ARC — The Widow’s Guide to Second Chances — Valerie Pepper

“You scare me. (…) I like you, and I shouldn’t and that scares me.”

Genre: Romance
Actual Rating: 4 stars
Spicy Meter: 3 fire emojis
Content Warnings: Discusses parental death and abandonment, family member death, spouse death, and firefighting and emergency first responder risks. Contains explicit sexual content.

“The Widow’s Guide to Second Chances” follows Devon Rayne as she is forced to move back to her hometown to renovate her childhood home and live there for 6 months as per her grandmother’s will. The problem is Devon hasn’t been to her hometown in 5 years—not since her firefighting husband died in a school fire and she was left a widow. Now that she’s back, she reconnects with both old and new friends, but is still set on leaving after that 6-month mark. And little to nothing will make her stay (little being Aaron Joseph, a paramedic that just clicks with Devon, against her own will). Will Devon give this town and her heart a chance to heal? Or will she go back to running away from what hurt her in the past?

Given the title of the novel, I expected this to follow a “he fell first” trope (and it did), but what I did not expect was that this falling would take place before the book, when the main characters were young adults and not the 30-something’s they are now.

But gosh, did I love Devon and Aaron, both so broken and insecure in their own ways, both with different coping mechanisms—they were made to make each other feel safe and happy. The one reason it didn’t get the full 5-stars was because one of the arcs of the book just felt unnecessary to me, but I still enjoyed this read very much.

I would highly recommend this book if you like small town romances or if you’re looking for a love after loss romance story full of tension and stubbornness.

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ARC provided by Book Sirens and Valerie Pepper in exchange for an honest review.