I came into Kiss It Better at what might seem like a strange entry point - book five in Shvonne Latrice's Crenshaw series, not knowing the brothers or their history. I read enough reviews to understand I was missing context, and I went in anyway, curious whether the book could hold a newcomer. The answer is: mostly yes, with some significant gaps. By chapter three I had already formed strong feelings about a woman named Nixi Andrews I had never met.
That is one measure of how effectively Latrice builds her characters. The emotional architecture of Kiss It Better is so clear that even a first-time reader can feel the weight of fifteen years of Bashar Compton's patience, long before the book lays out the specifics.
How Kiss It Better Holds Up
Bashar Compton is a criminal defense attorney who has spent the better part of his adult life in a holding pattern around his high school sweetheart and mother of his child, Nixi Andrews. Latrice does not wait long to establish that Nixi is not simply flawed but genuinely exhausting in the way that only someone we love completely and wrongly can be. What sets Kiss It Better apart from the standard second-chance romance template is that Bashar's growth is not primarily about finding Analicia Chase - it is about stopping. Stopping the accommodation. Stopping the tolerance. Stopping the version of loyalty that has become indistinguishable from self-erasure.
Analicia arrives with her own considerable problems - a dead father, a strained sibling relationship, a boyfriend whose dream collapsed, and a new situation that threatens everything she thought she wanted. Latrice handles the dual narrative with confidence, and the parallels between the two characters - both navigating loss, both being pulled by obligations that no longer serve them - give the romance a structural elegance that goes beyond genre requirement.
Why Kiss It Better Works as an Audiobook
Tony Isabella's narration is a strong fit for Bashar's particular brand of contained suffering. Multiple readers have specifically praised how Latrice integrates mental health themes - one reviewer noted appreciating the portrayal of depression and anxiety as real and present, not treated as backdrop. The characters' interior lives in this book are not shorthand for drama. They are the actual subject. Latrice is particularly sharp on the difference between choosing someone and being unable to stop choosing them - a distinction the romance genre often collapses but that this book keeps clearly separate.
Isabella conveys Bashar's restrained emotional state effectively throughout. There is a passage where a reviewer describes watching him carry weight silently, simply because he was loyal and had a conscience, and that quality comes through in the narration through register rather than overt emotion. The performance lets the listener feel the release when Bashar finally holds his ground.
Weak Spots in Kiss It Better
Kiss It Better is embedded in a series, and that embeddedness is both an asset and a limitation. The community of characters around Bashar - the brothers, the extended family - is warm and well-drawn for readers who have followed the series. For newcomers, some of the emotional resonance of their appearances requires trust that these relationships were built in earlier books. Latrice does enough work to make the context legible, but the full payoff is richer for returning readers.
The conflict with Nixi's sister and mother is handled with more complexity than a simple chaos-label would suggest. Latrice is interested in how families transmit dysfunction, and the extended chaos around Nixi is not played purely for spectacle.
The Right Listener for Kiss It Better
Readers already invested in the Crenshaw brothers series should prioritize this - Bashar's story delivers on the setup and provides one of the more emotionally satisfying resolutions in the series. Newcomers who enjoy African American romance fiction with genuine character depth, mental health themes, and slow-burn emotional payoff can also enter here, though reading the earlier books first will enhance the experience significantly. At nearly fifteen hours, this is a substantial listen that earns its length.
A Few Questions About Kiss It Better
Does Tony Isabella's narration work for a story told primarily from a male protagonist's perspective?
Yes. Isabella conveys Bashar's contained emotional state effectively - the narration is restrained rather than declarative, which suits a character whose interiority is the point of the story.
Is Nixi's storyline resolved in this book or does it continue into further volumes?
The Nixi conflict is resolved within this book. Bashar's growth - and the consequences for Nixi - reach a clear conclusion in Kiss It Better, which is part of what makes it satisfying as an entry point into the series.
