Tag Archives: Nat

Swashbuckling, Time Travel, and Sapphic Romance: Isle of Broken Years by Jane Fletcher

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the cover of Isle of Broken Years

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The first thing I have to say about Isle of Broken Years is that I didn’t want it to end, and it’s been a while since I felt that way about a book. The second thing you should know is that this isn’t just a book about pirates, though the cover and description, if not carefully read, may lead you to believe that’s where you’re headed. To be fair, we do begin the adventure with lots of swashbuckling and a bit of kidnapping, but this book is really more of a time travel story with lots of unexpected surprises. If Lost, Gideon the Ninth, and Their Flag Means Death had a weird little baby, it might be Isle of Broken Years.

Our main characters are Catalina de Valasco, a Spanish noblewoman being married off by her family and en route to her betrothed by way of galleon; and Sam Helyer, the cabin boy of a privateer ship intercepting said galleon. Sam, as it turns out, is not a cabin boy at all. The beginning starts off strong, with lots of action, a battle at sea, a little hostage taking (as a treat) and some getting to know our main characters. Content warning: there’s a lot of talk/threat of potential sexual assault in the beginning pages—it doesn’t happen, but it drives the opening of the book as Sam is trying to keep Catalina safe from the other sailors.

Just when you’re comfortably settled into your colonial era pirate world, the book makes a major shift. Sam and Catalina end up stranded on an island that’s not at all what it seems, and meet up with a group of other survivors previously stranded there. The diverse cast of characters and their interaction is one of the really fun aspects of the book, as they share vast cultural differences, and sometimes struggle to communicate from language barriers. While a lot of this is comedic, there are also some serious discussions involving slavery and human rights. Meanwhile, Catalina and Sam are at odds with each other, as the former has no love for pirates and thinks they all should hang—fair, considering how the book kicked off. Catalina and Sam eventually have to learn to work together, and a fun little romantic arc unfolds as well.

This book checks all the boxes: pirates, aliens, murder, creepy islands, betrayal, comedy, time travel, mystery, and yea, a lil bit of kissing. It’s a fun ride, but has a number of serious moments including struggles with identity and sexuality. My main complaint is that it wasn’t longer. There were a number of places that Fletcher could have expanded the narrative, including some of the side characters’ back stories, and even the romantic element between Catalina and Sam. But I guess it’s always better to be left wanting more!

Content warning: mention of past sexual assault, threat of sexual assault

A Sapphic Romance at Adult Summer Camp: That Summer Feeling by Bridget Morrissey

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That Summer Feeling delivers exactly that. A beach read set at an adult summer camp, this read is low angst and very wholesome. The beginning of the book starts out with a bit of chaos: a flashback to the past, a bit of family history to set the stage, and a frantic rush through the airport to catch a flight—not to mention a vision (there’s a light helping of woo in the beginning, but the book doesn’t involve much magical realism). But the pace slows considerably after the prologue, as the rest of the book spans the course of only seven days. 

Our main character Garland requires a bit of patience—she’s 32 years old with zero sense of self identity, though the thing she’s got going for her is the awareness of that flaw. It’s one of the reasons she’s at this camp. Garland is licking her wounds from a recent divorce (to a man; this a toaster oven situation) but is also sort of letting the divorce define her in the same way that the relationship defined her. She was Married—now she’s Divorced. And she might just be done with romance, unless of course her fella decides to take her back. She’s hoping this summer camp will lead to a new start. 

On paper, Garland is the sort of character that should really annoy me. She might really annoy you. But I found her to be so obtuse about her own feelings that it was actually kind of hilarious. When she meets Stevie, her roommate at camp, she’s immediately fascinated by her, and the two form a “camp alliance.” Despite enjoying her new friend’s company more than is typical of a platonic relationship, Garland takes a while to come around to realizing her queerness. It’s not for a lack of having queer friends or exposure to the idea of sexuality being fluid, she’s just been so caught up in a heteronormative idea of things like marriage as a measure of success she’s never paused to consider her sexuality. 

Vague spoilers, highlight to read: Once she realizes her feelings for Stevie are romantic, it opens the floodgates for her Big Moment of Self Realization. For those who hate the instalove trope, you’ll likely not love Insta I Just Figured My Shit Out either, so you’ve been warned! It does make for a refreshing third act when our main character, in a situation where a main character usually does something monumentally stupid, instead shows her growth as a person. It’s tough to pull off that kind of low angst read yet still maintain tension through the end of the book, but That Summer Feeling gets it right.

