Mirrigold: Mutterings & Musings

What We May Be by Layla Reyne

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Oh, that was clever. And insanely hot 😁

Second chance romances are so hard to write, there must be a genuine reason why people split up, but one that doesn’t make it impossible to come back from years later.

In this case, it’s 10 years later and the death of two people Sean considered family bring him back to the small town he considered home – and into the orbit of his former lovers, both intimately connected to the cops being buried – and on a collision course which only looks likely to bring more pain.

Throw in a serial killer inspired by the fate of the female characters at the heart of Shakespeare’s Four Tragedies, a pending sorrow at the life’s end of a beloved surrogate parent due to illness, complications with ex-wives, and the everyday minutiae of a small town, and you get the complexity of this book’s narrative.

I absolutely adored all three of the people at the heart of this polycule. Charlie is no weak woman, she’s tough and has got to where she is on her own merits. She’s also grieving the loss of her twin brother and her father, killed when a drugs sting she arranged went wrong.

Trevor, the third of this glorious MMF relationship, is a romantic soul, a professor and a man wiling to bury his hurt to make sure his best friend lives her best life, even if it’s killing them both.

The UST and emotional tension between the three of them flies off the pages. They’re all hunting for a reason why their lives were so fractured a decade ago.

And I was NOT expecting anything even close to the plotline which follows.

OMG so many times I thought I’d hit on who the killer was, only for a side swipe revelation to send my theory crashing.

At no point ever in the story did I guess the actual perpetrator. Not even right up to the page before the reveal!

Did I mention how clever this book was?!

Oh, I mentioned the heat didn’t I, because this is pants melting, equal opportunities loving between three people who know each other inside and out.

They are on fire! The final scene at the end causes a flush hot enough to power a nuclear reactor

🤙👌👈 💥🔥💦🤪💯

I’ve been in love with the interconnected Whiskeyverse Layla has created since the first time FBI Agent Aiden ‘Irish’ Talley walked across the pages of Single Malt and promptly fell for Jameson ‘Whiskey’ Walker.

This book is loosely connected to the ‘Verse through the Fog City series and we get to see Brax’s best mate Army buddy Emmitt Marshall now working for the FBI alongside Sean.

There are a couple of other Easter Egg references that I’m going to leave other people to discover but Marsh is getting his own book and I am so here for that ❤

Layla delivers a poly romance alongside a suspense plot and never has one feel more important than the other.

It’s skilfully written, with wonderful pace and characters that come to life in brilliant detail.

Oh, and epic cover from Wander and Cate 🥰

#ARC kindly received from the author via Valentine PR in return for an honest and unbiased review.

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