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thegreatmanda 's review for:
Solo in Cider C**ntry
by Philippa Foxx
adventurous
emotional
funny
lighthearted
slow-paced
Solo in Cider C**ntry is unlike anything else I've read.
For one thing, it’s rare for me to get this strong of a sense of place from reading a book. This one very much pulled me out of everyday life and felt like a visit to the West Country; a bit of a vacation every time I picked up the book.
I also really loved the character of Alex; I have a very hard time relating to fictional women, and she’s a nice change from that. She has a life plan, a full range of emotions, a job that she sometimes kills it at and sometimes can’t concentrate on. She has a libido more familiar to me than I’ve ever seen in a fictional woman, ever. Sometimes she does the wrong thing; sometimes she does the right thing. In short, Alex is a whole person, even as a single, female main character in a romance novel. For a novel main character to feel like a human being should probably be the baseline, but it’s so rare for women starring in romance that I almost always give up and read M/M so I have two characters to care about.
Without giving too much away, there’s also a whole cast of interesting characters apart from Alex, with their own lives and problems. This is a romance, but it also has fulfilling friendships and a slice-of-life bent, with different people moving in and out of the story for their own reasons. Some of those reasons are sexy, at least in this edition—there is Solo in Cider C**ntry, which is the version I read, and then there is Solo in Cider Country, which is the same story minus the sex. The sex is really good, so unless you really don't want to read sex scenes, I personally recommend the former. 😉Sex scenes involving more than two people are really hit-or-miss for me, and I’m delighted to say that the one in this book is lovely. The men developing their own closeness to each other, apart from Alex, felt especially sweet (and is, again, a subversion of norms I don’t like, in MMF scenes focusing entirely on the woman’s nudity and availability for interaction with each man). All of these characters and connections build up to a truly excellent conclusion that has me thoroughly in my feelings, in the best way.
Favorite Quotes:
For one thing, it’s rare for me to get this strong of a sense of place from reading a book. This one very much pulled me out of everyday life and felt like a visit to the West Country; a bit of a vacation every time I picked up the book.
I also really loved the character of Alex; I have a very hard time relating to fictional women, and she’s a nice change from that. She has a life plan, a full range of emotions, a job that she sometimes kills it at and sometimes can’t concentrate on. She has a libido more familiar to me than I’ve ever seen in a fictional woman, ever. Sometimes she does the wrong thing; sometimes she does the right thing. In short, Alex is a whole person, even as a single, female main character in a romance novel. For a novel main character to feel like a human being should probably be the baseline, but it’s so rare for women starring in romance that I almost always give up and read M/M so I have two characters to care about.
Without giving too much away, there’s also a whole cast of interesting characters apart from Alex, with their own lives and problems. This is a romance, but it also has fulfilling friendships and a slice-of-life bent, with different people moving in and out of the story for their own reasons. Some of those reasons are sexy, at least in this edition—there is Solo in Cider C**ntry, which is the version I read, and then there is Solo in Cider Country, which is the same story minus the sex. The sex is really good, so unless you really don't want to read sex scenes, I personally recommend the former. 😉
Favorite Quotes:
No one ever looks bad with a book. Other book people know that it's like carrying another universe around with you that you could dive into at any moment. A powerful thing.
There are innumerable people I will happily do something with, but a limited number with whom I can joyfully do nothing.
Not only had Viola fit in a blow-dry for herself, but also a proper haircut for me, at incredibly short notice, with, she assured me, her second favourite hairdresser. But, as her first was based in a small suburb of Florence, that couldn't be helped.
I remember once, at another wedding, probably in that same hectic summer, an awful man—somebody's uncle or somesuch—had kept touching all us girls' bottoms. He had made the mistake of touching mine, and I had told him, loudly, that if he did it again, I would smack him right then and there in front of everybody. So, to me, it had been a fair cop when, the next time he had touched my bottom, I had slapped his face so hard that his false teeth had flown out, and been lost under a table until the next morning.
As I walked away, I quickly turned to look back at him, secretly hoping he was watching me leave. But he was already walking away in the opposite direction, eyes front. Maybe I hadn't left as much of a mark on him as he had on me.
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Try as I might, I just couldn't stop thinking about her.
"I have counselling and stuff. It doesn't affect me as badly now, and I've learned that being around the right people can be just as cathartic as therapy—people who build you up, you know? You're one of those people, so you deserve to know that...you're fixing me too, in a way."