This one was really cute and touched on a lot of topics I hadn’t thought about. I also love that it was based in Oklahoma so close to home! I am looking forward to more from this author the writing style flowed effortlessly and you got to know and fall in love with all the characters, not just the MCs.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I really enjoyed the concept of a closeted queer woman working at a Christian bakery. For the time period, it felt realistic and led to a really interesting story. On the other hand, the romance was underdeveloped and not even necessary. If there was going to be a romance, I would've liked more character development for Charley and more interaction between them. The romance just felt tacked on. Still, I enjoyed the process of Amy becoming more authentic and learning more about herself!

This was sweet and the writing was good. It was entertaining and easy to read despite a slightly slow start. However, I would have preferred more romance and development of the relationship from the book!

I'm grateful to NetGalley and Random House/Dial Press for the ARC.

I have mixed feelings on this book which is why its only getting three stars. I found setting the book before marriage equality to be very interesting and found Amy's internal conflict about participating in the institution to be especially poignant. However I really wish the book would have just focused on that and left the romance out of it entirely. Amy and Charley's relationship did nothing for me and I found myself growing frustrated by their lack of communication, heat, etc. I found Amy's relationships with her friends to be much more interesting and dynamic. This book also was a lot more serious and darker than what the cover suggests. The religious bigotry and hate, while accurately portrayed, could be very trigging for those with religious trauma, so I wish there would have been some content warnings at the front of the book.

Thank you

I DNF this unfortunately. This book is my catnip but unfortunately it did not click with me. This is definitely less of a romance and more of a women's fiction which isn't a bad thing, just wasn't what I was looking for. I wanted to love the storyline and I wanted to love the characters but everything felt forced.

I loved this book! Amy and her friends jumped off the pages, and I loved her connection with Charlie. There were many moments I was laughing out loud, but there were also just as many that made my heart swell. This book definitely deserves more hype!

Such a cute read! I always enjoy reading LGBTQ+ books that mention growing up in a religious town/environment. This story was definitely needed and it was your average sweet LGBTQ+ romance. No matter how many times I read a sapphic romance, I can never get enough.

My only complaint with this book was that it was a bit slow to start and I wished there was more from the characters at the beginning,

Overall this is a very enjoyable romance, and I would definitely recommend Queerly Beloved to queer readers everywhere.

Not exactly what I was expecting, but a decent read! I definitely felt this romance was a little low on the romance unfortunately, the cover definitely made me think this would have traditional romance plotting, but it reads more like a new adult coming of age story. In that light it is a good read that explores what being queer means in spaces that are especially unaccepting of it. I think if you look at this book in that light you will enjoy it! Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Found this damn weird. I have no clue where the plot was going.

The love between the MCs felt super forced and quick. Probably not even love, just lust. It was a case of "You're lesbian and so am I, so let's..."

Nothing felt organic in this book, just a lot of external events that went very slow and dragged on.

I didn't like the characters either, so I don't have much good to say about this I'm sorry. (I wish I liked it)

Based on the synopsis I was immediately sold. Unfortunately this one just did not work for me. Our two MC's had a fast insta-love connection and there was basically no romance. No romance and a weirdly dragging plot... sorry to say this is not for me.

I went into this book thinking it was a romance, but found the actual romantic plotline to be forced, awkward, and secondary to our main character's internal monologue. The elements I did enjoy - callbacks to the early 2000s (though the actual tone of the story didn't really match these mentions), the queer scene in Oklahoma, and Amy's found family. However, these moments couldn't make up for the lackluster romance and Amy's strangely inconsistent personality, so this one just isn't for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House/Dial Press for the eARC.

Here’s the deal. I wanted to love this book, but there were a few things that I really struggled with. First, the book just felt long to me. I really struggled to push through. Second, I still feel skeptical of Amy and Charley’s relationship, given that most of what we saw was miscommunication and a lack of honesty. But I loved the concept. I loved Ruby Red’s and the cast of lovable side characters. Overall, I’d give the book a 3/5.

I received an eARC from NetGalley and Random House in exchange for an honest review. Amy loves her job as a baker for a popular shop in Tulsa but is careful to never bring her whole self to work. As a queer woman in Oklahoma, she knows everyone accepts who she is, and her boss is one of those who can't seem to accept everyone. One morning, a woman walks into the bakery who she can't take her eyes off of. Charley is new to town, and they immediately hit it off. Now Amy finds herself without a job, trying to start a new relationship, and starting up a new business all at once. She's also being very careful about who she can be her full self around. It's all getting to be too much; will she be able to handle it all? Can she continue to please everyone around her while sacrificing her authentic self?

