Tag Archives: f/f romance

A Swoony Historical Sapphic Romance: An Island Princess Starts a Scandal by Adriana Herrera

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Manuela del Carmen Caceres Galvan wants to experience a final lesbian hurrah in Paris before she has to marry a rich man for her family’s security. Cora Kempf Bristol, Duchess of Sundridge, wants to secure her place in the business world by negotiating a land purchase so key to a development project that no man can question her prowess again. Both women are adept at playing a game of societal chess and will find each other to be an irresistible challenge.

As the story unfolds, the characters’ development makes you invested in more than just their potential romance. Manuela plays the role of fixer in her family, as she always takes on the responsibility of using her status to keep them financially secure. They use and gaslight her into paying for their mistakes. Now, she has to marry a rich man to fix their current debts, but her grandmother left her a parcel of land that she’s using as her bargaining chip to gain a modicum of independence. It’s this land that Cora seeks to buy for her business in building the first Pan-American railroad.

Meanwhile, Cora wrestles with her past mistakes, desperate to regain power and provide the status needed for her stepson to take his place in the House of Lords. Manuela’s proposal unlocks desires she long thought dead and forces her to open up in ways she believed she never could again. While Manuela is trapped by societal expectations to marry well for her parents, Cora is trapped in her desire to demand a place at the patriarchal table. Through their growing bond, they each come to find that they can choose their own happiness, everyone else be damned. But it’s a long road to get there.

Herrera develops Manuela’s and Cora’s characters adeptly by showing their relationships with friends and family outside of their romance. Manuela’s bond with her closest friends, whom she calls her pride, her Leonas, reveals that not even they know the full extent of her parents’ cruelty. Cora’s relationship with her aunt, stepson, and friends reveals the past that haunts her and why she believes she cannot trust in love again. It’s truly beautiful to see how each of them learns to open up and have faith in themselves and each other.

The historical setting makes for a delicious backdrop to this blooming romance and sensuous passion, especially when listening to it on audio. Rich, lush language always makes everything sound so appealing, from the feel of fabrics to the taste of food. As usually happens in historical romances, the euphemisms used for sex and sexual acts always delight.

Overall, An Island Princess Starts a Scandal is a swoony, historical sapphic romance that is perfect for fans of the genre.

A Sweet & Sizzling Summer Romance: A Bánh Mì for Two by Trinity Nguyen

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If you are looking for a sweet and sizzling summer romance to end your summer on a high note, A Bánh Mì for Two by Trinity Nguyen is a sweet romance between a Vietnamese American college student and a food blogger in Sài Gòn who is looking for her inspiration again after the death of her father. I would like to thank MacMillan for providing the Lesbrary with an ARC—A Bánh Mì for Two comes out on August 20th. I greatly enjoyed this novel; the romance is sweet, and both characters have interesting arcs as they struggle to deal with what becoming an adult means in terms of dealing with family and making big choices for themselves. Plus, I learned about street food in Sài Gòn and got very hungry in the process!

The romance takes place between Lan, a girl who currently helps run with family bánh mì stand with her mother and cousin, and Vivi, an American college student in Sài Gòn for a semester abroad. Vivi has told her parents she’s studying in Singapore, but in reality has come to see if she can track down the family history her mother refuses to speak about. As a bonus, she hopes to visit the places that her absolute favorite food blog has written about before they went on a long hiatus. Lan is helping her mother with their stand after the death of her father—she had had aspirations of going to college and being a writer, having enjoyed the popularity of the food blog she had started with the help of her father, but has felt both adrift and drowning under the weight of family expectations. A chance encounter in a park connects the two girls. Vivi, upon realizing that Lan is her favorite food writer, is excited, a little starstruck, and determined to help her find her writing inspiration again; Lan realizes that her deep roots in Sài Gòn could be what Vivi needs to discover her family’s past. As they spend more time together, they grow closer, they begin to realize that this may be more than a summer friendship.

I thought the romance between Lan and Vivi was very cute. Both girls, after a rocky start, are smitten with each other. Through Vivi’s eyes, Lan once again falls in love with her home city and her passions, and through Lan, Vivi is inspired to be bold and reach for what she wants. Both girls inspire and help each other and their feelings grow from that. If you are looking for some sweet first love, this is the place—even their first fight is barely worth the name, and they’re soon back to being joined at the hip.

