Tag Archives: lesbian main character

A Disabled Jewish Lesbian Time Loop Story: Time and Time Again by Chatham Greenfield

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Time and Time Again by Chatham Greenfield cover

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I love a time loop story, so I had to pick up up this sapphic YA take on the trope—especially one with with fat and disabled characters on the cover!

In the first chapter, Phoebe is living August 6th for the 26th time in a row. Every day is the same, and every day she does the same thing, including eating pancakes with her mom, playing Scrabble at her dad’s place, researching time loop stories, and ending the day with a painful IBS flare-up. Then, one August 6th goes a little differently: she steps off the curb a little later than usual and is hit by a car—gently. Jess is driving, and now they’re stuck looping with Phoebe.

Phoebe and Jess used to be close childhood friends until their fathers argued and they stopped being allowed to see each other. Now, they’re the only out lesbians at their school. They’re also both Jewish and disabled, and they immediately settle into their old friendship again—but Phoebe worries if Jess will have time for her after they return to real life.

This is the most relaxed time loop story I’ve ever read. Neither of them seem particularly worried or in a hurry about breaking the loop. They do talk about it, but they don’t panic. In fact, they sometimes are reluctant to return to their time, though Phoebe is counting down the days until she can see a doctor who might actually by able to help with her health problems and not just tell her to lose weight.

They also don’t do what I associate with time loop stories, where they have a montage of whacky or deadly experiences they would never do in real life. They do get revenge on a bully at one point, but it’s not a big departure from typical teen activities. They drive to a different state or go to a concert or shave their heads—all pretty mild reactions to having endless do-overs.

That’s not a complaint, to be clear! Part of what I liked about Time and Time Again is how it used the time loop format in a different way. (The ending also resolved timelines in a way I haven’t seen before, and it explains some other choices in the plot.) It makes perfect sense that Phoebe is stuck in time, because she already feels lost and aimless. The end of high school approaches, and she doesn’t know what she wants to do afterwards. Her anxiety prevents her from taking chances and trying new things, including driving. (Same.) It doesn’t feel like a sci-fi story as much as a metaphor for what’s already going on in her life.

As you’d expect, then, the focus is much more on the characters and their relationship to each other. It’s so nice to read a book with a romance between disabled Jewish lesbians: that kind of representation is still pretty rare, and especially when it’s both main characters. (Jess is also nonbinary.)

If you like time loop stories and don’t need them to be action-packed sci-fi stories, I definitely recommend this one. I’m happy to see this book came out of a fellowship from Reese’s Book Club: I’ll definitely be watching to see which other books are published through LitUp! Hopefully this means that stories like Time and Time Again get the marketing push to put them into more readers’ hands.

A Small-Town Coming Out Story: Cash Delgado Is Living the Dream by Tehlor Kay Mejia

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[A quick note on spoilers: If you want to get very technical, this entire review is a spoiler. Seriously, if the mere mention of the word “spoilers” makes your skin crawl, here’s the short version of this review: Go read Cash Delgado Is Living the Dream. That said, if you’ve read a decent number of sapphic romances, you know all the tropes. Knowing the tropes makes a fair amount of potential spoilers moot. To me, that’s part of the fun—we know what will ultimately happen, but it’s the getting there that makes it so interesting. Anyway, read on at your own peril.]

A couple of weeks ago, I finally gave in—I downloaded TikTok onto my iPad. Not to yuck anyone’s yum, but I’m just not a fan of the app. Or, all told, the entire concept of the thing. At the same time, if I’m so interested in the discourse, I might as well go from whence the discourse came rather than continuing to wait for it as secondhand news. 

(If you think I’m going to say something about BookTok next, guess again.)

As I learned almost immediately, everyone is beholden to the great TikTok algorithm. Within mere days, I had been pigeonholed into a handful of very specific topics. One of these very specific topics, which is how we get to Tehlor Kay Mejia’s new novel Cash Delgado Is Living the Dream, is the “Later in Life Lesbian.” Now, for those of you following along at home, as a trans woman who came out later in life, I do technically belong in this category. But that isn’t the point here (nor is the point that “sapphic” is a much more inclusive term than “lesbian”); the point is that between TikTok and Cash Delgado, I’m noticing that this very specific topic has become a more prominent point of conversation and a go-to trope in many of the romance novels that I’ve read lately.

In fact, Cash Delgado Is Living the Dream isn’t even the first novel I’ve discussed here that follows the “later in life lesbian” trope: Ashley Herring Blake’s Astrid Parker Doesn’t Fail treads some of the same ground. I really liked that book, and I really liked Cash Delgado as well. 

