What do you do when your past comes knocking?Six hundred and ninety-five days. That’s how long it’s been since Jude’s fiancé broke off their engagement. With the help of his brother and his all-encompassing love for music, Jude glued the broken pieces of his heart back together, but when his ex shows up on his doorstep late one evening, Jude fears it will fall apart again.Two years ago, Vincent … Vincent made a terrible mistake. He left the love of his life for stupid, ill-advised reasons. It took a traumatic event to bring what was truly important in his life into focus. Older and wiser, he’s now ready to do whatever it takes to win Jude back.Their chemistry is as explosive as ever, but will they be able to work through the real issues? Can trust once broken be rebuilt?
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Nice story; I enjoyed it a lot.
Promise Me We’ll Be Okay is the first book I’ve read by Nell Iris and I liked it very much. It’s a pretty quick read (about 92 pages according to Goodreads) so I was able to finish it in one sitting. The story is told in first-person from Jude’s POV.
Vincent broke up with Jude two years ago and Jude was devastated. The story isn’t terribly angsty – just the right amount for the tension between the two MCs (main characters) to be felt while reading the story.
I was moved to tears in several places but there are also some light-hearted scenes in the story. Vincent and Jude visit an art gallery catering to the LGBTQ crowd and the artwork on display was rather eye-opening; it was all homoerotic.
We eventually learn why Vincent broke things off with Jude and why he came back to beg his forgiveness. I’m not sure his reasons for either action were good enough but Jude still loves him and is willing to try again.
My only negative comment about the book is that there were way too many technical musical terms used throughout the story. Jude is a musician and I get that he relates a lot of feelings to musical terms but I felt that it was a bit too much. While I was bothered a bit by the over-use of technical terms it didn’t detract from my overall enjoyment of the book.
Ending on a positive note – When done well, novellas are actually my favorite length of book to read and Nell Iris did a great job with this one. I’ll be looking for more of her books.
An advanced copy of this book was provided to me but my review was voluntary and not influenced by the author.
***Reviewed for Xtreme-Delusions dot com***
When the pressure of family and appearances becomes too much for Vincent he sheds what’s causing him the most stress. At least that’s what he thinks he’s doing when he leaves Jude. He had no idea how wrong that decision would be until the only person he loved almost as much as Jude is taken from him. With nothing left worth losing he finds the courage to knock on the door to his past, and hopefully his future. Jude is doing his best to move on. But being left is far different from doing the leaving. Half of his heart is gone and he’s reaching a point where he’s going to break if he can’t move forward and away from the devastation of Vincent leaving him behind. And then a knock on his door one night changes everything. If he can forgive, if Vincent can prove he’s changed, they might stand a chance against their fears and insecurities and be able to build a future far better than they could have imagined.
Both men had their faults and they were each likable at their core. I do wish there had been more groveling, more explanations. What was there was sufficient but it also felt like it was lacking something, a punch of some kind. And I’m not saying a physical altercation between the men. There are quite a few moments where one or both of them put the explanations off. Saying they needed to talk, they needed answers, and then not really getting back to it wasn’t really satisfying. And while the end was absolutely sweet, spontaneous, secret, and cute, it was a little bit of a shock. With something in-between their reconciliation and the ending, some kind of settling, this could have been an even more enjoyable story. As it was it was good but it could have been great with a little more detail, a little streamlining, and maybe a little more directed focus.
Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team
Avid Reader –
M/M Second Chance Romance
Jude and Vincent used to be happy. They used to rely on the fact that their relationship was solid. They were so happy that they were engaged! But meddlers got in their way and it left Jude in mourning and Vincent floundering.
Jude is surviving his breakup. He has his brother, who is constantly checking on him. The relationship between the brothers is one of love and respect. You know that Harrison will kick anyone’s butt who messes with his little brother.
Vincent realizes that he made a horrible mistake. He never should have let his father and outside forces sneak bad thoughts into his head. Despite knowing that he broke Jude’s heart, he is hopeful that Jude will see him again.
This was just okay for me. You can tell that Jude and Vincent had great chemistry before their breakup because they have great chemistry again. However, I did think that it was strange that Jude took on so much of their relationship troubles too. If someone doesn’t communicate, I am not sure how you’re going to know that something is wrong.
Overall, this was a sweet second chance story. However, with the simple flaws, I found it somewhat hard to believe.
Angela –
I discovered and fell in love with Nell Iris’s writing this past holiday season. I got the opportunity to read two of her Christmas novellas and loved how the author gave the reader a peek at the characters’ lives at a moment in their romantic journey. Promise Me We’ll Be Okay is written in a similar manner as it’s a look at Jude’s life at the moment his ex-fiancé re-enters his life, almost two years later.
Iris drops the reader in right at the moment Vincent knocks on Jude’s door, and despite having only known Jude for three pages, I felt his shock at opening the door to find Vincent standing on the other side of it. I felt his confusion as he couldn’t decide if he wanted to punch Vincent or kiss him. I felt his hope and his fear of being rejected as they battled it out to see which one would take center stage as Vincent tries to convince Jude that he messed up by leaving Jude and that he didn’t mean what he said when he broke off their engagement. And that fear of rejection becomes so much more poignant when Jude finally lets Vincent explain why – my heart hurt for Jude so much, especially when we learn that the manipulative forces in Vincent’s life are still present. But when Vincent explains why he’s back, what led him to realize how monumentally he screwed things up, and why he’s able to promise Jude that they’ll be okay, my heart finally hurt for Vincent. It’s not that I disliked Vincent, but rather that the story is told from Jude’s perspective and I only knew Vincent through Jude’s eyes, so I didn’t know him well enough to like or dislike him before that revelation – although, I did like that Vincent seemed committed to winning Jude back, but wasn’t arrogant or overconfident about it.
Because Promise Me We’ll Be Okay is a novella, Iris relies on Jude and Vincent’s shared past, providing enough background through Jude’s memories and the characters’ conversations that I felt the connection between the men. While I enjoy a well written insta-love storyline, I prefer when romance novellas utilize a built-in history for the main characters as I find it easier to believe that such a connection will lead to the couple’s happily ever after, even if we don’t get to see it in the actual novella. And that’s how Jude and Vincent’s story is written – we get to see them as they rip the band-aid off and begin to heal, as they try to shake off past hurts and take their first steps toward a future together, as they begin their journey to their happily ever after. While this is only my third book by this author, Nell Iris writes the kind of romance novellas I adore – stories that make me feel, that make me hope, and that let me imagine the couple’s happily ever after because I’ve gotten to see into their lives and their hearts long enough to feel like I know them. Would I love to read more of their story? Absolutely, because I fell in love with Jude and Vincent, but… I’d just as happily read Benji’s story next (hint, hint).
Ruthie –
This is a short story with some significant punch. It is a second chance romance, which gives us a happy ending.
Two years later Jude is still counting the days since his engagement ended. So, when his ex-fiancé turns up and says he made a mistake, his world is turned upside down all over again. Even his usual solace of music isn’t working. As they finally talk and he finds out why, he has to decide whether to admit how he feels, and whether he can trust again. I am not usually a fan of inner musings, but here I found Jude’s thoughts to be really meaningful and carefully thought out. I love how they come to understand how to move forward together.
For a short book, I felt that we got a lot of story. Thank you, Ms. Iris.
Erica –
Nell Iris is a new-to-me author, so I was unfamiliar with the writing style. I need to be forthcoming. I don’t believe I was the intended audience for Promise Me We’ll Be Okay. However, I do believe it was everything it was meant to be, as the author intended.
Jude is a music teacher, living a lonely life after his fiancé broke it off with him two years prior for not being ambitious enough for the up-and-coming lawyer. One night, out of the blue, Vincent returns to win Jude back.
This is meant to be light and romancy, warm and fuzzy, a hit of feel-good romance. It skirts along the upper layers of emotion, never truly diving deeper into the more realistic, darker emotions. This is where I realized I wasn’t the intended audience – I live for the realistic bite. With words like silly and tummy being used by grown, professional men on many pages, I believe the novella was meant to be ‘light’ even with the emotionally painful premise.
With the heartbreak and confusion, there was a lot to work with on the emotional front, but the instantaneous romance was front and center, ignoring the natural human emotional responses.
Jude accepted Vee back before they even talked about anything. At. All. It was half the book later before Jude, along with the reader, found out the reasons why Vee broke up with Jude. I also couldn’t swallow Jude’s response of how this was somehow his fault.
As a survivor of domestic violence (me), Jude’s inner monologue after finding out the reasoning was too close to that of the skewed thinking of someone who had suffered from emotional and mental abuse, because it was too irrational to contemplate how Jude felt it was his fault for not being a mind-reader, detective, or psychic. Jude felt he should have just ‘known’ why Vee left, when Jude had taken Vee at his word when it happened. Vee didn’t leave without explanation, he just didn’t delve deeper into the why of it. Yet two years later, Jude decides it’s all his fault, when that response felt emotionally unstable to me. Without communication and trust, both their behavior was too immature for a relationship.
To be honest, the novella made me uncomfortable how quickly Jude fell under Vee’s spell, without a shred of self-respect. If this were real life, and my real friends, I would’ve asked Jude how Vee will act in the future, since he didn’t have to work to win Jude back, knowing he could just make Jude feel as it was his fault for whatever Vee pulled and get away with it again. (This isn’t how it was written, but this is how human nature does react/act.)
I realize this is supposed to be romance, and I’m reading too much into it. As I said, I was evidently not the intended audience. However, I do believe those looking for warm and fuzzy, quick and light, and don’t take the novella too seriously, they will thoroughly enjoy the journey the characters take.
Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided a free copy of Promise Me We’ll Be Okay by Nell Iris to read and review.