I finished If the Fates Allow in two days, which should tell you everything about my grip strength vs. this book’s grip on me. It’s warm, magical, and quietly emotional in that way where you’re suddenly reflecting on your own life choices between chapters. Silas and Alice felt reeeal in a way romance sometimes misses. Their growth doesn’t feel manufactured; it unfolds with awkward stumbles, real insecurities, and those tiny breakthroughs that hit harder because they feel earned.
Alice had me doing that thing where you’re annoyed with a character and then realize… oh no, she’s holding up a mirror and I did not consent to this emotional audit. Her uncertainty, her feeling “behind,” her quiet softness trying to figure out what strength looks like for her it’s all incredibly relatable for anyone who’s been in their mid-twenties trying to be a person in the world without a user manual. Watching her shift from self-doubt to grounded confidence felt like cheering for your friend who doesn’t know she’s winning yet.
And Tidings. Listen. If someone offered me a one-way ticket there, I’d be gone before you could say “peppermint latte.” It’s whimsical without being saccharine, cozy without feeling fake. Snow, magic, twinkle lights, and quiet corners for slow mornings? It’s the kind of setting that feels like a blanket fresh out of the dryer. I could practically hear a little enchanted bell every time something emotionally important happened.
Now let’s talk spice, because Marysa Stevens knows what she’s doing. The tension is elegantly feral. Not rushed, not gratuitous, but the kind where you feel it in your chest first and then yes, eventually everywhere else. The intimacy here isn’t just bodies, it’s vulnerability, trust, longing, and that moment where a character says or does something so tender you need to stare into the void for a minute. It’s adult romance, done with intention and heat. And when it gets hot? Girl. It gets hot. Kindle fans, prepare your devices. Consider me spiritually deceased and yet deeply fulfilled.
Silas deserves his own paragraph because Ooooohemgee. He gives “emotionally literate quiet strength” with a touch of “I could build a house or stitch up a wound if things really went south.” The broody restraint, the controlled softness, the way his walls come down, peak romance engineering. And I will simply say: a man in scrubs? Yummmmy. There is something devastating about a character who is competent, careful, and still a menace in all the ways you want him to be. He’s written like a reward for women who’ve dealt with bare-minimum men.
If the Fates Allow is cozy enchantment wrapped around self-worth, connection, and very, very satisfying tension. It’s warm, reflective, and starry-eyed without losing emotional intelligence. Consider me ruined for small-town romance for a minute, because Tidings and these two characters set the bar beautifully high.