ARC BOOK REIVEW

A Forty Year Kiss by Nickolas Butler
4 STARS

Thank you, Sourcebooks Landmark, for the #free eARC of this book!

SYNOPSIS: “Charlie and Vivian parted ways after just four years of marriage. Too many problems, too many struggles, even though the love didn't quite die. When Charlie returns to Wisconsin forty years later, he's not sure what he'll find. He is sure of one thing -- he must try to reconnect with Vivian to pick up the broken pieces of their past. But forty years is a long time. It's forty years of other relationships, forty years of building new lives, and forty years of long-held regrets, mistakes, and painful secrets.

A brave and triumphant exploration of redemption and sunset triumph, A Forty Year Kiss is a once-in-a-lifetime love story, written with dazzling lyricism and remarkable clarity of spirit, from a celebrated author at the top of his game. It's a literary valentine that promises to be a love story for the ages.”

REVIEW: This is the first novel I’ve read by Butler, and it will not be the last! It is a story of love, hope, stubbornness, and optimism. I love a second chance love story!

At its heart, this book is a sweet and engaging love story, and I found myself rooting for both Charlie and Vivian. I enjoyed seeing them come back together and grow both apart and together throughout the story.
Though the story has a happy ending, it lacks some of the drama I anticipated. It touches on the challenges older couples face when rekindling past relationships but resolves too easily. Still, Butler’s storytelling is strong, and the book is an enjoyable read.

Publisher: Sourcebooks
Pub date: OUT NOW!

Really love Nikolas Butler in general! This was a slow (in a good way) and gentle novel about second chances. It's lovely and heartfelt.

A Forty Year Kiss is a senior romance, I guess you could say. The concept is interesting. At the beginning of the story Charlie is reconnecting with Vivian, who was his wife some forty years ago. They were both kids when they married and it didn't last long, mostly because of his actions, he will admit. But Charlie has been thinking about Vivian, and wants to reach out, see how she is.

For her part, Vivian's life hasn't been easy. There was another long-term marriage after Charlie, but not one that could be termed successful, or even happy. The one good result to come from the marriage was her daughter Melissa and her two granddaughters.

This was a well written book but moved very slowly, just like real life, I guess. I read it during a time of (for me) depressing headlines in the news every day, so the real-life predictability was kind of a balm for all the over-the-top news I was reading. I can't say this was an exciting story, but it was a sweet story about average every-day people, their struggles and their small triumphs. It was nice to read about someone who learns from past mistakes and changes for the better. This was a 3.5 star read for me. Rounding up.

Thank you to NetGalley, Sourcebooks Landmark, and Nickolas Butler for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I love Nickolas Butler’s books and this newest one is a positive, layered, perfectly slow burn love story. Charlie and Vivian were married 40 years ago, but divorced. When their lives come back together, they are wiser, more beaten up, more grateful, and more prepared for the ups and downs of love and life.

Butler writes the big things into the small things in such an organic way, like you could feel yourself in a particular moment. I love how strongly Butler connects the characters to their geographical place and to the natural world. Loved the ending too.

“Sometimes, she realized, it is too late to properly acknowledge the good fortune of generosity and kindness, but it is never too late to try to duplicate such acts, to multiply them, like a family growing larger, like a grand old tree branching out to embrace the sun’s good light.”

Thank you to @netgalley and @bookmarked for the advance copy of this book!

**** SPOILER WARNING****




I received this book from NetGalley (thank you, NetGalley!) Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to write my review before publication, so I'm leaving it now.

This book had a great deal of potential, but it lacked depth and clarity. I found it incredibly hard to believe that the main characters could instantly fall in love again, so easily & with no hesitation, 40 years after a relatively abrupt split, caused by financial issues and toxic behaviour like alcohol abuse. Humans are complicated with messy emotions, and the most we got was Vivian (the FMC) being upset that Charlie (MMC) had no memories of their marriage or her, in his home. Also, there is an error in the plot. At the start of the book, it says that she left him, but towards the end, we're told that he left her. I have no idea which it is because the author doesn't delve into what happened at the time of the split. Not the feelings at the time, not how it all happened, not what they did or where they went. Nothing.

