Leigh Kramer

Trial By Desire by Courtney Milan {review}

Genre: Historical Romance

 

My Review - 5 Stars 

Holy angsty goodness! I felt like crying for a good portion of this story because of how fraught relations were between Kate and Ned. There was so much longing on both sides, so much to overcome in their estranged marriage. And that’s only the internal struggle!

Kate and Ned had a marriage of convenience after they were caught in a compromising position. After three months of marriage, he left her to go to China and stayed away for three years, breaking her heart in the process. It may have been a marriage of convenience but she had real feelings for him and wanted more. However, Ned did not feel worthy of her and needed to prove something to himself. Now that he’s returned and could see just how much his actions negatively affected her, he wants to earn her trust back. Kate, however, doesn’t want to get her hopes up. In part because hope is hard and she’s not sure there’s any of their marriage worth saving and in part because she has a secret.

This story deals frankly with domestic violence and I want to discuss it more thoroughly so readers for whom this may be triggering can decide if they want to try this story. Kate, unbeknownst to everyone in her life, rescues women from abusive husbands and is in the process of helping the seventh woman, her friend Lady Louisa. Women had very few options at the time if their husbands abused them and even fewer rights. It’s beyond heartbreaking and Kate takes no small amount of risk in helping them. The abuse Louisa endured, as well as a couple of women Kate helped in the past, is referenced but we do not see on the page violence. However, Louisa’s husband Harcroft does threaten and hurt Kate in the story in his attempt to find his wife. Kate is not in danger for very long before Ned rescues her. Louisa does ultimately free herself of her husband in a very satisfying way but it does involve her confronting him. Overall, I thought this aspect of the story was handled well. Kate’s actions are commendable and I loved that Ned never questioned her actions, once he learned the truth. While Harcroft spews misogyny, Ned does not demean women, nor does he agree with Harcroft’s sentiments. He does have somewhat of an awakening because before this, he’s never thought about all that women endure.

The other important piece of this story is that Ned has dealt with depression since age 18, although it’s not labeled as such. He refers to it as a bleak darkness. He becomes a bit of an ascetic to ward it off and refuses help from anyone, in order to prove to himself that he can handle things. He is such a good man and takes winning Kate back seriously. But he has to learn what partnership looks like and how to accept that asking for help is not synonymous with weakness. The way that Kate ultimately proves this to him was so lovely. My heart overflowed. And I loved Ned’s gesture regarding the house for Kate at the end!

These two were everything. Plus, there are some really hot scenes in this story. Another winner from Courtney Milan!

Note: this is the second book in the Carhart series but it works as a standalone. I plan on reading the first book soon!

CW: domestic violence (side character), abused horse (who is rescued), violence, sexism, misogyny, broken leg due to spooked horse, depression, past suicidal ideation

Also: #IStandWithCourtney

 

Synopsis

SHE CANNOT FORGET THE FIRE HE IGNITED ...

In the three years since her husband left her, Lady Kate Carhart has managed to forge a fulfilling life for herself. But when Ned Carhart unexpectedly returns, she finds her tranquility uprooted --- and her deepest secrets threatened. Though she has no intention of falling for Ned's charms, Kate can no longer deny the desire that still burns in her heart.

OR THE PROMISE OF HIS LOVE ...

Ned is determined to regain his wife's trust by using unbridled seduction. But just as Kate surrenders to Ned's passion, her carefully guarded past threatens to destroy her. Now Kate must place her faith in the only man she's ever loved, and the only one who has ever betrayed her ... 

 

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Hoosier Daddy by Ann McMan and Salem West {review}

Genre: Contemporary Romance, FF Romance

 

My Review - 5 Stars

I first heard of this book through a review on Smart Bitches and since I'm always looking for good FF romance, I decided to give it a try. I wasn't sure what I thought at first but then I quickly got sucked into the story. And the more I read, the more I loved it. More importantly, it got me thinking about how it fits into the romance genre as a whole.

Friday Jill is a college graduate working on her graduate degree, a low level supervisor at the local factory, and a lesbian with few good romantic prospects in her small town. She’s unfulfilled but doesn’t feel like she has many options. Her life is a series of rinses and repeats. She and her coworkers are on edge because Krylon Motors is set to be bought out by a Japanese giant and there are rumors about labor union organizers coming in.

