Swoony Sunday Book Review: "A Shore Thing"
Joanna Lowell's delightful new book shows that queer and trans love and joy have always been with us.
Hello, dear reader! Do you like what you read here at Omnivorous? Do you like reading fun but insightful takes on all things pop culture? Do you like supporting indie writers? If so, then please consider becoming a subscriber and get the newsletter delivered straight to your inbox. There are a number of paid options, but you can also sign up for free!
As an added bonus, every month I’ll be running a promotion where everyone who signs up for a paid subscription will be entered into a contest to win TWO of the books I review during a given month. For April, this will include all books reviewed during March and April. Be sure to spread the word!
Welcome to another edition of “Swoony Sunday,” where I’ll be reviewing romance in all of its forms: film, TV, books. As a Pisces, I love to love, and what better way to express that than through writing about romance, the genre that’s all about finding your heart’s desire?
Warning: Spoilers for the novel follow.
One of the best things about belonging to a queer romance book club is that you end up getting introduced to all sorts of books that you might have encountered otherwise. Such is the case with Joanna Lowell’s new book, A Shore Thing, a light yet poignant historical romance set in Victorian England. At the center of the story is the remarkable love story of Muriel Pendrake, a woman determined to make her mark on the world as a respected botanis and Kit, a trans man who struggles to get back in touch with his artistic spirit. Along the way they embark on a bicycle tour of Cornwall with a men’s cycling club and, after some ups and downs and gaps in communication, discover not only that they’re meant for each other but also that they bring out the best in one another.
It’s clear from the moment they meet that the chemistry between the two of them is nothing short of electric, and it stays strong throughout the book, as they endure the vicissitudes of the bicycle race and afterward. While at first Kit is a bit of a rake, his walls slowly come down as he discovers that Muriel, unlike so many in his life, sees him and loves him for who he really is while, for her part, Muriel finds herself irresistibly drawn to this man who is unlike any she’s ever met.
Muriel makes for the perfect queer Victorian heroine. As someone devoted to the study of plants, she has often found herself an outlier in a society that often refuses to believe that women are capable of great intellectual feats. Events also reveal that she also has a remarkably textured, and tragic, backstory. Not only did she have to endure the trauma of seeing her mother succumb to rabies as a result of a dog bite; she was also trapped in a marriage with a man who didn’t really love her and largely saw her as an appendage of his own scholarly genius. Given all of this, it’s not surprising that she would find herself drawn into the orbit of a man like Kit.
Kit is, if anything, even more fascinating than Muriel, and I appreciated the sensitivity with which Lowell brings him to life. A less sophisticated novel would have spent a great deal of time and ink exploring Kit’s sense of identity and self, but Lowell wisely sets the novel during the time when he’s already come to terms with who he is and now lives as the man he always knew himself to be. Instead, his struggles stem mostly from his burgeoning feelings for Muriel–which are complicated by the fact that she is soon to depart for New York–and from the fact that he is no longer to paint. The latter struggle stems from his “abandonment” of the sisterhood of artists of which he was once a part. Fortunately this storyline gets its own resolution, and it’s incredibly validating and powerful to see Kit’s former companions fully embrace his identity and treat him as he would like to be treated.
There is also quite a lot of steam in this novel. Kit and Muriel aren’t just drawn to each other because of the extent to which they find emotional fulfillment in one another’s company; they’re also deeply and powerfully sexually attracted to one another. There are sex toys, intimate moments, and just a hell of a lot of steam, but Lowell always makes sure that the sex is in service of the story. For each of them, sex is a way of finding both connection with one another and with their own bodies, and it’s clear that neither of them are ever going to be the same.
In addition to being a very sweet and touching love story, A Shore Thing is also a timely and powerful reminder that trans and nonbinary people are not some modern invention or 20th century fad. Instead, they have been around as long as anyone else, even if they didn’t always have the vocabulary that we do to articulate their identity. Reading it, I was reminded more than a little of Sarah Waters’ Tipping the Velvet, which likewise examined the point of view of a person who refused to obey the gendered rules of Victorian society. Fortunately this book is much lighter in tone than its predecessor, but even so there’s a richness and texture to the world that Lowell has created. It’s clear that she’s done her homework, and I appreciated her acknowledgment of her partner, whose expertise as a scholar of Victorian gender and sexuality shines through every page.
At the same time, the book also draws our attention to the fact that lesbians also existed and that, in some ways, were able to lead lives outside of the scrutiny of men. After all, to many Victorian minds the fact that a woman could have sexual desires at all was something that strained credulity, so the concept of two women feeling desire for one another would have been so far beyond the pale as to be truly laughable. In this book, however, we see them having their own little secret society, one in which Kit once took part. As so often, queer people are often able to exist in the lacunae in straight society.
Furthermore, A Shore Thing demonstrates the extent to which masculinity, particularly of the more hegemonic or violent type, is often a prison from which men can’t escape, and this is particularly true for Deighton, the leader of the bike club who challenges Kit and Muriel to a contest. While Deighton begins the novel as an antagonist, by the end he’s shown that there’s far more to him than meets the eye and that, in many ways, he’s had violence beaten into him by his cruel tyrant of a father. Kit, in that sense, provides an alternative vision of what masculinity might look like, one that’s stripped of its toxic hegemonic attributes.
Like any good romance, A Shore Thing has no shortage of fun and fantastic side characters. In addition to our antagonist, there are also the various members of the bicycle club, all of whom are charming and sometimes quite silly in their own way. Then there’s Ponsonby, Kit’s friend who is, to be sure, a bit of a blunderer, capable of making a hash of almost everything that he turns his hand to. Nevertheless, you can’t help but love him, just as you can’t help but love Muriel’s dear friend James. It quickly becomes clear that he’s what we could call gay today, and the fact that he is being blackmailed by someone who has caught wind of his male dalliances gives his story a bit more depth. I’m very curious if we’ll get to see more of him in a future novel.
Overall, I really loved this book! The romance is sweet and sexy at the same time, and it’s heartwarming to see queer characters in a pre-20th century setting whose story doesn’t end in tragedy or heartbreak and that isn’t consumed with self-loathing or endless angst. I continue to live for books like this one, romances that show us that it was quite possible to be a queer person and live a happy and fulfilling life. While it’s certain that Kit and Muriel will have their fair share of troubles, it’s just as clear that they will find a way to survive and thrive in New York City.
A happy ending, indeed.