Rachel Lacey
Author of Read Between the Lines
About the Author
Image credit: via author's Facebook
Series
Works by Rachel Lacey
She'll Steal Your Heart: A Lesbian Romance (Midnight in Manhattan Book 4) (2022) 13 copies, 1 review
The Jingle Ball 2 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Gender
- female
- Agent
- Sarah Younger (Nancy Yost Literary Agency)
- Nationality
- USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- USA
Members
Reviews
ARC Review-
Dr. Audrey Lind is hired to take a temporary professor position at her Alma mater Northshire University, a dream she’s had since she graduated. While at Northshire, she realizes she’s now colleagues with the professor that caused her bi awakening, and the same professor that inspired her career path Dr. Michelle Thompson. Upon meeting again after years apart, Audrey finds that Michelle has taken on a prickly persona causing her to be unpopular with not only students but also show more her fellow colleagues. Be that as it may, Audrey is not dissuaded from becoming friends with Michelle and does everything in her power to make that happen. Michelle continues to be hardened until Audrey finally wears her down making the two become quite close and feelings begin to grow. This was my first memorable sapphic romance and I really enjoyed reading this one. The romance between the two MC’s was a grown-up type of love that I don’t encounter in many romances. I’m unsure of how to explain it other than it just felt like a mature relationship, and I was 100% here for it and cheering the two on the whole way. The maturity of it all felt refreshing and new. It could be attributed to the age of the MC’s which were in their 30s and 40s, but I think it was also the way the characters’ personalities were written. Either way I loved the story and the characters, who were seasoned with relatable life experiences. I also loved that the author wrote in a part about accessibility pertaining to a deaf student and another including a conversation about coming out. I thought these two topics in the story were the kinds of things that can trigger important conversations among those who read the book. Overall a well-written romance. I would recommend this book to any lovers of sapphic romance and those who enjoy romance between mature MCs. I look forward to reading more Rachel Lacey books in the future. 4.5 stars show less
Dr. Audrey Lind is hired to take a temporary professor position at her Alma mater Northshire University, a dream she’s had since she graduated. While at Northshire, she realizes she’s now colleagues with the professor that caused her bi awakening, and the same professor that inspired her career path Dr. Michelle Thompson. Upon meeting again after years apart, Audrey finds that Michelle has taken on a prickly persona causing her to be unpopular with not only students but also show more her fellow colleagues. Be that as it may, Audrey is not dissuaded from becoming friends with Michelle and does everything in her power to make that happen. Michelle continues to be hardened until Audrey finally wears her down making the two become quite close and feelings begin to grow. This was my first memorable sapphic romance and I really enjoyed reading this one. The romance between the two MC’s was a grown-up type of love that I don’t encounter in many romances. I’m unsure of how to explain it other than it just felt like a mature relationship, and I was 100% here for it and cheering the two on the whole way. The maturity of it all felt refreshing and new. It could be attributed to the age of the MC’s which were in their 30s and 40s, but I think it was also the way the characters’ personalities were written. Either way I loved the story and the characters, who were seasoned with relatable life experiences. I also loved that the author wrote in a part about accessibility pertaining to a deaf student and another including a conversation about coming out. I thought these two topics in the story were the kinds of things that can trigger important conversations among those who read the book. Overall a well-written romance. I would recommend this book to any lovers of sapphic romance and those who enjoy romance between mature MCs. I look forward to reading more Rachel Lacey books in the future. 4.5 stars show less
Note: book is available on Kindle Unlimited, and the audiobook is ALSO available on KU / audible for free
⭐️⭐️/5
🌶/4
Lia may be from the UK, but she's been living in NY and running a bookstore with her best friend Rosie for almost a decade. Her brother is getting married, and she may have forgotten to tell her mother that she broke up with the girlfriend her mother still think's is coming...
Grace is from NY and grew up with Rosie. After the death of her parents and a shocking show more revelation, she moved to Spain to spend time with her grandmother and she hasn't left Europe since. Now she's based in London and since she's also still Rosie's best friend, she agrees to do her a favor and pretends to be Lia's girlfriend for the weekend at the wedding.