After reading through about 80% of the book, when they are 6+ months into their relationship, she reveals to him that her daughter, whom he met, is not her only child. They also had a daughter together & after such a revelation? He accepts it. He wasn't upset that she didn't tell him sooner, he didn't resent her at all, just nothing. He cried because he couldn't be there for them and because he was happy. She had more of a reaction over the photos than he had to finding out he had a 40-year-old daughter. The one thing I enjoyed was how Charlie nurtured and grew the relationships with both daughters and granddaughters. But for two characters who were the love of each other's lives, everything was incredibly surface-level. I kept waiting for something to happen, and it never did. Overall, I was left feeling underwhelmed and unfortunately wouldn't recommend this book.

“At least a person could be proud of their scar. At least the scar was a story that might be shared. Some of the worst scars we inflict upon one another, he realized were the invisible ones.”

Being a Wisconsin girl, I had to pick up this one set in the northwestern part of my state by a WI author. It’s a second chance love story set forty years after their first try, and, as you know, second chance love is my favorite trope.

Vivian and Charlie both have a lot of growth to do – together and individually. Charlie has demons that cost him his marriage to Vivian the first time around. Namely his addiction to alcohol. However, Vivian is not innocent in the downfall of their marriage either. She is insecure and often makes comments that are hurtful, annoying and backhanded instead of directly addressing an issue.

I appreciated the character growth throughout the story though I feel like we saw more in Charlie than in Vivian. Unfortunately, she never stopped annoying me. Additionally, I was disappointed how lightly alcoholism was depicted. When Charlie made the decision to stop drinking, it felt too easy and trivialized for me.

Lastly, this one does not have quotation marks! I don’t recall reading a book without them before, but I realized that it is very frustrating for me. It took a lot of focus and energy to determine what was dialog and what was inner monolog.

Overall, while this book was a great look at second chance love, it was a bit underwhelming for me. I kept waiting for something and it never happened.

*Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks for an advanced copy of A Forty Year Kiss in exchange for an honest review.*

Charlie and Vivian were married too young, divorced by their mid 20s and reuniting forty years later after traveling separate paths. Their slow rekindling is a sweet and honest meditation on second chances, soulmates, addiction, the sacrifices one makes for those they love.

I inhaled this book in an afternoon - sighing and laughing out loud, tearing up at the tenderness and vulnerability that takes Charlie and Vivian so long to trust each other, and themselves, to reveal. What a lovely story.

I enjoyed the story and the growth in the characters. They both dealt with old baggage, but obviously matured a lot in their 40 years apart. The lack of quotation marks damn near drove me crazy and made it more difficult to read. The first chapter almost made me put the book down because it was such an aggressive feeling start to the book, but I'm glad I kept going. The ending felt a bit strange too, but not bad. There was a lot of understanding, love, and acceptance between the characters, and a real rawness to their strengths and flaws. Overall I enjoyed the nuances of each character and the feelings of empathy and understanding I garnered from their experiences.

The award-winning writer Nickolas Butler overheard the characters for his latest novel in a Wisconsin bar. In fact, he called into a Zoom conversation with the Cap Times from that very same bar in Chippewa Falls.

“I didn’t mean to be gimmicky,” he said. “I was just here to talk about a book event with the owner.”

Butler has been writing since he was in middle school. In his early twenties, after his father had a life-threatening aneurysm, he got serious about it. He graduated from the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop with a Master of Fine Arts degree in fiction and his debut novel, “Shotgun Lovesongs,” sold to St. Martin’s Press, quickly becoming a national bestseller.

That book, as well as his newest work, “A Forty Year Kiss,” takes place in Wisconsin’s Chippewa Valley, which is where Butler grew up and where he now lives.

“A Forty Year Kiss” will be published by Sourcebooks Landmark on Feb. 4. Butler will read from it on Tuesday, Feb. 18 at Madison’s Central Library as part of the Wisconsin Book Festival.

“A Forty Year Kiss” took root when Butler overheard an elderly couple reconnecting for the first time in what seemed to be about 40 years. This was Sept. 22, 2022. Butler was “just sitting at the bar, minding my own business” when he heard the man ask the woman, “I still dream about you. Can I kiss you?”

Butler says a lot of the dialogue in the early chapters was written “somewhat verbatim” from what he heard at the bar that night.

