Two Halves, One Brian

Book Stats

• Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) from the author 🖤
• Publication Date: 02/15/26
• Format: ebook
• Chapters: 29, with 1 epilogue
• Pages: 474
• Narrator POV: Told in 1st person & changes between the 4 main characters – Raine, Theo, Jax, and Elias

Book Rating

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️/5

Summary & Review

I was lucky enough to be chosen as an ARC reader for Definitely Not, Rae Knight’s newest book. This one comes out in just a couple weeks and if you’re into fun banter, unique characters, and an enjoyable story plot, you’ll definitely want to check this one out!

In Definitely Not, we get to meet 4 wonderfully unique characters – Raine, Theo, Jax, and Elias. Each one has their own interesting personalities and voice, which really adds a lot of character to the book as a whole. There’s depth to each character and they’re all perfect and flawed in their own ways.

Raine is our main female character. She is 26, no taller than 5’3″, has phenomenal electric blue hair, and dark blue eyes. She fixes motorcycles for a living, fights (and wins) for extra money, and pretty much just keeps to herself. Her father recently passed away and along with his bike shop, Raine also inherited a substantial debt he owed which she is now expected to pay back. She is determined and stubborn and refuses to ask anyone for help, including a trio of BFFs who happen to be interested in her.

Theo is probably my new book boyfriend, to be honest. He’s awkward and shy and super adorable. He works at a company that sells data/programs that utilize bike sensors to help the rider or builder understand what their bike is doing, why it’s doing it, and how to make it faster. He also rides and knows some martial arts. So yeah, he’s basically perfect. An awkward nerdy guy, but also a little bit of a badass.

Jax is the typical attractive guy – dirty blond hair, blue eyes, an easy grin and dimples. He knows how to use his looks and he’s a fun time. He bartends at night and causes trouble during the day. He’s the chaotic jokester who always has a smile on his face and something flirty or funny to say.

Elias is an EMT. He’s the tallest of the bunch, at 6’3″ and has short brown hair and hazel eyes. He’s basically the dad of the group (IYKYK), as he’s the calm and controlled one who is always there to provide support and care when needed. He’s a steady presence in a chaotic world.

Theo, Jax, and Elias are best friends and have been since high school. They ride bikes together, have a group chat (one of my favorite aspects of this book) where they regularly communicate, and are often together during their time off.

In this story, we immediately find Raine partaking in a fight against a very large brute of a man. Theo, Jax, and Elias happened to be at this fight and it was basically love at first sight. Well, it was more of attraction and curiosity, but still. From this moment on, the guys find reasons to interact with Raine while she attempts to keep them at a distance.

Slowly but surely, interactions between characters change and things evolve. There’s a lot of wonderful chemistry and banter between the guys and Raine. We quickly learn that the guys are just as stubborn as she is, though, and they plan to stick around despite how hard she tries to push them away.

They all get wrapped up into Raine’s debt situation and things get tense. There are threats, criminals who have no boundaries, and a slow burn that turns into level 3 spice.

I gave this book 4 stars because I truly did enjoy it. I did feel like parts of the story got a little repetitive at times, but it’s also understandable because the characters are so stubborn that no one wants to give in and this causes the same conversations to essentially happen several times. The writing was well done, the chemistry between the friends was phenomenal, and the chemistry with Raine was also great. The main characters were uniquely their own and it was a lot of fun to explore each of them.

I gave this one 3 chili peppers because once things heated up, they kind of stayed heated. There were more than 3 intimate scenes and some were fairly descriptive.

This book does end with a Happily Ever After 😊 and no cliffhanger!