Things should have ended there, but sparks fly and through some other twists of fate they end up on a road trip in the states. There are plenty of adventures and one-bed situations to keep things interesting at every turn, but see below for why this story didn't hit the mark for me. I liked Lia as a character and liked... parts of Grace. But there were just too many things that were problematic for me to really enjoy this one.
**Spoilers Ahead**
This should have been a cute, cartoon cover sapphic romance. There were 2 major things that knocked off stars for me, regardless of the character chemistry.
1) Grace and the fact that 95% of the drama in this book is caused by her making an assumption when she was 17 and going through a traumatic time... and then never asking anyone about it. Instead she lives with this incorrect assumption, hates the wrong people, and spends years in a dark place because of it. There is a passing mention of getting back into therapy.... in the epilogue... but DAMN. If there is ever an example of someone who desperately needed someone to talk to and get advice from.... it's Grace. Her refusal to actually learn the truth for... literally over a decade leads to SO MUCH emotional drama and a general roller coaster of events that could have been avoided if she just asked ANYONE in her family. So so dumb, it annoyed me the whole time.
2) The way the sexuality of these characters is addressed:
*Caveat - I am not on the Ace spectrum so these are just my observations comparing to some of the other literature I've read, so take all of this with a grain of salt.
Lia is bisexual and open about it. It's well established and not really questioned (other than by her ex who is... unfortunate and who her proper British parents hope she still ends up with. barf).
Grace on the other hand.... she's harder to pin down. In the beginning she is clearly coded as being somewhere under the Asexual umbrella, and there are a lot of classic dismissive ideas thrown at her like "oh you just haven't met the right girl" and "you can't possibly be happy on your own" etc etc. When expressing her disdain for these kinds of reactions, one of the earliest connections she has with Lia is the fact that Lia seems to actually understand and validate these feelings and respect them (regardless of her own growing attraction to Grace). There are mentions of her never having immediate attractions to people and needing to know them first. She doesn't express as never having sexual attraction, just very limited and only with people she's formed a bond with, so to me that reads as demisexual and there are SO many signs for that in the book, especially as her connection to Lia grows and her sexual desires do manifest.
Where it gets a bit more gray is when the idea of family trauma gets brought into it. Grace's parents died in a horrible car accident, her mom died before she could even get to the hospital and as her dad was fighting for his life, through trying to offer him her blood for a transfusion... she finds out they don't match and that he isn't her biological father... and she never knew. While there are so many possible reasons for this, Grace takes the worst possible assumption (that her mom was unfaithful and that her entire happy childhood was somehow a lie?) and runs with that. Never asks her family if, oh I don't know... her parents maybe had fertility issues? The whole thing was dumb and drawn out (see part 1).
The key reason why this is an issue related to her sexuality is that there are some connections made between her relationship choices and her feeling of betrayal and negative reaction to the "I'm not your father" revelation. In essence, she shut down emotionally for over 5 years after a bad breakup and didn't feel connected to anyone close enough to get intimae with them, so she just didn't have any sexual relations at all because she wasn't in a relationship. If read one way, that tracks completely with being demisexual. She wasn't getting close enough emotionally to anyone, so she didn't have meaningless sexual relations because that's not how her sexuality works. However the implication was made more than once that it was just her emotional trauma that caused that pause in dating... not ALSO her sexuality.
It's a fine line, but this seemed like a situation that should be a both/and, not a pick one. The emotional trauma could be the reason she didn't trust emotional connection... but part of the reason she was ok with not having sex with random strangers/ one-night stands was ALSO becasue that never appeals to her anyway and so it seemed like less of an issue to just... not have sexual relations at all.
