Why in the HEATHEN AND HONEYSUCKLE have I not read this until now? This was so good.

I am not too sure how long this has originally been out but it caught my eye in it’s rerelease and I am forever happy it did 🥹 this is the perfect example of a first love forbidden summer romance. Oh it was so good. AND AND AND usually I don’t jump into dual timelines right away because I find that you end up caring about one timeline way more but this might be the first that I was equally as invested in both past and present timelines.

Darby moves to spend the summer with her grandma in a small seaside town when she’s 17 where she meets Leo, a flirty surfer. She was a good girl, he was a ‘bad boy’ - can I make it anymore obvious? 🏄 this teenage summer love made me nostalgic for high school summers lol

Something divides these two and fate (and letters and a sister) bring these two back together 10 years later. A runaway bride and a road trip is good for the soul and reconnecting with your teenage love.

OH it was good. Please read this this summer / it’s so perfect for the warm weather ☀️ can’t wait to dive into book two. This found family has already solidified a place in my heart.

5/5 stars
2/5 peppers

Good Girl x Bad Boy, Second Chance, Forced Proximity, Surfer MMC, Runaway Bride, Roadtrip, Dual Timeline

Leo and Darby’s story was literally everything! It was so heartfelt and so full of emotion! Leo is the definition of a green flag! He has such an old soul and I love how patient and caring he was with Darby. What an emotional ride!!!

I am excited to continue on with the series... I am really enjoying Sarah A. Bailey's writing!

Oh a second chance romance with all my favorite tropes? Why yes, please bring on the emotional damage!
I loved this story. It was sweet in an engaging way that kept me reading to learn more about ‘heathen’ and ‘honeysuckles’ relationship. I loved seeing both path and present play out in tandem as it brought so much more enrichment and depth to the characters. I am definitely going to pick up the next one!

The book begins with a letter to Leo from Darby, where she reveals that she is marrying another man, who she doesn’t love nor loves her. Soon Leo is at her doorstep, on the day of her wedding, wanting answers. I loved the flashbacks to when the golden-haired and sharp-tongued Darby Andrews meets the young surfer, Leo, in the small town of Pacific Shores, where Darby stays for the summer with her grandmother. Their budding friendship soon turns into a burning love that neither of them could’ve expected. Leo is determined to protect it at all costs until Darby runs out on him in the middle of the night. The book alternates between ‘then’ and ‘now,’ gradually revealing the events leading up to Darby’s departure.
I loved the character of Leo, who is so decent. Even as a young man, his goodness shines through, as does his love for Darby. She is definitely a product of her parents, with her father demanding unrealistic expectations from her. I enjoyed seeing Darby and Leo adapt to their new relationship with greater courage and respect for each other.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I went into this book thinking it was going to be one way, and it absolutely went that way and then sped off in a completely different direction and I was absolutely DOWN for the entire ride.

Cute fluffy little beach romance? Wrong. This story had so much more depth than I was expecting by far. The characters, I was prepared for them to be cute caricatures like you sometimes find in romance books. But they were fleshed out so well and then some.

And a blonde surfer boy love interest? Yes please. I am foaming at the mouth for any man with blonde or red, or even brunette hair these days instead of the standard tall, dark, and morally grey. This one was golden retriever, green flag from day one.

Second change, right person/wrong time, runaway bride, it's always been you. Eating it up with a spoon.

And the dual timeline was done very well, because sometimes that can get a bit funny.

All in all I'm snagging a physical copy of this book for my shelf because guess what, the book is gorgeous too.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 4.25/5

- second chance
- dual timelines
- runaway bride
- good girl x "bad boy"
- road trip
- no third-act breakup
- 🌶️🌶️🌶️/5
- dual pov

This made my second-chance, dual-timeline heart so happy!

We meet Darby and Leo during an unforgettable summer in Pacific Shores. As their love blooms, Leo pushes Darby out of her comfort zone and helps her grow into someone braver and freer. But just as things feel perfect, she's forced to leave him behind, and the real reason slowly unravels in the past timeline.

In the present, Leo shows up at Darby's wedding (with a bit of help from her sister), and she does the only logical thing—runs away with him. Cue the road trip back to where it all began, giving them time to reconnect and finally face what drove them apart.

There are so many beautiful moments: the "it's always been you" energy, the fact that Leo kept her ring, their matching tattoos (!!), and the way he defends her again and again. He wants her to chase her dreams, not the life her parents tried to script for her. With him, she gets to be her whole self, and that kind of love? That's gold.

Also… the spice? It's spicing. One scene in particular lives rent-free in my brain.

If you're a second-chance romance lover, Heathen & Honeysuckle is a must-read. No breakup, just two soulmates finding their way back to each other 💛.

Thank you, Page & Vine, for the early copy!