There are also some solid themes of found family, not needing others to define your worth, and the difficulty developing adult friendships. With the addition of tropes that keep things light and help make this a pretty fluffy book overall, this is perfect for a relaxing day at camp.

F/F Romance + Community Service + Cheeky British Humor = 200 Hours by Natasha West

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Natasha West’s 200 Hours is the kind of romcom that I would happily lead the crowdfunding effort in order to see on the screen. Set in the UK, West’s motley crew of characters evokes The Breakfast Club’s dynamic of different walks of life all thrust together. Instead of high school detention, we’re bonding over community service for minor infractions, with lots of cheeky British humor and a side of angst. Teetering somewhere in between a new adult and YA, our main characters are just out of high school, yet with more life experience than perhaps the average young adult. 

West deploys some classic tropes of rich girl/poor girl with our main characters, who couldn’t be more different from each other in how they handle and view the world—the thing they happen to have in common is making bad decisions. The trope really works here because West uses it skillfully but doesn’t rely on it for everything, giving all her characters, even the side characters, lots of depth and, of course, more than a few witty one-liners. 

Lola Morgan is our resident bad girl from the proverbial wrong side of the tracks with young Amy Winehouse vibes, sans the music career. From an outsider’s perspective—an outsider like the posh and somewhat naive Abby Granger who’s landed herself 200 hours of community service—Lola appears to have nothing but swagger and devil may care attitude. But as we alternate perspectives, we immediately see a ton of vulnerability and a person who may care a little too much. In taking care of her sister and mom, Lola hasn’t been taking care of herself. 

As West alternates chapters switching between our two main characters, we get a  good look at what makes both Abby and Lola tick, though Lola is an especially sympathetic character, in part because of her fierce protectiveness over her family, and even over perfect strangers if she feels they’re being bullied. As for Abby, who comes from money but is the poster child for “money doesn’t buy happiness,” we see plenty of growth and personal development, though she struggles and sometimes backslides in her lack of confidence. While Lola is learning to be vulnerable, Abby is learning to stand up for herself and stop letting the world dictate the terms of her life. Somewhere along the way, a friendship is forged, and romance follows. 

The book ending did lean a little hard into the “we had what we were looking for all along” vibe, but that may be my one complaint. West makes up for it by giving us the most ridiculously satisfying happy ending that pulls no punches. Parents finally step up, a little justice is served, and love prevails.  

A Bisexual Armenian American Self Discovery Story: Sorry, Bro by Taleen Voskuni

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Armenian culture and self discovery are primary themes in Sorry, Bro by Taleen Voskuni. These themes are the strengths of the book, especially when it comes to culturally sensitive issues and heavier topics like genocide, racism, homophobia within the Armenian community. On the other hand, Sorry, Bro also has one of the most extremely infuriating main characters I have ever encountered in a sapphic romance. It’s less of a romcom and more of a journey of self discovery, where our main character takes one step forward and three steps back. It reads a little like a YA book at times, despite having a main character in her late 20s, as Nareh’s development into adulthood feels like it went off track when her father died. She still lives in her childhood bedroom with her high school posters tacked to the wall and a curfew. Nareh is heavily invested in how people in her community and family perceive her, needing their praise and acceptance, even though she’s not really involved herself in the community and feels disconnected from it.  

One of the main issues for me comes at the beginning, when, not 48 hours after her boyfriend of almost five years proposes and she subsequently turns him down, Nareh announces she’s on the prowl for a new fella. No mourning period, no me-time, it’s just time to go to the Man Store and get something in a size handsome-with-a-sharp-jawline. Nareh is bisexual, but aside from her male friends, she doesn’t seem to really like the men that she thinks are “her type.” She approaches potentially dating them in a very detached way, not unlike her mother, who’s been making Nareh spreadsheets of eligible Armenian bachelors. This goes on for a couple of chapters longer than I had patience for, to be honest. A lot of these qualities make Nareh feel quite shallow. 

