Seven Days in June by Tia Williams – 336 pages
ARC from Grand Central and Netgalley for an honest review
Book Blurb:
Brooklynite Eva Mercy is a single mom and bestselling erotica writer, who is feeling pressed from all sides. Shane Hall is a reclusive, enigmatic, award-winning literary author who, to everyone’s surprise, shows up in New York. When Shane and Eva meet unexpectedly at a literary event, sparks fly, raising not only their past buried traumas, but the eyebrows of New York’s Black literati. What no one knows is that twenty years earlier, teenage Eva and Shane spent one crazy, torrid week madly in love. They may be pretending that everything is fine now, but they can’t deny their chemistry-or the fact that they’ve been secretly writing to each other in their books ever since. Over the next seven days in the middle of a steamy Brooklyn summer, Eva and Shane reconnect, but Eva’s not sure how she can trust the man who broke her heart, and she needs to get him out of New York so that her life can return to normal. But before Shane disappears again, there are a few questions she needs answered.
My Review: 4.5 stars
Seven Days in June attracted me from the cover and blurb alone. I knew nothing about this author or her previous work, so it was a bonus that I loved the story as well. As a veracious reader, I enjoy and appreciate many genres, so that fact that this book, a rom-com, stars a Black author who writes erotic vampire novels was a win for me.
Eva Mercy is a complicated character. Not only is she a divorced, single-mom and mega-famous author, but she’s also plagued by horrific migraines and emotionally crippled because deep down, she’s still in love with her first love from fifteen years ago. It was brilliant to add migraines into the mix because so many people suffer from headaches of all kinds. It really added a realistic dimension to the character.
Audre, Eva’s daughter, was an important character and was portrayed well as a precocious young teen. Mother/daughter relationships, so complicated by nature, was a theme throughout the book. We learn about Eva and her mother and grandmother though flashbacks into the past. The past is so important to the book as are the seven days in June, that the title represents. It is those seven days in June that Eva and Shane first meet, and fall truly, madly, deeply in love. As far as second chance romances, I’m a fan! I love love, so let the characters find their true love! As the old adage goes, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.
Quotes I liked:
Quotes from an advanced copy and may differ from final copy.
Girls are given the weight of the world, but nowhere to put it down.”
“How can I say I’m a plugged-in cultural force, when I’m surrounded by so much useless affluence?”
“How can a word taste so good?”
“My mom keeps a lot of stuff inside, but her thoughts are really loud.”
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