The Conditions of Will

Book Details

Author: Jessa Hastings

Date Published: April 1, 2025

Genre: Romance, Contemporary Fiction

My Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ (5 out of 5 stars)

Synopsis

London-based Georgia Carter, professional lie-detector and body-language savant, has long been estranged from her infuriating, close-minded, wealthy South Carolina family. After a falling-out years ago, the chasm runs deep between the black sheep - Georgia and her gay, alcoholic brother - and their parents and elder siblings. But when their father dies suddenly, Georgia returns to the States for the funeral ... where she comes face-to-face with Sam Penny, her brother's AA sponsor.

Amid the tensions, dramas and revelations of the family reunion, Georgia and Sam are instantly drawn to each other.

However, Georgia's brother also harbours feelings for Sam, and the last thing Georgia wants to do is hurt the only family she's ever really had.

When their father's will reveals a surprising bequest to a mysterious stranger, Georgia's ability to read people becomes crucial in unravelling her father's hidden past. The delicate balance within the family teeters, and secrets - both old and new - threaten to push them beyond the breaking point.

There are only so many cracks a damaged family can take before it shatters.

My Book Review

Initial Thoughts on The Conditions of Will

I fell in love with Jessa Hastings’ writing after reading Daisy Haites. There’s something about her style that makes you feel all sorts of emotions. When I first heard about The Conditions of Will, I was a bit hesitant to dive in—Never wasn’t as highly rated, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. But what sealed the deal for me were the glowing early reviews from ARC readers and, let’s be honest, the endpaper art in the hardback edition was just too beautiful to pass up.

Writing & Style

Jessa’s lyrical writing is a standout in this novel. There were so many moments that made me pause, reread, and just sit with the words. The Conditions of Will is the kind of book that practically begs to be annotated—I found myself reaching for my highlighter over and over again. Her prose is emotionally rich, introspective, and beautifully crafted.

Themes & Emotional Impact: Grief, Identity and Healing

This book explores a range of meaningful themes: grief, trauma, sibling dynamics, complicated parent-child relationships, and identity. It also touches on heavier topics like personality disorders, substance addiction, and the painful journey of self-acceptance. What stayed with me the most were the relationships—especially the romantic and sibling bonds that revolve around Georgia. There’s an emotional depth here that’s hard to shake off.

Memorable Characters & Heartfelt Romance

Sometimes I DNF a book because the main characters are just… annoying (I almost DNF’ed the first Magnolia book, but stuck with it for the plot and the writing). That wasn’t the case here at all. I loved the characters. They’re flawed and complex, yet incredibly lovable.

Sam Penny? Pure, swoon-worthy perfection. He's kind, coffee-obsessed and most of all, an emotionally intelligent male lead. He’s easily one of my favorite book boyfriends now (right next to Rowan Whitethorn and Xaden Riorson).

Georgia True Carter absolutely blew me away. Brilliant, broken, and beautifully authentic. Her pain felt real, and her capacity to still love others was deeply moving.

Tennyson Carter, Georgia’s older brother, had an excellent redemption arc that added to the emotional weight of the story.

The romance between Sam and Georgia is quiet but intense - built on connection, not just chemistry. If you're looking for a romance book with complex characters, this is for you.

Plot & Pacing

The story’s pacing was just right—steady and engaging, with plenty of unpredictable turns. I expected most of the book to center around the road trip, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that a good portion focused on the funeral and the events leading up to the will reading. That structure worked beautifully for the emotional depth and narrative tension.

Favorite Quotes

Quotes about Humanity:

It's a natural fear, I get it. All humans, whether they know it or not, are profoundly impacted by their imminent deaths. Mortality is unbearably confronting, so much so that lots of people spend their whole lives trying to live as though it doesn't chain them like it does the rest of us.

The nicest thing you can ever do for another human being is see them, and really see them at that. To be understood is one of most base desires we as people have.

Quotes about God and Faith in God:

People read the Bible wrong. It's a diary of normal people, like us, from thousands of years ago, trying to make sense of the God they'd heard of from their ancestors. They didn't write it for us to read it now. And I think people read it without the true social or historical context, and they bring their own instead.

That God that my mom thinks she serves - he's so much smaller than who I think the real one is. The real one - to me, he's everywhere, in everything. And sure, maybe he speaks through the Bible. But also maybe he speaks through Narnia, and Harry Potter despite J.K. Rowling lately, and the trees, and science, and the stars, and blackholes and the ocean and the way the sky looks sometimes, and you can feel it in your chest.

And I don't think they're not letting your mom into heaven because she didn't believe in the God that modern Christianity claims to represent. I think he's good. And I think he loves everyone, and he wants everyone to be okay, and I think almost everyone who is like, earnestly seeking God - people aren't seeking that out of ego; they're looking for the meaning of life and they're looking beyond themselves for it - and, I mean, I don't know anything, except that I thinkGod is the kind of guy who when someone dies, he'll sit there and sift through every heartfelt thought, every drunken prayer, every desperate plea for help, every Mumford & Sons song that you've sung to look for a hint of a confession that you believe in him.

I think the only thing that qualifies you to talk about the gospel is admitting you need it. The concept of gospel is counterintuitive and much easier to digest if you adhere to a strict regimen of shallow perfectionism, like Debbie does, or my mom. It's in this hollow I think most of the church resides, but I think the place God would like us to be is in the gutters or the libraries asking questions about why a good God would make a world so fucked up.

Quote about Dysfunctional Love:

There are a lot of kinds of love in the world, and not all of them make sense all of the time. The way love was delivered to Oliver, full of conditions and hoops to jump through and lies to abide by, being loved and being hurt were two sides of the same coin. How that translated in the way he loved me was this: He would never force me to tell him something, he'd never push me; he'd never challenge me in a serious way, he would never do anything to ostracize me or make me uncomfortable. He loved me a dysfunctional amount, and love and dysfunction are a peculiar pairing that flavor everything with a specific brand of contradiction. See, Oliver loved me so much - too much, you might even say - that he'd rather leave me hurting if it meant it hurt me less at the time.

Quote about Heartbreak:

"You want to get over someone quickly?" I stare over at him. "Feel everything. Every shred of loss, everything you're missing now that they're gone. On lonely nights, be lonely. When you're sad, look it in the eye. Every single memory I had of Storm, I ruminated on them for weeks on end and it felt like I fell into a fire, and then somehow, one day, after months of pain and months of forcing myself to feel all of it, I saw a picture of him and I didn't feel like I was going to die anymore."

If you asked me about The Conditions of Will by Jessa Hastings, I'd say,

Yeah, I love it.

But if you asked me on a deeper level, I'd say,

The Conditions of Will is a deeply moving, beautifully written story that lingers in your heart long after the last page. Jessa Hastings has a gift for capturing raw emotion and layering it with poetic prose, and this book is a testament to that. From the flawed but lovable characters to the exploration of complex themes like grief, identity, and healing, every part of this novel felt intentional and impactful. It’s not just a romance or a coming-of-age tale—it’s a story about what it means to be human, to love fiercely, and to find light even in the darkest moments.

A full 5 out of 5 stars from me—and a new favorite on my shelf.