Review: Seascape, by Karis Walsh

[highlyeccentric]

I must preface this by saying that I’m a bit burned out on romance novels right now - I came to the genre because I wanted character-focused narratives about queer people and queer relationships, and romance seemed to be where it’s at. But I’ve read enough now that I’m looking for novels to offer me something more: something beyond ‘girl meets girl’. Which is, fundamentally, not what the romance genre is here to offer me.

With that in mind, this is a perfectly functional romance novel. It features Tess, a marine biologist and commitment-phobe, forced by circumstance to move to her small town home for a short period. Enter Britt, a chemical engineer who, until the day this book opens, worked for a major oil corporation. Britt has an environmental awareness crisis, flees her job, and parks herself in rural upstate Washington to figure out her next steps.

I’ve said before that I really appreciate romance and crime novels that are set somewhere very specific and offer very specific windows into that place or a particular industry or social scene. It is true that I learned more about the fauna of the Olympic Strait from this book, but I already know a fair amount about applying for scientific funding, and I’m afraid *that* plotline was not only unenlightening but actively stretching my suspension of disbelief.

Tess has a complex backstory and several interesting sub-plots: her family are supporting cast, and her resolving tensions with her sister provides a satisfying side plot. Tess has friends from her outside life and they appear (late in the book) as rounded characters. The same can’t be said for Britt: her entire non-romantic plotline is to do with Having A Crisis Of Career and Enviromental Ethics, and I was not satisfied with the vague nods toward a new plan that came in at the end. Within the romantic plot, her defining feature is supposed to be that she is *not* a commitmentphobe (and thus incompatible with Tess), but what is actually shown of her relationship history completely failed to convince me of that. Add to that that she seems to have no friends, nor *want* friends, I found her side of the romantic plot difficult to accept.

Finally, I really thought this novel was going for HFN, which I *like*, or at least the creative ‘HEA but in different cities for now’, but there was a pointless coda assuring us they signed a joint lease *even though one of them is only going to be in that town to visit her partner*. Possibly this is a necessary component of a happy ending for many people, but I find it actively off-putting.

I recieved an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Comments

[monksandbones]

Unrelated to anything romance-novel-y here (although boo unconvincing portrayals of academia), I have questions about the terminology of "Olympic Strait." Do they call it that in the book, as opposed to the Juan de Fuca strait/more properly these days the Salish Sea? Please do tell! While I cannot see the strait in question and the Olympic Peninsula on the other side of it from my house, I can of course see it from a ten-minute walk down the road, so this is relevant to my interests. I require further discussion/evidence to figure out if this is an alternative name for it in Washington State!

[highlyeccentric]

All three names were used in an Explanation. I think Olympic Strait was most common though overall

[bedlamsbard]

As a Washington native (albeit one from the other side of the Cascades), I had the same reaction; I don't think I've ever heard it called that before!

[highlyeccentric]

I'm thinking that might be my fault. It's possible the book regularly refers to 'The olympic penninsula and the Strait' and I just collapsed them.

[highlyeccentric]

Actually, subsequent to Bedlam's comment, I'm thinking that might be my fault. It's possible the book regularly refers to 'The olympic penninsula and the Strait' and I just collapsed them.

[chez_jae]

I find it odd that one character could be so wonderfully three dimensional, and yet the other was not. Huh.