Publisher: Harlequin Trade Publishing, July 7, 2026

Format: ebook

Pages: 336

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Summary (From Goodreads):

One week. No drama. And absolutely no dating each other.

After graduating college, five friends make a pact. Every summer, they’ll meet for one week at the same beach house on the California coast to relive the golden days of college. There’s just one no dating within the group.

Simple enough, except Everett and Sutton already broke the rule before summer even began… and couldn’t seem to stop. What started as a one-time fling turned into an annual habit neither of them could quit, until the night everything fell apart.

Five years later, Sutton has no interest in seeing Everett ever again. Until one of their friends, newly divorced and looking for an escape, calls everyone back to the beach house. She expects awkward silences and forced smiles, but nothing could prepare her for Everett–still infuriating, still magnetic, and still capable of unraveling her with a single glance.

As the week stretches on and every re-lived tradition, shared meal and outing bring a flood of sun-soaked memories that feed the spark between her and Everett, Sutton begins to wonder if the promise that broke them apart was worth keeping in the first place… and if breaking it again will ruin the delicate balance their friend group has finally started to reclaim.

My Review:

Thank you Harlequin Trade Publishing for the copy of this book.
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Read if you like: forbidden romance, summer romance
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Sutton and Everett meet at a party and hit it off right away, but when Everett becomes part of Sutton’s friend group who makes a pact not to date each other, Sutton and Everett must hide their feelings for each other.
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I love a forbidden romance story and the tension and yearning in this one was done well! I understood Sutton’s fear of ruining the friend group because that was the most important thing in her life, but then she started figuring out what she really wanted in life. I loved Everett as the MMC and how attentive he was to Sutton. Overall I enjoyed this story!