BOOK RECOMMENDATION: Delilah Green Doesn't Care by Ashley Herring Blake

SUMMARY: Delilah Green has everything she wants: An emerging career in photography, regular hookups without commitment, and an established life in New York, thousands of miles from her only remaining family. But when Delilah's stepsister Astrid pays her $15K to cover two weeks of wedding activities in their hometown, she can't afford to turn down that payday. Now, back in the small town where she grew up, Delilah has to deal with feelings and people she thought she had left in the past.

This book was fantastic!! It's a FF romance, but there's so much more to unpack. I loved the strained relationship between Delilah and Astrid and their differing perspectives despite growing up in the same house. The author treated both characters with care and really brought their stories to life.

The tone/style of this book reminded me of Emily Henry, and the way her books focus on emotional growth while treating the reader to an engaging romance between interesting characters.

💖 LOVED this book
💖 Will definitely be reading the next in the series
💖 Anticipate that it will be a top 2022 read for me

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thank you to NetGalley, Berkley Publishing Group, and Ashley Herring Blake for an arc in exchange for an honest review. Available 2/22/22!

I may have picked this up at the wrong time - I am in a reading slump and most books aren't working for me right now. All my friends who've read this gave it 4 or 5 stars and I've seen lots of rave reviews. However, I've been reading it for almost 2 weeks and am only 34% into it. When I'm reading, it's fine - but it's not compelling me to pick it back up and so I don't. I may come back and try this again at another time but for now, this one isn't working for me. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance reading copy.

Thank you Netgalley and Berkley for access to this arc.

Reviewed by Janine - I first spotted your debut contemporary romance on Goodreads. Early reviews there were very favorable, and even though it’s a “big city girl comes back to the small town where she grew up” story and that is one of my least favorite tropes in the genre, I was intrigued. My review schedule was packed so I hemmed and hawed about whether there was time to pick up a new ARC but, in the end, I went for it.

Thirty-year-old New York City art and wedding photographer Delilah Green would probably rather walk over a bed of nails than go back to her hometown of Bright Falls, Oregon. Delilah’s mom died when she was three and her dad passed away when she was eight. After that, she was raised by Isabel, her stepmother. Isabel didn’t give Delilah half the attention she lavished on her biological daughter, Astrid. Delilah was an odd, quirky child whereas Astrid was perfectly behaved. The lonely and neglected Delilah retreated into books and later into photography, always on the outside looking in. Astrid and her two best friends, Iris and Claire, excluded Delilah and sometimes talked about her behind her back. Once, she even heard them calling her “the ghoul of Wisteria House” (Wisteria House being the house that Delilah’s architect father designed and built for his family).

In the twelve years since she left Bright Falls, Delilah has lived in New York City and made queer women showing difficult emotions the focus of her art photography. Wedding photography and other gigs pay the rent. Delilah has in those years had many lovers (both women and enbys) but only one relationship (it ended badly).

Delilah is forced to return to Bright Falls, if only for a brief visit, for Astrid’s wedding and the festivities leading up to it. Isabel has hired Delilah to serve as the photographer (a fact that speaks volumes about their relationship) and Delilah really needs the money. On the evening of her arrival Delilah stops for a drink at Stella’s Tavern, Bright Falls’ only bar. Also at Stella’s that night are Claire and Iris, who are waiting for Astrid to meet them. While they wait, Iris chides Claire for her lack of a sex life, and challenges her to pick someone up that night, or at least ask them for their phone number.

Claire is bisexual and has been divorced for nine years. She and her ex-husband, Josh, share an eleven-year-old daughter, Ruby, and on rare occasion, a bed. Josh is irresponsible, always obsessed with one project or another, and has disappointed Ruby in the past by failing to show up. He and Claire also disagree about how to raise her; Josh is indulgent and it is up to Claire to set boundaries. Nevertheless, he is attractive and convenient. Claire is all to aware that sleeping with him once in a while is a bad habit and it’s one she wants to break.

Claire had Ruby at a young age and never got to go to college with her friends, and now she runs the bookshop that used to belong to her mother. Her life is somewhat circumscribed and can be stressful (with a rebellious pre-teen at home), so although it requires gathering her courage, she takes on Iris’s challenge.

Immediately after Delilah arrives at Stella’s she sidles up to the bar to order a drink. Claire hasn’t seen her in years, and Delilah’s looks have changed over that time. Claire only sees her from the back at first, and her eye is drawn first to the tattoos that decorate Delilah’s arms. She approaches the bar and asks Delilah for her phone number. Even at that point, she doesn’t recognize her as Astrid’s oddball stepsister.

