Perfect Together

by Kristen Ashley

Wyn and Remy Gastineau were perfect together…

Until, without warning, Remy walks out on their life, their love and their marriage.

Wyn is blindsided and heartbroken. It takes her years to get over the loss of Remy.

Sometime later, their children call a family meeting and Remy is acting strange. Wyn refuses to hope. Remy has moved on. She must do the same.

But she’s wrong.

Remy wants her back and he’s pulling no punches. He’s determined to do the work to piece together the marriage he shattered. Forced by circumstances to tell Wyn things he never wanted her to know, Remy reveals his tragic secrets.

As the family reels from pain long buried now laid bared, Wyn realizes instead of letting go, she has to hold tight to the man and the family they made that’s perfect together.

Genres: Romance, Second Chance, Contemporary, Contemporary Romance, Second Chance Romance, Audiobook, Adult

346 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 13, 2023

About the author

Kristen Ashley was born in Gary, Indiana, USA. She nearly killed her mother and herself making it into the world, seeing as she had the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck (already attempting to accessorise and she hadn't taken her first breath!).

Kristen grew up in Brownsburg, Indiana but has lived in Denver, Colorado and the West Country of England. Thus she has been blessed to have friends and family around the globe. Her posse is loopy (to say the least) but loopy is good when you want to write.

Kristen was raised in a house with a large and multi-generational family. They lived on a very small farm in a small town in the heartland and existed amongst the strains of Glenn Miller, The Everly Brothers, REO Speedwagon and Whitesnake (and the wardrobes that matched).

Needless to say, growing up in a house full of music, clothes and love was a good way to grow up.

And as she keeps growing up, it keeps getting better.

Reviews

[Becky · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sample
- Showed us they were together for 19 years and he divorced, left her and moved on, had a younger ow, they live together, introduced her to their kids, he won a nude picture of her as a christmas present in front of the their kids.
- She never moved on and the same day she realized this bc she secretly had hoped he would want her again and decides she needs to stop hoping and to move on is the day he decides he wants her back. I hate this.
Separation: 3 yrs
This pissed me off, heroine changed her name after he moved in with the ow and he was mad saying she was kinda of breaking their history as a family.

MY REVIEW AFTER READING IT
SPOILERS

Summary:
The story of a man and a woman married for 20 years, he couldn't handle her being super successful in her jeb and suddenly asked for a divorce. Resufed any suggestion of how to fix their marriage. During the the separation kept her hooked in him, always going to her house, arguing with her like married couple and even having sex at one point 1.5 years after the divorce. After that last adventure decided to move on and started dating a younger woman, used her like a fucktoy, using his own words, she was a easy fuck, yet he liked her, had fun, was attracked to her because she was funny and sweet and he let her move in with him in his new house letting her in his his kids lives. All this time he still used the heroine as his emotional toy, with the ow he had the sex and the easy company, with the heroine he had the heated argument about nothing really serious but that kept the fire alive and part of the family life with the kids. After 1 year dating ow tried to trap him with a baby and he realized he needed to end it before getting stuck forever, three weeks after he realized easy sex was not so easy and suddenly he become aware of the fact he always loved the heroine and would have her back no matter what. A story about a man who liked his wife cooking and cleaning (his maid) and left her as soon as she became succesful and his wife who was unable to move on and was waiting on the sidelines for him to want her back.
In the end doesn't matter how you spin it, the trauma was there since he was a child and they were married for 19 years, the marriage was over the moment he realized how successful she was. After 3 years he got tired of his new life and wanted the old one back, she readily not only was back with opens arms (and legs) she was all in like he never hurted her.
PS: it not trauma, it was a mid life crises

She does NOT have a backbone

SAFETY: Unsafe to me
- no cheating between mc
- double standards
- Divorced for 3 yrs
- they have unsafe sex few weaks after the ow had a pregnancy scare with a condom with holes
- 1.5 years ago they had sex again. After she came to the conclusion he ruined her for all others and was celibate
- Before the night they had sex again she had two lovers, she never slept with them in her house, never introduced them to her family and him. She should have had tons of flings or at least one serious guy
- Even watching him introcuding ow to her, to their kids and living with that woman and having special dates like christmas and going on activities like montain bike with Myrna (ow) she still did not try to move on
- He dated someone else for one entire year, he has been living with this ow in his new house for a year. He broke up with her two weeks before the start of the story.
- The heroine rug swept everything once she got to know about his trauma and they were already back together working on things, this happens way too soon, about a week after the ow left his house. She never hold him accountable for all the hurt he caused, it was like all his actions was the trauma's faults. He is the man who acted n hurt her, his trauma shouldnt have excused all his wrong actions. She is back to saying ily to him three days after their conversation
- One of my worst fears happened, even though he changed the mattress, while she never brought any other men to her house (their house when they were married) she now spends time, sleeps and fuck him in the same house he probably fucked the other woman in every surface, in the same fucking bedroom. Tainted space. In the end the house he lived with ow is when they will live together.
- ow is 39, h is 52. The ow asked to move in a year ago for a couple months but time passed and she was there for a year. He said she was funny and sweet and that is what attracked him. His own son said he was affectionated and attentive to the ow. He let the ow live in his house. He paid for eveyrthing at the house. He introduced her to his kids and ex wife. Yet he and everybody around him acts like Myrna was delusional into thinking what they had was serious and promising.
Say what???? Later, the author tried to not turn him into some biker who played around with a good woman (safety friends will remember him) so after the woman went completely stalker crazy he decided to talk to her and apologize for hurting her. Of course the h does not want him to talk to the ow and the author makes it seem like this is him being super mature and a great man and the h being imature because he has to take responsability for hurting the ow (but not the h). I hate seeing the underline praise he was getting for doing the bare minium.
-He had no emotional responsability and everybody thinks the ow was crazy for hoping for love when everybody could see he was still crazy about his ex. How exacly he was showing this great love for the heroine?
When he asked for a divorce? When she wanted to at least try but he had already a apartment ready to go? When after they fucked 1.5 year ago a few months later he was already dating n sleeping besides someone else every night? When he was having fun with that woman (he said so)? When he introduced her to his whole family? Just because he liked to bicker with her and is controling and visits her it does not scream love when he had her and throw it away and is not with someone else for a year. He wants his cake and he to eat it too. Heroine as an emotional outlet, the ow to warm his bed.
The irony? He allegedly is very respectful around women and dont even allows his kids to speak foul words in front of them. The same man who divorced his wife of 19 years like nothing and later had what he called a cheap fuck with ow.
I hated her friends, they are all terrible for wanting to see her back with the asshole simply because now, mere weeks after he stopped fucking the ow, barely three weeks since they broke up and a few days after she left his house he decided to be back with her

He says he regrets being with the ow and that he didnt know why bring her into the mix. The reason is clear, he wanted easy sex. Little he knew, the heroine is the easiest one, self respect is not a party of her vocabulary.
- emotional cheating hero, he said he never promised the ow anything, but he was in a committed relationship irregardless of the bullshit he spell, they slept together daily, she moved in with him does not matter the reason, she did and they fucked until at least 3 weeks before the start of the book, she had her milk on his fridge, his family knew her, her belons were at his house. Yet he was constantly going to the h's house to pick up fights and in this book there is an association between bickering and passion.

- Sexism: women are separeted into two categories, the bitch villains ones and the ones who forgive every thing the man does excusing his bad behavior. H's dad cheated even before the h's mom started abusing him, she is deranged and used it as a excuse, but the truth is she is evil. The other truth the book doesn't tell is thar the H's father is a cake eater who emotionally abuse his wife and wants to have his cake and eat it too even if it is at the expense of his own son's well being. He cheated his whole marriage while claiming his wife was the love of his life and later he said he was in love with her and his mistress os decades. He is so disgusting he introduced the hero to the mistress when he was a child, the hero thoughts he fucked the mistress while they were visiting her, but he was appeasing her bc she thought the H did not like her. Somehow the author make it seem like he and his mistress were being noble. I kid you not, this nasty asshole get away at everything on a high horse. And when his wife used to hurt the hero he was more worried about appeasing her than taking care of his kid. His wife is seem as the biggest villain, he is also one but the author again excuses the man behavior

- The heroine is unfortunatelly pathetic, she has a friend Bea, who during her marriage used to disrepect the hero, the heroine allowed it and this is considered her big mistake during their marriage. But, when we got the chance to see Bea, she had some harsh truths coming out her mouth and based on how he left the heroine and how big of a hypocrite he is. Lets just say she is not the biggest asshole I saw here and even while married he was not that great, she was his maid, he did not support her as he should. Bea was right.

