Never have I felt so seen, so cared for and so considered in a story before. One thing about Kennedy Ryan, she is going to take care of us girlies and our big feelings. I have read this book back-to-back four times now and I simply Can’t Get Enough to play on the words.
Hendrix Barry lives a fabulous life. She has phenomenal friends, a loving family, and a thriving business that places her in the entertainment industry’s rarefied air. Your vision board? She’s probably living it.
She’s a woman with goals, dreams, ambitions-always striving upward. And in the midst of everything, she’s facing her toughest challenge yet: caring for an aging parent.
Who has time for romance? From her experience, there’s a low ROI on relationships. She hasn’t met the man who can keep up with her anyway.
Until . . . him.
Tech mogul Maverick Bell is a dilemma wrapped in an exquisitely tailored suit and knee-melting charm. From their first charged glance at the summer’s hottest party, Hendrix feels like she’s met her match. Only he can’t be. Mav may be the first to make her feel this seen and desired and appreciated, but he’s the last one she can have. Forbidden fruit is the juiciest, and this man is off limits if she plans to stay the course she’s set for herself.
But when Maverick gives chase-pursuing her, spoiling her, understanding her-is it time to let herself have something more?
I fell in love with Hendrix from the moment I read her character in Book 1 and I knew her story would be the one to reach deep into the recesses of my heart and soothe me. I was not wrong.
As the daughter of a mother who is now living with Alzheimer’s dementia, and one who is not married or has children but is blessed in other aspects of my life; godchildren, a home and privilege to pick up and go at any time, this story was always going to resonate with me. There are feelings that have been dissected here that I did not know I was dealing with and at some point, the feeling was so visceral I held my breath until a word or a scene in the book allowed me to breathe. Kennedy Ryan takes care of her girls for real.
This is a love story first and foremost and one of pursuit and a relentlessness in a way where your partner sees all of you and knows just how to show up for you.
Showing up is a big part of this book at the right time and in the right measure, it’s about a care of a loved one, that absolute gall to let them know, however bad it gets, you will always be there for them. Mav is such a gem; he is such a darling. I love that he is relentless but caring, that he knows just when to step in and give her room to breathe, knowing just when to do that is a rare type of talent. He meanders into Hendrix’s heart without a fuss, and from the moment they clock each other, they fit right in. There is a place they go into when they are together, their own world of their own sun and stars, that cocoon that tends to their love and it is such a swoon. A different kind of love story.
What Kennedy Ryan will always do is incorporate aspects of the real-world issues into her narrative, highlighting how it affects us in real terms but giving us the room to deal with it in such a comforting space. Camaraderie in friendships in relationships in business and in love those things matter to us as women, especially us Black women, which every Kennedy Ryan book centres, it is a love letter to us all.
This book speaks to us women who have not been blessed with children but allows us to show up in life as our whole selves without having to whittle us down or shrink into ourselves or be the wallflowers. She gives us room to take up space in a world that disavows us, she allows us the room to roam free on the page.
And some of my faves show up here; GRIP AND BRISTOL! ARE HERE!! Even though we don’t hear them speak Kennedy giving us this little check in with them and August too is a little nod to us girls that have loved and rocked with these characters from time. It was such a special acknowledgement of our feelings and fandom..
The interspersion of worlds is a win in my books because it brings us all together, this is a book where we can all meet in the middle and have a good old time of it. Also weaving in complication of friendships tangled in business and the complications of love when it gets in the middle. Its Black women helping other Black women and giving us a hand up on the ladder like Hendrix and her partners do. It is community, showing up for each other; the church group rallying around Hendrix and her mother, the community of friends she surrounds herself with, that show up for her at every turn and the wider community of people simply willing to hold her in her time of need, without ever having to ask because they simply know.
It’s a beautiful love story and a life story that touches a deeper part of ourselves, the selves we don’t often tend to tend to or show the world. but a self the world needs to see and make space for.
Out now buy it wherever you buy books, preferably an indie bookshop.