Cole and Laila Are Just Friends
A Love Story
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Narrated by:
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Talon David
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Andrew Eiden
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By:
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Bethany Turner
About this listen
Cole and Laila have been inseparable since they could crawl. And they've never thought about each other that way. Except for when they have. Rarely. Once in a while, sure. But seriously . . . hardly ever.
Cole Kimball and Laila Olivet have been best friends their entire lives. Cole is the only person (apart from blood relatives) who's seen Laila in her oversized, pink, plastic Sophia Loren glasses. Laila is always the first person to taste test any new dish Cole creates in his family's restaurant . . . even though she has the refined palate of a kindergartener. Most importantly, Cole and Laila are always talking. About everything.
When Cole discovers a betrayal from his recently deceased grandfather that shatters his world, staying in Adelaide Springs, Colorado, is suddenly unfathomable. But Laila loves her life in their small mountain town and can't imagine ever living anywhere else. She loves serving customers who tip her with a dozen fresh eggs. She loves living within walking distance of all her favorite people. And she's very much not okay with the idea of not being able to walk to her very favorite person.
Still, when Cole toys with moving across the country to New York City, she decides to support her best friend—even as she secretly hopes she can convince him to stay home. And not just for his killer chocolate chip pancakes. Because she loves him. As a friend. Just as a friend. Right?
They make a deal: Laila won't beg him to stay, and Cole won't try to convince her to come with him. They have one week in New York before their lives change forever, and all they have to do is enjoy their time together and pretend none of this is happening. But it's tough to ignore the very inconvenient feelings blooming out of nowhere. In both of them. And these potentially friendship-destroying feelings, once out in the open, have absolutely no take-backs.
If When Harry Met Sally had a quippy literary love child with Gilmore Girls' Luke and Lorelai, you'd get Cole and Laila. Just . . . don't tell them that.
Author's Note: Cole and Laila are best friends who slow-burn (like, for nearly forty years, so…SLOW) toward love and yet never see it coming in this low-spice/clean, laugh-out-loud friends-to-lovers rom-com. All it takes is the threat of being separated, a trip to NYC, one night in one bed, a fake blind date for the ages, and a little dancing on a penthouse rooftop for the slow-burn to finally, finally ignite.
©2024 Bethany Turner (P)2024 Thomas NelsonListeners also enjoyed...
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Cruel Winter with You
- Under the Mistletoe Collection
- By: Ali Hazelwood
- Narrated by: Vivienne LaRue
- Length: 2 hrs
- Unabridged
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All newly minted pediatrician Jamie Malek wants is to borrow a roasting pan for Christmas dinner. Unfortunately, that requires her to interact with Marc—her best friend’s troublemaking brother, who’s now a tech billionaire. He’s the one who got away. She’s the one who broke his heart. Outside, a howling blizzard. Inside, a crackling fire. Suddenly, being snowbound with the man she never expected to see again might not be such a bad way to spend a winter’s night.
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Endless insecurities and translation fails
- By 🔥 Phx17 🔥 on 11-12-24
By: Ali Hazelwood
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The Glitch
- By: Leeanne Slade
- Narrated by: Sam Claflin, Daisy Edgar Jones
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Five Years Earlier: Henry Dunne knows three things: that agreeing to host this raucous house party was a terrible idea, that he absolutely cannot show up to his nursing shift tomorrow with a hangover, and that the beautiful redhead in the corner will be sleeping in his bed tonight.
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A Love Story. A Predictable One.
- By AS on 09-13-24
By: Leeanne Slade
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Mr. and Mrs. Christmas
- By: Michelle Stimpson
- Narrated by: Marcella Cox, Ian Hackney
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Original Recording
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There's no place like home for the holidays ... especially for Lesley Carver. Life in the big city just wasn't her jam and now she's back in Hickory Falls, working at the family diner and helping her mom after she took a tumble. Lesley longs to build a life here, working at the cafe, selling her handmade ornaments and ... er, apparently reviving her high school crush on her best friend’s older brother. Only one problem, her mom wants her to leave Hickory Falls far behind.
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Loved the book!
- By Amazon Customer on 11-15-24
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Den of Vipers
- By: K.A. Knight
- Narrated by: Cornell Collins, Hollie Jackson
- Length: 19 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Ryder, Garrett, Kenzo, and Diesel - The Vipers. Their deals are as sordid as their business, and their reputation is enough to bring a grown man to his knees, forcing him to beg for mercy. They are not people you mess with, yet my dad did. The old man ran up a debt with them and then sold me to cover his losses. Yes, sold me. They own me now. I’m theirs in every sense of the word. But I’ve never been meek and compliant.
