Queen Move by Kennedy Ryan – Nart Book Review

Kennedy Ryan writes books about unstoppable, spectacular women and the men who love them. This book is no different.

Plot: Kimba and Ezra were born on the same day and were inseparable through their childhood. Then the friendship between their parents splintered, and they didn’t see each other for 24 years. Kimba spent that time dealing with the pressure of having an equal parts impressive and oppressive family legacy of community leaders that includes freedom riders and big political players. Ezra spent that time struggling with a feeling of homelessness as a biracial Jew not fully accepted anywhere and translating that into a passion for education, so no child is deprived of opportunity and community. When they reconnect in their late 30s, things move quickly, but the lives they’ve built and the people they’ve become are significant obstacles to overcome.

First off, can we have a quick shout out for older (even though they’re not even 40) protagonists? And people who have properly lived in that time and have the baggage and complexity to show for it. This makes for such interesting, believable storytelling and I wish more authors (well, more likely publishers) recognized that frankly we’re out of interesting stories about able bodied young, cishet white people. There’s nothing left. It’s all boring. That’s why they’re all werewolves now.

Anyway. This story turns the feels up to 11, which I’m learning is a Ryan trademark. However, for the intensity of every single one of Kimba and Ezra’s interactions, the life shattering drama that led to them losing touch, the soap opera that is their life, and the political machinations of unworthy candidates for office, the book is pretty light on angst. The obstacles facing them are so obviously solvable once people pull their heads out of their asses. The plot twists are telegraphed from a mile away. And anyway, we spent comparatively time on them anyway. The focus is on seeing Kimba and Ezra being really good together. Sometimes the complications almost felt like distractions than meaningfully part of the story.

That said, I’m positive every vein of the story, including those that didn’t draw my interest necessarily, will be meaningful and validating to some readers. Ryan is quite talented in writing stories that makes a broad range of people with different experiences feel seen and I think this novel is a particularly good example of this. The novel is very obviously meant to be a comfort read. Ezra doesn’t need to be taught anything at all about how to be a supportive partner and Kimba doesn’t need to learn to be accepting of Ezra’s faith (neither does her family). The conflict is not because they wouldn’t be good for each other, but rather whether external factors make their relationship impossible.

But because you can’t have a story that resonates with experiences rarely represented without something that might trigger someone, a few gentle content warnings. A major part of the story is related to ongoing fertility issues. Another part of the story relates to infidelity by several characters in the book (not the leads) and the way in which infidelity is talked about will not be up everyone’s alley (effectively that mistakes happen and if you love each other enough you can “clean up” the mess together). There is one scene that depicts race-based violence. There is one scene that depicts race and gender based harassment.

To be clear, you will probably feel uncomfortable reading this, just mostly only the good kind you already associate with well written romance novels.