After Ben is the first book I’ve read by Con Riley and I really enjoyed reading it. It took me a bit longer to read it than I expected but that may be because it was my first book by this author. There were a lot of things woven throughout this book and I was really kept engaged by the story. I usually try to write a review as soon as I finish a book but I needed to let this one settle for me a bit; several days later it’s still difficult for me to put how I felt about it into words.

I found After Ben to be a pretty realistic story. I have never lost a partner but I have lost other important people and the grieving process is different each time. I can easily imagine how difficult it is to move on after such a loss. Some of the things that Theo does and the way he acts are similar to the way other grieving people I have known have acted.

This is an age-gap book but that is only one small aspect of the overall story. While the age gap between the characters was an important aspect of the story, and how it affected Theo’s relationship with his parents, I didn’t feel like it was beat to death like some age gap stories are. The fact is that the gap really wasn’t that great between Theo and Ben.

I loved the slow burn aspect of After Ben. I also liked the complications of Peter as a love interest for Theo. I have just one smallish complaint about the story… It ended a bit too abruptly for me. I’ll admit that I’m one of those readers who never wants a good book to end but in my opinion After Ben would have benefited greatly from an epilogue so that we could know how Theo and Morgan are doing a little further down the road. Perhaps we will see more of them in the other books in this series.

Since After Ben is a reissue of the book that was first published in 2012, I already know that a couple of characters get their own books and I’m looking forward to reading them.

Reviews for Con Riley

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