Review: 50 Ways to Win Back Your Lover

I love finding new-to-me romance authors, especially when they’re Canadian. I hadn’t read Kelly Siskind’s novels before but I jumped at the chance to read 50 Ways to Win Back Your Lover – and not only because the title was so ridiculously intriguing! The novel was just as ridiculous but in the BEST possible way. I devoured this romance and had so much fun reading it.

Here’s the book’s description:

Growing up, I had it all—my art, close friends, a gorgeous girlfriend who owned my heart—but then my life exploded.
Turns out my father was laundering money, and my whole family got shoved into witness protection. No notice. No chance to explain. I was ripped away from beautiful, blue-eyed Delilah Moon, shattering both our worlds.
A decade later, fate has given us a second chance.
The cartel my father worked for has been wiped out. I’ve returned to my hometown, determined to win back the love of my life. But Delilah is engaged.
Or . . . is she?
I’m almost positive she’s lying about her fiancé to protect her heart. Which means I need to up my game.
I’ve made a list of fifty ways to prove we’re meant to be. Except Delilah’s barely looking at me, never mind swooning. I have a feeling my disappearance scarred her more than she’s admitting, and no one in town will tell me what happened . . .

One unexpected thing about this novel was that it was written entirely from E’s point of view. It’s not often you read romances written by women that are told solely from the male’s perspective. It totally worked though! At least, I thought so…I wonder what any straight males would think but, hey, this is a romance novel – not everything has to be realistic. Remember that: the leads in romance novels are not real life! I loved E so very much though and hearing the story from his POV made me love him even more.

Of course, E was a total bonehead sometimes. How he thought a ridiculous list of 50 things would help him win back Delilah, I don’t know. It was like he was trying to be all suave and pretending to be someone he wasn’t. No wonder it wasn’t working! Thankfully, he realizes the list is SO not going to work and he relies on what he remembers about Delilah and what he’s learning about her as he gets to know her again as adults.

There’s a lot of missing information in Delilah’s story and the suspense drawing it out was pretty well done. I do think it should have been revealed sooner because by the time I learned the full story, I was thinking, “OK, OK, just tell me what happened to her after E left already!” I had a lot of theories though I wasn’t quite expecting what ended up being the truth. I won’t give anything away but if you have issues with anything surrounding pregnancy or the inability to become pregnant, be prepared. And my DMs are open (kaleys23) if you want to know the full extent of the storyline.

I loved the small-town setting and the second chance romance trope. I’m getting a bit tired of the “we were SO IN LOVE when we were 18 and then we were torn apart and no one has managed to capture my heart since” because, who knows themselves at 18? And I say this having had the same partner since 18 – but we’ve grown and changed together, and I didn’t roll back into town expecting everything to be the same. I think I kind of gave E a pass on this one because the way he and Delilah were torn apart gave them zero closure so they really had to work that out before they could even begin to contemplate being together again as adults. It took time for them to realize that, of course, but the journey getting there was an angst-filled delight of a time.

If you’re a fan of dramatic and angsty romances, you really need to read 50 Ways to Win Back Your Lover. I thoroughly enjoyed Kelly Siskind’s novel, and I cannot wait for the second book in the Bower Boys series, which comes out in January. I’ll definitely be checking out her back list in the future as well!

*A copy of this novel was provided by the Canadian distributor, Thomas Allen & Son, in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*