“Tracey Garvis Graves can write compelling books.”
~ Under the Covers
When I started reading this I wasn’t sure what to expect. If it would be a traditional romance or more of a women’s fiction novel. This is definitely one that falls somewhere in the middle for me with leaning heavier to the side of WF.
The story of Annika and Jonathan is told in dual timelines. They met in college 10 years prior and we get to slowly see them fall in love. Jonathan has to learn how to be what Annika needs and it was incredibly sweet to see that relationship develop and love grow from it. But interspersed throughout the story there’s also the current day life for Annika and Jonathan which is actually 2001 not current year. They didn’t end up together and we are trying to figure out where they are in their lives and if they can find their way back to each other.
I think this is a great character driven story. There’s certainly a lot the reader needs to slowly uncover to understand the character’s actions and I had a good time putting those pieces together as we went along. I mentioned before it leans more towards women’s fiction because this book focuses on the heroine’s struggles a lot more than the relationship. Which is something I like to read about, generally. But since I wasn’t sure going in what to expect, I think though I wanted to connect with the romance a bit more than I did and some of the story felt a bit slow at times. But even if understated, it was a sweet second chance romance.
There’s also one thing towards the end that I should’ve seen was coming but I just wasn’t paying attention I guess and to me it felt a bit unnecessary. I know we needed to add some drama but it felt like we plucked it out of nowhere. Maybe it made sense to need something like that to shake things up, but it felt out of place for me. I won’t spoil it so you may understand what I’m talking about once you read the book. This one thing definitely brought down my rating for this book.
One thing is for sure, Tracey Garvis Graves can write compelling books. This one proves it again because even though I didn’t necessarily have a heavy connection with the characters or the story, I still didn’t want to put it down until I had figured it all out.
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[about-author author=”Tracey Garvis-Graves”]
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Fabulous review Francesca! Shared on my socials!??
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on it Francesca
Thanks for the review, I have this on my TBR pile.
It’s 4:14am, I just finished this novel and immediately took to the internet to see if I connected more deeply with my fellow readers than the characters or author and this review did not disappoint. The timeline unwinds in a way that you absolutely should see what is coming (especially as someone who lived through that) but the reason you don’t is because it truly did not have a place in this story. Annika overcame a lot of her disparity through the novel without needing that and I truly feel that addition was to awaken something in the reader the author did not. This is not a knock on the author or the novel… it is an exceptional thing to complete a story you have held onto inside of you and I admire the outcome of her work for that reason… I was just completely turned off to the novel because it no longer felt authentic when it took that turn. There are one: the initial tragedy, two: the separation, three: the reunion, 4: Annika explaining and then discovering her uniqueness and 5: Jonathan confronting Annika about her need to empower herself…. 5 large themes outside of the romance story. This is a lot to develop, digest and hold onto in a novel… adding the final element felt cheap and I felt swindled in the end when I realized my emotional arousal was falsely enticed using personal reflection on something that did not belong in this novel (in my humble opinion as a reader),
Writing style is beautifully consistent. The timeline was eloquently managed without switching perspectives too much. Overall storyline would have made it to one of my favorites for the year in this genre if not for the cheap shot gut punch.