- The H and the h after the divorce used to have some fights, like couples do, he was always at her house and sometines they argue. This was so sad, it was little fights like couple have and it only served to make her even more hooked. He fought with her, went home to myrna, missed the h for a few days and then went back to fuck the younger woman.

- The reason he and Myrna broke up is because she messed up with the condoms and he did not want more kids. When he tells her this she is furious with Myrna. Honey he was fucking her? He stick his dick in her for a year? Why the fuck are you mad about her trying to trap him with a baby? This is not your problem. Let him be trapped forever with the lunatic and go live your life. Of course he loved her being protective of him

- He walks all over her, I understand this author likes to write alpha men. Well, she missed the mark. It was supposed to be alpha the fact he suddenly wake up after three years and realized he still loves her and will fight for her to forgive him and be back together no matter what. In reality we have a hero constantly interrupting the heroine, walking all over her, barreling into her life like he has the right to so so and of course the worst part. He does not need to fight. Yeah, friends, no grovel at all, no apologies, no "I am sorry". As soon as he snap his fingers, she for one night shows some backbone talking to her friends about how he was the one who left and how hurt she was that he was with the ow, but the friend gives awful advice saying she needs to talk to him, so a few days after that her vaginal walls are already contracting seeing his smirk and she is ready to be back to him, in her mind she is already refers to him as her husband

- I think her kids are not loyal to her, they saw the hero moving on, his daily life with the ow, him being affectionated with her while his mother never dated yet they acted like it was a matter of time for them to be back and never even consider the fact their mother as a woman deserved better. I am aware they are their childreen but they are grown up, they can understand that.

- Even seeing the ow jealous of him with his daugher the hero did not break things off with her because of this. His daugher was the only child who had problems with ow. I doubt if the h introduced om the kids would be nice to him, especially if he was younger

- It is very clear she would be back with the snap of his fingers and she did it. Of course now he finally told her his childhood trauma, his father was a cheater and his mother physically punished him for it. She was abusive and this was terrible but a childhood trauma does not excuse a man breaking up with his wife of 20 years.
I understand the depth a childhood trauma has. It can destroy a person but authors dont let the traumatized one break others bc of it and get away easily. Bc you were hurt you do not have the right to hurt others and be so easily forgiven.
The author used the trauma and the fact his abuser (his mom) is now dying of cancer as a way to make everything he did a response to his trauma therefore not only he must be forgiven right this moment, it was like he was entitled to hurt her and hus behavior was justified so he doesnt even need to apologize, it was all his mother fault.


- It is ironic that he says he was broken and feels so much remorse over the divorce but he was for a year having fun with a younger woman. Not so remorself not to stick his dick in someone else. Not so remorseful not to come home everyday to her at his house and his bed.
He says he made a mistake getting with the other woman, but the heroine never really made him responsible for all her hurt about the ow and she left him off the hook so easily it was pathetic.
The fact he was such a hypocrite speaks way louder than his cheap thoughts. He was living with someone else yet accused her of betraying their family when she went back to her maiden name after he moved in with the ow. He slept with someone else besides him everyday in his new house, yet tried to make the heroine the wrong one when she changed her house and amplified her room by using one of her kids room (the kid is an adult and moved out).

- He was very manipulative and overbearing. A true alpha man would not divorce like that and would incentive her dreams, not her being a house wife when she has other ambitions

- the h downplays everything bad he did, at the end she even says he always made her happy. One word: Divorce
- There is lgbtq+ positive representation here and the h when it comes to her job and finances is very strong. At the same time this story is in other aspects very outdated. The man, who is the one who fucked up, who is the one who regret it, is perfecly able to built a live having someone with him for a year. The woman believes he ruined her for all others.
He doesn't take no for an answer. The way she lets him get off the rook so easily is pathetic, she is putting his feelings over hers, it was strange, instead of having him take responsability she was like a mom who babies him too much
- the ow tried to get pregnant knowing he did not wanted it, talked some shit about the heroines looks, stalked the hero and went a little crazy, going acter his son saying some lies, invading the h's home. Suddenly KA turns it around so the woman rivalries is disguised and made her recognize her mistaked and apologize, at the same time she made her a little bit like a golddigger, enjoyng the fact the hero paid all the bills to work less without communicating him

- he fucked ow there for a year, doesnt matter how she twits it. Ow lived in the house yet their hea is there. h never allowed another man in their old house.
“She lived here,” he reminded her. “She stayed with you,” she amended. “It’s always been yours. However, I fully intend to make it ours.”

-the h did not want the divorce, she suggest counseling but he refused, yet when he wanted her back she was there waiting, available and ready

- She was with two om and he says she cant make him pay for being with ow, because it was not fair. He admit it would destroy him if she had another man the same way he had Myrna. What she had 18 months ago and was unable to have again after fucking him doesnt even come close to what he had. I wish she had at least dated someone else seriously so her memories of her bedroom and her house would also include someone else, like he does in his house and his bedroom. His bedroom that used to have a nude picture of Mryne hung on the wall

- 3 days after their talk about the abuse and she saying she accepts him back they fuck in the same bedroom he slept with the ow and he tells her they are gonna get remarried. I undertand this book is not only a romance, there is all this family stuff happening here, the kids have POV, but the author did not need to flush the romance aspect down the toilet
- the icing on the cake I already mentioned: she has a hea in the same house he lived with ow for a year

- He gets absolution from everything so easily bc he was abused as a kid by his mother and repressed it and twenty years into his marrige he suddenly divorced his wife, all the blame goes to his mother. The heroine says she ended her marriage. I am sorry to break it to you honey, but a trauma doesn't excuse an adult action. Childhood abuse is devastiang, it can damage a person forever. Still, this person is not free of blame if they hurt others as an adult. This is not how life works, your trauma doesn't give you an free card to break people in the way

- While he was building a new life and having someone else every night at his new house that the h barely step foot in, he continue to act as the owner of their old house/her house. She was weak for allowing it

- he never properly apologize for the h, but he does it to the ow

- his mother beat him as a child, she also abused his father, but serial cheating is abuse too and his father was not held responsible as he should knowing she was beating his child and yet letting it happen. He cheated and she beats H bc of it, he knew and continue to cheat but never left. In the end he was seen as a martyr. Disguing. He did not do the bare minium to stop it. He did not protect his son and he did not stop cheating. The only thing his father did was say his mother needs consealing but when he was off cheating she stopped going and continue to abuse the hero

- BBS is not sexy.
"He smirked, I felt my vaginal walls contract"

Quotes

The hero to the ow "If were living together as you thought we were, as partners, this was something I was entitled to know. But regardless how we were living together..."
you let her move in for a whole year introduced her you your kids but you arent partners? Fuck you

Why he left her
His mom severely hurted him and he tried his best to never upset her for years, he believed a man needed to always take care of the women, the heroine become succesful he did not know how to handle it *sexist*

“Because I had been conditioned from a very young age to take special care of the women in my life. And that was ingrained so deep, I didn’t realize your mother could take care of herself. That doesn’t mean she didn’t need me, or I don’t need her. But I was completely unprepared for an evolved, functioning, mentally and emotionally healthy woman to be in my life. It was fine when she was at home taking care of you kids, because that meant I was taking care of all of you, including your mom. And it was fine when she was starting out, because I made more money and I still felt like it was me giving her the life she deserved. And it isn’t okay, but I couldn’t handle it when she started to become successful, not because she might overshadow me or make more money. But because it meant I wasn’t taking care of her. It was messed up and wrong, but that was where my mind went and that is why I left." It she hadnt done thar for how long he would live with her and make the h suffer?

I hate her friends. Why?
“He left me, Fiona, and eventually moved a woman in with him.” She sipped, but didn’t put her drink down when she replied, “He did. You were divorced when he did. She’s gone. That was then. This is now. You just let him go and you’re hanging on to that like it means something and missing what it really means. You’ve been divorced for years, and you just let him go, and he wants to work things out and what are you doing, Wyn? Holding back a man you love because…why…exactly?” “He walked out,” I said shortly. “And divorced me. I wanted to talk about it then. I wanted to work it out then. He didn’t allow either.” She swung her glass toward me. “So you didn’t get what you wanted, girl. Who cares? Again, that was then, and this is now.” “So I snap to when Remy decides we’re worth fighting for?” “Hell yes.”

@voraciousbrazilianreader

[Kristina]

This screams self-insert.
I’d ask what happened to this author, but I reread Mystery Man earlier this year and I think I’m just mad that she never evolved. Since I did evolve and no longer tolerate books where women are treated like shit in the guise of ‘romance’, I’ll pass on further books from her. ✌🏻

**Both Sonia and Rebeka have spoilers
*** been reading the five stars -posted prelaunch- and only a very few have been properly labeled as advanced reader copies. If you are part of her launch team, you need to disclose that people, it’s in the TOS smdh.

