🎧 Reviewed by LD | Rating: 3.9/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥 | Standalone
⚠️ This is a full spoiler review. If you haven’t read Meet Me at the Lake yet — go read it first. We’ll be here when you’re done.
The Opening
Second chance romance with a twist: the second chance almost didn’t happen because the first chance barely did. One day, one plan, and one guy who didn’t show up. And then, nine years later, he’s checking into your dead mom’s resort.
Cool cool cool.
The Full Story — Spoilers Included
One Magical Day
Ten years before this story picks up, Fern Brookbanks is working at a coffee shop and there’s this artist, Will, painting a mural. Her job for the day is to babysit him. Which, honestly? Not a bad assignment. They end up spending the entire day wandering the city together, talking about everything, and there’s this pull between them that they’re both trying to ignore because they’re both with other people.
They end up holding hands. Just that. But it feels like crossing a line and they both know it.
At the end of the day, Will is the one who suggests they meet again — at her family resort, same time next year. He gives her the date and the time. And then says they probably shouldn’t exchange contact information. Because a year is a long time, and things change.
Fern says yeah. Maybe they will.
She shows up. He doesn’t.
Nine Years of That
That’s what this entire book is carrying. Not just “oh they had a moment and it didn’t work out.” He was the one who suggested it. He gave her the date. And then he didn’t come. Fern has been sitting with that for almost a decade and she never got an explanation.
And then her mom dies. Car crash, about a month ago. Fern moves back home to figure out what to do with the family resort, and she’s barely holding herself together when Will walks in to check in. He’s a business consultant. Her mom hired him. He had absolutely no idea her mom had died.
He’s Different. So Is She.
This is the part that got me. Will used to be artsy and free-spirited. Now he’s all corporate suits and polished professionalism. He doesn’t seem like the same person at all. And Jamie, Fern’s ex, the one she was with the day she met Will, is now the manager of the resort. So that’s fun for everyone.
Fern basically short-circuits when she sees Will and has to physically remove herself. He chases after her and explains who he is and why he’s there. And then they’re stuck. She needs help figuring out what to do with the resort — sell it? run it? both feel wrong right now — and he’s literally the consultant hired to help her make that call.
The real estate agent comes in and floats a 7-figure number. The catch is the resort would need to be made leaner first — audit the staff, cut expenses, probably let people go. Fern hates all of it.
Supper at the Cabin
They keep working together and one evening Will invites her to his cabin, and he finally starts opening up about what his life actually looks like. His sister got pregnant and moved in with him years ago. He basically stepped into the dad role for her daughter. Bought a house. Got a stable job. Put his own things aside to take care of them because their mom was never around. When he talks about his sister and his niece he says “my family” and “our house” and it’s obvious he means every word of it.
And then he tells her why he didn’t show up nine years ago.
He thought he’d be a disappointment to her. He thought he wouldn’t be the person she remembered. So he convinced himself not coming was the right choice.
They grow closer. Will calls her out one day — says he thinks she wants to stay and run the resort but is scared to admit it. That night she can’t sleep and she goes to him. They spend the night together. She decides to stay.
The Mom’s Diary
While all of this is happening, Fern is re-reading her mom’s old diaries. She’s been carrying this quiet hope for years that Peter, a man who was always present and warm and basically a father figure, was her biological dad.
Reading the diaries as an adult, she starts to understand their relationship differently. Her mom and Peter had this long, complicated, secret thing for years. Together but not quite. Never official, never public. It was love that never quite got to be what it was supposed to be. And the timeline doesn’t work. He isn’t her biological dad.
Finding that out hurts more than she expected. It’s a grief on top of a grief.
The End of Summer Dance
There’s an end of summer event at the resort. Fern wakes up that morning and Will is gone. Checked out. Left a note at the front desk that he’d send for his things. No goodbye, no explanation, nothing.
She waits for him at the dance. He doesn’t come. She ends up dancing with Peter instead, which is genuinely sweet because he’s the closest thing to a father she has. But Will just leaves her hanging. At her own resort. After everything.
She starts calling him. Over and over. He finally picks up, annoyed, says it’s not a good time. She pushes. He admits he’s at the hospital, his niece Sophia is sick, and tells her to stop calling.
Fern says she’ll come. He says no. And then he says the two of them were a mistake. The whole thing. She tells him she loves him and that she thinks he loves her too. He tells her it’s time they both stop living in a fantasy and hangs up.
I want to be clear: this man is not okay. But also. Sir.
Annabelle
A week passes. Fern has told Will to route any further business through Jamie and to never contact her again. She’s packing up her old apartment, getting ready to move to the resort full time, when a woman shows up at her door.
Annabelle. Will’s sister.
She’s not there to apologize on his behalf. She’s there to give Fern some context. She tells her about their childhood, their absent mother, everything Will gave up to take care of his family. She says this summer was the happiest she’s ever seen him. That he started sketching again. That the artsy Will, the real one, was starting to come back. And then she says: if you’re waiting for him to come to you, he won’t. You told him not to contact you and he will respect that.
She hands Fern their address and tells her she’ll be out that night.
The Reunion
Fern shows up at Will’s house with the sketch she found in his cabin while packing up his things. A drawing of herself, floating on the water. But it’s not recent. It’s from nine years ago.
And he tells her the full truth.
He did show up nine years ago. He was there. He just didn’t approach her because he was a wreck — working a 9-5, doing everything he said he never would, convinced he wasn’t enough anymore. He thought if he said hello, he wouldn’t have been able to say goodbye. And he had to get back to his sister and his niece.
He admits he loves her. She gives him a list of demands on how he will make this right, which is actually cute. He tells her he has high anxiety. And they figure it out.
In the end Will moves to the resort. He proposes. They have a baby.
The Steam Rating Breakdown
🔥🔥🔥 / 5 — Warm and real but not the main event here. The slow burn is doing most of the heavy lifting. There’s an emotional intimacy to this book that the physical stuff supports rather than drives. If you’re coming in for heat, adjust your expectations a little. If you’re coming in for feeling, you’re in the right place.
The Ending — Satisfied or Disappointed?
Satisfied, mostly. The reveal that Will was actually there nine years ago and just didn’t approach her is the kind of thing that’s either going to click for you or frustrate you, depending on how much patience you have for wounded heroes who make bad decisions. I found it believable for who he was in that moment — convinced he wasn’t enough, trying to protect her from a version of him he was ashamed of — even if my first reaction was to throw something.
The HEA wraps up clean and warm. Resort, proposal, baby. It works.
Would I Reread It?
No. It’s a beautiful read once. Best experienced when you don’t know where it’s going.
Who Is This For
If you love second chance romance with a lot of emotional weight, a hero who is a mess in the most sympathetic way possible, and family as actual stakes, this is your book. The sister subplot is genuinely moving and adds a layer a lot of romances skip. Not for you if you need fast pacing — this one takes its time and means to.
Where to Get This Book
📖 Physical Book
Amazon US | Amazon CA | Bookshop.org
🎧 Audiobook
Audible US | Audible CA | Libro.fm
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Plot Twisted. 🔥
🎧 | Standalone | Genre: Contemporary Romance | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