F/F I Read in 2019
Mar. 10th, 2020 03:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
saiditallbeforeI meant to post this back in December, but I had a major depressive episode and then a lot of Life Stuff that happened. But! This was already mostly written, so I've finished adding my thoughts and cleaned it up a bit.
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I read a lot of f/f, and I thought that maybe I should actually collect my thoughts on some of these in one place-- especially since I read so many this year!
I also use Goodreads pretty heavily to give star reviews and log my reading, even if I don't always leave reviews over there. If you want to add me as a friend, feel free. (Just tell me where you know me from!)
I rate things based on how much I personally enjoy them, rather than on any kind of "objective" measurement.
The Job by Jove Belle
Contemporary Romance, Romantic Thriller
Rating: 2/5
It's a romantic thriller, which I wouldn't have picked up except it was dirt cheap. Most of the things I didn't love could be attributed to the genre but I think the writing style also just fell flat. And whenever I got into the action happening in the present timeline, we would get a flashback to when the two mains had been together before (it's a second-chance romance) and I would get incredibly bored.
I would watch this as a movie, though.
Love Like This by Melissa Brayden
Contemporary Romance
Rating: 4/5
I will read literally anything by Melissa Brayden, and this lived up to my expectations. I haven't read the other books in this series, but that didn't matter. The romance between the two mains-- an optimistic boutique manager and a down-to-earth fashion designer-- is smoking hot, and the conflicts between them are natural and don't seem too contrived.
Marriage of Unconvenience by Chelsea M. Cameron
Contemporary Romance
Rating: 3/5
Two best friends get married to gain access to an inheritance. It's a very tropey and fun concept, but I don't think there was enough plot here for the length of the book-- especially with the lack of subplots. By the end of the book, the two mains trying to keep up pretenses with their friends about the nature of their marriage was just weird, and it made absolutely no sense.
Once Ghosted, Twice Shy by Alyssa Cole
Contemporary Romance, Novella
Rating: 4/5
I hadn't read any of Cole's other works, so I wasn't familiar with the events and characters being referenced here, but I found that this work stood up pretty well on its own. In some ways, it's a pretty standard second-chance romance-- the story alternates between present and past, as we see how our leads originally got together, fell apart, and how they are getting back together-- but I was really rooting for them, and I didn't feel like the obstacles that had pulled them apart were too silly or easily overcome. I'm looking forward to more f/f by Alyssa Cole!
A Royal Romance by Jenny Frame
Contemporary? Romance
Rating: 1/5
It reads like a contemporary romance, but it's technically set in the future? Honestly I don't know how to categorize this one, except as "bad". So bad that I wrote one of my rare Goodreads reviews for it:
Courting the Countess by Jenny Frame
Contemporary Romance
Rating: 3/5
This is better than A Royal Romance, although that might be damning with faint praise. It was cute and frothy, and involved a bit of archaeology and a fair amount of fixing up an old house, which are all elements that I can get behind in my contemporary romances. Nothing too special, but nothing to complain about.
The Princess Affair by Nell Stark
Contemporary Romance
Rating: 5/5
It's a bit silly in places, but never to the level of A Royal Romance. And, more to the point, I understand both why Kerry and Sasha want to be together, and what the obstacles are that are causing them difficulties. Basically, it's the kind of fun that I'm looking for in a royal/commoner romance.
Deadline by Stephanie Ahn
Urban Fantasy, Novella
Rating: 3/5
Not as good as Kate Kane, but that's probably an unfair comparison. I wouldn't pick it up if you're looking for romance-- there's none to be found here. But there is some fun worldbuilding and some nice tension with the main character's ex-girlfriend.
Romancing the Inventor by Gail Carriger
Steampunk Romance
Rating: 3/5
This is set in the universe of Carriger's other books, and tells what happens to Genevieve Lefoux after the events of the Parasol Protectorate series. All of Carriger's books are page-turning fun, with supernatural shenanigans and larger-than-life characters. I did feel like the main conflict between the two leads could have been resolved much earlier in the book than it was; as it was, it was just kind of drawn out.
The Dark Wife by Sarah Diemer
Fantasy Romance
Rating: 4/5
If you read f/f at all, you've almost certainly had this Hades/Persephone retelling recced to you. I'm ambivalent on the epilogue, but the rest of the book is spectacular.