Besides being a cute romance, this book also has a lot to say about growing up and figuring out how to deal with your family as a newly-fledged adult. Although they come from very different backgrounds and life experiences, Lan and Vivi are both at the same stage of life, where they are technically grown but still trying to figure out how to make their life their own. For Vivi, this study abroad experience is her chance specifically to make decisions that her parents wouldn’t approve of. Lan, on the other hand, is having trouble not taking all her family’s problems on herself, even when they urge her to live her own life. Throw in Vivi’s hidden family history, and there’s a lot for the girls to deal with on top of their burgeoning romance, but it is, in my opinion, the meat of the story. 

All in all, A Bánh Mì for Two is a cute romance that successful drew me into a wonderful mood and distracted me from the simmering summer heat. I would again like to thank the publisher for the ARC.  A Bánh Mì for Two comes out tomorrow, and I absolutely recommend it if you are looking for a cute summer romance to round out your summer.

Sapphic Sleepaway Camp: Wish You Weren’t Here by Erin Baldwin

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Wish You Weren't Here cover

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Priya Freaking Pendley seems to have everything a girl could ask for: social media stardom, the handsome track captain boyfriend, and millions of adoring fans. Juliette might have to live with that during the school year, but at Fogridge Sleepaway Camp, Juliette reigns. It’s the one place where she can be herself instead of too “intense.” Their last summer before college, Juliette is ready to make the most of her summer, until she finds Priya as her lone bunkmate. Can she tolerate her childhood rival while making the most of her summer, or will Priya ruin it all?

The premise of two high school seniors dealing with their animosity while they’re forced to bunk together at sleepaway summer camp? Sign me up! This was a soft, heart-warming, great first step for a debut author. I’m curious to see what Baldwin will write next. I adored Baldwin’s ability to capture the magic and nostalgia of sleepaway summer camps. You’ll fall into the atmosphere as you read this one, with crickets chirping, twigs cracking, and the scent of burning firewood in the air. The queerness is authentic and natural; not overly discussed, but instead one beautiful aspect among many for several characters. Juliette’s story is one of self-realization and acceptance; perfect for a young adult about to make their way into the world.

From the story’s premise, I expected so much more tension from the start; animosity with reason. Instead, these two girls just…dislike each other. That’s it. It’s blown out of proportion, overdramatic in the prettiest sense. Juliette has no other reason for disliking Priya beyond the fact that everyone else adores her. Yes, that can get annoying, and I understand that high school girls develop “frenemies” (I honestly don’t think that’s the right term for what’s going on here, but “enemies” and “rivals” are too strong) growing up, but you don’t feel anything that Juliette feels toward Priya in this story. Once Priya arrives at camp, you start to see who she is beyond the glossy veneer, which I love, but Juliette’s slow abandonment of her hostility toward Priya doesn’t seem earned because it doesn’t start with any real strength. It just seems like… she’s so used to disliking Priya, that she can’t recall why she really does. The first chapter, at the party, really should have enforced their disdain for each other. Instead it’s just… there. There aren’t any real sparks of chemistry, either; just an entirely too slow burn that eventually leads toward an anti-climatic queer awakening. There was so much room for forgiveness and character development and instead every moment just felt flat and underproduced.

The Vibes 

  • Debut Book
  • Contemporary YA
  • Rivals to Lovers
  • Summer Vibes
  • Sapphic Romance
  • Found Family
  • Love to Hate/Hate to Love
  • Opposites Attract
  • Slow Burn

A Rivals to Lovers Soccer Romance: You Don’t Have a Shot by Racquel Marie

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the cover of You Don't Have a Shot

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Racquel Marie’s You Don’t Have a Shot is a YA romance that centers around Valentina Castillo-Green, a high school soccer star whose life revolves around the sport. After an abrupt end to her junior year soccer season, Vale ends up at soccer camp, co-captaining a team with her longtime rival, Leticia. As they take their team from a bunch of rookies with little more than enthusiasm and a whole lot of untapped potential to a tight group of friends with the skills to win, Vale and Leticia learn to not only trust each other but also to care about each other, more than either of them could ever have expected.

I read Marie’s 2024 release This is Me Trying a couple months ago and loved it, so I wasn’t terribly surprised to love this one as well, especially considering I’ve been in such a sports romance mood lately, but man is it fun when a book still manages to exceed those expectations. It gave me exactly what I want from sports romance: a romance I can root for, a deep feeling of camaraderie among the team, and a love for the sport so deep it makes me forget I actually hate sports in real life. More than once while reading this, I caught myself thinking, wow, this sounds fun—this despite the fact that my own very brief soccer career was limited to me, age six, wandering around the field picking flowers and ignoring whatever gameplay was happening elsewhere.

