From the get go, I was hooked by the story. It was so refreshing to see two POC in a #lesfic romance, and even better but two women in Academia. Charlotte and Adrianna reunite in Spain serendipitously, and after a grad-school crush their romance develops very quickly over 4 days together. They are then left with a strong connection, but a very long distance romance.

I really enjoyed following the long distance romance, and anyone who has experienced this type of relationship would definitely relate to this part of the story. It took me back to when I first started dating my wife and we had a few months of separation and it was so difficult and tested our relationship. It can definitely make or break a romance!

All in all, a great romance that I highly recommend if you like your characters to be smart, outspoken and sexy.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Carina Press / Carina Adores for a copy of this novel. ARC provided in exchange for an honest review.

Oh honey mine!

This book was really interesting in terms of the characters and their representations in the book, and I truly commend the author for that. The two main characters are women of colour that have dedicated their lives to academia and the arts while putting love off. Together, they discover with each other, how important love is if you have the right person to share it with. It's my first book I've read with this storyline, even though it was a bit different, I still enjoyed reading about it and experiencing it.

If you love spicy romances with characters that catch all the feels, you'll enjoy this!

Thank you to NetGalley and Carina Press for the earc in return for an honest review.

Thank You! Thank You! Thank You HARLEQUIN /Carina Press 😘💕
For this sweet adorable ebook.copy in exchange for an honest review!
NetGalley Thank you for the opportunity!
And Author Lowell.... You have a new fan here! Thank you!

I freaked out a bit when I opened my tablet and got onto NetGalley and seen Meet Me in Madrid was on my shelf! 😻 Aahhhhhhh!
I legit said out loud.... "I freaking love this Publisher! Sincerely thank you"!
I have been dying to read this ever since I seen it hit NetGalley and I've been patiently waiting for the approval.
The description here captured my attention and ran like a blazing train.
I needed! I wanted! I prayed! And y'all sent..... 🙏

This book is brilliant. I don't have one bad thing to say about this story!
The writing is brilliant here. For this to be Verity Lowell's first book she did a damn fantastic job!
It flowed so well and had such an inventive setting.
Being in Spain Verity set the most romantic scene SPAIN!!!!
Charlotte and Adrianna's chemistry leaves something to be desired here.
I couldn't get enough of it. Their chemistry leaves something to be desired,
A laugh-out-loud funny; her cast of characters is vibrant and engaging....
The book as a whole is the type of escape readers long for.
I loved it! It was everything I was anticipating and then some!
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Special thanks to NetGalley and HARLEQUIN /Carina Press for sharing this amazing digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest thoughts.
I'll post my review to my platforms closer to pub date!

Interesting FF Romance Brought Down By Preachy Politics And Blatant Racism. As a romance, this book works. It starts out as a "forced" (ish) proximity before turning into a bridge-the-gap, all revolving around two female academics at different points in their careers. Not for the "clean" / "sweet" crowd, as others have noted there is a fair amount of sex in the first four chapters alone. Also falls into the trap of describing both women as very buxom, which is a bit of a cop-out to my mind designed to get those of us with... "active imaginations"... more into the book. But that point is but a minor quibble. The preachy politics, and in particular the blatant racism, is the reason for the star deduction here. Let me be perfectly clear. My standard is this: If you reverse the [insert demographic in question] and keep everything else absolutely identical, would anyone cry foul? I believe this book fails that test in its characterization of its singular straight white male character, and thus the star deduction. But still, on the whole this is a mostly solid book, and thus it is *only* a singular star deducted. Fans of the romance genre generally should enjoy this one, fans of FF romances in particular will probably thoroughly enjoy this one, and it does indeed dive into areas not frequented, particularly academia and art professors. Thus, this book is recommended.

While I really enjoyed the setting of this book and I thought the main character had such an interesting job, I found the pacing to be quite rushed. I personally prefer my romances to have more of a build-up. On top of that, the writing style wasn't my cup of tea at all, so I ended up not finished this book.

It sounds harsh but Meet Me in Madrid has to be one of the most boring books I’ve read recently. I don’t know what it was about it, but I started skimming within a few chapters of the start, and I simply couldn’t bring myself to care one bit about the characters.

This isn’t a bad book! For another person, perhaps none of it would have mattered and they’d have enjoyed it a lot more. For me? Well. It was a death knell.

Probably the biggest sticking point for me was the writing. To me—and I stress to me because I think attitude to writing style is one of the most personal things when reviewing a book—it felt stilted and forced. And that was clearest in the conversations characters had. Not only that, the book didn’t seem able to find a tense it wanted to stay in. I get that the parts in present tense were supposed to be like… true whatever, whenever, kind of lines, but they’d have read just as well in past tense. All that tense switch did was throw me out of the story.

As I said, writing style preferences are personal, but I think here what happened is that dislike of writing proliferated down to every other aspect of the book. I didn’t care for the writing, so I didn’t care for the characters, so I didn’t care for the relationship. Everything I didn’t like about this book comes back to the writing style.

