Back to You by Kim Breyon

Back to You by Kim Breyon

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Buy Link: Amazon

Blurb:

One of you, one of me…

As a private investigator, I have a perfect record when it comes to closing cases…as long as you don’t count the only one that ever really mattered to me. 

Even after a decade, the memory of the foster boy I once shared a room with continues to haunt my dreams. For five years, Riley helped me laugh when there was so little in our lives to laugh about. His gentle touch and stormy gray eyes were the only thing that could calm the swirling and turbulent thoughts and emotions within me. 

But in the blink of an eye, the safe harbor my best friend provided was ripped from my life without warning or reason. His unexplained disappearance set sail to a lonely and hopeless journey. Now, I am no more willing to let the memory of my best friend go than I am ready to give up the search for him, as hopeless as it may seem to those around me.

And then a client asks me to locate a stolen treasure box. Clues have me heading from the city of Atlanta to a small, picturesque town in South Carolina called Reedsport. There, I hope to find the missing box; what I never expected was to find something else that I’d been missing for far too long. Could I have finally found a beacon of hope that would lead Riley Tanager back to me?

Review:

Second chance romances are my absolute catnip, and Back to You gives me what I needed. What’s even better about Back to You is that neither party has done anything wrong. I don’t have to struggle with the part of me that screams not to take someone back after they’ve screwed you over once. The two main characters didn’t have any kind of agency when they were separated, so there isn’t anything to forgive.

And they’re grown-ups now. They have feelings about their situation, like anyone would. They acknowledge their feelings and responsibilities, like grown-ups should, and then they move on. You know, like grown-ups should. A lot of the time we enjoy characters in fiction we’d never let into our homes or onto our property in real life. These guys?  I can see sitting down with them at a bar, or around the firepit.

They remind me of people I know, and only in good ways.

The only issues I had were the motives of the people behind the actions spurring the drama. The person who caused the characters’ separation has his own motives, which never make sense at all. Not even a little bit. It causes the separation that spurs the main character’s downward spiral, which is important, but it winds up feeling like something he does just to drive self-destructive behavior in someone he hasn’t met. And then there’s the case that causes them to reunite, which is likewise underdeveloped.

Of course, real-life crime isn’t always well planned. That part didn’t chafe as badly.

Something that struck me as particularly wonderful about this book was the portrayal of foster care. All too often, foster care is portrayed as something horrific. It can be horrific, don’t get me wrong, but it can also be lifesaving. In Back to You, the main characters met in foster care, and their foster parents are warm and loving people who take excellent care of these two boys. It isn’t something I see often in fiction, and I’m beyond thrilled to see foster care treated with sensitivity and tact.

If you like second chance romance, buy this book. Buy this book if you only tolerate second chance romance. These two guys will warm your soul in ways you didn’t know you needed.