Reviewed by Mal
TITLE: Ex With Regrets
SERIES: Exes & Happy Endings #1
AUTHOR: Con Riley
PUBLISHER: Figment Ink
LENGTH: 205 Pages
RELEASE DATE: March 26, 2026
BLURB:
Years after messaging his many hookups to tell them he’s officially off the market, Charles Heppel discovers his exes never left that group chat. In fact, all his past booty calls, one-night stands, and friends-with-benefits have become real-life besties.
Welcome to Exes & Happy Endings, a series of interlinked MM romance novels set in Great Britain where, with a little help from a happily married Heppel and his husband, one ex at a time earns his own HEA.
First up: Vincent Smith AKA Carpet Burns.
Ex With Regrets
It’s all Harry Lancaster’s fault.
He’s the reason I have to make a new rule for the Heppel Exes. I don’t know why he left me in charge of our meet-up group. Any of the other members would have made a better temporary leader. They’re all professionals used to giving orders. I’m just an East-End mudlark who clears houses for a living.
But no, Harry picked me to take over while he’s out of the country, and herding highly sexed cats would be easier. No word of a lie, Exes keep falling into bed together, then falling out with each other, and now the club named after our founder is at risk of imploding. Hence, my new rule until Harry is back in London.
No more sex between Exes.
Regret slams me straight in the chest when Dair Sinclair walks into my first meeting as leader.
He’s different from the last man I shared my life with. Sweet and caring instead of driven. A little fragile, like the antiques I secretly wish I could restore and treasure instead of selling. And when Dair tells me he has a month to clear out his own home before leaving the city for good, I’m faced with two options.
Keep that rule and miss my one chance to love him. Or break it and still lose him.
REVIEW:
So really, there is a lot that enjoyed about Vincent and Dair’s story. It’s a fast moving, sweet, low angst romance with an insta connection in both ends. It’s also chock full of found family and a ton of feel good moments that are touching.
Vincent is thrown into the Ex’s club in a leadership capacity by Harry after a night of spilling his unfortunate circumstances with regards to being left high and dry by Flynn .
He has put his heart and soul into something and is feeling mighty abandoned at the moment when Blake and Harry help him out. Due to him mistakenly leaving a voice message on the group chat instead of to his cousin.
Now the thing is Riley’s writing initially is a bit like having patience and piecing together puzzle pieces she is leaving out in-the open for you. It takes a bit of effort till about mid way to get context, nuance, back story and some of the meandering along the way is a bit distracting. It’s still entertaining don’t get me wrong but I felt less like we were being taken on a journey with these characters and more like choose your own mystery adventure – lots you can attach your own meaning to here
However the second half is a completely different and pleasant surprise. The story starts to come together we know the characters their motivations and now we become familiar with their emotional journey the romance we also get vulnerable glimpses that bond them tighter, fortuitous clearing up of misunderstanding – of which honestly there are a lot in this story.
I really enjoyed the second half and really started getting attached to the characters.
This story takes a bit of work to get into but to me it was a nice short quick read and I’m glad I read it.
RATING: 
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