At Last It's You

1962, Connecticut and California. Lee Grant owns a subversive bookstore in Berkeley, CA, and has a life she's built carefully just out of view of the authorities. While caring for her mother in Connecticut, she runs into her dearest high school friend, Alice, who broke her heart by marrying a man. Alice is divorced now - her ex-husband, also queer, has moved to San Francisco - and grappling with her identity and sexuality. Lee has never gotten over Alice, but knows it will take patience to help Alice feel comfortable embracing a life wildly different from that of a suburban Connecticut housewife. At Last It's You is a lovely, melancholic debut queer romance set against the politically turbulent backdrop of the early 60s. Lee is a butch lesbian who understands the risks she runs by being carefully out, praying she doesn't get caught in a raid at a lesbian bar or that quietly paying off the cops will keep her bookstore safe. Alice suffers from "hysteria" - an acute anxiety over her sexuality. She worries about raising her young son the "right" way, protecting him from the deviance of both his parents. Lee must slowly help Alice unwind from this way of thinking in order to reach their happily ever after. I refer to this as melancholic, served alongside a healthy dose of pining and angst. The era Marston has chosen is an incredibly different one, because queer relationships were more often hidden from the light of day. Both Lee and Alice struggle for acceptance by family…

A second chance romance set in the mid-century, this sapphic love story is a wonderful debut romance novel. It’s angsty, steamy and a carefully told story of two people facing themselves and the real world. I loved reading this story of two people finding their way not only to each other but to themselves too. Alice and Lee are lesbians in 1960s America. They are both white women from Connecticut, Lee moved to Berkeley, CA, where she owns a bookstore with her friend Johnnie. Alice has a little boy and her ex-husband moved to San Francisco. While Lee has been able to accept herself and live as she (mostly) wishes away from her conservative origins, Alice hasn’t quite come to terms with all that’s inside her. She tries to balance the reality of being a divorcee in the early 60s in the suburbs, a single mom to a sweet 6-year old, and her renewed attraction to Lee. Lovers during high school, the two women reconnect in their adulthood and they can no longer pretend they haven’t been thinking solely of the other this whole time. But how can they make things work when there’s so much in the way? Marianne develops each character at their own speed, allowing them to make mistakes, to learn and grow, never shying away from the real world pressures and circumstances that would have been felt at the time. The author weaves in this particular time period very well with her characters’ stories, creating a rich world around them and a very real sense of being. I can picture Alice and Lee…