Just One Year

Epic amazing college romance you won’t want to put down!

An emotional new standalone (with a British hero!!) from Penelope Ward!!

The beginning of my sophomore year in college was off to a rough start.
On the first day of orientation, I had an altercation with an infuriating British dude in a campus bathroom.
(The ladies’ room was out of order. So, I used the men’s room. Don’t judge.)
I got home later that night and realized that the foreign student we were expecting to rent a room in my parents’ house was allergic to our cat.
So, the spare room went to someone else: Caleb—the British guy from the men’s room.
And so it began…my love-hate story with Caleb Yates. Or was it hate-love in that order?

The guy knew how to push every one of my buttons.
Sometimes I’d email him to express my aggravation and disdain.
He’d actually rewrite my own words and send them back to me.
That was the type of infuriating person Caleb was.
So frustrating.
And…
Sometimes incredibly funny and endearingly sweet.
And hot.

He eventually grew on me, and Caleb soon became one of my best friends that year.
Too bad he was headed back to England soon, so nothing could happen between us—for so many reasons.
I definitely couldn’t fall in love with him, especially since all we had was just one year.

College romance
New Adult
British Hero
Friends to Lovers
Angsty
Emotional
Standalone

4.5 STARS!

Just One Year by Penelope Ward was such a sweet, heartwarming, and angsty new adult romance. I couldn’t get enough of the undeniable slow burn between these two main characters!

Teagan Carroll has closed herself off from her family and life in general. She lives with the fear that she will turn out to be just like her mother. She’s a loner and hard working, especially when it comes to her studies. Caleb coming into her life was such a classic meet cute moment that will make you laugh.

Caleb Yates is a foreign exchange student from London, England and he will be living with the Carroll family for one year. He attends the same university as Teagan. You can say that them living together wasn’t so cordial at first. With time they developed a friendship. Eventually, their friendship shifts into an attraction that becomes so very hard to deny and Teagan and Caleb finally give up and give in.

These two may be young, but they’re wise beyond their years. They were always honest with one another and agreed that a long distance relationship would never work, even though Teagan knew in her heart that she could never feel the way she felt for Caleb for another.

This story was so gutting at moments, but it all came together perfectly in the end. I truly enjoyed this NA story, and as always, I look forward to whatever Penelope has in store!

I’m a big fan of Penelope Ward’s, and I absolutely love her co-written novels with Vi Keeland. So it’s a given that if she writes it, I’m going to read it. I’ll be honest, though, I was nervous going into Just One Year. The YA and younger New Adult genres are my least favorite stories to read, and, with very few exceptions, I usually don’t read them at all. I just have a hard time connecting to such young characters, and I struggle with maturity levels as it relates to the development of the relationship or the plot. This is purely my own personal preference, and it boils down to the fact that there are other storylines, tropes and genres that I enjoy more and would rather read.

That being said, Penelope Ward is one of the exceptions to my rule, and in this case, I’m glad because I did enjoy Just One Year. A big part of the reason was because both the hero and the heroine were incredibly mature and thoughtful—character traits that were revealed early on in the story when they both made the wise choice to focus on being friends to avoid the inevitable heartbreak of Caleb’s departure at the end of the year.

A very slow burn romance, Teagan and Caleb’s relationship begins as a friendship, and I loved watching it grow and deepen. Caleb helps to draw the introverted genius, Teagan, out of her shell, and she brings Caleb’s tortured soul some desperately needed peace. There was definitely an attraction between them, but they stayed firmly in the friend-zone until they didn’t.

Emotional, angsty with a sweet, slow-building friends-to-lovers romance, Just One Year by Penelope Ward gets four smooches from me!
~Danielle Palumbo, Red Cheeks Reads

One thing I’ve learned in the many Penelope Ward books that I’ve read is that the author makes her characters work for the outcome they want, and in doing so, they demonstrate their strength and their ability to persevere even with all of the obstacles put in their path.

With a title like Just One Year, I knew going in that it would serve as a definitive time frame, an end date of sorts for any kind of relationship/friendship between the hero and heroine, and as I progressed in Teagan Carroll and Caleb Yates’ story, I found that my inference was on point, but what it inevitably meant for these two was so much more than either me or them anticipated.

Even though Teagan and Caleb’s initial meeting doesn’t leave a good impression with either one of them, slowly but surely, they form a friendship, an undeniable connection and then something so much more that they both seem to want so desperately but are afraid to get any further involved due to the fact that Caleb is headed back to England.

For their ages and everything they’re dealing with,Teagan and Caleb are far more mature than most college students, and while I enjoyed their rational decision making, I did want their emotions to be more of a factor…I wanted more of the angst that I usually find in Ward’s romances. In some of Ward’s other stories, I truly didn’t know how the hero and heroine would work things out so that they would ultimately end up together at the end, but in Just One Year, it wasn’t so much IF but WHEN, as long as all of the details and options were examined and rationally considered.

Like Teagan, I definitely couldn’t resist this hot Brit – he’s charming, swoonworthy, and real, which means that his flaws make him who he is and these two together are about as perfectly imperfect as they can be and deserve to find a way to be together for more than 365 days.

4 Poison Apples

SWOOOOON! Penelope has done it again! I LOVE men with British accents, angsty stories and college romance! All three together – Heck to the YES! Happy reading book lovers, you’re going to fall in love with Caleb!

Not my favorite by this author. It’s been in my TBR for a bit and I decided to read it over the weekend. Wish more time had began spent with Caleb upon his return to England. It was such an important part of his growth that to gloss over it did not do him justice. His trauma from childhood was solid and ultimately destroyed his family so that blank period of time in England explains fo much. From the moment he left, the story went from characters you can connect with to a superficial story. I did enjoy meeting Emma! And Maura turned out to be pretty awesome.

This is a beautiful love story between a British exchanged student and the daughter of the host family. It has all the feels – smiles, tears, hate, and empathy. Penelope Ward did a great job in writing this book

First of all, this cover… *heart eyes*

Second, I absolutely loved this story!! This slow burn college romance was filled with angst, emotion, and a little steam. Teagan and Caleb stole my heart. I loved their conversations and the connection they shared, the relationships they had with their family, how they overcame problems in their past, and everything. I loved Penelope’s writing as well. It was very easy to get into this book.