I really enjoyed this second chance romance. I liked how the book started with the "anonymous" trope where they were communicating with letters and he knew it was her but she didn't know it was him. The premise of a road trip to reconnect and rebuild their relationship was also so fun and so well executed. I also really like the community this author has created and all of the side characters that we see from the first book. I think the romance was believable and it was obvious the character still truly cared about each other. I highly recommend!

ARC Review
4 Stars
I loved the relatability of this second chance romance. It was funny and sweet and the road trip aspect was a good touch, compared to your normal small town romance. There are glimpses of characters we've met before, but you can absolutely read this as a standalone.

PHENOMENAL.

This was romance at its best and finest. The yearning, the longing, the PINING!!!

I loved how Wren was so much of her own person outside of the relationship. She had her own thing, she had flaws she felt so real. I absolutely adore her. I loved how committed Ellis was to getting things right this time, and how he moved entirely on Wren's schedule.

This was a heart-stopping romance that made me feel every emotion under the sun. I am so obsessed with it and I can't wait for more from Tarah DeWitt. She *gets* romance.

Loved this book! Tarah Dewitt just writes real people going THROUGH real emotions and it gets me EVERY time. Add in such great narrators and this equaled a pitch perfect book for me. THANK YOU!

if you’re a big fan of second chance romances, and especially if you love characters that feel like real humans with real, messy, complicated emotions, then this might end up being perfect for you. There’s definitely something here worth cherishing, even if it didn’t land as hard for me personally. Maybe I wasn’t in the right headspace, maybe I cut myself off by leaving it halfway, or maybe it just wasn’t the exact type of second chance romance that I love. Either way, I can see why so many people fell for it , i just wish I had, too.

Thank you to the publishers, author and NetGalley for the free copy of this audio book.

This was actually kind of adorable and I enjoyed the second chance aspect, which I'm not always a fan of. This did a lot of things right and made for an enjoyable read!

I thoroughly enjoyed this second chance romance.
Ellis and Wren's story was so emotional. After a terrible tragedy, their marriage broke down, and they got a divorce. They were still in each other's lives though, as they were co-parenting their teenage son.
When their son is leaves his hometown to go to college, Ellis and Wren find themselves on a road trip designed to see if they can give their love another chance. In order to do this, they each have to be vulnerable with the other, baring their souls. Bringing all the painful parts of their story to light.
This was such a heart warming story, full of heart, hurt, and healing.
I loved how Ellis and Wren grew and healed so that they could build on the foundation they had.
It was a beautiful story of love and family.

Second-chance romance can be hard to pull off so I was delighted by how much I was able to buy into this one. Tarah DeWitt does a great job demonstrating the ways Wren and Ellis weren't right for each other in the past, but are willing and able to show up in an adult relationship at a later stage in life. I enjoyed this even more than <i>Savor It</i> because it felt like so much history and exposition already built in. DeWitt has created a lovely and dynamic community in Spunes (on par with B.K. Borison's Inglewild) and I'm looking forward to getting more of her literary universe.

My one big pet peeve was Wren and Ellis' inability to realize the letters were from each other - this plot point felt far-fetched and unecessarily dramatic when it did come to light.

I didn't realize that Savor It was the book before this, so I had to read it before starting Left of Forever. I was at a book store and the bookseller recommend this book and I'm glad I listened to her hype about it and got started on the two book series. This book was even better than the first and I'm a little disappointed that I didn't get this sooner. I binged this audiobook and even had a copy of the paperback which I alternated between. The depth of this story made me feel all the feels. Though there is quite a bit of spice, it didn't go overboard. I wouldn't necessary call this a rom-com, but it did have it's moments. The tension and love between the main characters was believable and didn't make this kind of relationship feel unrealistic.

I voluntarily listened to and reviewed an advanced copy of this audiobook. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Wren and Ellis were in love, until they weren’t. Did they ever really fall out of love though? Wren and Ellis married and had their son when they were only teens. Years after their divorce, they're in their 30’s and while they’ve both tried to move on, the spark is still there.