Miranda in Milan by Katharine Duckett
Fantasy, Retelling
Rating: 3/5
I'm not super familiar with Shakespeare's Tempest, so this might work better for someone who is. But I did like the concept-- a f/f story centered around Miranda, set after the events of the play. And there were a lot of parts that were good! But the pacing just wasn't quite there.
The Lamb Will Slaughter The Lion by Margaret Killjoy
Fantasy, Horror, Novella
Rating: 3/5
I wanted it to be more...something. I'd pick up the sequel if I ran across it but I'm not seeking it out right now. I liked a lot of the ideas presented-- the post-apocalypse, the commune, the horror elements-- but in many ways it felt a bit try-hard. The ending felt like it might have come straight off of a tumblr post, and, as such, felt a bit too neat for what the rest of the book had been.
The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas
Science Fiction
Rating: 5/5
This book begins with the four women who invented time travel in the 1960s. One of them, Barbara, experiences a mental breakdown shortly after their time travel experiments begin to succeed, and is ousted from the research group. The book follows Barbara, the other pioneers, and a number of other women throughout the decades in a non-linear story about family, love, death, murder, revenge, and, of course, the psychology of time travel.
That makes the book sound somewhat dry, but it's really not-- it's just difficult to sum up succinctly. We spend time with probably a dozen or more characters over the course of the book, but one of the ones we spend the most time with, Ruby, is a lesbian, and her romantic relationships play a large role in her story.
It's hard to sum up how much I liked this book without going deep into spoilers, but I loved it and I cannot stop thinking about it.
Sword of the Guardian by Merry Shannon
Fantasy, Fantasy Romance
Rating: 4/5
I'm a sucker for a book that features a woman swordfighter, and a woman swordfighter who crossdresses is even better. A woman swordfighter who crossdresses and is in love with the princess she's bodyguarding? That ticks off all my boxes.
If you've ever read a fantasy novel, I think you'll find the plot here to be fairly standard and unsurprising. The pacing in places was a little iffy-- it seemed to switch between being a romance novel and a high fantasy novel at random, instead of finding a good middle ground. But despite all of that, I found it fun and worth a read.
Proper English by KJ Charles
Historical Romance
Rating: 5/5
An Edwardian country house mystery! I haven't read any of KJ Charles's other works, but this was an absolute delight. I loved the characters, I loved the mystery, and I loved the setting. I know Charles has written m/m in this setting, but I'd love for her to write more f/f!
The Confessions of Frannie Langston by Sara Collins
Historical
Rating: 5/5
I'm putting this on the list because the f/f relationship is a large part of the book, but it's definitely not a romance-- or even very romantic. It's closer to gothic horror, or a murder mystery.
The book is told from Frannie's point of view, in the form of the testimony she writes as she awaits trial for murdering her employers. She tells of her childhood as a slave on a sugar plantation on Jamaica, how she became entangled in eugenics experiments about black intelligence, and how she later was taken across the Atlantic and sold, and fell in love with her mistress. It's dark, even if Frannie (or author Sara Collins) is rarely explicit about the dark things that happened, but it's moving and compelling, and the desire to know exactly what happened kept me reading right up until the very end.
Passing Strange by Ellen Klages
Historical Romance, Novella
Rating: 3/5
I guess this is technically fantasy, but the fantastical elements are pretty light and only come into play at the beginning and end of the story. I liked the setting and I liked the romance, but the plot felt like it was solved by a deus ex machina. It's a shame, because the setting-- 1940 San Francisco-- is really unique, and there was an interesting idea here.
A Little Light Mischief by Cat Sebastian
Historical Romance, Novella
Rating: 4/5
Another f/f novella by an author who normally doesn't write f/f! I was pleasantly surprised by all the authors dipping their toes into the category this year, and I hope they keep returning.
In this case, I love anything that involves a heist, even as low-stakes as this one was, and I love a good reformed thief. And I love how attracted to each other the two leads were! It was a short read, but it was super fun.
The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite
Historical Romance
Rating: 5/5
I've raved about this book to everyone, because I absolutely love it. My most common point of comparison is to the Alpennia books. I'm not sure if that's exactly right, but those are closer than any others I can think of. Alpennia is fantasy, while The Lady's Guide is historical, and The Lady's Guide follows the structure of category romance more closely, but there's enough similarity in the characters and themes that I think fans of one will be fans of the other.
