Avery Cockburn’s Cicadas is subtitled “a totally epic ordinary love story” – and while it probably is epic, it’s anything but ordinary. It’s a classic ‘right-person-wrong-time’ romance filled with warmth and joy and heartbreak that is quite unlike anything else I’ve read recently.

“Ever since these bugs’ grandparents serenaded us thirty-four years ago today, I’ve never not been in love with you.”

The story begins in May 1987, and seventeen-year-old Joel Mendel’s mother has called the local exterminator to get rid of the cicadas singing from the trees in the woods surrounding their back yard. A budding entomologist, Joel doesn’t share his mother’s dislike of nature and wishes she’d just leave the cicadas to do their thing, and as he watches from his bedroom window, he sees a young man of about his own age sliding out of the other side of the van, his body language clearly signalling that he’d rather be anywhere else than here. Joel heads downstairs to see what’s going on (and to check out the hot guy), and his mom tells him to “entertain” Danny for a bit while Danny’s dad gets on with the job.

Joel and Danny spend a crazy, memorable day together, talking – about school, about music, about the cicadas and Joel’s ambitions to study entomology – listening to music, getting high… and, in both PoVs, we see mutual attraction and a strong connection developing between them. But their time together ends abruptly and sadly, and they don’t see each other again.

Seventeen years later finds Joel, an adjunct professor of entomology, delivering a lecture at CicadaCon. Right at the end, a tall man standing at the back raises his hand to ask a question – and Joel almost can’t believe his eyes. It can’t be Danny, not after all this time? It must his mind playing tricks because cicadas still remind him of the day his seventeen-year-old self had decided it had met its soulmate. But there are no tricks, and it really is Danny. Except now, he’s Dan, and he makes his living as a travel photographer. Over dinner, they talk and laugh together almost as though no time has passed, but while a lot has changed in the world and in their lives, there’s no denying that the strong pull they’d felt towards each other when they were teens is as strong as ever. They spend a wonderful evening and night together – but when Dan wakes the next morning, Joel is gone and only a handwritten note that ends “See you in 17 years” – shows he was ever there.

It’s January 2021 when a Facebook friend request from Daniel Evans pops up on Joel’s feed. He can’t quite believe it, but he accepts it, and after a few light-hearted messages, they arrange to meet up on Zoom a few days later. Now fifty going on fifty-one, both men have been around the block a few times when it comes to relationships, health and work – they’re older and wiser, but the one thing that hasn’t changed – still – is the strength of their emotional connection. But it’s going to take a bit more than that for things to work between them this time around; some brutally honest conversations and soul-searching is needed for both of them to work out what it is they truly want – and if that really is each other.

The author frames the story in a really interesting way, the seventeen year separations paralleled by the life cycle of the cicadas that provide the reason for Joel and Daniel’s very first meeting in 1987. The amount of research the author must have done into entomology is impressive, and the same goes for the historical background to her chosen time periods. I’ll add a short note here to warn anyone who prefers not to have real-life events feature in their romance novels that Covid is very present in the final section of the story and there is some discussion of the effects of the pandemic on the individual and on society as a whole. Also, the January 6^th insurrection plays out on their computer screens, which leads to a degree of political discussion. Nothing is heavy or tub-thumping, but it’s more than a glancing mention.

I admit that I’m normally sceptical about second chance romances where the characters pick up where they left off after not having seen each other for a very long time – but I felt none of that here because the author does such an incredible job of showing how Joel and Daniel’s connection, while forged in such a short time, leaves a lasting, indelible mark on their lives, and then of revealing how they’ve grown and changed as a result of their lived experiences. They just ‘get’ each other in ways nobody else does or ever has, and I loved that they’re not bitter about the ‘lost’ years and instead see them as having been necessary to get to where they are now:

“… those years had made the two of them the people they were this evening, so perhaps not a single day had truly been wasted.”

Joel and Daniel are beautifully drawn, complex characters, and their journey from awkward teens to battered, middle-aged survivors captivated me from start to finish (although I will admit that the final section feels a mite too long). Cicadas is a fabulous read, a moving, funny and unique second chance at a second chance love story that will bring a smile to your lips, a tear to your eye and a sigh from your heart. I’m delighted to give it a very strong recommendation.