If there’s one book that opened the door to small town adult romances for me, it probably is Things We Never Got Over by Lucy Score. I’ve read it last year and I was positively surprised. Even this much that I read the second book in the Knockemout series, Things We Hide from the Light a short while later. However, I was most excited for this final book in the series, Things We Left Behind, since this follows two supporting characters who aroused my curiosity. Did this book indeed live up to the anticipation?

About the book

Things We Left Behind by Lucy Score
Series: Knockemout #3
Published by Bloom Books on September 5, 2023
Pages: 592
ISBN: 9781728276120
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance

There was only one woman who could set me free. But I would rather set myself on fire than ask Sloane Walton for anything.

Lucian Rollins is a lean, mean vengeance-seeking mogul. On a quest to erase his father’s mark on the family name, he spends every waking minute pulling strings and building an indestructible empire. The more money and power he amasses, the safer he is from threats.

Except when it comes to the feisty small-town librarian that keeps him up at night…

Sloane Walton is a spitfire determined to carry on her father’s quest for justice. She’ll do that just as soon as she figures out exactly what the man she hates did to—or for—her family. Bonded by an old, dark secret from the past and the dislike they now share for each other, Sloane trusts Lucian about as far as she can throw his designer-suited body.

When bickering accidentally turns to foreplay, these two find themselves not quite regretting their steamy one-night stand. Once those flames are fanned, it seems impossible to put them out again. But with Sloane ready to start a family and Lucian refusing to even consider the idea of marriage and kids, these enemies-to-lovers are stuck at an impasse.

Broken men break women. It’s what Lucian believes, what he’s witnessed, and he’s not going to take that chance with Sloane. He’d rather live a life of solitude than put her in danger. But he learns the hard way that leaving her means leaving her unprotected from other threats.

It’s the second time he’s ruthlessly cut her out of his life. There’s no way she’s going to give him a third chance. He’s just going to have to make one for himself.

My review

This book follows Lucian and Sloane. They made me curious in the other books within this series, since they seem to have history. Not only together, but indivisdually as well. I was hoping to get answers to why Lucian has become the man he is now and what makes Sloane hate him so much. They were probably the most interesting supporting characters I’ve seen in this series. And that’s exactly what they are: good, interesting supporting characters. They just don’t work well as main characters. Yes, their background story is interesting, but they aren’t interesting themselves. Their character traits even took the joy from their characters away.

This already starts in the first chapter. One of the first lines of this book is that Sloane is desperate to start a family. In order to accomplish that, she seeks a partner. This desperation really took away from her character and was a little too overdramatic. It made her boring and also unlikeable. She judges all the men in her life on whether they are husband material or not. Lucian on the other hand is submerged in his work life. We learn his reas ons for this behaviour later on in the book. There are just a few things Sloane and Lucian have in common: their hate for each other while they actually admire each other and the desperation for sex. They both can’t stop thinking about, talking about and praising Lucian’s genetals. It became so annoying! It actually feels really juvenile. Another thing that feels really immature is the interaction between all characters. Most of this was so cringeworthy, it made me want to close the book and never come back to it. Maybe I should have done it anyway, because this was torture.

Despite the characters being boring and uninteresting, the writing was fine. The multiple POV Narration again works really well, since we get insights in both Sloane’s and Lucian’s thoughts this way. That I don’t like them is just a different matter. However, I wasn’t a fan of the actual storyline, the chapters in present time in particular. To me, the flashback chapters and the first chapter were done really well. In these chapters the importance of Sloane’s parents to Lucian was really touched upon. So much has happened to them both, Lucian’s gratitude for this relationship is really visible. This unfortunately doesn’t take away from the fact of the rest of the book being so boring. I have to admit that I skim read a lot of it.

Unfortunately, Things We Left Behind by Lucy Score underwhelmed me. I was really anticipating this book because the most interesting supporting characters were transformed into main characters. This didn’t work really well however. I think the smut and spice was way overdone and the plot itself was lacking depth. For many people this is their most favorite book in the Knockemout series, but not for me.