By Ryan Kennedy
Rating: 3/5
Summary: Their love was supposed to last forever. But when life delivered blow after devastating blow, Yasmen and Josiah Wade found that love alone couldn’t solve or save everything.
It couldn’t save their marriage.
Yasmen wasn’t prepared for how her life fell apart, but she is finally starting to find joy again. She and Josiah have found a new rhythm, co-parenting their two kids and running a thriving business together. Yet like magnets, they’re always drawn back to each other, and now they’re beginning to wonder if they’re truly ready to let go of everything they once had.
Soon, one stolen kiss leads to another…and then more. It's hot. It's illicit. It's all good—until old wounds reopen. Is it too late for them to find forever? Or could they even be better, the second time around?
Review: This bookstagram heavyweight was recommended to my by several sources. I finally got a copy and was excited to finally dig in..... And about 60 pages in is where my excitement ran out.
Before we begin, here are the trigger warnings: this book contains death of loved ones (off page), stillbirth, depression, and suicidal ideation (with no attempts).
The good: I really wanted to like this book, so initially I focused on all of the great pieces I liked about it. Mental heath was so important to this story. I so rarely see mental health as the focus in black novels, but here it was done beautifully. The progression of Josiah initially not needing a "shrink", to accepting it just to be a good model for his son, to actually embracing the process was so real. The focus on how important it is to find the RIGHT therapist for you was also refreshing. As an HBCU graduate (Aggie Pride), I loved the subtle mention of HBCUs (He and his therapist were Morehouse grads), the black college experience, and the comfort in meeting other HBCU alumni. But that is where the black love fell off.
The individual growth of Yasmin, Josiah, and their kids was done well. I was initially worried about the co-parenting trope, but this was a very healthy look at co-parenting, and business co-ownership, in the best possible light, even while the parents dealt with some pretty heavy emotions. Both Deja and Kasim struggle with their parents divorce, but even there, we see growth and an example of gentle parenting. This book does a good job of dealing with all of their traumas, their struggles, resentments, regrets, and pain in a very real way!
The bad: For a black romance, Ryan Kennedy didn't give me very much black, and she didn't give me very much romance! We got a family of black main characters but really only know that from the hair references, food topics (chitterlings), and occasional description of "Kelly Roland skin". All of the descriptions of the main characters fell short, especially Josiah whom I basically only know was "fine as hell". I wouldn't be quite so offended by that if it wasn't so glaringly obvious that the non-black characters were described in great detail.
And since we mentioned the non-black characters, I was a little annoyed that Yasmin's love interest was a blond-haired, blue-eyed politician in a chocolate city like Atlanta. I guess I would have been even more annoyed if Mark had been mentioned for more than a couple pages. As a matter of fact both of the outside love interests, Mark and Vashti, could have been left out of the story completely and it wouldn't have made a difference. They served absolutely no purpose other than to conjure up jealous feelings that the author then used as proof that Yasmin and Josiah still love each other (not a very health gauge of love).
The romance bit fell completely flat, leaving me to wonder if these two really even belong together. Oh, they have chemistry for sure. Even a very healthy sex life. But while we are going to all this therapy, no one is going to mention how much these two use sex to gauge the health of their relationship. Or even to express how much they care about each other. Or how obsessing over a pair of shoes, and then lying about it, also doesn't equal love. I definitely didn't get life-long commitment vibes from these two. Honestly, I'm not even sure that I like these characters enough to want their happy ending. Yasmin seems a little selfish at times and Josiah's strong-silent type cliche sometimes reads as surly. Oh and Deja, my goodness I wanted to strangle her every time she was present. Yes, she was suffering, but she was downright unpleasant and they allowed it to go on for far too long.
In all, this book was a decent attempt at a black second-chance romance. If you have nothing else on your shelf then give this a read.
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