"If You Never Come Back," by Sarah Smith

Contemporary Multicultural Romantic Comedy

0 Smooches ~ No Heat 1 Smooch ~Cozy 2 Smooches ~ Warm 3 Smooches ~ Simmering 4 Smooches ~ Red-Hot 5 Smooches ~ Scalding

	
Smooches ~ No Heat

Smooch ~ Cozy

Smooches ~ Warm

Smooches ~ Simmering

Smooches ~ Red-Hot

Smooches ~ Scalding

Book Blurb

I hate Valentine's Day for one reason and one reason only: Wes Paulsen.

He came into my life like a wrecking ball one year ago today. After an incredible night together, we were inseparable for months. I'd never been happier in a relationship-neither had he. We were just starting to build a life together when everything changed...

Turns out Wes was hiding things from me-big things. I wanted to work through it, but he walked out, never giving me-never giving us a chance. I didn't know how I'd be able to get over him, but I threw myself into my art. After months of working nonstop to escape the memories of Wes, my career's finally taking off and what do you know-Wes walked back into my life. Once again on Valentine's Day.

One year to the day that we met.

I've spent six months hardening my heart. It should be easy to reject him, to tell him I've moved on. But he's doing everything-and more-to win me back. He's being the boyfriend I've always wanted. It'll take everything in me to resist him-I'm not even sure if I can. But I'll sure as hell try.

My Review

I am a huge Sarah Smith fan. (If you want proof, read my review of her debut novel here.) She is one of those authors who just nail it every. Single. Time. And If You Never Come Back is no exception. It’s a rollercoaster of fun, emotion-fueled bliss. Kind of like its author, who is one of the sweetest and most beautiful humans you’ll ever meet—inside and out.

Wes and Shay’s journey, as portrayed in this perfect blend of steamy and romantic entertainment, is a difficult one. They had an almost perfect relationship until… they didn’t. But when Wes shows back up one year to the day from their very first meeting, ready to make amends and try to fix his mega-mistake of leaving Shay in the first place… he’s got his work rightfully cut out for him. I don’t blame Shay one bit for protecting her shattered heart from a potential round two.

I’m not a fan of giving spoilers away in my reviews, so I’ll leave it there. This is one of those stories that might seem like it’ll have a predictable plot, but Smith has an uncanny knack for taking the expected and turning it on its head. In the best possible way. 💕

I would recommend this engrossing and delightful love story to any and all lovers of the romance genre. I would also highly recommend you put Sarah Smith on your watch list. This may only be her second published novel, but she’s got two more in the works—Simmer Down (out 10/13/2020) and On Location (out 2021) from Berkley Romance—and she’s undoubtedly going places. Big, bright, beautiful places.

Be sure to keep reading… Smith was kind enough to not only respond to a Q&A by yours truly, but she’s also provided a titillating sneak peek of Wes and Shay you absolutely cannot miss!

check out a special sneak peek of if you never come back below!

Intro: It’s Valentine’s Day. Shay is a bartender at her cousin’s bar. A table of chatty and hot dudes ask her to slap one of them as part of a bet. Shay reluctantly agrees, then gets giddy when a very handsome stranger named Wes stands up, eager for his slap.

