Left of Forever by Tarah DeWitt
SYNOPSIS
Wren and Ellis Byrd fell in love as kids, had their son Sam when they were only teenagers, and built a life together in the coastal town of Spunes, Oregon. They were made for one another… until they fell apart.
Now divorced and in their 30s, Wren runs the bakery in town, while Ellis works as a firefighter. They live separate lives, though they are hardly off each other’s minds.
When Sam gets accepted into college and the pair help him move in together, Ellis convinces Wren to take an extended road trip back to Spunes with him to see if they can give their relationship one last chance. Amid the gorgeous scenery of the California coastline, dreamy destinations, and a great deal of long-yearned-for proximity, Wren starts to think it just might be possible. But the two still have to contend with their tumultuous past in order to move forward. And when spoken words fail, sometimes the written word must bridge the gap.
Will they make the most of what’s left of forever? Or will they let each other go for good?
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A tale of second chance that will make you feel every emotion as if hit by a freight train. DeWitt has a way of portraying hard hitting and emotional topics while threading humour throughout to keep you balanced. I laughed and cried in equal measure. This love story between Wren and Ellis is one for the ages. Left of Forever was one of my most anticipated reads of 2025 and thanks to NetGalley I got an ARC and I’ve never felt more grateful. This book had everything you could want, yearning, firefighters, second chance at love, California road trip, and excellent character growth.
Wren and Ellis have lived a full life with their great love now in the past. But it still haunts them, and having fallen in love and having had a child young, they’re in their early 30s when this book takes place. Their kid is going off to college and they still have a full life ahead of them. After some years apart and a desperate struggle on both sides to find that same deep connection with anyone else, they decide that it might be time to get to know one another again. Queue a road trip to celebrate their kid moving out on his own, where they can finally hash out their past and try to either give love one more chance or move on to being better friends and communicators. Now that their child no longer lives at home, they feel safe enough to finally take the risk and dig into what went wrong in their relationship.
Can I just say that the yearning in this book was top tier? No one yearns like a divorced couple still in love. All that history? Flashbacks to the happy times? COUNT ME IN BABE. From the moment I met Ellis and Wren in Savor It, from the MOMEN Ellis yelled out “she’s still a Byrd” I knew that this couple would be unbeatable. Ellis was down bad for Wren and Wren had a big ol’ crush on her ex-husband and this dynamic made for touching banter with just a hint of anxiety underneath. Wren’s doubt and second-guessing was very relatable and the they faced as a couple (un-couple?) were very realistic (to the point of pain). Both of these characters grew so much but the one thing that stayed true was the absolute yearning they had for each other.
My favourite thing about this book? The communication between our characters. Yeah, sometimes they weren’t on the same page, but they didn’t have a problem with communication even when they thought they did. These characters were fantastic at being transparent and honest with one another throughout their trip and it was a pleasant and refreshing change from a lot of the internal scheming and misunderstandings that happen in a lot of stories like this one. Even when drama cropped up, these two handled it in spades and I was so proud of this fictional couple, you have NO IDEA. They both understood what they did wrong, and what they needed to change in order to reconnect but they were also able to properly communicate anger and resentment towards each other too which went a long way in patching their ability to be around one another for any length of time.
Overall, this was one of the best romances I’ve read in a while and Tarah DeWitt continues to have mastery over my every emotion. This book digging into failed relationships and all the things that can go wrong even if you love someone with all your heart? Brought up allllll the feelings. I’m not divorced, I don’t have a child let alone one going to university. But the writing in this was so visceral I felt like I knew what having those things felt like. Bravo to this book, I highly recommend it. Add it to your TBR & mark your calendars folks, this 5 star novel releases on May 20th!