In Lucy Score’s Things We Never Got Over (2022), 30-something-year-old Naomi Witt falls under the spell of a wealthy bar owner, Knox Morgan, as she struggles to rediscover herself after ending an unhealthy relationship. Knox’s good looks, solitary lifestyle, and bad-boy attitude convince Naomi to give love another chance.

The novel plays with familiar elements and themes of the romance genre, including the courage it takes for a wounded heart to rediscover passion, the critical support of friends and family, and the hopeful power of love. Score also explores the dark psychology of sibling rivalry, the challenges and complications of adoption, and how wealth can both create and destroy love. A veteran romance fiction writer with more than 30 titles published, Score found popular success with Things We Never Got Over, which became both a New York Times and Amazon bestseller. It is the first book in a trilogy set in the same town with some of the same characters. The second and third books are Things We Hide from the Light (2023) and Things We Left Behind (2023).

This study guide uses the 2022 Bloom paperback edition of the novel.

Content Warning: This novel contains instances of domestic violence and child endangerment. The novel is also intended for mature readers, and features strong language and sexually explicit scenarios, some of which are reproduced or represented in this guide.

Plot Summary

The novel is told in first-person chapters that alternate between Naomi Witt’s and Knox Morgan’s perspectives.

Naomi Witt arrives in the small, northern Virginia town of Knockemout to help out her twin sister, Tina. Although Naomi and her sister have drifted apart, Naomi is eager to reconnect and help out as a way to handle her emotional stress; days earlier, she skipped out on her wedding to a wealthy entrepreneur. Realizing the enormity of her mistake in getting engaged to this man, Naomi squeezed out of a church bathroom window during the rehearsal.

Her sister tricks her and steals her car and cash. She disappears and leaves her daughter behind, a precocious and smart 11-year-old girl named Waylay. Naomi immediately bonds with the girl and accepts her responsibility as her guardian.

When Naomi finds work at the town’s bar, she meets Knox Morgan, a hunky bartender who bought the bar and a block of shops in the town after winning the state lottery two years earlier. His sudden wealth created a rift between Knox and his brother Nash, the town’s sheriff. Knox has walled himself off from the town, content to spend his days with his basset hound.

Although Naomi and Knox are both attracted to each other, neither is interested in a relationship. Nevertheless, Knox takes special interest in Naomi and makes sure that she and Waylay have a place to stay; since Waylay’s mother left, Child Protective Services (CPS) is interested in ensuring that Waylay is being cared for. Naomi settles into life in town and makes friends with neighbors and her coworkers, but there is friction between the Morgan brothers because both are drawn to Naomi’s disarming smile, easygoing way with people, and attractive features. But the tension between them abruptly ends when Nash is shot twice during a routine traffic stop. He recovers and respects his brother’s feelings for Naomi.

Naomi is unsure of what happened to her sister or where she is. Naomi contacts her parents to tell them they have a granddaughter they never met. In short order, they show up in Knockemout to meet Waylay and to help Naomi. Naomi’s devotion to Waylay is absolute and unwavering. Meanwhile, she begins to warm up to Knox’s difficult and prickly personality. When Naomi and Knox have sex, both find the experience mind-blowing. Still, they resist calling it love or thinking in terms of a relationship.

Without warning, Naomi’s ex-fiancé shows up at the bar and demands Naomi return to New York with him, stating that her escapade is over. But when he makes a move to restrain her, Knox intervenes and punches him out. Naomi grows closer to Knox, who opens up at last about the emotional trauma his lottery win caused him and the rift it created in his family. In addition, he is haunted by memories of his father who has an alcohol addiction. He resists committing to Naomi, and the two break up.

Tina resurfaces. She kidnaps Waylay and tricks Naomi into coming out to an abandoned industrial park near Washington. Naomi meets her sister’s boyfriend, the son of a notorious Washington crime boss who wants to branch out into his own operation specializing in stolen cars. The problem is that Tina and her boyfriend have critical information about their massive burglary operation, including names of police officers who needed to be eliminated, on a flash drive. Waylay hid the drive, and the boyfriend is sure that threatening to kill Naomi will get the girl to reveal where she hid the flash drive. It is suddenly clear to Naomi who shot Nash.

Just as the boyfriend prepares to threaten Naomi, the cops, led by the Morgan brothers, arrive. In the ensuing chaos, Tina’s boyfriend escapes. Reuniting with Naomi, Knox sees that he wasted too much time resisting a relationship with Naomi, and he proposes. With Tina facing serious prison time, Naomi and Knox move forward with adopting Waylay.

Five years later, Naomi and Knox face the difficult reality of Waylay heading off to college on a soccer scholarship. Knox has reconciled with his father, now three years sober. Unable to have children of their own, Naomi and Knox have adopted two girls: a three-year-old and a baby. The couple prepares, with the help of their friends and family, for hectic years ahead, full of love.