[Nadia · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a torturous reading experience this was. Btw, I have NEVER rated a KA story 1 star (not even the dumpster fire that was Ham and Zara’s book).

This quote perfectly sums up the entire book:

“He walked out,” I said shortly. “And divorced me. I wanted to talk about it then. I wanted to work it out then. He didn’t allow either.”
She swung her glass toward me. “So you didn’t get what you wanted, girl. Who cares? Again, that was then, and this is now.”
“So I should just snap to when Remy suddenly decides we’re worth fighting for?”
“Hell yes.”

🤦🏾‍♀️ Talk about pathetic.

The blurb clearly alludes to the fact that Remy has some dark secret in his past which is why he dumped his wife of 20 years without ever looking back. The man never had any regrets about this decision until 3 years later when he discovers that his new long-term girlfriend is crazy (btw, ofc the new girlfriend is described as much younger and thinner than the heroine, gorgeous, funny, etc.). Only after this breakup does Remy suddenly decide that he made a mistake and declares that he and Wyn are getting back together.

And what does Wyn do when the man she has loved for her entire life who betrayed her so casually, walked out on her and her kids, and shacks up with another woman, all of a sudden makes the unilateral decision that Wyn should just forget all that and take him back?

She says okay.

Doesn't even put up a fight. At 34%, BEFORE Remy even explains his true reason for dumping her, Wyn is already in bed with him talking about getting back together and going on dates “to get to know each other again.” Honey, I think you know him pretty damn well after the past 3 years. My blood was literally boiling reading this. I cannot describe how pathetic and desperate for scraps this h is.

I’m only going to briefly touch on the issue in Remy’s past that caused him to act this way because honestly, I feel like it was used as plot device to excuse his bad behaviour rather than being tackled as a serious issue. What Remy went through was tragic. However, suffering abuse does not give you the excuse to abuse others. If someone is treating you like garbage, you do not have to stay with them and put up with it just because they had a troubled past. I’m sorry, but you need to know your worth.

I would have been okay with Wyn helping Remy work through his issues and then eventually, down the line, they talk things out and somehow find their way back to each other. But no. Once Wyn hears about his past, she immediately forgives him, they get back together, and Remy never even apologizes. She’s totally cool with the OW stuff. So what happens the next time his past starts to get to him? They divorce again and he finds another woman, but Wyn just has to suck it up because of "trauma"?

And the thing is, it seems like Remy was a pretty bad husband even pre-divorce. During the 20 years he was married to Wyn, Remy left her alone to raise the kids primarily by herself, expected her to do all the cooking and cleaning and most other household chores (oh but don't worry!!! Remy occasionally cleaned the pool so it's totally fair). He further told her that she should prioritize his career over hers and became insecure and dumped her when she got too successful. I need justice for Bea. Everyone hated on her for talking shit about Remy but she was the most sane person in this whole book!

Just imagine Luke or Lee or Tate or Joe acting like this. Hopefully you see how utterly laughable that is because it just goes to show how atrocious Remy was in comparison.

[Sonia]

checks publishing date: oh a new release!

Checks spoilers: yup. It’s basically the same type of books she’s been writing… sigh… not for me

The title has to be a parody 🥴.

The H and h are separated after being together for 20 years. The H strings her along during the separation while being with younger ow. The h had two brief lovers, but nothing compared to what the H had- he had a consistent sex life/relationships. The one he moved in he claims is an “easy f***”. And, of course, the ow is younger, slimmer, beautiful… etc etc.

The MCs have a couple of sexcapades, an ow pregnancy scare and eventually the h becomes celibate while he gets his head out of his 🫏.

Don’t worry- she’s happy to accept him back with open arms after the three years 🙄

Who needs a grovel 🤡?

Rebeka has full spoilers https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Arini · Rating 1 out of 5]

either this author has had a lobotomy or i need one for myself. it baffles me how i can go FROM “i can live off the rest of my days reading only Kristen Ashley books” in 2020 (when i first discovered her) TO ==> “i WISH THIS BLoOoNDE OLD HAG PAST HER PRIME AUTHOR QUITS WRITING” 👹 Perfect Together should never have been published. it was a complete waste of resources. the story is dumb. theres no romance whatsoever. the characters are giAnT idiots having MID life crises. i tried to be understanding, but it was hard not to judge them when both were so pathetic i felt ashamed on their behalf. 🤧

even the worst of Kristen Ashley classic heroes wouldnt act half as stupid and be as much of a dirtbag as the H of this book. 🤦‍♀️ if they (temporarily) broke up with their heroines, they would likely whore around (because thats just how theyre built by the author) but they wouldnt let their fuck budies into their kids lives and live under the same roof willy nilly. above all, im quite certain that no classic Kristen Ashley heroes would leave their heroines because their egos were so fragile and their dicks so tiny they couldnt handle their women being more successful than them. 😤

i know that most of the Hs confounding behavior against the h & their marriage is deeply rooted in his childhood trauma thats never addressed and overcome, but i truly dont like how this book seems to justify his shitty actions solely on the Hs troubled past. history helps shape a person, but present mistakes have consequences. the H shouldve apologized & repented. alas, the h doesnt even bother to make him grovel before she takes him back. 😭 instead of romance, most of this book is just figuring out the Hs bullshit, family drama, OW drama, and toxic friendship.

Kristen Ashley has done a few second chance, but marriage in crisis is a first as far as i can remember. i have never rated her books this low, which is why it saddens & hurts me. 😭 ive been sticking to her out of some sense of twisted loyalty. instead of being rewarded, i feel like im paying for it with every new release that seems to be getting worse each time. even so, i doubt this will be the last time im reading a Kristen Ashley book. i know im the clown. 👉👈 i will say this though: IF YOU SEE THIS BOOK, RUN THE OTHER WAY AROUND AND DONT EVER LOOK BACK. 🏃‍♀️💨

(read as an audiobook)

[Rachael*Caribbean*girl*bibliophile · Rating 1 out of 5]

Spoilers ahead.


* My one star is for Bea, labeled a bitter man hater by the h and her circle of friends for telling the truth about the asshole men in their lives.....here's to you Bea you're the type of friend I'd keep.in my.life



I started this, read the abrupt decision by the husband to end his marriage and settled in to see the h move on and find true love....but knowing this author I skipped to the end....and confirmed my fear that the hero of the book (who was living with another woman after 3 years apart) is said husband! Only KA 😂😂😂😂

Still reading



This may be the longest review I've ever left on here because the way I have almost this entire book highlighted 😂 whew Chile!

**********
To begin
The H Remy divorces his wife of 19 years after her work commitments clashed with his and she wasn't able to be their for his event. Three years later the couple's son calls a family meeting and the h shows up obviously having recently cried. Seeing his ex wife upset helps the H to realize that he still loves his wife and indeed wants her back. Conveniently he's recently asked his live in girlfriend to move out as he's decided to end the relationship. Now there's nothing standing in the way of him getting his wife back.

***********
Let me start off by saying this is one of the most talented authors I've read in my years. Her books worked for me because she delivered Alpha males just how I love them, so much so that her love of over description, long winded phrases and even asshole behavior by her heroes could be forgiven (except Keaton fuck him still). But in the past few years these books took a turn for the worst and after Still Standing I really had hope....but this book shattered it. We have here a man who was not a good husband to begin witj, one who left his wife to handle the household duties and children even after she'd started her own business. A man who basically divorced his wife because her success interfered with her role in his life....A man who then moved another woman in with him and INTRODUCED HER TO HIS KIDS AND EX WIFE which of course implied this was a serious relationship. This man then decided he was done with his hot sexy younger woman and wanted his wife back....the reason for all this? Childhood trauma.... Which of course can have a profound effect on one's life but one would hope that not only would a 54 year old man have confessed this to his loving wife many years before but that as that trauma resurfaces he wouldn't throw away 21 years with this woman on a mere whim.....he'd habe tried counseling or whatever means necessary to keep said loving wife. Instead he had a midlife crisis that ended 3 years later and he decided he wanted his wife back.
When the H told him in the prologue there was no coming back from him walking out I fully expected her to make him crawl to get HR back....I settled in for an epic grovel with tears and snot too....I expected her to keep him on his knees until even my.cold heart felt sorry for him....but nope with nary an apology she accepts him back into her life.
The rage this book generated in me is only slightly less than Keaton, only because the h also had sex during the time apart.
I've never messaged an author with negative thoughts about their book.but I'm tempted too just to ask KA what's going on? Seriously WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING?!???
Anywhos another fail for me
*************


1)You…have a place?”
“Apartment, yeah,” he grunted.
“You’ve rented an apartment.”
It was a statement, and the pain in it was not veiled.
Hearing it was why my husband of nineteen years looked from placing some of his folded T-shirts into one of his Tumi cases, to me.
His next wasn’t a grunt, it was gentle and sweet, and butchering when he repeated, “Yeah.”
“So, we’re done,” I said tonelessly.
He straightened from his packing, “Wyn—”
“Like so much else in our lives, you have decided we’re done.”

