RITA Reader Challenge Review

Far from Home by Lorelie Brown

This RITA® Reader Challenge 2017 review was written by LauraL. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Short Contemporary Romance category.

The summary:

My name is Rachel. I’m straight . . . I think. I also have a mountain of student loans and a smart mouth. I wasn’t serious when I told Pari Sadashiv I’d marry her. It was only party banter! Except Pari needs a green card, and she’s willing to give me a breather from drowning in debt.

My off-the-cuff idea might not be so terrible. We get along as friends. She’s really romantically cautious, which I find heartbreaking. She deserves someone to laugh with. She’s kind. And calm. And gorgeous. A couple of years with her actually sounds pretty good. If some of Pari’s kindness and calm rubs off on me, that’d be a bonus, because I’m a mess—anorexia is not a pretty word—and my little ways of keeping control of myself, of the world, aren’t working anymore.

And if I slip up, Pari will see my cracks. Then I’ll crack. Which means I gotta get out, quick, before I fall in love with my wife.

Here is LauraL's review:

My name is LauraL. I recently read my first f/f romance. When I made my selections for the RITA Reader Challenge, I decided to do what my employer calls a “stretch assignment.” This means working on a project or in a job that stretches your expertise a bit beyond your comfort zone. When I finished reading Far From Home, I told my husband of thirty plus years, “A good romance is a good romance.”

Far From Home is a good romance and a touching fake relationship story. I was drawn into the story from the first line, “I would marry you.”

The proposer in this case is Rachel, a surfer girl from Orange County who is paying off school debt and is working at a low end film studio. She is also in recovery from an eating disorder. Her future bride is Pari, who has been living in California and working in personnel logistics management on an H-1B visa. She plans to open her own consulting firm, so Pari decides to get a green card for a more permanent residency. A spouse can help her with these goals, so Rachel and Pari agree to spend two years together in a fake marriage to make Homeland Security happy. Sure. We know it always works out as planned.

Watching them get to know each other and fall in love was like any other fake relationship romance I’ve ever read. Okay, so maybe this wasn’t such a stretch assignment. I enjoyed watching the love story build as it is told from Rachel’s point of view. First, it’s all about Pari’s voice:

I love her voice. It isn’t only the lilting cadence of her native India mixed with crisp Britishness, it’s the sweet kindness that is absolutely letting me off the hook.

Rachel starts to notice other lovable things about Pari, like her hair, her lips, her style of dressing, the way she stretches…little by little those small pieces of noticing build toward the first kiss. Then, the first orgasms. By then, the reader figures out Rachel is in love. Absolutely smitten. She had been with a considerable number of guys before, but it was never like this. Her best friend’s girlfriend describes Rachel as demi-sexual, meaning she can enjoy sex only when it’s with someone she has bonded with emotionally. However, Pari seems to be endowed with magical bedroom skills. The word “magic” is often used by Rachel to describe sexy times and Pari. Once Rachel and Pari’s relationship turns real, Rachel starts to heal, repairing the bundle of insecurities and food issues she had become.

So on to the wedding! A few weeks are spent in the company of Pari’s elegant and charming mother, Niharika, while huge wedding plans are being executed. Pari’s family is a big part of this story, but we don’t hear much about Rachel’s family. Rachel’s mother can’t fit the wedding planning into her schedule. A few close friends are the only family Rachel can claim. Niharika is there for her daughter from half-way around the world. There is an especially touching scene between Niharika and Rachel when they find The Dress. A formidable number of Pari’s relatives and family friends fly in from India for three days of Indian and American wedding traditions. The Epilogue had me dabbing my eyes a little bit.

I’ve read several previous books by Lorelie Brown and have admired her word choices and dialogue. In this story there are running themes of waves (Rachel is a surfer girl, after all) and ghosts. One of my favorite scenes is when Pari and Rachel sleep in the same bed for the first time. They are wearing pajamas.

I’m trapped between nervous giggles and the tense feeling of not wanting to move because it would shake the bed. “Is this the part where we tell ghost stories?” Pari asks.

There were a few problems solved a little too easily and breezily, which brought my grade down a bit to a B+.  Reading this novel, you may learn there can be more than one meaning for “far from home” and more than one way to define “family.”

 

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Far From Home by Lorelie Brown

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  1. Anne says:

    Sounds cute, I’m definitely putting it on my list!

  2. DonnaMarie says:

    Thanks going outside your zone. Nicely done.

  3. Lizzy says:

    I liked this review, I’m glad you went beyond your comfort zone. I’m almost sold on this one except I’m not a big fan of single first person narration. But the story sounds so good and there’s a depressing lack of f/f.

  4. LauraL says:

    @ Lizzy, I’m not much for single first person narration either, but it really works with this story.

  5. Demi says:

    Great review! I’m in the same camp – not a huge fan of first-person narration, but this looks so good, and there definitely seem to be fewer f/f titles in the GLBT romance arena so it’s always exciting to read a review of a good one.
    Has anyone read “Starstruck” by H.L. Logan? A celebrity f/f romance that looks good – thought darnit, also in first-person narration.

  6. Lucy says:

    Apropos f/f romance, and intercultural romance, Lydia Perovic’s Incidental Music is torrid and exciting. One narrative is set in present-day Toronto, one in 1950s Budapest.

  7. Judith says:

    I’m not a fan of first person narration, even less of a fan of present tense narration so this one isn’t for me.

  8. Cat C says:

    YAY I’m so glad I read this review and thought “huh, that sounds cute”–it just showed up as a 99c sale on BookBub!

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