Romance is not my jam, as anyone who’s been around here for a while knows. If I’m honest, I didn’t know this was a romance when I went into it. I had seen the cover around and it was available from my library, and I decided to give it a try. So it was a bit of a surprise.
This is the story of Eva and Shane, who are thrown together years after a brief but intense teenaged relationship ended traumatically. Fifteen years later, now both literary success stories, they are thrown back together. Only now, Eva is a single mother battling a chronic medical condition that often incapacitates her with intense pain. Shane is battling his own demons in the form of a couple of addictions.
Predictably for a romance, their relationship is rekindled as they both seek to put the past behind them and figure out what their futures look like. In doing so, they are both forced to face some uncomfortable truths, and discover some lies that had shaped both their lives, for better or worse.
There were a few things I liked about this book. The characters have better development and are more consistent than in a lot of romances I’ve read (and not liked). Some of the aspects of their characters are a bit convenient, and there’s the usual misunderstandings that create unnecessary drama, but overall there was an arc to the character development that made sense, and I appreciated that. I liked Eva’s daughter, who is a fiery, creative, intelligent teenager who challenges her mother to face her fears and dare to try trusting someone. Shane is that usual misunderstood bad boy character who can only really connect with one woman. It’s a bit obvious, but holds together.
I also liked that it’s a romance entirely centred on Black characters, which I haven’t read before. And Eva having a chronic pain issue is something I liked seeing, because I so rarely see characters dealing with similar medical issues to mine, particularly with her also being a single mother. The book does a good job of addressing how a chronic medical condition can affect every aspect of your life, from your ability to form lasting relationships to how you are able to parent. It’s an important perspective to explore in literature, and particularly in genre fiction.
I won’t say anything about how this ends, of course, but it worked for what it was. I think romance fans will get most of what they’re looking for in this book, and a bit more substance than in some I’ve tried. If you’re a fan of Helen Hoang’s Kiss Quotient books, you’ll find a similar combination of characters with believable challenges and plenty of steamy romantic escapades. It’s not going to be in my top books of the year, but I’m glad I gave it a try, and I think if you’re a fan of romance books with some important themes woven in, this’ll be a great one for you.
Seven days to fall in love, fifteen years to forget and seven days to get it all back again… From the author of The Perfect Find, this is a witty, romantic, and sexy-as-hell new novel of two writers and their second chance at love.
Brooklynite Eva Mercy is a single mom and bestselling erotica writer, who is feeling pressed from all sides. Shane Hall is a reclusive, enigmatic, award-winning literary author who, to everyone’s surprise, shows up in New York.
When Shane and Eva meet unexpectedly at a literary event, sparks fly, raising not only their past buried traumas, but the eyebrows of New York’s Black literati. What no one knows is that twenty years earlier, teenage Eva and Shane spent one crazy, torrid week madly in love. They may be pretending that everything is fine now, but they can’t deny their chemistry-or the fact that they’ve been secretly writing to each other in their books ever since.
Over the next seven days in the middle of a steamy Brooklyn summer, Eva and Shane reconnect, but Eva’s not sure how she can trust the man who broke her heart, and she needs to get him out of New York so that her life can return to normal. But before Shane disappears again, there are a few questions she needs answered. . .
With its keen observations of Black life and the condition of modern motherhood, as well as the consequences of motherless-ness, Seven Days in June is by turns humorous, warm and deeply sensual. – Goodreads
Book Title: Seven Days in June
Author: Tia Williams
Series: No
Edition: Audiobook
Published By: Grand Central Publishing
Released: June 1, 2021
Genre: Fiction, Romance, Personal Growth
Pages: 336
Date Read: August 18-20, 2021
Rating: 5.5/10
Average Goodreads Rating: 4.10/5 (18,142 ratings)
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