2) I took it as my tall, dark and gorgeous, husband still being tall dark and gorgeous and I was the mom of three babies. I still carried baby weight even after they were nowhere near being babies. He was no longer doing the appreciative up-and-down that told me the extra fifteen minutes were so worth it, and he was going to show me just how much when we got home.
No, I was no longer his hot wife he couldn’t keep his hands off.
I was the fat mother of his kids he didn’t have any patience for.
I was also the starting-her-own-business woman who suddenly needed ten more hours in the day to continue to fold his laundry, get the grocery shopping done and look decent for his client dinners.

3)“I’m holding on to him,” I said in horror. “He’s moved on. Has the bachelor pad he’s always wanted. The petite, beautiful, free-spirited, younger woman. And I’m holding on to him, giving Manon extra money, defending her right to copiously caffeinate, forbidding Sabre to have something he really wants, and my son is mature, smart, it is something he should have without me making it a headache and a huge discussion with his dad.”

4)My business name was still simply Wyn Gastineau, it had an “Inc.” behind it officially, but not as it was known in the biz. It was my name, the end.
But I legally went back to Wyn Byrne personally.
I did this after Myrna moved in with Remy.
Okay, since it was on my mind, we’ll get into it.
It went like this.
Remy: “So, you’re punishing me for being with someone else?”
I was, of a sort.
Me (in denial, not only to him): “The world doesn’t revolve around you, darling.”
Yes.
I’d thrown in the “darling.”
Remy: “Bullshit, Wyn. Has it occurred to you that we might not be together, but we’re still a family?”
Me: “I haven’t disowned our children. I’ve changed my name. And frankly, what my name is, is no longer any of your business.”
Remy: “You dumping my name and our history and every memory we’ve ever made is none of my business?”
Seriously?

5)All the time.
Myrna was a granola, boho, throw-on-some-mascara (maybe), pick-up-your-multi-colored-woven-fringed-crossbody-and-go desert rat.
She mountain biked with Remy.
My ass had tried a spin class once and I detested it, so that had never happened again. But the kids had bought me a pink Schwinn with a cute basket, which I occasionally rode to the grocery store or a coffee shop, and by “occasionally,” I meant this happened maybe five times a year.
I was blonde, my hair ranging from shades of gold to butterscotch (not really, I had no idea what my natural hair color was anymore, and I didn’t allow myself to come even close to finding out, and I never would, until the day I died).
She was a brunette, her long, wild, perfectly tousled hair falling near to her waist when it wasn’t wrapped in some slapdash knot or twisted into twin braids.
Mine went to my bra-strap and I had it professionally blown out once a week, the other two times I did it myself, and I was (almost) a master.
She was busty, but otherwise thin.
I had tits and ass for days, never in my life had I had a flat stomach, and right then was no exception.
I was (if pushed to define it at all, never my favorite thing to do) what I preferred to consider “seasoned.”
She was thirteen years younger than me.

6)I had honestly thought it was all going to be okay when I got back from California those three years ago because, before I went, we’d gone at it but ended fucking it out.
But when I came home, he’d been packing.
And he’d already had a furnished apartment to go to. So even before that, he’d been planning.
So I’d obviously been wrong

7)I did not want to be the broken-hearted ex and the rebound

8)She could not be sane.
“I’m fifty-four goddamn years old and you were trying to trap me with a kid by poking holes in fucking condoms and skipping pills. There is not anything more to talk about.”
“I’m thirty-nine and my time is nearly up, and I wasted a year of that time with you,” she spat.

9)What do you see in her?”
“She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on, she always was, and she is to this day, not only because she physically just is because she’s fucking gorgeous and has amazing style, but also because her heart is big, and her first thought is not for herself, but for kindness. Even with that, she’s driven, ambitious, focused. She’s the best mother I’ve ever seen and she’s an insanely good lay. And yes, before you ask, she’s so much better than you, I wonder how we got to the point of you living with me. No wait, I remember. You asked to move in due to your situation with your old place, and you needed some time to save up to find something better, so you weren’t supposed to be here this long in the first fucking place.”
“I cannot believe you just said that to me,” she hissed.

10)“All right then, what it means is, until Wyn walked up to the house today and I knew someone had upset her, it cut me to the bone not only because she was upset, but because I’d made it so I couldn’t do dick about it. Only then did I realize what a colossal mistake I’d made. But you exposing what you are, us being done, you eventually being gone, Wyn being upset, Yves sharing what he shared and how he shared it, I’ve come to terms with a number of things I should have come to terms with a long time ago. And you know me. I don’t fuck around.”
“So you’re telling me, just today you’ve figured out you’re still in love with her?” she asked sarcastically.
“Yes,” he answered.

11)“We were perfect together. Then we were not. He walked out, and the only way I could deal was not to admit to myself that I wasn’t dealing and that I was hanging on to him even when he moved into an apartment, then bought and furnished a home, then entered into a relationship with another woman where she was sleeping beside him every night.”
Not one of them, even Reed, could hide their flinch at my last.
“You’ve had lovers,” Bernice said softly.
I faced her. “Not in my bed, his bed, our bed. Neither of them met our kids. And I never spent the night with them night after night for a year.”

12)We fought about me going to California. We made up having sex. I went to California. I came back. And he had an apartment to go to. Not a hotel. An apartment. He’d been planning,” I reminded them. “Planning and following through with that plan before the California trip, which was a day. I was gone at seven o’clock in the morning and I was back in my bedroom, watching my husband pack, at ten o’clock the next day. When the kids went to him that next weekend, they had beds. You can buy beds in a week. He did not. He already had them, and told me so when he called, one day after he left, to share he wanted them for the weekend. He did not tell me any of this. He did not warn me about it. He did not warn me he was thinking about it. About leaving. About ending us. He did not agree to discuss it after. He filed when he could file. Our attorneys ironed out the arrangements. And he divorced me.”

13) I asked him to talk to me. I asked him to come back. I asked him to go to counseling. He said what needed to be said had been said. He didn’t come back. He built a new life without me, and he didn’t let another woman in his bed, he installed her in his home and in my children’s lives.”
“Babe,” Kara whispered.
“Now, she’s out and what? He realized what he lost? Or he’s looking for a rebound?” I asked. “Well, no. Because yes, indeed, I did just come to terms with the fact that I never stopped loving him. And maybe somewhere in his heart, he never stopped loving me. But he gave up on us. Not on me. On us. He just gave up. We were perfect, and many might argue my definition, but we were. And he walked away. And when he did, it hurt so bad, I couldn’t face it until three years later with a martini in my hand and my best people around me and…”

14)Look at me,” he ordered.
I lifted my head. “You need to leave.”
“We’re working this out.”
“She slept by your side for a year!” I shrieked.
The room fell dead silent.
I obliterated it.
“Is that how in love with me you are, Remy?” I hissed.
“I needed to hand you the world, but you took it for yourself,” he replied.
What?
“What the fuck does that mean?” I spat.
“I miss you. God. Fuck. Christ.”
He looked to the ceiling and the emotion rolling off him threatened to drown me. God, take my breath, drag me under, carry me away.
His gaze came back to mine.
“I fucked us up, baby. And I know, because, shit…” He stopped, visibly struggled and kept on, “If you found a man, if you did what I did to you, I’d not survive it.”
“Be quiet, Remy.”
“It’d destroy me.”
“Be quiet, Remy.”
“I have no excuses because my mind switched off the minute I walked away from you, and it didn’t switch on until you told me Bea hurt you and it brought it all back.”
Bea?
Bea brought it all back?

15)“And now that I’m with it again, I know, no matter what’s happened between then and now, we have never been done, and we never will be,” he declared.
I didn’t respond, not only because I didn’t know what to say, but because I was physically incapable of speaking.
“I tested you, and I shouldn’t have.”
He did?
“You didn’t test me, but I still failed,” he continued.
I didn’t?
“And now I see you need to do the mental work I’ve done, but I’m not waiting for that, honey. You’re either going to have to snap to it or I’m gonna give it to you. One way or another, we’re gonna get to the place where we work it out, and then we’re going to get back to where we should be,” he finished.

16)And although he’s been eerily quiet for two days, my ex-husband threw down with me on Sunday about the fact that we’re still in love, and we need to work it out, even though he walked out on me, and we’ve been divorced for three years.”
“Jesus, Wyn,” she said.
“Oh!” I cried. “And he kicked out his live-in girlfriend after he found out she’d poked holes in his condoms and stopped taking birth control in order to trap him with a baby he did not want, and now there’s a slim chance she’s going to start stalking him.”

