Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
TW: racism, sexism, misogynoir
Charlotte has a PhD in art history, a job where she gets to travel the world and good friends. But the PhD isn't getting her into academia, where she desperately wants to be, the job doesn't actually include much seeing the places she visits and the good friends are actually James, her gay colleague and Natalie, who barely makes an appearance. When a blizzard strands her in Madrid and she contacts Adrianna, a person she knew once, on a whim, he life rapidly changes in a whirlwind of passion, plane rides and Adrianna. Adrianna who has everything Charlotte wants and is charming and beautiful and smart and sexy. When opportunities and possibilities come their way, will they be able to balance their newfound relationship with their dreams?

This is a cute, funny, sexy Sapphic romance with a dollop of art history and a dash of academia. The relationship between Charlotte and Adrianna feels organic, even if they are immediately attracted to one another, which is an art in and of itself. The pacing and writing of the story is fitting for the fun contemporary romance it wants to be. The wit is amazing, especially in face of the heavy topics it does touch on: racism, sexism and misogynoir in academia and the arts. My personal feeling is that this was done well, though I strongly urge you to read the reviews of BIPOC on this in particular. I loved the queer rep and especially how the story underlines that feeling safe at work or at school is a lot easier when there are other queer people and the way just existing seems to be easier and more free. This was done extremely well. I loved this aspect in combination with academia, especially women in academia. It felt like a reminder that I am not alone, that I can occupy as much space as any other. The smut however, was...mediocre. It always started so good and was over way too quickly, feeling cut off and sometimes even cold. This didn't fit into the rest of the story and the exquisite storytelling that detailed how the two women fell deeper and deeper in love.

I recommend this story to anyone who loves romcoms, academia and travel and particularly to queer women who occupy such spaces. It is a reminder that you are not alone.

Thank you so much for an early copy in exchange for an honest review!

I wanted to love this book so much, especially since I am a black women in academia and desperately want characters and stories I can relate too. It also has all the tropes I absolutely love.

Unfortunately, I'm not used to this style of writing and I ended up not interested in the characters or their relationship. However, I think the story objectively has promise, personally it just wasn't for me.

3.5 stars rounded to 4

Meet Me in Madrid is a lesbian adult romance by Verity Lowell. The story of two women trying to balance their personal relationship with their career goals, all while being thousands of miles away from each other.

Looking at the cover, I thought I was in for a light contemporary romance with a good amount of emotion because of the struggles that come with a long distance relationship. I was not expecting the amount of steam I would encounter, and I am not mad about it lol It starts with a one-night stand that's so much more than a one-night stand as soon as it starts. Then every time our leading ladies are together they definitely make the most of it and in between those meet up they aren't shy and enjoy phone sex. Their distance does not put out the intimate fire between them.

Besides the physical intimacy , one thing I love about long distance romances is the emotional connection that is formed between the women. While both strong characters on their own, neither of them outshone the other. They were supportive of each other's goals and career. I also really appreciated that the age gap between them was some big deal, and neither of them obsessed over the fact. The reason this isn't getting a higher rating for me is because outside the romance, I found all the history jargon rather dull and found myself skimming whenever job situations were happening. Overall, this was a passionate romance between two strong BIPOC who have to learn to make room in their independent lives for love.

As much as I wanted to love this book, I just could not get into it. I ended up skimming a lot of it, and I found that the writing was more suited for fanfiction than for a romance novel. The relationship had no build-up, and Adrianna and Charlotte immediately went from a quick, friendly catch-up to a passionate, long-distance relationship.

I loved the representation, but I was bummed that the mediocre writing style took away from the characters.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing this digital arc in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to like this book a lot more than I eventually did. I liked the cover, I liked the premise, I liked that both MCs were BIPOC women in academia. In the end, it was nice and enjoyable but not excitingly so.

Despite being a brilliant art history student, Charlotte Hilaire failed to find a teaching job and is now a courier for a museum. While in Madrid, she looks up Adrianna Coates, on whom she had a big crush when their paths crossed at Yale and who is on a research sabbatical in Spain. The two women click immediately and what should have been a one-night stand turns into three nights and the beginning of a long-distance relationship.

