Well, the day has finally come. I had never expected to review a romance novel for The Lesbrary, much less one written by Ashley Herring Blake. Yes, I am aware that Blake might be one of the most popular names leading the current tradpub sapphic publishing market, and that her Bright Falls series—featuring a close-knit circle of queer women, navigating life and love and all the in-betweens, in a picture-perfect small town—introduced many readers to the joys of mass market sapphic romance. But for some reason, that series had just never clicked for me. I cannot do too much sugary happiness, or the Hallmark-y variety of cozy, suburban queer narratives: astrology, tarot, coffeeshop dates, cloyingly sweet picket-fence domesticity, and then miscommunication leading to an inevitable third-act breakup. Not for me, no. Look at my past review picks: the only thread of commonality across all the titles is a trigger warning for body horror.
Yet here we are. And here I am, about to embark on a very emotional rant about a cozy, comforting sapphic romcom—which ended up being very good, although it wasn’t conventionally cozy, or even particularly sunshiny, as far as tradpub HEAs go. I know. I contain multitudes.
So let’s talk about Get Over It, April Evans.
This February 2026 release is Blake’s sixth adult sapphic novel, and the second in their Clover Lake series: yet another postcard-pretty, tranquil Pacific Midwestern small town, full of scenic locales and picturesque hike trails through the woods and quaint cafés. It’s all very idyllic, unless you’re the main character of the story, which in this case is our heroine April: a caustic, sharp-as-nails 30-something goth artist with dyed hair, tattooed arms and enough hefty personal baggage to sink a warship. She’s wildly different since we last saw her, back in Dream On, Ramona Riley (2025), where she embodied the perfectly messy, lovingly snippy best friend to Ramona—more on her in a bit—and her emotional bulwark during the latter’s time of crisis.
In her own story though, April is at her lowest possible ebb. Due to money troubles, she has had to shut down her beloved tattoo parlor, rent out her house, and hastily accept a summer job teaching art classes at the town’s fancy new lakeside resort. Emotionally too, she is in shambles, having never quite recovered from her ex-fiancée, Elena, who had dumped her unceremoniously three years ago, for a younger woman. And the icing on the cake? Her best friend Ramona has moved away, to live out her days in romantic bliss with her Hollywood star girlfriend in LA, their once-close friendship and support system now reduced to one-sided texts and hasty call updates.
So yeah, things can’t get any worse. Except they can and they do. To be precise, things get very, very bad when April shows up to the resort and discovers that her co-art teacher for the summer is none other than Daphne Love: the younger woman who stole her ex-fiancée all those years back. To add some final insult to injury, Daphne doesn’t have a damn clue who April is. And that’s that.
Let’s get this out of the way–plot-wise, April Evans may be Blake’s least “romcom”-y work yet. It takes place in the bittersweet twilight-purple zone of the final years of young adulthood, the good ol’ days of youth slipping by like water. It depicts the loneliness of being queer and feeling left out and incredibly inadequate, even as you watch your friends phase out of easy adolescent dynamics and move on to newer, more solidly grown-up things like marriages, stable careers and family. It takes for its leads two women weighted down by trauma, self-esteem issues and a life’s worth of anxieties. Not just April, but Daphne, who turns out to not be a snarky girlfriend-stealer after all, but—in what is quite possibly Blake’s most moving, painfully tender character portrait yet—a young, financially vulnerable lesbian from an ultra-conservative religious family, who lost some of the best years of her newfound independence to an older, emotionally abusive (borderline groomer) ex. And then, despite all the pain and uncertainty of their lives, it grants April and Daphne the gentle sanctuary of a sensual and cathartic love story of their own. It’s a vulnerable, propulsive and deeply thoughtful sapphic romance from start to finish, and it was my favorite Blake novel of all the ones I’ve read.