So it’s really not a good thing when one of the organizers turns out to be very attractive and seemingly interested in Friday. She can barely take her eyes off of El but there are more reasons for them not to test the waters. And yet life keeps making their paths cross, often in funny ways. We never get El’s perspective and I was fine with that. Friday’s emotional arc was quite compelling as she tries to make sense of what she wants and whether she can take the risk—and this goes well beyond trying anything with El.

One of the things I most appreciated about this story was the way it explored labor unions. Through El’s work for United Auto Workers, we see why the union could be a good thing for the factory. Through Friday’s coworkers, we get to see the very real way they could be impacted by even talking to one of the organizers and of course we hear why Krylon’s management doesn’t want anyone to organize. There are references to other real life union efforts, like Volkswagon plant in Chattanooga, which served to ground the story all the more. Later, (minor spoiler alert) once the Japanese buyout goes through, we get the perspective of Tam, the new owner, which I found quite refreshing.

Friday feels quite caught in the middle. As Krylon’s management currently stands, she has no chance of getting a real promotion. Not until she’s viewed as being compromised because of the time she’s spent with El and then she’s in a pickle. For so much of this story, I wanted Friday to take action. Quit her job or take a stand or fight to unionize or just freaking take El out on a date. But at the same time, I understood why she felt so paralyzed. It was a real pleasure to watch her figure things out and finally step up to the plate.

Friday and El have great chemistry. This is a closed door romance. I believe it's the first time I’ve read a closed door FF romance and I’m glad to now have an option to give friends who prefer less explicit romance. I don’t read much closed door but this made me think about how it can be the right choice for a character. Friday is a very private person and I could see her not wanting us as readers to know more about her intimate moments with El.

There are very real stakes between them. How can a factory supervisor date a union organizer? Especially since organizers don’t stay in one place for long and Friday is rooted to Princeton and Owensville. I had a guess as to how it might play out but my heart was in my throat while I waited for it to work out. The ending was more than satisfying.

I finished this a few months ago but haven’t known how to sum up my thoughts. It’s very different from other FF romances I’ve read—different from other contemporary romances, for that matter—and I wanted to take my time in considering why.

Hoosier Daddy is a rural romance. It’s not a term I’ve heard before but surely other books like this exist. Rural romance could be a subset of small town romance or perhaps it’s a different subgenre all together.

The book’s greatest strength is the rich sense of place. Rural southern Indiana is brought to life in such a way that I could practically see, touch, smell, and taste everything described. And yet the descriptions tended to be spare. They do the job and convey what they need to, which tends to be my preference in fiction.

According to the author’s note, the residents of Edwards County, IL (population 6721) informed the telling of this story and it shows. The characters are rooted in something real but I admit I wasn’t sure about the representation at first. Were certain characters caricatures? Are people really like this in such a town? I haven’t known many people like Friday’s friends TBomb or Luanne, nor have I ever lived in a place with such a small population. I wasn’t sure if the authors were honoring the people they knew or making fun of them. It can be a fine line and I’ll leave it up to the residents to say which side this book falls on. But as I got further into the story, my appreciation for the characterization grew. It’s part of why Princeton, Owensville, and their inhabitants felt so real to me.

It’s also why I can’t qualify this as small town romance, even though it fits. Hoosier Daddy is set in a small town but it’s not like the small towns we usually encounter in this subgenre. This is a place set apart by class. Many inhabitants work at Krylon Motors. There’s a low cost of living that goes alongside lower wages. People are worried about their bills. Some people work a couple of jobs. There are fewer opportunities to move up the ladder and Friday encounters a very male-dominated leadership structure, along with workplace sexism. The story doesn’t ignore some of the harsher realities of life.

