Delilah Green gets a middle of the night call from her estranged stepsister reminding her she agreed to be Astrid's wedding photographer. She flies back to Bright Falls, OR, the town she left behind 12 years earlier. Being back in the place where she grew up is tough for Delilah because she was always an outsider, most notably from Astrid's strong friendships with Iris and Claire.

I really enjoyed the initial interaction between Delilah and Claire. It was fun and simultaneously moving, as we see Delilah's perspective. Throughout, I really felt for Delilah. All of the characters have so much depth and are extremely relatable. Though Delilah is framed as the bad girl, Claire has as many issues in how she relates to her friends.

There's so much I loved from the setting to the female friendships to the photography and art. This is a romance with a lot of impact and multiple plots. One thing I love to read in romances is that two people grow as they come together, each becoming a better version of themselves. I really felt that here. It was so beautiful and well rounded. I fell for the best friends, Iris and Astrid, as much as for the main characters, so I was thrilled to see that Astrid's story will be next.

I highly recommend this steamy romance.

Thank you to Berkley and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy and to Goodreads Giveaway and Berkley for the paperback. These opinions are my own.

4.5 stars rounded up

I absolutely adored this story. I am not quite sure why I liked it more than others but it was just cozy and warm.

I really liked the progression of both characters, but especially Delilah. I liked seeing how she returned home with a certain expectation and things completely changed.

Of course the romance was fun too. It was sweet and steamy and just wonderful. I liked how Claire and Delilah tried to fight their attraction, cause obviously that wasn’t going to work.

Basically this book was filled with fun moments, heartwarming moments, sexy moments, and just all over lovely moments.

Definitely recommend.

[cw - death of parent]

Do I even need to say that I loved this book? Anyone who regularly reads my reviews or knows me will know I adore lesbian romance and this book was fantastic! I have loved all of Blake's middle grade story so when she announced this book I was screaming I was so excited. Blake did not disappoint me. I adored every page of this and I can not wait to get a physical copy!

This book aches with all sorts of longing. Delilah just wants to be a famous photographer in NYC, but is recalled to her small hometown by the impossible-to-ignore lure of a fat paycheck to photograph her estranged stepsister's wedding. Confronting the tangled past she shares with her stepfamily and her stepsister's "coven" of close friends, Delilah just wants to get in, get out, and get on with her life. Claire is just, horny, ok? But she has a hard time with casual, and was burned repeatedly by her ex, the father of her child. Even though she's pretty sure she's not built for it, she tries for something light and easy with her best friend's stepsister. There are lots of great tropes in this book. One bed! Enemies to lovers! Wedding shenanigans! It's all wrapped up with a lot of heart, and a nuanced discussion of what goes on inside a family. It's also quite funny in portions and features a cast of characters I am excited to revisit in the future.

TW: death of parents (past), alcohol consumption, mentions of cheating (past), emotional neglect (past, revisited in the present), panic attacks/anxiety, toxic relationships (family/romantic), gaslighting (side character)


There’s something to be said about you as a person when you find yourself constantly drawn towards damaged characters, because that’s exactly what happened between me and Delilah. I honestly loved her so much.

This was a very fun sapphic romance that focused on perception - how you see your friendships, relationships, and family compared to how others perceive it. I thought DGDC really captured the essence of that really well and it showed with the amount of angst that was in this rom-com. It’s nice to find a good adult sapphic romance that isn’t primarily focused on the “coming out” portion and instead really dives into interpersonal and group dynamics. It was a good mix of being both plot and character driven.

I thought the all the characters were well established (even if a bit stereotypical with Iris - the loud mouthed, fiery red head) and the story itself was entertaining. I did feel like it hit a plateau for me around 70%. The conversations and internal dialogue became a little repetitive but nothing ever really fell flat for me and it eventually tied up nicely.

Thank you to Berkley Publishing and NetGalley for this arc; I am voluntarily leaving a review.

4.5 stars
This is a tremendous Queer romance about the complexity of family, perspective with others and the best god damn smut I have read as a bisexual person!

