Just Between Friends by Donna Small
Second Wind Publishing
Contemporary
ISBN: 1935171909
Reviewed by Vanessa

Emma is secretly in love with Andy, her best friend Layne’s, boyfriend. Soon, Layne finds that marriage isn’t everything that she thought it would be with the guy that seems to simply adore her, and she is looking for greener pastures shortly after tying the knot. However, she also coerces her BFF to be complacent in her secret rendezvous with the other man, and Emma is torn between her duties to her BFF and the man of her dreams. What would you do? Stay loyal to your BFF of over twenty years or to the man you wished to make your own for the past three years?

Just Between Friends was a thought provoking, make you question your morals read. To whom would you sell out or, is it, in fact, selling anyone out? Do you stay true to your BFF, the one you love, or perhaps just yourself?

Just Between Friends made me wonder how well Layne and Emma knew each other after all was said and done. Just Between Friends would throw me occasionally when other characters’ POV’s were just tossed in to flesh out the true character of who they were speaking of. I never truly felt that Emma and Andy had any true chemistry, and I wondered about how Layne and Andy met. I knew where, but I was not sure why he was there given he is such a homebody.

Just Between Friends had the turn-around of Layne coming out of nowhere. Given that we had her POV at times, I wondered why her change was left out. Also, how could she do that and not even try to make it right with the other party?

There were a few other scenarios in Just Between Friends that I could have had further explained given that Emma was so invested in it to begin with. Yet, when her life was a mess she completely dropped that angle and didn’t seem to care much either. Walking away from Just Between Friends, I felt that some characters completely settled, some moved on way to quickly especially because the time line seemed a bit out of joint for some proceedings to take place, and some were so self-absorbed that a complete turn-around made no sense whatsoever. However, I enjoyed reading Just Between Friends because it was a new cheater book. Yet, I felt that there was nothing redeeming about the cheater in this story. I still can’t get past this ‘expect your BFF to do anything for you’, but toss them under the bus when you need to save yourself mentality.