I don’t know why Season of Love (2022) by Helena Greer sat on my physical TBR shelf for a year, because I was so enthralled by this sapphic romance set at a Christmas tree farm run by a Jewish family.
Miriam is an artist with an Instagram following, who spent summers growing up at her Aunt Cass’s Christmas tree farm and hotel, Carrigan’s. She is estranged from her parents for reasons we don’t find out about until later, and she hasn’t been to Carrigan’s in a decade, when she gets word that her Aunt Cass has died. So she goes back to Carrigan’s, intending to sit shiva and then return to her life far away. But her Aunt had other plans.
Noelle has a masters in forestry, is sober, is the farm manager at Carrigan’s, and is described by Miriam as a “blistering hot fat butch in suspenders” who had been befriended by Cass and brought into the Carrigan’s family. She wants nothing to do with Miriam, because she abandoned Carrigan’s for so long, leaving Cass and Hannah, Miriam’s cousin and Noelle’s best friend, to grieve and miss her terribly.
Now, Cass has left Carrigan’s to Hannah, Noelle, Miriam, and the missing Levi, son of the longtime caretakers. And Hannah, having managed the hotel during Cass’s illness, explains the reality that it hasn’t made money in a while. Can Miriam help them transition to a new business model, with her art skills? Can Noelle put aside what she thinks she knows about Miriam to listen to why she stayed away for so long?
I love romances where they go to therapy! Because sometimes what has happened in the past makes it so you need help figuring out how to change those patterns in your current relationship. I loved the fact that Noelle is a fat butch, and that was the source of Miriam’s instant attraction to her. Noelle’s fatness is just who she is and it isn’t part of the storyline, except as her physical description.
Greer has created a wonderful cast of characters, and I highly recommend starting her, and going right into For Never & Always, Hannah and Levi’s story, which I reviewed in November 2023 when it was released.
Reading While Fat 