The depth of the character connection and perspective about experiences in this book was what I adored the most! We get to see the different sides to a shared childhood and family life and how a person's mind view is so important and can cause miscommunication that while it could be fixed is also so easy not to see and that was SO WELL DONE!
Like I applauded the author for this, I truly felt that the was what gave this story and the romance the backbone it needed to be incredible like it was. The human and multi-level characters to the main characters AND the side characters were also a great thing that needs a big shoutout because I still felt for Josh while also being furious with him.

I hate bets in romances, and the moment Delilah joked about a bet, I was pissed. I'm not too fond of that trope, and I am glad it wasn't used too much in the story.

Well. There were good things and bad. A lot of the emotional stuff at the end was really good and fulfilling; I wish the book had leaned more into that than trying so hard to be the com part of a rom com. It's a change in genre and age group for Ashley Herring Blake so I'm hoping she grows into this new phase of her career.

Delilah Green Doesn’t Care was a entertaining story with fun characters. It was a quick and easy read. However it was a bit cliché and and the characters lacked depth, and the writing style definitely wasn’t for me. I think many people will enjoy this but I unfortunately thought it was just okay and don’t think it will stick with me for very long.

When i first saw this book, I knew I would be a fan. A sapphic romance between opposites attracts - yesss! I love seeing the representation in the book world! It did not disappoint!

Delilah Green never thought she would return home to Bright Falls - there is nothing there for her, But this changes when her stepsister pressures her into photographing her wedding. The pay is too good to pass it up! Suddenly, Delilah comes into contact with Clare, one of her stepsister's besties and decides there might be something more in Bright Falls for her than she thought.

CW: death of a parent (past), grief, toxic relationship with step-parent, teenage pregnancy (past)

I knew I had to read this the minute I saw the cover! Leni Kauffman did such an amazing job bringing the two main characters Delilah and Claire to life.

Delilah Green Doesn’t Care follows Delilah Green, a photographer in the making as she reluctantly returns to her hometown for her step-sister, Astrid’s wedding. While she plans to not go down the memory lane and keep everyone at arm’s length, but as she finds herself attracted to Claire Sutherland, a girl in Astrid’s “coven” of childhood friends, her life at Bright Falls takes a turn.

sapphic romance!!
Since this is a romcom, I’m gonna start by saying the romance served! Sapphic romances have my heart. Right from when Claire meets Delilah at a bar and is instantly attracted to her till the end, their chemistry drives the entire story. With the POVs of both Delilah and Claire, I loved reading their thoughts about each other as their feelings grew stronger. Its steamy, heart warming and emotional. Both of them have difficult pasts so seeing them comfort and understand each other was absolutely lovely. Also, excellent use of some well known tropes to increase the tension between them!

intriguing POV characters
Delilah Green Doesn’t Care is character driven and both their POVs highlight their voices well. Delilah is goal oriented, artistic and a girl with a tough exterior to prevent herself from getting hurt anymore. She doesn’t have the best memories from her childhood and her trauma from the loneliness and pain tugged at my heartstrings. Despite that, its good to read about her passion for photography that captures her feelings and her road to healing. She has a tender heart looking for love underneath it all. And tattoos. Amazing tattoos. Perfect lesbian rep.

Claire on the other hand, is the hot, curvy, bisexual single mother, aka my girl crush. She runs a cozy bookstore, very dedicated to her friends and an absolute sweetheart. She’s put everyone else before her every time and when she meets Delilah she yearns for the unconditional love she gets from her.

effortlessly queer
One thing I absolutely love about this book is that its just a story of queer women falling in love while dealing with very mundane situations. It’s not a coming of age or a reliasation story, it just acknowledges their identities and revolves around the characters’ personal feelings and relationships. There’s Delilah and Claire’s blooming romance and then there’s the wedding, trips to camping, new friendships and tender feelings. Everything I’d want in a contemporary.

