I never wanted this audiobook to end, it made me so happy, at once cosy, fun, challenging, hot. It’s just as good as the Grace Notes series, which I loved, and also pretty different. To begin with, it’s set in a small town in Australia. I loved everything about that, including all the petty aspects of small towns, the gossip, the contempt, the judging, all sadly relatable but also props for a very satisfying ending. The Queensland setting also means my ears had to adjust to Katherine Littrell’s accent, but it didn’t take long, and the narration was excellent.
I, like, I think, everyone I know, fell in love with Ruby Landers‘s books from the first one I read. As a character-driven reader, I love that hers feel real and layered, that they have flaws and good hearts, some past trauma and the resilience to overcome it. Their journeys are heartbreaking then heartwarming, which is such a sweet feeling, the anguish of what they’ve gone through the best fuel to lift them towards a much brighter future. Ollie and Lara have known each other forever, grown up in the same place, learned with the same teachers, hated each other since high school, and gone through life so far in widely contrasting ways. As they meet again at thirty-five when Ollie reluctantly comes back to her hometown, the attraction is instant but as much as Ollie, who made her life far away, is willing to move past old quarrels, Lara is still smarting from them, still living the consequences of those years.
I’m not going to lie, I loved that Ribbonwood is super steamy (more on that in a second) but in the same way Lara falls for Ollie’s mix of sexy and sweet, I found Ollie striving to see Lara, to listen to her—to what she says and to what she doesn’t say—to hear her as almost no one has bothered to before absolutely beautiful, and in turn, witnessing Lara’s newfound trust and willingness to try was especially touching. There’s so much respect between the two of them, of each other as a person. And that respect makes the sex scenes and the power play—which I didn’t expect—so much fun and so very hot. I don’t know how Ruby Landers does it, these sequences are explicit without being graphic, the intimacy, the sensuality, the spice are conveyed through both characters’ emotions, and a lot of their growth happens then. It’s a perfect example of how sex can advance a story, something most of my favourite authors have in common.
Ruby Landers mixes tragedy and humour brilliantly and the banter between the MCs is enchanting. And as in the Grace Notes books, there’s a sort of found family, much less obvious, hidden underneath town secrets and reputations, but just as powerful.
Experience Ribbonwood:
Bookshop.org (paperback)
Allstora (paperback)
Amazon (audiobook – paperback – ebook)
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Jude in the Stars 