**Final Thoughts**
This should have been a fun fake dating, opposites attract, Sapphic cartoon cover romance. Instead the author chose to once again (see my review of the first book in this duet) make internal miscommunication the main trope. All of the issues in this book stem from the main character telling herself an incorrect assumption and never taking the time to find out the truth, and then letting that poison every aspect of her life. I'm also not a fan of how there was such potential for a demisexual person to have rep... and then their sexuality seems to be invalidated in multiple spots. Overall this is just a no from me. show less
⭐️⭐️/5
🌶/4
Lia may be from the UK, but she's been living in NY and running a bookstore with her best friend Rosie for almost a decade. Her brother is getting married, and she may have forgotten to tell her mother that she broke up with the girlfriend her mother still think's is coming...
Grace is from NY and grew up with Rosie. After the death of her parents and a shocking show more revelation, she moved to Spain to spend time with her grandmother and she hasn't left Europe since. Now she's based in London and since she's also still Rosie's best friend, she agrees to do her a favor and pretends to be Lia's girlfriend for the weekend at the wedding.
Things should have ended there, but sparks fly and through some other twists of fate they end up on a road trip in the states. There are plenty of adventures and one-bed situations to keep things interesting at every turn, but see below for why this story didn't hit the mark for me. I liked Lia as a character and liked... parts of Grace. But there were just too many things that were problematic for me to really enjoy this one.
**Spoilers Ahead**
This should have been a cute, cartoon cover sapphic romance. There were 2 major things that knocked off stars for me, regardless of the character chemistry.
1) Grace and the fact that 95% of the drama in this book is caused by her making an assumption when she was 17 and going through a traumatic time... and then never asking anyone about it. Instead she lives with this incorrect assumption, hates the wrong people, and spends years in a dark place because of it. There is a passing mention of getting back into therapy.... in the epilogue... but DAMN. If there is ever an example of someone who desperately needed someone to talk to and get advice from.... it's Grace. Her refusal to actually learn the truth for... literally over a decade leads to SO MUCH emotional drama and a general roller coaster of events that could have been avoided if she just asked ANYONE in her family. So so dumb, it annoyed me the whole time.
2) The way the sexuality of these characters is addressed:
*Caveat - I am not on the Ace spectrum so these are just my observations comparing to some of the other literature I've read, so take all of this with a grain of salt.
Lia is bisexual and open about it. It's well established and not really questioned (other than by her ex who is... unfortunate and who her proper British parents hope she still ends up with. barf).
Grace on the other hand.... she's harder to pin down. In the beginning she is clearly coded as being somewhere under the Asexual umbrella, and there are a lot of classic dismissive ideas thrown at her like "oh you just haven't met the right girl" and "you can't possibly be happy on your own" etc etc. When expressing her disdain for these kinds of reactions, one of the earliest connections she has with Lia is the fact that Lia seems to actually understand and validate these feelings and respect them (regardless of her own growing attraction to Grace). There are mentions of her never having immediate attractions to people and needing to know them first. She doesn't express as never having sexual attraction, just very limited and only with people she's formed a bond with, so to me that reads as demisexual and there are SO many signs for that in the book, especially as her connection to Lia grows and her sexual desires do manifest.
Where it gets a bit more gray is when the idea of family trauma gets brought into it. Grace's parents died in a horrible car accident, her mom died before she could even get to the hospital and as her dad was fighting for his life, through trying to offer him her blood for a transfusion... she finds out they don't match and that he isn't her biological father... and she never knew. While there are so many possible reasons for this, Grace takes the worst possible assumption (that her mom was unfaithful and that her entire happy childhood was somehow a lie?) and runs with that. Never asks her family if, oh I don't know... her parents maybe had fertility issues? The whole thing was dumb and drawn out (see part 1).
The key reason why this is an issue related to her sexuality is that there are some connections made between her relationship choices and her feeling of betrayal and negative reaction to the "I'm not your father" revelation. In essence, she shut down emotionally for over 5 years after a bad breakup and didn't feel connected to anyone close enough to get intimae with them, so she just didn't have any sexual relations at all because she wasn't in a relationship. If read one way, that tracks completely with being demisexual. She wasn't getting close enough emotionally to anyone, so she didn't have meaningless sexual relations because that's not how her sexuality works. However the implication was made more than once that it was just her emotional trauma that caused that pause in dating... not ALSO her sexuality.
