Get Over It, April Evans

The second installment in Ashley Herring Blake's Clover Lake series, this contemporary romance follows two women whose lives have been shaped by the same person, thrown together at a lakeside resort during a transformative summer.

April Evans, a 33-year-old pansexual tattoo artist, has quietly closed Wonderlust Ink, the shop she owned for a decade in Clover Lake, New Hampshire, after two years of financial struggle. Too embarrassed to tell anyone, including her best friend Ramona Riley, she rents out her bungalow and takes a summer job teaching art at Cloverwild, a new luxury lakeside resort. Her love life has been nonexistent since her fiancée, Elena Watson, a curator at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, ended their engagement by phone three years earlier, saying she had met someone else. When April reads her cabin assignment, she freezes: Her cabinmate and co-teacher is Daphne Love, the woman Elena left her for.

Daphne, a 25-year-old painter, has spent the past month on her college roommate Vivian's couch after Elena abruptly ended their three-year relationship at a dinner Daphne expected would be a proposal. With roughly $300 and few remaining connections, she accepts a summer job at Cloverwild arranged by Vivian's aunt Mia, the resort's owner. Daphne does not recognize April's name or understand her hostility, confirming that Elena never mentioned April's existence.

At Cloverwild's opening party, Nicola Reece, a curator at the Devon, a renowned contemporary art museum in London, invites April to prepare pieces for an exhibition called Evolution. That evening, Daphne confronts April, pulling her into a canoe on the dark lake, where the truth emerges: April's ex-fiancée was Elena Watson, the same Elena. Daphne nearly falls overboard in shock; April jumps in after her. Back in the canoe, they talk honestly. Daphne grew up in Crestwater, Tennessee, the daughter of a Baptist pastor who disowned her when her queerness was exposed at 15. A teacher helped her apply to colleges secretly, and she left on a scholarship to Boston University. She has been estranged from her family for seven years.

That night, Daphne paints through the early hours, producing a large canvas of a young blonde girl in vivid wildflowers, her face deliberately blurred. April finds the painting the next morning, calls it incredible, and suggests a series. In return, April admits she has closed her shop. After their first class, Nicola extends the Devon opportunity to Daphne as well, putting them in direct competition.

They befriend Sasha Sinclair, a charming, well-traveled bartender with a mysterious past. Daphne declares she wants to live more boldly, and April dyes her hair lavender that night. Daphne titles her first painting Unseen and begins subsequent pieces, each depicting a stage of her life through the same blurry-faced girl whose features grow clearer with each canvas. At a staff dance party, April and Daphne end up in each other's arms, and the intensity unsettles them both.

Ramona and her boyfriend, movie star Dylan Monroe, arrive for a weekend visit. April confides about closing Wonderlust. At a solstice bonfire, Sasha steers the group onto Moon Lovers Trail, a local path said to cause couples who walk it under a full moon to fall in love. When they all kiss as part of Daphne's bold adventures, the kiss between April and Daphne far exceeds the dare. A tabloid leaks Ramona and Dylan's engagement before Ramona can tell April, deepening the rift. Elena begins calling Daphne, seeking reconciliation; Daphne recognizes her manipulative patterns but remains conflicted.

After therapeutic rage painting, they skinny-dip at Mirror Cove and kiss deliberately in the dark water. April's Devon concept crystallizes: Fool's Passage, 22 illustrations based on the Major Arcana, the trump cards of a tarot deck, each depicting a stage of her life. She also draws a private Lovers card of herself and Daphne, which she tucks away.

At an engagement dinner, April's parents arrive unexpectedly, invited by Ramona's father. Their indifference to news of the shop closing cuts April deeply. On the dock, Daphne names April's pattern of deflecting and minimizing her own pain. Elena calls Daphne again, telling her she never should have let her go. Daphne realizes she no longer loves Elena, blocks her number, and deletes her contact. When Sasha takes them to a play party, a social gathering in the kink community, Daphne discovers a dominant side of herself, and she and April have sex for the first time. They agree to be together without defining the relationship.

On Daphne's 26th birthday, April inks the tattoo she designed for Daphne: an old-fashioned lantern surrounded by wildflowers and a purple coneflower. They return to the studio to share their Devon pieces, only to find Elena waiting. April walks out, and Elena proposes with a Montana sapphire ring. Daphne feels it on her finger, mesmerized by the promise of belonging she has always craved, but she takes it off and hands it back. Meanwhile, at Ramona's house, April and Ramona finally address their fractured friendship. April admits she is in love with Daphne. Ramona says, "I know, honey."

On the morning of Ramona and Dylan's wedding, Nicola evaluates both projects and selects Daphne's series for the Devon. April accepts with genuine grace. She tells Daphne she wants to go to London with her, but Daphne stops her: She almost said yes to Elena, proof that she does not yet know how to be in a relationship without losing herself. She tells April she loves her but needs to learn to love herself first. April, heartbroken but understanding, agrees.

That evening, April watches Ramona walk down the aisle with her father. She slow-dances with Daphne in a bittersweet embrace, then asks to join Sasha's planned road trip west. That night, she and Daphne spend one last evening together.

Over the following months, Daphne works as an artist-in-residence at the Devon, completing her series, titled Preacher's Daughter. The sixth and final painting shows Daphne with fully clear features for the first time, held from behind by a figure with iridescent hair and tattoo-covered arms: unmistakably April. Meanwhile, April travels with Sasha across the western United States, digitizing her tarot illustrations and querying literary agents. She texts Daphne once a week.

In late October, Ramona sends April a review calling Daphne the "shining star" of the exhibition. April scrolls to the sixth painting and gasps. She texts Daphne: "Do you still love me? Check yes or no." At a masquerade Halloween party in LA, a figure in a green lace dress approaches. April recognizes Daphne's voice instantly. Daphne removes her mask: "Yes. I check yes." She explains that three months on her own confirmed she is strong and capable, and that strength means admitting she wants to be with April. They say "I love you" and kiss.

Two months later, on the eve of their move to a London flat, April leads Daphne through snowy woods to the Moon Lovers Trail clearing where they first kissed. She gives Daphne the Lovers card sketch and says she wants it in her published tarot deck. Daphne looks at the drawing: "It's us." April says, "It's us." Daphne tells April to kiss her, and April does, under a full moon, choosing this person with her whole heart.