No Matter What

No Matter What is Cara Bastone's third Hearts of New York novel. A year after the accident that upended their lives, Roz and Vin can't meet each other's eyes, let alone share a bed. Roz has been holding on to the idea that the marriage is repairable — until she finds out Vin has signed a lease on his own apartment.

So she does the only thing available to a woman about to be divorced in Manhattan: she signs up for a figure-drawing class, and starts the long work of finding out who she is when she isn't half of something.

Bastone writes tender, slow-burn romance, and this is her most structurally unusual: instead of building a relationship, she takes one apart and asks whether it can be rebuilt into a shape both people can live in. The result is quieter and sadder than a typical rom-com, and it earns its ending.