Book Review: Untying the Knot

Untying the Knot by Meghan Quinn is one of my top reads for May and has possibly inched its way to the top spot.

If you read the Cane Brothers series by Meghan Quinn, then you may remember Ryot and Myla who were side characters. In So Not Meant to Be (I don’t remember if their appearance was in the epilogue or in the main book) Ryot and Myla make a brief appearance and JP and Kelsey make a comment to each other that the couple don’t look happy/look like they’re in the middle of a marital dispute. But then in A Long Time Coming, the couple are happy and in love. Untying the Knot occurs between these two books. Side note: If you read her Christmas novella, Resting Scrooge Face, Ryot is Nola’s brother. I love all the connections!

Ryot and Myla met years ago when his brother Banner and her best friend Nichole met and hooked up. They ran in to each other a few times over the next few months and just when their flirting seemed to be taking them to the next step, Ryot got called up to the major and was off to Chicago to make his professional baseball debut. Fast forward a few years and now Myla is living in Chicago and she runs in to Ryot. The two begin talking again and end up falling in love.

In present day, they’ve been married for a few years but Ryot is no longer playing baseball. After an injury forced him to retire early, Ryot, Banner, and their friend Penn had the idea for The Jock Report – an app that allows professional athletes to write their own stories and control their narratives. The Cane brothers invested in their app and they’re not business partners which means Ryot, Myla, and Penn moved to California. Now the once happily in love couple are not doing so well unbeknownst to Ryot. Myla feels like Ryot didn’t take her wants and needs in to consideration when making all these post-retirement plans and moving to California wasn’t even a discussion. Unhappy for a few months, Myla decides she can’t do it anymore. She still loves Ryot, but she misses the husband he used to be who treasured her even when he was busy with his professional baseball career. Now he’s always busy with his new business and she feels forgotten. So she presents Ryot with divorce papers which completely blindsides him. He is still hopelessly in love with Myla and doesn’t understand what happened. Now Ryot will do whatever it takes to make things right and get his wife back. For now, he asks Myla to pretend to still be happily married to him for a few more weeks because JP and Kelsey’s wedding is coming up which includes a week long thing in Napa. Ryot is hoping to win her back by the end of the wedding week.

The book flips between Myla and Kelsey’s POV and also from present day to the past from when the two first met and then through their relationship. We see how they fell in love, which is full of banter and spice. We also see the tough upbringing Myla had and the abuse she went through from her parents that shaped her as an adult and why she reacts to stressful situations the way she does.

The love Myla and Ryot have for each other, how protective Ryot is of Myla given her past, and how betrayed Myla felt when she felt Ryot had abandoned her really made this an emotional book. It had its funny moments like the other Meghan Quinn books I’ve read, but was much more emotional and heart wrenching. I teared up at multiple parts!

I loved this book. It had everything – romance, banter, spice, and had me in my feels. Now I want to reread A Long Time Coming to see the two of them all happy and lovey dovey! I just love the two of them so much.

Read this if you want a spicy romcom with the second chance romance and marriage in trouble tropes.

Now I’m hoping she writes a book about Banner and Kenzie (Kelsey and Lottie’s cousin that went on some dates with and in the extended epilogue for A Long Time Coming they are in a relationship)!