I was really excited about this book because I LOVED Devon's first book, Bend Toward the Sun, but unfortunately I didn't feel the stakes in Right Where We Left Us like I did with her debut. I loved returning to the setting though and the family!

My Thoughts

My favorite Contemporary Romance Trope is that of a second chances romance.

From the beginning I wholeheartedly was on board for things between Duncan Brady and Temperance Madigan to finally fall into place so they could have their own HEA.

Told from alternating viewpoints readers see the story through Temperance and Duncan’s perspectives while also enjoying all the moments where family and friends keep the narrative from bogging down.

Returning back to the Brady Family vineyard and learning more about the main characters as well as their supporting multitude of secondary characters introduced in the previous book Bend Toward The Sun was not always an easy read to keep track of at times.

Strongly recommend reading previous book for background setup but if you don’t hope like me you enjoy taking the journey that was 14 years overdue as a course correction for this particular couple.
[EArc from Netgalley]
On every book read as soon as it is done and written up for review it is posted on Goodreads and Netgalley, once released then posted on Amazon, Barnes and Nobles as well.

On every book read as soon as it is done and written up for review it is posted on Goodreads and Netgalley, once released then posted on Amazon, Barnes and Nobles as well.

Dnf at 63%. I enjoyed the family dynamic of the Brady family and the flowery writing…which I noticed was a complaint in some of the reviews. I honestly, just do not have a lot of patience for unexplained angst. I felt frustrated and stressed while reading this book so set it down a bit before finishing it.

TJ and Duncan have history. They spent one wonderful summer together when they were young and have been in again off again ever since. When they are forced to be around each other regularly for a summer, sparks fly and they find it hard to stay away from each other. A sweet, forced proximity, second chance romance that makes TJ and Duncan find out if they are each other's HEA.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the chance to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

I grabbed this story as per the recommendation of author Sarah Adler. She advised her followers to read the first book in the series, Bend Towards the Sun, then jump on Right Where We Left Us as soon as we could!

I trust Sarah Adler's taste implicitly- and boy, do I not regret it! I'm loving this series- the Brady family is DELIGHTFUL! Even though the series centers around an established, traditional family- found family is also very profound here.

But to speak specifically to this book- it's a lovely second chance romance. There is a lot of scattered storytelling throughout- but that's what couples with a history can offer.

Again- I am in love with this series/family- and can't wait to read book 3! I'm praying we get a Malcolm and Frankie story... plus a love match for Arden would be amazing!

Overall: 2.5/5
Characters:: 2.5/5
Plotline: 2/5

Romance: 2/5
Spice Factor: 2
Themes: 2.5/5
Writing: 2.5/5
Enjoyment Factor 2/5:
Review: I love a good second-chance romance, and I was excited to dive into this book but was very disappointed. The romance felt strange and was just a vast miscommunication trope mixed with shitty parents. The pacing was all over the place, making the plot so convoluted that I could barely follow the timeline or what was happening. The spice scenes were entertaining and well done. I did not care for the characters as they felt generic and made the dumbest decisions possible. Everything was repetitive. I feel like we had the same conversations 4 or 5 different times, which annoyed me at the book. Temperance was a great female badass boss, and I wanted to explore that more through the story. Overall, I was disappointed in this book.

I enjoyed this, more than the first book I read by Devon, but my oh my it takes a minute to get into this style of writing. I found our twin main characters to be pretty insufferable by the time we finally got them together.

This felt toxic and insane and messy to me. I love a good second chance romance but it didnt quit fit the bill for me,

I was excited to read this book cause I love the cover but what I wasn’t expecting was how long it took for me to even get past the first chapter. I struggled a lot because of how worthy the writing was for something as simple as saying what was going on in a sentence or two but instead you would be bombarded with unnecessary information. I started catching myself skimming through the book which is a sign to me that I wouldn’t enjoy the book but I still tried to give it a chance but after skimming all the way to 20% of the book and still not know a single thing that’s going on I decided the book is simply not for me.

Don’t get me wrong the author has excellent dialogue between characters, even making me laugh out loud during some or even making me tear up during the speech from Duncan’s mother but that’s not enough for me to keep reading. I found the female main character’s name, Temperance, strange. I've never heard of that name and I had thought it was temper for the longest time but after reading more it had hit me that her name was Temperance. I got annoyed at how the two just ignored each other but wanted the other to come and talk to them. And the one thing that’s my fault and not the author’s is that I am not used to reading books in third person so all of that combined just made me decide to dnf the book.

This book wrecked me. I’m so glad I read book 1 beforehand. Bend towards the sun. This is the follow up romance in the same universe and having the background story really brings it to a new level.

I love how angsty the book is, how the characters are so real and flawed and perfect for each other.

Right Where We Left Us Turned out to be slightly different than what I expected. I hadn’t realized it’s the second book in a series, but once I got the characters down, I was able to continue and enjoy the book. The pacing was good; so was the storyline. I really like the forced proximity trope so this was another bonus. The ending was obviously the best part. I found this to be a really good read, however I recommend reading the first book prior to this. Duncan and TJ are great characters.

Many thanks to Netgalley and to the publisher for the ARC.

Overall I enjoyed this book. The story was a little scattered in my opinion, and I wish we got a little more insight into the background of Temperance and Duncan's relationship. The snippets left me wanting to know more. The thing that I really wish we got more information on was Temperance's medical issues. It seems to be one of the main reasons that their relationship fell apart when they were younger but I felt like if that was explained a little more, we would understand why things were so hard for them to resolve and why Duncan ran away. The pace of the story was also a little slow considering how much history the two of them had.

