This is a second chance romance about a couple working together to renovate an inn on beautiful Martha’s Vineyard and the colorful cast of Broadway actors that arrive to help them. I loved the wry humor but the pace felt slow in places and I struggled with Rose, the female lead, for holding back on sharing her feelings for her ex, Tom, for so long.

The story opens when Tom thinks he’s going to die in a hurricane and leaves Rose a message, telling her that he still loves her, is sorry for everything and he wishes he could make it up to her. They were college sweethearts that were married for a year and have now been divorced for ten.

The same hurricane that Tom was in also damaged Rose’s aunt Max’s inn on Martha’s Vineyard and Rose would like the family’s help to repair the inn. But her family would rather sell it. Rose is sentimental and remembers all the good times she had visiting her aunt at the inn with her family. She has a plan for her family to come help her work on the inn on weekends, thinking they would all have a wonderful time together, but they decline. They aren’t interested in vacationing at the inn, let alone spending weekends working on it. Rosie has the power of attorney for her aunt and decides she still wants to renovate the inn. She works for a charitable foundation in NYC and is able to work remotely at the inn while she works on repairs. (Her boss, Teagan, from Bear with Me Now, is in Yellowstone watching bears on his honeymoon.

When Rosie hears the message from Tom, she asks if he would come help her fix up the inn. He drops everything to be there for her. He’s never stopped loving her and thinks this is his chance to win her back. Tom is a Broadway actor preparing for an Off Broadway play, with his friend, a famous actor named Boyd. Boyd became famous when he starred in a superhero franchise and has fans and paparazzi that follow him everywhere.

When they get to the inn, it’s in really rough shape and there’s a lot of remodeling humor as they begin repairs. Tom’s acting friends and some of Boyd’s fans come to the inn to help them fix it up and I thought this was the most fun and best part of the story. They have a few months off before rehearsals start for their new play and they added fun and spark to the story!

As Rose and Tom work together on the inn, they become closer and think back to what went wrong between them and whether they could try for a second chance together. Rosie knew Tom was bisexual when they were in college and when she sees recent pictures of him and Boyd together, she thinks he would rather be with Boyd than her. Tom tells her that he is just friends with Boyd and his publicists are trying to make it look like there’s more between them to promote their new play. He promises Rose that if she takes him back he will be there for her like he should have been in the past. He feels he is better able to manage his ADHD than he did ten years ago. At that time, he was busy with acting and went to cast parties after the shows, while Rosie was working long hours. (She has since switched jobs.) He wants them to try again and wants their lives to fit together like the final pieces of a Lego model.

This was a slow burn romance. Tom tries so hard, bending over backwards to fix up the inn for Rose and I want her to open up more to him and tell him how she feels about him. She lets him in for a moment and then pushes him away and puts distance between them. When they had been working together at the inn for over two months and she still doesn’t want to share a room with him because she wants to be ‘thoughtful about it’, the story dragged. Finally, a furniture delivery arrives that Rose ordered, with an upright piano and Tom knew everything would work out because she had ordered it for him, knowing that he loves to play and sing along. Tom loves that she’s a curvy girl and she likes the way he talks smutty to her when things get spicy.

I struggled with the super slow burn and pacing of the story along with Rose’s family. Rose has some abandonment issues relating to her family because they don’t seem to include her much or appreciate her. Her family seems only able to take her in small doses and I’m not sure why. But I thought Tom was a gem along with his acting friends and enjoyed the humor they brought to the story.

Readers interested in a romance with a couple that’s found their way back to each other while they do a fun remodel might enjoy this.