Delilah is thrilled by this turn of events. Not only has she been attracted to Claire since they were teens, she also thinks it would be fun (and a triumph) to sleep with Claire first and reveal her identity later. But then Astrid enters the bar and identifies Delilah, foiling Delilah’s plans and leaving Claire mortified.

Delilah decides to try to seduce Claire anyhow, partly because of the attraction but just as much because she wants to prove she can. Early on, she tries to make a bet on it with Astrid, but Astrid refuses. The idea of Claire being attracted to Delilah is preposterous, Astrid implies. But of course, she’s wrong—and the thought of proving it, even if only to herself, is irresistible to Delilah. Delilah hates feeling vulnerable in the same house she grew up in, and subtly drawing Claire in isn’t just about attraction or revenge for her—it’s also her way of making herself feel that she’s in control of the situation instead of the situation being in control of her.

As the pre-wedding events (wedding brunch, wedding dinner, a weekend at a spa) ramp up, Claire tries to ignore how much she desires Delilah and also begins to realize that Delilah must have been a lonely and awkward child, much like her daughter Ruby, and perhaps the way that she and her friends treated her wasn’t fair. But she is aware that Astrid is stressed and strung-out, and that a fling between Claire and Delilah could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Astrid’s fiancé, Spencer, turns out to be a paternalistic, patronizing, and entitled asshole. Claire and Iris hate him for the way he orders Astrid around, and Astrid’s compliance with his wishes baffles them. Delilah sees through him as soon as she meets him and her actions show it. This wins her Iris’s reluctant approval (not that she acknowledges that she cares if she has it).

There is also the tension between Delilah and her relatives. Isabel remains chilly and disapproving, and Delilah takes some pleasure in thwarting her. But with Astrid the situation sometimes seems more complicated. Is Astrid simply cold and standoffish to Delilah, or is there more going on under Astrid’s surface than Delilah wants to see?

Revenge is a trope I like a lot because although it often fails, there are times when it succeeds brilliantly (see: What I Did for a Duke by Julie Anne Long as a prime example of a great revenge-trope romance). Delilah Green Doesn’t Care does pull it off well for the most part because Delilah’s motives are so tangled and also undergirded by vulnerability. Her pursuit of Claire is tied up in childhood hurt feelings, which makes it complicated and messy. And messy is something I really like in a fictional romantic relationship.

The characters here are strong, especially the charismatic and unusual Delilah. Claire, though more conventional, is a great counterpoint to Delilah—mature where Delilah is still caught up in childhood emotions, and softer in contrast to Delilah’s sharp edges, but she still feels dimensional, more than a “nice girl” archetype.

The first half of this book is really engaging–alternately sweet, sharp, satirical, pointed and fun. The chemistry between Delilah and Claire shines and feels organic, and the kisses and love scenes are not only steamy but fraught with unexamined motives and secret intimacy. There’s a lot of humor in the book, too, though some of it was a bit too farcical to fit well with the complex tone of the rest of the book. But I did find a lot of it entertaining.

The second half isn’t as strong. As things get less messy and the edginess of the relationship is smoothed away (inevitable in a romance, since we have to arrive at a happy ending) the book also gets less full-bodied and the beats start getting more familiar.


I wanted the tension of Claire’s emotional conflict to be drawn out more. It would have given the book more depth. I ended up feeling like a bit more could have been done with Delilah and her angst, too. The reason for her fear of commitment was brought up but then faded from the story easily. That took away some of its substance.

Similarly, Delilah’s relationship with Astrid needed more room to breathe.

There were some missed opportunities for Delilah Green Doesn’t Care to be more—more moving and engaging and deeper. There was a lot to like about the book, though, too. I appreciated how messy and complicated things were in the first half. That section was strong enough that the second half left me with some disappointment, but still, reading the book was time well spent. B-.

Obsessed. I loved the writing. I loved the characters. I loved the chemistry. I loved the setting. I loved everything. I’m in love with Delilah. I can’t wait to read more by this author!!! Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this in exchange for a review.

Delilah is being forced to travel from cool, edgy NYC where she’s trying to break into the art world back home to Bright Falls, OR to photograph her stepsister’s society wedding. She is not looking forward to any of it: not her ice-queen Stepford stepmom, not her perfect stepsister, and certainly not her stepsister’s quick-to-exclude friends. But, on her first night back, one of those friends flirts with Delilah… and maybe they are so prone-to-excluding as they were in high school?? And her stepsister does not seem to love —or even like— her fiancé. As Delilah starts to fall in love, she has a lot of soul-searching to do, which may end in not only a girlfriend, but a stepsister who actually cares about her.

