Special thanks to Meghan Quinn and her team for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

TL;DR: Untying the Knot is an emotionally charged and angsty marriage-in-crisis romance that is full of heartbreaking, hilarious and hopeful moments. This is a story of two people who’ve recently lost touch with themselves and each other in this marriage but undoubtedly still love each other and I loved the way Quinn takes us through their journey. There’s a lot of pain, bitter resentment and anger but there’s also healing and forgiveness. Myla and Ryot are a wonderful couple and I hope there’ll be more stories with the other side characters!

“I’m not interested in continuing to leave it up to fate.”

I knew I was going to love this the minute I started reading the first chapter and immediately recognised MQ’s signature quirky FMC charm and the slightly OTT but no less hilarious dialogue and interactions between all of the characters. I was admittedly a little nervous reading a marriage-in-crisis romance because it’s not my favourite trope and I don’t usually gravitate towards them but I shouldn’t have doubted my enjoyment because it’s MQ and she wouldn’t do us dirty. She didn’t!

The story is told in alternating chapters between flashbacks to when they first meet and get together to the present day when their romance has essentially imploded. While I’m not usually a big fan of this type of storytelling, it was essential here to establish how far their relationship has strayed. It was quite an emotionally charged and angst-filled ride, especially when you see how good they are together and how much hurt and pain both experience in the present. There were times that I really wanted to give Myla and Ryot a good hard shake and lock them in a room together and not let them out until they actually talked things out, but I appreciated how Quinn took us through their journey. It might’ve been frustrating seeing them sling heavy and hurtful words at each other and play immature and spiteful ‘pranks’, but ultimately, I do think they both needed to get the anger and bitterness out of the way in order to get to the part where they could look at each other with civility and start to reconnect on a deeper level.

Myla and Ryot are total opposites with Myla being the wild, say anything, do everything, what are consequences type of character, and Ryot being the emotionally steady, protective bear with a structured life that revolves around baseball (and Myla). He’s quite literally the Ying to her Yang and grounds her enough to make her feel protected, cherished and appreciated, which are basically all the things she never experienced as a child who was severely abused by her mother and abandoned by her father. It’s clear Myla still carries a lot of trauma from her past and while I didn’t always understand at first why she was so quickly giving up on the marriage, I did come to understand her perspective. For someone who carries around the burden of such deep-seated insecurities, it made sense that her walls came up so high. Ryot really messed up and though it took a while for him to get his head out of his ass and realise where he went wrong, once he acknowledged his errors, he really does his damndest to set things right. Throughout the read, there was no doubt that these two still loved each other they just simply needed to find themselves again and I loved when that happened in Napa. There were so many sweet and heartfelt moments between them that were so precious and once they open themselves up to reappreciate the things they love about each other the story took a much more positive and hopeful turn that made my heart happy sigh. With such naturally amazing chemistry between Myla and Ryot, you know that there are gonna be some pretty steamy scenes and MQ delivers. There were some scenes that were fire hot but also those that were heart-meltingly tender and it was perfectly balanced.

“Your heartbeat is the cadence of my life, and without it in my palm, I’m an aimless wanderer.”

Aside from these two, I loved being reunited with this misfit crew of rich, smart, horny adults! They love to be all over each other and well, we remember from their stories! 😂 JP with his damn pigeon, Kazoo, and Kelsey, Huxley and Lottie, though my favourite of the bunch was Banner, Ryot’s brother and Nichole, Myla’s bestie. I had my beef with Nichole at one point but the ending more than made up for it and I loved how she and Banner ended up being friends with bennies throughout the years. Banner was a little bit of an enigma with his aloofness and after this abrupt teaser of an ending, I sure hope that MQ isn’t gonna leave us hanging and will give us the Banner and Kenzie romance that they (AND WE!) deserve! I can’t wait for more 😍

Do you have Untying the Knot on your TBR or does it sound like a romance you’d like to read?

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