Nareh is solidly in the closet, afraid of the fallout from her community should she come out as bi, and also perhaps wary after making out with too many straight girls in college and getting burned. But no matter how hard she tries to focus on finding a Armenian husband, she keeps getting distracted by her new, very attractive friend Erebuni, who it turns out is *not* straight. Like the book, it takes a while to get to our secondary character. Erebuni is the polar opposite of Nareh—she’s confident, doesn’t care what people think of her, and has a tight knit group of Armenian friends. Unfortunately, she doesn’t get much time on the page, and if she does, it seems she is always surrounded by other people. Erebuni never really feels like a main character, more of a prop for Nareh. 

As a romance, Sorry, Bro has some room for improvement. But as a book about self-discovery and finding one’s place in the world in the context of culture, community, and societal pressure, it’s worth a read.  

Nat reviews Pack of Her Own by Elena Abbott

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I picked up this li’l werewolf book off of a Twitter recommendation – vampires, ghouls, shifters – I expected something of a campy read. Who knew we would be exploring identity, found family, and processing trauma from various angles? If you plopped down a literary fiction tome and told me that we’d be dealing with complex themes like those, I’d say no thank you, I’ve read the news this week and I’m already a bit depressed. But give me some vampires, a full moon, and a happily ever after and that is the spoon full of sugar I need to tackle these issues. 

Natalie Donovan is a young, transgender woman with a traumatic past – she’s looking for a fresh start, or at least to begin to heal from a lifetime of abuse, both physical and emotional. Wren Carne (yep, Carne) is a werewolf living in a small town of paranormal misfits, her dark past only a few counties away – she’s also had to escape an abusive situation because of her true nature; she’s an Alpha wolf who ought to be on the path to forming her own pack. 

There’s quite a bit of trauma processing in this book between our two main characters, though Wren has already had some time and space to rebuild her life. At times Natalie’s point of view can really be heart wrenching because you’re watching in real time as her thoughts sometimes spiral with insecurity and feelings of worthlessness, or of being a burden to her friends. She believes she’s incapable of being loved, thanks in part to her abusive ex and her trashcan parents. Most of these issues are tied to her trans identity. 

Let’s take a moment to talk about were-books with romantic leanings. I’m certainly no expert on them and haven’t read them extensively, but there often seems to be a power dynamic, the Alpha/Omega, dominant/submissive relationship between the love interests. This dynamic exists in some form in the book, though the problematic bits of such relationships are called out, especially the issue of consent. Wren is fleeing what is essentially a toxic, cult-like situation built on abuse of power and fear – she believes this is how all packs operate, and vows to never have one of her own. (The story also has the fated mate trope, which involves an inexplicable, magical sort of connection between our main characters.)

Our main characters have so much in common and a lot of the book explores those commonalities, even though the circumstances in their lives are quite different. Both are harboring secrets that they think stand in the way of their happiness; both have suffered at the hands of those who were supposed to protect and support them. 

Pack of Her Own isn’t perfect, and there are a handful of inconsistencies that distracted me from time to time, little moments where one fact contradicted another. Also, for me, the ending felt a bit rushed; what I thought should be the epilogue was just a last chapter, so there’s a time jump and suddenly everything is great for Natalie and her new life, in a way that doesn’t jive with the tone and pace of the rest of the book. One of the last core scenes of the book is really intense, and could have used a smoother transition to prevent whiplash. But! The pros outweigh the cons by far. There’s big series potential here, so I’m curious to see where it goes!  

Trigger warnings: depictions of past physical abuse, emotional abuse/manipulation, gaslighting, assault

Nat reviews Tailor-Made by Yolanda Wallace

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Tailor-Made by Yolanda Wallace

I went looking for one of Wallace’s newer books at the library and, to my delight, stumbled on a few of her older books, which is always a nice surprise when you find a new author you like. Instant book list! Tailor-Made is an opposites attract, forbidden love romance with a lot of interesting dialogue on gender and bias, which while sometimes clumsily explored, shows good intention. 

Grace Henderson is a tailor working for her father, and set to take over the family business when he retires. Grace is a daddy’s girl, and still lives at home with her family, including her two sisters. It’s a full house with not a lot of privacy. Grace is out to her family, and while they’re church-going folks who care about their standing in the community, and who lean on the conservative side, they’re supportive in a conditional sort of way. As long as Grace is dating “respectable,” feminine women, they really don’t care about her sexuality. 

