Title: Delilah Green Doesn't Care (Bright Falls #1)
Author: Ashley Herring Blake
Publication Date: 22 Feb 2022
Genres: Small town f/f romance
My rating: 4 Stars
Blurb
Delilah Green swore she would never go back to Bright Falls—nothing is there for her but memories of a lonely childhood where she was little more than a burden to her cold and distant stepfamily. Her life is in New York, with her photography career finally gaining steam and her bed never empty. Sure, it’s a different woman every night, but that’s just fine with her.
When Delilah’s estranged stepsister, Astrid, pressures her into photographing her wedding with a guilt trip and a five-figure check, Delilah finds herself back in the godforsaken town that she used to call home. She plans to breeze in and out, but then she sees Claire Sutherland, one of Astrid’s stuck-up besties, and decides that maybe there’s some fun (and a little retribution) to be had in Bright Falls, after all.
Having raised her eleven-year-old daughter mostly on her own while dealing with her unreliable ex and running a bookstore, Claire Sutherland depends upon a life without surprises. And Delilah Green is an unwelcome surprise…at first. Though they’ve known each other for years, they don’t really know each other—so Claire is unsettled when Delilah figures out exactly what buttons to push. When they’re forced together during a gauntlet of wedding preparations—including a plot to save Astrid from her horrible fiancé—Claire isn’t sure she has the strength to resist Delilah’s charms. Even worse, she’s starting to think she doesn’t want to…
Review
This is a debut f/f romcom by Ashley Herring Blake and I had so much with it. It's both hilarious and light-hearted while also dealing with some serious issues. It is very queer, focused a lot on finding one's place and one's community as a queer person, focus on identity and the longing to belong somewhere with someone.
I like the story's take on the city girl returning to her small hometown and finding love trope. Delilah, the big city girl in question, is not quite as successful as she wanted to be and not everyone back home is the enemy she made them to be in her mind. The love she finds back in her hometown, Claire, is gorgeous and caring but has a bunch of issues she needs to take care of.
They start casual, making no promises, acting out on the physical attraction between them. I loved their romance - tender and sexy, moving from this is just casual sex to oops, we caught feelings and don't know what to do about them. Claire and Delilah are opposites, some grumpy / sunshine dynamic. Loved the realness of their relationship. I appreciate the complexity of Claire's - raising her daughter very much on her own, her fraught relationship with her ex. I have to mention that despite some missteps, Josh was not presented as the evil ex as we so often see in romance.
Delilah was such an amazing character. Her longing to be loved was almost palpable, her sense of loss and loneliness were heart-breaking. She carried so much rejection and fear to open up to someone unless they hurt her again. She deserved the world (and got it in the end!).
The story focuses a lot on past wounds and family relations. There is a lot of hurt there, both present and past but the reconciliation between the step-sisters rang real to me - there is no easy solution, it takes efforts, slow and gradual change from both sides.
We also get an interesting female friendship. I like the support and sense of loyalty but was also confused why Claire and Iris couldn't speak up about their dislike of Spencer sooner. The appearance of Delilah acted like a catalyst both for Claire and Iris and for Astrid to face some hard truths.
My minor quibbles concern the shenanigans at the camp which I found juvenile and silly. I was also unpleasantly surprised how one-dimensional the villains, Spencer and Delilah's stepmother, felt to me. They struck me as really poorly developed characters especially in comparison with how real and vibrant the rest of the characters were.
That said, this is an overall fantastic romcom, celebrating found families and queer joy.
CW: death of parents (in the past), family neglect (in the past), cheating (in the past)
