DNF'd at 20%. I couldn't get into the story, I'm sorry :( I really tried to enjoy it but I just couldn't.

Thank you to netgally and the publisher for providing me with an eARC in exchange for a honest review

Hot Keys’ is a LGBTQ novel set in a 1920’s speakeasy.

Betty and Jack, have moved to New York to make their dreams come true. Betty sings and Jack plays the piano,
After Betty finds them a job in a speakeasy they get swept up into a world of gangs, illegal alcohol and they find along the way. The main characters were fun, however the plot needed a little more work had the given a little bit time more time plot development this would be a read. But still worth a read.

Hot Keys is about two queer musicians who find work in a 1920s New York speakeasy, and whilst that sounds like my perfect book on paper (I'm a sucker for anything 1920s-based), I found the execution lacking.

Unfortunately, I just never connected to the main characters or their love interests, so I wasn't invested in them or their relationships. The male love interest, Sammy, I just found annoying for most of the book, as did Jack, the male MC, and even at the end when they were together I still wasn't buying into their relationship.

There was also a weird tonal issue throughout the book, as if it couldn't decide whether it wanted to a cozy found family romance or an action-packed morally grey gangster story and so it tries to strike a balance between the two and never quite hits either right because of it.

Another issues with the tone was in regards to the female love interest, Eva, who is Black, and whilst the prejudice and racism she faces are mentioned, it often felt like they were quickly swept aside and not given the correct weight.

Overall, whilst this book did have a few enjoyable moments, mostly it just wasn't for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Unfortunately I got sick and was unable to finish this story in the allotted time. I look forward to picking up a copy when it is published.

‘Hot Keys’ is a LGBTQ novel set in a 1920’s speakeasy- the premise of this novel really appealed to me because I love any story set in the American jazz age. The main characters are best friends Betty and Jack who end up working at the Trespass Inn where glamorous criminals frequent and bootleg rum runs free but the dark underbelly and constant threats soon begin to take its toll on the young friends. Loyalties and emotions are tested as Jack falls for a charming gangster and Betty is drawn in by the mystical medium Eva.
I really enjoyed the atmosphere and the dialogue that Ward constructed, I think for me the only thing that detracted from the story was the way the racism Eva faced was commented on but ultimately glossed over. Obviously historical context should be addressed to a point in a novel like this but I think going deeper into the challenges that Eva and Betty face as a couple, could have added a great layer into the story.
Overall great twenties feeling and brilliantly co-ordinated action scenes; a fresh and unique take on the LGBTQ romance novel.

DNF - 2 stars?
Starting losing interest in the story, so decided to just dnf it. The cover is very pretty tho.

This was weird. The vibes were all over the place, it went from the silly queer speakeasy to gang mysteries and it was very abrupt. None of the characters really stuck out to me, so I did;t really connect to the story. It wasn't bad per say but it wasn't specifically great.

2.5

Hot Keys is a historical novel set in the 1920s, following Betty and Jack, who have moved to New York to make their dreams come true. Betty sings and Jack plays the piano, so their dream is to be famous and do what they love. Betty finds them a job in a speakeasy, convincing the anxious Jack that everyone needs to start somewhere. There is more opportunity there than they thought, and as they get swept into a world of gangs and illegal alcohol and speakeasies, there is even love to be found for both of them.

I was so excited about this book, and the synopsis was promising, but it fell victim to trying to do too many things at once, unfortunately. It was at the same time a cozy, feel-good romance with soft, likable characters, but also quite dark and morally grey at the same time. I think this could be done well in theory, but this was simply not long enough or developed enough for it to be done properly. Because there were so many things happening, it felt like we had only scratched the surface when it comes down to some characters and situations, while also having too much happen. For me, it still ended up being an entertaining read, I did enjoy some elements of the book, but thinking about it there were issues.

As far as the characters go, I felt they were a bit too flat at times. Even the main characters Betty and Jack, and their love interests. It felt like everyone was given one (or two, if lucky) personality traits and they were just that, nothing else. Betty was bright and feisty, Jack was anxious but loveable (a bit land), Eva was mostly a mysterious love interest for Betty, and Sam was a good-hearted criminal. The topics such as racism were touched on briefly, but I did think it was slightly glossed over. As in, Betty and Eva comment on how people would find it 'weird' if they saw them, a white woman and a black woman, together in the street, which sure was an understatement. It left the book in the strange middle ground between historically accurate and magical utopia, undecided if it wants to portray the story in a true light or keep a lighter tone. I don't think this middle-of-the-road way was the way to go, it felt like it was making a 'no big deal' moment out of it.

