Bea Reviews Twice In A Lifetime by Jodie Griffin

Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Source: the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: January 22nd, 2018
Buying Links: Amazon* | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository*  |  Kobo |
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Blurb from goodreads:

When widow Talia Wasserman applies for a job with the local police department, she’s shocked to discover she’ll be working for Lieutenant Eve Poe, an officer she’d met—and been attracted to—during a long-ago citizen’s police academy workshop. Fifteen years later, the spark is still there, and no one’s currently in Talia’s life or in her bed. But there’s just one teeny, tiny problem. Eve is her boss, so she’s completely off-limits.

Eve feels a sizzling connection with Talia from the very first, but Talia works for her, and that’s just a bad idea. Besides, Eve needs to focus on the person sending disturbing emails to her office, and not on the woman who quickly makes herself invaluable to the department. It’s too bad her heart doesn’t agree with her.

Then Eve is badly injured in the line of duty, and Talia’s worst fears are realized. She may lose her chance at happiness with the woman she’s come to love, and she can’t survive that kind of loss twice in a lifetime.

My Thoughts:

I totally picked up this book because I follow the author on Twitter. I read her tweets about the book as she wrote it and later edited. She caught my attention with talk of older characters (they're in their 50s), diverse characters, sexy times, and sweet romance. Even so, I held off on requesting it because 99% of what I read are male and female pairings or 1 woman with 2 males. I don't do much reading in other pairings but Ms Griffin made this book sound so appealing that I stepped out of my comfort zone and requested the book. I'm glad I did as I enjoyed it and it made me smile.

Talia is a bisexual Jewish woman who was married to a man and has grown children. She never explored her bisexuality before but has always been attracted to both men and woman. Eve was also married to a man but has spent many years involved with women. She has a grown son. Sparks fly between Talia and Eve immediately but Talia, new to the world of loving women, and rusty at flirting with anyone, is unsure if she's reading Eve's cues correctly, and there's the issue that Eve is her boss. Eve is a black gay woman, and conscious of the fact that she's Talia's boss. Despite the fact that they talk a lot about that problem, they don't ever really sit down and consider their options, and neither seems aware of the power imbalance between them.

The romance is sweet and fun. They are good together, have fun together, and are patient with each other. Eve is patient with Talia as she explores her first relationship and romance with a woman. Both of them showed a lot of respect for each and didn't play games. If one of them messed up, it wasn't drawn out. They talked with each other and they apologized to each other. It was, mostly, a relationship between equals. I say mostly because Eve was Talia's boss which can't help but create a power imbalance which was ignored. To Eve's credit, she treated Talia like another employee at work and both of them worked hard at keeping their behavior purely professional when at work.

I had mixed feelings about how well Talia's kids handled finding out she was bi. On the one hand, it was refreshing to have a lack of angst and fuss but at the same time, her daughters were casual in their acceptance. I suspect that says more about me than it does about the characters.

I think my favorite thing about the story were the relationships. Eve and Talia, Eve and her son, Talia and her daughters, Talia and Eve's son, etc. They were vibrant, strong, and sweet and drove the story. The story is low on angst and high on texture and depth and made me feel good.