Left of Forever is the second book in the Spunes series. It can be read as a stand-alone but I highly recommend reading the series in order. This romance does contain open-door content.

Twice. I listened through this twice (almost back to back) because it’s just that good. This may be one of my favorite second chance romances that I have ever read. Wren and Ellis’s journey back to each other is beautiful, healing, and so satisfying.

I highly recommend the audiobook. Megan Wicks and Connor Crais do a wonderful job with the narration. They’re perfect as Wren and Ellis.

It’s impossible for me to choose a favorite book from Tarah DeWitt but Left of Forever is high up there on the list. I look forward to crying my eyes out over the next book in this series.

This was such an adorable and steamy second-chance romance between high school sweethearts turned divorced parents, Wren and Ellis. I flew through reading this story because the banter and chemistry was just so good. The characters are flawed, but there is so much vulnerability that I really appreciated. The spicy scenes were so well-written to illustrate the characters' reconnection. My only issue is that the resolution of everything between the characters in just a few days was hard to believe. I highly recommend Tarah DeWitt's Spunes, OR novels as heartwarming summer romances.

Honseetly, such a sweet book. I was worried going into the book because second chances, especially where they were married and now divorced, can be hit and miss. But this one hit the nail on the head! It was so sweet and well done. The second chance was just what I wanted and was so swoony!

Tarah Dewitt's writing style is EVERYTHING because how did I, a rare contemporary romance reader who hates the second-chance trope, end up enjoying this book???

I often find myself ruminating on "what ifs" in relationships. "What if we lose each other?" "What if one of us loses feelings?" "What if life gets in the way and we're unable to reconnect?" And I'll be the first to admit that these thoughts consume me in relationships! What I love about the romance genre is that it provides a space for these what ifs to take shape, find purpose, and usually end on a happy note. The same was true for Left of Forever because it answered some of my "what ifs" with BEAUTIFUL possibility.

The prose is gorgeous and I'd recommend this book via audiobook because the voice acting will strum all of your heartstrings!

i absolutely inhaled this sumptuous second chance romance, and i've been pondering about how to ~review~ it ever since because what are words when it comes to something that speaks to your readerly heart in such a warm, sexy, and amazing way?

honestly kudos to DeWitt for making this an altogether destroying yet ultimately so tender and soft and completely perfect romance. how dare she lolol

i def need a copy for my keeper shelf and i'm desperately awaiting an audiobook copy to really absorb the magnificence.

also - i don't want to hear a dang one of you EVER say a bad thing about Ellis' mustache 🔪

2nd read:

I did indeed secure an ALC (and a plum Library Journal review assignment) and if i could give this a hundred stars, i would. the narrators were exquisite; they sounded wren & ellis' age? if that makes sense? I especially loved the narrator for Wren, her husky voice really was so lovely. This might be the best second chance romance I've ever read. I hope we get all the Byrds HEAs publishing gods & goddesses!

Thank you @macmillan.audio for providing this ALC for review consideration via @NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

I received Left of Forever by Tarah DeWitt before reading the first book in the Spunes, OR series, Savor It. I got right to it and thankfully enjoyed that book. I’m thinking they could be read standalone, but why not read them both, in order, for the full effect? Left of Forever is book 2 and sometimes overlaps with Savor It in a fun way, and has some time jumps, like suddenly they are back to the time of the prologue. This is not confusing; it is clever, unique and fun.

In this book we follow Wren and Ellis, who fell in love as kids, had their son Sam when they were teenagers, and have married and divorced. Their only connection, Sam, is going away to college. They have had closure but are they really closed?

I love reading a book that is different from the norm. We often have romances with young, childless people, occasionally we have someone with a young child, but it is rare to find people in their 30s, who are divorced and share an adult child. Bravo on a lovely story that was beautifully written. DeWitt never had to TELL us why Wren and Ellis should be together, we felt it. I love when we hear why Wren has her horse, and when Ellis talks about DNA.

