In the realm of romantic literature, Jen Devon's "Right Where We Left Us" emerges as a captivating tale that delves into the intricacies of love, loss, and second chances. The story revolves around Temperance Jean Madigan (TJ) and Duncan Brady, two individuals who have been entangled in an on-again, off-again relationship since their passionate summer together at the tender age of eighteen. Despite their undeniable chemistry and TJ's closeness to Duncan's family, they find themselves as virtual strangers, trapped in a cycle of adversarial banter, awkward small talk, and occasional messy hookups. As fate would have it, a wedding at the Bradys' vineyard brings TJ back into Duncan's life for the summer, rendering their avoidance strategies futile. TJ struggles with the weight of Duncan's intense gaze, while Duncan grapples with the constant distraction of having the fiery TJ in close proximity. As they are forced to confront their feelings, buried tensions resurface, old wounds demand confrontation, and the once-in-a-lifetime love they shared begs for a final chance to flourish. Jen Devon masterfully weaves a narrative that is both poignant and humorous, capturing the complexities of human relationships with authenticity and grace. Her characters are vividly drawn, each possessing their own unique voice and motivations. TJ and Duncan are particularly well-developed, their struggles and triumphs resonating deeply with readers. The supporting cast, too, plays a significant role in shaping the story, adding layers of depth and intrigue. One of the strengths of "Right Where We Left Us" lies in Devon's ability to explore the nuances of love and relationships. She delves into the challenges of maintaining a connection amidst misunderstandings, pride, and past hurts. The novel serves as a reminder that love is not always easy, but it is worth fighting for when it is genuine. Devon's writing style is fluid and engaging, effortlessly drawing readers into the story. Her prose is peppered with vivid imagery and sensory details that bring the setting and characters to life. Whether describing the idyllic vineyard landscapes or the emotional turmoil of her protagonists, Devon's words paint a vivid tapestry that captivates the senses. "Right Where We Left Us" is a compelling exploration of love, loss, and the power of second chances. Jen Devon weaves a tale that is both heartwarming and heartbreaking, leaving readers emotionally invested in the journey of TJ and Duncan. With its relatable characters, poignant storytelling, and thought-provoking themes, this novel is a must-read for fans of contemporary romance and anyone who believes in the enduring power of love.

I really loved this story of previously on-again/off-again couple TJ and Duncan, brought together again due to a family wedding. This is my first Jen Devon book, and I didn't know this was part of another series, so I'm anxious to go back and catch up.

I LOVED THIS BOOK SO MUCH I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW TO TALK ABOUT IT.

Jen Devon is such a powerful voice in the contemporary romance space. Like oh my gosh. The Brady family has my whole heart, and I loved Bend Toward The Sun (first in the series) but Duncan and Temperance TORE ME APART.

And I knew they would. I knew it on the first page. But that in no way spoiled the ride.

Honestly, it's going to be hard to find a book I fall for as hard as I fell for this one for a while. I love it I love it I love it.

Jen Devon's sophomore novel, Right Where We Left Us, brings us back home to the big, boisterous Brady family and their circle of friends in the follow-up to Bend Toward the Sun. I enjoyed her debut novel, so I was excited to revisit these characters, but you could easily read this as a stand-alone, too.

Right Where We Left Us is the story of Duncan Brady, the hardworking, funny, super-good-looking Brady brother who helps run the family business, and Dr. Temperance Madigan, the younger sister of Brady's sister-in-law and a longtime family friend. Duncan and Temperance shared an intense summer romance as teenagers that ended in heartbreak, and the attraction has always lingered. When circumstances push the two of them together, they have to face their feelings and get honest with themselves and each other. Re: lots of angst, sexual tension, regrets, forced proximity, and some spicy scenes.

One thing Devon does well in this series is focusing on strong friendships and family relationships. The friendship between Rowen, Frankie, and Temperance anchors the series, as does the relationship between the Brady siblings and their parents. Those relationships provide a stark contrast to the cold, manipulative interactions that Temperance and her sister Maren have with their parents.