The thing about this book is there is so much compassion here. Vale had a lot of growth she needed to do at the beginning. She was selfish, judgmental, even a little mean. She took everything so seriously, to the point where Leticia notes that Vale doesn’t even look like she’s having fun when she plays. For all her flaws, though, I loved her. I always find it refreshing, especially in YA, when an author isn’t afraid to let their characters be in the wrong, and Vale certainly was that, but watching her learn to listen to Leticia and the rest of her team brought me just as much joy as the romance did. And by the end, I was so proud of her.

As for the romance, as I said, it brought me quite a lot of joy. The banter was funny, and the transition from rivals to friends to something else felt natural in a way that can be difficult to manage. Without saying too much, though, the background was believable, and it was so much fun to watch them learn to rely on each other and see Vale kind of fight against the realization that she is starting to—gasp!—like Leticia as a person. Vale’s other relationships had a similar realism. Every conversation she had with her father made my heart clench—Leticia and I had a similarly unfavorable assessment of the man. But by far, my favorite secondary relationship was the tentative alliance between Vale and her writer brother, Jorge, as they each grapple with their father’s unfair expectations of them.

I truly loved this book. With its strong romance, its complicated friendships and familial relationships, and a compelling protagonist with room to grow, this book had a lot going for it, and in my opinion, it nailed every aspect.  Racquel Marie has yet to let me down, and I very much look forward to reading more from her.

Fake Honeymoon to Real Love: The Honeymoon Mix-up by Frankie Fyre

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Before my summer break ended, I decided to read a romance that gives off tropical vacation vibes. For this, I chose The Honeymoon Mix-up by Frankie Fyre, a fake romance set on the fictional Sapphire Isle, a resort dedicated solely to sapphic women. The Honeymoon Mix-up tells the story of Basil Jones, a woman recently left at the altar by an ex-fiancée exasperated by Basil’s workaholic ways, and Caroline King, a private investigator hired to tail Basil. After sharing a one-night stand with Caroline that Basil hopes to put behind her forever, she decides to go on her honeymoon alone so that she can still close the wine deal her mom sent her there to complete. Upon finding out that the resort has a strict couples-only policy, she enlists Caroline as her fake wife. Eventually, though, lines become blurred and the women begin to wonder if there is something more between them. 

I will be honest, it took me a while to get into the book. I think my main hindrance was that I found Basil to be annoying. She’s bitter and unhealthily devoted to her work. In fact, there were parts where I totally understood why her ex-fiancée left her. Over time, though, Basil grew on me. I began to see how her overbearing and unrelenting mom drilled into her that all that matters is the family business. By about halfway through the novel, I found myself empathizing with Basil and rooting for her to find love and happiness with Caroline and escape her mother’s grasps.

The Honeymoon Mix-up is filled to the brim with plots and subplots. You have the main story of Basil and Caroline becoming more than fake newlyweds. Then, you have Basil’s issues with her mom, Basil’s attempt to seal a wine deal with the resort, a sapphic Olympics competition against one of Basil’s hated high school rivals, Caroline’s conflict between love and her job, and Caroline’s past relationship trauma. It was a lot to keep track of, and within the relatively short length of the book, it felt at times that none of the subplots got their adequate space. None of them were left unresolved and all had some impact on the finale, but at the same time, none of them hit their emotionally devastating potential, which is a shame. Also, because most of these subplots were Basil’s, it often felt like her story rather than both hers and Caroline’s. 

Despite these drawbacks, I still enjoyed The Honeymoon Mix-up. Basil and Caroline, once they get over their issues, have fantastic chemistry in and out of the bedroom. Watching them get over their issues and fall in love was delightful. As I said earlier, I liked seeing Basil’s development from workaholic controlled by her mother to someone willing and able to forge her own path. The book is also very funny, with a lot of the humor coming from Frankie Fyre’s writing and dialogue. 

