Very moving story. I read this book pretty quickly. Getting involved into main characters drama was so easy and totally understood what they were going through.
Both characters have very unusual jobs. I wish I could get into both bit more.

Torn apart by strife between their families when they were 11 Nev and Kinsley are reunited by chance when Kinsley visits the retreat next door to Nev’s farm. What follows is a gentle romance and an astute observation of human nature in the aftermath of tragedy.

The major players are all interesting characters, charming in their own way, multilayered and carrying a bucket load of past. The romance as a whole is an exploration of how somebody damaged by loss and emotional neglect must face the wrongs of a childhood before they can move on.

Well written, enjoyable reading a little different from the normal lesfic romance the author has done a great job of drawing complex characters and their need for personal growth to come out from under their pasts.

I found it hard to go along with how Nevaeh blamed Kinsley for the death of her twin sister. One can understand in the heat of the moment of grief, but to hold this grudge for years. I really felt for Kinsley. To carry all that guilt and grief and the knowledge people hate her.

Twenty-five years ago, Nev Wakefield and Kinsley Padovano were best friends along with Nev’s twin sister, Vivian. After the plane crash that ended Vivian’s life, Nev’s parents blame Kinsley and her family and forbid the girls to see each other. Kinsley moved away and Nev was left with her grieving parents. Now, Kinsley is an aviation expert and Nev works as a blacksmith on a beautiful ranch. After her cousin is involved in a crash, Kinsley retreats to a peaceful ranch and runs into Nev, a woman she never thought she’d see again. As the two grow closer once again, Vivian’s death still stands between them, and they’ll never be able to make anything work unless they can move past, well, the past.

I enjoyed this one. It had good tension for two characters with such a dramatic and traumatic history. Though at times the push and pull was a tad tedious, overall I enjoyed the pace. It has solid character development as well as the supporting characters. I’m a sucker for a book set on a ranch or out in the west, and Nev being a blacksmith? Get out of here. I’m all in. I mean, let’s be honest. I was all in at “lesbians.”

This isn’t my first Ronica Black book, and it won’t be my last. I tend to really enjoy her books that feature characters not in their 20s. I liked that the characters were solidly in adulthood, but like many of us, still reeling from and dealing from the fallout of things that happened in their past. I was rooting for Nev and Kinsley, even when I was annoyed at them for setbacks. They felt like friends who I just wanted to shove at each other and yell, “Now, kiss!”

As is the norm of late, I’m a bit behind on reviews, so this one is out in the world and ready for you to read if it sounds like something that’s up your alley.

This was very different from the author's previous books. As always, it was well written, with characters that came to life. Different stages of Nev and Kinsley's grief and how Viv's loss affected them had been depicted very well. Arthur was a wonderful character and Nev's relationship with him was one of the highlights of the book. Overall though, I would say this was more a story about coping with grief rather than a romance. The two leads obviously had an emotional connection but the chemistry between them was hard to see, and the romantic storyline was very much on the back burner.

i unfortunately had to dnf this book, although it did not work for me personally, i am sure so many other people will love it

Who doesn’t love a woman on a horse?

From the jacket: Nev Wakefield is happy working as a blacksmith on her sprawling ranch, until one fateful evening driving home, her past comes rushing back, literally running her off the road. Kinsley Padovano escapes to a spiritual retreat only to be nearly run down by Nev, a woman she never expected to see again.

The two of them had been on the brink of a first love only to have it torn apart twenty-five years ago. Their lives were forever changed and both still suffer from survivor’s guilt. Kinsley has just gone through something similar and is not handling it particularly well, so she heads to a retreat to try to pull herself together. Nev lost her twin sister and then the rest of her family collapsed around her. Fate has never been kind to her and now it was throwing Kinsley back into her life.

A Turn of Fate is the first of Ronica Black’s books that I have read. I know it’s a cliché, but it won’t be my last. I found myself on the verge of tears a couple of times and then I had one really good cry. There were a lot of emotions to unpack. Thank goodness for the character Adrianna to guide me through it.

