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A Shore Thing by Joanna Lowell
352 pages | Published by Berkley
The Set Up: Botanist Muriel has traveled to St. Ives to find Kit Griffith, a prolific artist who’s work she admires, so that he can illustrate materials for her upcoming lecture. But Kit, a trans man, is unable to paint after a falling out with his friends. Kit has come to St. Ives to live as his true self and is now running a local bicycle shop. Kit and Muriel strike up a bargain: Kit will paint for her if she accompanies him on a bike tour to prove to an all-male cycling club that women can ride as well as men.
This took me a while to read, but that absolutely had more to do with my own mood and reading motivation than it did with this particular book. Once I finally dedicated some time to sit down and read, I was turning the pages quickly!
These were some incredibly nuanced characters, and you can really tell how much care went into writing the story. I loved switching back and forth between Muriel and Kit’s perspectives and learning about the queer community in this time period.
The bike tour took center state in terms of plot, though I do wish there was a bit more about Kit and his struggles with his artists block. It felt like it was a bit forgotten in the grand scheme of things.
The book was pretty fast paced and had a distinctly coastal vibe to it - it felt light and bright and like I could hear the ocean the entire time. This had a great mix of daring heroics and compelling dialogue.
A Shore Thing was centered on such a unique piece of history that I haven’t seen a lot of in historical fiction. I didn’t realize until after reading that this is part of a series, and I’ll definitely be looking into others from this author.
Thanks to Netgalley and Berkley for the advanced eBook!
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