The author is considerate with content warnings at the beginning and went the extra mile by curating a playlist for her readers.

Narrators Connor Crais and Megan Wicks are divine. I love them! They read one another’s letters in each other’s chapters which added an additionally fun element to the listen. Please let me hear more from them!

4/5 stars
9 hours 18 minutes at 1x on audio
Open door
Location: Spunes, OR, road trip including Davis, CA, the Dream Inn in Santa Cruz (which exists) and more.

uters
literary_daisy Thank you to @netgalley @macmillan.audio and @authortarahdewitt for the ALC
Pub date: May 19
This is a second chance romance story centering around Wren and Ellis Byrd. They fell in love as kids, had their son Sam as teens and got married building a life together in the coastal town of Spunes, Oregon.
Now divorced in their 30s, Wren runs a bakery and Ellis is a firefighter. When they move their son to college, Ellis convinces Wren to take a road trip back to Oregon from California to see if they can rekindle their relationship. With the gorgeous California coast as the backdrop will they find their way back to one another, can the past really be left behind, can they give their relationship another chance.

Narration: @connorcrais and @meganwicks brought a lot of depth and emotion to the characters which conveyed the feelings of the story well.

Overall: I enjoyed that this was a different type of romance than my typical go to. Appreciated that it was more realistic and showcased how relationships evolve over time. A lot of romance stories center around the beginning when two people meet and how they end up together but I liked that this book focused on a different stage in a relationship.

Returning to Spunes, Oregon, (not to be confused with Forks, Washington) was such a fun trip. Thank you to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for an ALC in exchange for my honest opinion. If you haven’t read Savor It, you can read this book first, but there are some minor spoilers for the love story in that one. Considering how much I loved Savor It, I would suggest reading (or listening!) to that one first.
Left of Forever feels *real* in a way most romance novels don’t. It shows how hard marriage is, and what happens when life gets in the way. Wren and Ellis met young, fell in love young, had a son young, and then fell apart and divorced. Now in their 30s, they take a road trip together on their way back from dropping their child off at college. The way they are able to maturely communicate and reconcile after their individual growth while apart was lovely. The narration of the audiobook is excellent, and I could not stop listening once I started, finishing in less than 24 hours.

Their divorced
Second chance
Road trip
Parents
First love
One bed

I listened to the last 15 mins twice. back to back and cried my little eyes out. absolutely beautiful.
♾️ give me 5 more
I don't know if I can put into words how much I loved this book. I've read it with my eyeballs AND my ears and my ears twice. I will think about these two for forever. Ellis has stolen my heart. The way these two find their way back to each others orbits is just beautiful.

I absolutely loved this. I don't normally love second chance romance, but this was absolutely second chance romance done RIGHT. The yearning, the flirty banter, the hurt, and yet, all the hope... This whole story is achingly beautiful. I loved having some more mature MCs and them having come into their own to then give it another go... It was just perfection. This is my first by this author, but you bet I'm going to read others now! Oh, by the way, you're going to need a box of tissues!

I listened to the audiobook and it was an absolute bullseye. The narrators were excellent and really brought all the feels. Absolutely recommend!

CW: infertility/miscarriage, death of a parent, grief, sexual content.

Thank you to MacMillan Audio and NetGalley for the ALC. All opinions are my own.

I loved this second chance romance!

I binge listened to this in a day while on vacation. I enjoyed seeing Wren and Ellis find their way back to each other. The roadtrip Ellis put together for them was so special. I'd love to do that with my husband just because we can. The fact that their family, even their son, pulled strings to bring them back together was so sweet.

The romance was well done and steamy scenes were perfection. I definitely recommend this book and especially the audiobook. The narrator did great and it was well produced. I hope we get more book sin this series!