Music has played a huge role in my life, and in an extremely roundabout way that I probably don’t have time to go into right now, I wouldn’t be an author at all if it weren’t for the love I have for certain artists, and the friends I’ve made through our shared love of music.
But do you know what else I love? A theme! So here I am, combining the two. While I was looking through my playlist, I realized that a lot of songs on there follow a celestial theme, which tracks, because THE FRIENDSHIP FLING contains a lot of celestial imagery (it makes sense in context, I promise).
So, here are five songs from my playlist that encapsulate both the book, and this starry theme.
I Revolve (Around You) by Neck Deep
This song is about how these two people feel like they’re drifting in space until they meet and get stuck in each other’s orbit – just like Ava and Finn. They’re both a little lost and lonely before they find each other, and they find themselves when they find each other.
Also, a fun extra fact for you is that the ‘colliding stars’ lyric from this song inspired the original self-published title of THE FRIENDSHIP FLING, which was A COLLISION OF STARS.
We've come so far
So far from where we were before
And we were colliding stars
On a course that night set straight to Earth
And met in the train station
But I know as the years have gone by that times have been hard
But that don't mean, no, it don't mean anything
And if Carl Sagan was right
Pale blue dot in the night
Then, what we've got is everything
We drift like lonely planets and feel like cold moons
Like satellites drawn to your gravity
I revolve around you
(I revolve around you)
Live Again by Grayscale
Without revealing too much, part of my main character Ava’s arc revolves around how she deals with something her family experienced a few years ago. The song Live Again reminds me of how she felt back then – the promises and vows and trades she was willing to make in the midst of the chaos, all in the hope of getting her loved one to come back to her.
Saints all around you
Trading in back rooms
Dealing in blood and lies to save you now
(Still I pray you)
Stick around
Breathing in
Let me drown so you can swim again
Pull you out
Let me in
Take my heart so we can live again
In all the stars you break like sugar dust
Are you lost?
And what's it like on the other side of us?
Is it dark?
Honey Moon by Holding Absence
The second I heard this song I just knew it had to go on the playlist. One extended metaphor that spans the whole novel is the idea that Finn is the sun and Ava is the moon, and I like to think this song is about that, from Finn’s perspective. I see it as him looking up to the stars and yearning, just thinking about this woman he compares to the moon.
Miles high in the sky
So why do I feel low tonight?
I orbit out of control
All alone
Honey, all I see is you
Dressed in the moon, I know
And I know, if we can ever set together
Like constellations, we can live forever
On A Night Like Tonight by Niall Horan
I just love that this song combines so much of what THE FRIENDSHIP FLING is – summery and sultry and filled with yearning that, quite frankly, borders on horny. I think ‘are we just two stars passing by?’ in particular captures how Ava and Finn’s friendship is only ever supposed to be temporary – they’re only supposed to be passing through each other’s lives. Is that what actually happens in practice? Guess you’ll have to read the book to find out.
Wanting your summer skin pressed on mine
Falling like rain rippling on by
Supermoon, watch it dance in your eyes
My wildest of dreams taking on a new life
If it's this good way down here
Then what's it like up there high in heaven?
On a night like tonight
Are we just two stars passing by?
Wanting your summer skin pressed on mine
Wanna know what your loving tastes like
On a night like tonight
Another Night on Mars by The Maine
If I had to narrow my playlist down to just one song, it would be Another Night on Mars. The vibes, the lyrics, the meaning – it epitomises the feeling of THE FRIENDSHIP FLING in the very best way.
It’s one of my favourite songs ever, by my favourite band, and it’s about that sparkle you feel with your friends; the people you choose and who choose you. It’s about being young and ridiculous, it’s about feeling part of something, and it’s about those silly nights and moments you experience together.
As you’d probably expect from the book’s title, an important element of THE FRIENDSHIP FLING is friendship itself. Ava and Finn are friends long before they fall in love, and the closer they get, the more their separate friendship groups merge with each other’s. I always imagine this song as the soundtrack of Ava and Josie’s housewarming party, where all of Ava’s favourite people are under one roof; laughing and drinking and doing terrible karaoke together.
This one goes out to my closest friends
The ones who make me feel less alien
I do not think I would be here if not for them
See all the nights in shitty bars
Throwing up in taxi cars
Or on our backs under the stars
As we sang, as we sing
What's another night on Mars?
With friends like ours
Anywhere is home
Bonus song: in the karaoke scene I just mentioned, Ava’s brother, her best friend, and Finn all sing Take A Chance on Me by ABBA, and I feel like that song just had to be mentioned too.
A Novel
In this delightfully charming and heartfelt debut love story, two lonely and wildly different strangers embark on a short-term friendship over one London summer—only to discover they may be something more by the time the season ends.
No one would ever call Ava Monroe a people person, which isn’t ideal for a barista in a busy London coffee shop. She’s sarcastic, blunt, and cynical, and her relationships are strictly no strings attached. With her best friend Josie soon leaving for a year, Ava knows she’ll be all alone unless she shakes up her routine. But she can’t risk bringing chance back into her carefully controlled life.
Then insufferably cheerful, country-hopping, undeniably gorgeous Finn O’Callaghan rolls into her coffee shop with a horrifying proposal —a strictly friends-only summer fling. Finn needs a local to help him complete his London bucket list, and Ava needs to reassure Josie she won’t be on her own. And it’s only for a few months.
To Ava’s surprise, their mismatched friendship of convenience becomes oddly tolerable, and as they work their way through Finn’s list and around the sun-drenched city, from rooftops and floating bars to nights at the museum, their adventures—and Finn’s company—start to feel . . . nice. Incredibly, terrifyingly, dangerously nice.
Still, rules are rules—Ava has good reasons for them—and as the days get shorter, Finn’s departure gets closer. Because that’s the thing about summer: it always ends. Right?
Women's Fiction | Romance Comedy [HarperCollins, On Sale: June 3, 2025, Paperback / e-Book , ISBN: 9780063434790 / eISBN: 9780063434813]
Georgia Stone is a romance author based in London. She writes love stories filled with heart, heat, and slightly ridiculous humor. Outside of writing novels, she’s usually swooning over other people’s stories, copywriting and proofreading for work, or doing a piece of entirely unnecessary DIY in her extremely colorful flat.
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