Can't Get Enough

Can’t Get Enough (2025) is a contemporary romance by Kennedy Ryan and the third installment in her Skyland series, which also includes Before I Let Go and This Could Be Us. The story follows Hendrix Barry, a successful talent manager, as she balances her career demands with caring for her mother, who has Alzheimer’s disease, and a new romantic relationship with a wealthy tech mogul. The novel explores themes including The Emotional Complexity of Parent-Child Role Reversal, Reconciling Personal Ambition With Love and Familial Duty, and The Role of Memory and Familiarity in Preserving Identity.

Ryan is a New York Times best-selling author whose work often engages with significant social issues; she draws from personal experience for this novel’s depiction of family caregiving, and a subplot involving a lawsuit against a venture capital fund for Black women was inspired by real-world legal challenges. An EBONY Power 100 honoree, Ryan is also the cofounder of the autism awareness charity LiFt 4 Autism. Her Skyland series, including this novel, is in development for television at Peacock.

This guide refers to the 2025 Forever trade paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of racism, sexual content, cursing, illness, and death.

Plot Summary

Hendrix Barry, a successful Atlanta-based talent manager, returns to her childhood home in North Carolina on Christmas Eve to find it in disarray and her mother, Betty, missing. Hendrix learns from a neighbor that her mother’s best friend, next-door neighbor, and primary caregiver, Ms. Catherine, died two weeks earlier without her knowledge. The police find a disoriented Betty, who has Alzheimer’s disease, at the abandoned shopping plaza where her bakery once stood. An officer warns Hendrix that Betty can no longer live alone safely. Soon after, Hendrix’s aunt, Geneva, arrives and moves in to care for Betty, allowing Hendrix to maintain her career in Atlanta while ensuring her mother’s safety.

A few months later, Hendrix attends an exclusive “All-White Party” in Miami with her client, a model named Chapel. Anxious about her mother but focused on networking, Hendrix meets Maverick Bell, a charismatic and wealthy tech mogul. They share an immediate, flirtatious connection before she learns that he is the party’s host and the boyfriend of Zere O’Malley, a famous model and TV executive with whom Hendrix is developing a professional partnership. The revelation is compounded by the visible strain in Maverick and Zere’s relationship; they have recently broken up but are keeping it a secret until after the party.

During the party, Hendrix receives a call from Geneva about Betty, who is agitated. Hendrix calms Betty by pretending to be her own grandmother and singing a hymn over the phone. Maverick overhears the conversation and reveals that his grandfather also had Alzheimer’s, offering Hendrix a rare feeling of understanding. Their connection deepens over this shared experience. Shortly after the party, Maverick and Zere publicly announce their breakup.

At the party, Maverick expresses professional interest in the Aspire Fund, the venture capital firm Hendrix co-founded to support Black women entrepreneurs. During their calls, they share their personal histories, and their mutual attraction grows despite the complications of his recent breakup with Zere, who is still in love with him. Maverick attends an Aspire Fund showcase in Atlanta, where he and Hendrix share another emotionally charged conversation about their families and ambitions. The event also introduces a subplot involving the immediate, combative sexual chemistry between their respective assistants, Skipper and Bolt.

Maverick continues to show his support by sending Hendrix information about Alzheimer’s caregiver support groups. Their communication becomes more frequent, and they begin watching a TV show together remotely. Maverick then invites Hendrix and her Aspire partners, Nelly Brewer and Kashawn Phillips, on a business trip to Colorado to tour a cannabis farm. On the private jet and during the trip, their personal connection intensifies, revealing their compatibility in values and life goals.

Their relationship reaches a turning point when Maverick invites Hendrix to his luxury box at the NBA playoff game of a team he is looking to purchase, the Las Vegas Vipers. Later, when Maverick visits Atlanta, they share a passionate encounter at her apartment, but Hendrix resists a full relationship, fearing it will jeopardize her new professional partnership with Zere, who is developing a show for Chapel and giving Hendrix a producer credit. Maverick persists, and at Zere’s 40th birthday party in New York, their attraction culminates in them having sex in a coatroom. The act intensifies Hendrix’s guilt but also solidifies their connection.

Hendrix confesses her relationship with Maverick to Zere, who reacts angrily and has her lawyers remove Hendrix as a producer on Chapel’s show. Hendrix accepts the professional setback and chooses to pursue her relationship with Maverick. They officially commit to each other, agreeing to support one another’s ambitions.

Hendrix returns to North Carolina to care for her mother while Aunt Geneva recovers from surgery. She faces the escalating challenges of Betty’s Alzheimer’s, which culminate in a hypertensive crisis and hospitalization. Maverick flies from a Tokyo business trip to be with her, providing crucial emotional support. Shortly after, the Aspire Fund is targeted by a lawsuit from a group called Citizens for Equality, claiming that its grants to Black women are racially discriminatory. A judge halts the grant program while the trial is ongoing, and Hendrix becomes the public face of Aspire’s legal fight, with Maverick publicly supporting her at the courthouse.

The situation becomes more complicated when it is revealed that Andrew Carverson, the owner of the Vipers basketball team that Maverick is in the process of purchasing, is a major funder of the lawsuit against Aspire. Hendrix questions Maverick’s priorities, and he is forced to choose between his lifelong dream of buying the team and his commitment to her and racial equity. Maverick doesn’t hesitate. He withdraws his bid to buy the Vipers, publicly citing Carverson’s involvement with the discriminatory lawsuit. This move triggers an investigation that ousts Carverson from the league, allowing Maverick to purchase the team.

A year later, Hendrix has successfully produced a television show starring her friend Soledad. Zere has produced Chapel’s show and is now expecting a child with her fiancé. Hendrix has sold her mother’s house and moved Betty and Aunt Geneva into a new home in Atlanta’s Skyland community, near her own home, to better manage their care. With their professional and personal lives settled, Maverick proposes to Hendrix in her mother’s new garden, and she accepts.