Single mother Cash Delgado manages a small bar in a small town. Inez, her best friend— what’s that, you say? Cash is going to realize that she loves Inez, who also happens to love Cash? How ever did you know?!? 

Again, even though the destination is nothing short of completely obvious, it’s a good writer who makes the journey enjoyable. For me in particular, when that enjoyable journey involves a single parent/child situation, I’m even more impressed. Mejia manages to balance the small-town setting, the central trope, and the parent/child situation, which is enough to enthusiastically recommend Cash Delgado Is Living the Dream. But wait, there’s more… 

Perhaps it’s because we’re in the summer of Chappell Roan, but lately it’s felt like there’s an ever-so-small possibility that we’re almost getting ready to be able to have a nuanced conversation about women and sexuality that doesn’t eventually descend into some form of biphobia or other exclusionary discourse. In the beginning of this novel, Cash finds herself hooking up with a guy with whom she’s had a previous relationship. The fact that this guy is the living embodiment of the mistake everyone has in their past becomes clear immediately, and he is a mere twirled-mustache away from being the most stereotypical villain who ever lived. And, sure, Chase is in town to bring an obnoxious chain bar/restaurant into Ridley Falls, which will destroy the scrappy establishment where he used to work and that Cash now manages. That complication is what the plot of the novel hangs on, yes, but the spirit of the novel is propelled forward more so by the fact that the words that best describe Chase are words that end in -phobic.

Because it’s difficult enough for Cash to figure out how she feels about Inez and what that says about her sexuality and her larger identity as a person. If it wasn’t difficult, there wouldn’t be an entire corner of TikTok devoted to it. (There would be so many more videos about make-up in my feed.) “Am I a lesbian?” “Am I bisexual?” “Am I a straight woman who happens to really really like this one woman?” All are legitimate possibilities for Cash (and lots of other women), but these questions wouldn’t matter nearly as much if people like Chase could just be cool for once in their entire lives.

Cash Delgado Is Living the Dream is an extremely fun read that brushes up against some of these questions of cisheteropatriarchy, straight culture, and cultural bereavement as it relates to realizing something significant about your sexuality later in life. If you’re not interested in that particular discourse, don’t worry! You can just boo along with everyone else about how Chase is the literal worst and cheer along about how Parker, Cash’s daughter, is the embodiment of a ray of sunshine. If this discourse is something that you’ve followed or taken part in, then there’s a lot in both Cash’s journey and Inez’s reactions to that journey for you to dig into.

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 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 Paranormal Romance Novella with Teeth: A Wolf Steps in Blood by Tamara Jerée

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“We are the figures of each other’s fairytales made flesh.”
– A Wolf Steps in Blood, page 22

Last October, I reviewed Tamara Jerée’s debut novel, The Fall That Saved Us, a romance between a former demon hunter and a succubus. As that was a favorite of the year, I couldn’t wait until Halloween to read their latest paranormal romance, A Wolf Steps in Blood. 

Over a century ago, a witch’s blessing—seen by the protagonist as a curse—gave werewolves their power. That spell is dying with time, but Yasmine and her sister both have strong abilities despite their mother lacking the ability to shift. None of them have ever met a witch, until Kalta, a blood witch who is on the run from her coven, crashes into Yasmine’s life. Though Yasmine isn’t sure if she can trust Kalta, it becomes clear that Kalta is her fated mate. While it’s expected for wolves to have soulmates, she was never expecting hers to be a witch, prompting the idea that the burgeoning couple could usher in a new age for werewolves.

As a Black lesbian werewolf in a rural town, Yasmine has been ostracized on multiple levels. After watching how her sister has been treated, she has internalized the idea that she needs to minimize herself rather than embrace her instincts, to the extent that she treats her inner wolf as a separate entity to be resented and feared. Additionally, she struggles with an eating disorder, and she generally feels stuck in a life where she tries to live on the down low. 

Meeting Kalta is a catalyst for her to finally explore her identity and embrace her own hunger. For her part, Kalta struggles with how her coven has treated her and her brother. While this book is more focused on the wolves, the glimpses we got into witch society and how it has impacted Kalta, and her arc in relation to this and her grief, were some of my favorite parts of the book. I enjoyed her whimsical, impulsive attitude, which made her a fun foil for the more reserved protagonist. 