A common critique of small town romance is that it’s white and cishet. They’re these perfectly contained Hallmark bubbles, ignoring and denying any possible diversity. One would assume the same parameters would be in place in a rural romance but Hoosier Daddy sets itself apart there. Yes, there are not many LGBTQ people in Princeton but Friday isn’t the only one. There are references to other queer people. The book isn’t always PC and it doesn’t get everything right but this felt like a reflection of the town and how its inhabitants are on a spectrum of acceptance. There’s a minor character named Casey who completes in the Pork Festival pageant who appears to be questioning her sexuality and gender identity and the conversation about them is not always kind or accurate. But by and large, the townspeople are accepting of Friday, even if they don’t always understand her. Additionally, not all of the characters are white—I primarily remember Latinx characters who work at the factory. This story doesn’t dig into the racism or homophobia that exists in every American town, no matter how big or small. But I appreciated that it didn’t portray a utopian existence either.

This story turned out to be an unexpected delight and I’m so glad I gave it a chance.

CW: workplace sexual harassment, death of a coworker

 

Synopsis

Jill Fryman (Friday to her friends) is a line supervisor at a truck manufacturing plant in a small southern Indiana town. Life on the assembly line is almost as predictable as her love life. When it comes to matters of the heart, Friday always seems to be making the wrong choices. Things go from bad to worse when El, a sultry labor organizer from the UAW, sweeps into town to unionize the plant right after it’s been bought out by a Japanese firm. Sparks fly on and off the line as Jill and El fight their growing attraction for each other against a backdrop of monster trucks, catfish dinners, Pork Day USA, and a bar called Hoosier Daddy.

 

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The Year Of Leigh, The Year Of Hattie, and Sarah MacLean's Brazen And The Beast

Birthday cake from my 36th birthday

 

One month from today, I'll turn 40. Five years after The Year Of Leigh began.

I realized I never wrote much about how that came to be or what it meant, other than a brief reference in this post about my decision to move to San Francisco, but it very much centered that year. I used #TheYearOfLeigh on Instagram. (Someone who's into weightlifting is also using the hashtag. Very much not me!) When I turned 36, friends convinced me to keep going and how can you not when they make you a Year Of Leigh cake? So I added #eternalyearofleigh into the arsenal.

But if I'm honest, it was almost a joke at that point.

For close to t 10 years I had believed the year I turned 35 would be an important one. I don't want to get into the how or the why or even what all I thought would happen because I'm still making sense of it. I don't think I was wrong or that I misunderstood. But let's just say my 35th year of life did not turn out the way I hoped.

When I turned 36 and the big things I hoped for hadn't happened...well, it rocked a few foundations of my life. I became resigned. This was as good as it was going to get. It wasn't a bad life, such as it was, but it hurt too much to keep hoping for what I wanted, only to never receive it. I decided to focus instead on what I needed in order to have a good enough life and try to orient my life in that direction.

I don't think I was wrong to do so. Those guidelines have served me well, even though I'm not there yet. 

At the same time, I'm sad for my 36 year old self. I knew then, even as I was grieving, that The Year Of Leigh was no small thing regardless of what did or didn't happen. But I couldn't honor or celebrate the other accomplishments at the time so I'd like to do that today.

The big thing, of course, is that I moved to San Francisco sight unseen. Never so much as visited California before I uprooted my life and moved from Nashville to the Bay. I still can't believe how it all came together. I still can't believe I did it! 

Whenever I doubt my badassery, I think about all of my big out of state moves this past decade but I especially think of San Francisco.

It started with paying attention to my intuition. Then a conversation with a friend who invited me to housesit for the summer. After I said yes to the adventure, a job interview fell into my lap. I moved with a job offer and got to work with some of the best coworkers I've ever had. I never found my own place but I lived with dear friends and their kiddos and my favorite cat Ezra and the best ocean view. (I miss those sunsets so much.)

I made wonderful new friends. I ate pho and soup dumplings on the regular. I bought breakfast sandwiches from my favorite bakery and ate while sitting on the beach. I reconnected with a few of my cousins who lived in the Bay Area.

The Year Of Leigh was about possibility and adventure and a fair amount of sass. It was an attitude and a promise.

I got to experience another side of myself: I'm someone who can start over in a big city. I was not prepared for how dense SF was but I adjusted and, in so many ways, I flourished. I hadn't used public transportation since my grad school days in Chicago but I figured out the buses and sometimes I'd get off early just to enjoy a walk through a different neighborhood. If you know how indoorsy I am, you know what a miracle that is. 