There is so much to savor here. I love that April and Daphne both feel like real people, and are allowed to exist fully outside of the romance, with all their fears and insecurities and joys. I love that the “mutual ex” plotline is handled tastefully and with great care taken to not minimize the abuse and manipulation of Elena (truly Blake’s vilest offering yet: her scenes made my stomach churn), rather than as a flippant John Tucker Must Die-style revenge tale. I love that Cloverwild Lodge, with its moonlit lake and lovers trails and art studios and Twin Peaks-esque bar feels so much more grounded, atmospheric and real as a setting, more so than any of the Bright Falls locations: a little safe space, away from town, where dreamers, lovers and artists convene. I love that the astrology and tarot elements were there in just the correct measure, and creatively incorporated, rather than just as quirky placeholders for personalities. A little petty, but I love that Blake is finally letting go of the ambiguously “soft masc” aesthetic and including proudly butch characters in the cast (Schrödinger’s butch4butch with Olive and Marley, maybe?). And speaking of butch: I love Sasha Sinclair, aka the best character and excellent wingwoman, that messy, devilish, absolute rake of a silly butch! I need her novel like oxygen. Truly a breath of fresh air.
But more than anything else, what I love the most about this novel is how crucially April and Daphne’s stories are tied to art, and generally to the creative process. It’s not just a one-time thing: a crucial subplot involves both women competing to be showcased at a prestigious London art gallery, and over the course of the novel, April’s tattoos and sketches and Daphne’s viscerally evocative painting series evolve to reflect their own transformative journeys, weaving together seamlessly their complicated pasts, their ambitious artistic plans, and the slow blossoming of their own, lovely little romance. This book builds more intimately upon the “creative dream” theme already established in Ramona’s story, and in premise and execution, dare I say, it even warrants comparison to Antonia Angress’s excellent 2022 literary fiction novel, Sirens and Muses, which also explores the budding romance between two rival female artists, who end up becoming each other’s emotional and erotic muses instead.
Why not 5 stars, then? Well, for two main reasons. Let’s address the elephant in the room first: whereas April was an excellent friend in the first book, Ramona doesn’t quite extend the same courtesy to her in this one. In fact, let me be blunt, for at least 80% of the novel, she is a pretty horrible friend, and generally makes many selfish, and even outright callous decisions that actively make her best friend feel awful and unwelcome in her life (the wedding planning, iykyk). Maybe I am too sensitive, whatever, put on your big-girl boots. I understand adulthood and capitalism makes meaningful interpersonal relationships almost impossible in the present day, but there’s got to be some middle ground between treating April like a therapist and tossing her aside now that Ramona has found her LA friends. Having read her book first, I found it a little strange that she depended so very heavily on her best friend for emotional labor during her own romantic troubles, yet doesn’t seem to be present this time around, when the latter needs her. Even her apologies, when they finally arrive towards the ending, are a bit too half-hearted, and they are more about absolving herself than addressing their conflicts. Who knows, maybe Blake could write a spinoff novella and call it Do Better, Ramona Riley! (Yes, I’m mad.)
Finally, here’s one last thing to mull over. Given the stakes of the story and the slow unfurling of Daphne and April’s feelings for each other, especially how it takes them quite some time to be free of Elena’s shadow, I found the ending a bit underwhelming. Without any spoilers, April feeling like second-place silver her entire life was her main conflict: the fact that this is barely resolved by the end—perhaps even worsened by the last 30 pages—let me down a bit. Daphne gets a pretty solid ending; I was very satisfied with the resolution of her journey. Whereas April… yes, she gets the girl, but this victory feels a little hollow, taking into consideration how much she doesn’t get, her many compromises and sacrifices effectively outweighing the reward of romantic validation that the narrative hands her at the end. Get Over It, Blake says, yet I cannot help but feel that in a novel so full of empathy, nuance and love, April Evans’s fate, prophesied in the title of her own story, feels a little lacklustre—maybe even unfair.
Regardless, a good book is a good book. And ultimately, Get Over It, April Evans was for me a solid, well-written and compelling sapphic—well, not rom-com, perhaps, but rom-traum, maybe? It held up a little mirror to some aspects of my own life, gave me a good dose of hope for everything to come, and broke my heart just a little, at times. Minor criticisms aside, you best believe the author has shown me just enough that I’ll keep coming back for more: be it for Clover Lake, or whatever else comes after. Besides, now that I know the next book stars my butch icon Sasha, who knows, I may just become a believer, after all. Miracles do happen, et cetera.
Please add Get Over It, April Evans to your TBR on Goodreads and follow Ashley Herring Blake on Instagram (@ashleyhblake).
Rating: 4.5 ⭐
Content warnings: religious trauma, discussions of homophobia, emotionally abusive relationships, gaslighting, (heavily implied) past grooming, familial neglect and abandonment, mention of death of loved one to a car accident, depictions of BDSM
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