This lesbian romance is *chef’s kiss*! I can’t wait for the second in the series!

LGBTQIA+ rep:
- Delilah is a lesbian.
- Claire is bi.

Book: Delilah Green Doesn’t Care⁣
Author: Ashley Herring Blake⁣
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🅡🅔🅥🅘🅔🅦: To be honest, I was 100% attracted to this book because of the cover. I was expecting a fun sapphic rom-com, but it was so much more. The author did a fantastic job at writing female characters that were real and relatable. The relationships, both love and friendship felt authentic. Plus the way the book dealt with loss and reconnection was raw and beautiful. I can’t wait to read the next book in the Bright Falls Series.⁣
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I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review

This is a fun and easy read! It's witty and family-oriented, with complex characters and equally complicated relationships.

Personally, I'm not generally a huge fan of the romance genre, but I wanted to give this one a try specifically because it can be hard to find sapphic books, and because this one looked interesting enough to warrant going a bit out of my comfort zone to try out new genre. Maybe the reason I dislike romance books is because they're all so heterosexual? However, while reading this, I was, at points, reminded of why I don't usually go for romance books; a plot that required just a little too much suspension of disbelief, and characters that I couldn't quite connect to.

If I were judging this solely based on how much I enjoyed it, I'd give it three stars. However, I'm giving it four because most of my issues with the book boil down to "it couldn't overcome the things I generally dislike about this entire genre," and I don't think it's fair to punish the book for that. If you like romance books, you'll love this one!

Thank you so much @BerkleyRomance & @NetGalley for giving me this eARC in exchange for my honest and unbiased review (Release Date | 22 February 2022)

SYNOPSIS | Delilah reluctantly returns to her hometown to photograph her estranged stepsisters wedding where she bumps into Claire (one of her stepsisters closest childhood friends). They hit it off, but struggle with their attraction to each other as they both have very messy & complicated lives.

WHAT I LIKED:
- Cinderella-esque vibe
- I just wanted to give Delilah a big hug
- covers a broad range of topics (co-parenting, cheating, childhood neglect, death of a parent, miscommunication, estranged sibling relationships)

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
- I liked both of the characters individually, but sadly wasn't invested in their romance together
- I wanted more focus on repairing the sister bond & less on the romance
- the relationship moved too fast for me (falling in love over a span of 10 days)
- some of the dialogue felt a tad too forced

I really enjoyed this book. Both of the main characters were super likeable and their flaws we very relatable to me. The banter was very cute and banter is something that can make or break a book for me, specifically a romance. I wish we had more time with Delilah and Claire.

So well-written, so cute, so gay, so fun. The sapphic Hallmark movie of my dreams. Obsessed. Delilah Green step on me hours

Thank you Berkley for our gifted review copy of Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake. This post may contain links to purchase books & you can read our affiliate disclosure here.

Book Review: Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake
Well, what do you know? This love story has a grief element and I love it with my entire heart. Oh, and it takes place in Oregon, another win! If you’re looking for a heartfelt, tender female/female romance, look no further because Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake has it all!

Characters You’ll Care About
What I love about this story is that there are so many people to root for. First, we have Delilah. She escaped the confines of Bright Falls, Oregon years ago. She left behind the memories of her father and the home she shared with her stepsister Astrid and her stepmother. She didn’t fit in, so she headed to NYC. Things may finally be coming together for her and her art career when she needs to return to Bright Falls to photograph Astrid’s wedding.

Then we have Claire, one of Astrid’s best friend who is cemented in Bright Falls due in large part to her surprise teenage pregnancy. She’s in the early teen years with her daughter and attempting to foster a relationship with her daughter’s father, despite him failing to come through all the times before.

Heading Back Home

Delilah heads straight to the town bar when she returns home only to have a meet cute with Claire, who doesn’t recognize her. Soon enough, wedding plans bring Claire, Delilah and Astrid together, along with Iris to complete the trio that held Delilah at arm’s length. This is where we get into the heart of the story – returning home, facing demons, misunderstandings, working through heartache and opening back to love again.

The Verdict
When I say Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake has it all, I’m not lying. Yes, it bangs and it’s emotional, filled with strong female leads, believable bonds and characters you want to know. I loved it so much and hope you do too!

