There’s something particularly poignant about encountering your first love decades later, especially when you’ve spent twenty years perfecting the art of avoidance. In Backslide, Nora Dahlia’s sophomore romance, we’re thrust into exactly this scenario as Nellie Hurwitz and Noah collide at their best friends’ wine country celebration, forced to reckon with a past they’ve both tried desperately to forget.
A Dual Timeline That Actually Works
Dahlia employs a dual timeline structure that alternates between present-day Sonoma and 1990s New York, and this narrative choice proves to be the novel’s greatest strength. Rather than feeling like a gimmick, the shifting timelines work in tandem to reveal how teenage mistakes can calcify into adult regrets. The past sequences aren’t mere flashbacks; they’re essential puzzle pieces that explain why present-day Nellie can barely look at Noah without her chest tightening, why every interaction between them crackles with unresolved tension.
The 1990s sequences capture the essence of teenage love with remarkable authenticity. Dahlia doesn’t romanticize youth but instead presents it in all its messy, impulsive glory. There are beepers and answering machines, Zima and Alizé, clubs with velvet ropes and strobing lights. More importantly, there are two young people who fall hard and fast, believing themselves invincible until life proves otherwise. The author’s decision to ground their relationship in specificity—Noah’s baseball aspirations, Nellie’s art portfolio, the geography of Upper West Side New York—makes their connection feel lived-in and real.
The Weight of Unfinished Business
What makes Backslide compelling is how Nora Dahlia refuses to let her characters off easy. This isn’t a simple case of misunderstood intentions or easily resolved miscommunication. Noah made genuine mistakes as a teenager—abandoning Nellie when she needed him most during a pregnancy scare, kissing another girl at a party out of anger and hurt. These aren’t actions that can be waved away with a charming smile and a well-timed apology. Nellie’s inability to trust him feels earned, her anger justified.
The present-day sections showcase two adults who’ve built impressive lives apart from each other. Noah has become an orthopedic surgeon specializing in sports medicine, while Nellie works as an art director for a magazine. They’re no longer the fumbling teenagers who hurt each other, yet those old wounds remain surprisingly fresh. Dahlia understands that first loves leave marks that don’t fade simply because time passes.
The Supporting Cast That Elevates
The supporting characters breathe life into the narrative rather than simply serving as plot devices. Cara and Ben, the couple at the center of the un-wedding celebration, provide both comic relief and emotional grounding. Their own struggles with marriage and identity add depth to the story’s exploration of relationships over time. Sabrina and Rita offer necessary perspective, while Lydia serves as a reminder of past complications that refuse to stay buried.
Damien deserves special mention as perhaps the novel’s most complex secondary character. His friendship with Noah feels authentic in its messiness—he’s loyal and toxic in equal measure, the kind of friend you keep out of history rather than present-day compatibility. His presence complicates the central romance in ways that feel organic rather than contrived.
Where the Wine Flows But the Path Gets Rocky
Despite its considerable strengths, Backslide by Nora Dahlia isn’t without flaws. The forced proximity trope—Nellie and Noah sharing a suite at the wine country estate—occasionally feels like exactly what it is: a contrivance to keep the characters in each other’s orbit. While Dahlia handles it better than most, there are moments where you can see the authorial hand pushing the pieces into place.
The pacing occasionally stumbles in the middle section. Just when momentum builds toward emotional revelation, the narrative pulls back, inserting another obstacle that sometimes feels manufactured. A hot tub scene that should mark a turning point instead becomes another example of Noah’s tendency toward self-sabotage, and while this tracks with his character, it tests reader patience.
Additionally, Nellie’s professional crisis—her magazine folding, combined with a recent broken engagement—sometimes feels like trauma stacking for dramatic effect. These elements are mentioned but not deeply explored, serving more as background noise to establish her emotional vulnerability than as fully integrated plot points.
The Prose That Carries You Through
Dahlia’s writing style deserves recognition. She has a gift for capturing emotion through specific, concrete details rather than abstract declarations. When Nellie describes Noah’s presence as feeling “like a live wire,” or when Noah notices the “wolf-gray” of Nellie’s eyes, these aren’t just pretty phrases—they’re windows into how these characters experience each other on a visceral level.
The dialogue crackles with authenticity, particularly in the verbal sparring between Nellie and Noah. Their banter walks the line between hostility and intimacy, revealing the complicated truth that you can simultaneously want to throttle someone and kiss them senseless. The author also demonstrates skill in quieter moments, allowing silence and physical proximity to speak as loudly as words.
Questions of Trust and Transformation
At its core, Backslide by Nora Dahlia grapples with a fundamental question: Can people truly change, and even if they can, is it possible to see past who they once were? Noah has evolved from the immature teenager who made devastating choices out of fear and pain. He’s responsible, successful, thoughtful. But Nellie can’t unsee the boy who left her waiting alone, terrified and abandoned. She can’t unknow the feeling of watching him kiss someone else.
Dahlia doesn’t offer easy answers. The path to reconciliation is neither straight nor simple. Both characters must acknowledge their roles in their shared history—Noah’s betrayal and Nellie’s eventual emotional withdrawal. The novel understands that forgiveness isn’t a switch you flip but a process requiring genuine reckoning with the past.
The Chemistry Question
For a romance to work, the central couple must generate heat, and here Dahlia delivers. The attraction between Nellie and Noah is palpable from their first awkward reunion at the airport. Every shared glance, accidental touch, and loaded conversation pulses with tension. When they finally come together, it feels like the inevitable collision of two magnetic forces that have been pulling toward each other for decades.
The physical chemistry translates well to the page without overwhelming the emotional journey. Dahlia understands that the sexiest moments often happen in the spaces between—in the slow unzipping of a dress, in hands that linger just a moment too long, in the sharp intake of breath when defenses finally crumble.
The Verdict
Backslide by Nora Dahlia succeeds as both a second-chance romance and a meditation on how we carry our pasts into our present. While it occasionally gets tangled in its own plot mechanics and could benefit from tighter pacing in places, Dahlia’s sophomore effort demonstrates growth as a storyteller. She takes risks with structure and emotional complexity that elevate the novel beyond standard romance fare.
This is a book for readers who appreciate romance that acknowledges damage without being overwhelmed by it, who want to believe in second chances while understanding they don’t come easy. It’s for anyone who’s ever wondered about the one who got away, who understands that first loves leave lasting impressions precisely because we’re so unguarded when they happen.
The Sonoma wine country setting provides lush atmosphere without overshadowing the central relationship, and the un-wedding celebration framework offers both stakes and structure. Most importantly, Dahlia earns her happy ending. By the time Nellie and Noah find their way back to each other, you believe they’ve done the work necessary to make it stick.
For Readers Who Enjoyed
If Backslide by Nora Dahlia resonates with you, consider exploring:
- People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry – Another second-chance romance built on years of history and complicated feelings
- Happy Place by Emily Henry – Features a similar forced proximity setup with exes pretending for friends
- The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren – Enemies-to-lovers with sharp banter and forced vacation proximity
- The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory – Contemporary romance with mature characters working through real obstacles
- Beach Read by Emily Henry – Writers confronting their pasts while stuck together in close quarters
Nora Dahlia’s previous novel, Pick-Up, offers her trademark blend of wit, heart, and complicated relationships set against the backdrop of New York City parenting.
