At thirty-one years old, after Addison Dylan Greenwood loses her husband to a car accident and moves back near her parents in Franklin, Tennessee, she re-meets old high school chum Hunter Powell. Soon the recently widowed Ms. Greenwood will need to decide if she’ll give love another try which is not an easy decision for a mother to make with a young daughter’s fragile emotions to think of. Whether by death, divorce, abandonment, betrayal, or some other ending, managing to trust the process of falling in love again after your heart’s been shattered into a million pieces is a premise many readers will likely relate to. Yet effectively carrying out such a premise with a sense of emotional authenticity in a romance novel can be tricky with subject matter and characters that seem to call for more gravitas, which thankfully LC Hutto often pulls off in her book WHEN TO BEGIN AGAIN. Back at her childhood home in Tennessee, Addison is able to forge a new sense of connection with Hunter, along with a variety of fun and friendships for her and her daughter, Hadley. Most everybody thinks Hunter is perfect for Addison, including her parents and young Hadley, who quickly grows to adore him even without knowing about the caring and heat secretly intensifying between her mother and this new large playmate.
One significant flaw to the novel however is that Hunter seems almost too ideal with hardly any flaws of his own. He’s gorgeous, has a heroic-sounding job, and is almost immediately devoted to Addison and her daughter. He expresses desire for family, but is fine with Addison’s insistence that they keep things hot and steamy yet “casual.” The sex is always great and just how she likes it, right from the get-go. As the romantic romp progresses, Hunter comes to feel more like a malleable Ken doll rather than a flesh and blood human male with realistic needs and foibles. Such a sense of perfection isn’t limited to his character either. Addison herself is described as a blonde bombshell who could ‘land any guy in the room,’ while Jason–her deceased husband–was also a perfect 6’2″ with muscles, dark blonde hair, hazel green eyes, a megawatt smile…and the ability to co-create with Addison a relationship that had barely any unresolved issues worth speaking of. People with hardly any problems, except the few of their own making, don’t exactly ring true or make for a riveting read. It eventually becomes annoying that Addison keeps saying no to Hunter when it’s obvious that she means and will momentarily be saying yes. Though perfect Hunter never takes advantage of this constant waffling, the ‘when-girls-say-no-they-really-mean-yes’ concept feels like a long overplayed, harmful stereotype that should be retired rather than reinforced in the name of romantic love. The book has some typos and formatting issues as well.
~C.S. Holmes for IndieReader