“Just Our Luck”: Denise Williams Spins a Smart, Softly Wounded Romance About Grief, Luck, and Second Chances

When Luck Means Letting Go: The Subtle Sorcery of Just Our Luck

Some stories arrive with a bang. This one arrives like an exhale—quiet, needed, overdue. In Just Our Luck, Denise Williams gives us a romance shaped not by dramatic twists, but by the soft collisions of grief, guilt, and vulnerability. It’s a story about what happens when people stop pretending they’re fine, and start figuring out what love means when life has already taken so much.

The novel opens not with flirtation, but with silence—the kind between neighbors who’ve been circling each other’s pain for too long. Presley Ayers and Dexter Jacobs aren’t strangers, but they might as well be. She’s a planner, he’s grieving. She’s building her new business, he’s trying to rebuild himself. What draws them together isn’t spark, at first—it’s the dull ache of lives half-lived. And Williams leans into that ache with empathy and control. It’s a slow burn, not just in romance but in healing.

What’s striking is how the narrative never rushes. Williams gives the emotional pacing the same respect she gives her characters—letting them arrive at truths in their own time. Scenes stretch in gentle ways, letting silence and subtext speak. The chemistry builds not through grand declarations but through glances, quiet favors, unspoken understanding. It’s this restraint that makes the moments of breakthrough so powerful. When Dexter finally says, “I don’t think luck is about things turning out right. I think it’s about having someone who stays when they don’t,” it lands like thunder—because we’ve watched him earn those words.

Symbolically, the book plays with luck as something deeper than fate or fortune. It’s about timing, certainly, but it’s also about grace—the luck of meeting someone who sees you when you’re not your best, and stays. The grief that simmers beneath Dexter’s character is rendered without melodrama. His late wife’s presence lingers like background static—never forgotten, never overshadowing—but always part of his voice, his decisions, his reluctance to reach for new happiness. The writing handles this with respect and delicacy.

The setting, too, adds to the novel’s intimacy—a community that feels lived-in, textured, with side characters who never feel like props. Each corner of the story feels touched by real life. It’s not about escaping into romance; it’s about finding the courage to live inside it.

Who Should Read This

Just Our Luck is for readers who crave emotional resonance in their romance—who want more than just banter and heat, but also honesty, scars, and tenderness that takes time. It’s for those who loved Before I Let Go by Kennedy Ryan or The Light We Lost by Jill Santopolo. If you’re drawn to stories about imperfect people loving each other anyway, about grief folded into intimacy, about second chances that don’t sparkle but simmer—this is the book you’ve been waiting for.