Bed and Breakup

Author: Susie Dumond Title:  Bed and Breakup Publisher: The Dial Press Date Published: 06/24/2025

Read Dates: 05/31/2025- 06/01/2025
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

 📖 I received a gifted e-book ARC. The following is my honest review✍🏻

Bed and Breakup is a dual POV forced-proximity second chance romance. Estranged wives Molly and Robin both return to the Bed and Breakfast they co-own after seven years apart, each needing to recharge creatively and figure out their next steps. Despite not wanting to cohabitate, they reluctantly agree to work together to refurbish the inn so they can sell it and finally break ties with each other for good. Working in close proximity stirs up memories, the good with the bad, leaving both confused about what next steps to take.

This was an enjoyable and well written ARC and I will definitely look for more from this author. This book, though, just wasn’t the right fit for me. I really LOVE second-chance romance, but this book was missing two aspects that draw me to them: I didn’t feel like the reason for the initial breakup was all that forgivable and fully resolved, and usually in second-chance romance you have at least one character working towards the end goal of reconciliation established pretty early on. However, I did love the small town, the many side characters, and the passions Molly and Robin had (artistic and culinary). I would definitely recommend this book even though it wasn’t a perfect fit for me.

As newlyweds, Molly and Robin made the Hummingbird Inn into a trendy destination for queer travelers in the quirky mountain town of Eureka Springs, Arkansas. But when their career ambitions drove them apart, the young couple separated, handed over the property’s upkeep to a management firm, and never looked back.

Seven years later, Molly and Robin return to the Hummingbird Inn for very different reasons. Molly is an artist on the rise who's [SD1] been commissioned to create pieces in Eureka Springs; Robin is a celebrity chef whose restaurants have gone belly up. Both feel entitled to their shared property, furious that the other refuses to leave, and resort to a series of escalating pranks in the hopes of scaring the other off. When neither woman budges, they resolve to renovate the bed and breakfast, sell it, and at last go their separate ways. But their work to restore the inn’s vintage charm reignites memories—and chemistry—that make it hard to say goodbye.

Tender, charming, and heartwarming, Bed and Breakup is a small-town lovers-to-enemies-to-lovers romance that explores how some dreams, no matter how dusty or broken, deserve a second chance.