I liked this book, but I didn’t love it I expected a lot more from the way the story was set up. I kept waiting for this book to deliver some thing that I wasn’t getting. Still it was fun, there were just a lot of heavy subjects and not enough time to explore them in a satisfactory way.

- DELILAH GREEN DOESN'T CARE is everything a romance novel should be. Funny, full of vibrant characters, fast paced, and whew, spicy. On top of all that, it's got a meaty plot that explores hard and important life experiences.
- I loved that it was not quite friends to lovers and not quite second chance, but also not NOT those things. It was messy, but always clear that Delilah and Claire were good together.
- There's a lot going on in this book but it never feels to crowded: instead the characters feel like real people living real, complicated lives, and discovering new things about themselves and the others in their lives along the way.

The first thing I think of doing when a book is entitled “Delilah Green Doesn’t Care” is finding out exactly what it is that this character inevitably cares about, very deeply. This book doesn’t disappoint in any respect, but specifically not this one: Delilah Green is a tattooed, edgy queer photo artist in NYC summoned back to Bright Falls by her stepmother and stepsister Astrid for her Astrid’s wedding under the guise of being the wedding photographer.

Delilah’s childhood is fraught with pain - her father died when she was 10, her stepmother adopted her but treated her like a ghost, and she and Astrid couldn’t connect. Astrid had everything, including best friends Claire and Iris, and Delilah had nothing so she left.

Claire is a single mother to Ruby after a high school romance ended in pregnancy. One night, while out at a bar, she sees the newly returned Delilah, doesn’t recognize her, and sparks fly. Delilah knows exactly who she is - which makes it more interesting when her identity is revealed and there are still sparks.

Delilah, Claire, and Iris work to break up Astrid’s wedding to a misogynist. The ensuing shenanigans are a lot of fun, and it allows for the sexual tension between Delilah and Claire to build to a crescendo before they finally act on it. But is sex enough to get Delilah to care? (See what I did there?)

This book was really great. There’s a queer found family, ladies having hot sex, did I mention ladies having sex? And their connection is hot - Delilah’s wanted Claire for awhile, despite her allegiance to Astrid. But mostly, this book is a character driven redemption story, where stepsisters learn that they’re both wrong, and both worthy, and both fragile and lost. I’ll always be here for the mending of sibling relationships and growth arcs for all!

I was a little meh about a single mom character, but it actually was a great device to learn about Claire and what makes her special - forgiving and understanding - because she has to handle her ex, and that relationship is complicated but essential to her character.

Thank you to @netgalley for this ARC. Can’t wait to see what @ashleyhblake does next.

3.5 Stars

CW: death of parents (past), grief, loneliness, teen pregnancy (past) and complicated relationship with ex, strained relationship with step parent

Overall I enjoyed Delilah Green Doesn't Care, but it was heavier emotionally than I expected. Delilah's childhood experiences and general loneliness were heartbreaking and I thought the author did a fantastic job showcasing her vulnerability and grief. Unfortunately, there was a lot to unpack with all of the characters and it made the book feel unfocused. There was Claire's on and off relationship with Josh and the emotional turmoil of being a young parent, Astrid's unhappiness with her mother and fiancé, Delilah's childhood trauma of losing both parents and feelings of incredible loneliness, and Delilah's antagonistic relationship with Astrid and her stepmother. I would have preferred the focus of the book been on healing Delilah and Astrid's complicated sibling relationship, rather than forcing a romance between Claire and Delilah. Their scenes were spicy, but the instalove was a bit much and I felt that both Delilah and Claire needed to reconcile their feelings over past experiences before jumping head first into a relationship. Most of the characters besides Ruby (loved her relationship with Delilah) were difficult to root for initially, but they all grew on me as the story progressed, especially Astrid. It will be interesting to see what happens in her book next.

*I voluntarily read an advance review copy of this book*

Ashley Herring Blake is officially a favorite author. She just never ceases to blow me away with her stories. And this was no exception. This romance is fully of messy millennials and messier relationships, and I loved every chaotic second.

One of my favorite aspects of the story, besides the romance of course, was the way the author played with miscommunication/misunderstanding. Now before you click away and decided not to pick this up, hear me out. This isn't your typical miscommunication. Particularly because it has nothing to do with the romance.

In this Delilah and her step sister have very vivid memories of their childhood. And those visions clash. And because of that, their opinions of each other, themselves, and their positions are altered. I loved the complex dynamic between as well as watching them unpack their traumas.

Claire was such a ray of sunshine and I loved her dynamic with Delilah, who is the definition of rough around the edges. This romance was steamy and full of tension. I ADORED these two together.