17)He left me, Fiona, and eventually moved a woman in with him.”
She sipped, but didn’t put her drink down when she replied, “He did. You were divorced when he did. She’s gone. That was then. This is now. You just let him go and you’re hanging on to that like it means something and missing what it really means. You’ve been divorced for years, and you just let him go, and he wants to work things out and what are you doing, Wyn? Holding back a man you love because…why…exactly?”“He walked out,” I said shortly. “And divorced me. I wanted to talk about it then. I wanted to work it out then. He didn’t allow either.”
She swung her glass toward me. “So you didn’t get what you wanted, girl. Who cares? Again, that was then, and this is now.”
“So I snap to when Remy decides we’re worth fighting for?”
“Hell yes.”

18)And then he shared, “When he’s up from school, Sabre stays with me most of the time. As much as it pains me, it wasn’t a surprise when all three of my kids were devastated I walked out on their mother. But I’m fortunate. They love me more than I deserve. And I think Sabre understands in a way I don’t think he even gets how he understands that maybe most of the pain in all of that was felt by me. Even after what I did to his mother, our family. And that’s why he sticks close to his dad.”

19)It was me for him.
He was just into me.
Then.
And, apparently, now.
Which might be why Myrna hurt as bad as she did and why I’d talked myself into thinking he’d lost interest in me.
For Remy, it had always just been me…until her.
Though, it was perhaps more important, after struggling with my body image and confidence as many girls and young women my age did, I got over it, and not just because my husband made no bones about the fact he was very attracted to me (even if that helped a ton).

20)No, Wyn. I’d like to know how guilty I really should feel about how I fucked up with Myrna.”
Do not bite, Wyn!
“You don’t need to feel guilty, Remy. We were divorced. You were free to do what you wished.” It took a lot, but I said it, and I wasn’t sure I meant it, but that didn’t stop it from being the truth. “Now, let’s get back to the equally uncomfortable subject of your mother dying.”
“I was free to do what I wished, so you were too, is that what you’re saying?”
“Okay, let’s just get out of the nitty-gritty,” I requested, maybe somewhat desperately. “How was your day?”
“My day was shit because my mom’s dying, my kids have to go back and forth between two houses because I failed my marriage, and my wife is dodging a direct question because she doesn’t want to say to my face she took a cock that is not mine.”
Ding!

21)“I walked out on you when your business exploded, and I understood that you never again had to count on me for anything. How perfect do you think I need to be, Wyn?”
My God.
This man.
I forced my hands between us only to lift them and cradle his jaw. “I counted on you for everything.”
“If you did, you’d know you could throw away a glass of wine, because there’s more where that came from, and if that’s what you wanted, I’d break my back to make sure there always would be.”
Oh.
My.
God.
I closed my eyes, shoved my fingers up into his hair and pulled his forehead to mine.
“I need to know,” he said, his voice thick, and I opened my eyes.
“Know what?”
“Is this what it seems? Are we working on us?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said instantly.

[Jena]

Self note - spoilers - safety
H dumped the h after 20 years & 3 kids together.
Then he gets with a hot, younger woman (who is 13yrs younger than the h, also skinny and more beautiful, while the h is described as frumpy, old and fat, so basically someone who’s the complete opposite of the h),
and lived with this ow for a year,
but all the while keeping the h hanging and using her for emotional support.

He had the ow for hot sex, h for the feels,
he would stop by their old house to argue with her to keep her in his life while he was living with the ow.

- He didn’t regret his decisions until his live-in gf messed up,
so the ultimate reason for breaking up with the Ow was due to the Ow trying to get preg, he didn’t want to father another child at 54 and told her so.
But he continued to sleep with the ow, until 3 weeks before the MCs got back together.
( 3 weeks because he got mad about her messing with the condoms/pills, so he slept on the sofa for a week, then gave her 2 weeks to move out. So he went from her bed right into the h’s instantly)


MCs were divorced for 3years, H had sex with the h 1.5yrs earlier, then he was back fucking ow, while the h remained celibate. Before they had sex again, she slept with 2 guys, that sounded like ONS.

- when the H moved in with the ow, the h who hasn’t moved on and was still pining for him, changed her name back to her maiden name and he got mad.🙄

Looks like H was having a mid life crises, but he blames it on ptsd from childhood abuse.🙄


- Cheating
While he’s living with his gf/ow, he cheats on his hot girlfriend with the fat, ex wife…
and when the ow called the h fat (during their break up), he said the fat wife was better than her🤷🏻‍♀️. Sounds like the author was trying to butter up the old, fat, or insecure readers…. He says exactly what you want to hear…
But if he truly thought the h better, then he would’ve been with the h for sex at least, wouldn’t he?
KA heroines are doormats, and she would’ve been his fuck buddy even if H had other fuck buddies. Since he stayed to have sex with the hot ow, you can figure out whom he preferred.

Doormat h takes him back in one day.
No grovel as per usual by this author, because men has needs, yknow.🙄
They blame everything on the poor OW, because you gotta make someone a villain and a man is never that.

H apologized to the ow for leading her on and hurting her, but never to the h.
- HEA - they will live in the house, in the same bedroom where he lived and had sex with the hot ow.


Avoiding.


Rebeka has full spoilers. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[✩ layla ✩]

ETA: after reading some real reviews (ones not from the fan girls), it turns out I was right to avoid this rubbish. While she isn't celibate (she had 2 lovers who obviously weren't all that, judging from how much time she talks/thinks about them), she didn't really move on like he did. He got to have great sex with a hot new girlfriend, living with her, and her meeting his kids, etc., while she was just passing the time. And what is with her just waiting for him to come back to her?? No grovel, no nothing.

I remember back in the day when I used to really like this author…

**********************************************************

Read the sample. Hero seems to have no problem moving on while the heroine never does. It’s only him for her 🙄

Not impressed.

KA and her celibate heroines do my head in. So unless he didn’t really move on and it was all for show, or the heroine decides in the end to get some, too, then this book is definitely not for me. Because why the hell would you stay celibate for a man who would never think to do the same for you 😳🙄

[Smashing Kindle · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book gave me rage like no other. The H leaves his marriage with no reason, shacks up with another woman and then comes crawling back. Only for the h to roll over & take him back after some shoddy childhood trauma explanation. Where was the groveling? The pleading? Gah!

[Esther]

I don’t know if I’m understanding this right. But apparently she had two lovers but have been celibate for 1 and a half years. And it is because that’s the last time she had sex with H. They divorced 3 years ago. And I think he has been dating ow for 1 year. So he was celibate the first two years (without counting the time he had sex with h) until ow (Myrna)
H lived with ow in the new house bc she needed a place to stay. ow tried to get pregnant messing with the condoms and with her pills. Yuck. Apparently it was bc after H hang out with h for taking he didn’t touch her for days and he visited h frequently. H said to ow when he broke up with her that h was way better than her and more pretty and a great lay after ow says that h is fat and some stuff
He knows that she slept with two guys and it’s jealous about it.
h is jealous bc H lived with ow and ow met their kids. Also, the ow gave him a nude photograph for Christmas (in front of their kids and don’t know if in front of h) and the H was mad about it but I think they had it on their bedroom. H changes the mattresses(plural don’t know why) after ow is out of the house. But they are going to live there their hea
The last conversation between ow and H (after ow tries to hurt their kids and lie about stuff and try to steal from h some luxury stuff) is the ow saying something like but at least we had some fun? And he says: yes, we did. 🤢 NO YOU MORON. Don’t say that.

[Christy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars



A lot was going on in this one… I did like it as a whole, but I certainly had my issues with it. As someone who’s been married as long as the couple in this book, I’m not sure I would have been so easily forgiving in this situation. However, I love KA’s writing, and I would be curious to read more about this world, perhaps a book about one of their kids.

Audio book source: Audible
Story Rating: 3 stars
Narrators: Full Cast
Narration Rating: 5 stars
Genre: Romance
Length: 13h 13m

[Stephanie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can’t believe I wasted 5 dollars on this.

But I can, because I was so hyped for a marriage in trouble romance. Or a second chance divorced couple whatever.

But this.. was not it.

Where was the romance? Where was the tension the build up the angst the explosion? No, we had (in typical KA fashion lol) Remy repeatedly talking over Wyn, and having a live in girlfriend for a year and leaving his wife of over two decades over *trauma* that his WIFE OF OVER TWENTY YEARS SHOULD KNOW ABOUT. Oh and a killer closet.