I’m not sure I can explain why this book didn’t work for me. The characters are interesting but I never really cared about them. I didn’t mind the instalust, that’s never a real problem for me, even less so when the characters have actually met before, as is the case here. I was told there was chemistry between them and I was willing to believe it, but never felt it in a convincing way. It all felt a bit bland.

The author clearly knows the setting she chose – art history and academia – and that’s what I’ll remember, along with her take on queer women of colour in that environment. One scene stands out for me, that I won’t spoil, but it involves Charlotte speaking up despite the risks to her job and her future. Meet Me in Madrid could have been a very different book if this same passion had made it into more chapters.

Such a good love story, I couldn’t put it down. Also besides the romance the book is relevant to the struggles POC and women in particular are having to go through in a white male dominated field.
Charlotte is a museum courier trying to get a job in the Academia. On one of her deliveries she gets stranded in Madrid due to bad weather and she remembers that Adrianna, her crush for over a decade lives there. They meet for a drink and everything changes.
This book is sweet and sexy and funny and I recommend you read it.
Thank you to NetGalley and Carina Press for an ARC ebook in exchange for an honest review.

Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene...

Except it isn't two households, ccit's two women, and it isn't fair Verona, it's Madrid. And no one dies at the end, which is refreshing (looking at you, Boys on the Side and Fried Green Tomatoes).

There's bound to be spoilery stuff here.

Charlotte, once a Yale undergrad and now (some kind of lowly curator title) and courier shepherding pieces of art to the places they've been loaned, is stranded in Madrid during a sudden storm. Adrianna, once a Yale lecturer, and now a lecturer on the entirely opposite coast, is in Madrid on a sabbatical, running down and transcribing the diaries of a nun. They knew one another briefly,back at Yale, but now they've both been focused on their life in academia, pursuing their careers. They meet up at a cafe Adrianna knows, and the writing at that point tells you what going to happen: instalove.

There's nothing wrong with that, of course, ass it's a trope of the genre. I did like the wrinkle that there is at least the fact they knew one another in some way prior to Madrid. This means they're also a bit older than the characters who usually inhabit the gene, and they're also both black, another departure from the genre. No young white women with blond hair, blue eyes, zero body fat and perfect abs here: the author paints both women as "buxom", which I took to mean that both have at least something approximating a bit of middle age spread in addition to both having big chests.

After a three day marathon of sex, Charlotte heads back to New Haven, and both women have the newly-met-but-too-far-away stars in their eyes, looking forward to their next meeting, in NYC, for the new year.

There's a brief appearance by Hadley, a slim, white, young woman with perfect everything (oops, I guess not all tropes are dead) at the beginning of the new year version of Madrid, someone Charlotte can't stand for reasons not well explained, who invites them to a NYE party at her parents' house, and they go, for some reason. After finishing the book, I understand why, but it was a little heavy handed.

More sex, over the next couple of days. Adrianna flies back to Madrid, and we get an encore of Emotions.

Charlotte is tasked with taking some art out to California, and Adrianna insists that she meet Esther, a dear friend of hers. Esther's having a time with her husband, who has been having an affair with one of his students. To put the betrayal on blast, he sends the student to tell Esther about it. After getting stuck in LA by yet another freak storm, Charlotte winds up at Esther's teaching her son Fisher to make beignets. There's a weird, uncomfortably written conversation between Esther and Charlotte, and the "is this older woman, having been married to a shitty dude with whom she had a son, really a lesbian, or at least bi?" thing was off-putting. There's also a connection made, thanks to networking, when Esther takes Charlotte to Piedmont, who may or may not be in the market for a half courier/half lecturer type of person.

Next up: Chicago (Adrianna's hometown) at Valentines Day! Also, interviews, where she once again faces the dean from Piedmont, but they have to pretend they don't know one another. Charlotte also gives a talk on race and art, and her asshole boss from the museum - "I don't see you as a person of color, Charlotte" - is there, once again saying stupid things, this time about how Brer Rabbit and Songs of the South are not racist, I guess, and how art shouldn't be politicized. It's the sort of blather some overly educated jerk says when they're trying to put down one of their own employees with a nonsensical what if. What I thought immediately, and what Adrianna actually says in the book against his crap, is that his statement itself is political.

