Oh my god. Astrid Parker has never done anything wrong in her entire life she is completely perfect in every single way. I love love LOVED this book. Dare I say I even loved it more than the first installment of the Bright Falls series. Jordan & Astrid had my heart from the spilled coffee. Such a delightful, heartfelt, steamy book. It’s also just amazing have so many queer women on the pages together, it makes my heart feels so full honestly.

I was blessed by the @NetGalley higher powers to read Astrid Parker Doesn’t Fail by @ashleyhblake early AND DAMN IT DID NOT DISAPPOINT. Enemy’s to lovers. Bisexual awakenings. A slow burn that did not let me down. 🔥 be still my queer heart. Comes out 11/22/22 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Astrid is given the chance to do an HGTV renovation design on an historic inn. This is the perfect opportunity on a perfect project for her and she’ll do a perfect job of it what with her drive for perfection. But on her way to the first meeting a woman runs into Astrid, literally, spilling coffee over the perfect dress she’s chosen. Astrid gets very angry, very vocally angry, and who should the coffee woman be but the head carpenter on the coveted job and the granddaughter of the inn owner!

That sets the tone. Their relationship and opinions about the renovation are at odds. The film crew picks up on it and asks Astrid and Jordan to play it up a bit. But they are slowly becoming closer and are agreeing to a bit of subterfuge to keep up pretenses. Astrid’s job and life suddenly don’t seem so perfect to her anymore. But Jordan increasingly does.

This is a classic enemies to lovers tale as well as being a lesbian romance with a bit of lovers in denial thrown in. It has something for everyone.

Both of them are coming off disastrous relationships and are so vulnerable and gun shy. Astrid has never had a relationship with a woman so she’s kinda clueless at times about what is happening. And she needs to take it slow. Both are genuine and engaging and the second half of the book is really, really steamy.

I look forward to recommending this book.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I loved this book so much! It was fun, sexy and emotional in so many ways focusing on a story line about the more adult themes of queerness and finding out your queer later in life.
Astrid was such a star in this book. She was honest and real with just the right amount of feeling like your growing into your parents.
Jordan. Sweet Jordan. I thought she was the sweetest thing while also having a strong sense of self and not being written as just ‘love interest’. Both women were strong and coupled each other perfectly. I wasn’t groaning reading one part and waiting for the next, both were equally amazing.
I adored the queer culture in the book from the tarot to the books to the casualness of just being queer as an adult.
This book had me giggling and screaming at the characters. And maybe a few tears were shed too. What can I say? I believe in destiny.

Thank you to Berkeley and NetGalley for sending me the eARC for an honest review.

This is really sweet (and spicy!) rom com. The characters are diverse and well-rounded and I really liked how the plot didn't fall into any of the traditional romance tropes.

This was a bit of a slow start, but once the clothes start dropping the story and character development flew off the page. An A+ followup to Delilah Green

Thank you Net Galley for the digital arc! Ashley Herring Blake does it again. And she does it so well. I fell in love with Delilah Green, and fell in love with Astrid Parker just the same. This is a wonderful story of creating yourself, feeling comfortable in your own skin, and falling in love, and so much more. I really enjoyed the interior design aspects of this too, it was great for sense of place and visual appeal. Ashley Herring Blake’s writing style is so captivating and unique, it is truly impossible to turn away. Phenomenal book, and I’m already so excited to read the next. Can’t wait to purchase this in November! This is a MUST READ! ⭐️

This was AMAZING! I loved it!! I wasn’t as into the first one but I loved Astrid’s relatable perfectionism and her and Jordan were so cute together! Also there’s a shoutout to other queer romance novels in this. Love it!!

A truly delightful sequel to Delilah Green Doesn't Care. Light-hearted, enemies-to-lovers, slow burn. Excellent, steamy sex scenes. Did not fall into any miscommunication tropes (which is something personally I don't care for). All around, an excellent read!

The second book in the Bright Falls series is another fun, LGBTQ+ romance. In this one, Astrid is trying to pick up the pieces of her life after a failed engagement ( that we saw play out in Delilah Green Doesn’t Care). She is a naturally uptight personality and is even more high strung as she embarks on her latest job— designing the inn in town. It’s even being featured on a reality design show. But on day one, she collides, literally, with Jordan, the carpenter on the job. Then Astrid is forced to change her plans in many ways.

I like this series and find the characters to be interesting. There are some spicy scenes, and it is nice to see a variety of queer characters represented. Read Delilah Green first to get a fuller picture of the setting and the friend group.

