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Verdict: A dual-timeline sapphic second-chance romance with two of the best-liked leads in the subgenre, held back by a flashback structure that keeps stalling the story readers came for.
Best for: Readers who want first love and the reunion in one book, and will happily spend half the page count in a college romance they know ends badly.
Heat level: ★★★★☆ (4/5 — explicit open door)
Rating: ★★★★☆ (4.1/5 — a 4.30 Goodreads average across roughly 3,270 ratings, with one recurring structural complaint)
Tropes: Second chance, first love, dual timeline, rich girl and poor girl, forced proximity, closeted heroine, family pressure, coming out, dual POV.
Then & Now by Monica McCallan is a standalone self-published contemporary lesbian romance from February 2020, built on two alternating timelines — one following Lily Connor and Bennett Burke through a London semester abroad where a scholarship student and an heiress fall in love without either being out, the other picking them up six years later, when Lily is the planner hired for the wedding Bennett is standing up in.
It holds a 4.30 average across roughly 3,270 Goodreads ratings — the highest of McCallan’s ten most-read books — and it is still moving: free on Kindle Unlimited and ranked #287 in Lesbian Fiction six and a half years after release. The reviews run warmer than most, but they divide on one element — the same element the readers who love it name first. Both halves of that split are worth understanding before you start.
What Is Then & Now About?
Then & Now is a second-chance romance, but only half of it is. The “now” thread is the reunion — two women who have not spoken in six years, forced together with a wedding to deliver. The “then” thread is a first-love story told in real time — not a memory but a parallel novel running at close to the same length. That choice is the whole book, and everything readers praise and everything they complain about traces back to it.
Lily arrives in the past thread with nothing to trade on: she has scraped together the money for a semester abroad from a New York university, she is quiet to the point of self-erasure, and she is hoping four months of distance will let her be someone else. Bennett arrives from the opposite direction — money, a business-society family, a lifetime of being the daughter who does not disappoint. The book runs in third person across both points of view, which lets you watch the same six years land differently on each of them.
What Makes This Sapphic Second-Chance Romance Work
- The chemistry: The most consistently named strength on every platform. Reviewers describe the two as written for each other; Amazon’s own review tags put Romance second only to Content.
- The yearning: Angst and pining are what readers come out talking about, and at least one reviewer names the angst as the single best thing in the book. The past timeline exists to make the present hurt, and it does.
- Both leads: StoryGraph readers mark the characters loveable at 97% and character development strong at 89%, with 63% reading the book as character-driven.
- The stakes are real: Bennett’s family does not disapprove quietly. Readers repeatedly cite the threat of disinheritance, which is why the breakup reads as a decision rather than a plot device.
- The audiobook: Tantor picked it up in 2021 and Lori Prince narrates. Listeners rate it 4.76 on Audible across 730 ratings — higher than any text-format score.
Book Synopsis
Lily Connor has spent five years turning herself into someone useful at Southerland Wedding Company, and the promotion she has been working toward is finally close enough to touch. It arrives with a condition attached. The wedding she has to deliver belongs to a client whose maid of honour is Bennett Burke — the woman Lily met in London at twenty, loved for one semester, and has not spoken to since the plane home.
Six years earlier, neither of them is out. Lily saved for the semester abroad in increments and arrives braced to be invisible. Bennett has come to London to stop being the perfect daughter for a few months, and finds in Lily the one person with no idea what her surname is supposed to mean. What starts as a roommate arrangement becomes the only relationship either has ever had that felt like the truth — and it has an end date neither of them says out loud.
Now the couple is away for the month, the planning cannot be done without the two of them in a room together, and Lily has a reputation riding on behaving as though none of it happened. The question the book keeps circling is not whether they still want each other — that is settled almost immediately — but whether anything has changed in the family, the money and the fear that separated them the first time.
My Review
The thing McCallan does better than almost anyone in this lane is make two people feel specifically necessary to each other. Lily and Bennett are not matched archetypes; they are a girl who has made herself small and a girl who has made herself perfect, and both turn out to be doing it for the same reason. StoryGraph readers mark the characters loveable at 97%, a number I almost never see.
The second real strength is that the conflict is not a misunderstanding. Bennett does not leave over a misheard conversation; she leaves because her family has made the cost of staying explicit, and a twenty-year-old who has never been anything but supported does the arithmetic and gets it wrong. Six years later that decision is still sitting there, unpaid for. Homophobia is the content flag StoryGraph readers submit most often, and the book earns it.
Where it struggles is the architecture, and this is not a personal quibble — it is the complaint that shows up again and again in the three-star reviews. The past timeline runs at nearly full length, so for half the book you are reading a college romance whose ending you already know, and it interrupts the present every other chapter. Readers describe skimming the flashbacks, wanting them condensed, and finding the last fifth the best part precisely because the alternation stops. One reviewer said the constant switching “stunted the momentum.” Around that sits the second recurring note — Bennett’s family arc resolves more easily than the pressure leading up to it deserves.