For the plot, as for the characters, I feel like it fell into some weird middle ground between believable and akin to fantasy. I will say, I don't have anything against writing fluffy historical stories and portraying some things differently than they would've been historically. I do want to read happy queer stories from all time periods, but it has to be a conscious decision, you can't both portray history as it is and as it isn't. (Of course, you can write a happy historical story while keeping it accurate, but then you would go about it differently, not trying to make a utopia.) Here the issue was that with the dangers of the gangs being introduced we have some very big, serious situations that happen. However, while there is straight-up torture on the page, all of the situations get solved almost comically fast. And here is what I mean, you can absolutely choose the route of comically solving everything, but then the torture seems like too much, right? This way of portraying things just gave me whiplash, if I'm honest.

This is not to say I hated everything about the book, there were many cute moments and interactions shared by the characters. Betty is bi, and I loved the conversation she had with Sam about it, the 'you can like whoever' conversation. It was also really nice to see people communicating when they have issues in their relationships. I, as always, loved the found family aspect of this, it will always be the trope that gets me, even if I find other things lacking.

All in all, this was a quick, entertaining read but with many holes in the plot and the overall setting. As per usual, if the book interests you, give it a go, you might like it more than I did!

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review!

*Thank you to NetGalley and Bold Strokes Books for providing this arc for an honest review.*

And oh boy, I'm gonna be honest. This was not a good debut book. Honestly I wanted to dnf it from the first two chapters and I kept reading just because. I wanted to see where it was heading. But I ended up dnf'ing it @ 35%.

DNF'ed in the first chapter because it was all description. We know what a speakeasy looks like and we know what people wear there. The entire first scene had no dialog, just one overheard line. It read almost like notes for a book instead of people actually living life.

What if it started where Jack says "Maybe we should call this off", then Betty could respond with something like "Jack, when I followed those girls into the speakeasy and saw that piano on the empty stage, I knew it was waiting for us. It was kismet. We have to talk to them."

Also, where does "it's raining pitchforks" come from? Maybe that is idiomatic for somewhere, but it was so strange that it bounced me right out of the story.

This was a decent debut. The main characters were fun but i thought the plot needed a little more work, Regardless, it was a light fun read.
3.5 stars

Thank you, Bold Strokes Books, and NetGalley.

A bit of everything!

Betty May Dewitt and Jack want to make their dreams come true, so in 1920s New York City they find themselves entertaining at a speakeasy. Meeting Eva, a medium, and Sammy, a part of the gang running the speakeasy, Betty and Jack find themselves up in the dangers of prohibition and a world of romance.

This was great! A lot of fun, a little escapism, and a bit of danger that delivered an exciting and different type of romance. I love how inclusive R. E. Ward has been with this story, including romance for both Betty and Jack in what were risky times for being attracted to those of the same sex and in an unlawful situation. It added to the unexpected events that were taking place throughout the story. Most of them were pleasant surprises, one in particular which kept me guessing for quite a while.

It was an adventure for Betty and Jack and although not quite what they envisioned, they made the most of it. Betty was just enjoying every experience she could, from entertaining and having a little flirt, to finding a deep connection with Eva that left her hungry for love and connection. Jack was a little more reserved, worrying but wanting to find acceptance. Sammy teasing him was just a hint at something to be suspicious of but really made the story all that more intriguing.

Every moment carried a hint of uncertainty but that’s what made it such a page turner. I really enjoyed every moment and can’t recommend it enough.

This book just didn’t work for me which is a shame because I love the concept and the setting.

The characters felt one-dimensional and the whole thing felt under-developed. The dialogue read as awkward and it didn’t feel realistic a lot of the time.

Thank you to netgally and the publisher for providing me with an eARC in exchange for a (very) honest review

Hot Keys is a story set in 1920s New York primarily centered around two queer musicians- Jack and Betty- who get jobs performing in a speakeasy and end up finding love in it.