“Someone order a slap?” I ask.
I’m met with soft cheers and fist pumps. This time when I stare at my intended target, something resembling my heart pounds in my chest. I shove away the fleeting giddiness. It’s probably the prospect of touching another human being that’s sending me into a tizzy. It’s been a handful of months since my last date. My last kiss? Months on top of months.
Wes looks up at me, his eyes bright with an undefinable allure I’ve never seen in anyone else. Their rich hue cuts deep. I wonder if it’s possible to freefall into someone’s eyes. I give myself a mental smack against the head. He’s an attractive man. That’s it. Must stop acting like a giddy teenager.
“I’m not going to do this standing up while you’re sitting down,” I say. “It feels weirdly domineering.”
“Fair enough.” He stands up, zero evidence of tension on his gorgeous mug. His display of pure ease is in direct opposition to the Ferris wheel of nerves swirling through me.
At full height standing in front of me, I have to tilt my head back to keep my gaze fixed on him. I’d put him a touch above six feet tall.
“Ready?” I ask.
He nods, his eyes never leaving me. One side of his mouth quirks into a half-smile. “Make it good. We’ve got an audience.”
Judging by how the background chatter has softened to whispers, the entire bar is staring at us.
I raise my hand. This handsome stranger with smoky-brown magnets for eyes, this guy named Wes who I feel inexplicably drawn to, doesn’t even flinch. Instead, he lets his half-smile widen into a proper full one. That flash of pearly white kills me. I’m about to smack this drop-dead gorgeous man in the face.
I swallow. I rest my palm on his left cheek and it’s like my entire hand catches fire. Wes’s body is a special kind of warm. The type of warm that makes me want to curl into him and nuzzle his chest, just to see if every other part of him is as deliciously hot as his face.
He leans his face closer. “Just like that. But harder.”
On the scale of epic slaps, the one I deliver to Wes’s face wouldn’t even register. It’s nothing like those dramatic ones in the movies. The only reason anyone could hear the noise was because the entire bar fell to a self-imposed hush. I didn’t have the nerve to pull off anything more than a half-hearted smack. But when my hand falls from his face to my side, the entire bar erupts in cheers and whistles.
The sound barely registers against my eardrums. Instead, all I can focus on is Wes’s face. For a split second when my hand made contact with his cheek, he closed his eyes. His smile dropped. But a beat later, he opened his eyes and flashed another heart-melting grin at me, as if I had kissed him instead of struck him.
Against the backdrop of applause in the bar, Wes bows to our audience. When he gestures toward me, I do the same. With everyone turning back to their own tables and conversations, I pivot toward the bar.
“Hey,” Wes says from behind me.
I turn around to see his outstretched hand in front of him, that killer smile still on display. “Hell of a way to spend Valentine’s Day, right? Thanks for the slap…”
I shake his hand. “Shay,” I say, biting back a grin of my own. “My pleasure.”

Author Q&A with Sarah!

What is your most used emoji?

The red heart emoji. Pretty simple and true to my romance roots haha.

Have you ever been told you look like someone famous? Who was it? Do you agree?

When I was a kid, people told me all the time I looked like Winnie Cooper (Danica McKeller) from The Wonder Years. I can totally see it. I had very thick bangs and long dark hair just like she did.

Share something your readers likely don’t know about you

I’m a huge true crime fan. I love listening to true crime podcasts, watching 48 Hours, watching true crime series on Netflix, all that. Kind of a weird thing to be into since my first love is romance and all things HEA.

Have you ever gotten reader’s block?

Yes! It usually happens when I try reading a bunch of things that just don’t excite me, and I feel stuck. My favorite thing ever is to be SO into a book that I don’t want to do anything else but read it. So when I read a book that doesn’t ignite that feeling in me, it can feel like such a drag to read.

If you could read any book again for the first time, what would it be and why?

Hands-down, A Girl Like You by Gemma Burgess. It’s the perfect British contemporary romcom. It’s so funny and smart and relatable and heartfelt and sweet. It’s the book that made me want to start writing romance. I just remember feeling so heartened and excited while reading it, I absolutely could not put it down. That’s the best feeling as a reader and I wish I could experience that all the time.

How do you select the names of your characters?

Oh I’m terrible at thinking of character names! I always have the hardest time thinking of them because I don’t want to name any characters after anyone I know because OMG that would be so awkward. I normally use baby name websites…as weird as that sounds!

How many plot ideas are simmering in your writerly brain, just waiting to be written? Can you tell us a little bit about one?

Ahhh so many! Right now I currently have six romance/romcom book ideas in various stages of outline to rough draft. One that I’m super excited about is a roommates-to-lovers romance set in San Francisco. It’s super cute and steamy…I can’t say more than that at the moment, but stay tuned!

What did you do with your first advance?

Nothing exciting—I put it in my savings account to pay off some bills.

What does authorly success look like to you? What is your definition of becoming a successful?

I’ll consider myself successful when I can support myself solely on the books I write. Still got a long way to go on that!

Any final words you’d like to leave your readers with before we wrap things up?

I just want to thank everyone who bought my books, read them, shared them with friends and loved ones, or told someone about them. It means the world that there are readers in the world who like my writing. All the heart emojis to you guys!

Sarah Smith
she/her

Sarah Smith is a copywriter-turned-author who wants to make the world a lovelier place, one kissing story at a time. When she’s not writing, you can find her hiking, eating chocolate and perfecting her lumpia recipe. Her novella If You Never Come Back comes out June 9. Her debut novel Faker is out now. Her second novel Simmer Down comes out October 13.