I really enjoyed Angelina Lopez’ Filthy Rich series, starting with Lush Money. She captured that soap opera decadence of jet setting billionaires and royalty while keeping her stories grounded in relatable emotion and centering the books on strong Hispanic women. With her Milagro Street series, she is focused on regular everyday-ish people rather than billionaires and royalty. The smaller scale feels more emotionally powerful. Lopez has said that in writing about the Mexican-American communities of Southeastern Kansas, that she is telling the stories of her heart. I could see it in After Hours on Milagro Street, but it’s even stronger in Full Moon Over Freedom.
Gillian Armstead-Bancroft thought she was living up to the title Pride of the East Side when she got her masters in finance and married into a wealthy white east coast family. Now she’s back in Freedom with her kids and living in her parent’s house. She’s divorced, trying to get a job and protect her family’s bar, Loretta’s, from her grasping ex-husband. She feels like a failure. She wants to protect herself from questions and judgement and her kids from their father’s disapproval. She’s also a witch, a practicing bruja whose spells and prayers aren’t working. Is she cursed?
While driving down a highway outside Freedom, she almost runs over Nicky, her childhood friend and first lover. She wants him to help her break the curse, get her powers back and be a bad girl for once. Gillian is the last person Nicky wants to see, but now that he has, he isn’t following through on his plan to leave Freedom. Instead he agrees to paint a mural in the old train station turned cultural center (read After Hours on Milagro Street) while Gillian will be working in the same building writing a grant proposal. The both plan to leave at the end of the summer, but we know they are lying to themselves about their desire to put Freedom in the rearview mirror. Gillian has spent a lot of her life deceiving herself, and Nicky spends a lot of the book lying to himself and Gillian.
Nicky is a fascinating character. He is Lopez’s first Mexican American male love interest. I loved him. He’s carrying an enormous weight of grief, but at the same time he’s so comfortable with himself and dialed in to the East Side community. As Gillian gets better at standing up for herself and her children, she also won’t let Nicky put her on a pedestal. They have such a lovely dynamic.
Gillian and Nicky have both, in their own ways, had power taken from them and abdicated it themselves. As they make their way back to each other, they have to reckon with the pieces of themselves they’ve abandoned or given away in the name of peace. Gillian also has to take back the parts of herself she lost in her marriage. I love it when romance explores the difference between what we are taught a happily ever looks like and how to find a happily ever after that fits the people we are instead of who we think we are supposed to be.
Angelina M. Lopez started off strong and gets better with every book. I love that she fully embraces the small town witch romance with Full Moon Over Freedom. Being a witch is just one more thing Gillian’s ex-husband didn’t notice. I can’t wait to find out what magic the third sister brings.
CW: Ex-husband is verbally, emotionally, and financially abusive on page and off page. Racism and internalized racism. Drug and alcohol addiction discussed. Death of sibling from overdose. Parental neglect. Animal attack in past. Historical research into a Mexican American woman who had her child and business stolen by her rich white husband. La Llarona and cadejo appearances.
I received this as an advance reader copy from Harlequin and NetGalley. My opinions are my own, freely and honestly given.