One expectation to reset before you buy. This is sold as a second-chance romance, and it is one — but a second-chance reader is usually there for the reunion, and this book gives you the reunion in alternate chapters only. Half of it is a first-love romance at full speed, complete with the falling-in-love beats you thought you were skipping. If that sounds like a bonus, you get more book than you expected. If you came for the six-years-later ache alone, you will be interrupted.
My honest note: A better-than-average romance with an above-average structural cost attached. If dual timelines are your format, this is close to the best version of it in sapphic contemporary; if you have ever skimmed a flashback chapter, you will skim these.
| Element | In Then & Now |
|---|---|
| Central relationship | Lily Connor & Bennett Burke — scholarship student and heiress, first love then second chance |
| Core tropes | Second chance, first love, dual timeline, class difference, forced proximity, closeted heroine, workplace romance |
| Setting | A London semester abroad six years ago, and a New York wedding-planning job in the present |
| Heat level | 4/5 — explicit open door |
| Series | Standalone — complete arc and an HEA, no sequel and no series |
| Content notes | Homophobia and lesbophobia, family rejection and threatened disinheritance, misogyny, a controlling family dynamic, closeted characters, explicit sexual content |
How Spicy Is Then & Now?
A 4 out of 5. romance.io rates the steam level “explicit open door” — the band directly below its top rating — and that is accurate to what is on the page. The scenes are explicit and not skipped, but they are not the engine of the book. Readers who name the heat name it as part of the emotional payoff rather than the reason they kept reading, and the words that recur in the reviews are angst, yearning and pining.
The one thing worth flagging is not a kink but a context: both women are closeted throughout the past timeline, and the intimacy there is written under real fear of being found out. Beyond that, no reviewer I found flags specific content in the sex scenes. If you want this band elsewhere, On the Same Page and Written in the Stars both sit at 4/5.
Who Should Read This Book?
You’ll likely love it if: you read romance for yearning rather than plot, you want a first-love story and a reunion story in one book, you like a conflict with an actual external cause, and you have patience for a long past timeline.
You may want to skip it if: flashback chapters make you skim, you want the reunion to be the whole book, you need family conflict to cost something on the page at the end, or you are looking for heat as the main event rather than as a component.
In short: the best-liked thing about this book and the most-criticised thing about this book are the same structural decision, and which side you land on is decided by chapter three.
What Readers Are Actually Saying (August 2026)
There is no viral moment attached to this book and there never was. In the three Reddit searches I completed — title and author site-wide, plus author searches in r/RomanceBooks and r/sapphicbooks — Monica McCallan turns up in tier lists, five-star roundups and a heavily upvoted cover-art post for her recent The Love Lie, but Then & Now never surfaces by name. Two further searches were cut off by rate limiting, so treat that as an incomplete read rather than a clean zero. There is no BookTok activity of consequence and no trade coverage at all — Amazon’s Editorial Reviews block carries author and narrator biographies and no pull-quotes, and no Publishers Weekly, Kirkus or Library Journal review exists. What it has is a 2021 review at The Lesbian Review and a video review from the Lesbi Reviewed blog.
What is keeping it in front of readers six and a half years on comes down to three quiet channels. It is free on Kindle Unlimited, where most of its ongoing readership comes from. It holds a live category ranking — #287 in Lesbian Fiction and #416 in Lesbian Romance against #64,986 in the Kindle Store overall, the signature of a book found inside its category, not outside it. And in September 2021 Tantor took the audio: Lori Prince narrates the 10 hour 28 minute edition, now stocked on Audible, Libro.fm, Kobo and Barnes & Noble and rated 4.76 across 730 Audible ratings — higher than the book scores anywhere else.
Prefer audio? Listen to Then & Now on Libro.fm — the audiobook shop that supports independent bookstores.
Why readers love it (according to the discourse): The chemistry, first and by a distance — reviewers describe McCallan as writing her leads for each other, and “captivating” is the word that comes back. Then the angst, treated as a feature rather than a warning. The characters score extraordinarily well on StoryGraph, where 97% call them loveable. And then the dual timeline itself: a good number of readers praise the alternation specifically, saying it moves between past and present seamlessly — which is worth flagging, because it is the exact structure the critics object to.
What readers argue about and complain about: The flashback structure, above everything. The complaint is not that the past chapters are bad but that they are long and they interrupt — readers describe skimming them, wanting them condensed, and finding the present-day momentum repeatedly stunted. Several say the final fifth is the strongest stretch, which is exactly where the alternation stops. Second: Bennett’s family arc, which multiple readers found anticlimactic given the weight the homophobia carries earlier; The Lesbian Review’s criticism runs adjacent, calling the love story idealised. Third and smaller: a few readers wanted a heavier register, feeling the book pulls back toward comfort reading.
