This was a lovely read - it aimed right for my heart and hit true.

The mid 2010’s vibes were immaculate and I was absolutely loving her friends and the found family she’s acquired. The heavy Christian tones really hit home in a way that made me have to put the book down for a second.

I think my main issue is that this book is being heavily marketed as a romcom and it absolutely reads more as a contemporary with romance subplot. This is completely fine but readers are being told one thing and receiving another which can affect their experience.

I am going to see if I can bake my own cupcakes and preorder my own copy of this so it can join my shelf !

I received an e-arc copy of this book from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Solid 3 star rating. I'm glad I read this book, but not sure there was anything overly groundbreaking with it either. The premise is our MC Amy is a gay young adult living in ultra-conservative Oklahoma. She is trying to live independently by working two jobs, one as a baker in a Christian-owned bakery and the other at a gay bar. She meets a cute lesbian, Charley, at work at the bakery and they start to become friendly with one another. Shortly after meeting Charley, Amy gets fired from the bakery because the owner finds out she is gay. Oh, also this takes place in 2013 I believe, so some equality laws haven't been passed yet. She then attends a friend's wedding, and while there comes to the rescue with a caketasrophe and saves the groom's cake (this scene is funny). This leads her to coming up with the idea of being a bridesmaid for hire, and she starts a fledgling business, where she is hired to help brides on their special day as an "undercover" bridesmaid to assist and keep the bride calm.

The book is cute, and there is a lot going on--friendship, dating, gay culture, found family, strong friendships. But the conflicts seemed a little soft, and it felt like if people actually talked to each other then things wouldn't have been so "tense". Amy's best friend doesn't speak to her for months due to a mild disagreement. For the length of their friendship, this seemed Doubtful. Charley seems kind of hot and cold as a love interest and though I like them together they didn't really seem like a OTP. Amy as a main character is nice and all, but also a bit emotionally immature for her age.

I loved the idea of some of the settings (Ruby Red's bar sounds amazing!) and most of the characters were well developed. The writing is fine--not too flowery, not underdeveloped, but straightforward. There just was a lot going on in this book and I feel like it would have been stronger if maybe a little more editing had been done. If you are looking for a F/F romance with a lot of weddings and bachelorette duties, this is a solid one. I recommend it but also don't think it will be overly memorable in years to come.

“I learned what I’m capable of, and I learned that I deserve better, even if I’m still figuring out what that looks like. I shouldn’t have to hide or change myself to make other people more comfortable.” // “Being gay in Oklahoma, staying gay in Oklahoma, is a radical act.”

QUEERLY BELOVED is a sweet sapphic romance set in Tulsa, Oklahoma just before marriage equality was legalized. Amy is a baker at a conservative Christian bakery where she pretends to be straight to keep her job, surviving with her second job as a bartender at a queer bar where she’s safe with her accepting found family. She meets Charley, an engineer new to town, and the two start seeing each other. When Amy is fired for being gay, she ends up working as a professional bridesmaid to make ends meet. But attending so many straight weddings when her gay best friends can’t get married is rubbing salt in the wound, and passing as straight for her job yet again makes her question what it might look like for her to risk living as her full, gay-as-fuck self.

What I liked:
- Cute main pairing between two lesbians
- Wrestling with coming out fully in a conservative environment where there are real costs to doing so
- Exploring what the queer community in a red state looked liked ten years ago
- Really tender and loyal queer found family
- Lots of queer bar culture (but were there really five queer bars, including a full lesbian bar, in Tulsa in 2013??)
- We love using gender-neutral pronouns until a person’s gender is known
- Feeling the impact of marriage equality, remembering our queer ancestors, and also seeing how much work we have left to go for our community
- Another addition to the baking gays canon

What didn’t work for me:
- I didn’t find the main pairing very compelling; I think they needed more on-page time together
- On a related note, this felt more like a story about Amy’s personal growth instead a romance
- Characters other than Amy weren’t well-developed and sometimes felt a bit trope-y
- The whole professional bridesmaid business Amy creates felt a bit unrealistic; also, too much of the book was at other people’s weddings I didn’t care about
- Some of the queer culture felt a bit anachronistic, i.e. more progressive than 2013 would have actually been
- It also felt a bit performative; like good effort but the execution didn’t fully land

A bit of a mixed bag overall for me. I’m curious how it’ll land for other people. Thanks to Dial Press for the eARC; this book is out in May.

