Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a copy of The Secret of You and Me by Melissa Lendhardt. Unfortunately I did not like what I read of this book. I have tried to read it multiple times and got 50% in the first time; 30% the second. Reading about internalised homophobia was not a fun experience and whilst that isn’t a criticism of the book it is part of what made it too hard for me to get through! The author, at the time of writing this, identified of straight but now identifies as part of the LGBTQIA+ community so whilst this isn’t a story about queer people/relationships written by a straight person it did feel like it at times. I think a lot of people would like this book but I unfortunately did not.

I probably would've liked this book more if it had been marketed as a women's fiction instead of a romance.

One of the main character's spends a lot of time making peace with how she was treated by her family while growing up. The other main character has to deal with a cheating husband and a bratty daughter and friends who would throw her under the bus as soon as humanly possible if it meant their social standing would benefit. It really felt like the romance between these two women, although the catalyst for the story, was treated as an afterthought.

That said, I'm sure this book could be really meaningful to someone who grew up in a similar situation as the two MC's.

As for the audiobook version: despite having two narrators it was sometimes too easy to mix up the two voices and lose the thread of the story, which meant having to rewind half a chapter to pick up the thread again.

Many thanks to Netgalley, HarperCollins UK Audio and the author for the ALC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I was very sceptical going into this book as most of the reviews I read said this book is such a negative experience, which talks of only the pain of being closeted as a lesbian and trying to come out of it. Yes, almost all of it is about heartache and pain and of forcing yourself into staying in the closet, but that is unfortunately how life was in the early 2010's and even now most of the times. So, I respectfully disagree, this book portrays the story of 100's of thousands of women who are forced to show up and maintain a straight relationship because of the bigoted, close minded people they were born to and have to live around.

The story follows Nora, a veteran who is forced to return to her home town and literally face the music of what she left behind. Now let’s set the scene, a small town in the Texas filled with highly religious, narrow minded, bigoted people whose nose is in literally everyone's business and for whom, if you don't follow their 'rules' of life, you are sinner. Nora was kicked out of her house by her father at 17 and she fled to join the army, the return of this prodigal daughter after 18 years, on her father's passing is new talk of the town. What follows is the unravelling of stories, truth coming to light, second chance love, a late in life gay crisis leading to an almost happy ending!

Most of the complaints I saw about this book is about how badly the rest of the characters handled the coming out of the MC's and them going public with it, especially the daughter, but considering the time period, the way she was raised and the influences she had, I believe she reacted as expected. But that is for each person to interpret on your own.

The narrators did a brilliant job, and I thoroughly enjoyed this story. It did take me a bit of time to get into the flow of it. It made me laugh, cringe, tear up, angry and also a deep sense of contentment. It’s a story very close to reality, sadly and hence I would not recommend it to people looking for a fluffy wlw story. If you are looking for a moving story set before marriage equality was achieved in the US and are ready to experience the bitter sweetness of reality, this is for you. In conclusion this is a book about 2 mature adult women finally getting to tell their story the way they want and path they had to travel to get there.

TW: Homophobia, manipulation, parental abuse, addiction, PTSD, religious bigotry, adultery

<i> Nora hasn’t looked back. Not since she fled Texas to start a new life. Away from her father’s volatile temper and the ever-watchful gaze of her claustrophobically conservative small town, Nora has freed herself. She can live—and love—however she wants. The only problem is that she also left behind the one woman she can’t forget. Now tragedy calls her back home to confront her past—and reconcile her future.

Sophie seems to have everything—a wonderful daughter, a successful husband and a rewarding career. Yet underneath that perfection lies an explosive secret. She still yearns for Nora—her best friend and first love—despite all the years between them. Keeping her true self hidden hasn’t been easy, but it’s been necessary. So when Sophie finds out that Nora has returned, she hopes Nora’s stay is short. The life she has built depends on it.