chaotic friend group
While Delilah doesn’t plan to mingle anyone she knows in Bright Falls, wedding shenaigans soon forced her into interacting with Astrid’s friends, Iris and Claire, the very same friend group she felt ignored by in her lonely childhood. As the story progressed, they formed an amazing cast of supporting characters. I stared to like Iris especially, the girl with no filter but only the best in mind for her friends. When these three start to plan ways to sabotage Astrid’s wedding, the fun begins. The hilarious banter between Iris and Delilah and the pre-wedding drama make up the comedy aspect of the book. Also loved to see the original friend group, Iris, Astrid and Claire, who stuck with each other since early days face challenges and strengthen their friendship.

familial and sibling relationships
Delilah Green Doesn’t Care is as much about romance as it is about sisterhood, finding a family, old grudges and forgiveness. Delilah and her step-sister, Astrid’s relationship is rocky, these two interpreted the events of their childhood through a complete different lens leading to welled up emotions and messy outbreaks. It was delightful to see them get to know each other and finally attempt to reconcile their bond. It’s never too late to fix things between sisters, right?

In Claire’s POV, we see her struggling as a single parent and her on-off relationship with her ex-husband, Josh. Ruby, her daughter, is what you’d expect from a teenager her age, frustrating yet a dear. As she juggles deciding what’s best for Ruby at the cost of upsetting her and letting in the irresponsible father of her daughter back into their life, this family’s development is well written. Adding Delilah to the mix as she spends more time with Claire, Ruby and Delilah’s interactions were adorable to read about.

Ultimately, Delilah Green Doesn’t Care is a splendid sapphic romcom, a celebration of the relationships we develop and a thoughtful story of second chances, healing old wounds and the feeling of home, sure to keep readers engaged. I hope book 2, Astrid’s story, is equally enjoyable.

I LOVED this one. Everything about it. The fraught sibling relationship, the best friend dynamic, the single mother struggle…

Delilah fled Bright Falls when she was 18, never looking back, trying to escape her old life and people she was convinced didn’t want her.

Claire has lived in Bright Falls her entire life. After getting pregnant right after high school, she put her college plans on indefinite hold and took over the family bookstore. She has put everyone else first, and she’s been left behind and hurt more than she dares to admit.

The instant attraction here was 🔥. But I really loved how these two just SAW each other and became each other’s safe space, exactly what they needed.

I can’t read to read the next book about Astrid and get more glimpses of these two!

Thank you Netgalley and Berkley romance for this eARC!

I really loved all of the women in this book. I want more friend groups like this in my romances tbh. The men are absolute shit boots though.

What I Liked: Every character in this book is fully realized, with their own quirks and problems and feelings. Delilah can best be described as prickly but as we find out she has genuine reasons to be that way. It’s a testament to Herring Blake’s skill as a writer that Delilah never comes off as mean, at least to people who don’t deserve it. The queer representation in this book is something that has been missing in a lot of recent romance novels. Many LGBTQ romances seem to include queer characters as an afterthought but both Delilah and Claire feel like real people. Claire’s bisexuality is truly a part of her personality and shapes her thoughts and actions. I don’t know how Herring Blake did it, but she wrote a romance novel that is swoony and funny and heartwarming and also managed to write a touching story about the relationship between sisters and the importance of friends who always support you and the real struggles of co-parenting with an ex and the fear of being alone. Phew! Every side story got enough time to feel important and I was invested in each and every character.

What I Didn’t Like: Ummm nothing? If pressed to find something to critique, the villains in the story sometimes felt a bit over the top and out of place in a book that overall felt authentic and real. However, the way they are dealt with in the end makes sense to the story.

Who Should Read It: ;Any romance fan will find something to love about this book. I think this will end up being on a lot of best of the year lists.

Review Wrap Up: It was truly refreshing to read a romance in which the heroines are their authentic selves and love each other just as they are. The relationships in this book, both romantic and platonic, felt true and I want to be friends with this group in real life. It’s only January but this may end up being one of my favorite books of the year.

Favorite Quote: She didn’t have to be alone. Not unless she just wanted to be, and goddammit, she didn’t.”

