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Everyone grieves in their own way. As this book opens, Maddie is at the memorial service for her beloved brother, Josh, not yet 30 years old. Not surprisingly, Maddie is falling apart. Josh has left instructions in his will, that Maddie and his best friend, Dom, should travel together to 8 places in the US that he never got to (he was a global traveler and a professional wildlife photographer) and to scatter his ashes in specific places. Problem: Dom broke Maddie’s heart when she was 19 and she hates him! So that’s the premise of the book.

I had a hard time relating to Maddie’s behavior and her crude language. We eventually find out what made Maddie the way she is, and that made her a more sympathetic character. Dom comes off as wooden at first, but he turns out to be just as grief-stricken as Maddie; he just handles it differently.

Since this is a romance, I’m not revealing a spoiler by saying that the two of them wind up together. Their journey was a good one - real road trips to interesting places. But it took way too long to reveal why Dom did what he did all those years ago. (Miscommunication/non-communication trope - ugh). And once they started “being intimate�, they couldn’t stop. And that became problematic for me. It was just too much - and in too much detail.

Thank you to Berkley and NetGalley for the opportunity to read a review copy of this book. All opinions are my own.