As with the author’s past work, the writing manages to be both concise and atmospheric, raw and sentimental, bloody and healing. The intensity suits a whirlwind paranormal romance, drawing the reader into the character’s emotions while allowing for more quiet, intimate moments as well. I also continue to appreciate the way the author writes about darker topics, with a focus on characters healing from trauma. Their romances are as much about the characters learning to care for themselves as each other, with these concepts very much intertwined. 

Despite knowing that this would be a novella with a fast burn fated mates romance, I still struggled a bit at the beginning with how fast the characters and relationship were introduced. Even a little bit more development in the beginning would have helped me get invested sooner in the characters and their bond. Additionally, some of the setup made me wonder how wide in scope the story would be, with the talk about the communal fate of werewolves; with shorter works, I generally anticipate a narrow scope. By the end, I was satisfied with where things ended up, and I also grew invested in the characters and story as it developed, especially in the second half. 

If the idea of a fast burn paranormal romance novella about feral women appeals to you, especially if you like themes of family, grief, and community, then I recommend this book. If you’re more interested in a longer novel with more breathing room, then I recommend checking out the The Fall That Saved Us first, and coming back to this one for more of Tamara Jerée’s writing. 

Content notes taken from the book: This book contains depictions of an eating disorder, vomiting (blood, food), self-harm (blood magic), gore, animal death, grief, and sexual content.

A Curveball Romance: Playing for Keeps by Jennifer Dugan

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Playing for Keeps cover

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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.

Take a Shot on How You Get the Girl by Anita Kelly

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While coaching East Nashville High’s girl’s basketball teen, Coach Julie Parker expects passionate players and quick springs, not for the star of her fantasies, ex-WNBA baller Elle Cochrane, to show up with the niece she’s fostering. Despite being all heart-eyed and tongue-tied, Julie convinces Elle to become her assistant coach, allowing Elle to keep an eye on her niece. Neither expects sparks to fly along with basketballs shooting across the court, even as Elle helps Julie navigate the unfamiliar terrain of dating. Will they continue sitting on the sidelines of their own lives, or finally take a shot?

Dear Anita Kelly. Thank you. Thank you for a story about two beautifully, vulnerably queer women who are so real and authentic and layered. What easily could have been a trope-filled sapphic sports romance is instead a stunning exploration of identity, mental health, and personal growth. Bear with me, Lesbrary readers, as I try to find my words. This story started with Julie’s megawatt heart-eyed celebrity crush and a little forced proximity, but it became so much more. Between her queer twin and best friend, Julie always thought she was a little behind in defining her queerness, but there’s no timeline, no deadline. She always struggled to find her label, her place (only to realize they’re just… whatever!), and it’s not until Elle steps into her life and throws her out of her comfort zone that Julie gets the chance to grow into herself. I also adored that Jules couldn’t fully pick one label (“15 percent general queer, 10 percent lesbian stereotype. 20 percent ace, 55 percent dumbass.”) because identity is in fact a spectrum. She does mention the possibility of being demisexual at one point, which my girlfriend identifies as, and honestly… I don’t think I’ve ever seen a character recognize that as an option before. To say it brought tears to my eyes is an understatement.

In a way, Elle has been stuck in a comfort zone, too, until she starts fostering her niece and coaching alongside Jules. Elle is so patient with Jules, so willing to step back and give Jules the chance to process her own thoughts, recognize her own needs. There’s a give and take to their relationship: when one falters, the other steps in to help them find their balance again. There are so many layers to this story: “There’s this idea embedded into our culture of getting over things,” “Maybe all love is a surprise, followed by practice,” “You can be happy and still feel like you don’t really know what you’re doing.” There’s so much to appreciate in the little lessons these women learned. Together. (If we’re keeping track, I cried three times while reading this book: when seeing “demi,” at the news clipping, and during Jule’s speech. I need more tissues now, thank you.)

There is one topic I wish received a little more attention, namely because it isn’t discussed often enough. Elle meets with the school’s weights guy, who assumes all the players on the team are girls: “the ingrained hierarchy and immovable binary of most sports.” Elle and Julie made a “space for any player who wanted to put in the work, regardless of their identity.” Kelly mentions fighting for equality in sports within her acknowledgments, but I do wish we’d seen a little of that fight as a source of conflict within the book.

The story is a bit slow at the beginning, but once it finds its momentum, it GOES. I will say I wasn’t aware this was a duology when I grabbed this ARC, but the references to the previous story weren’t so heavy that you can’t enjoy this one as a stand-alone.