Not only was I pleasantly surprised by the themes of women pioneers in science and women working to support each other in male-dominated fields, I also loved that the book acknowledged that embroidery and other crafts are art, and took those just as seriously as it took the science. And besides both of those things, it neatly avoided the third-act breakup! That's always my least favorite part of any romance, and this book swerved around it completely.
Hot Dog Girl by Jennifer Dugan
YA Contemporary Romance
Rating: 3/5
A fake dating summer romance set at an amusement park! That's the blurb that got me to pick up this book, and, as a fan of fake dating, my hopes were pretty high. Unfortunately, I'm not sure it ever really lived up to the premise. The reasons for fake dating were pretty shaky, and by the end of the book I found the main character pretty selfish and unlikable. Maybe I would have liked this better if I were the target audience.
Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee
YA Science Fiction
Rating: 3/5
I was kind of disappointed at first- it was all very paint-by-numbers for the first half of the book, but I persevered because the worldbuilding and characters were fun. But a few things in the plot finally developed and took me by surprise, and I'm kind of looking forward to the sequels, even though they're not f/f (still queer though).
The Afterward by E.K. Johnston
YA Fantasy Romance
Rating: 5/5
I've raved about E.K. Johnston's other works elsewhere, both her tie-ins and her original works, so I don't think it's any surprise that I loved this book. I found a few passages a little jarring, but the overall story was great. It begins after the Life-Changing Magical Quest has already ended, and two young women who fell in love on the quest have been separated again by their social class. We see glimpses of what happened on the quest-- mostly through the lens of their relationship with each other and with the others-- as they discover who and what they want to be in their new lives. It's not a plot I've really seen done before, and it's written and structured in such a way that I couldn't put it down. If you like YA at all, I absolutely recommend it.
Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan
YA Fantasy
Rating: 5/5
I wasn't expecting that much from Girls of Paper and Fire, given that it's a James Patterson Presents novel (not by him, but by his brand). And it's definitely not the highest quality book I've read this year. I also wasn't sure how it would handle the themes of sexual assault that are inherent in the premise (the "paper girls" in the title are low-caste girls taken to be part of the king's harem). I'm sure if you cared to pull apart the worldbuilding in the book, it would be easy to do. But the emotional spark was there, and it made me keep reading, and it handled the issues of sexual assault without being gratuitous (IMO).
That's a lot of caveats, and a lot of talking about what the book wasn't, but I genuinely liked this book. I loved the main character, I loved her relationships with the other paper girls and with her family. I loved the real concerns she had between solidarity with others in her caste and what it would mean to rebel against the palace. And at every turn, the threat to Lei felt very real and very present, despite the fact that I knew this was the first book in a trilogy.
Wilder Girls by Rory Power
YA Horror
Rating: 3/5
I'm not a huge fan of horror, and especially not of body horror, but the premise here-- a girls' boarding school under quarantine for a mysterious disease that causes the girls' bodies to change under their very eyes-- seemed interesting. And I really loved the first 75-80% of this book! The prose is gorgeous, the characters are interesting, and the relationships are complex and fascinating. The setting became a character in its own right, telling a story about how long it had been since the Tox began and how many things had changed since school as "usual". But the last part of the book fell flat. Things felt rushed, and there were several resolutions that felt particularly unsatisfying-- and other things that felt completely unresolved.
Shatter the Sky by Rebecca Kim Wells
YA Fantasy
Rating: 3/5
The more I think about this book, the less I like it. From my Goodreads:
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Overall, 2019 was a good year for reading f/f! I'm planning on doing this for 2020 as well, and I'm hoping to actually post it on time, then. <3
-
I read a lot of f/f, and I thought that maybe I should actually collect my thoughts on some of these in one place-- especially since I read so many this year!
I also use Goodreads pretty heavily to give star reviews and log my reading, even if I don't always leave reviews over there. If you want to add me as a friend, feel free. (Just tell me where you know me from!)
I rate things based on how much I personally enjoy them, rather than on any kind of "objective" measurement.
Contemporary Romance
The Job by Jove Belle
Contemporary Romance, Romantic Thriller
Rating: 2/5
It's a romantic thriller, which I wouldn't have picked up except it was dirt cheap. Most of the things I didn't love could be attributed to the genre but I think the writing style also just fell flat. And whenever I got into the action happening in the present timeline, we would get a flashback to when the two mains had been together before (it's a second-chance romance) and I would get incredibly bored.