Ashley Herring Blake does it again with Astrid Parker Doesn't Fail, and is quickly becoming one of my favourite authors with her Bright Falls series. Taking an unlikeable character and turning her into someone we can empathize with, relate to, and really love and root for is something that made this book stand out to me. Not only that, but I love the way the author explores coming out in your later years with Astrid, which is something not often represented in queer stories. Moreover, despite being a queer love story, the central messaging in this romance is one that I think is universal, making this a book that I would recommend to everyone and anyone who has ever struggled with challenging parental expectations, discovering your passions, and learning how to be confident in who you are.

A delightful, enemies to lovers sapphic romance. I didn’t feel as attached to the build up in this one as Delilah Green, but it was still a sweet read. Any romance fan will love this cute read.

I am officially obsessed with this author. She is so good at plucking the heartstrings and, erm, other strings. She is quickly becoming an instant-buy author, and I'll rec her to anyone looking for romance with style and substance.

It was hard to imagine that a second book could live up to the humor, heat, romance, and emotion of Delilah Green Doesn't Care, but Ashley Herring Blake can pretty much do anything. It's a challenge to take someone who was a minor villain throughout most of the first book and turn them into someone whose delicate emotions and deep fears are real and painful and joyful and present, but it happened almost instantly. Twists in the story made me gasp, love scenes made me blush, I'd read it again and again. Excellent.

loved loved loved how this was more of a slowburn than delilah green. also the way their meet cute actually turned into a meet disaster was so hilarious. i actually went through this entire book while i was waiting in line for rides at disneyland i was obsessed. i loved how astrid finally got the courage to embrace what truly makes her halpy with some of jordans help and how jordan was able tk realize hkw she deserved better ad her own “destiny.” alsoo the descriptions of the remodel were so good i usually dont bother paying attention to stuff like that but i could vividly pocture what each of the rooms looked like.

I read “Delilah Green Doesn’t Care” earlier this year and absolutely loved it. So when I found out Astrid was getting a book I immediately added it to my tbr! Thanks to NetGalley I got an ARC and let me tell you I was not disappointed. After reading “Delilah Green Doesn't Care” I wanted Astrid to have a happy ending and I’m so glad she did. I fell in love with Jordan immediately, she was so relatable to me. I have to admit anything home improvement wise loses my interest but, Ashley Herring Blake was able to keep my attention, and I can’t wait to pick up “Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date”!!

Astrid Parker still reeling from a breakup with her former fiancée, she lands a job to help her raise her prospects in her decorating business when she literally runs into Jordan Everwood and a cupful of coffee. This inauspicious beginning is truly the start of something anyway. Working together to restore the Everwood Inn Jordan's family's inn the two women manage to find a space to meet to accomplish their goals, for Astrid it's a way for her to boost her business and for Jordan it's a way to help bring success back to her family's inn. Both women are dealing with things from their past, for Astrid it's the failure of her engagement and her overbearing mother and Jordan it's a loss of a previous relationship. I liked both characters both Astrid and Jordan were lovely people. Astrid was very buttoned up and restrained but that came about because she was being kept back by society's expectations, her mother's expectations and her desire to be what other people expected and not look for what she wanted out of life. Jordan hampered by her loss still felt more reachable because she was not locked into some one else's expectations but instead was hoping to find something. This was a lovely romance with characters that you wanted to find each other and the happiness that they were missing in their lives.

This was such a fun read. I recently finished Delilah Green Doesn’t Care and knew I would love this one just as much. The writing is compelling and made me laugh aloud. I will definitely be purchasing copies for the library!

I had so much fun with this book! Its prequel is one of my fav romance novels ever, so I had high hopes for this one. & while it didn't quite compare to [book:Delilah Green Doesn't Care|54756850], I still really enjoyed myself. I wish there had been a bit more time for the romance to develop, but the author still made me cry like, 2 whole times. (What is an Ashley Herring Blake novel without crying multiple times??) Overall, really enjoyed myself, & I can't wait to see what happens in the 3rd book!

How lucky are we to receive two Ashley Herring Blake novels in one year? DELILAH GREEN DOESN'T CARE was a truly fantastic release earlier in 2022, and the next in the series does not disappoint. Astrid and Jordan have a charming enemies to lovers romance that is really believable -- I love this trope, but many authors lean in too hard & have the antagonism be so intense (or so petty) that it's hard to believe it could turn into romance at the drop of a hat. Blake realizes that the struggle is never with the other person at all -- really, the source of all the characters' banter and prickliness comes from within. I was so charmed by Jordan's vulnerability (hidden beneath her grumpy mess of an exterior) and Astrid's churning anxiety (which, as for so many of us, stems from a messy web of causes rather than one Big Trauma). Do I detect the set-up for a third novel about Iris & Simon and possibly even a fourth with Josh (and Natasha?!)? Let's keep our fingers crossed!