I (like many others) did not know that this was a second book in a series, so the large character roster was a little hard to figure out. There were a lot of relationship issues between the full cast of characters, which made it difficult to focus fully on the relationship between Dunce and Temperance. I was rooting for them in the end though and loved the ending to the book!

This was a cute read! However I was a bit thrown off by the pacing as well as the introduction of characters. It turns out that this is the second book in a series and I probably would have enjoyed it more if I had read the first book in the series. Other than that I will be reading more from the author in the future.

The first mistake was all mine in not realizing that this book was the second in a series; a follow up to Devon’s debut novel, Bend Towards the Sun. This book follows a couple, Temperance and Duncan, that have been on again/off again over the years so if second chance romances are your thing this might be up your alley. The chapters are told in alternating viewpoints and there are flashbacks and retells of their relationship over the years. The book, and eventual resolution, takes places in a fairly short period of time but the timeline can be a little complicated due to the many previous vignettes that are shared. For me, the angst was a little too over the top to be believable and truthfully I liked his family better than I liked their storyline as a couple.

I thought the author could have done a more complete job of either spacing out all the character introductions or being a little more clear of the relationships and ties that bright then all together. It made for a lot of people to try to track and it became distracting to me trying to figure out who belonged with whom, how they were related, etc. Overall I just never got heavily invested in TJ and Duncan’s relationship and even found myself flipping through the 🌶️ 🌶️ 🌶️ scenes just to keep things moving. While this novel didn’t feel authentic to me, there were enough sparks and bits of good writing that I will happily give her next novel a read to see if it connects better! Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s press for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

This may have started off a bit on the slow side, but I couldn’t put it down. It was an angsty romance and I was rooting for Temperance and Duncan’s second chance at love.

If you’ve never been a part of an on-again-off-again relationship, Jen Devon’s Right Where We Left Us is the book to read to understand what it’s like. As someone who has experienced this type of a relationship, this book completely gets every painstaking moment of angst and heartbreak, moments of utter joy and all the little bits in between. It pulls you right back to those moments and does so in such a beautiful way. Temperance and Duncan capture every nuance of this specific relationship dynamic. They bring the moments, happy and sad, to life on the page, they make you want to fall in love.

I absolutely loved reading Right Where We Left Us so much! I hadn’t read the first book prior to reading this one, but I’m heading to do that right now! Here’s hoping Frankie & Mal get their own book next!

This book had all the makings of a second in series book, which wasn’t necessarily a good thing, considering I haven’t read the first. There were a lot of characters, and they weren’t really described enough for me to know/remember who they were, or why things were the way they were (Mal’s “accident” and use of a cane are still a complete mystery to me.)

The story itself was interesting enough, though it was wordy in places I didn’t feel needed quite so many words. There were lots of details included about horticulture and architecture and medicine and charities that went in one ear and right out the other while my eyes kinda glazed over.

That said, I liked Duncan and Temperance. I liked how real they felt—their pains and past hurts were very believable. I liked Duncan’s love for his family, and how much that family loved and accepted Temperance, despite me having trouble keeping everyone straight. I loved Duncan’s humor and Temperance’s strength and bravery, and I especially appreciated the unresolved feelings surrounding her parents—because they were horrible and I would have been sad if she gave in and let them in after all that went down.

As long and sometimes confusing as this story was, I didn’t want to put it down and did enjoy the overall story.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I love the way the author writes, vividly describing places, people, and things so that it comes to life in your mind. I love not just the two main characters, who are wonderfully human and flawed, but the entire cast of the story. You could feel the familial love from the Brady family radiating off the page. I really enjoyed the ebb and flow of the relationship between Temperance and Duncan, I could never quite tell what was going to come next with them and it made the story really interesting to follow. Overall the story was well paced, though I didn’t enjoy the abrupt time jumps. I also couldn’t help but feel like I was missing nods to the first book with some of the references the characters made. It left me with a disjointed feeling that I couldn’t shake. I wish I had known it was the second book in a series, now I have to track down the first! Very grateful to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC!

Absolutely love Jen Devon! Thank you so much to NetGalley for the ARC. Ever since Jen’s debut novel I have been eagerly awaiting her sophomore novel and it did not disappoint. Already eagerly awaiting her next story!!!

2.5 Stars
I want to love this author's books, but they are just not for me, and it makes me sad. When I read Bend Toward the Sun, I listened to it. I had some frustrations with the third person flowery writing during that process that I thought might have been better if I read instead of listened. Well, Right Where We Left Us proved me wrong. Reading was not better. In fact, it might have been worse because it influenced the pace of the book for me.

The descriptive writing style made it feel long and slow. In the beginning, I was intrigued by the characters and their story. I loved getting to know Declan and Temperance. I was curious what had driven them apart and how they would find their ways back to each other. That initial intrigue was lost as I waded through the rest of the book. Repetitiveness made some parts feel boring. There were many times I wanted to yell at Declan and Temperance to have a mature conversation. Same for them when dealing with their families. I had to push myself to continue to read after 20% all the way to about 80% before I was interested again. Which is sad because I enjoyed how things ended up working out for them at the end.

I have a feeling this book is going to work out for other readers, it just wasn't a great experience for me despite loving the characters and setting.