Speakeasy Cover
Synopsis from the Creator:

Sometimes you fall for Mr. Right. And sometimes for Mr. Right Now…
May
Did you hear the one about the girl who walks into a bar and catches her live-in lover kissing someone else? No? You’re the only one in town who missed it.
Luckily Alec is there to wrap me up in strong arms and carry me out the door before things get too ugly. And that’s not all Alec is good at. Our unexpected chemistry makes him the perfect rebound guy.
Alec
I should know better than to hook up with my rival’s little sister, but the fiery look in May’s eyes really turns my crank. She needs cheering up, and I’m just the guy for the job.
It’s not like I’ll fall in love. Not even after a string of scorching hot trysts, and the realization that we’re good at the same things: wild nights and familial disappointment. I don’t do love, never have, never will. So this is the perfect arrangement, for both of us.
Nobody would approve, but nobody has to know…

Review: Speakeasy, by Sarina Bowen

[fa icon="calendar"] Oct 29, 2018 9:30:00 AM / by Suzanne

Speakeasy, book 5 in Sarina Bowen's True North series, came out in May 2018. It's taken me five months to read it because I was afraid. I'm going to open up a bit in this post, so here's the disclaimer that my experiences aren't universal.

Many of you know that I'm bisexual. I also grew up in Vermont, in the area in which Bowen's series is set. I wrote about the first four books in the series here, about how the books feel true to life while also being super dramatic and angsty. It's because of this, and because of the way May's life was set up in previous books, that I was anxious about Speakeasy.

May Shipley is the middle child, with an older brother and younger twin siblings. Her brother, Griffin, is the hero in the first book, and much of the series takes place at the Shipley farm, since the second and third books feature Jude and Zachariah, people who work on the farm. Jude is also dealing with recovery from opioid addiction in his book, a journey that makes May realize that her drinking is a problem. In the third book, May's best friend and longtime crush, Lark, gets her HEA with Zachariah. There's a strong element of pining on May's part. In the fourth book, which ties in to Bowen's hockey series, Griffin's former fling, Zara, gets her HEA, and we see that May's girlfriend is a jerk.

May's coming out is mentioned in one of the books, but it's no big deal to her family. Much like my family, the announcement is met with "Okay. So, as I was saying about the crop yields..." My mom was like "cool, let's make dinner." Like May, I kind of wanted a bigger reaction, but it was nice that my family doesn't care. I mean, it's not like straight people come out as straight, right? 

All of this was fine, so why was I worried? Well, just about every book I've read in which a bisexual woman ends up with a straight man (with the exception of Alisha Rai's Wrong to Need You) has a general feeling of "she just needed the right penis." I was excited for May's book, thinking maybe this would be the time that Bowen wrote an f/f romance. When I read the blurb and realized no, she ends up with Alec Rossi (Zara's brother, the bar-owner), I started to feel nervous. Then I remembered that her ex was going to be the "evil ex" and I worried about that as well.

As it turns out, my worries were both founded and not. I had a very hard time deciding on a rating for this book, but it ends up at maybe a 2.5 out of 5. I liked spending time in this world again, and I was happy that Bowen didn't decide to magically wave away May's alcoholism. It's a big point of conflict in the book, her screwing around with a barkeep.

There's also the fact that her evil ex, whom she lives with at the start of the book, is cheating on her with another woman. (Alec helps her move out, like the white knight he is.) There's the fact that this ex made May feel bad for enjoying penetration (I know this is a Thing with some lesbians, yes) and Alec teases May into telling him this. May is a Bad Lesbian, according to this ex.

There's a line, late in the book, in which May jokes that her ex used to wear a shirt that says "F*ck the Patriarchy" and now, she's quite literally f*cking the patriarchy. NOPE. You can be bisexual and not think that having sex with a man is buying into the patriarchy. It's really not. I HATED this line.

Which brings me to my main issue with the story - Alec and May's relationship. There's a line, somewhere between roleplaying and fetishism. Alec crosses it. He teases May for lesbian sex details. He wants her to tell him everything women do together and he wants her to confirm that she wants his d*ck. It's a weird combination of insecurity and exploitation that really bothered me. 

I stopped telling people that I was bisexual after high school, in part because all of my male friends in high school tried to get me to tell them who I thought was hot. So they could, presumably, fap to it later. When I went to college, I realized that the queer women on campus also didn't want to mess with me because bisexuals were just straight girls trying things out. So, depending on who I was hanging out with, I was either straight (didn't correct people, I never said I was straight) or I was a lesbian (I said I liked women and they made their own assumptions). In May's dialogue, she tells us that she's been dating women because she thought it was easier, thought it was a way to avoid the abusive relationships she'd had with men in the past. 

So did the abuse make her bisexual? Because she also has a decade-long crush on her female best-friend. I don't know, it was all murky, but felt wrong to me somehow. 

I think the reason it felt wrong is because Alec and May had a set-the-sheets-on-fire sexual relationship, but not much more. I never bought into their emotional connection. They're essentially both the middle child, the hot mess, of their families, and they find sexual release with each other. Then it turns into something more, even though I don't think May was ready for it. I never thought May was actually over Lark, and I didn't think Alec's anger issues (at his uncle, at the Shipley's, etc) was healthy for May. No, he's never mean to her and doesn't hit anyone, but he needs therapy.

The problem (not a problem) is that Bowen's writing remains compelling. She writes great sex, the families she builds are inviting, and I want all of the secondary characters to find their happily-ever-afters. I worry, however, that this means the series will end up one of those that I read not because I want to recommend it to everyone, but because I can't stop myself from continuing.

 

Content Warnings: Death of a secondary character, alcoholism (in recovery), cheating, mention of past abuse, mention of past drunk driving, biphobia

Topics: review