What a wonderful sapphic romance! truly enjoyed this one. It was so rich and deep, filled with meaning and a great message about accepting love no matter how difficult it may be. I felt super attached to this book, and immediately was drawn in. The writing was quick and intentional, great description, and immersive. Can't wait to see what this writer comes up with next!

Cute, queer romance that sucks you in right away!

Delilah has done everything in her power to stay away from her hometown of Bright Falls, Oregon, but she is forced to go back and face the past when she is hired to photograph her stepsister's wedding. While there, she runs into "the Coven"-- her stepsister's friends who left her out and made fun of her in school. When Claire, one of the coven, hits on Delilah (not realizing who she is), Delilah is ready to annoy her stepsister with the flirtation. However, as these things do, a harmless flirtation/ casual sex leads to falling in love.

Fans of Count your Lucky Stars will enjoy the romance and the spicy scenes!

delilah green doesn't care was an adorable read, and normally something that i do not read. however, this cover drew me in, and i was interested in the story it had to tell. i have also not read a fully queer book EVER, which is odd for me; i'm not one to not focus on something like this. i suppose i had just never read a book where the main plotline, other than shenanigans, was queer romance. i also don't read too many romance books.

this book was fun to read. i did have my problems at first (delilah acting like a teenager at the beginning), but the character growth was excellent. every character had their own shining personality. dialogue was excellent, and the friendship between iris and delilah had me laughing out loud. setting was lovely, and reminded me of my own hometown. because i don't live there anymore, it gave me a bit of a nostalgia kick.

i will say, there was quite a bit of repetition in this book. a little too much. but it's always good to be reminded of certain plot aspects.

if you want a good read
i will FOR SURE be reading the next book in the "series" - astrid parker doesn't fail.

This book reads like a heartwarming CW sitcom with lots of shots and wine. We have Delilah Green who's father remarried and died leaving her with a stepmom who did the BARE minimum. Miss Green bounced to New York to become a worldly women. Bada** and back in black Delilah come back into her home town for her stepsisters wedding. (working the event, dang stepmom). Enter Claire a thicc single mom who owns a bookstore. (Dang she's a dream girl). Delilah and Claire's relationship is very cute. I enjoyed reading this romance between the two. The subplot of the wedding and the places they go are nice.

Overall Vibes OG Cinderella/John Tucker must die (no murder here)

Delilah Green got me to care.

Delilah Green Doesn't Care was such a fresh read. I enjoyed the buildup in the relationship and the character development was excellent. I couldn't wait to get back to the book and now I am sad that it's over.

“No country for old shit boots.”

Orphaned Delilah Green had no desire to return to Bright Falls, Oregon, and her stepfamily. Nope, not ever. Her career as a photographer was finally taking off, and her life was in NYC. Until her sister Astrid calls and reminds her of her upcoming wedding, and that Delilah’s stepmom was going to pay Delilah to take the wedding photos. Unable to resist (life as a New York photographer doesn’t quite pay the bills), Delilah heads back to Oregon…and stumbles into one of Astrid’s childhood best friends, Claire. Sparks fly, but history runs deep and Delilah isn’t planning on staying…

Delilah made her eyes dramatically wide. “This is you flirting?”

“Oh god,” Claire said, dropping her head into her hands.

“I’m kidding,” Delilah said, taking a sip of her bourbon. “I know exactly what’s going on here. You’re trying to recruit me for a cult. I get it.”

Claire lifted her head and laughed, eyes sparkling behind her glasses. “You got me. I’ve got the Prophet out back ready to shave your head and brand a unicorn on your ass.”

Ugh I loved this book.

This was a book where I was hooked and in love by the first sentence. That rarely happens, and when it does, I know that I’m about to experience something truly special.

So many elements of this book hit me hard (weird that I’m going down memory lane this week, what with this review and Monday’s review of Forward March), but it was so good. Life as an awkward teenager in a small town, where your sibling is super popular and perfect and extroverted, where your parent doesn’t really care about you but uses you as a prop for her own narcissism. I got both ends of the stick growing up, although I related more to Astor in being constantly pushed to be perfect and the best or whatever, and then as Delilah in that I left as soon as I could, sacrificing all previous relationships to everyone to go.

