CWs, copied from the author: all the misogyny, all the homophobia, and a car accident death (offscreen, but discussed often) and also abortion/a miscarriage.
I respect Dahlia Adler because while many authors have a tendency to write their romantic leads into a difficult situation (looking at you, innumerable romance novelists and also Linda Holmes), Adler has the guts to keep them there and not give them the “easy out.”
In this case, the “star” quarterback of a middling-to-bad Texas football team dies in a car accident to the shock of the small town. His replacement, Jack Walsh, surprises everyone by being (gasp) a ciswoman! With arms for days and a super accurate spiral(?) (what is sports). While the town immediately bands together against Jack, our other protagonist Amber is stuck in the middle. She’s queer, but very much in the closet for the broader public, and in a happy violent relationship with Marcus, also queer, who had been being blackmailed by the former quarterback. Add to this Amber’s best friend, Cara, who is the daughter of the local fire and brimstone preacher type, and definitely homophobic as well.
You know, it’s a lot when I explain it that way, and honestly I feel like that’s par for the course for Adler (having read…two of her books). The situation is terrible–think all the football town clichés in one–except that we have this warm queer center that we can jump into every so often.
Everyone has their demons to deal with in this book, and for the most part they get the time and energy to do so. And since there’s no real happily ever after solution to rampant, deep seated homophobia and misogyny, you know that we’re not going to end up in Schitt’s Creek. While some of the third arc romantic Big Gestures made me roll my eyes a bit, I can appreciate what they meant for the story ([character] needed to apologize in a bit way to [other character]) and enjoyed this all around.
