Review: "Appalachian Awakening" by Nance Sparks

Appalachian Awakening by Nance Sparks
Published January 2024 via Bold Strokes Books
★★★

Amber has it all figured out—until the rug is pulled out from under her and she realizes just how much she doesn't know about herself. A snap decision leads her to (for her) the unlikeliest of places—the Appalachian Trail.

I have wide but generally predictable reading tastes, and this was only ever going to be right up my alley—lesbian romance on the Appalachian Trail? Sign me up. Here, the heroines are near polar opposites: Amber has spent decades working her way up the career ladder, and her position as a wealthy and powerful CEO is all she's ever been told that she should want. Leslie, meanwhile, has spent roughly the same amount of time working whatever seasonal jobs will let her pursue her true passion, long-distance hiking.

The book stays in Amber's POV throughout, which is interesting—Leslie is the more relatable character to me, and since the author is (like Leslie, not so much like Amber) clearly well versed in hiking, I might have expected Leslie to take the reins on occasion...but staying in Amber's head keeps her more relatable, I suppose. Although she doesn't have experience in the woods, Amber does have research skills, and she avoids a lot (not all!) of the pitfalls that novice hikers stumble into. Better, she takes it all in stride—I'm not a huge fan of pratfalls and bumbling heroines, so I appreciate how willing Amber is to go outside her comfort zone and learn something so foreign to her.

The side characters aren't quite as fleshed out as I'd prefer, and the dialogue gets stilted in places (you can take the woman out of the boardroom, but you can't take the boardroom out of the woman?), but you just can't go wrong with romance in the woods. A solid addition to my AT/CDT/PCT/etc (read: long hikes) shelf.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.