Nickolas Butler’s A Forty Year Kiss is a beautifully crafted, emotionally resonant exploration of love, loss, and the passage of time. Known for his ability to capture small-town life with an acute sense of place and character, Butler returns to Wisconsin to tell the story of Charlie and Vivian, two individuals whose love for each other, though tested and seemingly extinguished decades ago, has never fully died.

The novel centers on Charlie’s return to his hometown after forty years, driven by a longing to reconnect with Vivian, the woman he divorced after just four years of marriage. This setup allows Butler to explore not just the nature of second chances, but the complexities that come with revisiting the past—especially after a lifetime of other relationships, personal growth, and long-held regrets. Butler’s depiction of the characters’ emotional journeys feels deeply authentic, grounded in the messiness of real life rather than the neat, tidy resolutions often found in love stories.

One of the most compelling aspects of A Forty Year Kiss is how Butler portrays the passage of time. Forty years is a significant gap—enough time for both Charlie and Vivian to have lived entire lives apart, shaped by new partners, experiences, and heartaches. Butler doesn’t shy away from the difficulties of trying to bridge this gap. Charlie and Vivian are not the same people they were when they parted ways, and the novel carefully navigates the tension between their shared history and the individuals they’ve become in the decades since.

Butler’s writing is elegant, lyrical, and imbued with a quiet wisdom that adds depth to the narrative. His descriptions of Wisconsin’s rural landscapes and small-town atmosphere create a vivid backdrop for the unfolding drama, but it’s his keen insight into human emotion that gives the story its emotional heft. The dialogue between Charlie and Vivian is laced with the pain of old wounds and the tentative hope of rekindling something lost, creating a rich emotional tension that keeps readers invested.

The novel also thoughtfully explores themes of forgiveness, redemption, and the power of memory. As Charlie and Vivian navigate their reconnection, they must confront not only their shared history but also the ways in which they’ve changed over the years. The regrets, mistakes, and secrets that have accumulated over forty years form a crucial part of the story’s emotional landscape, adding complexity to the idea of rekindling love after such a long absence.

While A Forty Year Kiss is undeniably a love story, it’s also a meditation on the ways in which time can both heal and exacerbate old wounds. Butler skillfully balances the romantic elements of the story with a deeper exploration of how love evolves—and sometimes survives—over the course of a lifetime. The novel asks important questions about whether we can truly pick up the pieces of a broken past, and whether love can endure the weight of time and distance.

If there’s a minor criticism to be made, it’s that the pacing can sometimes feel slow, particularly in the middle sections as Charlie and Vivian dance around their unresolved feelings. However, this slower pace also allows for a more reflective and nuanced exploration of their relationship, and patient readers will be rewarded with a deeply satisfying emotional arc.

Final Thoughts:
A Forty Year Kiss is a tender, reflective story about the enduring power of love and the courage it takes to face the past. Nickolas Butler has crafted a novel that is both intimate and expansive, capturing the complexities of second chances and the bittersweet nature of time’s passage. With its lyrical prose, well-drawn characters, and profound emotional depth, this is a love story that lingers long after the final page. Fans of Butler’s previous work, as well as readers who appreciate thoughtful, character-driven narratives, will find much to admire in this poignant tale of rediscovery and redemption.

The entire book was enjoyable to me. It was nice to see two real people get back together. It was energizing to see subjects like alcoholism, financial hardships, Down syndrome, unintended pregnancies, and reunions with family as well as regrets, forgiveness, and renewed love. The narrative ends suddenly but in a very charming way. Hooray for Vivian and Charlie!

I want to thank Sourcebooks Landmark and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review A Forty Year Kiss by author Nickolas Butler.
A couple marry very young, divorce and find each other forty years later.
This is a feel good story!
The book publishes 02/04/2025.

A couple reunites and finds love again forty years after their divorce in a small Wisconsin town. While mainstream contemporary literary fiction is not my usual reading preference, I found this beautifully written novel compelling and enjoyable.

This is a good story of redemption and growth. Both the leads explore forgiveness as well as love. The writing style had a rhythmic flow to it that I enjoyed!

Recommend for those who have the patience to get through slow-starting rekindling / romance. I loved the setting, the characters, but I have to admit it was painful getting through the book in the beginning.

My rating would be 3.75. It's the story of the possibility of redoing a relationship that ended 40 years earlier, and can you that with the knowledge and life experiences you have had since.
Charlie retires from a career working for the railroad, and moves back to northern WI when he inherits a house left by a family member. He looks up Vivian, his ex-wife from 40 years earlier that ended in divorce after a 4 year marriage. She lives with her daughter, and is helping raise her two young granddaughters. Has he changed enough to keep her a second time? Can she trust him, and feel she's worth the effort?

