I made a throwaway comment in one of my earlier reviews of a Shinn book that I was noting how often frank representation of domestic violence and those who experience and survive it appear in her books.
And that's not what this book is about. This book is about living despite, but a significant part of the narrative is a secondary character's experience of domestic violence and Shinn has a very clear-eyed view of why people stay and also how people can help. These books in particular are small stories - no one is saving the world, just each other here. But it feels like one of the things that Shinn's stories are quietly working through is "how do we make the world better by caring?"
Also they are romances, which is kind of another way of asking that question.