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Shrek
- By Shemika Holmes on 02-25-21
By: K.A. Knight
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Merry Ever After
- Under the Mistletoe Collection
- By: Tessa Bailey
- Narrated by: Summer Morton, Connor Crais
- Length: 1 hr and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Evie Crowe is starting over in a strange town with her newborn, and men are the furthest thing from her mind. If only the quiet, hulking farmer, Luke Ward, would stop coming into the thrift shop and piquing her reluctant interest. Evie wants to stay single all the way—she can’t trust anything more than friends-with-holiday-benefits. But Luke is in it for the long haul. He’s fixed on making this a Christmas Evie will remember forever. If she gives him a chance.
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An ode to his monster Yule log.
- By 🔥 Phx17 🔥 on 11-13-24
By: Tessa Bailey
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Drop Dead
- By: Lily Chu
- Narrated by: Phillipa Soo, John Cho
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Original Recording
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Obituary writer Nadine Barbault doesn’t mind being called “Lady Death”. It suits the ice queen persona she’s cultivated to survive the fast-paced Toronto Herald. So when Nadine learns that famous (and reclusive) author Dot Voline has died, she doesn’t hesitate to run the obituary…only to discover that Dot is very much alive. Nadine’s screw-up has brought Wesley Chen of the rival Spear no end of joy—she’s been a thorn in his extremely ambitious side for years. But the renewed interest in Dot also surfaced chatter about a mysterious past scandal.
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Clean and sweet
- By Momma Nae on 08-02-24
By: Lily Chu
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Holiday Hideaway
- A Short Story
- By: Mary Kay Andrews
- Narrated by: Eva Kaminsky
- Length: 1 hr and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Tilly Farriday isn’t feeling very jolly this season. Recently divorced and broke, she’s squatting in one of her rental agency’s properties until her new home is ready. The sprinkles on top of the burnt Christmas cookie that is her life? The new owner shows up early, forcing Tilly to hide in the attic to save her job…and what remains of her dignity.
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I ain’t afraid of no ghosts
- By 🔥 Phx17 🔥 on 10-31-24
By: Mary Kay Andrews
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Nocticadia
- By: Keri Lake
- Narrated by: Aaron Shedlock, Stella Hunter
- Length: 18 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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After watching my mother succumb to a mysterious illness, I promised myself two things. I'd find the cure for what ravaged her and leave the godforsaken city where she abandoned me. Four years later, I received an acceptance letter from Dracadia University, one of the oldest most prestigious schools in the country. Nestled on a secluded island off the coast of Maine, it's rumored to be haunted by the souls of the mental patients exiled there centuries before, those whose bones are said to make up the island's white sandy shores. And restless ghosts aren't even its most daunting peculiarity.
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Good but a slight miss
- By Destinyreadsbooks on 01-17-24
By: Keri Lake
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All by My Elf
- Under the Mistletoe Collection
- By: Olivia Dade
- Narrated by: Andi Arndt
- Length: 1 hr and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Nina and William are underpaid adjunct professors at the same university, where winter break is no break at all: ’tis the season to make extra money. When their holiday side hustle has them stranded by a blinding blizzard in the middle of nowhere, there’s nothing to do but cuddle up for warmth and play a game of Never Have I Ever to pass the time. But in the game of love, secrets never stay secret for long…
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A cool, considerate romance
- By 🔥 Phx17 🔥 on 11-13-24
By: Olivia Dade
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What listeners say about Cole and Laila Are Just Friends
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Kindle Customer
- 06-05-24
wonderful
This is a Funny, touching, lovely story. I so loved loved loved all the culture references.
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- Mike Thompson
- 07-28-24
So sweet and so good
Loved this innocent love story! Such a nice change of pace to have a well written story, great narration, and lovable characters without all the closed door romance
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- Jessi Johnson
- 06-08-24
so cute
I loved this story. the best friends to lovers is one of my favorite tropes. I love how they communicate. I am confused though as to why in Leila's chapters it's in first person but in Cole's chapters it's in 3rd person. that was weird. this is a dual narration.
0/🌶
5/✨️
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- Lori J Ledford
- 06-13-24
The writing, a love story without out the bad words and inappropriate descriptions. Keep up the great work.