“It was so lovely and unexpected,” he said. “I was sitting there and I thought … the cosmos has delivered this thing to me. They literally set it in my lap.”

Butler has written in a range of genres about friendship, faith, adulthood and, most recently before “A Forty Year Kiss,” a literary thriller called “Godspeed” involving a trio of contractors in Wyoming, racing to complete a house by an impossible deadline. That book involves drug abuse and “the dark side of the American dream.”

“I’ve been really fortunate in my career to not be hemmed in by a certain genre,” he said. “Forty Year Kiss” is his first love story. “Love is prominent in many of my books, but not like this.”

Butler wanted to write about “old love.” The story centers on Charlie and Vivian, married until Charlie’s alcohol abuse drove them apart. Now, 40 years later, he’s a changed man, hoping to win back his long-lost love.

The story is caught between the characters’ memories and their present moment, weaving perspectives and timelines elegantly. Butler mentioned his father’s aneurysm as an inspiration for both the subject matter and the nonlinear narrative.

“That event left me feeling like all this is ephemeral,” he said. “I think about time a lot. I really don't take anything for granted.”

Really loved this! Read the full interview here: https://captimes.com/entertainment/books/strangers-in-a-wisconsin-bar-inspired-nickolas-butler-s-new-novel/article_a3fbfef2-e024-11ef-a0ad-efa194590fbb.html

A slow burn second chance romance set in the Midwest. I just couldn't root for these two to get back together. Charlie and Vivian broke up the first time because of Charlie's drinking problem and anger issues. Over 40 years they have been apart it doesn't seem like he has worked on either, except now he is rich. The speed at which he wants to move the relationship forward and the way he uses his money felt like love-bombing. Everything is told from Charlie's pov, which is interesting in how it shows how an alcoholic thinks it's none of it is really that bad. In the end, Charlie gets everything he wants, and Vivians desires are never explored.

I will keep this short and sweet, because I don't have too much to say about this one. I tried my best to like it and care about the story, but I just couldn't. The thought of the second chance romance between Charlie and Vivian made me request this book, but while reading it, I was a bit disappointed with the execution. I went through the whole book wondering when something would actually happen, and nothing really did, and when the one major point of this book happened, I had already guessed it long before it was revealed, so it wasn't even a surprise and I still didn't really care about it. Everything was just so monotone throughout the whole book.

Charlie was just terrible. I couldn't root for him and Vivian and very much just wanted Vivian to leave him and be with someone else, because she deserved better. But then again, Vivian was also a mess and I didn't want to root for her either. Their first marriage ended because of Charlie's alcoholism, his anger issues, and the way that he treated her when they were together, and Vivian was very willing to get back together with Charlie even after everything, even though he hadn't proven himself that he had actually gotten any better. There were even times when he still drank more than he should have and his anger came out, but Vivian was still all for it. Plus, the book is told from the POV of Charlie and it seemed like most of his perspective was told in a constant sexual nature. Instead of actually seeing an emotional connection between the two, I really only feel like the connection was just sexual.

Thank you to Sourcebooks, Nickolas Butler, and NetGalley for the eARC of this book. This is my honest opinion.

Title: A Forty Year Kiss
Author: Nickolas Butler
Genre: Romance
Rating: 3.75
Pub Date: February, 4 2025

I received complimentary eARC and ALC copies from Sourcebooks and RBmedia via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. #Gifted

T H R E E • W O R D S

Fresh • Clear • Gentle

📖 S Y N O P S I S

Charlie and Vivian parted ways after just four years of marriage. Too many problems, too many struggles, even though the love didn't quite die. When Charlie returns to Wisconsin forty years later, he's not sure what he'll find. He is sure of one thing -- he must try to reconnect with Vivian to pick up the broken pieces of their past. But forty years is a long time. It's forty years of other relationships, forty years of building new lives, and forty years of long-held regrets, mistakes, and painful secrets.

💭 T H O U G H T S

I was offered an ARC of A Forty Year Kiss and accepted the opportunity solely based on the cover. It was a bonus to be granted access to an ALC as well, so I was able to tandem read. I went in basically blind, knowing only it featured older main characters were older (one of my favourite micro tropes).

