshing to have a female leader who didn’t succumb to just words but also the actions behind those words, and to also right out choose herself and her wellbeing. Nick is such a wholesome cute guy, seeing how these characters and their stories developed was very heartwarming.

At first I thought I had a small idea or foreshadowing of what the plot was going to be but I was very surprised by the outcome, it kept me on my toes.
It’s amazing how Inter-connected the characters are, and how everything came beautifully together. I really liked the relationship between the characters, but I wish we had more moments with them together.
There were many laughs and a few tears I shed here and there while reading.
Therefore if you like tropes such as: soulmates, Rom Com, dual POV, found family, plot twist, single dad/mom, absent parent, then this is the right read for you.

‘The Near Miss’ is written in third person, which you don’t really notice thanks to the Authors well writing.
It’s very easy to overlook the fact that it’s written in third person because you still feel like you’re in the characters shoes and experience everything from their point of view.

This book is such a great summer read, it was also a helpful guide to figure out what type of guy I do not plan to spend the rest of my life with.
I’m giving this read four out of five stars because it ticked off my laughter and crying boxes!

This books was super cute! After a while did get annoying because I wanted the mmc and fmc to interact already. It was still a super cute read and now I want to go to Italy 😫

This was very cleverly written and must have been so tricky at times to keep track of which accident had occurred and how to write in the character to be responsible or nearby to the action without it seeming forced- genuinely very clever!
So Nick and Wren were destined to interact in some way, their stories were entangled before they even knew of each other’s existence. I took great pleasure in seeing them first untangle their own story about their relevant parents before finding each other. It was beautiful story ranging from Northumberland to Capri and the variety and depth of the characters was wonderful. I really enjoyed their story.

The Near Miss


Overall, this was a sweet and enjoyable read. I liked both main characters and felt they had good chemistry when they were together. The issue is that they don’t meet until almost halfway through the book.

While the concept of the ‘near miss’ is a cute plot device, I feel it was overused here. Or maybe there could have been a better way to weave it throughout the story that would not have hindered the pacing. As it stands, this feels almost like two books - the first third or so, filled with ‘near misses’ and then the remainder of the book, which I think was strong enough to stand on its own.

Once the book finally got past the overly long set-up and into the heart of the story, I did find that I enjoyed Wren and Nick. I found their story to be refreshing - both people going through rough patches in life, trying to make the best of it. Loved Edie and many of the side characters.

I felt the strengths of this book outweighed the pacing problems in the beginning. Being as this was a debut novel, I’m sure Lily Joseph’s writing will only continue to improve with time, and look forward to reading more of her work.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced reader copy of this book.

Thank you @netgalley and @bookouture for the eARC of The Near Miss by @lilyjosephwriter in exchange for an honest review!

📖📖 Book Review 📖📖 Have you ever met someone and realized you’ve been at the same place, same time and had no idea? Life has a funny way of making things happen, even when we don’t plan or expect it. Wren and Nick are individuals going about their pretty mundane lives, and their paths keep crossing peripherally and they have no idea. In a strange and beautiful twist of fate, they finally meet in Capri. The Near Miss is a lighthearted rom-com with the slightest dose of existentialism that results in what can only be called kismet.

Review is posted on Goodreads and will be on Instagram ahead of the publication date!

This was such a fun, easy read. The pacing was great - I really loved how it throws you straight into the concept.

One of my favourite things about this book was the characters. Not only their likability, but the fact that they were older which is something you don't see that often in this genre. Love interests always seem to be 18-21 so their problems always seem a little trivial to me. It was incredibly refreshing to read a romance about people around my age with real adult issues like single parenthood and losing long-term partners.

The nature of the near misses meant the book was very predictable but I think that made it more enjoyable in the long run. I enjoyed the dramatic irony as a reader. The romance was very sweet with enough sexual tension to make it exciting but not 'too adult'.

Overall, a fantastic debut. I think fans of Beth O'Leary will love this because it felt quite reminiscent of her work.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC. All views are my own and entirely honest.

I’m a massive fan of slowburn romance but this one was a little too slow for me. I didn’t really get much chemistry from our fmc and mmc but I think it has to do with them only meeting at the half way mark, maybe if they met sooner they could have established more of a relationship.


the constant “near misses” when it came to accidents were getting kind of tiresome to the point where I wished that the book would move along and actually become a romance

The secondary characters are great, to be honest they stand out a lot more to me than our main couple and I kind of wanted to see more of Libby and her life.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for sending me this arc

The Near Miss
Are Wren and Nick meant to be or are they a disaster waiting to happen? The near misses throughout the book indicate they could be bad for each other until they meet in Italy.

