I gorged myself on Sarina Bowen’s True North series. I started with Bittersweet and gobbled them up like I was afraid I would starve without them. I shouldn’t have been surprised, I loved her Brooklyn Bruisers series, but for some reason, a small-town series set in rural Vermont wasn’t grabbing me. It wasn’t until Audible sponsored a group listen on Bittersweet that I figured I’d go ahead and start, and then I was hooked. (Never mind that I never figured out how to join in the group discussion, I inhaled those books.)

Speakeasy is the 5th book in the series. We get even more acquainted with May, who is Griffin Shipley’s (hero of book 1) little sister, Jude’s (hero of book 2) ride to Narcotics Anonymous, but we also learn more about Alec, who is Zara’s older brother (heroine of book 4). May and Alec both have reputations in their family of being the screw-up. That bumbling person that keeps messing up. (And while I feel like that title is quasi-deserved by Alec, May is rocking it and it’s mostly her low-self-esteem talking.) We learn in book 3 that May is an alcoholic, and that she’s been in love with her female best friend forever, but unfortunately for May, Lark is straight and also in love with a man. Book 4 shows us that May is moving on; she is in a committed relationship with another woman and seems to mostly have her feelings and her addiction under control.  Continue reading →