Content warnings: homophobia; yeah mostly just lots of that

I think I liked this book? I liked the characters, the queer found family aspect, the marriage equality discussions. It just was really slow. I was like uh huh uh huh until like 70% in to the book. It was very Amy did this, then this, then this happened, and then this also happened. It just didn’t suck me in. But I did really like the last 30% of the book.
You might love this. But it was just okay for me. I’m not mad I read it. If you do read this be aware that there’s a lot of religion talk and also homophobic bakery owners.
The release date is 5/3!
This will be posted on my Instagram as well, @katebrownreads

Getting to know Amy and her ebbs / flows throughout this book + the romance we’re very sweet to get to know. A cozy read.

I loved the cover for this book, cute, whimsical and meet-cutey. I really liked the blurb too, it promised a sweet romcom because baking, weddings, bridesmaids duh!!

However, as I got into it, I think my expectations of the story and what I was reading didn’t quite match-up. While there is a sweet romance underneath all of this, the focus is really about Amy and her struggles with having to hide a significant part of herself from others when in “straight” society where she earns a living vs being able to be her full true self only at the lesbian bar where she works part time. Unfortunately, I only came to this realization after I was almost half way into the book and I was not seeing the romance progressing as quickly as it should have. This ended up being a little frustrating as I mentally had to reset myself.

Aside from that, this is a well written story, and since the focus is entirely on Amy you do get a very true sense of the challenges she faces between trying to make ends meet and standing up to what she believes in. I will admit, I kept teetering between anger and sadness as Amy encountered one prejudiced attitude, comment after another and what she was juggling felt all too real. While the book tried to keep it light, it did affect me emotionally. I thought the pacing of the book dropped a tad as Amy goes through the implosion of her relationships and some contemplative bits did sound a bit repetitive. But, the romance picks up pace again towards the end and a few surprises later the conclusion wraps up with a strong finish.
Overall it was a good read, not quite what I expected but interesting nonetheless. 3.75🌟s

AHSGKJHSG this was adorable. i loved how inclusive it was, the story was so sweet and fluffy yet realistic. it's the perfect book to get you out of a reading slump!

Thank you to Netgalley for this eArc! I thoroughly enjoyed this story, it definitely didn't have quite as much romance as I was expecting based on the initial summary, but I appreciated the queer self-discovery that we experience through the book.

Ehh. I just wanted a better romance. I didn't want the characters together because I don't think they work together. They say "we can make this work if we want to" as if its being forced and it doesn't really make sense (spoiler, because it doesn't). A lot of the story is the main character whining about their life and one chapter they say love their new job and the next chapter their not sure about it. Things weren't consistent and I think it could have been 100 pages shorter.

This is a unique story exploring the Life of Amy, a 20 something, in Tulsa as she tries to find her way in the world without having to hide who she is. Along the way, we meet a great slew of supporting characters!

In terms of a romance novel this was an incredible slow burn. I actually felt it was wrongly categorized as a romance, as it felt like it purposefully glazed past the intimate scenes as to not take away from the heaviness of the story and what the characters in the community go through while living in Tulsa.

The story it’s self was incredibly heavy. Though Amy has a great community of friends that support her identity there is also many people in the community that are no accepting. The book starts with her loosing her dream job at a bakery, not because of her lack of skills but instead because she’s a lesbian. Dumond does an incredible job exploring the hardships of the queer community in a state that in 2013 wouldn’t allow same sex marriage. The book was equal parts heart warming and heart breaking, and the epilogue wrapped the story up so nicely giving absolutely everyone their HEA. I’m obsessed!

I thought this was a cute story and I really enjoyed it. I think our college students will love it, so I've already ordered a few copies for them to checkout. It's going to be a hit here.

Thank you to NetGalley for the copy of this book for my honest review.

This book started off really great for me, and I couldn't help but fall in love with the adorably sweet Amy, the semi-closeted lesbian baker from Tulsa, Oklahoma. This was set back in 2013 before same sex marriage was legal in Oklahoma, so a lot of the book talks about the struggle for equality and Amy being comfortable showing her queer side when out and about town, etc. which I do think it could sometimes become repetitive throughout the book which made her come off a little whiny. I also think at one point Amy did come off pretty selfish and maybe a tad needy/over the top, which was a little annoying, too.

