Rating: ★★★.5
Audience: Contemporary Romance
Length: 382 pages
Author: Jess Heileman
Publisher: Vagabond Publishing
Release Date: August 26th, 2026
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

The divorce never finalized. Neither did their feelings.

The discovery that I was still legally married—years after I thought my divorce was final—was supposed to be the worst thing to happen to me this fall.

It wasn’t.

Because apparently the state of Vermont believes in closure. And no regrets. And court-ordered thirty-day reconciliation efforts. So now, in order to fast-track my divorce from Bennett Walker—my high school sweetheart and the man who walked out on our marriage seven years ago—I’m being forced back to the small town we grew up in to spend an entire month proving our relationship isn’t worth saving.

A situation Ben annoyingly finds amusing.

Which is why I plan to make this the most memorable, insufferable, torturous thirty days of his life. As a prank-loving aficionado, I have countless ideas about how to drive Ben crazy while keeping myself focused on the goal: finalizing our divorce.

With my life in New York and a career I absolutely love, not even deeply embedded habits and old feelings can threaten my resolve.

I’m resolved.

So resolved.

Absolutely, definitely, one hundred percent resolved. And if I keep saying it, maybe this time around, I’ll be capable of resisting the fall.

WELL THAT WENT DOWNHILL.

I tend to enjoy marriage in crisis books so I was all over this one. Buuuuut there were some issues y’all.

One of the big ones was the fact I wasn’t convinced for basically the entire book that this couple made it??? There was hardly an attempt at working through the communication issues that caused the initial separation. Most things were brushed under the rug and never genuinely resolved.

I think having Ben’s POV from his childhood was a disservice to the current timeline. I wanted to see him yearn more and get his thoughts and feelings rather than having to wait until 85% of the way through to finally figure out why they separated in the first place. Maven was actually too petty for me about things (which again, I think could have been helped had I known the WHY not just “he’s the reason we’re in this mess”).

Lastly, the ending. I won’t go into specifics (but DM me if you want them). I don’t think it was handled well and let me wanting more for Maven, regardless of her assertions. All leading back to the communication y’all.

I did fly through this book and I didn’t hate it by any means. There were just enough stand out issues that I have been cycling through them on repeat since I finished. I do recommend the audiobook if you want to read it, the narrators were great!

Overall audience notes:

• Contemporary romance
• Language: none
• Romance: kisses

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