Review: "Swiped Left" by Ruth Madison

Swiped Left by Ruth Madison
Published March 2026
★★★

She swiped left on him because he was in a wheelchair—and then they met in person, and she had second thoughts.

I picked this up because I've seen precious little romance featuring a character who has a significant physical disability, and I wanted to see where this one would go. What I liked: Callie's left-swipe is honest in a way that I suspect a lot of people aren't. She acknowledges that she's afraid someone in a wheelchair would cramp her style, and she's not interested enough to find out if that's true. I'm not encouraging her early-book perspective, but I expect it's more common than not. Better, this isn't a huge dramatic point down the line; it's something that comes up in conversation with Mark fairly early on after they meet. It's a very short book, but they manage to do a fair amount of getting to know each other and solving dramatic stuck-in-a-lodge problems.

What I wasn't so convinced by: Mark is low-key superhuman. He's in a wheelchair, yes, and he's also a doctor and clearly spends many hours in the gym and is 99% of the time hyper-independent and is great with kids and a natural leader and can solve any mechanical problem you throw at him. (And don't forget great in bed!) And on the one hand: With the exception of the wheelchair, that's most romance novels. But on the other hand: I don't like the implication that Mark kind of has to be superhuman for Callie to see beyond the wheels. I'm sure that's not the intention, not least because the author has a bunch of books with heroes who have more extensive disabilities than Mark's. I'd be curious to hear what folks with physical disabilities think about this representation, but it left me feeling a bit off.

The other thing: My gosh the ending is abrupt. A couple of days stuck together in a lodge isn't enough to make a brand-new relationship stick, you know? When the book ends, the relationship is barely beginning. And again, this isn't specific to this book: A huge number of romance novels (I won't hazard a guess about proportion!), especially ones from earlier days of romance, are basically conflict-conflict-conflict-conflict-together-the-end. Given that Callie wasn't even sure she wanted to give this relationship a go, it would have been nice to see some actual relationship rather than just the run-up to the relationship.

So...good intentions, don't love the execution. Do with that what you will.