4.5 Stars!

"The Love We Found" is Jill Santopolo's follow-up to her hugely popular "The Light We Lost" and takes readers on another journey with Lucy, ten years after the conclusion of the first book. After finding a mysterious address in a box of Gabe's belongings, Lucy sets out to explore a piece of Gabe's past while balancing the challenges of motherhood, including the dilemma of whether her son Sammy should know the truth about his father. This sets off a chain of events that helps Lucy to find love again and to move forward from her grief.

As she uncovers Gabe’s secret, she travels to Italy and she encounters Dr. Dax Armstrong, a native New Yorker in Italy working with a non-governmental organization. Lucy and the doctor become involved over two days in Italy though they promise to renew their acquaintance when he cycles back to New York.

For seven years, Lucy has been divorced from Darren with whom she shares three children. She had been unfaithful to Darren, having shattered their marriage with the information that their youngest child Samuel was not biologically Darren’s.

This story is basically learning to leave your past behind and move forward. Lucy has struggled moving forward for quite some time. The characters are well drawn and I was rooting for each individual one. The struggles and growth of her three kids after learning a long held secret was well written.

Many thanks to NetGalley for the ARC and also to author Jill Santopolo for writing an incredible story of love, grief and motherhood.

I reread The Light We Lost right before reading this book and I'm so glad I did because many storylines continue right after the first one ends. I did enjoy Lucy in the first book but by the second found her insufferable at times. This story has major insta-love between Lucy and Dax and it felt forced. The story felt predictable and I'm just not sure it needed to be told.

This was a pretty good book but do yourself a favor an read the first book before starting this one. I did not realize it was second in a series when I started it. All in all, decent writing but also not my favorite genre.

This is the long-awaited sequel to the Reese Witherspoon book Club pick and Bestselling book, The Light We Lost. It's been ten years since Gabe has been gone when his best friend contacts Lucy about an art exhibit they are putting on with his works as a commemoration. While looking for photographs, Lucy finds a piece of paper in a box of photos. It is an address in Rome and she cannot resist buying a plane ticket for one last connection to Gabe.

She is led to Dr. Dax Armstrong, a New Yorker living in Italy. Her connection with him is immediate and she begins to feel things she has not felt since she met Gabe.

Call me crazy, but I have been waiting for this book for years. I have my thoughts on both Darren and Gabe, but Dax was the one I have been waiting for all this time! If you loved The Light We Lost, this is a must-read. And if you have not read it, what are you waiting for?

This book was like a sigh of relief. It was so satisfying to get some resolution for Lucy. In The Light We Lost, the romance is so very powerful and the reader is left with so much heartbreak. And now the author has decided to let us journey with Lucy as she heals. I think readers will be satisfied with the ending. The author does a great job of giving us an ending without tying too neat of a bow on it. And I love that the author shows us that humans are capable of loving different people in different ways and that different doesn’t have to be a competition.

This book maybe wasn’t quite as emotional as the first but I really enjoyed it and am so glad I had the opportunity to read it.

I loved this book. I read the first one "The Love we Lost" a long time ago and it has stayed with me all these years. I am grateful Santopolo produced a second volume, and that she waited long enough for it to be worthwhile!

“I’d had a wound, Gabe, for a decade. You had been my wound. And I needed to be healed, to be free, to live my life without your ghost beside me. It was time.”

Sequel to THE LIGHT WE LOST, I was looking forward to loving this, but it just didn’t hit me as powerfully as the first book. That one had me in tears. This one just skimmed the surface for me. I’m not quite sure why… the topics covered were all spot on, characters were great, storyline continuation made sense, conflicts felt real, but I didn’t feel the emotional connection between Lucy and Dax like I did with Lucy and Gabe. Dax felt too good to be true and their insta-love felt forced. I wanted it to be real so much for Lucy but it wasn’t as soulful. It was a tough act to follow, though. I mean, I definitely wanted to find out how things worked out, but I expected depth and it felt a bit flat for me.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

Thank you Penguin Group Putnam and NetGalley for the ARC!

