In the final installment of the Bright Falls series by Ashley Herring Blake, we follow Iris Kelly, who doesn’t date. Everyone around her has found love, from her friends to her siblings to her happily married parents, and she’s happy for them—but Iris doesn’t want any of that. She’d rather focus on the real issue: being a romance author and being completely out of ideas for her second book.
Perfectly happy to ignore her problems, Iris goes out to a bar one evening and meets sexy, fun, and sweet Stefania. What starts as a great night ends in the worst possible one-night stand of all time. When she runs into Stefania, whose real name is Stevie, at an audition for a lead role in a role play, Stevie begs her to pretend to be her fake girlfriend to save face in front of her group of friends—which includes Stevie’s ex-girlfriend and their best friend who’s now her ex-girlfriend’s new flame. Iris, seeing an opportunity to gain inspiration for her novel, happily agrees. What starts out as fake dating and playing a happy couple on the streets soon turns into something more between the sheets…
Sapphic fake dating, what more could you want, am I right? Blake decides to end the highly beloved Bright Falls series with a wonderful romance between two struggling artists who, for their own reasons, are closed off to love…and yet somehow manage to open each other’s hearts for the possibility of a once-in-a-lifetime-romance.
Iris and Stevie were a such a great pairing and much of that comes down to their well-developed personalities. Iris is a bisexual queen and I loved her confidence in her curvier body and her determination not to let anyone tell her to follow the stereotypical, traditional road of what everyone else in her family has chosen. She’s fun, smart, and intriguing, but there’s so much more to her and as the story unravels, we learn the reasons for her decisions and why she’s so against dating.
Something that intrigued me a lot was Iris’s family. It was interesting to see her with her parents and siblings that have such traditional values which we still often see in society where you aren’t thought of a successful before you don’t complete the house-with-white-picked-fence-and-two-point-five-kids stereotype.
Stevie, meanwhile, just deserved to be wrapped up in a blanket and cuddled all day long. The way Blake approaches anxiety in this book with Stevie was so relatable and I loved that Stevie’s existence shows people that just because you live with anxiety does not mean you can’t want to be successful on a stage or in the spotlight. Stevie’s dream is acting and living with anxiety is not mutually exclusive with that dream.
I love this about Blake’s other novels in this series as well, but Iris and Stevie really were so supportive and understanding when it came to the other person. It always felt like, even when they didn’t see eye to eye, they respected each other on such a deep level that it infused their romance with so many layers. Whether it was about mental health, struggles in their professional lives or something else, those discussions always were a highlight to read about.
Being brutally honest, I actually didn’t like any of Stevie’s friends. Sure, Ren had some charming moments, but Adri and Vanessa had my blood boiling multiple times with how insensitive and downright despicable they were. Appreciating that Stevie eventually set boundaries and told her friends what she needs from them, but every time they treated her badly in the novel, I just wanted to chuck the entire thing to the point where I was frustrated the moment they entered a scene (which, again might have been the point but took away from Stevie as a POV).
Likewise, the ending also felt a bit all over the place for me. I’m not a fan of the traditional third-act break-up, and I struggled a bit with how much time we spent talking about the other couples of the series in the final chapters, but then again it is kind of hard wrapping up the entire series and showing where they other two couples are at without drawing attention away from the couple you’ve spent the last 300+ pages getting to know and love.
All in all, Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date is a satisfying, heartfelt conclusion to an exciting sapphic romance series that offers a lovely farewell to characters and will take the sting out of saying goodbye to the series once and for all.
Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of October 24th.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
Everyone around Iris Kelly is in love. Her best friends are all coupled up, her siblings have partners that are perfect for them, her parents are still in marital bliss. And she’s happy for all of them, truly. So what if she usually cries in her Lyft on the way home. So what if she misses her friends, who are so busy with their own wonderful love lives, they don’t really notice Iris is spiraling. At least she has a brand-new career writing romance novels (yes, she realizes the irony of it). She is now working on her second book but has one problem: she is completely out of ideas after having spent all of her romantic energy on her debut.
Perfectly happy to ignore her problems as per usual, Iris goes to a bar in Portland and meets a sexy stranger, Stefania, and a night of dancing and making out turns into the worst one-night stand Iris has had in her life (vomit and crying are regretfully involved). To get her mind off everything and overcome her writer’s block, Iris tries out for a local play, but comes face-to-face with Stefania—or, Stevie, her real name. When Stevie desperately asks Iris to play along as her girlfriend, Iris is shocked, but goes along with it because maybe this fake relationship will actually get her creative juices flowing and she can get her book written. As the two women play the part of a couple, they turn into a constant state of hot-and-bothered and soon it just comes down to who will make the real first move…