I would watch this as a movie, though.
Love Like This by Melissa Brayden
Contemporary Romance
Rating: 4/5
I will read literally anything by Melissa Brayden, and this lived up to my expectations. I haven't read the other books in this series, but that didn't matter. The romance between the two mains-- an optimistic boutique manager and a down-to-earth fashion designer-- is smoking hot, and the conflicts between them are natural and don't seem too contrived.
Marriage of Unconvenience by Chelsea M. Cameron
Contemporary Romance
Rating: 3/5
Two best friends get married to gain access to an inheritance. It's a very tropey and fun concept, but I don't think there was enough plot here for the length of the book-- especially with the lack of subplots. By the end of the book, the two mains trying to keep up pretenses with their friends about the nature of their marriage was just weird, and it made absolutely no sense.
Once Ghosted, Twice Shy by Alyssa Cole
Contemporary Romance, Novella
Rating: 4/5
I hadn't read any of Cole's other works, so I wasn't familiar with the events and characters being referenced here, but I found that this work stood up pretty well on its own. In some ways, it's a pretty standard second-chance romance-- the story alternates between present and past, as we see how our leads originally got together, fell apart, and how they are getting back together-- but I was really rooting for them, and I didn't feel like the obstacles that had pulled them apart were too silly or easily overcome. I'm looking forward to more f/f by Alyssa Cole!
A Royal Romance by Jenny Frame
Contemporary? Romance
Rating: 1/5
It reads like a contemporary romance, but it's technically set in the future? Honestly I don't know how to categorize this one, except as "bad". So bad that I wrote one of my rare Goodreads reviews for it:
Badly written, badly edited, badly structured. What plot there was was complete nonsense. The antagonists were toothless and also pointless. The heroines never resolved their own problems. Most of the book was exposition, telling me how likeable Georgie is and why she and Bea are good together.
By the midway point, I was hate reading, and actively rooting for the failure of both the central romance and the monarchy.
The central conflict presented in the blurb never makes a real appearance. Bea's anti-monarchist sentiments are mainly emotional and disappear once she discovers that Georgie is nice. Georgie and every other character gets to lecture Bea on how haaaaard the royals work and how fiscally responsible they are, etc., etc.
On a minor note, I was under the impression the book was a contemporary-- and vast swathes of it read that way! But it technically takes place in the near future, with laughable future technology, including voice activated devices (like the diary Georgie narrates her backstory to) and Intelliflesh, the synthetic flesh that resembles the real thing (used in a strap-on scene).
Courting the Countess by Jenny Frame
Contemporary Romance
Rating: 3/5
This is better than A Royal Romance, although that might be damning with faint praise. It was cute and frothy, and involved a bit of archaeology and a fair amount of fixing up an old house, which are all elements that I can get behind in my contemporary romances. Nothing too special, but nothing to complain about.
The Princess Affair by Nell Stark
Contemporary Romance
Rating: 5/5
It's a bit silly in places, but never to the level of A Royal Romance. And, more to the point, I understand both why Kerry and Sasha want to be together, and what the obstacles are that are causing them difficulties. Basically, it's the kind of fun that I'm looking for in a royal/commoner romance.
Fantasy/Science Fiction
Deadline by Stephanie Ahn
Urban Fantasy, Novella
Rating: 3/5
Not as good as Kate Kane, but that's probably an unfair comparison. I wouldn't pick it up if you're looking for romance-- there's none to be found here. But there is some fun worldbuilding and some nice tension with the main character's ex-girlfriend.
Romancing the Inventor by Gail Carriger
Steampunk Romance
Rating: 3/5
This is set in the universe of Carriger's other books, and tells what happens to Genevieve Lefoux after the events of the Parasol Protectorate series. All of Carriger's books are page-turning fun, with supernatural shenanigans and larger-than-life characters. I did feel like the main conflict between the two leads could have been resolved much earlier in the book than it was; as it was, it was just kind of drawn out.
The Dark Wife by Sarah Diemer
Fantasy Romance
Rating: 4/5
If you read f/f at all, you've almost certainly had this Hades/Persephone retelling recced to you. I'm ambivalent on the epilogue, but the rest of the book is spectacular.
