The Art of Loving You by Natasha Bishop
The Art of Loving You by Natasha Bishop is the latest book in her Forever Falling series, and it did not disappoint. We pick up where book 1 left off at the end of the most dramatic destination wedding I’ve read. You don’t need to pick up Only for the Week if you haven’t already, but you’ll be missing out on an excellent and quick read. At less than 300 pages, you’ll fly through the ex’s best friend story. It’s dramatic, spicy and oh so much fun!
A Second Chance Rooted in the Past
As I started The Art of Loving You, I quickly realized I was in for a second-chance romance. What I didn’t expect was how much deeper this story would go.
Our female main character — Dani — is a retired model/current influencer who has a history with Micah — our main male character. He’s an artist and gallery owner in Baltimore. Their past is revealed as the story develops alongside the devastating loss of their shared mentor.
Tanya — Micah and Dani’s mentor — passed away suddenly as far as they were concerned, but maybe not so suddenly after all, as Tanya set up a scavenger hunt to let them in on all her secrets. As they set off on a journey to understand their friend, the tension between them is palpable. Truly a slow burn that made me want to force them into a room together where they had to communicate.
Grief and the Journey Back to Love
The scavenger hunt balances whimsy with heartbreakingly sad moments in a person’s life all while pushing our main characters toward their destiny of falling back in love.
The chapters are longer than I usually like in contemporary romance, which is a testament to the pacing because I didn’t mind at all in this book. It was easy to get lost in Micah’s and Dani’s travels as they uncovered more of their friend’s mysterious life.
The Art of Loving You has a lot of meat to it, allowing the reader to really dive deep into the characters’ back stories. This applies to side characters as well. I felt like I really got to know everyone in this story.
Dani is the peacekeeper of her friend group comprised of successful Black women who in their own right are entertaining with personalities that leap off the page.
Not to be outdone, all the quirky and unique characters Dani and Micah encountered during their travels added depth and sometimes comic relief to what could have been a sad journey.
In a conversation about the son his best friend’s widow is now raising as a single mom, Micah says, “Taron was the soil but you were the water that fed him so he could grow”. We should all be so lucky to have a friend like him or at least a writer like Natasha Bishop to narrate our lives. Quotes like that set the tone of this book: grief and love in all its forms.
As our main characters went through therapy to process their respective grief, I felt like I did too. The discussions of romantic, familial and platonic relationships were incredibly relatable. I always knew contemporary romance could do as much if not more than self-improvement books for personal growth, and The Art of Loving You reinforced that for me. As much as this is a romance, it’s a story of overcoming loss and finding a beautiful life to live alongside grief.
After reading the first two books in this series, I can say I am officially a fan of Natasha Bishop and will be anxiously awaiting the next installment.
About Natasha Bishop:
Natasha Bishop is a contemporary romance author living in Baltimore, Maryland, with her family and fur baby. She likes to write about sweet and badass women and the men who love them down. When she′s not writing, she′s usually reading, playing with her adorable dog or hunting down delicious gluten-free snacks.