For me, the biggest strength of The Honeymoon Mix-up is how it celebrates the diversity of the queer experience. Caroline is Black and comes from a polyamorous family. Sapphire Isle is a safe and welcoming place for sapphic couples to spend time together and find community. It is located in Thailand and is predominantly staffed by Asian women. The owners, Mae and Lynn, are an older mixed race lesbian couple who help Caroline and Basil by sharing their experiences earned with age. Between all of this and the little funny sapphic in-jokes, it felt like a true celebration of what makes queer life in general and sapphic life specifically so great. In addition, I loved Lynn and found her to be the true MVP of the story and possibly one of the best side characters I have read in sapphic literature. I would absolutely take a relationship course with her. 

So, despite some issues I had with it, I found The Honeymoon Mix-up an enjoyable fake relationship romance that would make an excellent beach read. Now, I just need to find the beach! 

A Curveball Romance: Playing for Keeps by Jennifer Dugan

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A baseball pitcher and umpire definitely aren’t supposed to fall for each other, right? Especially not when star pitcher June and officiate-to-be Ivy are trying to go pro. Sometimes, life throws you a curveball, though. When Ivy is assigned as an umpire for June’s elite club baseball team, they instantly clash on the field, only to find they have something in common: grief. Soon, they become enemies to friends to far more, despite the rules that prohibit them from dating each other. Will romance get in the way of them following their dreams?

On the surface, Playing for Keeps seems like a fun, sweet young adult sapphic romance. The initial set-up gives us sharp, bittersweet enemies to lovers potential between a pitch and an umpire. Seems cute and fluffy, right? No one is that one-dimensional, though. Both Ivy and June are struggling with the loss of a loved one, balancing that on top of unrealistic expectations from their parents and the pressures they put on themselves to succeed. Add in the pressure you get from sports alone and it’s enough to make anyone crumble. Ivy and June find happiness in each other, through stolen moments as they date in secret, wary that the conflict of interest between them will tear them apart. There’s a potential for them to heal through one another, alongside one another, while learning how to navigate the external forces of loss while growing up.

I loved that both Ivy and June were pursuing career paths that don’t often make space for women. I would have liked to see more focus on that, though. It was sweet to see how the male players on the baseball team were quick to support June, but I expected to see more pushback (either from her team or other teams) to show (not tell us) how she struggled and still persevered.

Unfortunately, the story is so rushed, so many scenes time-jumped, emotions mentioned but not illustrated, that I didn’t FEEL anything while reading this story. With the topic of grief, whether a character is processing it or trying to avoid it, readers should have an easy time sympathizing with the characters. Instead, the grief feels like a plot point, a reason for potential enemies to connect and eventually become more.

Even with little jumps, the story lagged. Dugan has a tendency to pair selfless characters with less reasonable counterparts, which we certainly see between Ivy and June. Given that, it’s difficult to root for both girls. Yes, they’re both grieving, and yes, they both deserve happiness, but their actions are exhausting and (yes, I know it’s YA) juvenile at times. Though the two girls had so much in common, the miscommunication trope constantly tugged them in opposite directions.

Recommended for fans of Some Girls Do, Home Field Advantage, and Cool for the Summer.

The Vibes
⚾ Enemies to Lovers
⚾ Young Adult Romance
⚾ Sapphic Romance
⚾ Forbidden Love
⚾ Lesbian & Bi FMCs
⚾ Sports Romance
⚾ Grief
⚾ Pressure From Parents
⚾ Miscommunication

Quotes

“Expecting it means I can prepare for it, plan for it, and figure out a way to keep my cool in its face. What I didn’t expect, though, was for there to be an extremely attractive girl throwing balls at about seventy-five billion miles per hour, striking out dumb boys left and right, like some kind of varsity, all-star Black Widow.”

“There’s a lot of pressure on girls to conform, to become nice women, to do what’s expected. Smile more, whiten your teeth, lose the weight, don’t be too loud or too funny or too much. Make yourself less so the boys can feel like more. Don’t wear spaghetti straps or you might tempt them. Hold yourself accountable for the both of you, so they don’t have to.”

A Painfully Oblivious Lesbian Love Story: Cash Delgado Is Living the Dream by Tehlor Kay Mejia

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Your enjoyment of Cash Delgado Is Living the Dream will depend heavily on how you feel about reading hundreds of pages of a truly oblivious queer main character. The kind of character who googles, “Can you be straight and have a sex dream about your female best friend?” “Can you be straight and have sex dreams about a woman every night?” “Can you be straight and want to kiss a woman?” Personally, I had a lot of sympathy for Cash’s heteronormativity-poisoned brain, so I had a great time listening to the audiobook narrated by E. A. Castillo.

