Sometimes love sends you back to the drawing board.

After a traumatic accident threatens the foundations of their happy marriage, a couple tries to rebuild and find their way back to each other—and themselves—in this tender, slow-burn romance.

Roz and Vin can’t look each other in the eyes anymore, let alone share a bed. It’s been a year since they survived a life-altering accident, and their marriage hasn’t been the same. But Roz has held out hope that they can fix things, until she discovers Vin has signed a new lease. So she does what any soon-to-be-divorced Manhattanite would do: sign up for a figure-drawing class.

Between Roz’s determined attempts to improve her artistic skills and her adventures with her best friend, Raffi, she can almost ignore Vin’s impending move-out date and his footsteps in their previously unoccupied guest room. But it would all be a lot easier if Vin wasn’t Raffi’s older brother, and if she didn’t still find him incredibly, debilitatingly attractive and kind.

So kind, in fact, that Vin offers to let Roz draw him. What is she supposed to say? It’s probably better than her original plan of finding some random male model online, and she needs all the practice she can get. Plus, that’s sure to make a separation easier, right? Focus on every detail of your estranged spouse’s body while drawing him in the nude? But after the year they’ve spent avoiding each other, it feels good to see and be seen by one another again.

As Roz works to capture the wholeness of the person she fell in love with, will they both be able to draw upon the feelings they buried deep inside to finally heal together?

I read and absolutely fell in love with Cara Bastone’s book “Promise me Sunshine”. Everything from the characters to the story was perfection. Needless to say, I had really high hopes for this one. And sadly, it didn’t click the same way for me.

Roz and Vin are married, but their relationship is falling apart. A year ago, they survived a traumatic accident and since then, they’ve grown apart. They don’t share a bed anymore and their marriage is barely hanging on. Roz has been holding out hope that they can fix things, but then she discovers Vin has signed a new lease and plans to move out. So Roz signs up for a figure-drawing class to keep herself occupied and away from the awkwardness at home. Between trying to improve her artistic skills and spending time with her best friend Raffi, she can almost ignore Vin’s impending move-out date.

But it’s a bit more complicated than that because Vin is Raffi’s older brother, and Roz is still very much in love with her husband. He’s hot and soft spoken and kind. So kind, in fact, that when Roz needs a model to draw, Vin offers to pose for her, and through their drawing sessions the couple spark something new between them.

On the plus side, the couple’s struggles felt realistic. Trauma changes people, and watching them try to figure out if they can still be the people they were before or if they need to become new versions of themselves together was compelling. But so many of their problems could have been solved earlier if they had just talked.

I get that miscommunication is a romance trope. And I appreciated how the author approached it on Vin’s side. His struggles with PTSD and his inability to articulate what he’s going through felt realistic. He’s dealing with trauma. He’s shutting down. That makes sense. But Roz? She could have saved herself a lot of trouble and heartache if she had just taken a breath and got out of her own head and verbalized her frustrations instead of avoiding and hoping things would magically get better.

I gotta be honest. I didn’t much care for Roz. I didn’t hate her, but she didn’t grab me the way a main character should. It felt like she was waiting for things to happen instead of making them happen. And honestly, a lot of the conflict in this book could have been avoided if she had talked instead of flipped her top.

On the flip side, I adored Vin. I wish we’d gotten more from his perspective. His struggles felt real and raw. The way Bastone handles his PTSD is done with care and in a way that felt authentic. He’s not just brooding for the sake of drama. He’s genuinely dealing with something heavy, and he doesn’t know how to let Roz in.

I did appreciate that the characters felt different from Bastone’s last book. They’re not just copy and pasted versions of the previous protagonists. Roz and Vin have different wants, needs, and tastes. They feel like their own people, which is always nice to see from an author. The scenes where Roz is drawing Vin are tender and charged. You can feel them rediscovering each other.

Overall, this one was fine. It didn’t leave me with strong feelings either way. Honestly, it’s not a bad book, I just wanted to feel more. It’s well written and the PTSD representation is thoughtful, but it didn’t grab me the way “Promise me Sunshine” did. And a lot of that comes down to Roz not working for me as a character.

If you’re a fan of second-chance romances and stories about couples trying to rebuild after trauma, you might enjoy this more than I did. I’ll still read whatever Bastone writes next because I know she’s capable of greatness. This one just wasn’t it for me.

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