Starred review from November 1, 2024
Six months after cancer took her beloved best friend and roommate, Lou, Helen "Lenny" Bellamy is still adrift, spending most nights riding the Staten Island Ferry instead of returning to the apartment she once shared with Lou or trying to check items off Lou's "Live Again" list. An experienced nanny, Lenny can keep herself together only for short-term gigs like a weekend with Ainslie, an eight-year-old girl with a single mom and a grumpy uncle named Miles, who seems to see right through Lenny's fragile facade. Having lost his mother and cousin in a car accident years ago, and more recently his father and Ainslie's pop pop, Miles is determined to be a lifeboat for Lenny, with no judgment. As Miles helps Lenny fulfill the items on Lou's list, they both find they have so many things to live for. VERDICT A stunning book by Bastone (Ready or Not), who delivers another slow-burn and emotional romance that doesn't shy away from also exploring life's hardest moments. Recommended for readers who also enjoy Abby Jimenez.--Elizabeth Gabriel
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Starred review from January 15, 2025
Following the death of her best friend, a Brooklyn woman completes her "Live Again list" with the help of a wounded stranger. After her best friend, Lou Merritt, dies from cancer, Lenny Bellamy feels like she's barely hanging on. Thankfully, the babysitting gigs she picks up to pay the bills also serve as a bright distraction in her life. Lenny is one of those blessed individuals who knows exactly how to identify with children. She's warm and endearing, and nannying makes her feel just the slightest bit better--or at least that's what she tells herself. Her latest job is watching 7-year-old Ainsley. Ainsley's mom, Reese Hollis, is a single parent, raising her daughter in the swanky apartment left to her by her father, a famous musician who'd died a year earlier, with her moody half brother, Miles Honey, living upstairs in the same building. It's obvious from Miles' first appearance in Reese's apartment that their relationship is strained--he barely knew his father and has only been in Reese's life for two years. He doesn't trust Lenny, clearly overprotective of his niece and judgmental about everyone who takes care of her. As Miles transforms into a helicopter uncle, he starts to recognize something familiar in Lenny--the grief that is all but consuming her life, something with which he's had some experience. When Lenny reveals that she and Lou had compiled a "Live Again list" to help Lenny work through her friend's death, Miles agrees to help her fulfill the tasks on her list on one condition: He wants Lenny's help in finding ways to connect with Ainsley and Reese. Bastone's contemporary romances are truly in a class of their own, creating difficult events and softening them with the comfort of finding a romantic partner who is both supportive and empathetic. Miles' rough and admittedly awkward edges are smoothed by Lenny's dogged efforts to carry on through her sadness and pain. This is a tender slow-burn romance with an emotional wallop. A beautiful portrayal of two people navigating love and grief.
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Starred review from February 1, 2025
"Grieving people are scary." Lenny may look scary, but mostly she is forlorn, disheveled, and unkempt--not a great look for a nanny on New York's Upper West Side. Though she is a highly recommended temporary hire to look after seven-year-old Ainsley, Ainsley's extremely protective uncle, Miles, suspicious of Lenny, follows her. He discovers she spends her nights on the Staten Island Ferry going back and forth, buying secondhand T-shirts rather than going home to change clothes. When Miles confronts her, challenging her ability to care for Ainsley, he discovers that her intense grief over the recent but lengthy death of her lifelong best friend is keeping her from going to the apartment they shared. When she accidentally pulls a laminated slip of paper with a list titled ""Live Again"" from her pocket, he starts trying to help her fulfill the tasks she names. Lenny and Miles are good people in pain, who react with kindness instead of lashing out. Bastone's heartfelt, touching examination of grief and depiction of living through it and finding joy and love while building relationships makes this romance rise to the top.
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