Lydia and Freddie. Freddie and Lydia. They’d been together for more than a decade, and Lydia thought their love was indestructible.

But she was wrong. On her twenty-eighth birthday, Freddie died in a car accident.

So now it’s just Lydia, and all she wants to do is hide indoors and sob until her eyes fall out. But Lydia knows that Freddie would want her to try to live fully, happily, even without him. So, enlisting the help of his best friend, Jonah, and her sister, Elle, she takes her first tentative steps into the world, open to life–and perhaps even love–again.

But then something inexplicable happens that gives her another chance at her old life with Freddie. A life where none of the tragic events of the past few months have happened.

Lydia is pulled again and again across the doorway of her past, living two lives, impossibly, at once. But there’s an emotional toll to returning to a world where Freddie, alive, still owns her heart. Because there’s someone in her new life, her real life, who wants her to stay.

This is one of those situations in which I wish people understood fiction genres because this is NOT a romance novel. Does it have romance in it? Sure. But this is very much women’s fiction–if you took out the romance, there’d still be a story.

The biggest reason for my not liking this book is that I was expecting a romance novel. It isn’t. This is the story of how Lydia grieves and grows after Freddie’s death. I’d say the romance is a part of it, but it really isn’t.

**SPOILERS BELOW**

The “romance” in this novel comes in the last two chapters. We never see Lydia fall for Jonah. In fact, I’m not sure she really does. He professes his love for her — telling her he’s loved her forever — to which she responds that she can’t imagine being with someone who didn’t know Freddie.

She doesn’t say she loves Jonah. She just likes that he knew Freddie, so he understands what it was like to be around Freddie. IMO that’s a terrible reason to get into a relationship, though there isn’t really a relationship — Jonah shows up to “rewrite their ending,” and the novel just ends.

If I hadn’t expected this to be a romance novel, it would have gotten four stars (there were parts that felt a little sluggish to me). As women’s fiction, it’s good. As a romance novel, it’s lacking.

PG-13 for some swearing (a few f-bombs), drinking, and sex (though it’s not overly descriptive). Get your copy here!

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