Take a photo of a barcode or cover
rainbowbrarian's Reviews (1.85k)
Big thank you to @pridebooktours for the free ebook and including me in this tour!
I was hooked by the description of the book as “a sweet, slow burn romance and a bookstore with a cat set in a queernormative world!” I signed right up for the tour!
Things I liked about this book: an opinionated bookstore cat, a Black knight with natural hair as the heroic love interest, and the idea of a queernormative world.
To be totally honest, this book wasn’t for me. I think the plot was a little too cliche. The ideas were solid, but weren’t well developed enough. I think this writer could have great promise with a little more workshopping. Jayce and Alexius did have a slow burn romance but it felt mechanical, like they were reading from a script instead of having their feelings actually develop. They both were suffering from PTSD from the war, but it was touched on so briefly and vanished as fast that it felt fake. It was like the author understood that they should have lasting issues from the war, but didn’t really understand them well enough to write them.
The book struggled a bit overall with wanting to be a cozy book while still dealing with some very heavy issues (abuse, PTSD, survivors guilt, the need to atone, and regrets). I think it would have been better to have left those heavy elements out and chosen something more like past failed relationships or a failed business instead of a serious war.
I was hooked by the description of the book as “a sweet, slow burn romance and a bookstore with a cat set in a queernormative world!” I signed right up for the tour!
Things I liked about this book: an opinionated bookstore cat, a Black knight with natural hair as the heroic love interest, and the idea of a queernormative world.
To be totally honest, this book wasn’t for me. I think the plot was a little too cliche. The ideas were solid, but weren’t well developed enough. I think this writer could have great promise with a little more workshopping. Jayce and Alexius did have a slow burn romance but it felt mechanical, like they were reading from a script instead of having their feelings actually develop. They both were suffering from PTSD from the war, but it was touched on so briefly and vanished as fast that it felt fake. It was like the author understood that they should have lasting issues from the war, but didn’t really understand them well enough to write them.
The book struggled a bit overall with wanting to be a cozy book while still dealing with some very heavy issues (abuse, PTSD, survivors guilt, the need to atone, and regrets). I think it would have been better to have left those heavy elements out and chosen something more like past failed relationships or a failed business instead of a serious war.
Read this as part of Dad and Daughter Book Club. Spy stories aren't normally my genre, but this was good :)
I was not a fan of the MC being 65 and having a new baby, I kind of find that dynamic creepy. When your kid graduates high school you're gonna be 80. Will you even live to see her grown up? But he was a good dad to CJ. I wished Alex were a bigger part of the story, she was a former agent but she kind of gets shelved with pregnancy complications so she doesn't get to do anything really meaningful other than stand by her man and sound worried.
However, I did get pulled into the story. I was compelled by the escape from Russia story, not quite as much with the second half which is him fighting to clear his name in the trial. Sort of felt like I was getting a book that was a spy novel only to find out it was half court room drama.
I am of two minds about the tiny queer inclusion. First, okay, well you acknowledged queer people exist. But then, seriously it's now and all you do is say "hey queer people get fucked over in Russia", here's your token dead gay ballet queer. And shocker, dead gay tragedy. *eyeroll* Could we maybe have had ANY OTHER queer people at all. Anywhere?
It was cool to have a black man be the secret agent spy, because I feel like pretty much ever other CIA spy story it's yet another white guy. It would have been even cooler if the author was a person of color. Because Charles Jenkins, a black man, is the MAIN character. Points off to the audio book team for that one.
I was not a fan of the MC being 65 and having a new baby, I kind of find that dynamic creepy. When your kid graduates high school you're gonna be 80. Will you even live to see her grown up? But he was a good dad to CJ. I wished Alex were a bigger part of the story, she was a former agent but she kind of gets shelved with pregnancy complications so she doesn't get to do anything really meaningful other than stand by her man and sound worried.
However, I did get pulled into the story. I was compelled by the escape from Russia story, not quite as much with the second half which is him fighting to clear his name in the trial. Sort of felt like I was getting a book that was a spy novel only to find out it was half court room drama.
I am of two minds about the tiny queer inclusion. First, okay, well you acknowledged queer people exist. But then, seriously it's now and all you do is say "hey queer people get fucked over in Russia", here's your token dead gay ballet queer. And shocker, dead gay tragedy. *eyeroll* Could we maybe have had ANY OTHER queer people at all. Anywhere?
It was cool to have a black man be the secret agent spy, because I feel like pretty much ever other CIA spy story it's yet another white guy. It would have been even cooler if the author was a person of color. Because Charles Jenkins, a black man, is the MAIN character. Points off to the audio book team for that one.
This was really cute. It balanced the sweet awww factor with just the right amount of silliness to keep from tipping over into too saccharine.