Miranda in Milan by Katharine Duckett
Fantasy, Retelling
Rating: 3/5
I'm not super familiar with Shakespeare's Tempest, so this might work better for someone who is. But I did like the concept-- a f/f story centered around Miranda, set after the events of the play. And there were a lot of parts that were good! But the pacing just wasn't quite there.
The Lamb Will Slaughter The Lion by Margaret Killjoy
Fantasy, Horror, Novella
Rating: 3/5
I wanted it to be more...something. I'd pick up the sequel if I ran across it but I'm not seeking it out right now. I liked a lot of the ideas presented-- the post-apocalypse, the commune, the horror elements-- but in many ways it felt a bit try-hard. The ending felt like it might have come straight off of a tumblr post, and, as such, felt a bit too neat for what the rest of the book had been.
The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas
Science Fiction
Rating: 5/5
This book begins with the four women who invented time travel in the 1960s. One of them, Barbara, experiences a mental breakdown shortly after their time travel experiments begin to succeed, and is ousted from the research group. The book follows Barbara, the other pioneers, and a number of other women throughout the decades in a non-linear story about family, love, death, murder, revenge, and, of course, the psychology of time travel.
That makes the book sound somewhat dry, but it's really not-- it's just difficult to sum up succinctly. We spend time with probably a dozen or more characters over the course of the book, but one of the ones we spend the most time with, Ruby, is a lesbian, and her romantic relationships play a large role in her story.
It's hard to sum up how much I liked this book without going deep into spoilers, but I loved it and I cannot stop thinking about it.
Sword of the Guardian by Merry Shannon
Fantasy, Fantasy Romance
Rating: 4/5
I'm a sucker for a book that features a woman swordfighter, and a woman swordfighter who crossdresses is even better. A woman swordfighter who crossdresses and is in love with the princess she's bodyguarding? That ticks off all my boxes.
If you've ever read a fantasy novel, I think you'll find the plot here to be fairly standard and unsurprising. The pacing in places was a little iffy-- it seemed to switch between being a romance novel and a high fantasy novel at random, instead of finding a good middle ground. But despite all of that, I found it fun and worth a read.
Historical
Proper English by KJ Charles
Historical Romance
Rating: 5/5
An Edwardian country house mystery! I haven't read any of KJ Charles's other works, but this was an absolute delight. I loved the characters, I loved the mystery, and I loved the setting. I know Charles has written m/m in this setting, but I'd love for her to write more f/f!
The Confessions of Frannie Langston by Sara Collins
Historical
Rating: 5/5
I'm putting this on the list because the f/f relationship is a large part of the book, but it's definitely not a romance-- or even very romantic. It's closer to gothic horror, or a murder mystery.
The book is told from Frannie's point of view, in the form of the testimony she writes as she awaits trial for murdering her employers. She tells of her childhood as a slave on a sugar plantation on Jamaica, how she became entangled in eugenics experiments about black intelligence, and how she later was taken across the Atlantic and sold, and fell in love with her mistress. It's dark, even if Frannie (or author Sara Collins) is rarely explicit about the dark things that happened, but it's moving and compelling, and the desire to know exactly what happened kept me reading right up until the very end.
Passing Strange by Ellen Klages
Historical Romance, Novella
Rating: 3/5
I guess this is technically fantasy, but the fantastical elements are pretty light and only come into play at the beginning and end of the story. I liked the setting and I liked the romance, but the plot felt like it was solved by a deus ex machina. It's a shame, because the setting-- 1940 San Francisco-- is really unique, and there was an interesting idea here.
A Little Light Mischief by Cat Sebastian
Historical Romance, Novella
Rating: 4/5
Another f/f novella by an author who normally doesn't write f/f! I was pleasantly surprised by all the authors dipping their toes into the category this year, and I hope they keep returning.
In this case, I love anything that involves a heist, even as low-stakes as this one was, and I love a good reformed thief. And I love how attracted to each other the two leads were! It was a short read, but it was super fun.
The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite
Historical Romance
Rating: 5/5
I've raved about this book to everyone, because I absolutely love it. My most common point of comparison is to the Alpennia books. I'm not sure if that's exactly right, but those are closer than any others I can think of. Alpennia is fantasy, while The Lady's Guide is historical, and The Lady's Guide follows the structure of category romance more closely, but there's enough similarity in the characters and themes that I think fans of one will be fans of the other.