This is set in the same small town as Mejia’s 2023 bisexual F/M romance Sammy Espinoza’s Last Review and has some cameos of characters from that book, but I didn’t read the first book and didn’t feel like I was missing anything major, so you can definitely start with this one.

At 17, Cash Delgado shaved her head and joined a punk band, and then her controlling parents kicked her out. She thought she had a found family in the punk scene, but when she got pregnant, her support system (and the father) disappeared. She was on her own.

Since then, she’s built a life for herself by running Joyce’s Bar, a rundown bar that nevertheless is a community hub, especially on Karaoke Night. It isn’t glamorous, but the job comes with major perks, like free housing and health benefits. The hours are also flexible so that she can drop off and pick up her daughter Parker. (Parker also plays a fairly significant role in the book, and she’s an adorable six year old with a big personality.) Another big advantage of Joyce’s is working with her best friend, Inez.

Inez is the closest thing Cash has to family now, other than her daughter. She helps out with laundry and dishes when Cash falls behind. Parker adores her. Cash is so grateful for Inez’s support. Sometimes she worries that Inez is going to get a serious girlfriend one day and they won’t be as close, but she tries not to dwell on that.

We meet Cash as she faces two major shake-ups to her life. The last guy she slept with visits town, and when she goes on a date with him, he casually reveals he’s there to open a bar that will almost certainly drive Joyce’s out of business. After ditching him, she begins frantically trying to hatch a plan to save the bar, including trying to convince the out-of-town owners to pay to renovate. Of course, she and Inez work closely together to plan, which leads to the next shake-up: Cash has a… steamy dream about her best friend.

Cash reassures herself that this doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but she continues to have these dreams every night, and soon she can’t look at Inez without picturing them playing out. Even as her attraction to Inez becomes harder and harder to explain away, Cash worries about endangering their relationship. As you can imagine, this denial combines with miscommunication between Inez and Cash, causing the tension to just keep ratcheting up until the final chapters.

There were some aspects of this that didn’t land with me. For example, the ex turns out to be such a mustache-twirling homophobic villain that he felt cartoonish—though of course people like that do exist. On the other hand, Inez sometimes felt too good to be true, but she feels more realistic later in the novel. It was also hard for me personally to be too invested in fighting for a bar. Still, I found Cash’s obliviousness to her own queerness charming, and I felt for her, so I was invested in seeing how her and Inez’s story wrapped up.

If you’re a fan of friends-to-lovers romances, useless lesbians (affectionate), small town romances, single mom main characters, and coming out to yourself stories, I recommend this one, which comes out on July 2nd.

Falling in Love at the Food Packing Convention: Lavash at First Sight by Taleen Voskuni

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I enjoyed Sorry, Bro, Taleen Voskuni’s first novel: the main character breaks up with a non-Armenian tech bro, falls in love with an Armenian woman, and struggles with her identity as a bisexual woman. What’s not to like? I also appreciated the opportunity to learn about Armenian culture and the Bay Area Armenian diaspora.

Unfortunately, Lavash at First Sight is not as good as Sorry, Bro for one simple reason: it is too short. I am actually not bothered by the fact that the plot follows the same sequence described in the previous paragraph. What I don’t think works is that the novel reads like an extended Before Sunrise/Roman Holiday situation in which the girl has to leave home to find love on vacation. 

Of course, it isn’t really a vacation–Nazeli works for a Bay Area tech company, after all. (Yes, using PTO, but still having to do work is gross, and no one should do it.) The bulk of the novel takes place at PakCon, a food packaging convention for vendors and distributors. If that doesn’t sound very Jesse and Celine, that’s because it isn’t. In between scenes at PakCon, which features an old family rivalry (yes, there’s also some Montague and Capulet action in Lavash), Nazeli and Vanya tour some of Chicago’s sights while they get to know each other. To review, there are the plot beats of Sorry, Bro, PakCon and the reality-esque competition that occurs there, family rivalry, and a Roman Chicago holiday. As I said, Lavash at First Sight needs to be longer in order to support everything Voskuni wants to include.

Two quick asides:

1) If you like your novels on the shorter side, I understand; however, you’re not often going to see me suggest than an author cut/edit. Just write more stuff for me to read!

2) It is actually kind of a Roman holiday because there is a scene set in a Roman bath. No, really, there is.