Enter Dakota Lane, bad boi lesbian and famous men’s clothing model. She’s butch, white, and always in the tabloids with a new woman. When Dakota and Grace have instant chemistry during a suit fitting, they try and fail to stay away from each other. Grace struggles with her undeniable attraction to a masculine woman and repeatedly tells herself Dakota is “not her type,” as her childhood posters of Janet Jackson prove. 

Gender presentation is a really important theme in the book, though there are some awkward moments during the exploration. One of these speed bump moments is courtesy of Dad, who is maybe a little out of touch in that boomer sort of way. There’s a moment near the beginning of the book that gave me pause, with Dad describing a new, transgender client as “a woman who used to be a man,” and it took a few more pages to confirm this was Dad’s voice and a tool to introduce the topic of gender identity, rather than a direct reflection of the author. A few more pages clears this up nicely, but I did tilt my head and brace for the worst. Grace realizes she has something to learn about the transgender community, pronoun use, and her unconscious bias toward masc of center women. This leads to some exploration of what it means to be visibly queer vs passing, and a well-placed, very real and uncomfortable scene where Dakota goes through an airport scanner and is misgendered. 

There are some issues and tension with one of Grace’s sisters that largely remain unresolved, not a huge deal as far as loose ends go as the sister wasn’t a main part of the plot, but she did introduce a healthy amount of negativity and resentment toward Grace. I think one of my larger disappointments came with how Grace handled her budding relationship with Dakota, which was filled with miscommunication. After a pep talk from her other, more supportive sister about not letting your parents dictate your decisions and life, she still didn’t really make the decision to embark on her independence both in terms of her career and romantic relationship without daddy’s approval. That irked me a little bit, even though things worked out for her—of course, it is a romance—I was really rooting for her to reach a point where she didn’t need her father’s acceptance to move forward. 

There could have also been a touch more groveling at the end after Grace and Dakota part ways in our third act conflict. Poor Dakota was way more forgiving than warranted considering how things go down (though that is a frequent complaint of mine in a lot of recent contemporary romances). Girl, make her work for it! Wallace’s Tailor-Made may not be the bespoke suit of romance novels, but it’s certainly a fun read to add to your list. 

Nat reviews Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree

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I must confess that I’d seen the cover of Legends and Lattes pop up a number of times and thought to myself, eh, too much of a high fantasy book for my tastes. Well, I should know better by now than write off a book based on genre, and I finally gave it a shot after my wife enthusiastically recommended it. If I could leave only a single comment it would be that this book is PRECIOUS. Is there anything more wholesome than a bone crushing, mercenary orc with a heart of gold just looking to get on the straight and narrow and live a quiet, simple life? How about that misunderstood orc finding a new group of loyal, steadfast friends and maybe even love along the way? Did you love Brian Jacques’s Mattimeo when you were a kid? How do you feel about cinnamon rolls? This is the book equivalent of a fresh-from-the oven baked good. 

After years of life on the road, Viv decides to cash out on her wandering, mercenary ways and settle down. Her dream is to open a coffee shop, a risky endeavor considering no one outside of her chosen city of Thune has even heard of coffee. We follow Viv as she embarks on a new adventure, literally hanging up her sword as she takes a different sort of risk. While this is generally considered a low stakes book, I would argue these are at least medium stakes, as the coffee shop is Viv’s dream. While that may not be life or death, it means the world to her. 

In some ways reading this novel feels a bit like playing a RPG in a magical realm with an epic storyline. Watching Viv gradually build her dream cafe, acquiring a motley cast of friends along the way, all while encountering enemies and perhaps stumbling on a surprising ally –  there is a video game-like quality to the way the story unfolds and it’s not surprising that Baldree has a background in game development. 

We are on a journey that feels almost as rewarding to the reader as it does to our book’s hero. 

Of course, Viv can’t live out her dream on big ideas alone – she needs a carpenter, a barista, and perhaps a baker. And most importantly, she needs customers. Viv’s first hire is Tandri, a succubus who’s saddled with an unjust reputation for “manipulating” people, especially men. I love the dynamic between Viv and Tandri as they remind each other not to give into prejudice and assumption. As their business relationship strengthens, so does their personal bond. While there’s a very strong romantic element to this book, most of the conflict is centered around Viv working to attain her goals and becoming a new version of herself. The momentum comes from her personal development and internal struggles, rather than solely on her budding relationship with Tandri. 

