Embracing the Moon by Jeannie Levig

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The details…

  • Title: Embracing the Moon
  • Author: Jeannie Levig
  • Publisher: Bold Strokes Books 
  • Publication date: June 14, 2022
  • Available formats: ebook, paperback 
  • File size: 1453 KB
  • Print length: 369 pages
  • Genre: romance 
  • Themes: car crash, amnesia, overcoming physical trauma, opening oneself to love, friendships, overcoming the past, women loving women, queer romance 
  • Tropes: best friends to lovers, age gap

The blurb from the publisher…

Gwen Jamison has been attracted to her best friend Taylor for years but has kept her feelings masked as friendship. Left behind by her mother at age nine, then by her first love eight years later, she’s vowed never to trust her heart to anyone. It’s easier to have casual relationships than risk falling in love.

Taylor Matthews has no interest in a relationship. The one and only time she lost herself in love it cost her four years of her life. Never again. In the three decades since, she’s turned her life around, built a successful career, established solid friendships, and had plenty of women, sex, and fun. No complications, no entanglements, no regrets—until Gwen.

Just as Gwen and Taylor are exploring the new love they’ve found, the present and past collide, threatening the future they long to share.

An Embracing the Dawn Romance.

My thoughts…

This is the first book I’ve read by Jeannie Levig, but it definitely won’t be my last. Her writing style and mastery of storytelling is wonderfully inviting. She plants the seeds of anticipation and wonderment in those first few pages and one must see how the story will play out. It’s futile to resist; the promise of a good story is there for the taking. Levig props the door wide open and readers eagerly walk in, ready to nestle themselves inside this splendidly told story.

Embracing the Moon is more than a love story; it’s a journey. Levig tells it with genuine patience, letting readers care about Gwen and Taylor and the trajectory of their journey. At times readers almost ache for them. Levig craftily weaves themes of fear, desperation and love into the pages of this book, supplying it with scenes that fuel a genuine and relatable connectivity for the reader. She does this by handily exposing and manipulating vulnerabilities, and readers respond. She keeps the stakes high, ensuring a real emotional investment. It all works together to supply the perfect ingredients for a well-told story.

Final remarks…

When Gwen and Taylor’s journey is over and they’ve gotten their happily ever after, there’s almost a sense of sadness for the reader. These characters feel like friends and one doesn’t want to part from them. For me, that’s a sign of good storytelling. The author has created characters that one cares about and their journey is worth the price of admission. What more could a reader ask for? The author did her job and the story worked. Embracing the Moon certainly gets high marks there, and I wouldn’t hesitate recommending this book or this author.

Strengths…

  • Well-told
  • Well-developed, likable characters 
  • Emotionally gripping 
  • Well-constructed and believable 
  • Worth a re-read

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A bit about the author…

Jeannie Levig is an award-winning author of lesbian fiction and a proud and happy member of the Bold Strokes family. Her debut novel, Threads of the Heart, won the 2016 Golden Crown Literary Society (Goldie) Award in the Debut Author category and was a finalist in the 2015 Rainbow Awards. Her second novel, Embracing the Dawn, won a 2016 Rainbow Award in the Traditional Contemporary Romance category, and her third, a romantic intrigue entitled Into Thin Air, was released in January of 2017. Embracing the Moon is her 6th novel.

Raised by an English teacher, Jeannie has always been surrounded by literature and novels and learned to love reading at an early age. She tried her hand at writing fiction for the first time under the loving encouragement of her eighth grade English teacher. She graduated from college with a Bachelor’s degree in English. She is deeply committed to her spiritual path and community, her family, her four-legged best friend, Dexter, and to writing the best stories possible to share with her readers.

Connect with the author…

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