A few days in Italy enjoying a near miss, and recovering with a meal and drinks leads to them unsuspectingly falling in love.

At the beginning of this book I struggled to see how some of the characters fitted into the story as a whole but as you come close to the end you see how they all play a vital part in Nick and Wrens relationship. Whether it’s Edie being a match maker, Alex cheating and showing his true colours or Libby, getting her windows fixed. Each little near miss makes you wonder how it’s going to bring Wren and Nick closer to meeting.

Wren and Nick are both loveable characters, they’ve some sort of hardship that they’re getting over but come together and create a new, loving relationship despite their bad experiences with other people.

The setting in their home town and then to Italy is idillic, I mean who wouldn’t want to fall in love in Italy?

Such a light hearted and enjoyable romance, nice to read something that isn’t a typical enemies to lovers or a typical falling in love story.

Maybe fate is real? And who knows how many times you miss someone before you actually meet them?

Thank you for letting me review via NetGalley!

What a sweet rom-com this was and I love a great rom-com. Nick and Wren are so likable and adorable and how can two soulmates miss each other so often. Just as one morning Wren is leaving her best friends bookstore and a pane of glass falls and narrowly misses her, The person who accidentally dropped is was Nick. Nick and Wrens lives are interconnected but the can't figure it out. This goes on for quite awhile and then they eventually meet up when they both happen to be on vacation in Italy, The secondary characters were also wonderful. I just wish that Nick and Wren had met a bit sooner in the book so the reader could see their relationship develop more. I did enjoy this book.

it was just not a book i liked at all, i couldn’t understand where it was going and it made me loose interest in even trying by the 3rd chapter, i barely made it through this just bc it was an ARC but i honestly didn’t like it

Thank you so much for a copy of The Near Miss! I was super excited to read it since it seemed like it was going to be a very interesting plot. All of the near misses in this book connected to perfectly and really wrapped up in a nice bow at the end. I liked seeing how everything was related and how their lives were so close without them knowing.

The issues I had with this book were the pacing and the relationship. I think that we could have seen all the near misses for 50-75% of the book. Instead, it was nearly the whole thing. I did not believe in the romance and I simply did not care. We needed more scenes of the couple together, getting to know each other, and falling in love. Instead, I feel that they fell in love with the idea of the other person without actually knowing them.

The Near Miss is a dual POV following Wren and Nick as fate nearly kills them in a myriad of ways in an attempt to drive them together. It would be a great final destination film if not for the "meant to be" romance (and no death). Their lives, unbeknownst to the future couple; are entangled, and they each help the other find answers to life long questions.

This was an easy read, however felt slightly long and drawn out, especially when reading the same scene twice to cover both perspectives. After a few times, I was getting impatient. The book also focuses on their lives, families, and jobs, so the pacing became a bit too slow for me here. Once they had finally met, life got in the way to keep them apart, and again I felt impatient.

Overall, it was a nice read and different to the typical romance formula, but I prefer a faster pace/the plot to get on with it. Thank you to netgalley for the arc.

Initially I was super intrigued by this story. I loved the first few chapters and found it so exciting that they kept missing each other! However, these characters didn’t meet for the first 50% of the book, which unfortunately made it drag in the middle. There was way too many ‘near misses’ and I just needed the characters to connect!

Wren and Nick were meant to be once they finally met and I’m always a sucker for the romance!

I do love a slow burn romance and this was an enjoyable read, but I was still left feeling like I wanted more at the end.

Loves a good romance comedy like this
thank you netgalley and lily joseph for the e-arc
totally in love

6/5 ✨for creativity!

LOVE, LOVE, LOVED THIS BOOK! Truly, Lily Jones hit it out of the park for me. The creativity and SEAMLESS flow of the story was a treasure to read! I fell in love with all of the characters I was meant to fall in love with and strongly disliked the characters who deserved it!! (Cough* cough* Alex) It was such a fun read for me! I would strongly recommend reading it if you like near death experiences and fate trying to work its butt off to get you to be with your person. It also was hilarious, fun, and quirky too! Such a good book!