I enjoyed the story line and how they figured out they were made for each other.
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- merle
- 06-13-24
A Slowburn Romance for the PG-rated Crowd
I enjoyed this book. I listed to the audiobook, and the narrators did a fantastic job bringing these characters and their story to life, and it made them feel real. I really liked Cole and Laila's relationship, and their friendship felt as if they really had been friends for a decade.
Once we get into Cole and Laila's romance, I really enjoyed it. They're sweet. You can tell how much they care for each other. Cole bakes and cooks for Laila, and Laila heaps praise on Cole. It's kind of perfect.
We spend a lot of time in flashbacks, where we see the friendship of Laila and Cole created and cemented. It's really nice to be able to get so much backstory for both of our main characters. I do wish that the characterizations were a little deeper, though. Cole is the ever competent man, and Laila is the adorkable girl who's main trait is that she's clumsy. But, they're both very likable characters, and I give many kudos to writing Cole as kind and caring, instead of as a smarmy, smug grump so many other books in this genre are fond of. Cole, being kind, and especially given that he loves to cook, is a breath of fresh air in the genre.
My one real critique of the book would be that "slowburn" is a very apt, perhaps too apt, description of this book. They don't even begin to question their feelings or their physical attraction to each other until we're halfway through the book. The first half is interesting, don't get me wrong. It deals with Cole feeling betrayed and he and Laila going to NYC. However, before the halfway point, there is very little, if any, build up to any romance or even any attraction. It is really only once we cross the halfway point that one of the characters, and basically only as a pure thought experiment, brings up whether not they'd work romantically.
I don't need a book to have sex scenes (this book has none, and is in fact incredibly PG-rated throughout), but the two main characters should feel a little physical attraction to each other. It's the basis of most relationships (in the beginning, at least, and not including asexual people, obvs, etc). The two characters had a lot of emotional connection, whether friendly or romantic, but honestly they had very little physical connection. And perhaps that was a drawback to writing the story so "clean". As I said, it doesn't have any sexual tension, or even mention of it. And not having a sex scene is perfectly fine! However, the author over-corrected. There's near zero mention of any kind of physical attraction at all. Near the end, there are mentions that Cole looks at Laila's legs, but again, it's near the very end of the book and bit late.
*I just went back and read the description again, and saw that this is filed under "Clean and Wholesome Romance". And it definitely is! I didn't realize that, but again, spice is not a must for me. But even being clean and wholesome, you've gotta at least have some sort of physical attraction going! "She smiled, and his stomach turned upside down. Since when did that happen?" -- I wrote that, and even small things like that would've gone a long way, but still stayed clean.
This book had some really great stuff just under the surface. I do wish we spent a lot less time on pop-culture references, and more time on the actual characters. One particularly egregious scene has Laila and Cole walking around NYC, and there will be a paragraph explaining how they arrived at a new spot (either walking or by subway), and then a page and a half of Laila recounting the scene from a movie that used that spot. And then another paragraph of them walking to another street corner, and then another full page giving the synopsis of another movie. It happens 4 or 5 times in a row. I get that Laila really likes Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, but I'm not trying to read the wiki for Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan; I'm trying to read about Laila and Cole.
A lot of the book is almost circular. They think about the relationship, and then they think about those thoughts. And they talk about the relationship, and then they talk about the talk they just had, and they talk about wanting to talk about that talk. Also, Laila's chapters are in first person, and Cole's are in third person. It's not immersion breaking, but it's odd and noticeable.
I say this, but I did read the book in 2 days. The anticipation of the very, very slow slowburn had me on edge. I had to find out if and when they were going to kiss! I had to find out their happy ending. I had to find out what really happened with those contracts that left Cole with nothing. There's a lot here that could have made this book really amazing. I just don't think it was executed to the fullest.
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- Erin
- 07-19-24
Meh…
This was a “meh” read for me. I listened to it on audiobook, and I wonder if I would’ve enjoyed it more if I had actually *read* it… The audio version was not great. I think it may have made me dislike the characters more based on the narrators’ voice acting. Bleh.
It’s a clean romance, but the characters did not totally seem realistic to me. And they honestly kind of annoyed me (especially Laila). She was a bit cringe. 😬
I gave it a 3 because there were some cute moments - but mostly because there were some good, nostalgic pop culture references. I think that’s why I stuck it out. And because I WANTED to like it. And because the cover art is good. 😂 Apparently, you can’t judge a book by its cover even when the cover is really pretty!
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