#TBRChallenge 2023: The Little Library

The Book: The Little Library by Kim Fielding

The Particulars: Contemporary romance, 2018, self-published, in print, stand alone

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?: I mean, c'mon.

The Review: I usually try to tackle something out of the print pile for the TBR Challenge but had decided on something LGBTQ+ for this month's Love Is Love theme, which meant taking a Kindle deep dive since, as a general rule, my digital TBR runs more diverse. This one was buried in the depths of my "Contemporary" folder and I was off to the races.

Elliott Thompson is a historian who was teaching and on the tenure track at his last university gig. He was also in a closeted affair with the department head (who was his dissertation advisor - oof!) and when that goes spectacularly sideways, Elliott is out of a job. Frankly he barely gets out of town with his good name cleared of any wrongdoing.  So Elliott does what stung people have done since the dawn of time, he finds a soft place to land.  He heads home to Modesto, California, is teaching online community college courses, and has basically closed himself off from relationships other than his brother and sister-in-law and seeing people on his daily runs.  Besides running, his other coping mechanism is books (oh man, did I FEEL this hard!). Elliott spends an inordinate amount of time on a certain online retailer browsing books at random and dropping them into his cart.  His brother is worried about him and, to a lesser extent, the book habit - which is how Elliott lands on the idea to build his own Free Little Library. He'll clean out some of his books and it's a chance to maybe meet people. There, that should get Ladd off his back!

One of the people that Elliott meets on his daily run and thanks to his library is Simon Odisho, a sexy bear of a man who walks with a cane. Simon is a cop, shot in the line of duty, now out on disability and going through the grueling process of physical therapy. He's also in the closet. Simon is Assyrian, and it's nearly impossible to not run into a member of his large, conservative family in Modesto. He also, rather conveniently, lives in Simon's neighborhood. These two spark together almost immediately but it's very complicated.  Elliott's past furtive relationship with his closeted mentor, Simon not being out to his family, and Elliott routinely applying for jobs at universities trying to get back into that game.  And wouldn't you know it? As soon as he and Simon start to develop real feelings for each other a university comes calling. 

This is a very quiet, low-angst book and the first third of it is rather slow. It predominantly focusses on Elliott starting to dip his toe back into life, and while it's all good groundwork being laid, it's not until he and Simon start dating (yes, actual dating! In a romance novel!) that things picked up for me. 

I was anxious to finally get more of Simon in the story, but early on he read a little young for me - which strained a bit, but is somewhat understandable. To some extent he is a bit in a suspended state of adolescence. Oh, he's had sex with men. Has accepted he's attracted to men. But he's not out to anyone in his life and he hasn't "dated" a man before. So it's all very new.  What I liked about this aspect of the story is that Elliott tells Simon about his ex and Simon knows he cannot ask Elliott to date in the closet indefinitely.  However they agree that until they know where this "thing" between them is going, they'll keep it all nice, casual and on the down-low.

Like I said, quiet and low-angst - but we also have two characters who talk to each other and when the feelings get big is when things start to cook. I also liked that into this mix the author essentially crafts a community around Elliott's Little Library and provides a small dollop of conflict with an asshole neighbor who lives across the street.

These are two characters, both at a crossroads, who fall in love and then must wrestle with the hard choice of what they truly want. Does Elliott really want to get back on that tenure-track hamster wheel? Is Simon satisfied with continuing to hide all of himself to his family? I mean, c'mon. We all know how this is going to turn out, and for the most part it goes exactly where I wanted it to. I was less enamored with the epilogue, but it's telegraphed early on so I saw it coming, and it's not like I haven't read countless variations in romance novels featuring hetero-couples over the years.  But I was able to let it slide mainly because the big emotional stuff at that end is so well done.

This was a nice read that scratched a small-town romance itch for me. All around pleasant.

Final Grade = B