Garrett Leigh’s Kiss Me Again is a beautiful, angsty, slow-burn romance between two men – broken in different ways – whose love story is one of learning and acceptance and gradual healing, showing clearly that while love can’t fix everything, it can provide understanding and visibility and a safe space where two people who are struggling can maybe just… struggle less, together.  It’s intense and emotional and not always an easy read, but it’s also hopeful and tender – and the soul-deep connection between the two leads is beautifully portrayed.

Tree surgeon Aidan Drummond is prickly, solitary, emotionally closed-off and deliberately disconnected from everyone around him, even his family. After an accident at work lands him in hospital, he meets sweet, kind Ludo Giordano, who, he learns, is recovering from a recent episode of his bipolar disorder. There’s an instant spark of connection between them, but they’re both traumatised, in pain, medicated and unsure of what’s real that it’s hard for either of them to fully believe in what they’re feeling.

When they’re eventually discharged, they each realise, with regret, that they never asked the other for their number – although they’re both also questioning whether they did actually meet or if the connection they felt was the result of some drug-induced hallucination.

As it turns out, though, fate isn’t finished with them yet. A chance meeting brings their intense connection roaring back to life, both of them drawn to the other incredibly strongly, yet struggling to express how they really feel. And as they slowly get to know each other outside of the hospital environment and to ground their memories of each other in reality, it’s clear that these two really are meant to be. Aidan, grumpy, closed-off and often monosyllabic, evolves from a man who doesn’t really know what it feels like to care for someone to a man with a lot of love and care to give and Ludo, constantly doubting his own mind and believing that the condition he lives with is too difficult to explain or expect anyone else to deal with, realises that in Aidan, he’s found someone who really sees him and accepts him as he is.

The author makes a point of saying, in a note at the beginning, that while she did extensive research, Ludo’s experience of bipolar disorder is not meant to be representative of the condition. I know very little about it, but the representation seems appropriate and authentic, and as I’ve said previously, I appreciated that Ludo is not magically ‘fixed’ by love (and neither is Aidan). Instead we see them working together, supporting one another and being present for each other in meaningful ways as they choose to let one another into their lives.

Garrett Leigh is so very good at writing emotionally charged, deeply intimate and quietly powerful stories featuring three-dimensional characters dealing with real life trauma, and then delivering a realistic and well-earned HEA. There’s a small secondary cast that adds layers to the story, and I particularly appreciated the development of the relationship between Aidan and his cousin Michael. I had a few very small niggles about the book (Aidan’s drinking kind of came and went), but apart from that, I enjoyed Kiss Me Again a great deal; it delivers exactly the kind of complexity and emotional heft that I look for in a romance, and I’m more than happy to recommend it.

Note: Kiss Me Again was published in 2019, but I understand there were formatting issues that led the author to republish it and to add a new cover.  The text is unchanged.