I’ve never read a book that would fall into the “low-angst romance” category, until I picked up The Secret Crush Book Club by Karmen Lee. The book is the third in a series that takes place in a quaint small town called Peach Blossom. This Black sapphic romance follows two women in their late 20s, Dani and Zoey, as they fall for one another during their weekly book club. Dani is a single mom balancing a nursing career with raising her son, Jordan, and has lived in Peach Blossom all of her life. Zoey is a recent transplant working as the local librarian and author.
Dani and Zoey are both very sweet, lovable characters, and throughout the book, it’s clear that both of them are more mature and far less dramatic than your typical romance novel leads. However, at times I almost found them too mature. The book has very little conflict to speak of. Just where the book could get messy, or where the author seems to be leading us toward some kind of conflict, things resolve just as quickly as they came into being. Typically, when I read romance novels, I’m facepalming at the almost absurd choices of the main characters, thinking something akin to, “I would never do this.” While reading this book, I actually had the opposite reaction. There were moments where I felt like Zoey was underreacting, and I wondered if I would have the same maturity that she possesses. For instance, Dani suddenly leaves a date with Zoey because her son has a crisis and doesn’t check in with her after the fact. Zoey thinks to herself, well Dani’s probably just busy with Jordan—he’s her top priority. Zoey and Dani had only known each other for a few weeks at this point, and it felt almost unbelievable that Zoey wouldn’t have been the tiniest bit concerned about the radio silence from her newfound love interest. I certainly have never been that chill about anything ever.
Though The Secret Crush Book Club can stand alone, I did also feel as though I was missing an important piece of the puzzle by not having read the earlier books in the Peach Blossom series. There are other key players in Peach Blossom, who I wish we got to learn more about. Dani has two other queer sisters, who support her as she explores her relationship with Zoey. Because the text is accounting for the plotlines of other characters in other novels, half of the important conversations in the book happen via Facetime. There’s a degree of flatness to only getting to access some of the text’s characters through a video call. However, Peach Blossom itself was totally charming, and I love the idea of creating a small town universe filled with interesting characters who each get a story of their own.
My favorite part of the novel was its exploration of compulsory heterosexuality as Dani comes to terms with her own identity as a queer woman. This section of the book is extremely affirming for sapphics who come out later in life, wondering how they didn’t realize things sooner. At the end of the book, Dani doesn’t have all the answers about her sexuality, noting that she’s unsure if she’s bi or a lesbian. This also felt extremely real—so many of us feel a degree of pressure to label ourselves as soon as possible, but Dani’s character shows us an alternative path. It’s okay to not know, and it’s okay to just enjoy where you’re at and let a label come to you when you feel ready for it (or to never label things!).
The Secret Crush Book Club challenged me to think about what it is I look for in a novel. I tend towards books that are lighter in subject matter—I find that the world we live in can already be so dark, that I’m naturally inclined towards texts that feel like a respite. So many romance novels rely on miscommunication as a core truth, and I’m growing tired of books where a simple conversation could resolve everything. And yet, I missed the tension and stakes that I typically search for in my favorite romance reads. I found myself yearning for conflict, for things to go wrong, so that I could feel satisfied by them being put back together again. This book gave me something of a crisis, in that I realized that perhaps I’m not a “low-angst” or “cozy” romance person. I prefer some degree of angst, it seems. Fundamentally, I want to see characters be transformed through the course of a story, like the story needed to happen at that specific moment in their life, and I didn’t always feel that way with this novel. It was more a pleasant meander than an urgent sprint, and though it’s not my taste, it’s sure to be someone else’s.
The Secret Crush Book Club is the perfect read for someone looking for a cozy, low-stress romance novel with small town charm and the ease of a guaranteed happily ever after.
This review is by guest Lesbrary reviewer Maddy Y.
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