Devon also seems to be setting the stage for a 3rd book in the series; fingers crossed!

Thank you, St. Martin's Griffin and Net Galley, for an advanced copy of the book to review.

What a cute & quick read! Also helped me out of my reading slump🥹🥹
Will post the full review near publishing date🫶🏼

A round of applause for Jen Devon and this book! Bend Towards the Sun was my favorite book of 2022 (and quickly became one of my favorites of all time). I fell in love with Temperance and Duncan in that book, so needless to say, I had VERY high hopes for Right Where We Left Us. I can confirm Jen delivered and then some!



Right Where We Left Us thrusts us back into the world of the Brady Family and the Cloud Tide B&B and Winery, this time following Duncan Brady and Temperance Madigan. This time, the two are forced to confront their complicated past and figure out what the future looks like for both of them.



Jen Devon writes truly beautiful book. I cannot tell you how often I’ll read a line, set the book down, and pick the book back up to reread it again because of how bewitching it was. Every character is so unique and you cannot help but feel like the Brady family (and really all supporting characters) are truly flesh and blood real. The tension and angst leap off the page, and you will fall in love over and over again with Duncan and Temperance. I love a good second chance romance, but this one truly takes the cake. And the hints about Malcom’s (potential) love story have me not so patiently waiting for the next book!



I have already left a space on my shelf next to Bend Towards the Sun for this book when it comes out this summer. Please consider preordering or requesting from your library!



Thank you so very much to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Griffin for the ARC!

Temperance is a paediatrician struggling to keep her small town clinic open, but is forced to take a break in the summer to help her best friend get married and heal her body from a minor accident. The only catch is her ex-boyfriend and longtime love, Duncan, is the brother of the groom. Will Temperance and Duncan be able to sort through their messy past to find love together in the present?

I really enjoyed the first book in the series, Bend Toward the Sun, and Jen Devon's writing is warm and inviting. I also liked Temperance and Duncan as characters, as well as the other brothers in the family. There were so many extra characters mentioned that at times it was confusing to keep track of everyone, and I feel like the tension between Temperance and Duncan was never fully explored. It really felt like the two of them could have talked one time and solved all of their misunderstandings.

There was also a plot point about Temperance being in debt that was never fully explained or resolved.

I was happy that the characters ended up together but found myself wondering over and over again what their actual connection was based on, since they kept expressing frustration that the other person didn't see or understand them for who they are as adults. The final section of the book where they have their conversation that brings them back together and they confess their love seemed a little rushed because they didn't resolve these issues.

This book was overall a light read and gave me the cozy small-town feels. I especially like the scenes with the festivals and parties, and the author is excellent at describing the setting of the farm. If the next book is about Malcolm and Frankie, I'm interested in reading it!

Right Where We Left Us is a Fantastic story about friends, family, relationships, & passion. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book on #NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own, but hopefully, you'll put this on your TBR list.
Right Where We Left Us is a stand-alone by Jen Devon, but do yourself a favor & read Bend Towards the Sun first cause then you'll know a little more of the back story as well as a better introduction to the infamous Brady family.
Right Where We Left Us is an evolving storyline as you read it. Sorry to steal the ogres/onion analogy from Shrek, but this story is like peeling back the layers of an onion to learn more and more about the history of the two main characters that you follow through the book. Speaking of following, my biggest gripe about this book is the challenge of following the timeline throughout the story. The story goes from the present time to 15 years in the past, then back to the present time, and then it jumps to two weeks later, which then becomes the new present time. I personally think Jen Devon is a talented writer, but I'm hopeful her next book will flow better as a timeline cause her characters are hilarious & her ability to write romance is top-notch!

A beautiful novel in which I do not think the cover does it justice! Devon hits me in the heart with her beautiful prose and emphasis on emotional resonance. I couldn’t put this book down and think that it’s going to be a big hit if people can look beyond the cover. This book would also be good for book club discussions, with lots of deaths beyond what seems initially like a simple romance novel. Highly recommend it!

