When Taylor Williams-Jones returns to her grandmother’s home in Gardensville after her marriage of convenience ends in bruises and betrayal, she carries back far more than a broken heart. She brings her young daughter, Nylah; a secret she’s terrified will unravel her life; and the weight of everything she left behind, including Ric’Chard “Ricch” Murchinson, the now full-brooding man who once loved her without hesitation as a teen.

Ricch, on the other hand, seems surer of his path. He has quietly rebuilt his life after serving six years for a crime he didn’t commit, and he vows to stay on the straight and narrow to avoid it happening again. He’s focused on his at-home massage business, his healing, and keeping his circle small. That is, until Taylor shows up on his block again. Now the woman he once saw a future with is back under the same streetlights, stirring up old pain, unfinished conversations, and a chemistry that never truly died.

As Taylor fights to reclaim her independence and return to school, Ricch is forced to confront the truth about her past, her choices, and her precocious daughter, who reminds him of someone familiar every day.

But Gardensville is a neighborhood where secrets travel fast and loyalty is everything. Especially when the same man who once tore their lives apart isn’t finished with either of them.

Around the Way Love is a gritty, deeply emotional second-chance romance rooted in community, generational bonds, redemption, and the messy, magnetic pull of first love. It blends raw vulnerability with tenderness, family-centered storytelling, and the kind of love that refuses to stay buried.