Seven Days in June

Wow, this was the best contemporary r0mance I've read in years. Tia Williams has a distinctive voice, and her “second chance at love” plot is funny, dark, romantic, gritty, sexy and memorable. Eva and Shane spent one week together in high school when both were at low points in their lives, and 20 years later they have the chance to see if the magic is still there now that they are both successful and (at least nominally) stable. Spoiler alert: it is, but they still have a lot of work to do before they can really be together again. I loved the way they communicate throughout the novel, and how Eva's disability (chronic, debilitating migraines) is portrayed as limiting but not defining. The secondary characters are essential to the plot, especially editor/fairy godmother Cece; Williams has a way of telling everything about her characters in quasi-info dumps, but her descriptions are so sharp and hilarious that you don't mind.

I'm a little hesitant to read the author's backlist because I can't imagine her previous books could have been this good, but I'm willing to try. I had read rapturous reviews of Seven Days in June and for once, a book lived up to its hype.