Overall Grade: A-/B+
Tropes: opposites attract; he falls first; second chance romance; small town romance; hate to love
Jessica Peterson’s I Wish I Knew Then is the perfect beginning to her newest series, Harbour Village. Peterson has envisaged a world that captivates her readers and promises more enticing stories. In this new story, Riley and Louise “Lu” meet in their youth and fall madly in love, but circumstances and familial expectations pull them apart, changing their life plans. Ten years later, Lu finds herself back in the small town where they met for her best friend’s wedding. In one moment, she reconnect with Riley, but initially their situation is precarious. The longer Louise stays in town, the more she is drawn to Riley, and she realizes quickly that Riley never forgot “Lu.” Instead, he created the world he imagined for them, and he’s insistent on reminding her of and encouraging her to realize her dreams. Can Lu move past her hurt and anger towards Riley who left her heartbroken ten years earlier?
Throughout I Wish I Knew Then, Jessica Peterson focuses on real-life situations through the course of her characters’ journeys. It’s what I love about her. It would be easy to write romance focused on crafting $ex scene after $ex scene. And Peterson lays it on “thick” in her newest book. Riley and Lu have chemistry and attraction in spades; however, Peterson has always infused her romance with real life truths. In her newest book, she untangles the difficulties of people from varied socio-economic backgrounds, the difficulty of choosing your dreams over the expectations of your family, the capacity for someone of a lower socio-economic class overcoming it to achieve success, and the balance of work and life in achieving dreams. Peterson creates characters who are female positive without giving up masculinity or being seemingly heavy-handed in its feminism. Riley is both alpha and beta. He strives to provide the means for Lu to imagine and live her dreams. He’s meant to raise her up, and this is a decided character trait, intentionally drawn by Peterson’s deft writing hands.
While Lu might be portrayed as indecisive about her future, this isn’t the case. Lu makes the greatest strides as she must buck her family’s expectations for her, pushing back against decades of familial tradition. To realize her dreams, she must choose herself. While it might seem that Peterson crafts Riley to give Lu her dreams; instead, Riley is drawn in such a way as to provide the space for her. Lu makes her own choices in her own time in her own way. Riley is simply there to protect Lu’s dreams. And that is the beauty of this romance. Riley doesn’t explain them to her; he doesn’t gift them to her; Riley simply encourages her to embrace her most truest self. My favorite moments in this book were the ones when Riley’s internal life reflects on his love for all parts of Lu. His love provides Lu with bravery because she can buck her family’s expectations for her own future.
Whether it’s the steam of her story or the intellectual insights threaded throughout her stories, Jessica Peterson has written I Wish I Knew Then to both titillate and test our perceptions. Riley and Lu’s romance will make you laugh, make you cry, and make your glasses fog. Ultimately, it will ask you to believe that love can transcend the challenges of life.
In love and romance,
Professor A
Professor Romance 