This book felt like a love letter to the queer community in Tulsa. As someone who grew up in Tulsa, and currently lives there, I loved the little tour of my hometown. And also, as someone who grew up and went to college while identifying as a heterosexual, it was extremely insightful to see what the queer community lives with, especially in 2013 when this story takes place. I loved both Amy and Charley. They both felt so familiar to me, like they could be people I know. And the found families were fantastic. Amy took a journey to find the truest version of herself, which I think most of us can relate to. This is a fantastic book and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys sapphic romance, closed door romance, found family, or wants to know more about Tulsa!

So I did not like this in any way. I felt like the romance was somehow too current and too dated. I understand the author wanting to show the differences between how the LGBTQ+ community was treated between then and now and while I believed all of the horrible events that occurred, I wasn't convinced that someone in 2009 would wear a pin with their pronouns on it. The characters all felt very flat and not flushed out, Charlie simply acted as a cardboard cutout and the background characters, like Amy's ex-girlfriend felt very boring and 2D. I wouldn't believe any of these characters are real people. I would recommend this to someone who wants a quick LGBTQ+ romance, but I would let them now that it's one that will fade into the background.

I love a book set in the midwest, since that is where I hail from, and Queerly Beloved is set in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Our main character, Amy, is a baker by trade and moonlights as a bar tender in a queer bar. In order to get the experience needed to become a the baker she wants to be, she made the difficult choice to remain closeted in order to snag a job at the best bakery in town; one that is owned by a very conservative family. But when Amy is accidentally outed and her boss fires her, she stumbles her way into running her own bridesmaid-for-hire business.

Right before Amy was fired, she had a chance meeting with a new woman in town, Charley, and offers to show her around Tulsa. Charley’s backstory doesn’t occupy much space in this story, but the two appear to be a match made in heaven.

Unfortunately, Amy struggles morally with making her living from an industry that doesn’t always afford equal opportunities to those in the queer community; and as much as Charley seems like she might be “the one”, their relationship has many struggles as it tries to get off the ground. I enjoyed this story but you’ll have to read it for yourself to find out how it ends.

Thanks to @netgalley for the ARC copy of #queerlybeloved by @susiedoom . #lgbtq #lgbtq2ia #pride #wlw

“Queerly Beloved” by Susie Dumond was a cute and thoughtful read. There wasn’t as much focus on the romance as I expected, but I loved the character growth enough that I didn’t mind. Recommend!

Round up: 2.5 stars
This was a super sweet, albeit cliche and surface level romance about a queer baker in conservative Tulsa. The MC, Amy, navigates homophobia and closed minded Christians on her way to making her dreams of a baker come true. Along the way she finds a new love, passion for supporting brides/grooms on their wedding day, and a group of phenomenal friends. I appreciated the found family, entrepreneurialism, and advocacy woven within the story. However the forced plots, unprovoked conflict, and romance progression were a miss for me.

Sincere thanks to NetGalley and Dial Press for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to like this book so badly. It seemed like it had everything I normally love in a sweet romance, but I ended up dnfing around 30% of the way through.

It was overall a cute concept, but I could not engage with any of the characters. I didn't feel as though any of the side characters were as fleshed out as I wanted them to be.

My biggest issue was I found Amy to be quite an annoying character to read. She kept putting herself down and lying because she didn't believe she was an interesting enough person on her own. I really found this took me out of the flow of the book and ultimately made me dnf. I'm sure not everyone will feel this way and I hope this book finds the audience that will appreciate it, but unfortunately that was not me.

Oh this was such a cute and fun queer romance! I absolutely adored Amy’s journey from semi-closeted baker at a Christian bakery to professional bridesmaid, and her whole arc and connection with Charley was perfection. And that epilogue!!!! This was wonderful.

I loved the concept of this book, but some of the execution was lacking for me.

I found Amy a very difficult character to follow because she was selfish and didn’t have any self-awareness.

There were times when the author was trying to make important statements, but it felt disjointed in how the characters “spoke” the words.

Overall, decent story. And a cute premise.

An ARC has been provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.