Review of ‘Home’ by Kris Bryant
This is a lesbian holiday romance novella set in a small fictional town in Oregon around Thanksgiving. If you are looking for a feel-good, low-angst read with an adorable couple, a cute dog, and lovely secondary characters, then you are gonna love this.
After seventeen years of absence, Sarah Eastman goes back to her hometown of Spruce Mountain, Oregon with her young daughter to live with her aunt and uncle after her divorce. There she meets Natalie Strand again, now the town Sheriff. Natalie has never forgotten Sarah and their shared kiss during a high school party and seeing her again reignite dormant feelings. Both women reconnect but Sarah wants to stay away from relationships and Natalie is still hang up with their past. To make Natalie’s life more confusing, a stray dog seems to be playing hide and seek with her…
Kris Bryant is one of my automatic go-to lesfic authors for the quality of her writing. I love that she can produce a heart-wrenching, angst-filled story about anxiety like ‘Listen’ (one of my favorite books of 2019), that she can also deliver a light and entertaining romance as ‘Breakthrough’ or a hot erotic story such as ‘Shameless’ (under the pen name of Brit Ryder). She’s a talented and versatile author.
‘Home’ follows the “return to hometown” trope and features all the typical elements of small-town life where everyone knows everyone and all about their lives. The author built a sweet cast of town residents, along with an elusive but adorable dog. As it’s usual in Ms. Bryant’s books, the main characters have strong chemistry that makes it easy for the reader to imagine them together and the build-up in their connection is exquisite. If you are looking for a light and hot romance, you won’t be disappointed with ‘Home’.
Having said that, I wasn’t that fussed about this book’s epilogue. I’m not against epilogues as such but, in my opinion, this one wasn’t organic to the story, especially the last part that tells the story from the dog’s point of view. I appreciate that the author might have wanted to explain the back story surrounding the dog, but for me, it felt like an unnecessary addition. Some time ago I listened to an interview where Ms. Bryant said that her publisher asked her to add a few thousand words to her original draft and it made me wonder if the epilogue was added for that reason. It reads more as ‘bonus content’ than as an integral part of the story. Despite that this made me drop half a star in my rating, it didn’t affect my overall enjoyment or my recommendation. 4 stars.
