Roller Girl

Starred review from May 9, 2016
This contemporary romance gets a big boost from a passionate heroine who’s determined to live life on her own terms. Tina Durham is still recovering from being divorced by her wife when she meets Joe Delario, a tattooed beauty. When Joe isn’t running the plumbing business she inherited from her father, she coaches the Lake Lovelace Rollergirls roller derby team in Lake Lovelace, Fla. Romance is in the air, but Tina is even more interested in the opportunity to join a fellowship of other women—the first group of female friends she’ll have made since her gender transition. The budding relationship is centered on respect and mutual passion, but both are strained by Joe’s desire to keep their romance a secret while she decides how to tell the team—not because Tina’s trans, but because Joe doesn’t want to be seen playing favorites. Despite this obstacle, fierce attraction keeps drawing them back together. The romance shoots sparks, but it’s outshined by Tina’s positivity and her refusal to return to any kind of closet.

July 1, 2016
When to reveal a deeply personal secret? How would a fresh start feel for newly divorced, pro-athlete Tina, who is stumbling over a new career and struggling with housekeeping woes? Lousy, is what Tina thinks, so frustrated is she and so seriously missing her ex-wife, who had managed all the everyday details of their lives. But then Joe the Plumber arrives. She's Joanne, a cute, capable lesbian whose Lake Lovelace Rollergirls team needs talent. Tina is drawn to roller derby and Joe but knows Joe's tendency to see that everyone is taken care of would make it too easy for Tina to become dependent on someone else once again. The heart wants what the heart wants, however, and as North tells this story about heartbreak and trust, she brings tenderness to graphic hot sex and further complicates things when Joe insists that their involvement remain concealed, leaving Tina doubly closeted. Happily, love prevails in North's engaging coming-out story.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)