Perhaps the bigger problem is that Before Sunrise and Roman Holiday don’t have HEAs. (They don’t, and I will not be taking questions.) The plot structure of those films won’t work in a romance novel if the expectation is an HEA. It seems like Voskuni knows this and inserts the family rivalry and the competition at the food convention to give the story a place to go, but those elements belie the breeziness of Nazeli and Vanya’s budding relationship. And while we’re on the subject of too much going in too little of a page count, here seems like a good point to bring up the fact that Lavash at First Sight is a fade to black romance. 

To me, none of these elements go together. Again, I think more time was needed to knit everything together in the most successful way. I liked the story, and I would have liked it better if it had time to breathe.

One thing that I really appreciated about Lavash, however, is the way that Voskuni deals with cell phones. There are text message conversations in almost every book that I’ve read this year, so my reaction to what Voskuni does definitely merits notice. Okay, now I know how this is going to sound, but hear me out: I miss long phone calls. I’m talking about the phone calls that go on for so long that you actually run out of things to say and someone falls asleep. It’s not like cell phones and texting replaced those—if anything, emails and instant messaging did. Plus, you can still call someone on a cell phone, and you don’t even have to worry about phone cords anymore.

What I’m trying to say is that I learned what “dry texting” was a couple of months ago. I mean, I already knew what it was; I just didn’t know that there was a name for it. This will come as a surprise to no one, but I don’t usually write short texts. If I send a short text, I can guarantee that something has been edited out (probably either an aside that begins with the word “also” or has parentheses around it). And, sure, in terms of texting, some people can do a lot with a little. Within the first few chapters of Lavash, we’ve seen multiple exchanges between Nazeli and the tech bro. Not a spoiler alert: he’s not one of those people. Nazeli’s first text to Vanya, on the other hand: quality flirt. 

The cell phone thing is a relatively small detail, but that small detail drew me in. In a genre that is well-known for its conventions and tropes, the small details are often what make us remember a novel or an author. If it isn’t completely clear by now, I wanted more from Lavash at First Sight. That said, I still recommend it, and I will happily read whatever Voskuni writes next.

Liv (she/her) is a trans woman, a professor of English, and a reluctant Southerner. Described (charitably) as passionate and strong-willed, she loves to talk (and talk) about popular culture, queer theory, utopias, time travel, and any other topic that she has magpied over the years. You can find her on storygraph and letterboxd @livvalentine.

A Blossoming, Neurodiverse Love: Late Bloomer by Mazey Eddings

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After winning the lottery, Opal Devlin puts all her money in a failing flower farm, only to find an angry (albeit gorgeous) Pepper Boden already living there. Though she’s unable to find her grandmother’s will, Pepper claims she’s the rightful owner of Thistle and Bloom Farms. While they agree to cohabitate, Opal and Pepper clash at every turn. Can something softer blossom between these polar opposites, allowing a new dream to take root and grow?

Oh. My. (Sappho.) Goddess. You may think you know Mazey Eddings’ writing style, but I assure you, you do not. Many of us read The Plus One and/or Tily in Technicolor last year, but Eddings has far exceeded herself with this one. As a neurodivergent author, Eddings’ stories often have some element of neurodiversity/mental health, shining a light on the different ways people’s brains work while embracing those differences through beautiful, realistic characters. Opal and Pepper are no different, both on the spectrum yet unique in their behaviors and view of the world. These women are not predictable, pre-programmed components of a story; they are ever-blooming, learning how to plant roots alongside one another, share sunlight, and rise despite being different species. Both plants, growing and adapting to different elements, yet very much the same. While Opal and Pepper have always struggled to fit in with the world around them, they manage to cultivate a safe, healthy garden for one another.

This is one of those overwhelming, layered, awe-inspiring sapphic stories that will tug at your heartstrings long after you read it. Eddings’ language leaps off the page, making it a little reminiscent of One Last Stop (be still, my little sapphic heart). I’ve beyond annotated Late Bloomer, when I’m usually selective about choosing quotes. You don’t just see love blossom between these two women; you feel it. It made me smile, laugh, get all messy and misty-eyed. As I said, neither woman is predictable. Opal feels directionless at the story’s start, allowing her (fake) best friend and (on/off) ex to step all over her. I expected her to be the wallflower, especially with the BITE we see from Pepper (pun unintended) in her first chapter, but the two balance each other out. When Pepper feels uncertain or anxious, Opal steps forward, bold and unwavering. When Opal begins to crumble, Pepper holds her up. They support each other, never allowing the other to wilt.

