Ashley Herring Blake

Books: Romance | Queer

Bright Falls: Delilah Green Doesn't Care (2022)

Bright Falls

Delilah Green Doesn't Care (2022)

Delilah left Bright Falls and said she would never look back. But although her photography is slowly taking off, she can't turn down a (well-paid) request to spend two weeks photographing her step-sister's wedding.

It was a reflex, this feeling, left over from a childhood with two dead parents and a stepmother who never really wanted her in the first place.

Claire remained in Bright Falls–raising an unexpected daughter with an unreliable boyfriend–and then unreliable co-parent. But Josh is once again back and wanting to be part of Ruby's life, and Claire has to deal with that–on top of her best-friend's wedding.

She wasn't sure what she was supposed to say to all this. Did he want a medal for performing basic parenting duties and pressing a button on the stove? After years of disappearing, staying gone for months, and barely even calling once a week, all in the name of I'm not good for anyone right now?

And that wedding is looking to be something, because her best friend's fiance is awful.

"Do you know a good lawyer?" Iris asked.

"What?" Claire said, watching Astrid's form disappear up the porch steps.

"A lawyer. Preferably criminal law," Iris said.

"Oh Jesus," said Grant, who'd hovered off to the side as they'd talked to Astrid but now slung his arm around Iris's shoulder.

Claire turned to her friend. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Iris gritted her teeth. "I'm talking about how I'm going to need a really damn good lawyer in about two point four seconds, because I'm going to murder that shit boot." She waved her glass toward Spencer, who was chatting with his friends, teeth shining in the dark.

I absolutely adored the terms Iris came up with for Spenser.

"No, Iris is right. He was a total shit boot."

"And a shit belt, a shit sock, a shit shirt, a shit—"

I also liked how extremely complicated Astrid and Delilah's relationship was–though I did have a couple of questions. Did Delilah's father leave no provisions for her in his will? Isabel seems to have pots of money, but wasn't some of that from Delilah's father? Shouldn't Delilah have been left something?

So what was my problem with this story? Primarily it was that there was a lot of boinking and thoughts about physical attributes that were never going to work for me (it's not the book, it really is me) and I think I missed a couple of important lines of conversation in doing so.

So it was a very good story, and I wanted things to work out for the characters, but it really wasn't for me.

But another plus–I adore this cover.

Publisher: Berkley

Rating: 6.5/10