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Brigham’s Recommendations – Stuck Landing by Lauren Gallagher

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Summary:

For months, acclaimed Wolf’s Landing director/producer Anna Maxwell has been nursing a crush on Natalya Izmaylova, a former Russian gymnast and current Wolf’s Landing stunt coordinator. When Anna witnesses Natalya’s very public breakup with her boyfriend, she can’t resist inviting her over for drinks to commiserate about love and all that nonsense. Commiseration doesn’t last long, and soon Anna’s in bed with the hottest woman she’s ever touched, living out fantasies she didn’t even know she had.

Despite the amazing sex, Anna wants to proceed with caution. They’re both newly single. They’re colleagues. And there’s the not-so-small matter of Anna’s biphobia.

Natalya won’t commit to someone who clings to ridiculous stereotypes, but they can’t avoid each other at work, and there’s no ignoring their chemistry. Anna’s defenses are slowly eroding, and Natalya is willing to give her another chance. But Natalya only has so much patience, and even scorching-hot sex won’t keep her coming back forever. If Anna doesn’t come to her senses soon and let go of her prejudices—not to mention her insecurities—she’s going to lose the woman of her dreams.

Review:

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the “Bluewater Bay” series or that I am a fan of L.A. Witt’s writing, whether she’d doing it under that name or as Lauren Gallagher. So when I realized she had written a lesbian romance as part of the “Bluewater Bay” series I was thrilled.

I don’t read a lot of lesbian stories. Mostly because I lack the time to keep up with all of the amazing books in the m/m genre, much less read lesbian fiction on top of it, but I was glad I took the time to read this. I found “Stuck Landing” very enjoyable.

In the previous books in the series, we caught glimpses of the main characters in “Stuck Landing” and saw the crumbling of Anna Maxwell’s relationship and her growing attraction to Natalya Izmaylova. This book can certainly be read as a standalone novel, but having that backstory was nice. It added an additional layer to the story.

Anna and Natalya were interesting and well thought out characters. They’re both driven, successful women, but the author did a fantastic job showing where they differed and how that impacted their approach to a relationship. For example, Anna’s career as a director and producer has developed into a need to control the relationship she’s in. Natalya’s career as a gymnast and stunt woman means she’s more willing to dive in and risk it all. It was a nice contrast, because it gave them enough in common to build a foundation, but a source of tension as they went from  hooking up to being in a relationship.

The author also did a fantastic job addressing the issue of biphobia. It’s something that many bi people have experienced (myself included) and I was very pleased to see it as part of the storyline. Much of Anna’s growth as a character was centered on acknowledging her prejudices and letting go of them.  Natalya’s frustration with Anna’s beliefs came from her previous experiences with biphobic people and made the resolution of those issues even more satisfying.

Lauren Gallagher delivered a story with great pacing, complex characters, steamy romance and love scenes, and a solid resolution at the end. Highly recommended.

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