Recommended to all readers, whether you’re looking for a sports romance, sapphic romance, or simply a good book with lots of mental health love. This one is going to stay with me for a long while.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

✨ The Vibes ✨

🌈 Sapphic Ship – Lesbian/Demi
💞 Fake/Practice Dating
🏀 Sports/Workplace/Forced Proximity Romance
🏆 Mental Health Rep
📚 Part of the Nashville Series
🏆 Contemporary Romance
🏀 Dual POV
💞 Smut
🌈 Queer Main & Side Cast

💬 Quotes

❝ Any relationship that’s worthwhile, whether it’s friendship or romantic or sexual, only really works when you try. ❞

❝ But that when it came to identity, when it came to queerness, the whole point was that there were no tryouts. If you were even thinking about it, you were already on the team. That labels weren’t meant to confine, only to bring comfort to those for whom they were useful. That Julie didn’t need to ascribe to any of them, if she didn’t want to. ❞

❝ “There’s nothing wrong with you, Julie,” Elle said in that same half-whisper that was slowly going to kill her. “You’re not behind on anything. There’s nothing for you to be behind on. There’s nothing, and no one, you have to track your own life by.” ❞

❝ Maybe all love was a surprise, followed by practice. A step out of comfort zones, followed by hard work. Lurking in all the places you didn’t expect, places that become a forever part of you. ❞

A Thrilling Elemental Fantasy Debut: The Daughters of Izdihar by Hadeer Elsbair

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Nehal has practically everything that a woman could ask for: wealth, a prestigious name, an engagement to one of the most eligible men in Alamaxa. What she doesn’t have, though, is the right to join the Weaving Academy on her own and learn how to control her waterweaving—not without the permission of a male guardian or a husband.

Giorgina doesn’t have any privileges of the wealthy. Her impoverished family relies on her income to stay afloat, so she can’t afford to rock the boat by joining the Daughters of Izdihar too publicly in their fight for the right to vote, nor can she afford the tuition to learn how to control her earthweaving. Her heart is further broken when she learns that her love is being forced into an arranged marriage with a wealthy aristocrat named Nehal.

These two women live worlds apart, but soon they find that their fight for the right to determine their own futures will throw them together.

I’d been meaning to read this book ever since it came out about a year ago, but after a slew of sapphic fantasies I found myself putting it off. Now, at least, I get to read it with the second book already out (no spoilers, but you’re definitely going to want to have access to the second one shortly after finishing this book). I do regret taking my sweet time because this book was such a fun, fast-paced adventure.

I heard The Daughters of Izdihar described as a sapphic, Egyptian-inspired version of Avatar the Last Airbender. The similarities with Avatar the Last Airbender are obvious with magic powers tied to the elements, but I think that is where the comparisons end. Elsbair expands upon the ways in which weaving is a metaphor for how entrenched institutions impose on marginalized groups, how it’s a way to weaponize the group against itself by creating a sense of “other” framed as dangerous. In one scene, the women working to get the right to vote consider casting out the weavers in their cause in a way that echoes how women’s rights groups have continually excluded other marginalized identities for the sake of being more “acceptable” or “tolerable”. Weaving is a skill that only the privileged classes are able to afford training, an example of how money can justify outliers and reclassify people who deviate from the norm as merely eccentric rather than dangerous.

If you’re mostly looking for an adventure story, there’s plenty of that too. I was surprised at how fast-paced the book was. At times I felt like we were speeding along in scenes that I’d prefer to linger, especially as Nehal learns more about her abilities and what the Daughters of Izdihar do. It also means, though, that there’s never a dull moment. It’s also a duology, so I remain hopeful that the characters I wanted to see more from will feature prominently in the next one. It’s a wonderful debut and I’m looking forward to whatever Elsbair puts out next.

Content warnings: police brutality, homophobia, racism, misogyny

Jamaican Joan of Arc: So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole

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I first saw Kamilah Cole describe her debut, So Let Them Burn, as a Jamaican Joan of Arc, which was enough to grab my attention even before the book had a cover. To be more specific, So Let Them Burn is the first book in a YA fantasy series that follows former chosen one Faron Vincent and her older sister, Elara. Five years after the war for their island’s independence, Elara inadvertently forms a bond with an enemy dragon, while Faron determines she will stop at absolutely nothing to save her sister from the threat of both the bond and the empire itself.  

Like I said, I was sold on the concept the minute I heard about it, but even the coolest concept can turn out to be a let down in the wrong hands. Kamilah Cole is not the wrong hands. It took less than half a page for me to determine that I was going to love this book, and as the story unfolded, I only got more invested. Every time I had to put the book down, I was just a little bit resentful that I couldn’t keep reading.

