I’m usually careful not to read and listen simultaneously to two stories with the same tropes but my life has been a little chaotic lately (some of it chaotic good, no worries), and I ended up reading this novella as I was finishing the audiobook for Clare Ashton’s Meeting Millie. Both are about best friends secretly in love with each other (“A terrible thing to be in love with your best friend”), but they’re different enough that no confusion happened in my brain.

Amelia and Hadley have been friends since they were 8, when Amelia’s family moved next door to Hadley’s. For Hadley, it was love at first sight, it took a little longer for Amelia. When we meet them both, they’re in their mid-thirties, Amelia is about to open the wine shop of her dreams and Hadley gave up on traveling the world to be by her side. They’ve been pining for each other for years, both wary of losing their best friend if they said anything, but recently, something changed in their interactions and they seem ready for the next step.

I liked both characters very much, even though it took me a little while to get an idea of how old they were. I’m still not sure what Amelia looks like and their voices are at times a little too similar, but I enjoyed the journey. I especially appreciated the sensitivity with which the author wrote Amelia’s fibromyalgia and Hadley’s attentiveness, tender and caring without being overwhelming.

As far as I can tell, Always There For You is Halli Starling’s first sapphic romance, but I think there’s another one coming out next year. I look forward to it. 3.5⭐️

Read Always There For You:

Bookshop.org

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