After an abrupt breakup with Yarran, Harper fled to London and immersed herself in her career as a surgeon. When she returns to Sydney twelve years later, it almost feels like things between her and Yarran haven’t changed at all – except that Yarran has been married, widowed, and had a young son in that time.
I pick up Harlequin romances to read when I am in the mood for a simple, comforting romance, and this book did not fail me in that regard. A second chance romance, it deals heavily with the theme of ‘right person, wrong time,’ with genuine reasons for why a relationship that didn’t work out the first time can do so now.
I thought this was an engaging romance between two people being reunited after a long time, who never fell out of love despite the twists and turns that life threw them in between. The caring and warmth between Harper and Yarran came across clearly, so that you believed that they were in love even though we never saw them fall in love on the page. I also really enjoyed the relationships between Yarran, his son Jarrah, his family, and Harper, and appreciated that the importance of Jarran’s mother Marnie was not dismissed.
However, I did think the strong physical connection between Yarran and Harper which permeates their reunion felt clunky at times. While it was presented as a sort of impetus for them reconsider their relationship, I did wish it didn’t dominate their early scenes together – their emotional connection is believably strong but gets shafted until later into the book due to this. I also wish we got a better understanding of how Harper changed in London and why. As it stands, the reason why her relationship with Yarran works now is because she learns to trust in good things that happen to her, but we don’t really get to understand how she came to this breakthrough.
Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest and voluntary review.