The pining on this one was reaaaaal. Second chance romance is the superior trope. The interconnected relationships and complex dynamics of the side characters in this story made this one so much more special. Once I got past the characters and all the names, I really loved Temperance and Duncan’s story. This made me feel all the feels and I’m excited to read more books by this author!

I loved Jen Devon’s debut and I’ve been waiting for Right Where We Left Us for almost 2 years and was not disappointed as it literally takes you right where she left us in Bend Toward the Sun.
Right Where We Left Us is a beautifully written second chance romance about Temperance and Duncan. We get to see how after 14 years they finally resolve their issues and finally get together after so much angst.
I loved that we get to see Harry, Rowan, and the Brady Bunch again.

This was second in series and if you didn't read first I think you would be lost. TJ and Duncan fell in love when they were 18. They split up and since then they have been hooking up but never really making a serious go of the relationship. They have been trying to keep the distance to avoid ending up but forced proximity brings these two together again.

This has a lot of innuendos which I thought were funny. This was a second chance romance with family drama tossed in. Spicy!

I read the first 25% of the novel and then skimmed the rest due to many reasons I will cover in my review.

My introduction into this story was a bit chaotic. This is mainly because we are bombarded with so many side characters in the first two chapters. It doesn’t help that they are all siblings and best friends, so it is hard to keep them straight. So this was a let down and made me hesitate to read the rest of the novel.

As I read on, the scenes were super boring and seemed to just happen rather than being strategically planned to progress the plot. And the conversations between the characters lacked any substance and were pretty tiring to read.

I was irritating that TJ and Duncan kept hinting about their bad relationship but took forever to reveal why they broke up but kept hooking up every once in a while. It just seemed weird. I think this novel should have been planned out where the first half was them in their younger years and then it flashed forward to where the novel starts.

Overall I was not pleased with this one. I wish I would have known own their was another book that tells about TJ’s best friend Rowan who is getting married in this book. Maybe this would have helped me keep characters straight and made the plot more interesting.

*An ARC was provided in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Temperance and Duncan are two high school sweethearts who had a volatile breakup only to be forced back together for a summer when their best friend and brother get married.

This book had a lot of great romantic troops, but ultimately fell a little flat to me. Unfortunately, some of the writing had really beautifully created lines, but then others felt forced and a little too metaphoric, and I felt I often didn’t get lost in the pages as much as I normally would in other books.

I think the main characters were flawed, but genuinely compassionate and caring individuals. I just wish we saw more of their backstory and got a little more depth as to why they were unfit together as teenagers because I feel like the animosity they had towards each other later on wasn’t incredibly justified. The situation with her parents was a plot that really caught my interest and I think the family dynamic was really well done. I also love the Brady family I think their clan was so fun to read, especially the little outings that they had.

But I did get a little jumbled at points with characters and some descriptions dragged on a little bit for me personally but I think the romantic and steamy scenes are just the right amount of description. The second chance romance didn’t hit as hard as I’d hoped, and maybe I wished there were more flashbacks to their times together at 18 as well as the “bonus” hookups they had throughout the years. Not a bad read if you’re looking for second chance enemies to lovers found family tropes.

Tropes:
Found family
Second chance romance
Exes
Small town
Found family

I tried to read Jen Devon's first book, got a few pages into it, and was like "I guess the writing is polished enough, but I don't care about this character's angst or anything to do with this greenhouse or really anything else that's going on here", and noped out. The description of this one sounded much more interesting, though, so I figured I'd give the author a second chance and requested it. This time I got maybe 10% of the way in before I just couldn't, because my GOD did it drag, and also there was like a Bridgerton cast's worth of relatives and supporting characters to keep track of right off the bat, and again I didn't care about any of these people! The author needs to make me care about the main characters first, and unfortunately I just... didn't. (Also what is it with Taylor Swift lyrics in romcom titles now? That really didn't help with my disconnect either, because this book reads more like women's fiction rather than the vibe the title and cover seem like they're trying for.) Suffice it to say, I suspect this author just isn't for me, but thanks regardless to St. Martin's for the ARC in return for my even more honest than usual review!

