HOW NOT TO LET GO by Emily Foster is book two in the Belhaven Series. Emily Foster is the pen name for Emily Nagoski, a PhD sex educator who wrote COME AS YOU ARE, a unbelievably good sex ed book. I discovered COME AS YOU ARE from a very popular romance blog that does podcasts and fell in love with Nagoski's work (please do check out her website www.TheDirtyNormal.com.) In COME AS YOU ARE, Nagoski talks about how she thinks so many romance books get sex wrong. So she decided to write her own romance book with a sex-positive message and correct science. How could I not check that out?! Book one is HOW NOT TO FALL, and it is AMAZING. You will absolutely need to read book one before starting HOW NOT TO LET GO. Go and buy them both now, right now, and then come right back. Believe me, you'll be ecstatic that you did.

HOW NOT TO FALL, book one, is in my top favorite reads of 2016. It is extremely intelligent, witty, nerdy, and oh-my-god over-the-top sexy. I gobbled it up and panted for seconds. HOW NOT TO LET GO, book two, is similarly brilliant and nerdy, but the sex is more restrained. In book two, our heroine, Annabelle Coffey, is romantically separate from Dr. Charles Douglas for much of the book. Annie is a med student who worked under Charles when she was a pre-med and he was the postdoctoral fellow in her lab. She feels they have A Thing (a romantic thing) and he agrees that they can explore it once she graduates and she is no longer under his aegis in the lab (hooray for responsible adulting!) And wow, do they have A Thing. Their fling just about melted my e-reader in book one. But Charles has A LOT of baggage from childhood traumas and a totally screwed up family. So they separate as Annie goes off to med school.

Now enter book two, where Annie and Charles reconnect as friends. They are best friends, and have the most powerful interactions as they continue to grow even closer. Charles resists them becoming a formal couple again, though. For reasons. Believable reasons, actually, as compared to the overblown reasons that lots of romances tout, and I adore seeing them work through these reasons together and solve their problems in an eventually healthy manner. This is a very positive relationship overall, both in terms of mental issues and in terms of sex, which is so fabulous to see modeled.

While HOW NOT TO LET GO does not back the same sexual wallop that HOW NOT TO FALL does, it is still a mesmerizing story. There is unbelievable angst, and I cried so many cathartic tears as I moved through the story. I read this in at a time I needed something hopeful in my life, and I reached for this ARC knowing it would be a powerful and positive book that would leave me wrung out but happy. Foster totally delivers in HOW NOT TO FALL, with a heart-wrenching split in soulmates that is overcome by perseverance and the belief in the healing power of love. What a fantastic message for all of us!

Book Summary

Once upon a time, med student Annie Coffey set out to have a purely physical fling with Charles Douglas, a gorgeous British doctor in her lab. It didn’t quite work out that way. Instead, secrets—and desires—were bared, hearts were broken, and Annie knew she had to leave this complicated, compelling man who remains convinced he can never give her what she needs. Walking away is one thing. Staying away is another. Annie and Charles reunite at a London conference, rekindling a friendship they struggle to protect from their intense physical connection. Little by little, Annie gets a glimpse into Charles’s dark past and his wealthy, dysfunctional family. Soon, she’s discovering what it means to have someone claim her, body and soul. And she’s learning that once in a lifetime you find a love that can make you do anything…except let go.