As a woman of a similar age, it's an interesting premise to reflect on the possibility of revisiting a relationship that ended many years ago with the life lessons and reflections of who we were at that time, and to see if it can be recreated. It was also refreshing to read about people of our age experiencing love and acceptance, and the possibility of a different future than we imagined.

I did rate this a 3.75, and would maybe have rated higher, if it weren't for the lack of quotation marks when people were speaking, which became a distraction and took me out of the story every time I had to double check to see who was speaking, or if it was a thought in their head verses an actual conversation. There were a couple of sentence structure issues where I had to reread the sentence a couple of times, but I would still recommend this book. I appreciated the author's notes at the end to get more context and appreciation for the story and it's origins.
Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

This is the touching story of Charlie and Vivian, reuniting after 40 years. It's a wonderful story of moments lost and moments found. I really enjoyed the thoughtfulness and great detail the author put into this book. Great read!

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

Possible spoilers ahead…….

I enjoyed the book as a whole. Two real life people coming together again was refreshing. Seeing topics such as alcoholism, financial struggles, Downs Syndrome, unplanned pregnancy as well as found family, regrets, forgiveness, and rekindled love was refreshing. The story ends abruptly but in a very sweet way. Cheers for Charlie and Vivian!!!!

Thank you, NetGalley and Sourcebooks | Sourcebooks Landmark books for this ARC for review. How sweet was this book!! Charlie and Vivian were only married for 4 years before Charlie screwed it up and left. But he never stopped loving Vivian. Now, 40 years later, Charlie returns to the same Wisconsin town to see if there is anything left, or if Vivian is even still there. This is a sweet book about second chances and reconciling who you once were with who you want to be.

This was a sweet, slow read about finding (or re-finding) love between two older people.

The storyline was cute, and I appreciated the perspective of late-in-life love, which isn't typical. It was also definitely a more subdued plot line, with not much going on or big surprises -- I can enjoy a bit more mellow of a book now and then but those kinds of books are never going to top my list.

I'm not entirely sure why -- maybe because we didn't get too much information on the 40 in-between years of the couple but I didn't find myself connecting strongly with either of them. I enjoyed reading from their perspectives, but when there was an upsetting or particularly happy moment for either, my emotional responses just weren't ever that strong and I'm someone who will definitely tear up at appropriate times in good reads.

Also I just personally am not a fan of the no-quotation-marks style of dialogue; I've read a few books recently that use this style and I totally understand it can be used to set a certain vibe but I just find myself having a bit of a harder time following without the visual cues to differentiate lines and inside versus outside thoughts.

A twist on the long-lost love scenario with a plausible storyline and relatable adult characters. This was a very pleasant read that left a good feeling in my heart.

This book sounded so good and i couldnt wait to dive in but the lack of quotation marks was awful. It made the book difficult to read sadly i could only read about 20% before i had to give up.

Summary: After retiring from the railroad, Charlie evaluates his life and realizes that he has no family to spend his life with. Forty years after their divorce, Charlie meets up with his first wife Vivian to try to rekindle their long-lost love. A lot has changed in the forty years since they've last seen each other, and in some ways, nothing has changed. Can Charlie overcome bad habits to win back Vivian? And can Vivian trust Charlie with her heart once again?

My Thoughts: Overall, this was a pleasant book and I would recommend it to others. Especially people looking for something different in a romance or literary fiction book.

While this book is touted as a romance, it also deals with some tough issues including alcoholism and depression. I loved reading a romance from a male perspective, and also one with an older couple. I would have liked a little bit more backstory into how Vivian spent the past 40 years. We get a little glimpse into her past marriage and family life, but I had a hard time connecting to her as a character with such little information.

I personally had an issue with the writing style at times. The lack of quotations in sentences made it difficult to know when a sentence was a quote, a thought, or a written statement. There was even a point when it said "...she said" but didn't say who "she" was. In the context of that part of the story there was more than one woman in the scene. It may be just me, but my brain spent way too much energy thinking about this little quirk than just enjoying the story. I also thought some big ending was coming, but it just ended.

This novel presents a quiet, slow-burning romance set against the backdrop of the U.S. Midwest.

Spoilers from here on out:
However, the portrayal of a character with Down syndrome raises concerns.
The character, a daughter given up for adoption, seems to be used as a plot device to create drama and to avoid having the biological parents deal with the consequences of giving her up for adoption. The fact that everyone, except the daughter herself, knows her 'auntie' is actually her biological mother feels contrived.
The treatment of the character, Jessie, often feels infantilizing, as she is consistently portrayed in a way that diminishes her agency. The subtext suggests that her biological parents avoid facing the emotional complexities of their decision to give her up for adoption, seemingly because the author implies she isn’t capable of understanding. This portrayal not only oversimplifies the character's experience but also allows the biological father to emerge as a hero for accepting his daughter without having to confront the more difficult emotions and consequences of his past actions.