I truly wanted to love this book. I love historical queer stories, and 1920s New York should be such a rich time period to tell a story. Unfortunately, many of the characters were just flat, or ever-changing to fit what the scene needed them to be. Betty was a spit-fire, Eva was mostly Betty's love interest and lesson on racism, Jack was bland, and Sam was trying to be both a hard gangster and a goofy drunk at the same time. The story itself also oscillated between trying to be a gangster story or a sweet romance. These things could be balanced well, but this book seemed to be attempting to be all things at once.

One of my biggest issues with this book was how racism was handled. The speakeasy that Jack and Betty perform in is supposed to some sort of safe haven where queer and BIPOC people are free to be themselves. This could be a great form of escapism, but it did take me out of the story a bit as there was little to no discussion on it. Outside of the speakeasy, racism and segregation are mentioned a few times, but it is barely treated as something serious, with Eva mentioning that people will think a white and black lady walking together is "Weird", although they still go shopping together in a luxury market. Eva's character was also barely developed, while we learned a lot more about Jack's eventual love interest.

The one thing I really loved about this book was Jack and Betty's friendship, and Betty as a character. She was somewhat of an archetype of a sassy strong female, but I do think it worked for her. Jack and Betty also felt like a real friendship, and I could see them as queerplatonic partners, although that language was not used in the book.

First thank you to NetGalley and Bold Strokes Books inc. For this ARC of Hot Keys in return for a fair and honest review.

Trigger warnings: Violence, mildly explict sex, alcohol, torture, fire, homophobic violence

Hot Keys is the story of two friends Jack(a gay man) and Betty (a bi woman) who find themselves working at a speakeasy that is in the middle of a turf war with the mob. Overall I found this book very average. I gave this 3 stars though a more accurate rating is probably closer to 2.75 stars.

What I didn't enjoy
The characters often feel incredibly flat despite the efforts to add depth
Certain characters use so much slang it can be difficult to understand what they are saying
A point is made about Eva's, Betty's love intrest, race but it is the barest skim of the diffucties and intersectional problems of Eva's life being a black lesbian in a relationship with a white woman.
In general there are topics like race that are touched on so breifly it feels disingenuous.
The writing often feels stilted.

What I did like
Jack and Betty's friendship is sweet and welcoming
The setting and concept are fun and refreshing
The Raid scene was a favorite scene

Overall I think this book is okay, I would not read again and I might recomend this to someone who is looking for a fast casual read but not looking for anything special.

[arc review]
Thank you to NetGalley and Bold Strokes Books for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
Hot Keys releases November 15, 2022

“Her secret to happiness was far simpler. Betty May was of the opinion that every moment of life was worth living.”

Hot Keys has two character storylines intermingling together. We get to know the main characters Betty and Jack, who are roommates that both left Wisconsin to pursue their musical dreams in New York City.

A decent debut novel, but I personally would have loved even more character depth, vulnerability, connection, or complexity.
The 1920’s is such an immersive era — the glam outfits, coiffed hair, hazy speakeasies, etc. While there were some descriptive elements throughout, I think the story could have benefitted from more. The approach was definitely subtle, the expansion of atmosphere and leaning on the musical performances with the crowd could have amped this up further.

From the cover, I honestly wasn’t expecting for so much of the book to focus on Jack. I would have loved to seen more of Betty and Eva and their relationship dynamics or dialogue.
The pacing was well, but I couldn’t quite grasp whether this wanted to focus more on the criminal mobster plotline, or the budding relationships and being comfortable with your identity and opening up to love.

Read if you like:
- debut novels
- 1920’s NYC
- musicians
- lgbt+ rep (f/f, m/m, and bi characters)
- speakeasies
- mobsters + raids
- psychics
- healing wounds scenes
- enemies to lovers
- rum-running
- interracial couples

Betty is bi and Jack is gay; she sings, he plays piano; they flee the Midwest after Jack gets queerbashed by, among others, his own boyfriend as well as Betty's; they land a gig at a speakeasy and also (naturally) find love. So much potential for adventure and glam, with or without moral grayness and gritty criminality. The speakeasy has a great name, too: it's called the Trespass Inn.

This promising setup falls apart in a hurry.

