A Love That Leads to Home

Wonderfully written story that captures the conundrum that is the south perfectly. The love, support and sense of belonging can be a blessing as well as a curse. You are able to experience the fear that Janice feels with being true to herself but losing all that she holds dear. Carla's character is so supportive and strong yet you still get the witness her vulnerability. Throughout story the strength of love between the characters shines through and provides a sense of hope. Hope that in the end love of self, love of family and love of a partner wins out.

Carla Sims had to drop everything in Arizona where she lived to fly back home to say goodbye to her dying grandmother in North Carolina. When she was there,she was overwhelmed with grief. This resulted in not getting any rest and loosing weight and whatnot. Janice Carpenter is a College professor who is Carla’s aunt Maureen’s best friend offered Carla to come stay with her at her home as a place of solace.What Carla did not know was that Janice was secretly attracted to her. The whole time she spent with Janice evolved in their mutual attraction growing by leaps and bounds to the ultimate culmination of their feelings.The intimate scene was sweet tasteful and totally erotic. I’m going to leave it her to not give away the end of the book. Suffice it to say The author did a great job of tying up all the critical issues between the two main characters in a very nice manner.

Inspiring novel of being true to oneself and the strength to live their truth. Janice’s struggle for self-acceptance, Carla’s journey home with family issues, and Mamie’s inherent beauty of the soul and lessons of the heart are profound themes that will encourage growth no matter the pain. I heartily and enthusiastically recommend this book and any others by the author. A very good read. I’m looking forward to reading her other works. Thank you Peace

I really liked the book. I recommend it!

Is it a good thing that I tend to love toaster-oven romance more than most other tropes? A story where at least one party is figuring out their sexuality almost always focuses more on the development of the relationship, and I love an extremely slow-burn book where both characters try to understand what they are feeling for each other. Reading toaster-oven romances is often like experiencing falling in love all over again, and Black's "A Love that Leads to Home" is one of those beautiful works.While Carla and Janice weren't best friends, they have known each other through Maurine and spent a great deal of time together when they were younger. And since another trope I love is best-friend romance, especially those with years of friendship before anything romantic, this friends-to-lovers aspect is an added bonus.There are so many things I love about this book, and almost everything has to do with the language. I especially love the almost excessive internal dialogues. As readers, we get to clearly see Carla's and Janice's struggles with themselves and discomforts as they try to justify their own behaviors and thoughts. Sometimes, these dialogues are discontinuous, incoherent, and erratic, and I love this honest presentation because that’s what feelings are. I also love how the writing is laced with powerful emotions. I love how they talk, how they are both so careful in picking and choosing words, how their interactions are always almost poetical. And I love the first part of the first sex scene that lasted six percent of the book. It was beautiful it left me speechless.While I love almost everything about this book, I understand that it might not be for everyone. It was an emotional read for me, and if you want a good heart-wrenching story, read it. Sometime in the future, I'd like to revisit "A Love that Leads to Home" for the intricacies of Carla's and Janice's thoughts, and one of the most beautiful sex scenes I've read to date.* I received an ARC from Bold Strokes Books.

Carla is happy she has great group of friends a job she loves and she single and likes it that way. When she gets a call from her aunt that her her grandmother is ill she returns to home to be with her.Janice is recently divorce and she never could get Carla out of her head especially when she came out three years ago she finds her intriguing and her attraction towards her is intensify when she offer Carla to stay while she in town.As they grow closer Janice starts to feel she found her place in the world but she fears what others would think. I like how the author shows the fear of being yourself and finding where you belong and that sometimes finding the right one can help you accept yourself.This was a good read the MC chemistry was on point the dialogue you could feel the attraction the longing and when they act on it you’ll be rooting for them to live HEA.I received an ARC copy of this book from the Publisher via Netgalley and voluntarily leaving my review.

Carla Sims goes back home to rural North Carolina upon the death of her grandmother. There she reconnects with family and friends, including long-time family friend Janice Carpenter. Janice has a secret. After Carla came out as a lesbian to her family a few years back, a switch flipped for Janice. She is attracted to women, and quite specifically, to Carla.In a roil of emotions, the two become closer and CLOSER. But Janice may not be willing to explode her life with the reality that she is in love with Carla Sims.

This is my first time reading a book by Ronica Black and I did enjoy it, I just think the style wasn't for me.It took me a while to get into these characters, mostly because I was expecting a lot of romance since the beggining and it was more about how two women found themselves and the other, but not so much about their actual love story because we only got to see the "start" of it. I would've loved to see more about their relationship and how it grew, but I feel the author spent too much time building the romance and only showing it to us in the last 20% of the book.

Ronica writes great stories. The chemistry between these two characters leaves you with an ache and you want them to figure out a way to make it work despite the challenges from family and friendship. A happy ending makes the slow burn worthwhile.