Here’s the thing: I usually think Harper Bliss’s writing is great. A Breathless Place was one of the best books I read this year. And I probably need to acknowledge that age gap romance, especially one with a gap of nearly 20 years, is not something I particularly enjoy and that probably colors my view of Nothing Heals Me Like You Do. But this...this didn't feel like Bliss.

 

Justine is 54, a workaholic who is shaped by a traumatic past. We get to read all about how much it affected her, how much the community respects her for it, how selfless and dedicated and caring she is, but I didn’t really see it. There’s no explanation of what she went through other than brief mentions that her parents kicked her out when she came out to them as a teen, and that she lived on the streets before founding a homeless shelter for queer teens where she still works. There’s not even an expositional conversation where we find out what she went through with any substance, but we’re supposed to believe that she was impacted by this past to such an extreme that she neglects nearly every part of her life other than the shelter, where she can save kids from the same fate. 

 

Sienna is 20-ish years her junior, a famous actress with famous parents who is as surprisingly down to Earth as every other love interest actress in every other romance novel. She’s playing Justine’s former girlfriend in a biopic film about her life, and…well, that’s all I really got from her character. For some reason when Justine flirts with her the very first day they meet she runs with it and they hop into bed, and then do it again…and again. Other than that I didn’t see any real connection between the two women, and I just did not get what either of them saw in each other beyond their bedroom chemistry. 

 

They have a tiff because Justine isn’t there for Sienna at a crucial time, and she didn’t even tell her because she was so caught up in an emergency at the shelter that she couldn’t be bothered. When Sienna broke up with her because of it I didn’t even care if they got back together. The whole story felt flat and rushed, the characters shallow without any real diving into what made them who they are, and I ended it thinking “what the hell was that?”