But they both find that first love doesn’t fade easily. Memories come to light, passion ignites and old feelings resurface. As the forces of family and intolerance that once tore them apart begin to reemerge, they realize some things may never change—unless they demand it. </>

I struggled with how to rate this book. I struggled with this book, period. There was so much negativity, so many unlikeable and outright bigoted characters, and they took up so much airspace that it was hard to stick with it at times. It felt so…. outdated. Not because those types don’t still exist, but because we’ve at least reached a point where we can acknowledge them without centering them so much. The many ways that both Sophie and Nora gave Charlie a pass with his overt bigotry- and the ways he was raising Logan to be the same-were beyond frustrating.

There wasn’t a lot of light to be found, nor enough moments between Nora and Sophie that were happy rather than tortured, to sustain the story. I still rooted for them, but I was also rooting for a happy ending with an emphasis on ending.

Courtney Patterson and Natalie Duke did a decent job narrating the audiobook.

Thank you Melissa Lenhardt, HarperCollins UK Audio, Mills & Boon, and NetGalley for providing this ALC for review consideration. All opinions expressed are my own.

I thought it was an interesting book, easy to listen and even if it was a romance book, it was having a couple of valuable lessons like looking at your own future and deciding what you want to make with it, if you want to make any sacrifices or not in order to be happy.

Also, I would like to thank NetGalley, the author and to the publisher for offering me the opportunity to listen to this book in exchange for my honest review.

I really enjoyed this one! It was a nice easy read and I liked the characters! I like the representation and enjoyed following the characters storyline through the book!

Interesting read - not what I was expecting when I was going in. Second-chance tropes are something I adore - however, this book deals with some big issues and I feel some people may not fully understand how serious they are. I wouldn't recommend this for people who cannot empathise with people they don't share values with.

I really wish I'd love this, unfortunately it was not the case. I've read many books about closeted queer people, books that made me cry and made my heart shatter, but in the end, they have somewhat hopeful about the future, and this didn't have that.

This was an enjoyable audio - it wasn’t your average romance as there were some quite serious and emotional moments. I did really like the second chance trope in the story and the challenges that had to be navigated.

The incorporation of quite conservative attitudes towards the couple was incredibly sad to read about at times - I’m quite used to reading about this lack of acceptance in historical LGBTQIA+ fiction, but it’s tough when it’s such a current setting.

This romance was messy, filled with obstacles blocking their path - I liked that while rooting for them it was unclear really until the end how this story would resolve itself - it wasn’t wholly predictable.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my copy of this audio

Melissa Lenhardt - The Secret Of You And Me.

Love is love - or at least it should be.
For Nora and Sophie, living in small-town America, their young love is brought to an abrupt Holt by prejudice and intolerance.

Twenty years later, after making a life for herself in a whole new place, Nora is facing her past and returning home following the death of her father.

When the two women meet, it’s clear that their feelings still run deep and that the hurt from the past is still very raw.
Is there a future for these two star crossed lovers, or will they say their goodbyes and step back into their own lives with other people?

I enjoyed this book. It was quite a thought provoking read.
I was drawn in to the story from the start and really enjoyed the author’s writing style.

I felt for Nora and Sophie.
In my own world, it’s hard to comprehend that a lesbian relationship should still be so frowned upon.
I did take some time to warm to the pair. However once I did, I was rooting for them to find their happily ever after.

The Secret Of You And Me, is a compelling read. It’s a love story, a story of a love that was destroyed by prejudice and hate. A story of a love that actually never died.

Charming, funny, engaging, touching, emotional and powerful.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Audio copy is sympathetically narrated and a most enjoyable listen.

With thanks to Netgalley and Harper Collins Uk Audio for an arc of this title.

The Secret of You and Me by Melissa Lenhardt was released in August of 2020. It is the first novel I’ve read by the author and easily scored 4 out of 5 stars!

📚Nora and Sophie were best friends until their senior year when their lives went in two very different directions. They’ve not seen one another nor spoken since then. Nora, now a military vet working and living in DC, must return home to attend her father’s funeral. She knows she’s coming home to mixed reviews from the conservative and close-knit community she left so suddenly all those years ago.
Aside from Sophie, Nora also left behind her high school boyfriend, Charlie, whom everyone assumed she would marry. In the wake of her abrupt departure, Sophie and Charlie found solace in one another and ended up married with a child. Charlie has provided well for Sophie and their daughter and is now pursuing a career in politics, being backed by his conservative town.
Nora’s return is less than ideal for many in the tight community most especially for Sophie’s mom. She is, after all, the reason Nora had to escape to begin with. Will Nora’s return allow for the past to remain in the past or will long held secrets finally be set free for those forced to keep them?

✨This was a challenging read for me because there are many close minded and ignorant characters that take up a lot of space in the book. The book also deals with challenging topics such as sexuality, addiction, manipulation, toxic family members, and adultery. While not always the recipe fr light and entertaining reading, the topics need to be discussed and addressed. I feel the author did a spectacular job of tackling the topics in a manner that is real and not sugar coated. Not everyone gets a happy ending and this book demonstrates this.

I’m not really sure who this book was for.

It’s about queer characters, but is almost exclusively about the trauma they face. It’s set in the early 2010s, and regularly makes fun of millennials (who, I might point out, is currently anyone aged roughly 27-40, a large part of this book’s demographic). It’s a romance in that the couple were together at the end, but otherwise rejected any of the emotional draw of romance novels. It could be literary fiction, but despite having two first-person perspectives we never once tapped into the emotional depths of either character. The cover screams romance, the blurb tells us its ‘women’s fiction’ (which we don’t have time to unpack) and I honestly don’t think it’s really either.

So, we have a book with an identity crisis and a marketing crisis. First, let’s talk about the queer aspect of the story. The book is filled with both direct and indirect homophobia, with added biphobia on the side for extra flavour. It exclusively focuses on the negative aspects of being queer, with one character being an alcoholic and another estranged from her family, having a secret affair with a married woman. All of the layers of relationships (and I mean layers, this book is more like a love octagon than a love triangle) are so messy and convoluted, and ultimately it made the characters unlikeable. Even the most villainous character, Sophie’s manipulating husband, was handed a happy ending BY SOPHIE on a silver platter.

Both of these storylines particularly were handled especially poorly. Sophie, who is a recovering alcoholic, at one point serves everyone margaritas at a dinner party, and at another takes her underage daughter to the bar where she hit rock bottom. She dismisses Nora’s concerns about beginning a relationship while in the early stages of recovery, and the whole storyline just felt incredibly frustrating.

I really hoped that the romance itself would be the redeeming feature, but I struggled to find an emotional connection with it. They kept telling us how they’d been each other’s first and one true love, but I never got a sense of the reality of those feelings. As I mentioned before the book is in first-person with a dual perspective, so it wouldn’t have been hard to have occasional paragraphs describing how they felt when they looked or thought of the other person.

Ultimately, this book was a let-down on all fronts. It was frustrating because I desperately wanted to enjoy it, and sometimes it would look like it was coming close, but then fall short at the last minute. I might try another of the author’s books, see if I enjoy those more, but safe to say this isn’t one I will be returning to.

I received a free copy for review. All opinions are my own.

Finished in two days. Absolutely brilliant. It has bestseller written all over it. What a book! Romance and great storytelling. Each time I stopped listening and put the kindle down I had to remind myself to breathe.

This story had no joy. Even the end was tinged with hate and intolerance. As a queer woman, I'm kind of sick of queer stories that are just depressing and trauma-filled. None of the characters were likeable and it was very slow-paced. I found myself zoning out at points.

It was written well but the story wasn't for me. The small town conservative setting full of homophobes was unbearable, and the romance just didn't carry me through the pain.

Unfortunately this was a DNF for me at 32%. I like the characters and their backstories but I felt that the book was dragging and couldn't get into it as much as I'd hoped.

I was hooked! I loved the switch between the two main characters, it was very easy to keep up with. Nora and Sophie have been in love since high school and were cruelly separated. A loss in Noras family takes her back to her home town and all the feelings resurface. A great book filled following difficult topics, love and loss. Really well written, a great read.