Lesbian Book Review of ‘Always a love song’ by Charley Clarke

4.25 Stars. This was a really good read. I believe this is Clarke’s full-length debut and that makes this book even more impressive. I have actually read one of Clarke’s fantasy short stories before called ‘The Flamebringers’. I thought it was really sweet with my only main complaint was wishing it was longer, so when I heard YLVA picked her up as an author, I could not wait to sink my teeth into this book. I had pretty high expectations and I’m happy to say that I really enjoyed this read.

As I’ve mentioned before I’m a fan of lesbian celebrity romances so this book already had a check in the win column for me. But what surprised me and what made this book so good is that it was a second chance romance. It’s not just that it was a second chance romance, but that it is one of the most realistic second chance lesbian romances I have ever read. This book was pretty emotional at times and not only did I find it gripping but it really affected me too. The anger and betrayal of a break-up, the hurt that both parties cause, it was just really believable and well written.

I do have to mention the dreaded word flashbacks. I am not a fan. However, I’m happy to say they did not bother me in the least. The flashbacks were important and told the story in a way that was effective. If I have to read flashbacks, this is how it should be done, so props to Clarke for overcoming their pitfalls. I also wanted to mention here that while one of the mains is a singer, there are no annoying fake music lyrics, so Clarke actually managed to dodge two pet peeves of mine.

I only had two slight complaints that stopped this from being a 5 star read for me. I did have a little trouble with the character of Alex. She is really stubborn and a character that closes down instead of communicates. Personally, I am the complete opposite, so her character did drive me a bit nuts. However, I still cared about her even when wanting to shake her, so it’s not too big of a complaint.

The last little complaint is there were a few times I thought the inner thoughts of the characters became a little repetitive. I just felt some of that could have been cleaned up a tad. Again it’s a small complaint in such a good read and I’m sure this is something Clarke will improve upon with the more books that she writes.

I normally do mention in my romance reviews what I thought about the sex scenes. In this case, this book doesn’t have any explicit ones. And while I am a fan of steamy sex scenes, I must admit I did not mind it in this case. The two characters are so connected, they have this love you can see even though they are apart, that sex scenes were not needed to make their connection stronger. You read this book and you will have no doubts about if they should be together or not.

I would definitely recommend this book to people looking for a good emotional romance. This really is one of the best second chance romances I have read. Add in the fact that this is Clarke’s full-length debut, makes me really excited to read her, hopefully, many future stories. I think Clarke is an author to watch.

An ARC was given to me for an honest review.