Book Review – Iris Kelly Doesn't Date by Ashley Herring Blake

 

 Iris Kelly Doesn't Date by Ashley Herring Blake is about two women, Iris and Stefania, who decide to enter into a fake relationship.

Everyone Iris knows is in love and coupled up with their perfect partners. Even her siblings and parents are blissfully married. Iris is happy for her friends and family, but she doesn’t want to settle down. She’d rather have commitment-free hookups. All her loved ones want to see her settled down and find someone, somehow, no matter how insistent Iris is about not dating, even though she is a romance writer. Iris might have to cave since she is facing writer’s block, her second book is almost due, and she has no idea what to write.

Iris decides she needs a break and goes to a bar with her friend, looking to blow off steam and meet someone for a one-night stand. There she meets Stefania, and a night of dancing and making out turns into one of the worst one-night stands Iris ever had.

To get her mind off things, she decides to change tactics and join a local play, a queer retelling of Much Ado About Nothing. Iris ends up meeting Stefania’s friends, who goes by Stevie. Stevie’s friends do not know that Iris and Stevie’s one-night together ended disastrously, and Stevie asks Iris to pretend to be her girlfriend until the end of the play. Iris consents to Stevie’s plan, as she realizes she might get some much-needed inspiration and romantic content for her book. As the duo play their roles, lines start to blur and feelings are at stake. Will Iris and Stevie find what they are looking for?

The novel is the third book in the series. However, I was able to read the book as a standalone. The two previous books were about Iris’s friends, so there were character relationships and nuances I might have missed.

I thought the book was an okay read. It didn’t have any unexpected twists and turns. The book did have a lot of side characters, and it was hard to keep track of how they related to their main characters and their side stories. The book did have some steamy moments for readers who are looking for a steamy sapphic read.