What I'm Looking For: a 1980s Boston opposites attract rom com

What I’m Looking For is the first book in the Boston Classics series by Karen Grey. It seems to be a perfect recipe for a Boston Cocktail: one park finance geek, one part starving actor, two shots of stubbornness and a healthy squeeze of passion. Shake well and service in a vintage glass. When Kate Bishop walks into Boston’s famous Bull and Finch pub, she is looking for the one salesman she can trust to have her back. She has been ordered to get over her stage fright and present her precise research to clients and save her job. Romance is the last thing on her mind but when she meets the Shakespeare quoting bartender, she starts to wonder what if. Will Talbot is not a fan of the slick financiers who come into the bar every night. However, a certain beautiful, reserved brunette with a fire in her eyes caught his attention. As a Wall Street financier and a starving actor, they were totally wrong for each other but they can’t seem to stay away from each other.  

As a rom com story set in the finance world of the 1980s, I was intrigued. However, I was bored. I didn’t care for either Kate or Will. Kate felt like a stereotypical 1980s career woman, angry at the blatant sexism. Yes, women weren’t exactly welcomed in the workplace but the story didn’t give me a reason to root for Kate. Will was her antithesis. He hated the money making mentality and wore starving actor like a badge of honor. I felt the financial terms and speech slowed down the story and it really didn’t feel like the 1980s. It was supposed to be the late 80s and other than not having cell phones and the difficulty connecting with each other, it didn’t feel like the 1980s. One character even joked that it was too bad that we couldn’t carry phones in our pockets. I love a good Shakespeare quote; however, the sheer amount further weighted the story down. Overall, I did not enjoy this story and I will not be continuing the series. I do not recommend What I’m Looking for. 

What I’m Looking For is available in paperback, eBook and audiobook

Hold You Down: an emotional ride for single Black mothers in 1980s New York City

Hold You Down by Tracy Brown is a story about the perils of love and the ties that bind us. Mercy and Lenox Howard have always had each other. Abandoned by their mother, raised by their grandmother, they grew up on the mean streets of Harlem. As single moms with young sons, they are determined to survive and give their sons brighter futures. Mercy is the quiet, straight laced, playing the book and yet struggles to make ends meet. Lenox is the diva, the wild child, always looking for excitement and making it big in life. Their boys, Judah and Deon, are more brothers than cousins, and have forged a bond that seems unbreakable. When Lenox believes that success and power is hers for the taking as she heads down a path that will forever alter the course of her life as well as the life of her loved ones. 

I read Ms. Brown’s previous book, Single Black Female and knew I was in for an emotional ride. Hold You Down takes place in New York City during the late 1980s into the 1990s. It is a powerful, heartfelt story of a family trying to better themselves and the challenges they face. There were beautiful moments of celebration and family joys. There were gut wrenching moments of tears and devastation. I admire the strength of the characters as they come to grips with their lots in life and do their best to overcome them. Ms. Brown gives readers a hard-hitting, gritty, no-holds-bar story of life for black single mothers in 1980s New York. She does not hold back from the realities that Mercy and Lenox face and the Catch-22 they live in. Be prepared to laugh and cry with Mercy, Lenox and their sons. I highly recommend Hold You Down. 

Hold You Down is available in paperback, eBook, and audiobook

Astrid Sees All: a story about the gritty 1980s New York underground

Astrid Sees All by Natalie Standiford is a story of a young woman’s search for purpose, for meaning and an identity in New York City It’s New Year’s Eve 1983, Phoebe Hayes returns to the city after her father’s funeral, despite her mother’s protests. Phoebe wants to chase the glamorous life that only New York City can provide as well as confront the older man who wronged her. With her best friend, Carmen Dietz, she finds her niche as Astrid the Star Girl, the fortune teller in an East Village nightclub. Her friends and neighbors are the artists, It Girls and lost souls trying to party their pain away in the underworld of the East Village. Everything seems to go her way until a mix of sex and drugs leads Phoebe to betray Carmen, who wants nothing to do with Phoebe and disappears. Phoebe is left to descend into the darkness surrounding her. Can Phoebe find Carmen and make it right? Will she be able to stop the seemingly downward spiral she’s on?

Astrid Sees All is described as “a love letter to the gritty 1980s New New York City” and the story is gritty. It is brutally honest in its description of the lives of those who filled the underworld. I read with interest as I wonder where the underworld life would lead Phoebe. When I finished, I was in a daze. I wasn’t sure how I felt. There is no real hero or heroine. It certainly wasn’t a happy, feel-good book with a satisfying ending. It was an realistic look at life in New York City and an honest ending as a young woman must come to terms with her actions and must decide where to go from there. It was a book that held my interest. I was able to finish it in one day. The book was filled with an eccentric cast of characters. Some you hate, some you sympathize with and some will shock you. Overall, it is a book worth reading. I recommend Astrid Sees All. 

Astrid Sees All will be available April 6, 2021 in hardcover, eBook, and audiobook.