Joanna Lowell

Books: Romance | Historical | Queer

A Shore Thing (2024)

Set in Cornwall in 1888

Mrs. Muriel Pendrake has come to St Ives with her best friend James both to vacation and to find a painter for her botanical images for her upcoming presentation in New York.

“You have enough people to worry about in London. This is a holiday. No operating on the fishermen.”

“Your trunk is stuffed with microscopes, chisels, and pickle jars. And you’re sniping at me because I brought my surgical bag. The hypocrisy.”

Kit Griffith came to St Ives to make his way as a painter and to live on his own terms.

When he’d first slipped out of his parents’ house at fifteen, in clothing filched from his middle brother’s wardrobe, he’d anticipated ecstatic freedom from men’s gazes.

On the street, in the Burlington Arcade, everywhere, he was shocked to discover more clinging eyes. He soon learned that he was seen not as a boyish girl but as a girlish boy.

After a falling out with his best friend, he can no longer paint, so his life revolves around his bicycle shop.

An argument with another cyclist over the popularity of the new Safety Bicycles (which can be ridden by women) leads to a bet: Can Kit find a woman able to make the entire tour around Cornwall on a safety bicycle.

As the ferry churned out of the shipyard into open water, he and Deighton went tit for tat with bicycle specifications, listing increasingly technical details in increasingly loud voices to an increasingly bored crowd.

I particularly enjoyed the tour and various interactions with the Cycling Club–particularly Egg and Prescott.

When they overuse their brains, it depletes a certain other organ.”

“Hair?” guessed Egg.

“Hair isn’t an organ,” said Prescott.

“Then why does thinking too much make you bald?” asked Egg.

But what I liked best was the friendship between Muriel and James.

They’re extremely reliable. Also, they’re quick. Quick to grow, I mean. Relatively speaking.”

James was nodding along. “Brilliant.” His lips twitched. “Now can I say upsy-daisy when you topple over?”

“I can’t see how you’ll refrain.”

The story is full of queer rep, from Kit and James to the Sapphic clubs Kit knows from him time in London.

It’s all full of reminders of the many limitations placed upon women and the dangerous of being queer.

“No,” she attempted. “I am more worried, and you are, therefore, less worried. It’s the rule.”

“A rule that depends on there being a fixed amount of worry. But worry isn’t six apples, where you take four, so I have two.”

“We are sharing the worry.” She spoke with firmness, rising and crossing to the chaise. “That’s what’s important. Move over.”

The author also notes she has tried to put as much of her and her husband’s lived experience into Kit and Muriel’s story as possible.

There was boinking in this story, but I had no trouble skimming those parts without feeling like I was missing important details or character development.

Characters: Kit Griffith, Mrs. Muriel Pendrake, James Raleigh, Thomas Everett Ponson, Mr. Trevaskis, Mr. Bamfylde, Colin Deighton, Lucy Coover, Gwen, Nelly, Johannes Bernhard, Arthur Hawkings, Shigeki Takada, Mrs. Glanvil, Grace Swanwick, Charlotte Tempest-Smythe, Miranda Ellis, Annie Groombridge, Octavia Jenkins, Amelia Clarkson, Mrs. Dorothea Yarrow, Lady Henrietta Chettam, Mrs. Oatridge, Eva Bamfylde, Wilmot Curnow, Johan Gustav Svensson, Mrs. Pengilly, Charles Heywood

Cover art by Katie Smith

Publisher: Berkley Romance

Rating: 8/10