More sexytimes. They depart from one another, again.

In between all this - and sometimes when they're recovering from a round of sex, there's discussion of how difficult it is in general to have a career in the arts, and in particular, how hard it is for black, gay women to have a career in the arts. This is true (not just of the arts, of course, BIPOC LGBTQAI+ folk have a hard time of it anywhere) but the way it's written feels like it's been copied out of a policy paper.

Later in the book, we get the Sophie's Choice: both women get job offers, but it would mean they would swap coasts, and still have the same problem: long distance relationships, even with these two who can get horny on command via facetime, are problematic in a lot of ways. They finally have their first blowup, after Adrianna tells Charlotte abut her offer from Yale. They get snippy from one another, and then give each other the silent treatment: no texts, no calls, no facetime.

Esther tells Adrianna she's being a jerk and to knock it off. We get the usual makeup bit, but of course, they are still apart.

Charlotte,her pal James, and three other people get the axe fro the museum thanks to Jerkface McRacistBoss. James, crafty queen that he is, has receipts: Jerkface gets fired, the five are rehired, and Charlotte is given a vague promise or promotion to Deputy Curator when the woman in charge retires.

But where we land is in Cali. Esther has hooked up with Hadley, so we have a May-September romance with the two mains, and a May-December with the secondaries. It also occurred to me that out of the four white adult guys we meet for any real time, one is gay, one is a dean of the arts college, one is a two-timing douchebag, and the last is a racist homophobe.

If you're reading for the sex, you'll be delighted: there's a lot of it, and it's very graphic, sometimes to the point of being clinical. If you're reading for the story: it's ok. The writing style seems to be most comfortable when the topic is academia, and the descriptions of interviews and campus visits was the best writing and the best look at getting hired in academia that I've read outside of nonfiction.

Three out of five stars (possibly a fiver if erotica is your thing).

Thanks to Harlequin/Carina Press/Carina Adores and NetGalley for the reading copy.

At the end of the day, it's a HEA - how could it not be?

I didn't expect this one to be so hot. I really liked the relationship between the two main characters. The Madrid descriptions were so real I felt like I was there.

Long distance dating is one of the toughest things on relationship. Charlotte knows this only too well. When she meets up with a woman from her past in Madrid, sparks fly and a relationship is born.

I am always on the look out for some good ff romance. This one between Charlotte and Adrianna is a bit too slow for me. In addition, the characters are developed in a mediocre manner. I say this because I kept having to remind myself which one is Charlotte and which one is Adrianna. There wasn't enough to distinguish between the two women.

So why did I still rate it 3 star? Because I liked the conflict the two experienced. I enjoyed how they had jobs that took them away from each other. They had to work to keep their relationship going. I liked how it presented real life problems when two women both relatively established in their careers and trying to move up the ladder end up in a relationship which could impact their careers.

I am mixed about the outcome of their career because it did feel like one person had to sacrifice more for the other. This is a universal truth for most dual income couples. I have to admit I felt anxiety waiting to see what both ladies would end up deciding.

I also liked how Ms. Lowell addresses the issue of being "other". Both women's racial and sexual identity seem to have been more noticed than their work. I found this to be sad. Because they are more than just a person of colour or a lesbian. They both are amazing at their jobs and to be relegated to be a token promotion or to be let go because of an aspect of their life, not their work merits is depressing for me. It is captured quite well in this book.

Overall, this book is going in many different directions with subplots that imply history that needs to be explained more. Or other subplots hint at a possible future story with a broken marriage and a switch to play for the other team. This contemporary romance is messy, complicated, and real to life. Recommended to ff readers who enjoy happily ever afters.

Thank you for giving me access to this book, but unfortunately it was a DNF for me. I just couldn't get into it. It might have been because I was just coming off the high on an incredible new favourite book, that this one just didn't really stand a chance, but it just didn't engage me. I'd be willing to revisit it one day, just now wasn't the right time it seems.

I really wanted to like this book, but I couldn't quite get there. The stakes were never clearly laid out, and the two women fall into a relationship so quickly that no tension ever builds between them. The sex scenes weren't steamy enough to qualify this as straight-up erotica, but the plot felt thin enough that I was expecting more of that. Overall, just a mediocre romance.