Anywho, that’s me and not the book. But this book was so damn relatable, particularly since it took place in small town Oregon (granted, close to Portland, but fucking what book isn’t set in the northern part of the state??).

Delilah spent the entire drive back to Bright Falls with a sapphic fantasy audiobook blasting in her ears.

So to the book.

Plotwise, lots of backstory and drama with semi-enemies to lovers in Delilah and Claire.

Delilah is the pseudo-goth girl who left for the big(gest) city and found a passion in art. Claire is the small town girl who stayed, got pregnant with her high school sweetheart, and made a life in town after her ex left her and her kid. The two are connected by Delilah’s stepsister and Claire’s best friend Astrid, who is getting married to the perfect guy on paper (yet who gives Claire and Astrid’s other best friend the skeevy-geevies).

So, in addition to the main plot of Astrid and Claire falling in love there is also a subplot to stop the wedding and it is glorious. There is a Parent Trap-type plot, and yes, it’s the Lindsay Lohan version and yes the movie is referenced and yes it’s just as fantastic as you’d expect. My inner child was dying with happiness.

And there is a really lovely reconciliation of the past and the present. Delilah finds that life in Bright Falls was objectively terrible but not quite as horrific as she remembered—she was too clouded in grief and self-isolation and depression to see anyone else’s struggles (totally fair). There is a slight bullying aspect with Claire, Iris and Astrid and their teen years with Delilah, but this is resolved fairly quickly and much better than I was anticipating.

She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say to all this. Did he want a medal for performing basic parenting duties and pressing a button on the stove?

Adding to this element was Claire’s storyline, of her relationship with baby daddy and not-total-dickhead Josh. Their relationship had so much history and chemistry and a heaping backstory of toxic patterns and bad decisions, and their inability to let it go and Claire’s simmering (rightfully so) anger at Josh’s constant disappearing acts and how it affected their daughter. Claire is done romantically with Josh, and while she acknowledges that he’s not a bad person and is the father of their amazing kid, she is annoyed and just wants him to either stay gone or keep his promises to remain in Ruby’s life (but not in hers).

Delilah’s backstory is more of a player, a person bound and determined not to get attached or let anyone in lest she get hurt again.

Watching Claire work through her own realizations with Josh, and even Josh’s own storyline, was a lot of emotion and weight and growth, ultimately. And Delilah’s own reconciliation with her past and how those actions affected her present and future.

Delilah knew better than anyone how much the art you did as a kid—whether it be drawings or photographs or songs—felt like spilling the contents of your heart out into the world. Hell, it still felt like that as a grown-up.

There is a lot of history.

Which works, although I had hoped for more of a confrontation/resolution with the stepmom, because that was the major source of the angst in the storyline…particularly since this book had a heavy theme of reconciliation (not necessarily forgiveness).

However, I anticipate that will occur in the second book, which features Astrid, who was a character I was primed and ready to absolutely abhor and hate (and actually didn’t like through most of the book), but it’s a true sign of good storytelling that my dislike was changed into something akin to sympathy and like and then downright I need her book now anticipation by the end.

Also, there are a lot of queer characters here. Delilah is a lesbian, Claire is bi, as is Iris, and Astrid is, Astrid.

I could keep going on and on and on, but I’ll stop here, because I cannot wait for book 2!

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Delilah Green Doesn’t Care releases from Berkley February 22, 2022.

This book was amazing! "Delilah Green Doesn't Care" is a refreshing, unique queer romantic comedy that has you hooked from the start! I loved Delilah's borderline abrasive "this is me and I won't apologize" attitude, but I loved how Claire softened her even more! The shenanigans that ensued in this story were entertaining and (mostly) well deserved for those involved. I will definitely be recommending this book to anyone who is a fan of sapphic romance, or romantic comedies in general!