So really, this entire review comes back to that. Like I said, it’s personal, and there really wasn’t much else to the book that made me think it was bad. Style aside, it was well-paced and, if I’d liked the characters, I could see myself liking the relationship (despite not being a massive fan of the age gap).

But the writing…

When two women who had mutual admiration crossed paths again, the night seeped from one into another. Getting toasty behind closed doors and between sheets was a cocoon of sensuality until it was time to step back into a world full of ambitions and uncertainties.

Charlotte and Adrianna are two women who have something to prove. Being women of colour, the world is not their oyster. They have to constantly reach and fight for what they deserve and navigating a long distance relationship made it altogether tougher.

The book presented a stark picture of reality. Much as society downplays it, discrimination is still real today. The two ladies were portrayed as intellectuals, bold, expressive and clear winners in their own rights. I enjoyed the love story in a blend of art, academics, longing and fight.

I just reviewed Meet Me In Madrid by Verity Lowell. Thank you NetGalley and Carina Press for the ARC.

DNF - I think this book would appeal and be very enjoyable to many, unfortunately however I didn’t enjoy it. Although the writing was stunning, it was the storyline that just wasn’t for me. That isn’t to say it was bad, on the contrary I can see why many would love it, I just didn’t relate to any of the characters which made it hard for me to continue with the book. I felt like the book was aimed at an older audience than me which I didn’t realise at the time of requesting.

I really enjoyed this book, the characters were three-dimensional, and I appreciate the representation of the dilemmas of career and academic life. It probably wouldn't find an audience at my small rural library, but otherwise I would definitely recommend it!

Charlotte Hilaire is a museum courier who gets to travel the globe. Adrianna Coates is a tough as nails art historian who holds no prisoners. They reunite in Madrid and then are forced to deal with travel, work obligations, and distance as obstacles to their renewed relationship.

The book was a little slow to me in places, but the characters were generally engaging. It was encouraging to see women of color featured in an academic romantic story. 3 stars

I received an ARC from Carina Press and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley and Harlequin - Carina Press for this ARC ebook in exchange for an honest review.

Firstly, let me lead with how much I love the title (mainly because Madrid is my favorite big city)! I loved reading about two queer women of color falling for each other. The added layer was the societal problems that women, especially women of color and queer women/womxn, deal with. Overall, this was great! I cannot wait to read it again with my book club!

Meet Me in Madrid follows the story of two black, queer, academics who reunite in Madrid, only to deal with the complexities of a long distance relationship, as well as balancing their work and personal lives. Objectively, I think this is a 4 star book, but personally I didn't really connect with the story, and on a subjective level, this was a 3 star read for me. This is no fault of the writing and simply has to do with my personal preferences. Still, this is a strong story, with cute romance and some really topical themes. I found the stand out feature of this book to be the way it discussed the lack of diversity in academia and the prejudice queer people and POC face in that domain. My main complaint for this book is just that I felt like the main characters fell in love (or at least were infatuated with one another) super quickly, which made it a bit difficult to connect to the romance. Still, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this book to people, just perhaps to a demographic of readers who have a different preferred writing style than I do, as this wasn't my personal favourite.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I received this book for free for an honest review from netgalley #netgalley

I was so grateful that I got approved for the full book thank you. It's a great book that is definitely going to be a reread for me

What a fun romcom about international travel, bad dates, miscommunication.... and adorable characters. I devoured this in one sitting. Thank you for the e-arc!

Meet Me In Madrid by Verity Lowell
Rating: 3/5

Summary: When Charlotte is faced with staying in Madrid longer then she'd expected to, she meets up with an old acquaintance called Adrianna. Charlotte didn't anticipate falling for Adrianna and the whirlwinf that it would bring.

Rating: I did like this book, it was fun and sweet. The characters were easy to relate to and to like. The plot was easy to follow. The side characters were well written and felt like their own person. I was debating between 3 or 4 stars. In the end i decided on 3. Simply because in some parts the book did feel like it was slow paced. Also because the story just didn't click that much with me. It was by no fault of the author. The book really is amazing. Just wasn't something that i would read again. It was a book i liked reading in the moment but not one that i would pick up and read again. I encourage others to read it because others might enjoy it more then me.

What a truly lovely romance between two Black women in academia! Adriana and Charlotte were so vividly written as was the difficulties of being an academic (especially a Black woman academic), having a long distance relationship, and trying to find a career path in a crowded as well as racist, homophobic, and misogynistic field. That makes it all seem less fun than this book is but I include all of that as context for how rare it is to see queer women of color in romance novels and this one is wonderful. The story and characters are compelling, the sex is hot and plentiful, and the settings are so vividly rendered you can feel the heat coming off the streets of Madrid and the cold of the dirty slush in New Haven.
Highly recommend.