Review: Before I Let Go by Kennedy Ryan

BEFORE I LET GO
Kennedy Ryan
Format: eARC
Source: Netgalley
Genre: Contemporary romance, women's fiction

Rating: ★★★★★

Their love was supposed to last forever. But when life delivered blow after devastating blow, Yasmen and Josiah Wade found that love alone couldn’t solve or save everything.

It couldn’t save their marriage.

Yasmen wasn’t prepared for how her life fell apart, but she is finally starting to find joy again. She and Josiah have found a new rhythm, co-parenting their two kids and running a thriving business together. Yet like magnets, they’re always drawn back to each other, and now they’re beginning to wonder if they’re truly ready to let go of everything they once had.

Soon, one stolen kiss leads to another…and then more. It's hot. It's illicit. It's all good—until old wounds reopen. Is it too late for them to find forever? Or could they even be better, the second time around?

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With every Kennedy Ryan novel I read, I feel at a complete loss to do them justice with a review. I don’t have adequate words to convey just how powerful and moving her writing is. Ryan’s latest, Before I Let Go, is no exception. She has woven a story of loss, healing, and second chances that is stunningly good.

To friends and family, Yasmen and Josiah were relationship goals - a shining example of a happy marriage – until they weren’t.  Blow after unexpected blow shook their once rock-solid marriage to its foundation and created a chasm they seemed unable to bridge.

Post-divorce, Josiah and Yasmen found a new normal: running their successful restaurant together and co-parenting their two children. What didn’t change was their deep love and respect for one another. Josiah never wanted the divorce and was shaken to his core when he lost the one thing he believed in, the one steady presence in his life that he was sure would never abandon him. Yasmen felt Josiah’s absence like a physical ache. He was her first love, but drowning under the weight of grief and trauma, divorce seemed the only option.

While Yasmen found a therapist she connected with and began to claw her way out of the darkness, Josiah only began therapy to serve as an example for his young son. Stubborn and skeptical at the start, Josiah started to confront past trauma and acknowledge the ways it had impacted his life, and his relationship with Yasmen.  Their lives were still irrevocably intertwined, between the children and the business, and their love for another was evidenced in every shared memory and inside joke. When a business trip forced them together, lines were crossed and all the old feelings that had been hidden under a layer of hurt and recrimination spark to life.

Before I Let Go was tender and poignant while packing a powerful emotional punch. There was laughter and tears and most importantly: hope. Yasmen and Josiah’s struggles felt all too realistic and the unexpected place they found themselves in was heart wrenching. The love was still there but buried under grief and pain.

Kennedy Ryan has been candid about her own struggles with depression and mental health, which came to a head while writing this novel. That intersection of real life and fiction likely went a long way in making this remarkable story that much more realistic. Ryan is a born storyteller and Before I Let Go is an achingly beautiful story of two people who stumbled and fell, only to travel a rocky road back in hope that it leads them home. 5 STARS

ABOUT KENNEDY RYAN

A RITA® Award Winner and Top 25 Amazon Bestseller, Kennedy Ryan writes for women from all walks of life, empowering them and placing them firmly at the center of each story and in charge of their own destinies. Her heroes respect, cherish and lose their minds for the women who capture their hearts.

She is a wife to her lifetime lover and mother to an extraordinary son. She has always leveraged her journalism background to write for charity and non-profit organizations, but enjoys writing to raise Autism awareness most. A contributor for Modern Mom Magazine, Kennedy’s writings have appeared in Chicken Soup for the Soul, USA Today and many others. The founder and executive director of a foundation serving Atlanta families living with Autism, she has appeared on Headline News, Montel Williams, NPR and other media outlets as an advocate for families living with autism.