This was my first Sarah Bailey book and it definitely won’t be my last! Heathen & Honeysuckle was nothing short of incredible, but WOW it really took my emotions for a ride! 😳 I haven’t felt a characters emotions so deeply since I read ALLTW by Kandi Steiner, and IYKYK. The dual timeline was everything and really helped build the whole story.

Leo and Darby were perfection in character form and I still think about them everyday. There is something so special and unique about seeing young love evolve into the everlasting kind that weathers the storms Leo and Darby faced.

If you love an “it was always you” moment then this book is absolutely for you! I’m not sure I have ever wanted a HEA for a couple more than I did for them. This book needs to be in your TBR!

Huge thanks to Sarah A Bailey , Page and Vine and NetGalley for the ARC.

Wow I didn't think I would love this book as much as I did! I loved the Now/Then dynamic where we can learn the characters more indepth and see how their love progressed and then where they are 10 years after.

I am moving on to the next book IMMEDIATELY!

🩷 Book Review 🩷
📚 Heathen and Honeysuckle
✒️ Sarah A Bailey
💫💫💫

Thank you Netgalley for an eARC in return for an honest review.

This was a cute little read. Super easy plot to follow. The romance was too insta love but that's okay.

Thank you to NetGalley and Victory Editing for this ARC.

This book took me on a roller coaster ride. It’s a story of a second chance romance between two kids that had a summer romance. Throughout the story you are transported between the past and present to see how they met, where they ended up, and how they will continue. It kept me engaged, I was genuinely interested in the characters, and the story was very heartfelt.
I absolutely loved Leo’s unwavering love and dedication to Darby and I would love to see more relationships like theirs. Sometimes it truly has nothing to do with love but the surrounding circumstances which is what they faced. Dahlia was also a real one from keeping Darby away from making a huge mistake.
Now Darby was a good character but she honestly was very hard for me personally to relate to. I understand why she does what she does but it also annoyed me at times and took me out the story. I did also feel that book was a tad bit long and went back and forth a little too much.
However this is still a solid read and I can’t wait to read the second book!!

4.5⭐️

When Darby was seventeen, her parents sent her to spend a summer with her Grandma in Pacific Shores, California. She has lived a very sheltered and controlled life, but then she meets Leo and they have a whirlwind summer romance. They plan to spend the rest of their lives together but then Darby left without a word. Fast forward ten years and Darby is about to get married to a man she doesn’t love when Leo shows up on her wedding day and the two embark on a road trip to Pacific Shores, so Darby can figure out what she wants to do with her life.

This book was incredible!! It had the perfect summer vibes and the romance was so beautiful. I loved the dual timeline and the way the story progressed was amazing. Darby and Leo make such a perfect couple and I love the way they take care of each other. The four hand squeezes melted my heart every time! This was my first book by Sarah, but it definitely will not be my last. I cannot wait to continue the Pacific Shores series and get Dahlia and Everett’s next. I highly recommend this book if you want an emotional second chance romance to read this summer.

What to expect:
💚 Summer Romance
💚 Second Chance
💚 Good Girl x Bad Boy
💚 Runaway Bride
💚 Professional Surfer
💚 Small Town

Thank you to Sarah A. Bailey and Page & Vine for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to love this but I just couldn’t. The timeline was confusing at first. The characters were difficult to care about and I didn’t feel like they had chemistry.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

All the stars. I am OBSESSED with Leo and Darby.

I love a second chance romance, RUNAWAY BRIDE?! I cried most chapters because I felt a connection with Darby and not wanting to disappoint my family while also not living my own life.

I have no words other than perfect.

Wait this was really great! It started kind of slow, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about it, but once we got to the wedding, I was absolutely hooked, and didn’t want to put it down.

The dual timeline combined with the dual narration was a really effective way to tell this story - the tension that comes with slightly unreliable narrators made this book fly by. I’m not sure if this book was well-paced or just too addicting to put down, but I don’t care because I had a good ass time. I appreciated how raw and melodramatic Leo’s and Darby’s teenage love felt on the page, and the uncertainty that love developed into once they were adults with a decade in between them. Darby grew so much as a character in both timelines, and I was so proud of her.

This was a four star read for me because of the strength of the romance and chemistry, and the well-written side characters, whose subplots felt just as important as Leo and Darby’s. I couldn’t give it five stars because I had some qualms with how flowery and repetitive the dialogue was at times, because poor Darby couldn’t catch a break from weeping in either timeline, and because I felt like Leo stayed pretty static throughout the book. I would have liked to see him have a similar amount of growth to Darby, who he supported so wholeheartedly. Even with these qualms, I enjoyed this book so much, I couldn’t rate it lower than four stars.