Overall, Ashely Herring Blake just always knocks it out of the park with her relationship dynamics. Whether it's romantic, platonic, familial, or otherwise. They're always complicated, messy, and fantastically explored. I'm so glad that she will be blessing us with more books in this world. I desperately need HEAs for Astrid and Iris!

Another fun read from Blake. Nothing in this one that isn't in countless other queer reads, but fun nonetheless.

When I discover a new book I absolutely love, and it’s by a new-to-me author, it’s even better because then I have so much to look forward to! And I’m just sure this book is a preview of good things to come for this author. Because she smashed it out of the park.

In this f/f sisters-best-friend romance, we have fun twists on old tropes like only one bed. It feels very old school romance in the best way but also undeniably fresh. When Delilah comes back to her hometown for her step-sister’s wedding she doesn’t expect more than taking photos and getting paid. But when she’s unexpectedly hit on by her sister’s BFF Claire before Claire recognizes a grown Delilah, the trip promises to be a lot more interesting.

There’s so much to love in this book, and one of them is the diverse representations of families and familial relationships. Claire was a teen mom and now a single parent, and Delilah sadly lost both her parents before the book began. Seeing Delilah reconnect with her stepsister is almost as much fun as the romance.

Thank you to Berkley for my eARC and finished copy! All thoughts and opinions are my own. This one is out now! And perfect for fans of Written in the Stars.

5 stars - 10/10

In signature Ashley Herring Blake style, the characters in Delilah Green Doesn't Care twist your heart in the best of ways. From Delilah to Claire to Astrid, all of them have these hidden nooks and crannies. These secret gestures and ghostly memories. The characters are complex, flawed, and nuanced. They make you laugh with banter and sarcasm that had me giggling, while also delving into issues of abandonment and family. The emotional highs and lows in Delilah Green Doesn't Care are superb.

Because on one level, you find yourself falling in love with Delilah and Claire. With Delilah's coping mechanisms and fear in returning back home, as well as Claire's denial of her feelings because she knows it can't last. Talk about characters who pulled at every heart string you have. I cannot stress how much I loved EVERY (okay except like two - IF YOU KNOW YOU KNOW) characters. And then Ashley Herring Blake just goes one step further by discussing family.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Leni Kauffman cover is likely going to be for me. But for real, this is such a lovely little snack of a book. It was everything that I needed when I was reading it, even though I couldn't read for a couple of weeks in the middle there. I fell in love with both Delilah and Claire immediately. I fell in love with Bright Falls immediately. To crib from Alexis Hall's review, it was just so "effortlessly and unabashedly queer." It's so rare to find that.

It was also the perfect balance of rom and com for me. It had some of my favourite tropes in romcoms - though usually in teen romcoms, to be fair - which is the making a bet and then you fall in love with the person and then they find out about the bet and wonder if you ever really liked them at all. They had realistic conflicts, based on the different spaces they are in in each of their lives: Delilah, an emotionally unavailable woman who doesn't have relationships because she's been burned before and has complicated feelings about her super small hometown, and Claire, a bisexual mom of a preteen who has drama with her ex and owns a bookstore in said small hometown. I really appreciated how open they were with each other, even in moments where things got uncomfortable. I'm obsessed with the friendship between Claire's daughter Ruby and Delilah. I loved the dynamics that developed between Delilah and Astrid as sisters, but also between Delilah and Claire and Iris getting to be friends, something Delilah always secretly yearned for as a kid. And the hijinks? Yes please. Perfection. Almost everyone has a deserved and satisfying arc in this one, with Isabel and Spencer being the exceptions, though to be fair, I have known people like them in my time who would also not experience growth in this kind of time period (or ever) so that didn't bother me much. And I love love love the small PNW town feel.

Claire and Delilah are just so sweet together, and what's more, the sexy times were definitely steamy. I know that's a topic of discussion, especially when it comes to queer and sapphic romances in particular. For me personally, this delivered.

The moments that were the most heartfelt actually didn't have to do with the romance, for me. The feelings of isolation and yearning for connection that both Delilah and her stepsister Astrid experienced after the death of Delilah's father were just so real, their different perspectives on the same situation, and their lack of vocabulary as 10-year-olds to talk to each other about their grief. My heart broke for those two little girls. I actually can't wait to see what's to come for Astrid in her book next, and I'll be keeping an eye on Ashley Herring Blake for more adult romances to come after that.

CW: death of a parent, cancer, discussion of past infidelity, sexual content