“No. It’s a boundary. I’m using my words, Dr. Madigan. Not my problem if they aren’t the ones you want to hear.”

This book was 3.5 ⭐️ for me, but I’m a round up kind of girl.

I wanted to love this book because I loved Duncan, he’s hard working, loving, an amazing uncle, everything you’d want and more. But… I found his and Temperance’s story lack luster. I still had fun reading it, I think because I loved revisiting Rowan and Harry and then being able to see their wedding. I also had fun seeing more of Frankie and Malcolm! But there were a lot of times when it came to the MC’s where to me everything felt forced and maybe a bit repetitive? I had quite a few moments where I just couldn’t get behind the conflict, where it didn’t make sense to me why this spanned over 14 years especially since their lives are so interconnected and the “conflict” wasn’t catastrophic. On a positive note, I can’t wait for Frankie and Malcolm’s inevitable love explosion.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC!

I will continue to be a fan of hers.
I love that I received a ARC.
I cannot wait for more from Jen Devon!!!! She will be on my auto purchase authors.

Right Where We Left Us by Jen Devon is a good fit for those seeking an emotionally charged, second chance romance that explores the complexities of long-standing, on-again, off-again relationships and the challenges of making them work.

I really love the Brady family dynamic. I loved the main characters Temp & Duncan. How they individually excelled in their careers but I felt the connection between the reader and the characters just lacked so much. The pacing of the romance was extremely sluggish. I would pick up the next book if it's about Mal however I pray it has a better pace, more depth and some more romance.

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!