A Shore Thing Review

By Joanna Lowell

Star rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Spice rating: 🌶️🌶️🌶️

Audiobook rating: 🎧🎧🎧🎧

Blurb

 A delightful queer Victorian love story, featuring a boldly brash trans hero, the beguiling botanist who captures his heart, and a buoyant bicycle race by the British seaside -- from the author of The Duke Undone.

Former painter and unreformed rake Kit Griffith is forging a new life in Cornwall, choosing freedom over an identity that didn't fit. He knew that leaving his Sisterhood of women artists might mean forfeiting artistic community forever. He didn't realize he would lose his ability to paint altogether. Luckily, he has other talents. Why not devote himself to selling bicycles and trysting with the holidaymakers?

Enter Muriel Pendrake, the feisty New-York-bound botanist who has come to St. Ives to commission Kit for illustrations of British seaweeds. Kit shouldn't accept Muriel's offer, but he must enlist her help to prove to an all-male cycling club that women can ride as well as men. And she won't agree unless he gives her what she wants. Maybe that's exactly the challenge he needs.

As Kit and Muriel spend their days cycling together, their desire begins to burn with the heat of the summer sun. But are they pedaling toward something impossible? The past is bound to catch up to them, and at the season's end, their paths will diverge. With only their hearts as guides, Kit and Muriel must decide if they're willing to race into the unknown for the adventure of a lifetime.

Category: Historical Romance

 

Read if you Like:

🚲 Trans rep

🚲 Forced proximity

🚲 Friends with benefits

🚲 Road trip romance

🚲 Handling sexism

My Thoughts:

A Shore Thing is a beautifully written exploration of gender and what it meant not to fit into Victorian society. I loved how much care Joanna Lowell put into this story and Kitt's character. I learned a lot about what it might have been like to be trans-gender in a historical setting.

Muriel and Kitt have had very different life experiences, but they both understand what it feels like to not fit in. Muriel is a botanist who has to fight for her work to get recognition because of her sex. These experiences make her more open-minded and able to listen to Kitt's experiences and not judge.

I also really enjoyed reading about the bicycle race and the freedom a bicycle could provide for a woman at the time. I appreciated that Kitt saw that and helped woman learn to ride.

If you like a historical romance I highly recommend this one! It's also for fans of queer history and a road trip romance.

I listened to the audio of this book and Ros Watt did the narration and I enjoyed it. They are a new to me narrator. For people like me who prefer a consistent narrator throughout connected books, this is a switch as Joanna Well's earlier books were read by Mary Jane Wells.

Thanks to PRH audio and Berkley romance for providing me with an ARC. All opinions are my own.