The lack of depth in addressing these issues left me regretting picking up the book.

This book could benefit from the input of a sensitivity reader to ensure more thoughtful representation. The writing style and setting evoke the feel of Brad Watson’s work, so readers who appreciate his storytelling may find this book equally enjoyable.

The premise intrigued me and I began this one eagerly.

However…

I wasn’t enjoying the writing (very terse, short sentences) and when the dialogue didn’t have quotation marks, I was ready to be done.

I pushed ahead in this one anyhow, due to the synopsis, was eventually able to get used to the writing style, but never connected with the story.


*Honest question - if one of the reasons you left your husband was because he drank too much, are you really going to meet up with this guy 40 years later at a bar?



Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark and NetGalley for the DRC

This book was mediocre. It tells a sweet, slow-burn love story about two individuals in their sixties who were married for four years forty years prior.

The characters were likable and well-developed, particularly the male protagonist. However, I found myself anticipating significant events that never materialized, or if they did, they lacked importance. Major occurrences felt like minor bumps in the narrative and were resolved within a single chapter. You'll see what I mean when you read it.

I appreciated the premise of rekindled love and second chances, as well as the unique theme of love among older adults. As someone who has faced challenges with alcohol, I connected with the theme of alcoholism.

What I found frustrating was the author's decision to forgo quotation marks for dialogue, which complicates the reading experience. Authors should avoid this practice.

I appreciate NetGalley for providing this ARC.

A Forty Year Kiss by Nickolas Butler is my first novel by this author, but it is absolutely not going to be my last. I have his backlist ready to be purchased.

Telling the story of Charlie who travels back to Wisconsin and his ex=wife of four years, forty years later. They've each lived full and not always happy lives in that forty years, but Charlie wants to - needs to reconnect with Vivian to see if maybe that love they had can be rekindled and recognized as still being there.

They rediscover each other and share heartache, anger, secrets and oh, my, goodness. Mr. Butler has a way with words that just made me weep for these characters.

I've been married for my entire adult life to the same person, but that doesn't even matter, that love is still there and I remember those early days when we were young and so full of optimism about everythiing. I felt those memories the main characters had.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this book. I cannot wait for this to be published so my book club can read this. So very good!

I really tried to get into this book, the premise seemed interesting and sweet and something I don't see a lot of. I could not get over the lack of quotation marks, I really struggled to read the dialog and ended up not finishing.

The Forty Year Kiss focuses on the lost love of Charlie and Vivian.

Charlie is quite desparate to win back the love of his life after years apart, and Vivian, understandably so, is a tad apprehensive but intrigued. Their lives grew from one another, her having a family, complete with grandchildren. This juxtaposes his solitude and a life spent working. We find them first in a bar where they meet for the first time to rekindle what was once lost.

Vivian's life is occupied by taking care of her family, mostly her two granddaughters. Charlie is retired, bored, and lonely. After their first night together and subsequent lunch, Charlie and his second ex-wife Mona talk on the phone. Mona basically chastises him for going back to his ex-wife and potentially ruining her life. Stating that he is doing so selfishly because he is both lonely and alone.

They sleep together after Charlie admits he does have a drinking problem. What I found interesting is how much he fought internally before he admitted so aloud. His internal dialogue basically begging him to be better and do better in that moment. What I found even more intriguing is Melissa, Vivian's daughter, also having a problem and their strange bonding moment in his wine cellar.

From there it's clear that the bond between Melissa and Charlie grows, especially with her abortion and stay at his place, lying to Vivian. Soon the pair discuss her future and she moves to St. Paul with the girls, leaving Vivian to move in with Charlie.

Soon after Charlie meets Jessie, his 40 year old daughter with down syndrome that lives in a group home. Vivian tells him her story of having her right after the divorce, and how the family helped her raise her, thus becoming Jessie's "aunt." Charlie and Jessie meet, introduced as her uncle, he begins to dote on her. Soon, there is a scare that leaves them all changed, whether for the worse or the better, I'm not sure.

The book wraps up at a Chicago Cubs game as a family, it was heartfelt and sweet.

My biggest gripe is that the author doesn't use quotation marks at all, which made following dialogue tough at some points. Also, this was a very slow burn between and I didn't mind it, just sometimes I was curious if anything was actually going to come to be from it.

Random thoughts I had throughout:

I feel like we are alluding to some health issue with Vivian's headache and the hospital visit for Charlie. There is no way this is a book that ends with a HEA.

Edge of my seat waiting for one of them to die honestly.

Random drunk man in Chicago to make Charlie think about his drinking choices even though he is so clearly working on it?

Ketchup in Chicago...?

Cute ending but it felt like we were really building up to something..

Why do we hate quotation marks?