KC Richardson

I'm gonna start with something that most people probably couldn't care about, but, I do. Northeastern isn't in 'Central Boston'. I mean, maybe technically it's in the center of the city or whatever, I've never looked at a map that close. But, it's in the Back Bay. And, yes, Fenway is also in the Back Bay, but, so is the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (it's famous, got some things stolen from it), the Museum of Fine Arts too, as well as so so so so many other college campuses. Also, another small thing that annoyed me, Lobster Rolls, that's more a Maine thing than a Massachusetts thing.

The story itself is about Lisa, a woman's basketball coach and Celeste, an English Professor. They both work at the same University, and come into contact when one of Lisa's players is having a hard time in Celeste's class.

Unfortunately I liked very little of the novel. Lisa is a jerk for some of the story, and I hated how Celeste was written for all of the story. A lot of the dialogue and some of the descriptions were very stilted too. And then there was how all the characters were written. It was so so off. Celeste and Lisa were supposed to be in their 40s, Lisa was written like a teen and Celeste like maybe a 20 year old? Emily, a student who was supposed to be 19 or so, was written even younger, like a 10 year old. It was all so weird. And there was just so, so, so much telling and so little showing in the narrative too.

I hate giving one star to books, especially to lesfic, but, this. Ouch.

I was given this ARC by Netgalley on behalf of Bold Strokes Books.… (mehr)

I wish I could give this more stars. I'm generally a fan of the whole 'relative (either known or unknown) leaves lesbian/bi/etc. woman some sort of property and this woman falls in love while clearing it out' trope. It's usually fun and brings together different sorts of characters in interesting ways. I think that this book could have really hit it out of the park, but instead it sorta hit a dribbling sing through the infield instead.

It's the story of Sydney and Abby. Sydney is the one whose grandmother dies and leaves Syd her farmhouse. It's next door to Abby and her grandmother's farm. They meet and slowly get closer. But there's a problem, Syd's life is most definitely in Chicago and Abby's is in Iowa. So, there's the tension in their relationship from that.

One of my biggest problems was with the pacing and how a lot of it seemed very choppy. I found myself getting pulled from the narrative a lot. In a smaller way I would have loved to see some of the plot points that were sorta glossed over expanded a bit. There was some seriously juicy stuff in there that was just sorta spoken and moved on from.

It was an interesting plot, I just did not really enjoy reading it.

I received this book via Netgalley thanks to Bold Strokes Books.… (mehr)

I thought this was a pretty typical lesbian romance. Well plotted and written, but there weren't a ton of twists and turns that were stunners to me.

It was the story of Jordan and Kirsten. Jordan is a playgirl extraordinaire. One night stands here forte (and I liked how Richardson didn't make them hurtful one night stands, very adult ones). She's also a Physical Therapist.

Kirsten is going through a very bumpy part of her marriage to a guy (John) and is an HR exec. She formally meets Jordan first at her best friend Brenda's basketball game. But they really get to know each other when Jordan happens to be Kirsten's PT for an injury and they get very close. But after Kirsten's PT is done and they can be more than patient and healer, the question becomes, can they both get over their hang ups to find happiness?

What I liked most about the story was the characters. The two main characters were so well drawn, and the secondary characters were different and unique as well. I also found that I wanted to know more about the two best friends of Jordan and Kirsten, Alex and Brenda respectively. More books? (What can I say, I really like serieses, especially by good authors, it's an addiction).

I got this advanced galley through Netgalley on behalf of Bold Strokes Books.… (mehr)