Unfortunately, this book relies heavily on miscommunication. Both women are eager to hide their real feelings at the risk of scaring the other. That lack of communication continues until almost the last chapter.

Recommended for fans of One Last Stop and Imogen, Obviously. Side note: please, please read the author’s note. Good goddess.

✨ The Vibes ✨

❀ Neurodivergency/Autism Spectrum
❀ Sapphic Romance
❀ Grief/Healing
❀ Forced Proximity
❀ Spicy/First Time
❀ Cottagecore Vibes
❀ One Bed
❀ Touch Her and You Die
❀ Dual POV
❀ Miscommunication
❀ Flower Competition
❀ Grumpy/Sunshine

 Quotes

❝Slowly, she leans toward me, and my heart pounds so violently in my chest that my head swims. Is she . . . It almost seems like she’s going to press that smile to my mouth. Teach me how it tastes.❞

❝Ah. There’s the you I missed.❞

❝I used to stress over finding a label that fit me. Lesbian. Bisexual. Pan. Demi . . . I’ve filtered through them all many times over, none ever feeling quite right. Just say queer and move on with your life, Diksha finally told me late one night after what was probably my sixth sexual identity crisis of my early twenties. But what does that mean? I’d wailed, draining more boxed wine into my plastic cup. My brain loves order and labels and concise frameworks to understand things, and not knowing where I fit feels unbearable. It means you’re you, and only you get to decide who you like and when you like them, Tal had said from their chair in the corner. The name of your feelings isn’t anyone’s business but yours.❞

❝But instead, she reaches out to me—opening her hand like a flower unfurling its petals to the sun. I stare at it. The ink stains and calluses and chipped nails and bitten cuticles. For a moment, that hand looks like a second chance.❞

❝Her poems spoke softly—as intimately as confessions between lovers—about the terrible, wonderful ache of being in love.❞

A Sapphic, Victorian Parent Trap: Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend by Emma R. Alban

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Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend cover

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Pretty much as soon as I discovered Emma R. Alban’s Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend, I was excited to read it. From the frothy cover to the Taylor Swift lyric title (admittedly I don’t actually know Taylor Swift’s music well enough to recognize that on my own, but I generally love the vibe of song lyric titles) to the actual book description, it seemed incredibly up my alley. A hijinks-filled sapphic historic romance? Sign me up! To my absolute delight, the actual contents of the book completely delivered on the promises its outside made.

Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend takes the familiar premise of a reluctant young debutante, Beth, who must find a wealthy husband for the sake of her family and adds a dazzling lesbian, Gwen, with an idea—their parents have clear chemistry and a history, and it would really solve all of their problems if Beth and Gwen set their parents up instead. Over the course of the season, the two come up with a variety of schemes, and as their parents grow closer, so do Beth and Gwen.

I had so much fun reading this book! It was exactly the kind of sweet, banter-and-shenanigans-filled romance I hoped it would be. I read most of the book at work, and it still had me smiling and giggling throughout. I loved both Beth and Gwen, and I believed their romance from the beginning, as well as their friendship. I understood immediately why they liked each other, which I think is particularly important in a friends-to-lovers romance like this. They constantly made each other laugh, as well as myself, but there were also plenty of those delightfully agonizing finger brushes one expects to find in a historical romance.

Beth and Gwen’s relationship was not the only important one in this book, of course. Considering the setup of this book hinges on a parent-trap plot, it’s particularly important to manage the balance between making me care about and believe the parents’ romance as well without them taking the spotlight away from the romance I actually came here for. Admittedly, I was a little worried this book wouldn’t manage it, but I actually thought it did a fantastic job of that. It even made me care about an entirely separate background romance, and the epilogue provided a wonderful preview of the next book’s romance, which I am very much looking forward to. I really loved the characters here.

I will note readers looking for historical accuracy may find themselves frustrated. The language in particular tends a bit more casual than I would have expected. However, I personally did not find myself bothered by it at all. As casual as the language was, the many detailed clothing descriptions and the subplot centered around the social politics of the Matrimonial Causes Act made it clear that this was a deliberate choice. And besides, a strong sense of verisimilitude was not my main concern when I picked up a parent-trap-inspired sapphic romcom with a Taylor Swift lyric in the title. I came here simply to be delighted, and I got more than my money’s worth of that.  If that is what you too are looking for, I heartily recommend Emma R. Alban’s Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend.