Book Review: "Seven Days in June" by Tia Williams
“Seven Days in June” by Tia Williams
Bookshop | Kindle
Publisher Synopsis: Seven days to fall in love, fifteen years to forget, and seven days to get it all back again...
Eva Mercy is a single mom and bestselling erotica writer who is feeling pressed from all sides. Shane Hall is a reclusive, enigmatic, award-winning novelist, who, to everyone's surprise, shows up in New York.
When Shane and Eva meet unexpectedly at a literary event, sparks fly, raising not only their buried traumas, but the eyebrows of the Black literati. What no one knows is that fifteen years earlier, teenage Eva and Shane spent one crazy, torrid week madly in love. While they may be pretending not to know each other, they can't deny their chemistry--or the fact that they've been secretly writing to each other in their books through the years.
Over the next seven days, amidst a steamy Brooklyn summer, Eva and Shane reconnect--but Eva's wary of the man who broke her heart, and wants him out of the city so her life can return to normal. Before Shane disappears though, she needs a few questions answered...
With its keen observations of creative life in America today, as well as the joys and complications of being a mother and a daughter, Seven Days in June is a hilarious, romantic, and sexy-as-hell story of two writers discovering their second chance at love.
Trigger Warnings: addiction, self-harm
Rating (out of 5): 5
Review: I loved this book. LOVED. (Full disclosure, I worked with Tia for several years, but I’d like to think that doesn’t compromise my review it all.)
“Seven Days in June” is smart, sexy, deeply funny—and most of all, incredibly realistic. The world Tia has written is a beautiful rendition of New York’s Black literati, and, as I’ve written several times on the blog, (if you are not Black), anti-racism education is much more than just reading about slavery and Jim Crow—it’s about decentering whiteness, reading romance novels and sci-fi novels and fantasy novels featuring Black main characters—to just read about Black people living their everyday lives.
OK back to the review. “Seven Days in June” is straight-up the best romance novel I’ve read in awhile. There’s the typical “meet cute,” except in the case of Eva and Shane, it’s a “reconnect cute.” Tia has written Eva and her tween daughter Audre so vividly and realistically—I truly laughed out loud at some of the precocious things Audre said.
As the novel progresses, we learn more about Eva and Shane’s childhood traumas, and how deeply affected they still are by events of the past; each of them has obstacles to overcome and doubts to get over. But while Eva and Shane are the central relationship here, the novel is also about mothers and daughters—and not just Eva and Audre. There are some hard truths Eva has to learn about her mother, as well.
I already want to reread this book just to get swept up in the world Tia has written—it’s fabulous, it’s a little flawed, and the prose is snappy as hell. (Audre, Eva’s 12-year-old daughter, conducts snapchat therapy sessions. Children today terrify me.) I highly, highly recommend this novel; it’s so much more than “just a romance novel.”
TL;DR: A smart, sexy, funny romance novel that is so much more than just romance—it’s a reflection on family, childhood trauma, and how important it is to be open to love.
If you liked this, try:
“The Perfect Find” by Tia Williams (Bookshop | Kindle | my review)
“The People We Meet on Vacation” by Emily Henry (Bookshop | Kindle)
“Party of Two” by Jasmine Guillory (Bookshop | Kindle | Elizabeth’s review)
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