Spindrift

by Anna Burke

August 25, 2020 · Bywater Books

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Content warnings: recent death of alcoholic parent, several references to euthanizing shelter animals

I’ve enjoyed all three of Anna Burke’s books so far, which take place in settings where I would last for no longer than a week, if I’m being generous.

In order, they are:

• A dystopian climate fiction with lesbian pirates and terrifying giant squids
• A lyrical, dark f/f reinterpretation of Beauty and the Beast
• A super-queer Robin Hood retelling, which was also quite dark and with lots of adventure

When I heard she was dropping a contemporary romance this summer, I was so surprised that my brain halted with a “wait, what?” and I wondered for months what that would look like. Turns out, Spindrift is kind of slow to start, but picks up in the second half and the leads’ character arcs are spectacular.

Everything had been too much for Emilia Russo, between the sudden death of her father and her compassion fatigue as a shelter veterinarian (mainly due to frequently euthanizing animals who didn’t get adopted or had overly expensive medical needs). Even worse? Her girlfriend had walked away when Emilia’s pain was too much to handle. Now, after a hospital stay and a couple of months of intensive therapy for a mental breakdown, Emilia is in Seal Cove, Maine, for the summer. She’s trying to put herself back together while figuring out what to do with all of her dad’s worldly belongings, and renovating his house is the perfect mind-numbing work she needs.

Morgan Donovan is a large animal veterinarian in Seal Cove and shares a house with friends who also work at the practice. Morgan was supposed to be getting married to the love of her life, but she had left because of all the hours Morgan was working. Morgan isn’t over her ex, but her libido is awake enough to clock how beautiful Ray Russo’s daughter is when they meet at the dock where he kept his sailboat.

Emilia and Morgan are both emotionally wounded and they know a relationship is a terrible idea. But Emilia is only there for the summer, so why not have a fling and then walk away? Of course, this is a romance novel, so we all know roughly how that will go, and Spindrift delivers some good, angsty feelings in the road to their HEA.

I had a hard time getting into Spindrift at first and found myself putting it down in favour of video games or other books. Some of that was due to me and my headspace, particularly the whole being-a-human-in-2020 thing. The rest of it was because Emilia is super brusque with Morgan for longer than I’d expected, which made it difficult for me to invest in the idea of them becoming a couple at first. They meet when Morgan saves Emilia from the water, because Emilia got wine drunk on her dad’s sailboat and fell off of it. For a couple of reasons, Emilia resents the hell out of Morgan for saving her:

Emilia is avoiding people and doesn’t want Morgan in her space.
Emilia had had a gigantic crush on Morgan in high school and Morgan clearly doesn’t remember her, which compounds the humiliation of needing to be rescued.

Emilia is so abrupt, and even quite rude, with Morgan that it was hard to imagine them even as friends, let alone as lovers. And yet, I also understood why she’s that way. Like I mentioned above, she’d burned out at work right around the same time that her dad died, and then her girlfriend noped out of their relationship. Any one of those things would be hard on their own, but together, I could empathize with why Emilia had nothing left emotionally and just wanted to hide away while she figured out what to do with her life.

Once Emilia figures out that Morgan is a really good person who won’t hold the whole drunken, falling-off-a-boat incident against her (even if she remains concerned for Emilia), she chills out and Spindrift gets a lot more enjoyable to read, with excellent banter and great chemistry. For example, I thought this bit is super cute, when Emilia asks Morgan to share something embarrassing about herself, to balance out the humiliation Emilia still carries about Morgan rescuing her:

“I eat cheese in the middle of the night.”

“How is that embarrassing?”

“You don’t understand. I eat a lot of cheese. No cheese is safe. Cheddar, brie, mozzarella, cheese labeled ‘Stevie’s, don’t eat.’ Cheese dip. Cheese sticks. If it’s cheese, I’ll eat it.”

“How much cheese are we talking about?”

“So much. I could eat it by the block.”

“I still don’t think that’s on the same level as falling off a boat.”

