I really enjoyed this quick read. There was a lot of heart and topical discussion. Love the nod to fluevogs and all the discussion of architecture. The little bit of potential magic throughout was a lovely add.

Unfortunately I have tried to read and review this novel multiple times. I keep getting to about 15-20% and just want to put it down. I don’t feel appropriate rating due to not getting far enough in to form an opinion. I just don’t think it’s for me! My apologies!

Thanks to Netgalley, the authors and the publisher for my review copy.

This was a fun and enjoyable read, an easy one that was exciting to pick up.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book.

A really fun and charming read with an enjoyable premise and gorgeous characters. I would highly recommend.

I could not get into this story. The MC's have an instant attraction but the way it's written is almost comical. The dialogue is so over the top it's almost funny but sadly it's not. I'm not even sure I could stand the MC's.

Usually I love small town opposites attracts romance but this one was not for me sadly.

An ARC was provided to me via Netgalley in return of an honest review.

This book was so much fun to read! I enjoyed how the writers developed the characters. The writing is smooth and easy to read. Each time I put it down, I was eager to get back to it! I didn’t want the story to end! I will look forward to reading more stories from these authors!

Sena & Hazel are the main characters in this book. Sena is the head of tech company and when she comes to Owen Station she has her sights set on moving the town into the future. Everyone is not interesting in what she has to sell. Especially Hazel, the town librarian, who is content with the way things are.
Sena is interested in not only the future of the town but restoring buildings that are in need of it. She thinks this might change some people's mind in a positive way. She truly believes she can bring positivity to this town. She is very interested in Hazel. Hazel doesn't want to be attracted to Sena, but when she sees the great things she is doing, she can't help herself. Not everyone is interested in the changes that Sena is doing.
I would recommend.
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

thank you to netgalley for the advanced reading copy. I really enjoyed this and will be getting copies for my shop.

Enjoyable book with a good story line! I also mostly like the characters. There are however a couple of things that bothered me a bit.

- no matter how much i love gay/lesbian representation, i dont think the amount of lesbians in this book is realistic (I wish), especially because its a small town, and it doesnt sound very progressive either.

-i thought the instalove was a bit too much in this book. Ofcourse you can immediately think someone is hot, but its like they instantly fell in love. Where most books take a very very long time for one of the characters to say i love you, i think this book suddenly mentioned it, after only a very short time of dating.

This books it’s nice for a quick weekend read. Although I didn’t like how insta-love it was, I enjoyed the way the relationship between the main characters developed once the starting phase was over. I think I could have done without the ghost parts, but I understand it’s the way to highlight the “history” part of the novel. Overall, nothing groundbreaking, but entertaining enough to pick up when you’re in the mood for an easy and fast book

2/5 stars

This book was probably not for me. While it had a fun opposites-attract aspect, it was difficult to get into. I found the writing style to be a bit bumpy, making it hard to really jump into the story. While the characters were both interesting and likeable, they did feel a bit two dimensional, again making it hard to really dive into the book. The chemistry also didn’t jump out time like I would have wanted.

While this book is not for me, I think the plot itself was interesting and had a lot of potential.

I was pulled in by the cover of this book and was super excited for an opposites attract romance...but I could not enjoy this simply because Hazel was so damn unlikeable. I know her vintage vibe was supposed to be whimsical and cutesy, but her absolute refusal to change literally anything was honestly ridiculous. Even with her family history, she took things too far and empowered a group of people who want to "preserve their way of life" by keeping out both diverse newcomers and any type of industry that could help them thrive economically. Her willful blindness to this was highlighted several times when ALL OF HER FRIENDS kept telling her they were bad news, even before Sena showed up.

Also, the random supernatural subplot was just......unnecessary.

I will say Sena's character was a highlight for me. She could be abrasive and blunt, but she was confident and brave and showed commitment to mixing history with innovation (another thing Hazel ignored...multiple times). Beneath the girlboss exterior, she was kind, caring, and open. Honestly, I think she let her family off too easy in the end because her father's reasoning for putting distance in their relationship wasn't equivocal to the emotional trauma that placed on Sena.

To sum it up, I really couldn't stand Hazel and her whining, but Sena was cool and probably deserves better.

Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC. All opinions are my own.

So I enjoyed reading this book, but it had a couple of issues that stopped me from loving it. There were some plot holes, especially surrounding the ghosts and the lights/energy mentioned in the book. It did feel insta-lovey, which I usually don't mind, but this didn't feel believable. Hazel and Sena did not make me believe them as a couple or even root for them. The ending was a big disappointment for me. I felt like the book took a turn from what it was originally about and did not complete the storyline from the beginning. Also, the ending didn't necessarily give us any resolution to the main conflict of the story, which is the reason why Sena came to Owen Station anyway. The story had potential but lacked on the execution for me.

Vintage and Vogue is a sizzling hot Small Town romance co-written by Kelly & Tana Fireside. This is the first book from these authors – and a very respectable debut. Fittingly, I read this novel on my journey to London for the Romantic Novelists’ Association conference. And it certainly brought colour to the trip!

Hazel Butler moved back to Owen Station when her mum got sick, and never left. Though her parents are gone she upholds their legacy by working tirelessly to preserve her hometown’s history. Hazel’s happy as the town’s librarian, taking care of Owen Station’s archive and sharing its materials with people keen to learn more. And she loves her friends dearly, being blessed with a chosen family. But secretly Hazel worries about being stuck in a rut. Until Owen Station’s newest arrival threatens to change everything Hazel values about her community. Then Hazel’s commitment to the past stands in the way of her future.

Though Sena Abrigo’s the sharpest of her siblings, their father’s determined to pass his tech empire on to a male heir. So she packs up her Louboutins and ambition, moving to Owen Station. Sena has big plans for the town’s cheap real estate and abandoned copper mine, envisioning a new Silicone Valley. And Sena’s plans don’t stop at the professional – she wants Hazel from the moment they meet. But Hazel’s fierce opposition to her futuristic goals puts a spanner in the works. And sparks fly every time they clash.

Vintage and Vogue absolutely nails the Opposites Attract trope. Hazel’s a luddite librarian who raids her grandmother’s wardrobe – even her style reflects her strong commitment to tradition. Whereas cosmopolitan Sena is up to date with the latest fashions and fully embraces change. Hazel worries that Sena’s development will see locals priced out; their heritage lost. But Sena sees only the benefits of bringing new jobs to a struggling local economy, and is determined to bring Owen Station fully into the modern day.

There are layers of conflict between our leading ladies, heightened by their differences in personality and belief. As a result, there’s crackling sexual tension and a compelling story. It also raises interesting thematic questions about the cost of gentrification – and the way people perceived as outsiders are treated in small, hermetic communities.

It would have been very easy to make Sena into the villain here – a corporate nightmare who needs love to blunt her ambition and show the error of her ways. I’ve seen enough heterosexual romantic comedies to be wary of that trope. But Vintage and Vogue is much more nuanced than Hollywood when it comes to characterising career-oriented female characters. After all the discrimination she’s experienced – including from her own family – Sena wants to change bro culture in tech. Her core aims involve challenging the industry’s racism and sexism.

Sena cares deeply about inclusion, which manifests repeatedly in who she hires and prioritises within her company. She isn’t someone who pays lip service to “diversity”, but instead someone who uses her money and influence to remove barriers for minoritized people in her field. And it’s very hard not to like that about her – though Hazel’s determined to try!

Unfortunately, while I love the Opposites Attract element of their dynamic, the rest of Hazel and Sena’s relationship didn’t entirely work for me. I felt the sexual connection… but not the emotional one. Sena opened up way too quickly about her past – in her very first scene with Hazel – for the reader to feel the emotional impact of later claims that she never shares this part of her life with others; that what she shares with Hazel is unique. They fall in love almost instantly, with very little to base those feelings on. Perhaps I’m jaded, but Instalove is so easily won that it doesn’t feel particularly valuable.

There’s also a lot of crying. Characters crying in the street, crying themselves to sleep, crying over arguments. These are adult women in their thirties. Women who have known loss, hardship, loneliness – and found ways of enduring. And the melodrama of all that crying compromised realism, making me feel less instead of more. Sena is framed as strong and self-sufficient, which doesn’t exactly fit with the relentless tears. Subtler ways of showing characters’ pain and frustration would have worked better.

Also, Vintage and Vogue has another significant problem. The book opens with an intriguing hook: two thwarted lovers who perform a ritual so that they can be together in a future life. That element of magical realism is a big part of what drew me into this story. But, after that brief prologue, it’s absent for the vast majority of the novel. And I didn’t find the resolution of this subplot to be particularly satisfying. It was obvious from the beginning where this was going, and a sense of mystery would have made the story more engaging throughout.

That being said, Vintage and Vogue has real charm as a novel. I adore the side-characters – especially Lace, who married Hazel’s best friend only to realise that she’s a lesbian. This dynamic is absolutely fascinating. Lace steals every scene she’s in. Plus, the fact she runs a sex toy shop in a small town is massively entertaining (if not entirely realistic).

I was thrilled to learn that Lace gets a love story of her own in the next Owen Station book, and look forward to seeing how Kelly & Tana Fireside will continue to develop as writers. Their style is consistent throughout, which is even more impressive for a first book and a co-write. It’s obvious Kelly and Tana are in sync with each other – according to their website, they’ve been best friends for 25 years and happily married for 16. That closeness pays dividends, as these authors have created a seamless story here.

There are some good bones to this story, unfortunately, the book never takes the time to properly flesh any of it out. The characters are interesting, and the plot involving the dying small town is a good one.

The first half of the book is all flirting, lustful thoughts, and crying. The two main characters only interact with sexy innuendos or giant information trauma dumps about their pasts. I am begging the authors to just let their couples eat a sandwich and play scrabble or something that involves them actually getting to know each other. None of the conversations felt like they were ones that real people would have with each other and everything moved wildly fast for how little real interaction the leads had with each other. The sex scene in the middle felt oddly uncomfortable because I just had not been sold on the couple as a couple yet.

The authors have some good ideas here, and I think it could have been a really fun story. Sadly, romance writing is not their forté and the unbelievable romance is where they spend most of their words. I really wish that we had gotten to spend more time on the development of the town and getting to know the different townsfolk.

Be prepared for characters crying.....lots of crying.
What starts out sort of whimsical turns into an opposites attraction. Hazel is cemented in the past and does not want things to change. Sena is modern and progressive and wants to pull Hazels life and town into the 21st century.
Hazel is an odd one, and I'm not sure I liked her. I thought she was wallowing in self pity about losing her family when she clearly had a multitude of very close friends...that were her new family. Not to mention a future with Sena.
Sena was fun and full of life. But I didn't quite understand why she avoided her family? Her father was a problem but her mother and brothers loved her.
Both women obviously have issues which make up the story.
And then there is the issue with ghosts that was confusing and not explained.
Somehow the ladies snap out of their issues and so do all the family members and townspeople. (Where did Sirius go?)
The authors made a nice try at a different story so kudos to them.
I was given this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I found this book to be okay. Vintage and Vogue by Kelly and Tana Fireside didn’t really deliver in the ways I thought it would.

Meet Sena Abrigo. She’s a wealthy tech whiz with roots in the Arizona-Mexico borderlands. Then she finds herself in Owen Station with plans to pull the small town into the future. She just has to get someone named Hazel Butler on her side.

Meet Hazel Butler. She works at the Owen Station library, is the granddaughter of Irish immigrant miners, and inherited the little house she lives in. She is also determined to protect the historic legacy of her town.

When the two women meet, it sets off an explosive series of events and exposes an ugly truth lying just beneath the town’s surface. Will it threaten their chance at love and their lives?

I did not feel the connection between the two main characters. I felt like there was a lot of telling readers about their connection versus showing. Secondly, I thought the authors were going to really focus on the small town dynamics, racism, complicated histories, and entitlement. I was really hanging on because I was waiting for the moment of importance (showing how messy and complicated the real world can be) but it never came.

As a female BIPOC who lives in a small town, I really feel bummed on that large missed point and if that wasn’t the intention of the authors, I wish they had leaned away from those themes and stayed closer to the romance theme instead.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bold Strokes Books for a temporary e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was a light and easy read, but the book didn’t really pull me in to either the plot/storyline or the character development.