This was just an okay read for me. It was a long meandering journey and while I don't mind that necessarily, I do need it to have a point. There was a lot of world building (as it were) but all of the action basically happened in the last two sections. I wasn't truly investigated the entire time but engaged enough to keep reading so I don't know how that lands one way or another.

It was lyrical I'll give it that but that also got to be overkill very quickly because there were a lot of threads that were dangled and not everything really came to a conclusion. Which, if that was the case, good on it but this is not something that I would reread personally which may seem like an odd benchmark but I do think it's telling. This feeling had no bearing on the review mind you since again it was just 'okay' and that is what the two stars mean. I'm glad for everyone that found joy in this but it was not for me.

Was this a messy predicament? Yes. Did it deter from my enjoyment? Absolutely not. I loved this book and it will easily be a reread for me. I appreciated the representation of demisexuality, bisexuality, non-binary, etc. All done well. The humor was spot on and so were the emotions. This was everything I expected it to be and I adored it.

Wow...this book pushed almost every single one of my things guaranteed to freak me out in horror stories buttons and I loved every minute of it. The humor and horror was the most balanced that Hendrix has done in a while and reminded me very much of Horrorstor. Because this was one that I definitely stopped reading an hour before bed just to avoid having nightmares, much like I did with that other one.

The ride was a crazy one and whenever a new development happened I was on the edge of my seat. One would think it would be overkill at one point but it never ran the risk of that for me.it just kept me more engaged for whatever was coming next.

I think it also did a very good job of exploring exactly how wide the effects of grief are, even years after, for people who don't even know the person behind the grief. It also shows how much good intentions can ultimately fail, regardless of the reasoning behind it. And it's something that you don't even realize until the story has ended which to me is a sign of talented writing.

It was weird to go through 2022 without a Hendrix release but this was well worth the wait because I feel that he was able to put just a bit more effort and touch on the novel with it getting pushed back. Highly recommend.

Normally, adultery in a romance is a deal breaker for me. It doesn’t matter if there is a lot or a little. If I get a glimpse of it I put it down since, for me, the world is ugly enough for me to let things like that bleed into my reading time. I’ve never really been disappointed with Sarah MacLean though so I gave it a go. Plus, I did want to see how she would redeem Malcolm, considering what an ass he was in “The Rogue Not Taken”. I tore through this book in about a day in a half and personally I feel that she did a fantastic job at the second chance romance.

And that is what this story is all about. Second chances. Neither Sera or Malcolm were blameless in why or how their marriage went sour. There were outside factors that helped but they both had a hand in it ending before it even began. Both made mistakes and missteps. Neither was blameless for. But they could both forgive each other and themselves and start anew.
I had no problem with the premise of her needing to find him a new wife. It wasn’t something that was plausible of course but we read romances and other fictions to escape reality and suspend belief for a bit of time. There have been fair weaker plot devices used and many that will be used in the future I’m sure. I thought it was an interesting one if nothing else especially since divorce was another one of the driving forces. Which one never plans to find in a romance novel.

It’s easy to paint Malcolm as the bad guy, especially considering how we meet him in the first book. I liked this story showed his side though. It made him more than a one-dimensional villain which is what we were shown in the first introduction to him. It also showed Sera’s mistakes as well in trapping him. It’s bittersweet because they do love each other everything just started off muddled. I enjoyed the flashbacks to how they met and started their courtship. It gave insight onto where they started from, the outside influences they had, and explained how animosity was there to begin with.

This is not a ‘typical’ romance novel in that the boy and girl already met. It’s a story about a lost love being found and mended, which is beautiful in a different way than other romance novels. Again, it’s not necessarily easy to read since there is a lot of hurt and bitterness between the two and a lot of past misdeeds that needed to be overcame. But I enjoyed this story as a beginning to the new chapter of their lives.