My only criticism is that the story seemed to wrap up too quickly. I would have liked to see a little more happy times for these characters before we said goodbye to them. They certainly deserved their HEA!

I did love this book because I identified well with one of the main characters but there were also things that were incredulous ….

The fact that Kinley was blamed for Viv’s death - ridiculous, also the fact that the characters went from hate to literal I love you in the snap of your fingers! Is that reality?

That being said I did love the story and really enjoyed the flip backs so that we could get the real back story.

R.B. once again delivers a story to be cherished.
The character development was magnificent and the side stories and secondary characters were a perfect balance to the main storyline. Sexy, hot, loving and so much more...

The premise of the book is solid - grief-stricken preteens reunite as adults and work through their shared loss. I even liked the characters and appreciated their growth throughout the novel. I just didn't buy their romance. It almost felt like they should've been building a strong friendship instead of leaping from cold hatred to hot sex seemingly instantaneously. The switches flipped off and on so fast that it just didn't feel plausible.

Overall, the book is a quick, easy read and I would check out other books by the author. I just wish there had been a bit more "slow burn" before Nev and Kinsley hooked up.

Thank you, NetGalley, for the ARC.

Overall, I enjoyed the beautiful setting, engaging characters and sweet romance in this story. It gets 3 out of 5 stars from me. The character of Nev alone, I would have given a 4 stars, because it was great to read a sapphic romance with representation of a more masculine of center character. However, the overall book as a whole, I can only give 3 stars. The romance is sweet and enjoyable, with some spicy scenes too, but I didn't quite feel that we got to know the characters in real depth, outside of the depiction their grief and guilt around a childhood event. It felt like we jumped significantly from the events in their childhood, to the present day, without much understanding of who these two characters are as adults now, Kinsley in particular. In fact, the early chapters of the book, which set the scene around the traumatic childhood event which leaves both characters carrying grief into the present day events of this book, made me question whether I would be able to enjoy a romance story after such a sad opening. However, after the romance begins to take center stage, the book really picks up and I thoroughly enjoyed it from there on. I would definitely go on to read other stories by the author and would recommend this book to others looking for a sapphic romance, with very hot butch cowgirl representation, alongside some less traditional grief themes found in a romance.

This is sort of a second chance love story, in that the characters were childhood friends, sort of verging on understanding their feelings for each other, before a tragedy separated them.

Nevaeh (heaven spelt backward 🙄), lost her twin sister, Viv, in a plane crash at age 11, when she was coming home from camp. Kinsley was the twins BFF who had the misfortune of suggesting said camp to Viv, but not going herself. This caused friendships and working relationships between their parents to fracture and the girls eventually lose touch.

Kinsley is heading to a retreat to come to terms with another plane crash involving her cousin, (I found this to already be stretching my credulity levels), and Nev works at the ranch next door and provides horse therapy for the clients. She and Kinsley meet again and spend most of the book rehashing the past and their various reactions to it.

Nev has barely moved on, even though she has a PhD and runs her own ranch, she’s still locked in place by her grief. Her relationship with her parents is behind repair, and she’s found a father figure in Arthur, who runs the ranch with her and has Parkinson’s. Her BFF is Adrianna, who runs the ranch next door. They were both great characters, I actually liked them better than the leads. Her parents are just terrible, like, I get that they lost a child, and some people never recover from that, but I had zero sympathy for them from their portrayal here.

Kinsley is broken up about her cousin, and also still has issues around what happened with Viv. Ridiculously, Nev still partially blames Kinsley for Viv’s death, and I was glad Kinsley called her out on how stupid that was. By the time they sort through all this and actually get together (or at least have sex) we were at the 80% mark, so the end is rushed, and frankly I didn’t buy that they could get past everything and make a life together. They also didn’t really have any chemistry, so the whole thing just felt kinda meh.

This felt more like an exploration of grief than a romance. 3 stars.

A Turn of Fate is a beautifully written story that had me hooked from page 1.

In fact it had my interest the moment I read Ronica Black's introduction, it was a heart felt moment when she said about a personal tragedy for this book, which was evident from the passion and the reflection in the story.

Nev and Kinsey are great characters, who have their struggles, and you'll find yourself rooting for them both.

Would I recommend....yes for that sweet, well written story

I’m dreaming of the southwest and it’s all thanks to Ronica Black’s A Turn of Fate.

Childhood best friends Neveah (Nev) and Kinsley haven’t seen each other in 25 years, after a tragic accident leads to the death of Neveah’s twin sister Viv, and tears their families apart. When a chance meeting brings them together again, it quickly becomes clear how much the past has shaped their lives and continues to haunt them. That said, this is a love story at heart and the author strikes a good balance between healing old wounds and building their relationship.

Nev is a complex character whose resentment of Kinsley at times feels out of proportion. It isn’t until later in the novel that we learn why. I wish this would have come to light earlier, because it made it difficult for me to relate to her at first. Luckily, the author did such a smoldering portrayal of Nev’s butch cowgirl physique that I couldn’t help but root for her. My favorite sexy Nev moment is the scene where Kinsley walks in on her while she is absorbed in her welding. I mean, who can resist a sweat-slicked butch working with fire?!

Ronica Black really drew me in with her descriptions of the retreat, Nev’s ranch, and their inhabitants (both human and equine). I read to relax and A Turn of Fate helped me do just that. If you enjoy a butch/femme romance set in a gorgeous red rock canyon with horses to boot, this one’s for you!

I was provided an ARC by NetGalley and Bold Strokes in exchange for an honest review.

This is a story that takes place in a rural setting, extra points for that, starring two women who have known each other since childhood, plus extra points. A terrible accident separated them when they were about eleven years old and now when they are in their thirties, they meet again and the old scars and unfinished business take center stage. Fantastic premises to achieve a romantic and passionate story.

Nev, short for Nevaeh, which is Heaven spelled backwards, lives a little secluded on her horse farm. She has dedicated her life to recovering damaged horses and also uses them to help people who come to the nearby complex, run by a friend of hers, Adrianna, which is a kind of resort for rest and therapy.

Kinsley is a woman who is going through a complex personal and work situation and needs the calm and rest that Adrianna’s resort can provide her.

Nev and Kinsley haven't seen each other in about twenty years and when they last did they were so young they didn't have time to figure out what was happening to them with the things they were feeling. But now nothing seems to have changed, despite the pain and sorrow they suffered then. They were meant to be. Although the thing will not be easy, Nev will be hard to be convinced despite the efforts of Adrianna and Kinsley.

The story is beautiful in itself, everything around it, the suffering and the struggle to overcome more than one blow and how they now that they meet again realize what happened to them as children but also that that was for real and to last. It has been a fantastic story and really highly recommended.

Isn't it interesting how others can say something enough that you begin to believe it. This romance has many themes. Black does a good job combining them all together. I did enjoy reading A Turn of Fate, I am just finding a hard time putting my feelings down on paper. I can tell you this. I felt a wide range of emotion while reading it. My main one was sadness. Even though Nev Wakefield is happy now being a blacksmith, she still has lost so much. Her twin sister, her parents, best friend. She has heard blame being placed for the events that happened and she eventually begin to believe it. Kinsley Padovano has had a better upbringing than Nev but she still struggles with love and guilt from the past and the present. It just a sad story. I am happy to say that things do get better which made me feel better. Overall I thought it was good.

3.75 stars

This arc was provided by netgalley and the publisher for an honest review.