A fun fact about this book is that Travis Baldree started writing it for NANOWRIMO in 2021 and self published it in 2022. This is his debut novel, and it met with enough success that it was picked up by trad publisher Tor only a few months later! The backstory of the book is even warm and fuzzy! 2020 2021 2022 2023 is off to a rough start, so why not read more warm and squishy books to pad those rough edges?

Nat reviews How To Excavate a Heart by Jake Maia Arlow

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Sweet yet angsty. Coming of age and coming out stories. A meet cute that’s…not so cute. Jewish holiday rom com. All the big, tender feels of young love. Non-stop cackling, except when you take a break to have a good cry. A prominently featured corgi. These are a few of my favorite things about Jake Arlow’s How to Excavate a Heart.

College student Shani Levine is determined to spend the holidays alone doing a winter internship at the Smithsonian—that means she’ll be away from her family, her mom specifically, which she feels guilty about while also desperately feeling the need to get away. There are a lot of complicated feelings around this stage of life, and Arlow’s character portrayals feel very authentic—the main characters are both first year college students figuring out what it means to be independent, to manage this in-between phase of life, caught between home and their new freedoms. This is also where Arlow nails the post-teenage angst humor. 

We meet May in a rather abrupt manner—and this is not really a spoiler as it’s in the book’s synopsis and in the first chapter—with the front of Shani’s mom’s Subaru. May is also spending the holidays in DC with her dad, but not because she wants to be there. She’s having her own family issues, and being rudely greeted by the bumper of a car doesn’t exactly put her in the holiday spirit. May initially comes off a bit frosty, but of course we’ll eventually see those walls melted away. 

The book is told in first person from Shani’s perspective, so you really get into her mindset. As she works out her feelings and makes self discoveries, you’re along for the ride. While this book is a holiday romcom, it’s also just as much a coming of age story, and we see a lot of Shani trying to figure out how and when to talk about her “new” life with her mom, when she doesn’t quite know how to come to terms with it herself. This includes keeping her first real relationship a secret, along with her sexuality. 

(Spoilers and Trigger Warnings:) We kind of see this coming, like the Titanic about to hit the iceberg, as we see more snapshots of Shani’s first relationship. Each memory reveals more specific—or perhaps more accurate—details, as her relationship with May progresses. Our narrator is holding back so much in part because she’s just not had certain realizations herself about the abusive nature of her first relationship. Acknowledging these truths is a big turning point in the book, and it’s clear Shani can’t move forward with May until she’s come to terms with her own past. (End of Spoiler)

The supporting character cast gets major points, especially Beatrice (Aunt Bea) who is her own one woman comedy show, and Shani’s mentor at work who’s a few years older—the wise lesbian we all wish had been in our lives to dispense advice. And yes, the corgi (dogs absolutely count as characters). Overall, Arlow’s given us a sapphic holiday romcom that will excavate your own frozen little heart.

Trigger warnings: abuse, sexual assault

Nat reviews Something’s Different by Quinn Ivins

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Of all the tropes in the world, the twin swap was not one that I would have thought myself a fan of, and yet… I might be now, after reading Something’s Different. Caitlin Taylor is an unemployed PhD grad who hasn’t been able to find a job in academia and reluctantly returns home to lick her wounds. Ironically, she finds herself in the heart of the academic world, working in a peripheral role as assistant to a college president— except the job isn’t really hers. She’s impersonating her sister. Chloe is Caitlin’s twin, a college drop out, historically a bit of an underachiever who follows her heart rather than her head. When she calls in a big favor from her sister, Chloe doesn’t think her boss will suspect a thing. But while they may look alike, the two sisters are polar opposites in their approaches to life, and what should have been just one week doing the bare minimum at Chloe’s job turns into a much more complicated situation for Caitlin. 

First of all, let’s talk about the absolute second hand anxiety that you will experience reading this book. The book isn’t angsty, but wow does it keep you on the edge of your seat. WHAT IF SOMEONE FINDS OUT? Will Caitlin be fired? Arrested? How will she even know what to do and where to go?? On top of all of this, sympathetic Caitlin, who’s been suckered into this gig by her mom and sister, has an actual anxiety disorder and oh my gawd how is she even functioning? Caitilin’s issues with anxiety bring up a big theme in this book: mental health and the stigma attached to those issues. More on that in a minute. 