Much as I want more wlw stories out in the world, this one just didn’t hold me. The writing feels blocky and over the top, and there is a lot of telling the reader about both women rather than letting their personalities and histories organically reveal themselves.

I'm afraid that I find Verity Lowell's writing to be very weak, so much so that I'm surprised this work will be published at all. I liked the idea and the f/f love story however the prose is cliché-ridden and uneven. I'm sure others will be able to love this more but I cannot in good conscience recommend this.

DNF after 5 chapters. I was so excited for this book. I love Madrid, art history, and sapphic romances, however this book just fell flat. The writing was so flowery and tried to describe every little thing that it was just difficult to read and honestly felt very objectifying (like I had to check twice to make sure it wasn't written by a man). It desperately needed an editor to take out half the paragraphs, On top of that the relationship Charlotte and Adrienne went from zero to sex with no build up or heat. Literally they went from barely having a single conversation to scissoring with no build up (and that was all within the first for chapters). I felt no connection to the characters and found no connection between the two women. This was so bad that in combination with the way things were described I actually gagged and kept thinking, "ew" during the sex scene because it put felt porny. I have read a lot of KU erotica and have never had this reaction. I will not be finishing the book.

I guess I had high hopes for this book but the romance didn't work for me at all. I think I was expecting something more like Alexandra Bellefleur's book Written in the Stars which I really enjoyed. The relationship in this book just wasn't good. I liked Charlotte but not Adrianna. I couldn't stand her. The secondary characters were interesting though. I did order a copy for my library but it just wasn't for me.

I'm contemplating running the Madrid half marathon so I figured it was time to read a book set in Madrid. This just didn't live up to my expectations.

This book just wasn't for me. It holds so much promise, but the writing is off-putting and it ends up being boring and it could not hold my attention.

The representation is great, leading ladies of colour and highly educated with good jobs. That is sadly also where it stops.

I'm sure this works for other people, please find other reviews to find out if this book is for you.

I want to start off by saying that objectively this was an okay book. I think that it had a hard time trying to get its point across. The writing was a little confusing, the tense of the story was flopping all around.

It’s hard to write a review on a book where the one thing you don’t like about it (the writing style), is the thing that allows you to get through it and enjoy it. It may be for someone but it just wasn’t for me.

I will say the rep in this book is outstanding.

The story of Charlotte and Adrianna is they both met in college when Adriana was a professor and Charlotte and student. Almost ten years later, they meet in Madrid and start a love affair. I do appreciate the diversity of both characters both being part of BIPOC and the LGBTIA+ community. The love scenes are erotic and explicit. However, the story felt very rushed in their relationship, and the character Hadley felt like a last-minute character placed in the story.

The relationship between Charlotte and Adrianna felt very rushed, immediately falling in love and diving head first into a romance. While I liked that the question then became "how do we make this work" rather than "should we", there didn't feel like there was any forward momentum in their story. The side characters also didn't really fit into the narrative in a productive way. It all just fell flat unfortunately. I wanted more.

After reading the sample preview for this book and thinking the story was promising, I was excited to continue reading. Unfortunately, this book ended up falling flat for me in almost every way.

What I liked: The fact it’s a sapphic romance that doesn’t shy away from the sexytimes. The fact both heroines were women of colour. This one goes in both the pro and con list: their jobs; they had interesting jobs, but there was way too much detail.

What I disliked: The story was so painfully slow. There was too much detail about the curating and the research. When they were together, I enjoyed the story for the most part, but when they were apart, it dragged. I stopped caring about the characters or what was happening about halfway through and ended up skimming the rest of the book. There was so much telling and very little showing, and it made it hard to connect to the characters or what was happening.

When a book has a title like ‘Meet Me in Madrid’ I expect to see some of Madrid. I want a sense of place, I want food and scenery and to feel like I’m there. In this book, one of the characters just happened to live there and that was really all we saw. Also, calling this a romcom feels like a flat-out lie. This didn’t have any of the hallmarks of a romcom, nor was it even remotely funny.

I had high hopes for Meet Me in Madrid, but overall it fell flat and ended up being a chore to get through.