This is the story of Beah, who works for an art auction house and Finn, who along with his brothers, runs the company that Beah works for. It is apparently the final book in the series about the auction house owning brothers and a sister. As well as telling Beah and Finn’s story, it ties up other threads including a fairly detailed side plot romance regarding a character Keely who is a thread through all the books.
This is a second-chance romance, as Beah and Finn had been married previously. Both characters are very precocious and successful in everything they do, Finn especially – he has double degrees, speaks extravagant numbers of languages, engages with extreme sports as well, of course, as being mega successful in business. The marriage broke up because they could not be open and honest with each other about emotions and so failed to communicate. This book is set about 9 years on from the break-up and finds them unable to avoid each due to business imperatives and so they are thrown together into the same continent and city for the first time.
There are a LOT of storylines. As well as the central romance there is some significant background relating to grief and parental loss; a sub-plot about illness; a bit of a career trajectory mystery and the aforementioned parallel romance side-plot.
The book easily stands alone and in fact, there is very little of the characters from the wider series included – I don’t think there is room left after all the storylines. This doesn’t detract from the book, though the brothers’ interaction is cute and is still cute in this book, there’s just less of it.
What did I like?
- I liked the sub/side plots. Some were more useful and well done than others. Most served the main plot, except the Keely parallel romance.
- The Keely parallel romance was a really welcome addition. On an obvious level it tied up the loose ends of the series, but it also served as a reminder that despite the central drama life goes on elsewhere and it helps with perspective. This whole series has been particularly good at that.
- It was brave to tackle grief and loss in a (fairly short form) romance.
- The sections describing how Beah and Finn fitted back into domestic familiarity were well sketched and authentic for me.
- Oh and I Iove the fact that the title is Back in HIS Ex’s Bed, not back in HER Ex’s Bed.
I was less fond of
- The main characters! My credibility was stretched regarding the characters many accomplishments. I do recognise though that many read these books for precisely this escapism. That aside, I just did not relate to them very much. I found Finn to be the sort of emotionally stunted alpha male who roamed around this genre in my early reading days – when I stole the books off my Grandma’s shelves. Beah was described as bright, breezy and warm, but I certainly didn’t feel that way about her and as a strong and successful survivor (of grief and marital breakdown) I don’t think she particularly came across that way either.
- I like to be shown the resolution of the emotional tension in the actions, mannerisms and conversations of the characters, as well as through their internal dialogue. This book does much of it through the internal dialogue and sometimes that internal dialogue felt too circular and out of sync with the action.
Overall
I liked the ‘busyness’ of the various storylines and the braveness of the issues tackled, but I did not get emotionally involved with the lead characters. It was a fun, rather than satisfying read for me.
I received an advance copy of this book from the author, in return for an honest review.