Before I Knew His Name

I went into Before I Knew His Name expecting a contemporary slow-burn romance with an age gap and a little romantic suspense mixed in, and there were definitely parts of this story I enjoyed. It opens with Sarah walking in the rain and noticing a mysterious man in a black sedan, and naturally I wanted to know who he was, why he was there, and where this was going.

Some of my favorite parts ended up being the quieter moments between Sarah and Robert. Their teasing, messages, meals, drives, and ordinary conversations gave them a natural chemistry that worked for me. Robert has that older, mysterious, slightly questionable thing going for him that was obviously going to get my attention, while Sarah is stubborn enough to challenge him instead of simply doing whatever he says. Their back-and-forth was probably where I enjoyed them most.

Robert was also the character who kept me the most curious because there is very clearly more to his past than Sarah knows. We get little pieces of information about his former life, questionable business dealings, people from his past, and things he’s done that he isn’t proud of, but never enough to fully put the pieces together. I had several theories about what he might have been involved in, and that mystery kept me interested even when other parts of the story slowed down.

Anita deserves a mention too because she surprised me. I initially expected her character to go in a much more predictable direction, but she was allowed to have complicated feelings without becoming the stereotypical jealous woman whose only purpose was to create drama. I appreciated that.

Where the book started losing me was with the pacing. I have absolutely no problem with a slow burn, but there’s a difference for me between a relationship developing slowly and the entire story moving slowly. There were quite a few everyday routines and transitions that I didn’t really need in as much detail. I would have happily traded some of those moments for more time getting to know Sarah and Robert on a deeper level.

I believed their attraction. I believed the chemistry, fascination, flirting, jealousy, and the fact that they kept finding their way back to each other. What I wanted more of was the emotional connection that turned all of that into love. I wanted more of those deeper conversations and vulnerable moments that showed me why Robert became Robert to Sarah and why Sarah became someone Robert was willing to complicate his life for. I knew they loved each other, but I wanted the story to make me feel that transition more strongly.

I also wanted more of Sarah outside Robert and Matt. So much of her emotional world revolves around these two men that I never felt like I knew enough about what Sarah wanted for herself. What did she want to do with her life? What was she working toward? What excited her that had nothing to do with either relationship? It didn’t need to become a huge subplot, but I wanted something that belonged completely to Sarah.

Matt was another area where I had mixed feelings. Sarah definitely mishandles his feelings at times, and I appreciated that the story allows her to recognize that. But Sarah giving Matt false hope doesn’t make her responsible for everything he chooses to do afterward either. My bigger issue was simply how much space his storyline eventually occupied. At times, his conflict felt like it was competing with Sarah and Robert’s relationship for the center of the story, and I would have rather spent some of that time getting more emotional depth between Sarah and Robert or learning more about the mystery surrounding Robert.

And that brings me to the biggest thing that kept this at three stars for me: I finished with too many different questions and not enough clarity about which questions I was actually supposed to have. I like mystery. I like being suspicious. Give me a character with a questionable past and enough breadcrumbs to start making theories, and I’m probably going to make far too many of them. That part doesn’t bother me. But by the end of this one, I wasn’t only wondering what happened to Robert or what he had been involved in. I was also wondering what kind of story I had just finished.

The way Sarah introduces her story made me wonder whether this was supposed to feel almost like a memoir or fictionalized personal account, with an older Sarah looking back on a relationship from her past while deliberately changing or withholding details to protect the people involved. If that’s the intention, it could explain quite a bit of the secrecy surrounding the story, including why some personal information about both Sarah and Robert remains vague.

It could also explain why Robert himself remains such a mystery. Maybe Sarah never learned all the answers. Maybe she knows more than she’s willing to tell. Maybe some parts of Robert’s life simply aren’t hers to share. But I wasn’t sure whether that was actually what I was supposed to take from it. Another possibility is that the unanswered questions surrounding Robert are setting up another book. If that’s the case, I would have liked a little more indication that there was more story coming.

And if this really is the complete story of Sarah and Robert—if sometimes someone simply enters your life, changes it, and then disappears from it—I can accept that too. I just would have liked a little more closure for Sarah herself. I didn’t necessarily need Robert to come back, and I didn’t need every secret about him explained. I would have loved even a small glimpse farther into Sarah’s future so I knew where her life eventually took her and what her own version of a happy ending became.

The ending does have one thing I really liked. It circles back to the beginning in a quiet way and shows Sarah’s growth without pretending she has suddenly forgotten Robert or stopped loving him. Their final exchanges actually made that hit a little harder for me. At the airport, Robert’s last words to her are, “Take care of yourself, Sare.” Sarah simply tells him, “You too.” Then more than a month later, Robert sends her one final text: “I hope you’re happy. Sarah starts to type “I miss you,” but deletes it. Instead, she sends back, “I don’t know yet. But I will be.” Robert reads it and never responds.

I really liked Sarah’s response because, for once, it wasn’t about Robert, Matt, or waiting for either man to determine what happened next. She still loves Robert and she still misses him. She even has that moment where she wants to tell him so. But she stops herself and chooses to keep moving forward anyway. Considering how much I wanted to see more of Sarah as her own person throughout the book, that little bit of backbone at the end mattered to me.

At the same time, Robert’s final message is exactly why I had such a hard time completely accepting this as the end of their story. “I hope you’re happy” doesn’t really feel like goodbye. Sarah doesn’t tell him she’s over him. Robert doesn’t tell her he’s never coming back. There’s no real finality between them. He hopes she’s happy, she tells him she isn’t there yet but she will be, he reads it, and then… silence.

So naturally, I was left wondering: Is that really the end of Robert and Sarah? Does he ever come back? Do they ever find their way back to each other after Sarah has had time to figure out who she is and what she wants? Or was Robert simply someone she was meant to love, lose, and eventually learn how to live without? And yes, I know sometimes an open ending is the entire point. But I personally just needed a little more clarity about what I was supposed to carry away from it.

As for the spice, I’m giving this 🌶️ 1/5 peppers. Sarah and Robert do have a sexual relationship, so this isn’t a book where nothing physical happens between them. The actual sex, however, is primarily handled off-page/fade-to-black rather than described explicitly. You know they’re sleeping together, but you aren’t given graphic sexual scenes, so the spice stays very low on my scale.

Overall, Before I Knew His Name had an interesting foundation, natural chemistry between Sarah and Robert, and enough mystery surrounding Robert to keep me thinking about him after I finished. What held it back for me was the slower overall pacing, wanting more emotional depth between Sarah and Robert, wanting more of Sarah as her own person, and especially finishing without enough clarity about whether the unanswered questions were part of a larger story, part of the way Sarah was choosing to tell her story, or simply answers I was never meant to have.

With a little more depth, tighter pacing, and clearer direction surrounding those unanswered questions and the ending, this could have landed very differently for me. There was enough here to keep me curious. I just needed a little more from the story to turn that curiosity into a fully satisfying read.

Review By: SASSY
Owner • Creator • Queen of the Chaos
SassyReviews.com
Read, Reviewed, & BookDragon Approved… or Not.

NOTICE: I received an ARC/review copy of Before I Knew His Name in exchange for nothing more than my honest opinion. As always, any opinions or thoughts expressed here are entirely voluntary, 100% my own, and were not influenced in any way. This review reflects the version of the manuscript I received and read as it was written as of September 15, 2026. Any edits or changes made to the book after that date are not reflected in my review.