I was looking for a nice little romance for a Valentine’s Day read. I found this one on sale on Apple Books and decided to give it a go. As you know, I love a rom-com with a time travel/second chance trope, so I snagged this one as soon as I read the synopsis. While this ended up being completely different from what I expected, I still really enjoyed it.

The story is set against the backdrop of bustling Manhattan and follows Dannie Kohan, a driven and organized lawyer with a very specific five-year plan:

• Land her dream job.
• Marry her wonderful boyfriend, David.
• Buy a place near Gramercy Park.

Things seem to be going exactly as she planned. She aced her interview at a prestigious law firm and later that same day, David proposed. After the couple goes home to revel in their newly engaged bliss, Dannie falls asleep and wakes up in a completely different reality. The year is 2025 – five years into the future – and she is in a different apartment, with a different ring on her finger and a very different man by her side. She is only there for less than an hour, and when she awakens back in 2020, she realizes that she must have had a vivid dream that felt eerily real. She tries to brush it off and focus on her carefully planned future. However, fate has other plans for her.

Four-and-a-half years later, by pure chance, she meets the same man from her “dream” in the form of her best friend’s new boyfriend. This encounter sets off a series of events that force Dannie to confront the realization that life doesn’t always adhere to our neatly laid-out plans, and what she thought had only been a dream may very well have been a glimpse into her future. Can she stop it from happening?

As the narrative unfolds, Serle masterfully weaves together past and future, exploring the depths of Dannie’s relationships with her job, her fiancee David, her best friend Bella, and Bella’s boyfriend (and man from Dannie’s dream) Aaron. Dannie is a major control freak, and over the course of the book, we watch her grapple with fate taking her life in a direction she never planned for. All of this throws Dannie for a loop as she desperately tries to hang onto her dreams while realizing that sometimes you just have to let life take you where it needs you to be.

One of the novel’s greatest strengths is Serle’s ability to craft flawed and relatable characters. Dannie’s Type-A personality and her unwavering determination to control her destiny make her an engaging and multi-dimensional protagonist. I could absolutely relate to her. I am a planner, and when things don’t go as I planned, it is anxiety-inducing.

The supporting characters are just as engaging, and not one of them is wasted. Each one plays a very important part in Dannie’s story. I especially liked the character of Bella. Her free-spirited nature acts as a stark contrast to Dannie’s structured existence, and their unwavering loyalty to each other adds an extra layer of depth to the story.

What surprised me the most about this book is it is not at all a cutesy little rom-com. In fact, I wouldn’t even really call this one a romance. It’s not so much love-focused as it is life-focused, and it definitely tugs at the heartstrings. The narrative is equal parts heartwarming and heartbreaking, capturing the essence of the human experience with profound depth.

Overall, I really liked this one. While it wasn’t the cutesy, time-traveley rom-com I was expecting, this is definitely a beautifully crafted novel with a heartfelt and thought-provoking story.