The Love We Found by Jill Santopolo was a nice, emotional read that I enjoyed, but it didn’t completely sweep me off my feet. The story about love, loss, and finding yourself is really touching, and Santopolo's writing does a great job of capturing those deep feelings. The characters are relatable, and their journey feels real, but at times the plot can be a bit predictable. I'm not sure this story needed to be told. It’s definitely a heartfelt read, but it didn’t have that extra something to make it stand out for me. I’d give it 3 stars—pleasant, but not unforgettable!

Thank you again for the ARC!

A solid and moving follow-up to The Light We Lost. Jill Santopolo has such a calm yet addicting writing style. Mixing emotional with spicy is rare, and she can really nail it. I was satisfied with Lucy's story, which was somewhat closed. Nothing was sugar-coated in the family dynamic. It all felt authentic.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced reader's copy!

I absolutely loved The Light We Lost and think about Gabe & Lucy's story a lot. I was SO upset at the end of that book that Gabe died that I had a book hangover. So I was dying to read The Love We Found ever since I heard about it. However, I was a bit underwhelmed, I didn't love the narration that was talking to Gabe, and kind of felt like she hadn't made much emotional progress since we left her 10 years earlier. I did appreciate the Italy storyline & her chemistry with Dax. I was hoping this book would make me feel the same way as the first, but thought it probably wasn't possible, and it wasn't. But I will still continue to read Santopolo's books because I've enjoyed every one I've read!

✨ The Vibes ✨
A book for anyone who wonders what happens after the ending of your favorite romance

📖 Read if…
✨ You don’t mind very emotional romances
✨ You’re always looking for more closure in books
✨ You want a book that deals with complex, real life issues

I have a soft spot for Jill Santopolo’s The Light We Lost as it’s one of the books that steered me toward the contemporary romance genre. It was everything I wanted from a book — sweet, a tiny bit angsty, and a perfect, though slightly sad, ending.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the ending and how it was the perfect mix of conclusive and open-ended, but I never imagined we’d get a sequel about Lucy’s life after Gabe.

This book is classic Jill Santopolo, full of complex emotion that never feels soapy or over the top. She’s able to find the humanity in every situation, and you empathize with even the most frustrating characters. I found that the story moved slower in this one compared to The Light We Lost, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing as it allows you to really sit with each situation and consider why Lucy is making certain choices. And for those that need a conclusive ending, this one was definitely more conclusive than the first one!

It was so nice to get a look at what happened next to some beloved characters, and I think fans of the first book will really enjoy this one. The Love We Found is out now. Thanks to Putnam and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely DEVOURED this book; this was the sequel I never knew I needed, but so desperately wanted.

I read the first book ages ago, and then quickly read most of Santopolo's backlist - but am so glad we finally got to return to these characters. While Lucy isn't always the most likeable of characters - and I love that about her. It feels like she is really grappling with her own weaknesses and shortcomings, and it makes the story more endearing.

Santopolo really knows how to tackle grief in all its complexities. It is never simple and it is never linear - and she created such a love letter to healing in this story, while the first felt like a fight against the wave of emotions.

I cried. A lot. I smiled. And I just love this touching sequel that shows our storires and our happy endings are never simple.

This author is one of my favorites, but this sequel did not read with the same depth and rawness of her other books. Ten years after Gabe dies, Lucy is starting to feel lonely. Although her focus has been on her kids, she hopes she is ready for a relationship when she meets Dax, a doctor doing charity work in Italy. There are secrets that Lucy has yet to share with her family, that will impact how her relationship will evolve. I really liked Lucy’s relationship with her children, but the relationship with Dax didn’t really resonate with me. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

In this follow-up to 2017’s The Light We Lost, we check in on Lucy to see what life is like since she last saw Gabe. 💕

My tiny book club has had many failures to get off the ground 😂 and we read The Light We Lost many moons ago during one of those failed attempts. Since we all loved it and we’re finally successful (three years strong 💪🏻😂), we decided to read the follow-up book. I was hesitant because it’s been so long since the first book was released and I didn’t want to reread it in order to appreciate book two. The good news is there was enough background slid in to jog your memory with the highlights. Buuuuuttt…for me, this wasn’t a necessary follow-up. I found it boring, with a tone that was unnecessarily dramatic since our FMC is talking directly to Gabe the whole time. (IYKYK) Other than the ex-husband, literally every character communicates in therapy speak, saying the exact right thing as if it’s scripted, giving the whole book an air of unbelievability. When life is messy, people are messy too, so I would have much preferred to see more of that on the page. Okay overall, but I could have left this unread and been content.

