Meant to be More (Meant to Be Series, #4), by Amelia Foster

Publication: June 25, 2020

meant to be more About:

My best friend has spent the past several years traveling the world with Doctors Without Borders. It’s been her life’s dream and something I’ve always admired about her. But somehow, after twenty years of friendship, our last goodbye brought about the realization of a truth I hadn’t yet recognized.

I don’t just respect Jillian, I am in love with her, and it’s time she knows.

But upon her return home, she manages to lay her own shocking news on me before I can even form the words to tell her how I feel. It seems she needs access to the fortune her grandfather left her in his will. But there’s one problem.

The caveat being an antiquated, but ironclad stipulation that she can’t receive the funds unless she gets married and stays that way for eighteen months.

Naturally, I’m the only person she can trust with such a delicate arrangement. And I’m also hopelessly in love with her, so I’ll greedily take the chance to fake-marry my best friend.

This way, I can prove to her that we are meant to be more than just friends.

My Review

I’m so excited to review the final installment in Amelia Foster’s Meant to Be series, Meant to Be More! I must admit that this is a bittersweet moment because I have adored this series and don’t want to see it end, but this may have been my favorite in the series, so it went out with a bang.

In Meant to be More, we get the story of the youngest Carlisle brother, Dean, and his best friend Jillian. She has been traveling the world with her job but is finally returning to Asheville. Dean has a huge secret to tell her because he realized this time that she was gone, that he had fallen in love with her. Before he gets to explain to his best friend that he loves her as more than friends, she asks him to marry her in order to fulfill stipulations of her grandfather’s will.

So, the basic premise of needing to get married because of stipulations in a will is kind of silly in this day and age. However, it worked beautifully in this story. I mean, what better way to push two people together that are living in denial about how they really feel? Typical of Foster’s writing style, this story was told from Dean and Jillian’s dual POVs and also went back and forth between past and present from when they first met at seven years old to when they were graduating from high school. I will admit that the present-day storyline held my attention the most, but the past storylines provided a great deal of history regarding what shaped each of them growing up and how they developed their amazingly strong bond.

Meant to be More is a happy, romantic, and sexy read that leaves you feeling every warm and fuzzy emotion imaginable. This book is pretty much drama-free except for their internal conflict about their feelings and Jillian’s snooty mother, but it didn’t need a bunch of conflict and challenges to make it a beautifully complex book. This is about two people that have always loved each other as friends as they try to come to terms with their changing feelings and potential risks to their friendship. You will laugh, cry, and swoon while you read this one. I cannot recommend this one enough!

*Although part of a series, you do not need to have read the previous books to enjoy this one! They are all stand-alones!

**Thank you to Amelia Foster for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion!