Tack & Jibe has been on my TBR list for several years at this point, and I don't think I'll ever finish it. Sorry! I'm sure some people will love this, but it was just not for me.

A fun slowburn, sort of rivals to lovers story. I enjoyed this read but nothing really stuck with me after it was done.

Willa and Lane are so lovely. I loved the small town feel and romance, so sweet and fun. I love the passion and sweetness that this book has,

I couldn't be intrigued by the book. The pacing was too slow. The characterization obnoxious and the romance not at all exciting.

Marked as DNF, I just couldn't get into this one, unfortunately. The story didn't grab me. Wasn't for me.

Okay, I really wanted to enjoy this one & I did. In parts. Tack and Jibe was a fast read for me.

Tack and Jibe is an opposites attract w/w romance and there were parts that were honestly quite well done. There is of course a considerable age gap between our protagonists; Willa is 22, works in a sailing equipment shop as well running a popular IG account while Lane is 36 year old, an ex-competitive sailor who now works at her family’s business.

With their age gap, it was not a surprise that they actually got off on the wrong foot - and while it wasn’t a point of contention, the effect of the age gap can be seen in their interaction with each other.

Tack & Jibe was a fun read; but like I said while I enjoyed it, I just found something to be missing within the plot has me not giving the high rating it would have gotten.

Willa has spent her life on a small island in the Outer Banks, living her dream. She works in a sailing shop, lives for most of the year in a seaside cottage, and runs a popular, sailing themed Instagram account. There’s just one problem. Willa doesn’t know how to sail, which is mostly okay, except her overzealous followers have registered her for High Seas, a televised sailing competition. So, either she’s got to learn to sail or come clean to everyone she knows (and her followers). In a desperate attempt to learn quickly, Willa seeks out former sailing champion Lane Cordova and begs her for lessons. The two are opposites in every way, but Willa can’t help but crush on Lane, but Lane’s interested in Willa’s roommate, isn’t she? Is there a chance that Lane might share her feelings, that the two can put aside their differences and build a solid relationship?

This book was adorable, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I know nothing about sailing, but I do live a couple of hours from the Outer Banks, and those islands are some of my favorite places. I am a sucker for an opposites attract story, and I loved the disastrous meet cute and the banter as Willa and Lane got to know each other. Each lady has her own issues, and I really enjoyed the character development as they tried to do better and grew closer in the meantime.

If you’re looking for a cute romance and love the beach, even if you’re not familiar with sailing (like me), you’ll probably enjoy this one as much as I did. It’s out now, has been for a minute, so you can grab it wherever you get your books. The great backlist catch up continues, and I’m enjoying every moment.

Oh, this book was such a comfort read! The writing style is wonderful, I loved the setting, and I love the feeling it left me with. I only regret not reading it sooner! I enjoyed the sailing and coastal theme of the work, and I loved the utter tenderness of the different kinds of WLW relationships represented. I'm very here for soft, sapphic reads <3

I wanted to read this because I am a fan of fun and romantic books, and I used to sail quite a bit! This was a fun and easy read! The main character made decisions that I couldn't always get behind, but overall I enjoyed the reading experience! I would recommend picking this up for a quick and enjoyable read!

Tack & Jibe is a very cute, very funny sailing-centric romance that—perplexingly—decides to drop the sailing plot halfway through.

The Good
– Breezy, whimsical writing style
– Lots of little funny moments
– Willa and Lane's dynamic
– Good (if sudden) character growth
– Engaging first half

The Bad
– Never comes together into a cohesive whole
– Tack & Jibe stops being the book promised halfway through
– Struggles to hold attention after 65% mark
– Sailing lingo sounds like gibberish if you don't sail
– Things come together a bit too suddenly and out of the blue

Story—★★☆☆☆
Willa Rogers is an aimless 22-year-old who's more focused on what people think of her than what she's doing with herself. Growing up on Porter Island, Willa was embarrassed of her poor upbringing: her mother cleaned hotel rooms while her classmates' families owned businesses. She's developed a habit of slipping in little white lies to improve—in her head—what others think of her. These little lies are how she landed her job at Porter Sails—a little fib about possessing actual sailing experience and a fake sailing injury keeping her off the water—and how she winds up in a (fancy) sailing competition. Willa's little fibs have snowballed into something she can't worm out of with a how-to video, and now she needs to learn how to sail—for real—and who better to teach her than the very best?

Lane Cordova is an intense 36-year-old former High Seas winner who's recently joined her parent's real estate agency. After a life struggling to impress her demanding parents, she is only just learning and exploring some important facets of herself. After Willa offers the publicity of her Instagram account—500,000 followers!—and pushes some of Lane's buttons—Chris Cordova has an awful lot of awards, doesn't he?—Lane agrees to teach Willa how to sail.

For the duration of its first half, Tack & Jibe is an absolute delight. I got through the first 40% almost immediately. Willa and Lane's conflicting personalities and (approaches) produce a delightful array of dynamic and humorous situations. Lane is a perfectionist and Willa is a wing-it type of girl, and the contrast results in some delicious conflict as the two struggle through sailing lessons and develop feelings for each other—with some fun misunderstandings along the way.

But then the race happens much earlier in the book than I ever expected. As we were coming up on it, I was getting worried: Should this be happening so soon? Surely the duration of the race won't last the entire second half of the book?

The duration of the race does not last the entire second half of the book.

The High Seas race section ends alarmingly early and leaves Willa and Lane without purpose. Maybe the author wanted to throw in a twist, I don't know. But without the race as a guide for the characters, the rest of the scenes feel aimless and somewhat erratic. They're still cute and funny, but they're unfocused and less engaging by far. The last leg of a book should be the most engaging for the reader, and to add insult to injury, Tack & Jibe ends with several characters having epiphanies or deciding things that up until this point were inconsistent with who they are as a character.


Suzanne has done a solid job with the setting of Porter Island, providing grand descriptions of sandy, sunny beaches and the harsh, churning waters of storms, along with functional descriptions of interior settings, like the Cordova's family boat or Lane's condo.

Characters—★★★☆☆
So,  I don't feel sold on their romance, but I loved when Willa and Lane shared scenes.

Willa's and Lane's dynamic (rightfully) steals the spotlight. While they come from starkly different places and have contrasting personalities, both struggle with similar issues. In this regard, Suzanne crafted these two with foresight and a skilled hand. Their differences provide fertile ground for conflict between them, but their similar struggles ground them. Although their age gap inspired some hilarious exchanges, the fourteen year difference pushes the boundaries of what I’m comfortable with. A 22-year-old feels like a baby adult to me. I'm pretty sure Willa's brain is still developing. She's been legal drinking age for an entire minute. Lane is hypothetically old enough to be Willa's mom.


Writing Style—★★★★☆
Tack & Jibe is told in third person, present tense from Willa's point of view.

Suzanne writes Tack & Jibe with a light, whimsical hand, laying out both sweet, funny moments, and intense, chaotic moments with ease. They provide a wealth of key details and never fail to set a scene with ease. However, they also fall into some familiar traps of weak and filter words like feel, know, make, take, etc., which weaken the overall intent and emotion.

Third person, present tense is an unusual choice for a romance, and may put off some readers.

There's also the sailing terms: Suzanne, and therefore the characters, sound like they know what they're talking about. That is, the sailing element sounds like it comes from a spot of competence. However, if you know nothing about sailing, it's going to sound like a lot of gibberish.

Themes and Representation—★★★☆☆
In terms of representation, we have Willa as bi- or pansexual—she isn't sure what term fits her best—Lane as a lesbian, Bodhi as not wanting to label herself, Hunter as sapphic but unlabelled by the author, and Bodhi's mom's. There are three established WLW pairings in Tack & Jibe, as well as an open-minded approach to open and poly relationships. Unfortunately, there are no established characters of colour. Cordova is a Spanish last name, but I don't know if Lane and her family have South American heritage or white European Spanish heritage.

Tack & Jibe deals a lot with others' expectations and opinions, others; perceived expectations and opinions, how those things influence the characters' choices and trauma, and finding the bravery to do what they want to do. Suzanne handles these elements well as supporting themes in a light romance: they do the job fairly well, but the characters' resolutions around them feel rather sudden.

Overall—★★★☆☆

Recommended For...
Anyone who wants a romance with a lighter tone or anyone who wants a sailing-themed romance.

This story, featuring a little island, a lost heroine and some thrilling waves, was quaint and sweet, with a serious undertone.
It's rare that you get to read about a character that shows their faults right from the start. We see Willa struggle with her lying and her outside persona, fearing for her relationships with the people on the island. Slowly, in small steps we see her change and try new things and finding her way. I found it was well-handled without going over the top.
It just all read very realictic. From the dialogue to the sometimes messy friendships to feeling unfulfilled in life. Suzanne really hit a sweetspot there. It also doesnt follow the usual tropes of cumulating in this showdown.
The relationship between Willa and Lane was just as natural. I had wished, the two spend more time mulling over their relationship, but I was still pleased with the outcome.
The ending could have used some refinement and I wished we had actually read about the time we skipped to get to the prologue.

Perfectly well-timed book, especially given the popularity of the Outer Banks show earlier this year. The descriptions of Willa’s home environment are rich and lovely. I’m soft on all lesbian romances, but something about this read a lot like YA, despite the fact that the characters’ ages preclude this from YA. Quick read in the first half and the second half lagged quite a bit. .

(I won’t make this public, because I don’t want to give a negative public review!)

This was a fast read, made me want to go to the beach to have a picnic watching the sunset. Sounds beautiful.
Sadly the book to me was a bit all over the place. According to the blurb we were getting a book about a sailing competition and how the mc was going to have a crush on her trainer. We got a teeny tiny bit with that and the rest was everything else.
There were many tiny time jumps, then things happened fast, then a bit of misunderstandings, then the book was over.
While it wasn't bad bad, I wanted more.

Thank you NetGalley and Interlude Press for the digital ARC of Tack and Jibe!

Willa is a 22 year old floating through life, trying to find her way in a small beach town. She's a social media junkie, curating the perfect image of herself as a beach bum optimist who happens to me a fantastic sailor. The problem? She's definitely not. Willa recruits the help of Lane, a 36 year old award winning sailor who's trying to find her own identity.

The whole aesthetic of this book was really pleasing. It was all beach and sand and best friends named Bhodi who have bleach blond hair and freckles on her nose. I really loved the setting of the story, and I think it lent itself to the tone of the book.

I had a bit of a problem connecting with the characters. Willa's whole life is basically a lie, and she seems a bit immature. Lane seems bitter about life (not without reason) so them forming a connection was a leap to begin with. I would've liked to see their relationship grow, but it seemed like they were just kind of attracted to the physical (which! Nothing wrong with that! Just hard to fill a book with it).

Bhodi was a great character, and I would've liked to see more of her. I want to read HER book, as well as her mothers. Even Hunter was interesting, as little page time as she got.

I had a few issues, but I would still give it a try if you want a sweet f/f romance that isn't heavy handed!

4.5

Tack & Jibe is a richly descriptive novel set in the Outer Banks. If you've ever had your hair tousled by a sea breeze or spent any time in a sleepy beach town this read is a must. Willa is finding her way in life, a challenge in itself, not made easier by a 'little' lie she told on a resume to secure a job. When the lie that seemed little turns her life upside down she will do anything to stay ahead.

This novel flows wonderfully. The writing style is something I wish more authors were as experienced as Lilah Suzanne seems to be. Now, this is a personal preference but I prefer to learn more about our main characters motives through action and conversation rather than a deep, ranting, introspective. In this sense, this novel is a total balance allowing us to connect with Willa and Lane without sacrificing too many pages to repetitive emotion.

What I find most fascinating about this novel is how quickly I was roped (not a ship pun but it should be) into caring about Willa and her misdirections in handling life vs Lane's past choices. Both characters were given the opportunity to seek new directions, playing into the bottom line: we all have the opportunity to change our life, the challenge is- will we?

Now, I have few qualms about certain aspects of the novel, but they did alter my overall rating. I can appreciate how novels can have certain troupes but this read felt like a little too many crammed into the back half of the novel- it took focus away from the excellent first portion. Mom's new family left me behind; Family pressure to run their business; Coming Out; May/December Strife. I would of been fine with one or two but the amount left me feeling distracted the second half of the novel.

Tack & Jibe would make any reader want to set sail. The perfect novel to cozy up with a coffee and enjoy (preferably overlooking a sandy beach dune!)


Net Galley provided this novel to me in exchange for an honest review.

A cute and funny read, I loved this so much. A great story for escaping reality at the moment. Willa and Lane were lovely, relatable characters who it was so easy to connect with, I loved how they communicated and how it was about being yourself and accepting who you are. Just a lovely story and that ending ! Happiness

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

This was an average read for me. It read very fast, I finished in one sitting but I had trouble connecting with the plot. It was a little odd since there were parts I liked quite a bit, but there was something off, something I can’t really put my finger on that bothered me some. I think the best way I can explain is that the book made me feel a little uncomfortable.

This is an age-gap with a light ice queen character. Willa is 22 and Lane is 36. I actually liked both characters but I found Willa to feel really immature at times. It’s funny because I enjoy YA books, but the 20-24 age range of characters I find very hard to connect too and they often feel more immature than a 16 year old in a YA fantasy. I just don’t like how that early 20'S age range is normally written. The age-gap didn’t bother me as much as I thought it might, but that was because Lane was very insecure for her age so Willa and her seemed more compatible than I originally expected. The problem was that I don’t know if I they had much sexual chemistry. I thought there was potential between them but I was missing the sparks.

While this was a very fast read, the book had some pacing ups and downs. The first half or so went really well with the sailing. Unfortunately, I think that part of the story ended too early. I wanted more lessons together to hopefully help build up that chemistry and I wished there was more of the race. I understand that story choice but I didn’t like it. I was missing the excitement I was hoping for. After that storyline was over, the pace slowed and the second half of the book didn’t feel like it was really going anywhere.

It’s not easy to write a review when a book just doesn’t really click but you have trouble explaining exactly why. I do know that I don’t love books that have a major storyline based on a lie. It makes me uncomfortable waiting for the other shoe to drop and I don’t like that feeling. I did like the characters and most of the sailing, but this was just an average read for me.

I enjoyed this book so much I finished it in a day. Both of the leads were very well written and the romantic storyline was sweet. Given the Instagram obsession of the younger lead I was expecting not to like her but I actually found her really well written and relatable and enjoyed her inner musings. The romantic storyline was well paced and the dynamic between the leads was very sweet. The sailing scenes were well written and not too technical. My only gripe is the use of the present tense, which I found distracting. I also would have liked to see more of Lane's perspective.

Tack & Jibe was a fun and quick read, although it wasn't quite all that I was hoping for. It was a very short read, and I went into it expecting a lot more sailing, but that's not something that was a huge focus of the book actually. Aside from the lack of sailing, I did enjoy it, but in the way that cotton candy is enjoyable but leaves you feeling unfulfilled.

Willa, the main character, is a very determined character, which is good in some ways, and not so good in others. She's clearly worked very hard to get where she is, but also she really lets the whole 'I can sail actually' façade go way too far, which makes it a little hard to sympathise with her as a character. However, she does stick to her guns, which is an admirable trait, and was very much a good main character.

Willa and Lane were a cute relationship in principal, not particularly friendly at first but needing to work together to achieve a goal. However, there's a 14 year age difference between them, and with Willa being 22, it's a little uncomfortable at times. I really wasn't expecting such a huge difference, so that's definitely something to keep in mind. I did think Lilah Suzanne dealt with this fairly elegantly, but age gaps just aren't my thing. Aside from the age gap, their relationship was very much a summer romance book relationship, which is to say, sweet but not rooting for them to ride off into the sunset together.

I was a little confused with the plot, as what I thought would be the big plot conclusion actually happened before the 50% point; because of this, the rest of the plot felt a little bit weak because all the build-up happened for something that wasn't even a significant part of the plot. This definitely wasn't a huge favour to the book, because it was meandering and I couldn't see an objective to it, which mean that I wasn't completely committed. However, the first 45% or so was very enjoyable in terms of plot. It's fairly unbelievable, because everything seems to work out in favour of the plot, but because of the smaller role the plot plays in the grand scheme of things, this doesn't make it insufferable.

Now, one thing that really got on my nerves was the lack of sailing safety. I know how scary sailing can be, because I remember when I first learned, but people don't have the luxury of freezing up like Willa did. That's how people get seriously hurt, and Willa didn't really learn that. Second of all: you don't drink wine on a boat in a storm. Just, no. You may not be on a road the way you are when driving, but water can be really dangerous, and a buzz from alcohol can result in disaster. In general, the sailing was a fairly disjointed part of the story, and as someone who sails, I can't say I was a massive fan.

While it was a light, fluffy, summery read, Tack & Jibe wasn't really up my alley, and I feel like I was expecting a completely different book. However, if short and summery is what you're looking for, with a sweet and relatively angst-free romance, then it might be the book for you.

Review will be published on my blog on Sunday 19th. Thank you to the publisher for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley, Interlude Press and Lilah Suzanne for gifting me an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
Tack & Jibe was my last LGBTQ+ book for pride month! Unfortunately I wasn’t blown away by this one.
Last summer I got obsessed with sailing couples on YouTube so I was instantly intrigued with this plot. While I enjoyed Willa and Lane enough, I felt like there were a few moments that were just plain drama and didn’t benefit the story in any way. Let’s be honest though, all romances have a will-they-won't-they moment. I didn’t find the writing in this one to flow as nicely as i’d have liked. There were a few moments that felt out of place and the dialogue was a bit awkward at times. Not bad, not great, just a good book!