A Shot in the Dark

I do always find it quite funny when I so eagerly anticipate a book—I pre-order it! I download the ARC as soon as I can!–and then I do not read it for like months after publication because I am simply out of time. Especially when a book is not assigned to me for a magazine review or an award committee…it can be hard to prioritize longer ,adult or YA books. BUT. This time, only one month passed! I read a highly anticipated book within a MONTH of it coming out, and I am so pleased!

I LOVED Victoria Lee’s A Lesson in Vengeance. It was very up my ally, perfectly aligned with my reading, and I’ve been anxiously awaiting their next book. When I hard about SHOT IN THE DARK, an adult literacy romance with a school element, teacher-student romance, addiction themes, etc, I was intrigued! And then I read it and enjoyed it–ta da!

Elly is a former Orthodox Jewish girl who was cast out from her family and the Chabad community because of her drug addiction as a teen and young adult. She moved to LA, continued her addiction, but, when the novel begins, has been clean for 4 years. She’s coming back to NYC to take part in a prestigious photography program, specifically to study under recluse famous artist Wyatt Cole–think Banksy, but photography, and slightly less famous. On her first night in the city, she goes out with her roommates and ends up going back to a hotel with a hot trans guy from the bar….who she doesn’t seem to be able to catch the name of over the music. Yup, you guessed it…it’s Wyatt Cole.

When Cole realizes she is his student, he transfers her out, but they can’t seem to stay away from each other as her photography work, their addictions, their draw to each other all overwhelm them. I wouldn’t call this a true slow burn, because they have sex within the first ten pages, but this is a much more literacy fiction novel about people falling in love than a traditional romance novel. The way Elly and Wyatt connect with their own backgrounds and family issues on the page, the way the addiction element is used, etc. It’s a really well done “romance” that you could easily give to people who don’t like traditional romance novels!

I really enjoyed this book. I read it in like half a day—I took it to NYC with me, and I started it while eating dinner, and then finished it at the train station after my evening show. It wasn’t quite THE BOOK FOR ME that A Lesson for Vengeance was, but that’s fine! I still really really enjoyed this book, found it very readable, and can’t wait to recommend it to others!