Side note…you know how publishers are phasing out cursive titles on covers because it’s no longer taught and therefore not everyone can read them? That’s how I feel about Roman numerals as chapter headers like we had in this book. 😂 I just want to know what chapter I’m on related to how many there are in the book. Please don’t make me stop to think about what lviii means while I’m reading. 😂🤷🏻‍♀️

My thanks to NetGalley and Putnam Books for a complimentary advance copy of this eBook, out now.

I read THE LIGHT WE LOST well before Bookstagram so I didn’t entirely remember the whole plot going into this, but I remembered the sad vibes and how quick I breezed through it. This book was no exception. The fact that I started and finished a book while on night shift is no easy feat, so if you’re looking for quick books then these are some good options.

But it deals heavily with grief of a loved one. It reminded me a lot of the ME BEFORE YOU series, where our main character was heartbroken from loss of a great love at the end of book one, but were given a chance at new love within their sequels.

However, I couldn’t get on board with this romance unfortunately. Instalove and I have a love/hate relationship and very seldomly does a book get away with that trope for me. Lucy quickly meets a guy and he instantly asks her to dinner and they start up a whirlwind romance within 24 hours of knowing each other. After such a beautiful love story in book one, this sadly felt too forced and fell flat to me.

But I’m still glad to see Lucy finally get a bit of a happy ending this go around.

The Love We Found was beautifully written but deeply sad. I found the main character frustrating and hard to connect with, which made it tough to fully engage. It just didn’t resonate with me.

This is a beautiful sequel to one of my favorite love stories, The Light We Lost. The Love We Found starts ten years after Gabe’s death, and Santopolo’s decision to use Lucy’s voice narrating the story to Gabe is an especially poignant one. I teared up at times, but not to the devastating degree I did with Gabe and Lucy’s story. This is a story of hope, navigating motherhood, blended families, and the fear and exhilaration of finding love again after loss. Dax is a worthy successor to Gabe, but as Dax said, it’s not a competition, just a comparison. If you’re looking for a mature romance between two wonderful people who, despite suffering shattering loss, take a chance on love, read this. Although it can be read as a standalone, I encourage you to read The Light We Lost first. Highly recommended.

I received a complimentary ARC of this book from G.P. Putnam’s Sons through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

I think this could've been a novella.

Just like in THE LIGHT WE LOST, Lucy, here too, is confused about what she really wants in life- other than Gabe.
Don't get me wrong, all the characters have flaws but Lucy's flaws kinda jumps off the pages.

I really liked how she stood up to Darren about wanting to telling the truth about their child. I also liked when she found someone who she could see a future with but just like before she kept comparing him to Gabe. Also, that insta-love threw me off. Like it was more of rapid-love.

Anyways as I said, this could've been a novella.

Thank you Netgalley and publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Light We Lost ended with a lot of loose ends that we knew time would tie up in one way or another. Ten years later, Lucy is moving forward with her life, if not quite moving on. When a call from Gabe's editor reopens some barely close wounds, Lucy must decide how to come to terms with everything from her past in order to embrace the future.

I have been waiting for this book since the day I finished The Light We Lost. Jill Santopolo can do no wrong. I loved revisiting these characters in their complicated, messy, love-filled lives. If you loved The Light We Lost, this one is a perfect next chapter.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for the ARC of The Love We Found.

I didn't really enjoy the first book in this series and am not sure why I thought the second would be better/different. The romance had its sweet and heartfelt moments, but at times, it felt a little forced or lacking the emotional depth I crave in a love story.

One of the highlights was the author’s writing style—it’s engaging and easy to read, making this a quick and enjoyable escape. However, the pacing felt uneven; some parts dragged while others rushed through key emotional developments. Additionally, certain conflicts seemed to resolve too easily, which left me wanting a bit more depth and tension. But really... why is she still hung up on Gabe all this time later?