Recent Reads: AT FIRST SPITE: a complete delight
This is a romance I preordered because how could you resist that title, even if you DON’T know the main character ends up living in a spite house (a tiny, tiny house built between other properties, practically unlivable but built out of, you know, spite) between her ex’s house, and, as it turns out, her ex’s horrible older brother’s house? Which you do know, because the back of the book tells you so, so I’m not spoiling anything. :)
The heroine, Athena, is fat and glorious and wonderful, but the thing about this book is that while it’s an absolutely terrific romance, it’s also a deep, sympathetic, insightful portrayal of depression–I said “Oh, honey!” out loud at least twice reading it–that I’m pretty confident will be actively helpful for at least some readers, which is literally, like, you can’t ask for more than that as a writer.
Honestly, the characters are all just–they’re all so well-rounded. We’re told ‘oh, this is a flawed hero’ kind of thing all the time, but AT FIRST SPITE does such a wonderful job of showing us the flaws, the fears, the hopes, and the dreams of every major character in the book, and an exceptionally good job of doing the same with most of the minor characters. I really enjoyed it, and hope the author, Olivia Dade, goes on to write many, many more books set in this world and others.