This is a cocktail of all my favorite tropes: second chance romance, fake dating, smaller stuff like only one bed, a tight-knit, loving, yet ever so slightly dysfunctional family, and a workaholic learning to open his heart again. And really, it’s all rather well done. The banter is sparkly and laughter-inducing, the balance of storylines and emotions is, for the most part, just right or super close to it, and all the beats are hit just when you need them to be.

I do feel like it shows that this is the author’s first adult work, because there’s just a bit of that YA vibe still clinging to it. Denz, the MC, feels younger than he is, to the point like it almost seems like there’s a bit of an age gap between him and Braylon—but really it’s just that Braylon acts his age and Denz, on the inside, is no older than 20, and even that’s a stretch. I’m also not sure if the family dynamics, for me, merge well with the whole big business, enormous money world they’re all supposedly living in. There are a few bits and pieces there that I would have happily glossed over in a YA book since I don’t expect a YA character to be very aware of them, but here, when I start poking, it stops quite coming together and I get distracted from the plot endlessly asking, “But why?” or “How does this work exactly?” or “Are you sure you’re not all a successful just-out-of-middle class family in disguise rather than someone from the Forbes lists?”

Another thing in the “not quite” category for me is the single POV. I’m not against single POV romances on principle! There are quite a few that I absolutely adore and wouldn’t have them written any other way. But with second chance romance specifically, I feel like this trope/subgenre lends itself exceptionally well to dual POV. Because you need to understand why it didn’t work the first time around but why it definitely will now. You need to see, for both of them, all the ways they’ve changed that will prevent them from making the same mistakes again, but also all the ways they’ve kept the essence of who they are and why they can’t help but fall for each other, again and again, despite everything. That’s the magic of the trope for me, and this book didn’t quite deliver on this magic because I never got to get into Braylon’s head. 

Still, despite all my complaints, it was a rather pleasant read, and I would actually recommend it to those who like the same tropes!