This book is about a woman who has a dream that she will buy a boat and sail around the world, and how her new relationship affects that dream. This one-dimensional story fits into a very small box – there’s very little in terms of a plot, there are way too many banal uninteresting details (how many times can we possibly be told what kind of boat keel Lania prefers?) and the character development is very limited. In fact the characters are not very likable at all, and come off as immature and childish a lot of the time. Worse though is the dialogue which was often unrealistic to the point of frustration. Many details that should have been imparted to the reader as part of the narrative were instead delivered as part of a dialogue which made the conversations feel unnatural and forced. I guess I am finding it difficult to praise anything about this book. It wasn’t horrible…but neither was it good. ( )

Though I've never lived in Seattle, the world Dena Hankins has built feels like home to me in a way I've rarely experienced in the Romance genre. These rich characters are like my friends, queer and trans* folks who pay little mind to culturally prescribed boundaries of sexual and gender expression, so comfortable with themselves they barely even register these facets as identities. Lania's identity as a Sailor is more central to her than her sexual orientation, for instance, which wanders happily wherever her eye gets to gleaming. She just enjoys sex with people she's into however they come.

All the more like my friends, Lania and Oly move in a diverse social circle of musicians, artists, nerds, farmers, writers and filmmakers who are fiercely earnest and passionate about their projects. Smart, engaged people with a pulsing vitality. This crew is rich in drive and social capital, yet live modestly on whatever cash they scrape together through project grants, day jobs, cheap rent, bike travel, and shared burritos. It was fun to hang out with them.

Often in Romance novels I find I'm plodding through the story to get to the sex. Typically a writer of short story erotica, Dena is a masterful crafter of smut. Blue Water Dreams does not disappoint, it offers smoking hot sex scenes that have a beguiling sweetness and yet feel totally real; real bodies, real desires, real negotiation. Some of the most electric, authentic, respectful, loving sex scenes I've read anywhere, between people of all genders.

Even so, it was the story that hooked me. Lania is someone I want to keep me up all night talking, and -- real talk -- Oly is someone I want to keep me up all night, period. He's a witty, sexy, green-eyed charmer I fell for right along with her. It's clear what the ending will probably be miles before it comes, but watching wonderfully likable people work their way through to their triumphant destiny is such a pleasure.

Full disclosure, Dena and I are writer penpals who often critique one another's work. I gave comments on an early draft of Blue Water Dreams -- from "new paragraph here" to which phrases made my neck flush and my pulse race. I am delighted, tickled, to appear in the acknowledgements for this book. Echoing the artistic hothouse of Oly and Lania's circle of friends, we've helped one another bloom with me reading her sexy queer/trans* romance novel and her reading my sexy queer feminist plays. (Including my most frequently produced work, a one-act called "How I Learned To Eat Pussy". Sounds like an essay in Lania's literary magazine, right?)

I enjoyed editing these chapters because my friend is truly a skillful word-worker. She's a genuine yarn-spinning sea captain, a born storyteller with a compassionate eye for her characters and a disarmingly direct voice. Dena's work sounds so authentic because she lives the epilogue to this story herself -- a genderful queer poly liveaboard sailor-sexpert who writes from the belly of her ship. ( )

I was very torn by this book. It's a story about Lania, the publisher of a Literary Magazine and a die hard sailor (she's been doing it for about a year, but on occasion it seems as though she'd been doing it longer), and Oly, a filmmaker making a documentary about a strike in Seattle that took place in 1919. He also happens to be a Transman. THey meet and their lives go from separate entities to intertwined in interesting ways until everything comes to a head. Will love or the movie he's making win in Oly's world? Will love or the boat and the freedom of sailing win in Lanie's world?

On the whole I liked the novel, but didn't love it.

I don't usually read m/f romance novels so that was different. But I did really like how the author approached the Trans aspect of the narrative, it was there, but not overpowering, and that part of it wasn't in the unlike column for me at all.

There wasn't anything obviously wrong with the novel, it was well written, well plotted, but the whole time I was reading it, something felt off. Here and there the narrative did feel stilted, dialogue wise. And maybe it was my reaction to some of the ideas that the characters were sharing that I didn't agree with that colored my reading of the book? The characters were also super relate-able, which, in almost any other kind of novel I would have cheered, but when I read romance novels I don't really want to see myself in the characters, I want to be immersed in others lives for awhile.

For the most part it was good read. The story was interesting and the characters drawn well. (Although I would have loved to see more from, and about Carla). But, overall a solid three star book.

I got this advanced galley through Netgalley on behalf of Bold Strokes Books. ( )