First Position by Melissa Brayden is one of my favorite romances of all time. So I was really excited to read her newest one. 

The book is about Jamie and Leighton, two women living in New York City from very different backgrounds. It seems love at first sight when Leighton enters Jamie’s coffee/wine/donut café. But is love really that easy?

The best part of the book was that the obvious conflict is central to the plot. Often in romance novels what goes wrong in a relationship is forgiven quickly at the last 10% of the book. But here the conflict is early in the book. Which gives Brayden the opportunity to really make her characters work for conflict resolution and forgiveness.

Given that this was my favorite part, what I liked less was the conflict introduced in the last third of the book. Just when they are getting closer, both Leighton and Jamie pursue other relationships. This felt really unnecessary and makes them dishonest about their feelings. I would have liked it way more if trust and forgiveness played a larger role there. 

It’s obvious that a bunch of couples from previous books make an appearance, and I think you’d get more out of the side characters if you’ve read more of Brayden’s books. Which maybe makes the side characters feel flat because I had no background for most of the other characters.  

In the end I think the book had a lot of potential but did not give me what I wanted from it. 

CW:

cancer diagnosis and death of dad (minor), grief