It's Always Been You

Love, Loss, and a bit of a Letdown: Molly’s Story

I don’t even remember what put Samantha Brinn on my reading radar. She’s a new-ish romance author who definitely deserves to be much better known.

I fell in love with Brinn’s stories, world and, most of all, her fantastic quartet of female protagonists with the second instalment of her “Laws of You” series, “When I'm with You”, and the third one, “Anything for You”, absolutely sealed the deal for me.

Thus, I was immensely looking forward to this final instalment, “It's Always Been You”, about the fourth major character, Molly “Rory” Jenkins. Molly has been a delight and spectacularly fun to read about in the previous novels so what could be better than an entire book about her?

»Molly Jenkins contains multitudes. It’s my favorite part about myself.«

Well, turns out that Brinn took a step back into more “traditional” romance: Her long-lost love Gabe is a billionaire and invented a phone – he’s basically the second coming of Steve Jobs but without any edges.

Fierce, unconventional, tough-love Molly – with few exceptions – turns into goo in his general vicinity – not to speak of his hands and other body parts. This would be (mostly) fine if it didn’t also mean that her strong feminist traits (and, by extension, those of the entire series) is dialled several steps down. Which is sad because it made for a damn great read before.

Much of Molly’s and Gabe’s journey back to each other is too simple and just way too smooth – despite not having seen each other for ten years! During most of it, our three other protagonists are either elsewhere entirely or feel strangely muted.

There’s also a bit too much smut for my personal taste and I have even skipped a few pages when things turned a bit too “ick” for me... Your mileage may vary.

Still, Samantha Brinn remains one of my favourite romance authors because of her entire series, which I will sorely miss. Because at the end of the day, I can relate to much of what she writes.

»So, it’s here, in the back seat of a car parked in the middle of a cemetery, that I accept my fate. I’ve loved Gabe since I was eighteen, and I’m destined to love him until the day I die. It wasn’t a choice.«

Amusingly, I was travelling with my wife with heterochromatic eyes while I read most of this novel. At one point, C. said she was looking forward to being home again. I responded I was home the entire time…

»I look into Molly’s every color eyes that are so perfectly her, and I know she’s right because I’m home. Molly is home, and nothing else matters.«

Four stars out of five.

Ceterum censeo Putin esse delendam