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Going through my shelves, I realized that I never added this one, although I read it months ago. It’s a great example of historical romance outside of the ballroom, a fun spy story, and altogether a delightful book that I think is a must-read for romance fans. The only reason I didn’t continue with the series is because the hero of the second reminded me of someone I know in real life, and it was just too weird, but I do intend to read more Alyssa Cole.
Another romance I never got around to adding to my Goodreads shelves. Sarah MacLean is always my go-to romance author, because I love her headstrong heroines and the outlandish scenarios in which they find themselves. This one features her characteristic blend of humor, angst, and steam, along with insufferable artists, a house decorated with tacky canine tchotchkes, and light cross-dressing and breaking and entering. Must read the third in this series soon.
Roughly 300 pages of running errands. I’m only giving it two stars because I got some amusement from the manner in which the heroine secures her position in life: Her husband of five whole weeks dies in World War II, but luckily he had already written her into his will and left her a tidy sum of money! So now she’s a plucky 24-year-old widow who works more or less just for fun! We should all be so lucky!
Also, I definitely read a couple of the old witchy ladies in town—the two who are not sisters—as lesbians, but perhaps that’s just me.
Also, I definitely read a couple of the old witchy ladies in town—the two who are not sisters—as lesbians, but perhaps that’s just me.
Short and spooky middle grade featuring a vengeful child ghost, some terrible parents, and heavy themes of guilt and loss.
This is a super uneven collection that I’m nonetheless glad I read. It’s a bit misrepresented in the various places I’ve read about it online, because it’s not exactly a horror collection, although the stories do deal with fears linked to existing as a queer woman, and many of them are surreal and disturbing. “Slug,” “Conspiracy of Fuckers,” “Sido,” and “Here Lies the Last Lesbian Rental in East Vancouver” were my favorite pieces.
It’s really hard to find good books about queer women that aren’t YA or end with someone dying. It’s even harder to find good f/f romance in a sea of porn that seems intended more for straight men. So a lesbian romance being published by a mainstream house—and in hardcover, no less!—caught my attention.
When Katie Met Cassidy reminds me of the chick lit that I read in high school. Lots of wealthy people doing glamorous things in New York City, thoroughly unrelatable but fun. The kind of book you fall into for a short time and then move on from.
That’s really all I wanted from this book, and I got it, but I also got a lot of stuff that I could do without. Katie’s reactions to Cassidy’s lifestyle are cruelly overblown: Noting that some of the lesbians at the girl bar “look like women” (you don’t say??) and feeling nauseated when she realizes that Cassidy wears boxer briefs. Katie has so much (internalized?) homophobia that it took me out of the story. I love bickering and enemies-to-lovers! But I’m not as thrilled about a girl I’m supposed to root for being an ass to the butch girl who loves her!
I also found the lack of sex scenes unusual. This is a romance, but every time our heroines are in the bedroom, the scene fades to black. That’s hardly industry standard, and if this were a book about a straight couple, there would have been explicit sex. The lack of sex here made it seem like the book was trying not to offend anyone, which makes me wonder about the intended audience. Straight women?
Even with its flaws, I enjoyed reading When Katie Met Cassidy. It’s funny, it has moments of real romance, and no one dies. But I think that queer readers owe it to ourselves not to grade books on a curve just because there are queer characters. This is like the bare minimum of what a mainstream f/f romance should be, but it could be so much better than it is.
When Katie Met Cassidy reminds me of the chick lit that I read in high school. Lots of wealthy people doing glamorous things in New York City, thoroughly unrelatable but fun. The kind of book you fall into for a short time and then move on from.
That’s really all I wanted from this book, and I got it, but I also got a lot of stuff that I could do without. Katie’s reactions to Cassidy’s lifestyle are cruelly overblown: Noting that some of the lesbians at the girl bar “look like women” (you don’t say??) and feeling nauseated when she realizes that Cassidy wears boxer briefs. Katie has so much (internalized?) homophobia that it took me out of the story. I love bickering and enemies-to-lovers! But I’m not as thrilled about a girl I’m supposed to root for being an ass to the butch girl who loves her!
I also found the lack of sex scenes unusual. This is a romance, but every time our heroines are in the bedroom, the scene fades to black. That’s hardly industry standard, and if this were a book about a straight couple, there would have been explicit sex. The lack of sex here made it seem like the book was trying not to offend anyone, which makes me wonder about the intended audience. Straight women?
Even with its flaws, I enjoyed reading When Katie Met Cassidy. It’s funny, it has moments of real romance, and no one dies. But I think that queer readers owe it to ourselves not to grade books on a curve just because there are queer characters. This is like the bare minimum of what a mainstream f/f romance should be, but it could be so much better than it is.
I've been ambivalent about how action-centered this arc has been, but this issue pulled it together nicely while, of course, ending on the quintessential WicDiv cliffhanger. I need that one shot special, like yesterday. PS I finally got a variant for this one!