Told from both Charlie and Vivian's perspectives, this is a story of redemption, forgiveness, painful secrets, nostalgia, and second chances. The main characters are both equally flawed with their own baggage, which felt relatable. I greatly appreciated the sobriety storyline and getting a glimpse into some of Wisconsin's best spots.

This book lacks quotation marks (a pet peeve of mine and somehow the second book in a row I read without them). I cannot figure out the reasoning why the author would choose this route, as there is a lot of dialogue. The failure to indicate when someone is talking made for a very clunky experience, and I eventually switched solely to listening for a more seamlessly reading journey. The use of so much dialogue also meant, the characters weren't developed as much as I would have liked.

The audio, narrated by Richard Poe, offered an authentic and mellow tone for Charlie. I thought he did a fantastic job of bringing his character to life with authenticity. However, Poe narrates Vivian's perspective as well, and that felt completely wrong. This is definitely one of those cases where dual narration was needed and would have made for a more realistic relationship.

A Forty Year Kiss was a heartwarming story filled with many hard moments and the need for open communication. While I personally enjoyed the concept, there were definitely some flaws in the execution. It's one of those book I would anticipate having vary polarizing opinions. If older characters are not your jam, you won't enjoy it that's for sure.

📚 R E A D • I F • Y O U • L I K E
• mature MCs
• rekindled romance

⚠️ CW: toxic relationship, mental illness, addiction, alcohol, alcoholism, divorce, poverty, pregnancy, abortion

🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S

"I don’t think we’ve peaked. Not by a long shot. I think our best days are ahead of us."

A Forty Year Kiss is Nickolas Butler at his best! An instant must-read, this beautiful small-town story so perfectly expresses the hope of second chances, the hurt of past regrets, the joy of redemption, and the wonder of a once-in-a-lifetime love story. Butler's characters are always so authentic and multi-layered, while his writing and settings evoke a charming sense of Midwest nostalgia, culminating in powerful stories that explore what it means to be human. I hadn't read one of his books since Little Faith, but I should have known that his latest would be just as compelling.

It was a view into life - but I wouldn't have welcomed Charlie in my life so openly with the demons he was still facing. It was complicated, it was a second chance - it was life

A Forty Year Old Kiss by Nickolas Butler.
Sweet romance, slow burn. It really needed quotation marks. This was an old fashioned love story. It was a tad flat for me, it stayed at a very slow pace although it was a good story.
Thank you NetGalley and Sourcebooks for providing me with the arc in exchange for my honest review.

A Forty Year Kiss takes on the question of whether you can have a second chance in love and what the consequences of that might be. I was intrigued by this quiet story until the end. Charlie and Vivian are not perfect characters, they don't have a perfect life, and if you are looking for an escape, you might want to know that this story deals with life with realism. There were times that Charlie made me cringe, but it was definitely real.

I liked the story. I liked the main characters and their quest for a second chance. It made me think about it and that makes for a great story in this reader's mind.

A solid four stars.

What I love about Nickolas Butler is all his books are very unique and written in wonderful prose. He also has you travel through the beautiful Wisconsin landscapes and breweries.

I knew this was a romance book, even though I didn't read the synopsis...lol. So, yeah, this book is not one of my favorites. He's writing is superb and I love the inclusion of Wrigley Field, but The Hearts of Men and Shotgun Lovesongs will remain my favorites. I hope Butler's next book is about male-bonding and their relationships. He writes with such emotion and yet very masculine...I would love to see more of those books...hint, hint :)

A Forty Year Kiss by Nickolas Butler is a poignant and reflective novel that explores the complexities of love, time, and memory. The story centers around two main characters who shared a kiss 40 years ago and have lived their separate lives ever since. As they reconnect, the novel delves into their pasts, the choices they've made, and the what-ifs that have lingered in their minds. Butler's writing captures the essence of long-lost connections and the enduring impact of a single moment. The narrative weaves through their memories, creating a touching and heartfelt exploration of how love can shape and transform lives over decades.

Thank you NetGalley and Sourcebooks for providing this E-ARC in exchange for my honest thoughts :)

This was a sweet, slow burn, second chance romance. Can a love that was lost 40 years ago be rekindled?? I enjoyed this story, however I think a little bit more romance would have added so much to the story. Overall this was a solid read.

Unfortunately this book did not hold my interest. I may give it another shot at a later date, Oh well.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc.