Seven Days in June gave me my first taste of Tia Williams’ work. Did I enjoy the experience? It was okay. But honestly, based on how the story started, I expected a lot more.
Title: Seven Days in June
Author(s): Tia Williams
Published by Grand Central Publishing on June 1, 2021
Pages: 328
Genre(s): Contemporary Romance
Source: Kindle Unlimited
Format: eBook
Purchase: Amazon|Audible
Rating:
Heat Level:
An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.
Seven days to fall in love, fifteen years to forget and seven days to get it all back again... From the author of The Perfect Find, this is a witty, romantic, and sexy-as-hell new novel of two writers and their second chance at love.
Brooklynite Eva Mercy is a single mom and bestselling erotica writer, who is feeling pressed from all sides. Shane Hall is a reclusive, enigmatic, award-winning literary author who, to everyone's surprise, shows up in New York.
When Shane and Eva meet unexpectedly at a literary event, sparks fly, raising not only their past buried traumas, but the eyebrows of New York's Black literati. What no one knows is that twenty years earlier, teenage Eva and Shane spent one crazy, torrid week madly in love. They may be pretending that everything is fine now, but they can't deny their chemistry-or the fact that they've been secretly writing to each other in their books ever since.
Over the next seven days in the middle of a steamy Brooklyn summer, Eva and Shane reconnect, but Eva's not sure how she can trust the man who broke her heart, and she needs to get him out of New York so that her life can return to normal. But before Shane disappears again, there are a few questions she needs answered. . .
With its keen observations of Black life and the condition of modern motherhood, as well as the consequences of motherless-ness, Seven Days in June is by turns humorous, warm and deeply sensual.
The beginning of this book had me thinking I was in for something special. The story intrigued me, and the characters caught my attention. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, the story lost some of that pull for me.
The story introduces Eva, a semi-struggling paranormal romance writer and single mom, and Shane, a wildly successful bad boy of the literary world. As the story unfolds, we discover that they spent seven days together in June during their high school years. And these were no ordinary seven days. They were seven days filled with addiction, sex, self-mutilation, and a whole lot of pain.
As the story progresses, the reasons behind their behavior became clearer. There was a lot of hurt and trauma beneath the surface, and I appreciated getting to understand what had shaped both Eva and Shane. At the end of those seven days, unfortunate circumstances tore them apart. Eva believed Shane had abandoned her, and she carried that hurt with her into adulthood. Fifteen years later, they are back in each other’s lives. Fate grants them another seven days to confront their past, deal with unresolved issues, and figure out what they really mean to each other.
I appreciated Eva and Shane’s journey; however, my favorite moments were actually with Eva’s twelve-year-old daughter. That girl was smarter than her years, and I loved her. I enjoyed the role she played in getting her mom and Shane together. She brought something special to the story. I also appreciated the themes of healing, forgiveness, and second chances.
Both Eva and Shane had a lot of emotional baggage to work through, and I liked seeing them face some of the things they had carried with them for years. Despite all of that, I struggled to connect with the romance. The story started off strong, but as it progressed, the excitement faded. The pacing felt uneven at times, and there were moments when the story dragged. I kept waiting for that emotional connection to really hit, but it never quite got there.
There were things I liked about Seven Days in June, and I can appreciate what Tia Williams was trying to do with these characters. The story explored some heavy themes and gave us characters who were dealing with real pain, trauma, and the consequences of their past.
Seven Days in June was an okay read, but ultimately, it left me wanting more.
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About Tia Williams
According to Vogue, Tia Williams writes “arousing, gutting, and sparklingly witty love stories with depth.” In 1997, the University of Virginia grad embarked on a career as a beauty editor, working for publications like Elle, Glamour, and Essence. In 2004, she pioneered beauty blogging with her groundbreaking site, Shake Your Beauty. The same year, her debut novel, The Accidental Diva, hit shelves. She went on to co-write Iman’s makeup memoir, The Beauty of Color, and penned two young adult novels, It Chicks and Sixteen Candles. In 2016, her award-winning novel, The Perfect Find, was released—and is now a Netflix film starring Gabrielle Union and Keith Powers. Her 2021 novel, Seven Days in June, was an instant New York Times bestseller and a Reese’s Book Club pick. Tia’s NAACP Image Award-nominated bestseller, A Love Song for Ricki Wilde, was named one of 2024’s best romances by The New York Times and Amazon. Released in 2025, her YA romcom, Audre & Bash are Just Friends, was an instant New York Times bestseller and Good Morning America Book Club Pick. Tia lives in New York with her husband, daughter, son, and several half-written manuscripts.
