Songwriter Paige Lancaster has found her calling but she still has yet to find a way to make it her living. When she gets an opportunity to meet with Stillwater Music—one of Nashville’s prime music publishing companies, she’s closer than ever to a long-term contract. Despite all her hopes, Paige leaves the meeting with a task: write new songs that tap into the physical emotions she’s experienced, instead of holding back with surface level songs that lack any real depth. It’s either that or she takes less of a cut with the royalties and someone else workshops her music. Paige takes this songwriting challenge to the extreme with the chance to tap into her past and enlists Liam Bishop, former partner and love to aid her in the task. It’s been four years since Liam and Paige had any contact but Paige thinks Liam may be the only real chance of her accessing these “emotions” Stillwater Music and her songs need. Thus Paige ensnares Liam in a breakup redo, they’ll start dating again while she joins him on tour, and then when the romance is at its height, he’ll break her heart. Yet all this re-breakup plan does is force Liam and Paige to address the past, why they broke up, and if they have the courage to try it all over again—for real this time.
Never Over is second chance romance goodness, written with aching emotion and lending voice to the weight of grief and how far we will go in pursuit of our dreams. Messy twenty-somethings still figuring out life is Clare Gilmore’s bread and butter, and her third novel is arguably the best of the best and the messiest of the twenty somethings. Dual timelines give rise to a second chance love story between determined songwriter Paige Lancaster, and Liam Bishop, her ex—once lauded baseball pitcher now concert manager on the tour circuit. Never Over is a love story centered around life on tour, bookstore meet cutes, baseball training, and a heartwarming love letter to Bristol, Tennessee. Clare Gilmore has completely shifted what constitutes an excellent execution of the second chance romance trope with Never Over and I am in complete awe of her talent. This feels like a book written for the overlooked younger children finding their voice and their place in adulthood after being lost in the background for so long. At the same time, the danger in letting yourself be defined by one thing and what happens when that dream abruptly ends. Like the most addictive sort of love song: Never Over is a romance to pour over, read, and repeat. Healing and cathartic all in one note.
Balancing falling back in love and falling in love for the first time is exactly why second chance romance is the superior romance trope (argue with the wall). Especially when it’s so easy to get it wrong. Somehow Clare Gilmore provides a fresh take into her second chance romance with two exes, Paige and Liam agreeing to try again without really realizing it’s for real. This trope is the best because of the mutual effort needed on both sides of the partnership to really pull it off. We have Liam finding a new path after a devastating injury and pivoting to a new dream, and Paige, chasing after one for so long she’s willing to go to extraordinary lengths in order to achieve it. Second chances aren’t just for love, but for the lives these two have led both together and apart. Right away I knew Paige was going to be my kind of romance heroine. She’s someone comfortable leaning into being a work in progress, still finding her voice after being lost behind her five sister’s personalities in childhood. Despite her romance prospects, Paige does know herself and that struck me from the start. In spite of being overshadowed in childhood, Paige doesn’t want the spotlight, content to make a living writing songs rather than performing. That certainty never wavers even as she meets conflicting wishes of her friends, sisters, and partner at different intervals of the novel.
Never Over is the kind of romance I didn’t want to end. Even as I neared the final chapters I caught myself flipping back several times, intent on capturing the emotions before it was all over. Gilmore ties so much together in the last section: Liam’s hopes through Paige, Paige’s conviction, and finally, a true reconciliation between this pairing. I love how much these two are mirrors to each other’s hopes, dreams, and the extent to which Gilmore explores how this could be detrimental within a relationship. Additionally, just how much we want to hide from others when we are struggling. Coming back together means reconciling just why things ended and for Paige and Liam and Gilmore is sure to show just how well off they are by the end having had those difficult discussions. Never Over is just so hopeful about reinvention, grieving, and second chances that it’s hard not to get emotional. The moments of sisterhood lighten the narrative from being solely a romance, it’s a family story too. Focusing on songs bringing people through life’s great moments was a perfect note to end on for a romance all about music. Music, second chance romance, angst, and sisterhood, Never Over is a combining of seemingly conflicting melodies into one beating harmony. A perfect book.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an advance review copy.
Trigger warnings: death of a parent, grief, injury, abandonment
Literaryrobin 