Ten Reasons Tuesday: Meeting Millie
10 reasons you should absolutely read Meeting Millie today!
Clare Ashton is a very special writer. No one is quite doing what she is doing in the sapphic romance space. She wholly broke and remade me with The Goodmans. I had exceptionally high expectations for Meeting Millie and Ashton absolutely soared past them. She made me, ME, fall in love with a friends-to-lovers (on record as a bottom tier trope for me), slow burn (tension/anxiety/awkwardness, in this economy?), set in the UK (I am whatever the opposite of an anglophile is) book. A miracle of writing. You really should read Meeting Millie. Let me give ten reasons why.
Friends to lovers is a really difficult trope to execute well. So difficult, I have seen it done incredibly well maybe five times. And I have read A LOT of romance novels. From a craft perspective, it’s so much more layered than people realize. First, you need to develop deep and believable friendship chemistry – which reads so differently than romantic/sexual chemistry – along with a VERY GOOD reason these characters are just friends and would never be anything else ever don’t even worry about it. Then, once that is well established and believed, you need to undo all the hard work you did with an incredibly good and believable catalyst for them to become lovers. So often, the authorial answer to this question is something equative to “wow, she looks good in a dress,” like these two long-time friends haven’t seen each other dressed up before. Ashton does an exceptional job pulling off friends to lovers. Every turn in Charlotte and Millie’s relationship feels real, earned, and inevitable without being predictable or trite. A true masterclass execution.
Charlotte and Millie are heroines you pull for from page one. I mentioned it on Twitter, but it bears repeating that these characters are so affectionately rendered. They feel so true as people, and your real heart in your real chest will ache with real tenderness for them as they rediscover each other here.
Clare Ashton is a writer’s writer. Her language is beautiful and precise. Her stories are crafted with the assured grace of someone truly at home in their creativity.
I know painting a house sucks. I have painted a house. It sucks. There was absolutely nothing sexy about it. However, after reading this book, I think I am wrong, and painting a house is outrageously sexy; maybe I should do it again.
Ashton’s Oxford seems so dreamy and lovely – a place I want to revisit way more than actual Oxford. Moreover, Ashton manages to set up an expansive and beautifully populated world without ever feeling clunky – a feat.
Virginia is a gem. She fully rules. I am prepared to riot in the streets for her. She must be protected at all costs.
This book is intensely romantic. The way Ashton writes the feeling of a simple shoulder squeeze will stop your heart. Pure. Romance.
If you love a slow burn – Meeting Millie burns aggressively slow. It is layer after layer after layer after layer of longing. The tension builds until you are concerned you are going to rip your book or snap your kindle, and right when you think you can’t take any more… you take some more. It’s that kind of slow burn. So, in a word, perfect.
It is really easy when writing friends-to-lovers, to lower the value proposition of friendship. Friendship is fine, but lovers is SO MUCH BETTER. Ashton never does this. She writes friendship as the essential miracle it is, never relegating it to a lesser position. And the story is so much richer, and lovelier, for having made this choice.
Ashton writes with such delight and humor. This book reads like Ashton was having an incredible time and invites you to enjoy this place, and these people, she loves with her. Often stories feel told; this story feels shared – and it makes reading it a joy.
If you have already read Meeting Millie or read before Friday, consider checking out Clare Ashton as she joins the Sapphic World Book Club on Saturday (details below).
Meeting Millie is available now on Amazon. I highly suggest you get into it!
I found this book so wonderful I bought three extra copies. Comment below with a book you think I should read and one reason why by Friday. I’ll draw three winners then!
Have a GREAT day and keep reading! Macon
I absolutely loved this review. You truly nailed it!