The man actually leaves his wife because he believes he doesn’t need to take care of her. She makes big money as a celebrity stylist and he can’t handle it. Boo hoo 😢

Also, why were we making a big deal about their kid being gay? WHO CARES? And I really didn’t need any of the kids’ POVs. I wanted more time with Wyn and Remy together.. actually talking things out in a way that made sense. And you know, a ROMANCE not a family saga. I have been hoodwinked and bamboozled and I’m mad about it lol.

I really wanted to give Kristen Ashley the benefit of the doubt but I think this is the end of the road for me. I’ll just stick with Dax Lahn and that’s that.

[Lu Bielefeld · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 ⭐⭐ - Meh!
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S
P
O
I
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First, I have to emphasize that the author embarked on the woke wave and chooses characters that fulfill quotas in diversity and agendas such as the environment, slavery and even civil war.
Hero full of issues due to abuse suffered in childhood by his crazy mother and father who did not keep the zipper of his pants closed.
Heroine works with fashion... and the author forgets to touch on the use of slave labor by the fashion industry in communist countries like China. Since she wants to thread political agendas into her stories, she should touch on that.
Our hero separates from the heroine and asks for a divorce, supposedly because she won't accompany him to an important event for him. Since she also had an important commitment on the same date.
When she returns, he has his bags packed and has already chosen an apartment to move into. She is totally blindsided by his attitude.
They divorce, he refuses any reconciliation.
Three years later, he has a wonderful home and a girlfriend living with him for a year now. Our heroine was never invited to see the whole house, she only had access to the living room, while he still had free access to her house. The new woman in his life interacts with their children and participates in the festivities and important dates. She is part of the family whether he likes it or not. She is everything our heroine is not, young and active.
When she decides it's time to move on, he dumps his girlfriend and wants our heroine back.
She is an idiot and accepting and forgiving, after all he was the victim of abuse and blah blah blah... They even overlook his father's cheating over the years and the fact that he left his crazy abusive wife alone with their son while he Iwas with the mistresses. Aff!
Then the story drags on with his mother's illness and death, his ex having a crisis and breaking into the heroine's house.
Some sex scenes between the two, nothing special that just fill spaces in the story. Drama of sexual abuse on the daughter of friends and a future involvement with their son.
He enjoyed sex with a young woman for a year while she had two brief lovers who neither knew her children nor her home.
What is the author's deal with and fixation with the French language? Annoying thing!
Big disappointment.

[reeder (reviews) · Rating 1 out of 5]

A textbook example of internalized misogyny with nothing to redeem it.

I suppose Kristen Ashley's books (yes, even those I enjoyed) were always on a slippery slope, and it's hard to imagine there could be a bottom lower than this. I flipped to the back expecting an afterword shout of "April Fool!!" But no.

In case anyone thinks it's the set-up I'm decrying (middle-aged man dumps middle-aged wife because she's becoming as successful in her career as he is in his, then he buys his dream home post-divorce and lives there for a year with a younger woman before he gets burned by a pregnancy scare and conveniently decides he wants his wife back now), surprise! You're wrong. That melodramatic nonsense is actually what motivated me to give this book a try after finding the last few KA releases too dull. I thought she was back on her whiny heroine angst train. She's not. This heroine whines to her horrible, two-faced, pimping friends, not to the ex-husband who did her wrong.

No. The stomach-churning misogyny in this book involves transforming the one truth-telling friend into a villain (ride or die, Bea. You deserve better than these losers), making the OW a caricature of male urban legend fears (she deliberately poked holes in his condoms to try to trap him with a pregnancy), and then resting all the blame for the husband abandoning a 19-year marriage on the shoulders of his abusive mother while welcoming his philandering father and his father's longtime mistress into the restored family circle (even though his father knew about the abuse, riled the abusive mother with his infidelity, and enabled the abuse with frequent absences...to, y'know, cheat).

Ick.

[Natasha is a Book Junkie · Rating 5 out of 5]

“There’s perfection in righting a wrong. There’s perfection in taking an incorrect turn and finding yourself on an unexpected but beautiful journey. Even if there’s pain along that journey, if it takes you where you’re supposed to be, it makes it no less perfect.”

There’s nothing that makes me believe in happily-ever-after more than the idea of an estranged couple finding their way back to one another after years apart, and Kristen Ashley’s new novel is an absolute masterclass in character-driven storytelling, and in its nuanced portrait of two people fighting for what they should have never stopped being—perfect together. But nothing in this novel is easy or cheaply sentimental. Familial tensions, complex human bonds, and long-hidden truths transform the story into a powerful pressure-cooker of emotions that never loses its distinctive Kristen Ashley flavour and depth. There are passages I wanted inked on my skin for the rest of my life, there are scenes I would never want to relive, and there is so much beauty in the most unexpected of moments, all coming together to tell a story of love, forgiveness, and second chances in life, but also of breaking the cycle that is holding us down and setting the example for those we love the most.

Continue reading this review...



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I received a free ebook from the author with no obligation whatsoever to read and/or review it. My reviews are always honest and fair.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

**** 4 stars ****

I really liked this one.
It was engaging and got me engrossed in their lives.
The drama, the family dynamics, the teenager's personality, the twists, and the secondary characters, were very entertaining.
Now, I needed way more grovelling and besides, I didn't like how unredeemable and bitter Bea and Colette were. Hence my 4*.
And on that note, I don't get why readers are so angry to the extent of creating "void shelves" without even reading the book, 🤷‍♂️or why so many hate reviews, shaming the author. Everyone has the right not to like a story and say their reasons, but there's no need to be offensive. Be nice, download the next book and move on. ☮️

[Antonella · Rating 1 out of 5]

well.. i wish i can say i was surprised..
not going to force it both of these characters are idiots that deserve each other


------------------------------------------------------------
we all know I'm not strong enough to pass this book up
even though the newest KA.. like last five years or so ... were not a success for me
...
hopefull

[Izzie d · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sample chapter. https://www.kristenashley.net/titles/...
Click bonus material.

I love a marriage reconciliation book. This isn't quite that as they are divorced.
I can't help but feel, maybe I'm wrong but the author has said she has struggled to write Wood's book ' the characters arent speaking to me' is this a sorta trial run, or was she trying and came up with this.

This is a standalone. Dual POV, primarily the heroine, a few from others POV.

The couple have divorced 3 years ago. Basically the Hero decided after 19 years together and 3 children. This is the prologue.
The story starts with the heroine reminiscing over the time since he ended it.
He has moved on to a younger model and he and his younger woman live at the house he's designed.
The house is amazing, of course, be prepared for lots of description. No lack of money, sigh.
The family has been called to a meeting, on her way to it, the heroine realises she hasn't really moved on so decides she needs to do that.
It's a shame that the Hero gets to be involved with another woman when the heroine doesn't have anything serious, though she has dated, stuff with other men in the separation. (2).

On the whole it was okay. Just don't expect a grovel.
Remy's childhood is very damaged and it's messed him up.
We get the physco ex, family drama.
The couple are together, working things out by 35%.

KA writes enough to get your teeth into.
There are pages and pages of descriptions, he's a house designer and she's a fashion dresser person so loads of scope for descriptions.
But to the average person, I skipped alot of this.
But it is nice that KA doesn't go for the everyone is happy, able to celebrate the holidays together route.
The other woman is still nuts and the Hero relationship with his mum can't really be fixed.

(Spoilers below)

They have a family meeting arranged as 1 of their kids has news.
At the same time the Hero announces his current woman is moving out, he doesn't tell the family but we learn that he's been on the couch for 2 weeks prior to this.

We have a French connection, his father, so french phrases and history.
We have the author's views on gay and 'coming out.'

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Spoilers about his relationship with the other woman he lived with and heroine with others during separation.

Hero- (convo with other woman)
“I said I enjoyed spending time with you. But I warned you I’d ended a long relationship that would never really be over since we’d made a family. I also said, although I cared about you, I was concerned your feelings went deeper for me than mine did for you. I further warned you I wasn’t certain I’d grow to reciprocate that.”

She had a situation with living arrangements so moved in with him, it was viewed as temporary but didn't get resolved. She's been living with him for a year.
He says he hadn't realised until today, the day of the family meeting that he was in love with his wife.
He had been sleeping on the couch for 2 weeks prior to this as she had a pregnancy scare, she had tried to interfere with their contraception.
He told her he never wanted more kids, she pushed a bit so he always used condoms.

A huge big pothole in the storyline is the other woman is criticised for thinking they were more and yes she was wrong to poke holes in the condoms and miss pills hoping to trap him but they all play her off as expecting more when it wasn't on the table.
He introduced her to his kids, his exwife and they celebrated Xmas together. She lives at his house for a year, gives him a nude self portrait that hangs in their bedroom, I wonder how she got ideas of more???
Yes she does wrong and he later talks to her saying he was wrong to give her the wrong impression but it feels like his life with the other woman is a huge slap in the face to the heroine and bad form on his part.
A real good role model for his kids.