Kinsley Padovano was friends with both Nev and Viv Wakefield when they were 12 yrs old They were both at home when they got word that Viv’s plane went down, she won’t be coming home again. The trip she was on was the a trip to a sports camp that both Kinsley and Viv was supposed to be on, but Kinsley had come down with a bug and was too sick to make the trip. Nev lost her twin sister and eventually her best friend Kinsley.
The problem with their friendship began when Nev’s parents started to blame Kinsley and her family for their daughter's death. Didn’t take long until the Padovano family left town leaving the situation they found their family in or so the Wakefield family thought.
Now years later Nev and Kinsley meet again when Kinsley goes to a retreat to come to terms with the way her life has become. She’d gone to college to learn what caused planes to crash. The retreat shares a border with the farm where Nev works as a blacksmith. Nev has never gotten over her twin's early death and still blamed Kinsley for the plane crash that took her sister.
Now with both characters seeing each other could they turn a page and become friends again. I would love to say this is a great read but the truth is I can’t even say it’s a good read. For me both characters were not very likeable. The supporting cast is alright but not enough to make me want to finish this book. I made it as far as the fifteenth chapter. Simply a harder read then it had to be.
ARC via NetGalley/ Bold Stroke Books

This was the first book by Ronica Black that I read and I’m interested in reading more by her. “A Turn of Fate” was a good read, but I had some difficulties with the romance part of it, mainly because I had trouble understanding one of the main characters.

Kinsley, Nev and Viv were best friends when they were eleven until a plane crash killed Viv. Due to circumstances Nev and Kinsley did not only lose their sister and best friend, but they also lost each other. Twenty years later they meet again. The story is a tiny bit of a second chance love (they were young, but there were some feelings at play), but it’s mostly about loss and how to overcome the grief that still plagues both Nev and Kinsley. The book starts with Kinsley’s troubled situation in life, but I liked how you slowly see that in fact Nev is the one who has most difficulty getting her life together and her backstory is so incredibly sad. There are some beautiful and emotional moments during their search for their path in life.

I loved the beginning of this book, getting to know the characters and their grief, it immediately sucked me in. Sadly, the story lost its grip on me as I got further in the book, which was mainly due to Nev. I didn’t understand her actions. Nev is the strong and silent butch type, very introverted, and her defense mechanism is to shut everybody out. The story is written in third person from the POVs of Kinsley and Nev, but even with Nev’s POV I still just could get a good insight in her, it’s almost as if she also shuts the reader out. Her behavior seemed sometimes so illogical going from extremely distant and hostile to almost instant flirting like a switch was thrown and then all of the sudden the distance would come back again. I also did not understand what her animosity towards Kinsley was based on, a reason is given, but it was unconvincing to me. In the end I was not totally convinced of their HEA, despite the epilogue.
I also felt that some issues were not addressed, the most important one being the fact that Kinsley’s biggest love is flying, she even owns her own plane. Nev is still traumatized from the plane crash and can’t even listen to the radio when there is a reporting about a plane crash. It seems logical that Nev would have reservations about Kinsley’s flying, but they never talk about this, I was really expecting this to be a major issue.

The secondary characters were good especially Arthur (Nev’s adopted father) is such a sweet and stubborn man. Adrianna is a good friend with her heart at the right place, but her meddling to bring Nev and Kinsley together was sometimes a bit much.

I the end I did enjoy this book even though I had trouble connecting to the romance, the way the grief and healing is approached was well done.

Nev Wakefield, lost her twin sister when she was young, her family then blames her best friend's family for the loss. Nev's best friend Kingsley is devastated by the loss and also lost her best friend Nev as she's no longer allowed to see Nev.
This was a thoroughly enjoyable book. There was butch/femme element to it but it wasn't overly pronounced. There was great chemistry between Nev and Kingsley and plenty of angst to keep you reading. The feelings of loss and happiness swung like a pendulum throughout the book. It was a joy to feel such emotion as you worked your way through the chapters.
A great read!

Good book. The story was really heartbreaking and there was quite a bit of angst throughout the book and relationship between Nev and Kinsley. I felt the sadness of this story and the love between the main characters. I wish there was more background story on Nevs parents and what happened after the tragedy, but there wasn't much there I don't want to say to much about the story just know that it's really good. The supporting characters were a good foil for what this book is about. I would definitely read more books by this author and would recommend this to my friends and family.