Something that I thought was really fun is that while I knew this book follows a chosen one after she’s done her duty, Faron is not the only one who fits into a popular fantasy archetype. One dynamic I found particularly fascinating is the one between chosen one Faron and Queen Aveline, who spent the first seventeen years of her life on a farm with no knowledge of her true identity and now resents Faron a little bit for the fact that when the war ended, Faron got to go home and Aveline didn’t.

Literally all of the relationships were wonderful, though. The romantic relationships had me hooked, as did the friendships, but the central relationship between the two sisters just felt so real. They both loved and admired each other so much that, despite the hints of jealousy on each side and the expected annoyances, they were both so determined to keep each other safe, whatever the cost. I loved them both, and I am terrified for what the next book will bring for them.

I also really enjoyed the narrative voice, which was the first thing to win me over. It made me laugh throughout, though it never detracted from the more serious themes. Since this was third-person, I’m much less inclined to be annoying about how distinct the perspectives did or did not feel from each other, but there was at least enough difference that I never forgot which sister’s head I was in, even when they were in a scene together, so I’m quite satisfied on that front.

I already know I’m going to miss these characters when the series is done, but fortunately I’ve got some time until then. (Less fortunately, it also means I have to somehow survive that cliffhanger until then.) Even more fortunately, this series is not the only thing I have to look forward to from Kamilah Cole. Not every book that sounds amazing ends up living up to my expectations, but this one definitely exceeded them. I recommend it with my whole heart.

A Sapphic Spin on You’ve Got Mail: Read Between the Lines by Rachel Lacey

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the cover of Read Between the Lines

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❝Her online crush, her real-life crush, and the woman who’d crushed her dreams were all the same person, and her mind was still struggling to snap all the pieces into place.❞

Books have always been a part of Rosie Taft’s life. That happens when your late mother once owned a Manhattan bookstore you’ve now inherited. The only thing missing from Rosie’s life: a romance to rival the ones she reads about. Though she has a flirty online friendship with lesbian romance author “Brie,” they’ve never met, never turned those flirtatious remarks into deep, romantic gazes in reality. Jane Breslin works for her father’s property development business by day, but by night, she lets her hair down and steamy side out as a romance writer. When the business terminates Rosie’s bookstore lease, their worlds collide and online identities are revealed. Can Jane pen her way back into Rosie’s heart for a happy ending?

By some coincidence, I watched You’ve Got Mail for the first time a few months ago. There’s something about the sweet simplicity of 90s rom-coms that can get a heart all warm and cozy. Obviously inspired by the same premise, Read Between the Lines is a modern-day, WLW spin. The enemies-to-lovers, opposites-attract elements fills you with hope as you wait for all the pieces to click into place. Once they do, the romance feels easy, natural… but realistic in the sense that so many problems are ignored in exchange for that bliss. For a moment, Rosie and Jane exist in a comforting, sweet bubble, but as in real life, you can’t ignore reality forever.

I adored Lacey’s Stars Collide (and I’m eagerly trying to get my hands on her upcoming release Cover Story), but it’s obvious this was one of Lacey’s first lesbian romances. So much of the chemistry between Rosie and Jane was built off-screen, through the texts they exchanged long before the story started. Unfortunately, that makes it seem like there’s not a great deal of chemistry between Rosie and Jane once their true identities are revealed.

The source of conflict feels a bit exhausting. Rosie remains hung up about the fact that Jane’s family’s company is the reason she’s losing her bookstore, but Jane herself isn’t the reason. Rosie struggles to disassociate losing her bookstore from Jane the entire time. Deciding to leave the family business, while a point of character development for Jane, shouldn’t have been a solution solely for Rosie’s benefit. None of the problems (internal and external) either woman faced built enough tension to give the story momentum.

The smut scenes are…not great. Some of the word choice is repetitive (“swirled and plunged” included, which is just… please don’t), and there’s more of a focus on logistics over emotion. Fade to black paired with a little post-coital pillow talk would have worked just as well (and perhaps felt less rushed, distance, and awkward). Again, it feels like this was Lacey’s first WLW romance, in which case, you can see the growth in later novels.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

 Recommended for fans of You’ve Got Mail, Cleat Cute, and Fly With Me.

✨ The Vibes ✨

❤️ Enemies to Lovers
❤️ Sapphic Romance
❤️ Books About Books
❤️ Lesbian MCs
❤️ Contemporary Queer Romance
❤️ Book 1 in a Series
❤️ Opposites Attract