Review of ‘To Sleep With Reindeer’ by Justine Saracen
This was another high-quality lesbian historical-fiction book by Saracen. I’m actually pretty late to the Saracen party, only having read her last three new releases, but her good books have helped her to become an auto-read author for me. I used to worry that because she wrote about tough subjects, like war, that her books would be too depressing for me. While yes, there are some sad parts, her books are mostly filled with hope, women taking action, and even a little romance.
I think my favorite part of this book was learning about the Sami. I knew before that they were reindeer herders, but that is where my knowledge ended. Saracen writes so well that you learn new things while still reading a very entertaining story. I don’t feel like Saracen gets preachy or talks down to a reader, instead, she is able to tell a great story while we readers learn bits of history we might have not known.
There is a romance in this book but it is on the lighter side. In fact, it started out awkwardly. One character tells the other that she wants to make love to her. What makes it weird is that it was almost out of the blue. I could tell that my cheeks heated in a blush since I was in slight embarrassment for the character that made the announcement. At the time I was not sensing much chemistry between them, besides a new friendship, so it felt out of place. Once the story continued the romance did feel better. I started to picture them as a couple and not just friends. There are some lightly explicit sex scenes that fade to black. And while the romance got deeper, overall it still stayed on the lighter side compared to everything else that was going on.
My main complaint is that I felt that the book got a little long in the end. This is the second book in a row that I’ve read that started to fizzle on me and slow down a bit. I do understand that since the war dragged out that it made sense that this dragged out a bit too since it was following real events. I just wanted the main characters to go off with the reindeer and forget everything else but I didn’t get my wish.
Overall this was a really good book that I would recommend to any historical-fiction fans. There are some sad spots since this is about war, but the overall book is exciting with a lot of good action and, of course, reindeer. Saracen’s last few books have been about the war, it will be really interesting to see what she will write about next. Whatever it is I will be reading it.
A copy was given to me for an honest review.
To Sleep with Reindeer
This was another high-quality lesbian historical-fiction book by Saracen. I’m actually pretty late to the Saracen party, only having read her last three new releases, but her good books have helped her to become an auto-read author for me. I used to worry that because she wrote about tough subjects, like war, that her books would be too depressing for me. While yes, there are some sad parts, her books are mostly filled with hope, women taking action, and even a little romance.
URL: 4 stars, Politics
Author: Justine Saracen
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