Reviews with content warning for Fire/Fire injury - Things We Left Behind

I haven't read the second title in the Knockemout series, but I definitely preferred this one to the first novel. Given their extensive history together, Sloane and Lucian's relationship seemed much more believable to me than Naomi's and Knox's (not that I don't love them, I do, the ending just seemed a bit fast given the time frame). I love Sloane/Lucian's banter and chemistry, and damn is this book steamy! I would have liked the epilogues to be a little more drawn out

so that we could see a bit more of the life Sloane/Lucian build together. It felt a little rushed, like we got the precis of the main events in everyone's lives before the series was drawn to a close. Given the jump in time and the new characters who are introduced, the extended epilogue could have been a bit longer.

I do wish Score would expand upon Jeremiah and Stef's relationship and Maeve and

Kurt's

. I think these could potentially be turned into their own novels, which would add to the diversity of the series since as is it focuses on the relationships of straight white people. Maybe Score felt like those weren't her stories to tell, but I would've liked to see more from those characters.

My main critique is that the ending seemed a bit fast. I expected the final confrontations with Hugo to be a bit more drawn out. Some of the writing in this section leaned a little too heavily on tropes/stereotypical bad guy vs good guy dialogue than I'd like. Also, although the novel frames it in a cutesy, proof of love sort of way, Lucian's refusal to leave Sloane alone (despite her numerous objections) after the library fire made me uncomfortable. We're supposed to root for him because it's a romance novel, but if anyone acted like Lucian did in real life we'd call them a stalker and a danger to the person they "loved". I wish the other characters objected more to Lucian's behaviour at this point because refusing to give a person the space they ask for is not an expression of love.

Content Warnings

madscientistcat's review against another edition

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emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Oof, I was looking forward to Sloan and Lucian’s story but I didn’t love the way it played out. I found so many of their moments and comments to be very cringe, and their relationship trajectory felt a lot less believable and swoon-worthy than those of the first two books.

Content Warnings