𝐄𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐝 𝐞𝐱𝐞𝐬 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐜𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝’𝐬 𝐰𝐞𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐚 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐟 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐰𝐨𝐨𝐧𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐲 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝-𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐔𝐒𝐀 𝐓𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐘𝐨𝐮, 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚 𝐕𝐢𝐞𝐰.

Georgia Woodward lives by her lists, none more so than the one about her ex, Eli Mora. It’s full of the ironclad dos and don’ts they’ve been following since she returned to the Bay Area after their cataclysmic breakup five years ago.

With the wedding of their mutual best friend, Adam, looming, and them about to step into their roles as best woman and man, Georgia’s never needed it more. She refuses to threaten their tight-knit friend group with her messy—and still very present—feelings. The rules on that list will keep her cool, calm, and compartmentalized.

What’s not on her list? Eli arriving from New York with a new rule-breaking attitude or the all-inclusive venue burning to the ground, leaving the bride and groom in dire straits. Nor does she anticipate Adam asking her and Eli to help him make a miracle happen. Together.

As Georgia and Eli rush up to Napa Valley to pull off the perfect wedding, their old chemistry comes back in technicolor. Somewhere between cake tastings gone wrong, disastrous DJ auditions, and Eli’s heated attention, Georgia starts recognizing the man she fell in love with before. And if she lets herself break her rules, she might find what they’re building isn’t the something old that ruined them—it’s a chance at something new.

Jessica Joyce writes beautiful stories and The Ex Vows is a 2024 top favorite for me.

It’s been five years since Georgia and Eli broke up and the anticipation of seeing her ex has Georgia feeling all the feels. Georgia and Eli will be in each other’s space again to see their best friend Adam get married, and my heart is in my throat, wondering how this would all go. There seems to be a curse on this wedding that made it seem almost like an impossibility that it would happen but that these two would be responsible for getting the wedding planned in a few weeks for their very best friend, the forced proximity of being in each other’s space felt more like fate was playing a role in pushing these two back together. My heart and mind already so hopeful for what was to come. GAH!

Being a part of this couple’s journey felt so profoundly intense and encompassing—from the unresolved feelings to the longing looks, to the paper rings, to Eli calling her “Peach”, and oh the delicious chemistry and messy feelings that never went away… I laughed, I hoped and prayed for more, and I cried while understanding what went wrong the first time and wishing for their happiness this time around.

Without revealing more, I loved this book SO FREAKING MUCH! Can we all have an Eli because this soul mate kind of love is why we read romance. Second chance romance is one of my favorite tropes and when we see growth and development with the characters, that make them even better this time around, where you know that this love is forever, it just makes my heart SO SO happy. I love the found family aspect too… this group of friends was so relatable and makes you wish that you were a part of their circle too.

Joyce knocked this book out of the park! Her words and storytelling are so very special and I am looking forward to what she has in store for us next. She has a forever fan in me—I am in love with all of her words. COMPLETE PERFECTION!

Favorite Quote:
“When I say I’m still in love with you, I mean the first time I saw you and right now. I mean every second in between.”

This wedding is cursed

“Not again,” I mutter.

To the untrained eye, this text probably looks like a joke, or the beginning of one of those chain emails our elders get duped into forwarding to twenty of their nearest and dearest, lest they inherit multigenerational bad luck.

In actuality, it’s been Adam’s mantra for the past eight months.

Adam is the brother I never had and I’m truly honored to be along for the ride on his wedding journey. But had sixth-grade Georgia anticipated I’d be fielding forty-seven daily texts from my more-unhinged-by-the-minute best friend, I would’ve thought twice about complimenting his Hannah Montana shirt the day we met.

My Spidey senses tingle with this text, though. It hasn’t been delivered in aggressive caps lock, nor is it accompanied by a chaotic menagerie of GIFs (my kingdom for a Michael Scott alternative). Whatever has happened now might actually be an emergency.

Then again, the wedding is ten days away. At this point, anything that isn’t objectively awesome is a disaster.

I pluck my phone off my desk, typing, What’s the damage?

A bubble immediately pops up, disappears, reappears, then stops again.

“Great sign.”

It’s nearly four p.m. on Wednesday, the day before my week-long PTO for the wedding starts, and I still have half a page of unchecked boxes on my to-do list, plus a detailed While I’m Away email to draft for my boss. I can’t leave Adam hanging in his moment of need, though. What kind of best woman would I be?

No better than the largely absent best man? comes the uncharitable punchline. I slam the door on that thought. It’s not like I’ve minded executing most of the best-people activities; it’s been a godsend for multiple reasons. It’s just so typical of him to-

I catch my own eye in the computer’s reflection, delivering a silent message with the downward slash of my dark eyebrows: Shut. Up. I’d rather think about curses than anything tangentially related to the subject of Eli Mora.

Not that I believe in curses at all.

Except . . . deep down, I do worry that Adam’s been hounded by bad vibes since he proposed to his fiancée, Grace Song, on New Year’s Eve. Their plans have involved a comedy of errors that have escalated from bummer to oh shit: the wrong wedding dress ordered by the bridal salon, names misspelled on their printed wedding invitations twice, and-the one that nearly got me to believe-their wedding planner quit three months ago because his Bernedoodle had amassed such a following on social media that he was making triple his salary as her manager.

For Adam, whose natural temperament hovers somewhere near live wire, it’s been a constant test of his sanity. Even Grace, who’s brutally chill, the perfect emotional foil for Adam, has been fraying.

But then, she would’ve been fine eloping. Every new disaster probably only further solidifies the urge to book it to Vegas.

Adam’s texts tumble over one another:

Georgia

Our fucking DJ

BROKE THEIR HIP

LINE DANCING AT A BACHELORETTE PARTY

IN NASHVILLE

I need to know what I’ve done in my 28 years on this dying earth that is causing this to happen

I start to type, but he beats me to it.

That was rhetorical, Woodward, DON’T

Clearly Adam’s shifting out of his panic fugue, so I shift into fix-it mode. It’s the reason he came to me out of everyone-he knows I’ll step up without hesitation.

Deep breath. Nothing’s burned to the ground, right? I text back. This is problematic but not fatal. We’ll come up with a new list.

The bubbles of doom pop up again and I wait. Again.

I wish I could say my eagerness to jump into this shitstorm is fully altruistic, but since I got back from a six-month work stint in Seattle three months ago, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen Adam, all wedding-related. This has been the only way to reliably stay in his orbit.

For now, anyway.