True Love Story Books in Order

The True Love Story books are memoirs, not novels. In them, Shawn Inmon steps out from behind his fictional characters to tell the real story of his relationship with Dawn, the girl who moved in next door when he was a teenager in the mid‑1970s.

Feels Like the First Time begins in 1975, when fifteen‑year‑old Shawn meets Dawn after she and her family leave Southern California for a small town in Washington. They become friends, then first loves, navigating high school dances, cheap cars, and the feeling that they have somehow stumbled into something rare. The book leans into that specific time and place—seventies music on the radio, back seats of old Chevys, the sense that the whole world is still opening up.

Their story does not follow a straight line. Dawn’s parents eventually forbid them from seeing each other, and Shawn, convinced he is hurting her by staying in her life, walks away. They spend nearly twenty‑seven years apart, building separate lives, marriages, and careers while each quietly mourns the one who got away. A chance reunion in 2006 forces them to decide whether they are willing to risk everything they have built to try again.

In Both Sides Now, Dawn tells the same story from her own side of the fence. Where the first book shows Shawn’s fears and rationalizations, the second fills in Dawn’s silence, the pressures she lived under, and the private resolve that carried her through the years. Together, the two books feel like a conversation across time, each correcting and deepening the other.

Because these are memoirs, they do not read like polished fairy tales. There are awkward fights, bad decisions, long silences, and the ordinary frictions of blended families and second chances. That honesty is part of their charm. Readers who enjoy the Middle Falls books for their focus on regret and do‑overs will recognize the same themes here, only without any time travel involved.

For the best experience, start with Feels Like the First Time and then move to Both Sides Now. Read together, they offer a rare two‑angle look at a single love story that began in a small town and managed, against the odds, to circle back around decades later.