In the end I was won over by the happily ever after wrap up, and by the growth Amy finally showed over the last part of the story. I would say this was a little bit coming of age/finding out who you are, and a little bit romance.

3.5 stars

Such a fun romance with LGBTQ history mixed in, not to mention feeling like you have a tour guide of Tulsa.

I DNF-ed this one, which was really disappointing to me because the cover was cute and I liked the title, but the instalove was a bit too unbelievable and the pace was a little awkward in my opinion. DNF-ed at 43%

Received from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Bouncing between three and four stars here. I enjoyed seeing Amy's growth as she went from being closeted-at-work to more fully out. The setting (Tulsa, Oklahoma, prior to the legalization of same-sex marriage) was interesting for me too -- giving me an idea of what it might be like to be an LGBT+ person in a less accepting place than the dark blue bubble where I live. But the writing often seemed somewhat stilted, with info-drops that sounded more like they were coming from the author than the voice of the character. The book suffers a little from being marketed as a rom-com, when the focus is more on the development and change of Amy's character than the development and change of the relationship.

All in all, I enjoyed reading it and I LOVED the cover.

This was a little too slow for me, but the ending was definitely worth it. A cute light read. I didn't connect to the characters very deeply, especially Charley. I wish I knew more about her.

Amy has enjoyed baking since she was a child, and Daily Bread is the best bakery in Tulsa, OK, giving her the chance to learn invaluable skills if she decides to pursue her dream of opening her own bakery someday. However, the owners are very anti-LQBTQI+, and so Amy has to hide that she is a lesbian. At her other job, as a bartender at Ruby Red's, a lesbian bar, she is open about her sexuality, and she has a supportive mother and numerous friends in the local LGBTQI+ community. A chance encounter at her cousin's wedding leads to an offer to serve as a professional bridesmaid at an upcoming wedding, filling in for a bridesmaid that had to back out at the last minute. [The professional bridesmaid seems to be a popular plot device lately, although this is the first book involving that plotline that I have read where the bridesmaid was queer.] Amy's various skills are called upon to ensure that the wedding goes well, solving multiple mini-crises, and she soon decides to advertise her services as a professional bridesmaid. The success of this new venture is especially important as the owner of Daily Bread somehow found out that Amy was a lesbian and fired her (despicable but legal), and so Amy really needs the income.

The book is set in 2013, when same sex marriage was still illegal in many states, including Oklahoma, but favorable court decisions were starting to be issued, bringing both hope and despair to the LGBTQI+ community. Amy really enjoys helping ensure that brides have their special day, but it becomes harder and harder to participate in these weddings, knowing that her friends and herself are not allowed to have the same experience. Adding to these difficulties, not long before she is fired from Daily Bread, a new customer, Charley, visits the bakery, and Amy develops an instant connection with Charley, who is also queer and has recently moved to Tulsa for work. A relationship develops, but it is on somewhat shaky grounds. Relationship issues and work stresses will temporarily break apart one of Amy's most important friendships and will force her to re-evaluate how she lives her life, particularly how she hides an essential part of herself in her job.

The book has many poignant moments, especially some of the discussions among queer characters about the issue of marriage equality and acceptance. There are also some very humorous moments -- especially at her cousin's wedding, where the groom's cake, which is supposed to have a peacock design, has a very different and, in the context of a conservative Christian wedding, very disturbing design, and Amy has to use her baking and cake decorating skills to salvage and redesign the cake. Things will eventually turn out well for Amy, but it will be quite the adventure getting to that point.

I received a copy of the e-book via NetGalley in exchange for a review.

This was such a cute little book and I loved it. It was heartwarming and literally the cutest. I fell in love with the characters and the story. Thank you for the ARC.

dnf @ 22%. i really wanted to like this one - cute cover! and it would help me knock oklahoma off my 50 states reading list and q off my a-z list! - but i just can't. i'm so bored. i'm not vibing with it. the instalove is questionable at best. i can't continue.

Queerly Beloved is a sweet lesbian rom-com with Amy our main protagonist working at a conservative and family oriented bakery while hiding her sexual orientation.

Amy finds love with Charley, a fresh to Tulsa engineer and the two are drawn to each other after a fortuitous visit from Charley at the bakery.

The romance seemed to take a back seat to Amy’s journey with finding solace in her queerness and discovering her true self.

Amy’s “found family” was a delight and an enjoyable addition to the overall story.

Many thanks to Random House Publishing Group and Net Galley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.