While I lived there, I decided to brush off the manuscript I'd finished a few years prior. I read it again and believed I still had something so I hired an editor. I lost close to 90 pages of revisions due to a computer fluke. (The words that came out of my mouth.) It took time to get back to it but last year A Storied Life made it's way into the world. And it all started with The Year Of Leigh.

2015 didn't turn out the way I imagined but who would I be if I hadn't taken the risk? I'm glad I'll never know.

And yet. It's nagged me, the year I view as a failure no matter how much good came out of it.

Then this past summer, I read Brazen And The Beast.

*******

I was primed to love this book because of my own, albeit much less goal-oriented, Year Of Leigh. I was 100% here for The Year Of Hattie. Hers didn’t turn out quite the way she originally imagined either.

Hattie is 29 and she’s got things to do before she turns 30. Her plan covers business, fortune, home, future…and losing her virginity so she’ll be off the marriage market and maybe then her dad will start to seriously view her as in line for succeeding him at his business. Her plan does not involve finding an unconscious man tied up in her carriage when she’s supposed to be on her way to said virginity-losing. Best meet cute ever.

Whit grunts more than he speaks and his reputation as Beast precedes him. But Hattie isn’t afraid of him and she’s willing to do what it takes to keep her family safe and get the keys to her dad’s kingdom in the process. Whit was super swoon-worthy and I loved his awe of Hattie and her badassery. They are both forces to be reckoned with, albeit in different ways, making for quite the team.

When this wasn't making me smile with glee, it made me cry. Hattie is my favoritest and Whit must grunt forevermore.

This book was a gift. As I approach 40, I’m ready to bring back the spirit of The Year Of Leigh. Maybe I won’t find a Whit to call my own but I suspect I’ll find something that much better.

CW: sexism, past child abuse, violence, past attempted murder, bombing, fat-shaming (which is countered), panic attack

 

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Where Love Grows by Jay Northcote {review}

Genre: Contemporary Romance, MM Romance

 

My Review - 5 Stars

This was just WONDERFUL. This is the fourth book I've read by Northcote and we're now in auto-buy territory.

Stephen is still recovering from Guillain-Barré syndrome, which completely derailed his life. He’s always tended to be a loner and it’s very hard for him to accept he needs help, much less accept it from strangers. He doesn’t want to try another house cleaner and he definitely doesn’t want someone else repairing the garden that was his pride and joy.

Luke, on the other hand, is grappling with addiction. He quit using substances but alcohol is still very much a temptation, although he isn’t ready to admit he has a problem there either. He’s essentially retired early from work after making a mint and has too much time on his hands. When a mutual friend suggests Luke head out to the country for the summer and help Stephen out, both men are wary but agree to give it a try.

Stephen is an utter grump and it was a great balance to Luke’s more easygoing nature. There’s a line about how Stephen’s face transforms when he smiles and I realized grumpy men becoming more attractive when they smile = my catnip. These two were barely interested in each other at first but then there are these zings of awareness even though they both have very good reasons to not test the water.

Stephen is insecure about the way his body has changed since the illness and he doesn’t want to become dependent on anyone else, only for them to leave him. There is a fair bit of ableism on Stephen’s part, FYI, although his doctor friend and Luke are accepting of him and his limitations. He’s still dealing with the death of his parents a decade prior, along with his boyfriend breaking up with him when he got sick. Luke, on the other hand, has a passel of commitment issues thanks to an unstable childhood. He’s only supposed to be in Wales for a short time before he needs to head back to London and figure out what’s next.

They shouldn’t do anything more and yet they do and it was such a lovely evolution. Of course, things do go awry at one point, forcing the men to own up to their true feelings, as well as take concrete steps toward health and wellness. They both had such wonderful character arcs and I adored them together.

Luke’s enthusiasm about the garden and the chickens was so endearing. He was a true city boy but the country is where he starts to really come alive. Plus, as the title suggests, there’s such rich symbolism when it comes to gardens and such.

I also must give kudos to the cats who have personalities all their own and who often stole the show.