It's a fine line, but this seemed like a situation that should be a both/and, not a pick one. The emotional trauma could be the reason she didn't trust emotional connection... but part of the reason she was ok with not having sex with random strangers/ one-night stands was ALSO becasue that never appeals to her anyway and so it seemed like less of an issue to just... not have sexual relations at all.
**Final Thoughts**
This should have been a fun fake dating, opposites attract, Sapphic cartoon cover romance. Instead the author chose to once again (see my review of the first book in this duet) make internal miscommunication the main trope. All of the issues in this book stem from the main character telling herself an incorrect assumption and never taking the time to find out the truth, and then letting that poison every aspect of her life. I'm also not a fan of how there was such potential for a demisexual person to have rep... and then their sexuality seems to be invalidated in multiple spots. Overall this is just a no from me. show less
ETA: audiobook re-read, March 2023.
JUST AS LOVELY IF NOT MORE SO.
~~~~~~
Oh I loved this nearly as much as book one. My theatre kid heart was delighted to have the backdrop and setting be broadway and the theatre. I miss it, and this absolutely captured a lot of what I used to love about performing. Both MCs were really likable and easy to root for, but Jules really stole my heart. I was a little surprised at how often Sophie was jealous of Jules kissing Micki for the show however, as a show more fellow actress, it seemed a bit strange that she was so hung up on a really normal part of their job, and occasionally some of her insecurities (while understandable wrt: her ex) slightly rubbed me the wrong way after a while. Not to the detriment of the book or her character or anything, it all absolutely fit the narrative, just made me more attracted to Jules between the two of them. Overall though, The dynamic was great and their chemistry was pretty spectacular from the get go, and I loved the sort of slow back and forth to them figuring their stuff out.
Seeing the glimpses of Josie and Eve from book one was also really lovely.
Def rec and absolutely on to the next one. I really can’t wait to re-read this one when it comes out on audiobook soon. show less
JUST AS LOVELY IF NOT MORE SO.
~~~~~~
Oh I loved this nearly as much as book one. My theatre kid heart was delighted to have the backdrop and setting be broadway and the theatre. I miss it, and this absolutely captured a lot of what I used to love about performing. Both MCs were really likable and easy to root for, but Jules really stole my heart. I was a little surprised at how often Sophie was jealous of Jules kissing Micki for the show however, as a show more fellow actress, it seemed a bit strange that she was so hung up on a really normal part of their job, and occasionally some of her insecurities (while understandable wrt: her ex) slightly rubbed me the wrong way after a while. Not to the detriment of the book or her character or anything, it all absolutely fit the narrative, just made me more attracted to Jules between the two of them. Overall though, The dynamic was great and their chemistry was pretty spectacular from the get go, and I loved the sort of slow back and forth to them figuring their stuff out.
Seeing the glimpses of Josie and Eve from book one was also really lovely.
Def rec and absolutely on to the next one. I really can’t wait to re-read this one when it comes out on audiobook soon. show less
I got this in the mail this morning…. and spent most of today reading it on my porch in the sunshine. It was super cute. I had a lot of fun with the first one (first time reading anything by this author, and first time wining a book in a giveaway!) so the fondness was happily poured over into this one. I liked Lia as a side character in the first book a lot, and I only fell more in love with her here. Grace was also a total sweetheart (if a bit of a mess) and their chemistry was apparent show more right from the get go. The ending felt juuuuust slightly rushed to me? But I also was thinking about it, and I’m not really sure what sort of scenes I’d want to see in between? So maybe not? Maybe I just wanted more of them. All in all, this was very fun and such a pretty cover, I love so much when romance novels don’t have weird stock photos of women on their covers and get creative and pretty instead. Def rec this! show less
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- Works
- 37
- Members
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- Rating
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