“Maybe she didn’t need to worry about faking the chemistry, after all.”

“They weren’t going to have sex ever again, unless it was for keeps.”

“Maybe he was reading too much into it, but it didn’t just sound like an apology. It sounded like a lament. For the lost versions of themselves they could’ve been, for the different future they could’ve had, for every choice they’d made along the way that had carried them further away from each other.”

In the past 12 or so months, I’ve read quite a few books that I was anticipating for MONTHS, and there’s a certain exhilaration that comes with being so rightfully excited about something and it living up to your expectations. Ava Wilder’s sophomore, Will They or Won’t They was one of those books. No one's fighting me on it, but I still have the strongest urge to scream in everyone’s faces “I WAS FUCKING RIGHT THIS BOOK WAS A DAMN MASTERPIECE JUST LIKE I SAID IT WOULD BE”

Lilah is my Scorpio icon. There were so many things about her that I felt in my soul, like this quote:
“She’d accepted long ago that she wasn’t for everyone.”
One of the recurring nightmares she talks about is one that she used to have as a kid where she would be in the backseat of a speeding car that had no driver. LITERALLY SAME. It’s insane how much I relate to this woman, she even has that signature Scorpio hypocrisy where she’s hurt by the fact that the person she’s dumping isn’t even putting up a fight. Love her.

Shane. A soft, fiercely sweet man who’s so quick to love, and lose, and then ready to do it all over again. I often struggle to verbalize my love for some male main characters because my feelings take shape in the form of keyboard smashes and screaming into the void. Shane has me feeling that type of way. I just adore him.

So many aspects of this book had me by the neck since the time I heard about: just the fact that Ava Wilder wrote it, since she became one of my favorite authors with ONE book because she’s one of my “perfect for me” authors, of which there are less than five, the fact that I get another Scorpio female main character since there is quite a shortage of us, the fact that this synopsis reminds me of The Vampire Diaries/Nina and Ian, AND that it was a second chance romance.

But once I read it, it reminded me of other books that I loved, in the BEST way possible. The ANGST from The Roughest Draft by Wibbroka, the actor-coworkers trying to resist temptation from Ship Wrecked by Olivia Dade, my other Scorpio icon Indira from The Plus One by Mazey Eddings, and an almost toxic push and pull dynamic from a new adult romance that didn’t handle those complexities well, but Ava definitely did. I feel like I talk about this all the time but characters in a romance don’t HAVE to be likable/lovable; not everyone is, but readers have to be able to root for them and their happily ever after. Not to say that either Shane or Lilah are unlikable, in fact, I love them with my entire being and would perish for them. That doesn’t mean they don’t have flaws, or do shitty things for “no reason”, or are super quick to rectify their mistakes.

Ava Wilder was the first author I ever got the courage to message on Instagram, just a long text about how much I loved her book and all that good stuff. I’ve also continued to bother her over the last 10 months, more gushing about her and her books and, more recently, us trying to manifest an ARC for me together. She had no actual power over me getting this, but I appreciate her humoring me every time I whined about not having it yet.

MVP: Ava, I love you <3

(THANK YOU to NetGalley and Headline Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.)

Ava Wilder has done it again. I didn’t think she could top her previous book “faking it in Hollywood” but there we are.

Lilah Hunter finds herself compelled to revisit her previous acting gig when her latest film endeavor takes a turn for the worse. However, the situation becomes even more challenging as she is forced to work with Shane, someone she had a secret relationship years ago that ended on a sour note. How did they end up hating each other and can they come back from it when they are forced to work together again?

Fantastic book with amazing leads. And something I absolutely loved was the “forced” couples therapy they had to attend, it felt very fresh, but I wish we had seen more of their sessions,

Lovers of romance will totally love this!

Second chance
Enemies to lovers
Forced proximity

However, one thing I wished had been discussed a bit more was Lilah’s family and how her relationships have been affected by it.

A special thank you to NetGalley for this ARC.