A while ago, I told my wife I don’t like second chance romances and she pointed out that I totally do. I love Jane Austen’s Persuasion—at least the two movie versions I’ve seen; I read the book so long ago I don’t remember it. And I very much enjoyed Emily Henry’s People We Meet on Vacation (which I see is going to be a Netflix movie—fab!).
But. Here’s the thing I don’t like about many second chance romances: they are told in two timelines. In the present, you see the former lovers maneuvering around each other. In the past, the reason they’re apart in the present, even though they clearly still love each other, slowly unfolds. And I am basically lazy and don’t enjoy jumping between two timelines, remembering what’s going on in each, especially if both are kind of depressing. I am all in it for the HEA, so waiting for the bomb to drop in the past is particularly displeasing to me. Yes, I know every romance needs a falling out in the third act, but somehow, that’s different. I get impatient being dragged into the past when I just want to see the two of them get together in the present. It’s like being forced to wade through a mountain of backstory to get to the good parts.
In fact, I recently did something I never do: I started reading a romance and quit after the first chapter. It wasn’t that the writing was bad or I couldn’t identify with the characters. The author is excellent, and you might read her books and love them—lots of people do. But it was a second chance romance with a dual timeline and I realized that not only was I going to live through the ups and downs of the characters in the present time, I would have to go back to their past every other chapter and live through a painful experience that doesn’t have a happy ending. And it’s just too exhausting, so I put it down.
Forget Me Not by Julie Soto
Second chance – Contemporary
Except when it works. I love Julie Soto’s Forget Me Not, even though most of the book flips back and forth between the past and the present.
Here’s the magic: the past is almost exclusively told from the viewpoint of grumpy, self-conscious florist Elliot Bloom. The present is narrated by chipper wedding planner Ama Torres, as she’s forced to work with Elliot on the wedding that will make her career three years after they broke up. Ama takes us through her daily struggles to have faith in herself and her business while reigniting the feelings for Elliot that never really went away. Elliot tells a parallel love story: the first time he saw Ama, her barging into his shop, the first time they kissed. The past is all about the good parts. It’s a hopeful, sweet story that reveals the chemistry between the characters and I was happy to live in both timelines.
It doesn’t hurt that the Sacramento setting is vibrant and lived in, there are lots of plot twists and a great villain, and Soto’s writing is delightful and funny. If you haven’t read Forget Me Not, it’s on Kindle Unlimited or, if you’re old school like me, buy the book.
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