His situation reminded me a bit of a previous book where Merry, Rocky's brother just flipped a switch.
Basically he was so badly treated in his childhood by his mother, it caused him to divorce, or something.


The heroine-
A friend says
"“You’ve had lovers,” Bernice said softly.
I faced her. “Not in my bed, his bed, our bed. Neither of them met our kids. And I never spent the night with them night after night for a year.”"
The Hero and heroine this quote-
"Well, since he came over about a year and a half ago to pick a fight, we’d both lost control and ended up having sex against the wall in my foyer.
That was the last time I’d had sex.
After he’d filed for divorce, I’d dated, and since Remy, taken two lovers.
So the difference is his relationship seemed to others more serious."

He changed the mattresses (?) Not sure if that should have been mattress, after the other woman left.
He only slept with the other woman after his wife, no-one else.
Not sure if that makes it worse or not as she was staying with him for a year!!!!, but apparently hadn't moved in because the Hero wasn't paying enough attention. 🤔


Spoilers about the split/divorce.
The Hero implies that one of her friends, Bea, had a hand in helping them split. A negative attitude towards men, so any issues in a relationship and she helps it fester.
Her assistant says
'"I think his ego got the better of him, and when you started to compete in your own field with his success in his, he started acting like an ass. And I think that Bea was in fits of glee that he did, and she pounced on that faster than you can say, ‘we need a marriage counselor.’”'

He had a father who cheated and a mother who relatiated by being physically and mentally abusive to the Hero, her son since he was 4 years old I think it is.
He hasn't confided in the heroine during his marriage.
This has led to him ..... I can't quite get my head around it.... he wasn't able to enough for her, her success in business compounded that.
He recognises he messed up.

I think what is hard is when they were having issues he refuses to talk it through with his wife or have counselling etc.
He decided its over. She is devastated.
Now he decides its time to start up again.

And worse still she allows him.
Her friend/client even says she should explore things with him again, great support from your girl posse.

[Pooja Chandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ok so firstly this is not a romance or even a marriage reconciliation story. This is a coming of age story of a 50yr old man 😜

Every character in the book is in service to the character development of the male protagonist. Who really had legit childhood trauma and him self sabotaging his life is probably the most realistic and relatable part of the story. Being threatened by the success of his wife, again realistic and relatable.

But, and it’s really sad that now days with KA books there is always a “but”

The actual conflict of the book, the reason you pick it up gets dealt with in 2 pages. That’s it by page 100, it gets resolved. Though I do get the inevitability of them getting together but the lack of time given to it is almost hilarious. It’s a “you are anyways going to forgive him so might as well do it” approach trivialises the basic emotional premise of the book.

The female protagonist is a crutch to the story. Her emotions or conflict just does not get any page time beyond the first two chapters. I know more about the bathroom decor then the state of her mind. A book that emphasises again and again on the communication behind expressing healthy anger, shows no anger or conflict that the female protagonist goes through or faces throughout this book. She is a remarkable character, with this aspirational ability to move on, have a full life with friends and children and career, she is kind and intelligent. But her awesomeness needs to be diluted with this emphasis on really minor negative traits (like being late, or letting a friend get away with bitchiness) etc without her amazing positive traits being celebrated at all. She is the most alpha character in the book and whatever swag her husband or her sons pull in the book, they just look childish compared to her. I wish she was the centre of the story. Her thoughts, her healing journey back to her marriage, her relationship with her kids and friends and her career would have been what I would have wanted to delve into.

To reduce such a character as just a prop or audience to other characters, makes zero sense. She is literally throughout the book just reacting to the men in her life. My son, my husband, this man….it’s actually funny. Even her daughter who sounds more fun then her sons get zero author attention. Expect off course the oft repeated fact that she is daddy’s girl. This female characters being diluted to prop up the idiocy of male characters is a new thing with KA.

Also the “friends” to the female protagonists and their advice. The only advice they could have given and no one, none of them gave was that she should take her time in resolving the issue. They were caricaturist at best with their advice.

If I am to read this book as “men’s fiction” of a 54yr old man self sabotaging because of childhood trauma then also this book shows, on page, zero healing. He just wakes up one day and has it figured out. No therapy, no inner work. It’s so unrealistic and dissatisfying.

This is a book with a beginning and an end and no middle. It’s a deeply dissatisfying read for that reason.

[Cell · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh my god give me a break!!! Hero and heroine were so terrible,he had a hot new girlfriend who lived with him ,he had hot sex with but life is so unfair

Stupid h took him back in a minute,no groveling nothing,she was the mother of doormats :(
I hated this ,what is up with Kristen !!
When you Write a second chance romance H has to grovel,this is just hard to take

[Raffaella · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hear Hear...
I know, I said I would'n read this one, but sometimes I feel very masochist and I'm into seriously self-harm, maybe my profession that means helping others needs this kind of compensation where I need to feel some pain myself.
And boy it was bad.
It was all I thought it was when I read the excerpt and more.
I must admit that the author laid all her cards in the beginning so she didn't deceive anyone on what the book was about.
The hero divorced his wife of 20 years and mother of his 3 children because she started working and he didn't want her to have a career.
She never had any voice in it, he chose to divorce, also bought a place for himself and refused any kind of help as counseling.
Apparently they had a perfect marriage until she decided she wanted to fulfil herself outside her role of mother and wife.
He didn't let her go emotionally, but he moved on and lived with another woman for one year.
He broke up with ow and decided that he wanted the heroine back.
He blamed his mother for his failure.
The heroine took him back without a back glance.
OW drama, she refused to be dumped and tried to mess with his older son and with the heroine.
The heroine beside a couple of dates with other men, didn't move on and was stuck in love with the hero.
So, the plot was bad enough but what made it worse was the lack of psychological insight, a failure that was so blatant it was painful, especially for who works as a therapist and knows something about how human mind works.
The author wants us to believe the hero had a child trauma because of what in our jargon was a "not good enough mother".
Is it possible?
Yes, it is.
Traumas can condition all our life even if we don't realize.
But this peculiar behavior of the hero was not typical of a PTSD.
He should have been self sabotaging his life repeatedly, more than once, instead he is portrayed as a perfect father, a wonderful and caring husband for two decades. without failure.
Then, when he's fifty something, suddenly he divorces the love of his life and then moves on with his life with another woman? Nonsense.
Traumas act like continuous influence in a person's life, not as a one time thing.
So this is the first big mistake and inconsistency.
This is how I view the book:
-The hero has a mid-life crisis.
-His personality has more than one issue: he's selfish, callous, unreliable, megalomaniac. He's basically a borderline narcissist. He's charming, not willingly evil, but he only cares about himself.
-This is apparent in the way he acts with his wife. A wife he considers as less worthy than himself, a property, a fixture, something that doesn't have to change. When she doesn't meet his standards he doesn't even stop to think and gets rid of her. Without thinking of her at all. She was a good wife, a good mother, a woman who gave him everything, and he discarded her like yesterday's garbage. He flushed in the toilet 20 and more years of marriage, three children, the vows he made to her because of nothing. And this, IMO was the worst thing of all. Not even the other woman. This was his greatest- and unforgivable- mistake.
-He didn't move on emotionally, because, let's be honest, his wife was better and bigger than him and he wasn't able to move on since he's only a selfish narcisissit, an emotional vampire, one who feeds on other people's care and love, without of course giving anything back.
-He , like all the good narcissist, prevented his wife from really moving on remaining attached to her while he moved on with another woman.
-Other woman was not, as he said afterwards, easy pussy. You don't allow easy pussy to live with you, you don't share your children , your Christmas , your hobbies with her. She was his last Hurrah before retirement, and I'm sure it would have lasted if she hadn't made a big mistake herself.
Because she tried to trap him getting pregnant. And he suddenly realized that easy pussy wasn't only fun, it was dangerous, no, it was even more dangerous than staying with his old lady, because it put him at risk of becoming father again, and so it would have forced him into other responsibilities for decades, a thing he's not very good at.
-So the real reason why he decided to go back to his wife was that he had his fun but understood that this kind of fun had a higher price he had previously calculated. Not love for his wife, not at all.
- The mother blaming was another failure. Ok, he had past trauma, but managed to be a perfect decent human being for 50 years, then suddenly the trauma got out and made him ruin his life.
Not probable at all. Never heard of in my experience. Here he acts like an irresponsible human being and as usually this kind of people do, tries to blame another for his failures.
-A very disgusting thing. His father cheated on his wife for years, but the blame of everything is on his mother. Really? So it's always the woman's fault? is this author misogynist? does she hate women?
-The author tries to portrait him as a man who loves women and treats them with utter respect. Because he open the car door for them? because he teaches his sons not to swear in front of women? This is his legacy of how to treat women well? What about use them and then discard them as he did with both his wife and his new gf? His care and respect are only a facade, a shallow travesty for a man who cares only for himself. Give me every day a rough man with a big heart that always put me first. I don't care for appearances that are only this, a polish on a bad thing.
He's a selfish and shallow man. Where was his concern for his wife in all the story? I cound't see any in all the book. It was always about him. I miss you. I am lost without you. I need you.
Never about his wife. And how he treated his gf? He basically told her he never considered her more than convenient sex, that he always loved his wife and his wife was always better than her. Really a prince. Ladies and gentleman, the man who respect women!
- another big failure. It's not basically given any reason for his behavior, no change, no growth, no improvement, we go from being divorced and him living with another woman to be together again. Nothing is solved, they never have therapy, counseling but what's worse, they never even talk about their issues. He's a master manipulator, he always manages to divert the talk from important issues so everything stay without a resolution. I've read better on Whattpad. Really.
-The heroine. Another bad character. A woman with a low self esteem, she is the typical woman who thinks herself less than her husband, she always lived on her husnabd shadow, the great architect, the charming and handsome man and she never understood how he could have chosen her, a plump, average looking, uninteresting woman. Of course she took him back, because it was as if she thought she couldn't have something better. She never considered herself good enough for him, so she expected to be dumped and replaced by a newer, younger, more beautiful and sexier woman. I hate this thing, the author had to make her plump and not attractive enough. So it was as if the hero was somehow justified in his behavior, because she wasn't good enough.
Her reactions and behavior were pitiful, I was ashamed for her. Without pride, without dignity. After he betrayed her as he did, she should have cut him out of her life.
- we are family, he says to her repeatedly, the manipulator, to prevent her from moving on. What family? He wasn't family. His children have two parents but he broke his family.
- ow, was as I said. His swan song before old age, until she wasn't because he risked a pregnancy. Everyone was offended by her behavior. What did he expect? Of course women would want him, he was single and rich, and I wish the heroine told him so. Dont' think those chicks are with you because you're cool, this is what an italian rapper said in a song, referring to those mid aged billionaire with young women at their side. Harsh but fair.
She was portrayed as deceitful, but she was only an average woman who tried to trap a rich man, she was used by him herself, to stroke his ego.
-Never once in the book the hero says or shows he's sorry for the pain he caused to the heroine, the woman he loved more than life or so he said. Never did he regret what he did to her, the self esteem issues when she saw a younger and sexier woman at her place, the hurt for being discarted without a back glance after a life of commitments, her loneliness, nothing. he's such a selfish useless human being. I wonder why some readers find him interesting or charming, he's all bark and no bite. The book is all about him. And he doesn't really deserve a book.
-the greatest failure and what made me laugh most, because it resumes the whole book in a sentence, and I wonder how readers didn't notice it, was the scene where his son comes out with his homosexuality, and the hero understands that he was afraid of being rejected by him. The idiot asks him: -when did I let you think my love came with conditions?-
There's a big emotional scene where everyone hug and sob and I was puking my guts out because...
Because, dear hero, the answer to your question is: you let him believe your love came with conditions when you divorced his mother because she didn't do what you wanted, that's when!
You teach him that your love depends on being and doing as he likes, in his world is it's my way or no way.
Nobody realized it???
Not even the author.
Speechless.










