I don’t care for secret millionaires.
I don’t care for westerns.
But I care intensely for Hummingbird by LaVyrle Spencer.
Recently, an onion-root splinter interrupted my dinner preparations, I had to stop dicing maybe the 164,864th onion I have cooked. Imagine my pleasure when I finally pulled it loose in one piece. That is what it is to read Hummingbird.
This book was our first ever listener request. I went into the pages with zero expectations, and I’m hesitant to separate you, Dear Reader, from that same experience. If you need more convincing than the onion root metaphor, well.
The heroine is 33 and understood by others in her dusty Colorado town as an ice queen. Just before humbling herself for wage, she takes the opportunity to double down on her misfit status by taking in an unconscious and wounded criminal–and an alleged hero–to nurse them back to health.
Subconscious church masturbation, the erotic kind of boot licking, and detailed instructions for Old West wound cleaning practices (handy!) ensue. There are also quiet things like sitting in the sun, contemplating wallpaper, asking for help, asking for what one wants. And our heroine thinks she learns a lesson about fitting in and community–that is all I want to say about the greatest Happily Ever After I have read so far.
How this book is not a bigger deal is beyond my comprehension. There are so many lessons in the hard-earned HEA, the question of true choice, an interrogation of womanly id that is surfaced, literalized, conscientious, but not pretentious or opaque.
I recommend this book to anyone who reads fiction, period. But I recommend this book with my whole chest for romance fans who feel their TBR is stale. The pining, the surprises, the sensations, the structural feats. Like Flowers From The Storm, like Indigo, this book shows you what incredible depth and breadth is possible in historical romance, in the genre as a whole.
-Morgan