A Love Letter to Whiskey

A Love Letter to Whiskey is a 2016 novel by best-selling novelist Kandi Steiner. A contemporary romance about addiction, love, and sacrifice, A Love Letter to Whiskey centers on the story of “B” Kennedy and how her life becomes inextricably intertwined with that of Jamie Shaw, a man who she feels burns her like whiskey. By employing many classic tropes of contemporary romance, Steiner explores themes of Learning to Accept Love, The Influence of Timing, and The Importance of Accountability.

This guide refers to the 2016 Kindle edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of death, rape, emotional abuse, addiction, substance use, and sexual content.

Plot Summary

Brecks “B” Kennedy’s junior year of high school is particularly difficult. The previous summer, she learned that her parents, who she had always believed to be friends before and after their separation, had a much worse relationship than she thought. After a night of excessive drinking, B’s mother confessed to her that B was conceived by rape, and B has had complicated feelings about both of her parents ever since. To take her mind off her troubles, she goes surfing, writes, and spends time with her best friend, Jenna Kamp.

B is running with Jenna when she first sees Jamie Shaw, a senior at their school whom she is immediately attracted to. However, Jamie is instantly attracted to Jenna, and B can only watch from the sidelines as the two of them date and fall in love. Like B, Jamie is also an avid surfer, and the two surf together after ending up on the same beach one afternoon. After B’s car breaks down, Jamie begins to offer B rides, and the two of them form a strong friendship. Jenna and Jamie ultimately part amicably before Jamie moves to California for college. Just before this, however, he and B make a pact that they will marry each other if neither is married by the time they turn 30. 

As B finishes up her high school career, she bonds with her mother, cuts ties with her father, and tries not to think about the boy she had a crush on. B chooses a college in California, unintentionally ending up at the same school that Jamie attends. What’s more, B has recently started dating a boy named Ethan, who turns out to be Jamie’s roommate. For the first weeks of college, Jamie acts strangely and is distant toward B, but they ultimately begin to go surfing together again. One day, when they are alone together, they kiss and admit their mutual attraction. B feels guilty about this and promises that they will never kiss again, but a few weeks later, they end up having sex in a moment of passion. 

Jenna comes to visit B and convinces her that breaking up with Ethan is the right thing to do, but just as B is about to do so, she gets a call from her mother telling her that her father has died suddenly. Jamie wants to comfort B as she grieves, but B rushes home to Florida and unenrolls from school in California, not wanting to burden Jamie with her grief. Over the next three years, B works through her grief and her complicated relationship with her father while finishing her degree at a local university. Jamie calls her twice a year, on her birthday and on the anniversary of her father’s death, but B never picks up. 

One night, when B is celebrating her graduation with Jenna, she ends up at the same bar as Jamie, and they go home together. B tells Jamie that she knows that it was wrong to ignore him but that she needed the space to heal. B is now planning to move to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in two days to start a prestigious internship, and she doesn’t want a long-distance relationship despite Jamie pressing her for one. Jamie admits that he still loves her, and the two agree to stay in touch but not put a label on their relationship.

B excels at her internship and enjoys being Jamie’s friend again, though she worries that he wants more from her than she is willing to give. She puts her career above everything else to distract herself from her feelings about Jamie and ultimately gets a full-time job offer. On the night she plans to tell Jamie this, he asks her to be his girlfriend, saying that he is willing to put serious effort into a long-distance relationship or change their lives to be together. B rejects him, still thinking that a long-distance relationship could not work and putting herself and her job first. She regrets this a few months later and decides to find Jamie in Florida, but when she does, she sees that he is with another woman. Jamie tells her that he waited for her in college and wasn’t going to wait after she turned him down again.

A few months later, Jamie apologizes, and he and B become friends again. When he tells her that he is getting married, he asks her to be his “best lady.” B is heartbroken but knows she needs to support her friend. The two confess their love to one another again at the bachelor party, but Jamie still plans to go ahead with the wedding: He loves his fiancée and knows she is right for him, so he signs his marriage certificate. However, just before the wedding, he learns that his fiancée, jealous of his relationship with B, cheated on him at her bachelorette party. The wedding is called off, B comforts Jamie, and the two sleep together that night. The next day, he drops her off at the airport with the promise that he will be in contact when he has sorted out his life and is ready for a relationship with her.

B waits, but Jamie never calls. She agonizes about him for a year before swearing off their relationship. She meets another man and is about to marry him when Jamie arrives at her doorstep, having received the wedding invitation. He reveals that he was only ignoring B because he and his fiancée were legally married, and she was trying to prove that he cheated on her with B to get more in the divorce settlement. For that reason, he couldn’t have any contact with B. B wants to move on from Jamie and has hardly thought about him in the last year, but she feels that she can’t resist him. They end up having sex again, but the next morning, B regrets it and throws him out.

B goes through with her marriage but separates from her husband a few months in, feeling numb without Jamie. Jenna finally convinces her that she needs to reconsider her relationship with Jamie and why she keeps sabotaging it. Realizing that it wasn’t their timing but their choices keeping them apart, B writes a love letter to Jamie to explain their relationship from her point of view. She reveals that her letter is this book and that she plans to finish it shortly before Jamie’s 30th birthday. In the Epilogue, B reveals that she and Jamie followed their pact to marry by the time he turned 30, and though they are still learning about themselves and their relationship, they finally feel at peace together.