Among other problems, this novel can't decide whether it's a fluffy love story set in a nice speakeasy, or a dark romance in a morally gray setting. Jack's eventual love interest, Sam, is an adorable confused puppy who drinks too much and has a foul mouth, but also a violent rumrunner and ex-contract killer. He's has had plenty of sex with both women and men but somehow fails to notice that he's attracted to Jack. Obviously, a really skillful writer could pull this off -- create a character that complicated and make him real - but Sam is just an assemblage of traits that never cohere into a believable person, much less a sexually and emotionally attractive one. Also, it's weird that Jack, who's meant to be a rather naive young man and, at first, a bit of a prude and stick-in-the-mud, more or less ignores the contract-killer feature. His attitude seems to be, more or less, "Oh well, Sammy used to kill people for a living, but at least he's not doing it anymore!"

Betty's love interest is a Black fortuneteller named Eva who lives upstairs from the speakeasy. Maybe it's just me, but there's something odd about setting a novel in the 1920s, making it ostensibly realistic (Prohibition! rumrunners! poverty! police corruption!), and yet having all your white characters be perfectly nonracist. Betty and Jack don't even grapple with the odd "Wow, look at this socially integrated setting I've found myself in!" (One of the speakeasy's owners is also Black; painfully, he's named Leroy. I mean, of course there are Black men named Leroy. But it's also such a cliched go-to for a Black character's name that I physically cringed when I read it. Surely a white writer's better off just writing an all-white cast instead of this awkward, unnuanced diversity.)

The plot could have used some work. A gang run by Dimitri Zanetti (really?) is plotting the ruin of the Trespass Inn, partly because Sammy used to work for them but quit, and Mr. Z. doesn't take jilting lightly. Zanetti's gang tries to torch the Trespass Inn; they set up a police raid; and they send thugs around a couple of times. Meanwhile I kept wondering why they didn't either kidnap Sam off the street or shoot him from a distance or start killing off the other Trespass Inn staff. Finally, at 88%, Zanetti et al. take the direct route. At this point, by the way, there's some explicit on-page torture -- a radical tone shift from the fluffy-romance aspects of the novel and even from all the other violence, which is either off-page or almost cartoonish (pow, zap, bad guys routed).

Last but not least, the NYC setting seems under-researched. There certainly were open-air markets in 1920s New York City, but we're talking poor, Jewish Lower East Side -- not, as far as I'm aware, the "better" neighborhood where Eva takes Betty shopping for luxury goods. In general the references to NYC geography are nonspecific and weirdly off. Leroy lives in a neighborhood Betty hasn't been to before the first time she visits his apartment. Wouldn't it likely have been Harlem?

I wrestle with how blunt to be in a negative review, especially for a first novel, but OTOH I appreciate detailed opinions when I'm deciding what to read ... so this one's mine.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

This book was a cute read. While there was little plot to speak of, the characters were fun. With its lack of a distinct plot, I wanted it to be a romance novel, but didn't quite read that way, as it lacked the specific focus on one couple. It also lacked the depth of a character study. It was a fun slice of life but even putting it down at the height of its "action" was not difficult, and I did not feel compelled to pick it back up when opportunities presented themselves. A nice light queer read.

Hot Keys is set in the 1920s - always a fun place to be. Unless your dreams of stardom run into gangsters and things get dangerous.

I enjoyed this book and thank Netgalley and the publisher for this advanced readers copy

4.5*

This was a delight of a book to read! I loved the sound of the synopsis and was captured from the start. The author had a great sense of setting, with the feel of Prohibition New York captured in all its sounds, sights and desires.

I especially appreciated the way that the diversity was shown, not just in terms of queerness but also race, and how the appeal of the speakeasy was also in the freedom it granted various marginalised communities over the rest if more segregated society

In general, there was an excellent mix of three dimensional , complex characters, with the more straightforwardly villainous ones, although I did long for a bit more depth for Betty's love interest, Eva, especially compared to the detail and depth we had of Jack's counterpart Sammy. Give me more Eva backstory! But I did like how the two relationships contrasted against each other with one getting things (sort of) sorted as quickly as possible while the other two were still sizing each other up!

A fun, sweet and very entertaining read. I'll definitely be keeping a eye out for further books by this author

*Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the free ARC*