For now, say hi to Ruth Holloway, ice queen extraordinaire and college president of a financially struggling institution. Ruth’s new assistant is suddenly competent. Helpful, even. And an analytic wunderkind? And hot? No, no, definitely not hot. Very inappropriate. While on the surface Ruth is successful and confident, she has her own struggles with mental health and a complicated relationship with the world of academia. She has some very valid trust issues that she navigates while serving as captain of a slowly sinking ship. With a bit of unexpected help from her (somehow now very helpful) assistant, Ruth realizes that despite their age gap, she and “Chloe” (Caitlin!) have a lot in common and work well as a team. 

Both Caitlin and Ruth manage mental health issues in their lives with medication and have very open discussions about their experiences. I appreciate Ivins addressing the side effects of medications, including the sexual side effects; it’s refreshing to see authors chipping away at the stigmas around issues like these. (Ivins gave us this same positive treatment in her previous book, Worthy of Love, in which one of the main characters has undiagnosed ADHD.) 

This book has great pacing, and while it deals with the politics of academia, it never gets bogged down with the details. Ivins creates great tension with the medium stakes risks of Caitlin getting caught, and there is a steady push and pull of chemistry between our main characters as they fight their attraction. Ivins dishes us up all the great tropes while giving us a fresh look at workplace politics from two very different points of view. 

Nat reviews Errant (Volumes 1-3) by L.K Fleet

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I’m always impressed by books that are co-written, but a book with three writers?! A menage-an-author? The Errant series is written by L.K. Fleet, the pen name for a trio of writers: Felicia Davin, K.R. Collins, and Valentine Wheeler. For those of you who are very online and have perhaps pined for Touraine’s arms in CL Clark’s The Unbroken or Gideon’s very large biceps in Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon the Ninth, may I present to you: Aspen Silverglade’s well-muscled thighs. (Not that her arms aren’t also worth mentioning.) Aspen is a tall, dark, and mysterious do-gooder with impeccable swordsmanship but a troubled past. When Aspen meets Charm Linville, an actress whose skills extend to pickpocketing, she’s trying to protect the woman from a handsy fellow in a pub. This doesn’t go quite as planned for Aspen, but it does kick off the start of a series of adventures involving a secret organization called the Scale and a troupe of bawdy actors. 

One of the reasons this series gave me such warm fuzzies is its treatment of gender as well as  the casual introduction of characters with their pronouns. Gender roles are an interesting part of this book, but presented so subtly, woven into the world building, that you can’t help but appreciate the ease with which it’s done. Just about everyone gets some rep here: Polycule of domestic bliss? Check. Genderqueer/fluid, trans, and bisexual characters… triple check. Aspen, a tough but sensitive butch, is bisexual and has previously only had relationships with men/genderfluid characters, not following the stereotypical gender role script. Our curvy, secretive femme Charm is a lesbian. The people of the Sun have genders that change with the color of their scales! There are so many things to love about the book. (Including a horse named Mouse!)

My only minor issue was some confusion about the world our characters were living in. “Earth” people vs those of the Wood and the Sun (etc.) threw me off course a bit, thinking that perhaps there was off planetary travel, which seemed weird with the horses and swords, but who knows: it could have been a sci-fi mash-up or a Wheel of Time situation (where a once high tech world is thrown into the dark ages). This worked itself out for my brain about halfway through the book, where it becomes clear these are regions and the terms are more geographically based, but all on the same planet. 

This review is for the series as a whole, which reads quickly. As far as the romance goes, this is a slow burn, folks. We might have flirtation and heated glances, one horse, one bedroll and the like, but get cozy, because these lovebirds are going to take their sweet time consummating the relationship. It’s a bit like watching a TV series draw out the chemistry between the main characters until you are ready to throw something at the screen. In a good way, of course. 

Errant is relatively angst free; it does deal with issues of past trauma such as emotional abuse, but nothing incredibly heavy or triggering. These books are also meant to be read as a series. The authors do a decent job filling you in on a few details you might have missed or jogging your memory if you’ve taken a break between reading them, but you’ll likely feel lost if you don’t start from the beginning – although I can’t think of any reason you wouldn’t want to read all three of these delightful novellas!