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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