Lucy Score’s second book in the Knockemout series, Things We Hide From The Light, touches on the raw and vulnerable aspects of relationships – the slow opening up after years of taking romance casually, the sensitivity toward trauma and how that can forg relationships in its own way, and the pure want to have someone to open up to, to let past your walls, and give your heart to. Things We Hide From The Light caries on from where Things We Never Got Over left off, but the focus changes, and with that the story evolves.

Nash Morgan was always known as the good Morgan brother, with a smile and a wink for everyone. But now, this chief of police is recovering from being shot and his Southern charm has been overshadowed by panic attacks and nightmares. He feels like a broody shell of the man he once was. Nash isn’t about to let anyone in his life know he’s struggling. But his new next-door neighbour, smart and sexy Lina, sees his shadows. As a rule, she’s not a fan of physical contact unless she initiates it, but for some reason Nash’s touch is different. He feels it too. The physical connection between them is incendiary, grounding him and making her wonder if exploring it is worth the risk. Too bad Lina’s got secrets of her own, and if Nash finds out the real reason she’s in town, he’ll never forgive her. Besides, she doesn’t do relationships. Ever. A hot, short-term fling with a local cop? Absolutely. Sign her up. A relationship with a man who expects her to plant roots? No freaking way. Once she gets what she’s after, she has no intention of sticking around. But Knockemout has a way of getting under people’s skin. And once Nash decides to make Lina his, he’s not about to be dissuaded, even if it means facing the danger that nearly killed him.

I’ll give the warnings first – Things We Hide From The Light includes depcitions of trauma, panic attacks, depression, and possibly PTSD, while also being a spicy romance. I won’t bother warning you of the adult language because if you read Things We Never Got Over you’ll know the characters and language use pretty well. Just know that while these are within th esame series, Things We Hide From The Light takes a slightly different route with its storytelling, navigating the difficult terrain of life post-life-changing events.

The setting is good ol’ Knockemout as we know and love it, the small town where everyone knows everyone and everything just seems that much cooler. But in a way its darker, like this is night compared to Things We Never Got Over‘s day. It gives a nice change of pace to the world we thought we knew, the characters we thought we understood and their outlooks we thought were unchangable. I appreciate being able to explore more locations and meet new characters in the community, and the fact we have our core group of characters to support the novel makes it all the more emotional when things are kept secret and the reality of perspectives and outlooks is unveilled.

Nash is a man who has been through a lot and is still going, and even at the end of Things We Hide From The Light I could tell he would be going through it for some time still. He is such an interesting character given his initial persona and appearnce in Things We Never Got Over and how he has changed as a character since. Similarly, Lina goes through a lot of charcate development in this novel, a lot of past trauma of her own is addressed and worked on, and the relationships in her life undergo change that is well overdue. Things We Hide From The Light is not an easy going romance by a longshot. It feels like a different experience to Things We Never Got Over, and undoubtedly Things We Left Behind will have its own flavour.

I like the change in pace and the narrative direction change into something a little more emotional, something more personal and guarded being let out. The Morgan brothers – the whole family really, we see you Liza J – are known for not dealing with their baggage in healthy ways, yet this book changes that for the better. We see emotion from those two that I never expected when reading Things We Never Got Over, even before the epilogue (that damn epilogue). I can only imagine what will be in Sloane and Lucian’s Things We Left Behind – will there be people from their past making trouble in town? Will more secres be unleashed into Knockemout, or will everything unravel from within as the tension between the two boils over into uncontrollable emotion?

I loved reading Things We Hide From The Light and exploring the way trauma and healing can be depicted in fiction. I highly recommend it to all romance readers who haven’t picked it up yet, and I hope that Things We Left Behind is also on yours lists because I am about to pick it up from the library in the next few days and I cannot wait to get into it.