Not only was I pleasantly surprised by the themes of women pioneers in science and women working to support each other in male-dominated fields, I also loved that the book acknowledged that embroidery and other crafts are art, and took those just as seriously as it took the science. And besides both of those things, it neatly avoided the third-act breakup! That's always my least favorite part of any romance, and this book swerved around it completely.
Young Adult
Hot Dog Girl by Jennifer Dugan
YA Contemporary Romance
Rating: 3/5
A fake dating summer romance set at an amusement park! That's the blurb that got me to pick up this book, and, as a fan of fake dating, my hopes were pretty high. Unfortunately, I'm not sure it ever really lived up to the premise. The reasons for fake dating were pretty shaky, and by the end of the book I found the main character pretty selfish and unlikable. Maybe I would have liked this better if I were the target audience.
Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee
YA Science Fiction
Rating: 3/5
I was kind of disappointed at first- it was all very paint-by-numbers for the first half of the book, but I persevered because the worldbuilding and characters were fun. But a few things in the plot finally developed and took me by surprise, and I'm kind of looking forward to the sequels, even though they're not f/f (still queer though).
The Afterward by E.K. Johnston
YA Fantasy Romance
Rating: 5/5
I've raved about E.K. Johnston's other works elsewhere, both her tie-ins and her original works, so I don't think it's any surprise that I loved this book. I found a few passages a little jarring, but the overall story was great. It begins after the Life-Changing Magical Quest has already ended, and two young women who fell in love on the quest have been separated again by their social class. We see glimpses of what happened on the quest-- mostly through the lens of their relationship with each other and with the others-- as they discover who and what they want to be in their new lives. It's not a plot I've really seen done before, and it's written and structured in such a way that I couldn't put it down. If you like YA at all, I absolutely recommend it.
Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan
YA Fantasy
Rating: 5/5
I wasn't expecting that much from Girls of Paper and Fire, given that it's a James Patterson Presents novel (not by him, but by his brand). And it's definitely not the highest quality book I've read this year. I also wasn't sure how it would handle the themes of sexual assault that are inherent in the premise (the "paper girls" in the title are low-caste girls taken to be part of the king's harem). I'm sure if you cared to pull apart the worldbuilding in the book, it would be easy to do. But the emotional spark was there, and it made me keep reading, and it handled the issues of sexual assault without being gratuitous (IMO).
That's a lot of caveats, and a lot of talking about what the book wasn't, but I genuinely liked this book. I loved the main character, I loved her relationships with the other paper girls and with her family. I loved the real concerns she had between solidarity with others in her caste and what it would mean to rebel against the palace. And at every turn, the threat to Lei felt very real and very present, despite the fact that I knew this was the first book in a trilogy.
Wilder Girls by Rory Power
YA Horror
Rating: 3/5
I'm not a huge fan of horror, and especially not of body horror, but the premise here-- a girls' boarding school under quarantine for a mysterious disease that causes the girls' bodies to change under their very eyes-- seemed interesting. And I really loved the first 75-80% of this book! The prose is gorgeous, the characters are interesting, and the relationships are complex and fascinating. The setting became a character in its own right, telling a story about how long it had been since the Tox began and how many things had changed since school as "usual". But the last part of the book fell flat. Things felt rushed, and there were several resolutions that felt particularly unsatisfying-- and other things that felt completely unresolved.
Shatter the Sky by Rebecca Kim Wells
YA Fantasy
Rating: 3/5
The more I think about this book, the less I like it. From my Goodreads:
So I liked this book in general (Maren was great, the world was interesting, the dragons were AMAZING, but I'm kind of meh about the love triangle aspects. Especially given that the third leg of the love triangle was a dude.
I still enjoyed it enough to give it 4 stars, but I do wish that the subplot with Sev had been better signposted on the blurb, rather than making me think I was getting a straightforward f/f fantasy and then throwing m/f romance at me in the middle.
Edit 10/1/19: I'm downgrading this to 3 stars, mostly because I can't stop thinking about this love triangle and it REALLY bothers me the more I think about it. There was a lot about this book that I did enjoy! But I can't rec this without caveats.
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Overall, 2019 was a good year for reading f/f! I'm planning on doing this for 2020 as well, and I'm hoping to actually post it on time, then. <3