The standalone question worth asking first: it is a true standalone — no series, no sequel, a complete arc and an HEA. The interesting part is the backlist. Across 16 titles and more than 40,000 ratings, McCallan’s author average sits at 4.13, and Then & Now at 4.30 is the best-rated of her ten most-read while being only her fourth most-read; her biggest seller, Back in Your Arms, sits at 4.12. If you are choosing where to start with this author, the numbers say start here.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Then & Now end on a cliffhanger?
No. It is a standalone with a complete arc and a happily-ever-after for Lily and Bennett. There is no sequel and no series.
How spicy is Then & Now?
A 4 out of 5. romance.io rates the steam level “explicit open door,” one band below its top rating. The scenes are explicit, but readers name the angst more often than the heat.
Is Then & Now on Kindle Unlimited?
Yes. The Kindle edition reads free on Kindle Unlimited and is $6.99 to buy outright, with paperback and hardcover editions also available. KU is where most of its current readership comes from.
Is Then & Now part of a series?
No. Monica McCallan has written 16 titles, but this one stands alone — and it is the highest-rated of her ten most-read, which makes it a sensible entry point.
Is there an audiobook of Then & Now?
Yes — narrated by Lori Prince for Tantor, running 10 hours 28 minutes and released on 28 September 2021. It is rated 4.76 across 730 Audible ratings, higher than the book scores on any text platform.
If You Loved Then & Now, Read These Next
Readers who want the same dual-timeline machinery at the same heat level should go to On the Same Page, which builds a friends-to-lovers romance out of ten years of accumulated history and pays the structure off. For the same second-chance ache with more literary weight, Here We Go Again puts two women who ruined each other’s lives in a car together and won a Lambda for it. And if it is McCallan you want more of, The Pining Paradox is her most recent — lower on heat, higher on comfort.
For more in this register, browse our sapphic second-chance reading list or the full Book Reviews collection.
The Bottom Line
Then & Now wants to give you two romances for the price of one, and it very nearly does. The chemistry is as good as this subgenre gets, the conflict has a real external cause rather than a manufactured one, and the audiobook is the best-rated version of the story. It is also structurally impatient with itself, half its length goes to an outcome you already know, and the family reckoning it spends the book building arrives softer than it should. For a reader who loves a dual timeline that is a small price for a very warm book; for a reader who wants the reunion and only the reunion, it is the whole problem. Check Then & Now on Amazon →
The Eikna Overall Ranking
On the Eikna scale, Then & Now ranks as a Kindle Unlimited backlist anchor — emotionally generous and unusually well liked for a self-published title, structurally divisive by design, and best approached for the first-love timeline rather than the reunion it is sold on.
The Evidence Scorecard
Overall ★★★★☆ 4.1/5
- ✓ 4.30 average across 3,270 Goodreads ratings
- ✓ Best-rated of McCallan’s ten most-read
- ✓ 4.76 on Audible across 730 ratings
- ✓ One structural complaint recurs everywhere
Romance ★★★★☆ 4.4/5
- ✓ Chemistry is the least contested element
- ✓ Yearning and angst named constantly
- ✓ Conflict has a real external cause
- ✓ Reunion shares the page with first love
Characters ★★★★☆ 4.3/5
- ✓ 97% of StoryGraph readers call them loveable
- ✓ 89% say character development is strong
- ✓ 63% read it as character-driven
- ✓ 44% say the cast is not diverse
Writing ★★★★☆ 4/5
- ✓ Writing quality named in Amazon review tags
- ✓ Dual POV used to real purpose
- ✓ The Lesbian Review praises the pacing
- ✓ Flashback chapters over-detailed for many
Emotional Impact ★★★★☆ 4.2/5
- ✓ 81% of StoryGraph readers mark it emotional
- ✓ Threatened disinheritance gives it stakes
- ✓ Angst treated as the main draw
- ✓ Some wanted a heavier register
Heat Level ★★★★☆ 4/5
- ✓ romance.io band is explicit open door
- ✓ Scenes are graphic, not faded out
- ✓ Heat serves the emotional payoff
- ✓ Closeted context colours the past scenes
Ending ★★★★☆ 3.8/5
- ✓ Complete standalone arc and an HEA
- ✓ Final fifth is the strongest stretch
- ✓ Requires no further reading
- ✓ Family arc resolves too easily for several
Re-read Value ★★★★☆ 4.2/5
- ✓ Read as a comfort book by many
- ✓ 10h 28m Tantor audio is a strong second pass
- ✓ Free on Kindle Unlimited to revisit
- ✓ Past timeline loses tension once known
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