I recall giving Devon's debut novel Bend Toward the Sun a generous review despite a number of reservations. While those reservations didn't sit well with me at the time, there were definitely aspects of the first novel I appreciated, and I wanted to see if a second book would change how I was feeling about this author's writing. Well, the problems I had with the first novel are unfortunately amplified tremendously in this follow-up book. The Brady family is the center focus once again with Duncan Brady as the tortured hero. Temperance, Rowan's best friend from the first book, is the tortured female main character and the love of Duncan's life, as well as perpetual thorn in his side.

This book attempts to review the long, painful history of Duncan and Temperance to explain why these long-lost lovers can never be together. The reasons are exhaustively long and illogical. They do further my deep-seated belief that second chance romances are not a trope I enjoy. Duncan is a tragic soul, misunderstood by his family, the rock in every relationship he has, but never truly appreciated. Not to be outdone, Temperance too is a tortured soul, misunderstood by her family, hardworking to a fault, and forced to hide secrets that she mysteriously feels she cannot share with anyone. Hidden secrets are in abundance, even when the reasons for bottling them makes no sense. From the first pages, the romance is overladen with years of deceit and misunderstanding. Aside from disliking this type of heavy handedness, I struggled to empathize with their failed relationship. I also greatly disliked the platitudes that are shared by all sorts of people throughout the book. At one point I started highlighting them but then stopped because there were so many. Taken out of context as I go back and look at my notes, the inspiration words of wisdom spewing out of so many characters' mouths seem even more absurd.

Angsty romances can be so wonderful, but I think they take a deft hand to pull off. Clearly this book rubbed me the wrong way, and I think given my hesitance about her first one, she's just not an author who works for me.

Temperance and Duncan have known each other most of their lives, but after a brief go at a relationship when they were young, things fell apart and they were left alternating between explosive chemistry and uncomfortable forced proximity. Now grown adults, Temperance & Duncan are pushed back together as her best friend marries his brother.

Initially this book hooked me. I love, love, love the title and the first scene was written with such fantastic description you feel like you're standing in the greenhouse with the characters. You immediately understand the tension as they're clearly estranged but also still attracted to each other. I love a second chance romance so I was 100% in at that point.

At some point about halfway through, though, the detailed descriptions when from the thing I liked best to the thing I liked least. There was way, way, way too much description across the board. In a story with so many characters and so much back story, that really slowed the book down. I also didn't really love the reason they were trying to stay apart; clearly they were both interested in and attracted to each other consistently and the reason given wasn't great. I would have preferred if explained it by saying they needed to do some growing up apart rather than the very, very archaic reason given.

That being said, it's a cute story about a cute family and it had the appropriate amount of spice. I would definitely read more from this author and see how it goes.

Returning to the Brady family felt like returning home. You get to see the whole family and big life moments for Rowan and Harry while still diving deep into Temperance and Duncan's love story. Similar to the first book, you're treated with Duncan's quick wit with lines like "you can't stick a flower in an a**hole and pretend it's a vase ma" and more. Loved getting glimpses of how life was for Maren and Temperance/TJ pre-Brady family and why their bond is as close as it is.

Bring on Frankie's story!

the story is very slow with a lot of world building that becomes confusing to the story line. the last two hours seemed to be the full story. also confused what was flashbacks and what was current time. the story itself was cute even if it was buried under MANY layers

If you like second-chance, meant-to-be, opposite sides of the tracks romance with incredibly detailed descriptions and a huge cast of characters, this book is for you.

Temperance Jean and Duncan have known each other all their lives and the connection between them is undeniable. Except they keep denying it and finding reasons why they can’t be together. When his brother and her friend get engaged and plan their wedding, the two of them try to put their past behind them and get along. The pull between them is too strong and, surrounded by his large family and even more townspeople, they find themselves back where they always do: fighting against their undeniable bond.

The dense description and attention to detail often got in the way of the core story, with so many characters to keep track of and irrelevant insights provided about other’s activities and motivations. The world-building could have been much simpler while just as enticing for the reader to continue the series. There were definitely times that it would have been nice to cut to the chase, the end is all that these two could have hoped for.