“What if I told you I was lactose intolerant?”

“Are you?”

“No.”

Throughout the rest of the story, Emilia grows progressively stronger. Some of that is thanks to Morgan and Morgan’s friends, who embrace her into their tight knit group. However, some of it is thanks to the really hard work Emilia does to work through her issues, including continuing with her therapy. Seeing her actually do the work ensured I believed in her growth, leaving me feeling both happy for her and proud of her.

Although Morgan and Emilia are both attracted to each other, Morgan is the first to really consider the idea of acting on that attraction. Her damage seems to solely come from being left by her former fiancee and I appreciated seeing Morgan’s mental gymnastics as she cartwheels between “I’m totally into the idea of a fun fling” and “I must protect my heart at all costs.” This dichotomy is particularly effective in driving some of the conflict and angst.

One other thing I found interesting about Morgan is that she’s a butch who loves to be topped by the femme in her life. I’ve read more than 700 f/f romances (yes, I checked and, frankly, I’m shocked, too) and I can think of maybe one other butch characters that I’ve seen like that before. I loved seeing such a different take on a butch love interest and I made a little hoot when Morgan’s best friend, Stevie, learns Emilia is a top and says “Oh no […] Morgan, you’re totally fucked.”

Speaking of Stevie and the rest of their roomies, another aspect of Spindrift that really worked for me was the friendships. While they completely have each other’s backs, they also occasionally get into tiffs. Morgan doesn’t deal with stress well, so whenever she gets anxious about her feelings for Emilia, she also gets shitty with her friends. Stevie bears the brunt of that shittiness, and while it’s not always pleasant to read, it feels very real. That authenticity made me believe in the friendships, and my belief was reinforced when I saw how they recovered from those moments.

Another strength of the book is that it’s quite funny in parts. Because Emilia and Morgan’s character arcs are heavy and angsty, the humour did a great job of ensuring that the story never got too dark. For example, this bit when Emilia is talking to her sister, Anna Maria, about Morgan still having her engagement rings made me laugh:

“She still has the rings?” [Anna Maria asked]

“Yes. That’s weird, right?”

“Not necessarily. What would you do if you still had rings from your ex?”

“Toss them into Mount Doom.”

“Let me clarify. If you weren’t Frodo Baggins.”

One last positive thing to note: there are SO MANY good doggos in this book. Emilia and Morgan each have one (Nell and Kraken) and then some of Morgan’s roomies have dogs. too. If you’re into romances where dogs are fully fledged side characters, this book is for you.

For anyone wondering about Emilia’s dad and his alcoholism, the story doesn’t go too deeply into it. It’s definitely there, but mostly in reference to how it impacted Emilia’s relationship with him, since Emilia couldn’t see her dad as often once her mom understood how bad things had gotten. For someone like me who never had to deal much with substance use in their family, it shouldn’t be a problem. I can’t say for sure, however, what it would be like for someone with a parent who has addiction issues, so this is your heads up that YMMV.

Other than finding the story very put-downable in the first several chapters, my other issue with Spindrift is that it info dumps about shelter medicine. To its credit, I walked away from the book more aware of why shelter vets have a higher rate of suicidality than most other professions. However, those passages yanked me right out of the story each time because they felt like they were from an article and not a seamless element of the book.

Overall, Spindrift does some things very well and I fully believed in Emilia and Morgan’s HEA because it was supported by how much each woman had grown and how they were continuing to grow together. However, like I said above, it was all too easy for me to put down in the first half, and those info dumps felt very off from the rest of the book. Having sat with my feelings about Spindrift for a couple of weeks before writing this review, I’ve felt more and more like this is a solid, if not perfect, story, and I’m glad I read it. Amazon tells me that Spindrift is the first “A Seal Cove Romance,” and I already have a hunch what a couple of the future pairings will be, so I will happily reread this before the next book comes out. If you like strong character development, boat sex, and very good dogs, you’ll probably love this book. If those aren’t your jams, this might not be the book for you.