I’d recommend this to fans of puppy love, soulmates, and good girls corrupted by bad boys with hearts of gold.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
OH MY GOSH 😭😭
This was so good I went in completely blind I had no idea this was also already released !!
I loved this story it was so amazing. The FMC and MMC I absolutely loved them together going back 10 years and back to the present was done so well !
Darbys dad was the worse!!! I could not stand that man the venom he told her was so uncalled for.
Leo and Darbys love story was just so amazing 🥹 so real they never fell out of love.
Overall great great read !!

Thank you NetGalley !!

Heathen and Honeysuckle broke me and put me back together in a thousand different ways. It delivered everything I could ever want from a Summer romance; tears, heartache, swoony moments, laughter, and hope.

Set in a coastal town, the story follows Darby, a Christian girl raised within the confines of strict rules and expectations, and Leo, a wild soul with no boundaries and no apologies. From the moment they meet, it’s magnetic, truly an unstoppable force of nature.

What begins as a slow burn friendship quickly deepens into a summer romance brimming with angst, longing, miscommunication, and a heavy sense of uncertainty. Their connection leaps off the page, raw and breathtaking. What they have isn’t just a summer fling, it’s the kind of love that leaves a mark.

But not all great love stories have a straight path. Jumping between timelines, Darby’s engaged to a man she’ll never love. Leo’s been running from the ghosts of their past for ten years. Just when everything feels irreparably broken, one letter makes its way home and changes everything.

I COULD NOT PUT THIS DOWN. Do yourself a massive favor and add this to your TBR immediately.

Book Rating: 4.75/5⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

There are times in life when the world feels too loud, too cruel—and all you want is to disappear into your shell. Heathen and Honeysuckle is the kind of book you reach for during those moments. Because it doesn’t just offer escape—it makes you feel seen. It made me feel seen in a way no book ever has.
Set in the quiet charm of Pacific Shore, California, this story follows Darby—a Christian girl raised within strict boundaries—who steps into a town where happiness is raw, wild, and unapologetically free. What begins as a reluctant vacation becomes the summer of her dreams. The kind of dream you see with your eyes closed, when the real world becomes too much to bear.
There’s angst, yearning, divine timing, miscommunication, and above all—love. A love that burns and breaks, comforts and devastates.
One quote from Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous kept echoing through my mind:
“You once told me that the human eye is God’s loneliest creation... The eye, alone in its socket, doesn’t even know there’s another one just like it, an inch away, just as hungry, as empty.”
This book is that quote brought to life.
When Honey (Darby) meets Leo, it’s not just a meeting—it’s a collision. A heathen surfer with pain etched into his soul, and a girl who’s only ever known control and fear. Together, their broken pieces start making sense. Their friendship, born from chaos and honesty, is the kind of connection that doesn’t ask for permission—it simply exists.
Leo isn’t your typical book boyfriend. He’s raw, rebellious, and achingly real. “A heathen is someone who doesn’t practice organized religion,” he says—and it’s not rebellion, it’s survival. He chooses to be good not out of fear, but out of intent. That shakes Darby’s world to its core.
If you’ve ever been a child shaped by toxic love, you’ll see yourself in Darby. You’ll recognize the ache to burn, to be punished, to believe you deserve less—until someone comes along who shows you how to want more.
What starts as a summer fling turns into a once-in-a-lifetime kind of love... until it all shatters. Darby’s getting married to a man she’ll never love. Leo’s been running from his pain for a decade. And just when all hope seems lost, one letterfinds its way home.
This story broke me. I threw my Kindle. I cried. I screamed. And then I dove right back in because I had to know.
The plot twist? My heart was in my mouth.
My only regret? Misjudging Diane—Darby’s grandmother. I owe her an apology.
This book is for the women who were taught to be small. For those told to be quiet, obedient, and ashamed simply for existing. It’s also about finding the kind of man who makes you feel like the center of the universe—and hands you the map to your freedom.
It’s about reclaiming your identity, your voice, and falling—headfirst—into the wild edge of love.

Thank you for the ARC
I am adding the links of review.

Mind. Blown. I loved this story so much. It was truly one that tugs at the heartstrings. I adored how all-in Leo was and how he helped Darby find her inner strength and ultimately escape her cage. I can’t wait to continue this series !!

Super cute book, absolutely loved the storyline and the characters. The writing style was amazing & it spoke to me immediately!!

Thank you for this book! Recommend it to everyone :)

This book put me right in my feels from the very start. It was such a beautiful read and made me feel all the feelings the characters were feeling and this is why I read. This is gonna be a book I recommend to everyone everywhere.

Leo was the softest guy ever. His love for Darby is the purest thing I’ve seen. He loved her from the moment he laid eyes on her.

Darby was running from so much and she found solace in Leo. It was beautiful to see she finally found somewhere to belong.

I’m excited to read ‘Wicked and Wildflower’ I’m in love with this world now.