Read the excerpt. I’m still nauseous.
The pos hero dumped his wife of 19 years and mother of 3 children because she dare have a career. (This shit is unacceptable even for a Diana Palmer of olds) Then three years later he’s still keeping her on a lash and living with another younger woman? I’m crying now. I’m crying because writers like this one are the reason I don’t even look at the newest books out and I’m reading authors of one century ago like Liala, an Italian writer born in the 19 century, who wrote books where women cheated more than men. One century ago, in Italy, a damned catholic country where sex is forbidden before marriage. Women went from man to man while now, in 2023, the year of fluid genders and all that, im forced to cope with women with such a low self esteem that after their husband dumped them as old shit, they still can’t find in themselves the strength to move on, once and forever. It would be hilarious weren’t it tragic. From woman to woman I wonder why. And why for once it can’t be the woman who lives with a hotter and younger man. Sad, sad and sad again.

[currently being delulu · Rating 1 out of 5]

A man who feels insecure that you have a successful job
Or let’s you primarily raise your children by yourself
Or doesn’t help around the house
Or leaves everything on you to raise you’re family
Or doesn’t own up to his mistakes or apologize to his wife or family

is a man child who never grew up not an alpha male…


Babe that’s abuse not love

[Brianna · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love Kristen Ashley's books so so so so so much. Therefore it pains me immensely to give this one star. Please never make a book like this again. The hero being so intertwined with the OW. No. I actually like a little OW drama in my books, but ONLY when done right and it was not done right here.

[Beeg Panda]

NTS: Never judge a book by its title…

[mimmy · Rating 1 out of 5]

İf İ could give this a negative 5, İ would. Every H gets worse with each book. İ would find this book enjoyable if I was still 16, and idolizing the wrong type of men.

First, this man left her because he was insecure about her success. Because she was nolonger a housewife. No discussion or attempt at therapy whatsoever, just packed his bags moved into another apartment. I understand he had demons but come on!! Isn't he 50+ and they'd been married for 20 years? He had years to work on himself.

Later moves in with another woman, uses and discards her when he realizes the grass isn't greener on the other side. And she takes him back, almost immediately. My problem is not that she took him back, it's because both leads were okay with blaming anyone other than themselves for the end of their marriage. Yes, your mother abused you some 25 years ago, but she didn't make you leave your wife. Her friend was a shrew but maybe she had a point about him🤷.

[Wendy'sThoughts]

So although I have a soft spot for Kristen Ashley...This book is not the one to read in my humble opinion. Others have gone into great detail as to what causes one to pause and be a bit concerned as to what the idea was for this.

As a true fan of her work, this was seriously disappointing because there really weren't characters to love. Unfortunately, I have this feeling the children of this couple are going to have their own books.

For more Reviews, Free E-books and Giveaways

[Rachel]

Nope! Not happening

[Bes Reads Romance · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5 ☆

🤍 second chance romance
💌 older MCs
🤍 childhood trauma/family dynamics

I say this with every new Kristen Ashley book I read, but truly no one does it like her. Her unique writing style, storylines that are multilayered and much more than just romance, and flawed characters that seem unforgivable (I’ve forgiven them all, don’t worry) make her one of my all-time favorite authors.

Perfect Together follows Wyn and Remy Gastineau three years after their divorce. They had the perfect life, perfect family and perfect marriage for 19 years—until Remy walked out, leaving Wyn heartbroken and blindsided. Remy’s moved on and Wyn’s realizing that she needs to do the same. Except they’re both still in love with each other and Remy realizes he’s made a mistake. Determined to win back the love of his life, Remy sheds light on his tragic past and now, more than ever, their family needs to come together in order to heal.

Second chance romances tend to hurt more than other tropes and this one proved exactly why. I was tearing up 4% into Perfect Together and continued to cry sporadically throughout Wyn and Remy’s story. You wouldn’t believe a man who walks out on his wife the way Remy did is redeemable, but this story proves that everyone deserves a second chance and that childhood trauma runs much deeper than we think. This story is about grief, friendship, family, trauma, and above all, forgiveness. There’s so much strength in forgiveness and understanding. After 3 years apart, Remy feels guilty for destroying his family but he’s finally ready to face his inner demons and win back the only woman he’s ever loved.

As I mentioned, Perfect Together is more than a romance. Much of the book focuses on a family coming together in light of tragic news and secrets. I absolutely adored the Gastineaus and thought Wyn and Remy were, in fact, perfect together. Their love for one another is unconditional and that’s clear even during their divorce. They were also parents I aspire to one day be—supportive, loving, affectionate and reliable. I think the overall message of this story is that we’re all human. Nobody’s perfect and no one is infallible. It really puts things into perspective and it was a privilege to read such a beautiful story.

Thank you KA and team for an ARC of Perfect Together, which is out June 13th, in exchange for an honest review.

[Jacqueline]

Dnf 52%
I tried, but it was making me feel ragey.
He leaves his wife of 20 years, lives with someone else for a year, decides he wants his wife back and she’s like, ok then.
Grow a backbone ffs.
There was also lots of telling and nothing in the way of feels.
I just don’t know what happened to my favourite author 💔

[Corina · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first KA in a long time that I actually finished, and not only that, I finished it in one sitting.