A newly out-of-the-closet band mom falls for an orchestra teacher while snowed in at All-State in Fearless. Lana Novak hasn’t played violin in over twenty years, her musical life these days confined to being a devoted band mom to her clarinet whiz daughter Robin. She didn’t think she could get back into it after this long, but Melanie Feinberg, the outgoing, enthusiastic, and very cute butch orchestra director from Robin’s school, has other ideas.

I received a free e-copy of this book from the author, Shira Glassman, in exchange for an honest review. I also follow her on Twitter.

I saw this advertised on twitter as “#lesbianbandmom” and that’s exactly what it is. It’s a meet cute romance between a band mom and the orchestra director at All State, and it is adorable and absolutely perfect.

You may not know this about me, but I used to be… a band nerd. That’s right. I did concert band and jazz band in middle school, and then continued on into high school. As a sophomore, I joined marching band, and the rest was history. I played french horn, mostly, and learned to love the mellophone. It’s where all of my friends were, and was my favorite place to make new ones. I tried out for, but never made, all district or all state, but that was okay, because I had a great time doing it. Now  that I’ve shared that story with you fine readers, I’ll get back to reviewing the actual book at hand.

Fearless takes place at an All State conference, so basically the entire story takes place within a hotel. The plot was really realistic to me, as a former band kid, except that someone loaned Ms. Feinberg their violin. Musicians rarely let anyone else touch their instruments, especially at a competition like All State, in my experience. However, it’s easy to roll with because she’s the teacher. That’s the only exception to that generalization.

There’s no sex in this story, which was a nice change for me, and the romance was exactly what I needed. was really well-written, adorable, and very open-ended. I loved that Robin was both a whiz and a great friend and wingman. I loved that the story paralleled the budding romance of the adults with one between two of the teenagers.

Overall, I just loved Fearless. It was a five star read for me, and left me looking like the actual equivalent of the heart eyes emoji. I’d love to see more in this universe, but Shira wrapped the story up well enough that I’m content without it. You can buy it on Amazon for Kindle, and I highly recommend it!

Shira Glassman is a bisexual Jewish violinist passionately inspired by German and French opera and Agatha Christie novels.

She lives in north central Florida, where the alligators are mostly harmless because they’re too lazy to be bothered.

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