Call me naive but I honestly almost flung my poor, antique Kindle Voyage across the room after hitting the 75% mark in this story.

This second chance romance between two former college sweethearts, told in 1st POV from the romance novel writing heroine Kara Sullivan's perspective just did not work for me at all. I don't care how cute your bull dog is Ryan, good bye to you.

I also personally don't like the "book within a book" trope so I didn't care about the historical romance scenes mirroring Kara and Ryan's romance. I needed more time spent seeing why she'd ever forgive him.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Spoiler

Kara, a romance novelist, is aghast to find out that her ex and former love of her life Ryan is now to spend a week sleeping on her couch before their mutual friends wedding. His bulldog is real cute, but she's concerned her feelings will make it awful. But she's on deadline and the last time and Ryan was the spark that helped her write her first romance all those years ago. Of course, sparks fly, and they soon fall into bed and back into a love that seems to have truly never gone away. BUT, at the wedding, we discover Ryan has been engaged this entire time. to the woman she thought he was cheating on her with the last time they broke up (he wasn't, but now he is. And she's the other woman). GROSS. I was so so so angry at him. And then Ryan has the audacity to claim her keeping a 6 month Italy trip she's paid for and planned for over a year is the at the same level of bad secret keeping (NO IT IS NOT). She goes to Italy, for six months. Has a brief kiss with another man and a date, and then Ryan shows up to drop off ONE letter and a journal, and she forgives him after he she misses him in Italy, so she goes back to him. The end. I didn't buy it. Dislike.

CW cheating, lingering grief issues, drinking, fatphobia