CW: Guillain-Barré syndrome, depression, past suicidal ideation, substance abuse, alcoholism, past death of parents (cancer, suicide, heroin overdose), ableism

 

 

Synopsis

 When two broken men look to each other for help, an unexpected romance blooms.

Stephen’s home, deep in the heart of the Welsh valleys, suits his reclusive nature. However, as he recovers from illness, he’s struggling to manage alone. As nature reclaims the land he’s poured his heart into cultivating, he becomes increasingly unhappy. His only outlet is his blog, where he documents the decline of the garden that had been his pride and joy.

Luke is more used to a concrete jungle. He was a high-flyer, living and working in London, until addiction sent him into free fall. Now on the road to recovery, he still wants to make some changes, but he’s unsure where to find the purpose and fulfilment he craves.

A mutual acquaintance suggests Luke visits Stephen to help him out for a while, and a seed of hope is planted. From prickly beginnings, shoots of friendship emerge, blossoming into a deeper connection when they act on their mutual attraction.

This was only ever supposed to be a temporary arrangement, and soon Stephen will be able to manage on his own again. But both men need each other in ways they’re afraid to admit. If their love is going to last for more than one season, they’ll need to find the courage to be honest.

This book is a standalone read with a satisfying happy ending.

 

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Ashlin & Olivia by Aster Glenn Gray {review}

Genre: Contemporary Romance, FF Romance

 

My Review - 5 Stars

I was so impressed by Gray’s Briarley that I immediately checked to see what else she’d written and found this one. The two novellas couldn’t be more different: Briarley is a historical Beauty and the Beast retelling, while Ashlin & Olivia is a contemporary friends-to-lovers romance.

But even that description doesn’t quite cut it. Ashlin and Olivia were best friends for one year in junior high but then Ashlin moved away unexpectedly right after they’d had a falling out. Now several years have passed and Olivia is in college and on a weeklong trip to Florence with her Renaissance 101 class. When who should she see but Ashlin. It’s a shock to both young women but they agree to meet up the next morning. And soon enough, they’re meeting up whenever Olivia isn’t with her class.

The story is interspersed with flashbacks to when they first met in art class and how their friendship evolved over that year. In both past and present, they have a super intense friendship. It’s only once they’ve reconnected as adults that Olivia realizes she’s actually in love with Ashlin. But she has no idea how Ashlin feels about her or if Ashlin is interested in women. So there’s a good deal of angst and longing, which always feeds my soul.

We experience Ashlin as Olivia does, never getting her perspective and she’s often a bit of a mystery with how closed off she can be. Yet it’s clear she does deeply care about Olivia. They have to work through what happened in the past—oh the drama of junior high emotions!—as well as figure out their potential future. I was there for every single bit of it. The romance is a slow, slow, slow burn (they kiss at the end) that is almost secondary to the nature of their friendship but it made sense given their past connection, what tore them apart, and the way forced proximity can separate you from reality for a while. It ends on a very hopeful note with an HFN.

One of the highlights for me was the way they discussed art. Some of their theories were above me but I didn’t feel it was in a pretentious way—I simply don’t feel the need to make certain connections with art but I loved that they did. I was fascinated particularly about the connections they made about fanart and fanfic. It made me miss all my old art classes.

 

 

Synopsis

An f/f second chance romance about two young artists in love.

When young artist Olivia accompanied her Renaissance 101 class on a weeklong trip to Florence, she expected to encounter art history, not her own past. But on the night she arrives, Olivia runs into her old friend Ashlin in the shadow of Florence’s famous Duomo. 

Olivia and Ashlin's intense junior high friendship left equally intense emotional scars when it collapsed years ago. But despite those painful memories, the two nonetheless begin to tentatively rebuild their friendship through discussions of art.  

Olivia slowly realizes that Ashlin has also changed a great deal over the years - and how much the pain of their final rupture had distorted her own memories of their passionate friendship. Most of all, she realizes that she’s in love with Ashlin. But does the elusive Ashlin love her back? And if she does, have they both grown up enough that they can avoid repeating the mistakes that destroyed their relationship in the past? 

 

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