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Verdict: A tender butch/butch novella about two women around fifty finally acting on years of pining, held back by a page count that stops just as the relationship starts and by rough language a vocal minority could not get past.
Best for: Readers who have been waiting for older, working-class butch heroines to get a real romance, and who are happy with a low-drama, one-evening read that ends on a promise rather than a wedding.
Heat level: ★★★☆☆ (3/5 — romance.io’s “open door”)
Rating: ★★★★☆ (3.9/5 — a 4.04 Goodreads average across 952 ratings, the best of the three Moonlighters novellas, with a small but pointed split over tone)
Tropes: Butch/butch, mutual pining, friends to lovers, later-in-life romance, bartender and regular, road trip, Pride weekend, no third-act breakup, queer bar setting, happy for now.
Wherever Is Your Heart by Anita Kelly is the third and last novella in the self-published Moonlighters series, a contemporary lesbian romance set around Moonie’s, a queer karaoke bar in Portland, Oregon — and the collision at its centre is June, a long-haul trucker staring down her fiftieth birthday, and Mal Edwards, the bartender she has been quietly in love with for years without ever once saying so.
It holds a 4.04 average across 952 Goodreads ratings, 4.08 across 691 StoryGraph reviews, and it drew a Library Journal review in 2022 — rare attention for a self-published novella of around 100 pages. Nearly three-quarters of Goodreads ratings are four or five stars. The few readers who disliked it did so for one consistent reason, and it is worth understanding before you start.
What Is Wherever Is Your Heart About?
Wherever Is Your Heart is a friends-to-lovers romance compressed into a single Pride weekend, and it is one of the few books in the genre where both heroines are butch. There is no one playing the soft counterweight; the tenderness has to come from two women used to being the steady one. It is also a later-in-life romance in a very plain sense: bodies that ache, careers with an end date, and the question of what the next chapter looks like.
June has spent years on the same stool at Moonie’s between runs, telling Mal stories from the road and never asking the question. Mal has spent the same years pouring her drinks and keeping her feelings behind the bar. Readers get both sides of the pining, and that is the book’s real engine — you know from the start that the feelings are mutual, so the tension comes from watching two cautious people talk themselves into believing it.
What Makes This Butch/Butch Lesbian Romance Work
- Two butch heroines around fifty: The most praised element by a distance. Reviewer after reviewer says they rarely see a romance with older leads, and one Goodreads reader close to fifty says she wants exactly this: romance for people whose knees hurt.
- Working-class jobs: A trucker and a bartender, not a CEO and a chef. Readers repeatedly call the occupations refreshing and say the book treats both as real work with real limits.
- Softness under the swagger: Readers who loved it describe two gruff, guarded women who turn tender once they are alone together. “Soft” is the word that comes up more than any other.
- No manufactured drama: Several reviewers single out the absence of a third-act breakup as the reason they rated it highly. The conflict is internal — fear, age, the road — and it stays that way.
- Mature communication: Library Journal and several readers note that the two women actually talk about what they want and fear, which suits leads of this age.
Book Synopsis
June drives freight across the country for months at a time, and when she is home in Portland she ends up on the same stool at Moonie’s, where the crowd gets younger every year and the bartender never changes. Mal Edwards runs that bar like she runs everything, with a stern face and a steady hand, and June has been in love with her for longer than she wants to count.
There was a moment last Pride when June nearly said something. She didn’t. She went back to the road and told herself a woman as settled as Mal had no reason to want someone gone half the year. Now another Pride weekend is coming, June is about to turn fifty, and the end of her trucking life is close enough to see. For the first time she has to think about what she wants the next part of her life to look like — and who she wants in it.
Mal, meanwhile, has her own reasons for never making the first move, and her own plans for the weekend. When June finally works up the nerve to ask her somewhere, both women step outside the bar together for the first time in years. The question is whether two people this used to keeping their hearts guarded can say what they have been holding back — and whether the thing they have both imagined for so long can survive being real.
My Review
The premise is the best thing here, and it fills a gap the genre has left open for a long time. A romance between two butch women, both around fifty, both in blue-collar work, written without a hint of apology for any of it — that is genuinely rare, and the reviews make clear how hungry readers were for it. Kelly writes their age as an ordinary fact of life, not a lesson.
The second strength is the pining, and the way the novella cashes it in. Because the feelings exist before page one, the book spends its short length on the part most romances rush: the first real conversations and the awkward move from bar-stool friendship to something more. Readers keep quoting the same moments — a search for mints in the cab of June’s truck, a drive to the coast for a sunrise — and StoryGraph readers call the characters loveable at a rate of 96%. Library Journal recommends it to readers who like character-focused romance and “some quality queer postcoital processing,” which is exactly right.
Where it struggles is space, and the reviews say so clearly. The most repeated complaint is that it is simply too short: readers wanted more of June and Mal, and even the five-star reviews tend to add that they would have read far longer. The story is a snapshot of a relationship’s first days, so the ending is a happy-for-now rather than a built future, and a couple of three-star readers say they liked the idea more than the execution.
The one expectation to reset is tone. The cover is soft and the reviews say “sweet” constantly, but these are two butches who talk like butches: reclaimed slurs, a lot of swearing and some rough talk about other people. Most readers find that authentic; a small group finds it jarring enough to sink the book. If you want gentle language to match the gentle story, calibrate; if you want older butch women who sound like the ones you know, you are in the right place.
My honest note: A small, warm book that does something the genre almost never does, and does it with real affection. If you need a full arc and a settled future before you believe in a couple, it will feel like a prologue. If you have been waiting to see two older butches get their romance, June and Mal are worth the evening.
| Element | In Wherever Is Your Heart |
|---|---|
| Central relationship | June & Mal Edwards — butch trucker and butch bartender, both around fifty, long-time mutual pining |
| Core tropes | Butch/butch, mutual pining, friends to lovers, later-in-life romance, road trip, Pride weekend |
| Setting | Portland, Oregon — Moonie’s queer karaoke bar, June’s truck and a drive to the coast |
| Heat level | 3/5 — open door |
| Series | Moonlighters book 3 of 3 — reads as a standalone, happy-for-now ending; earlier couples appear only in passing |
| Content notes | On-page sex, on-page alcohol and marijuana use, backstory of June’s alcoholic parents killed in a drunk-driving crash, anxiety, reclaimed slurs and strong language, minor mentions of death and animal death |
How Spicy Is Wherever Is Your Heart?
A 3/5. romance.io places it in its “open door” band, the middle of its scale, on a small base of nine ratings, and StoryGraph readers who submitted content warnings list the sexual content as graphic. Reader reports sit comfortably in that range: the intimacy is on the page and described as tender and sexy, but this is not a book built around sex. One blogger even describes it as more comforting than steamy. The heat is part of the relationship rather than the point of it.
The element worth knowing in advance is not sexual. It is the language — both women use reclaimed slurs and a lot of profanity, including in intimate moments — and that is the one thing a handful of readers flag as uncomfortable. No reviewer I found flags anything else on the page. For contemporary romance in the same heat band, Get It Right and Perfect Rhythm sit at the same level.
Who Should Read This Book?
You’ll likely love it if: you want butch/butch romance and rarely find it, you are tired of heroines in their twenties, you like a story that runs on mutual pining with no breakup at the end, and you enjoy a novella you can finish in one sitting.
You may want to skip it if: you only read butch/femme or softer dynamics, you need a full-length arc and a settled future to feel satisfied, you are uncomfortable with reclaimed slurs and heavy swearing, or you want the karaoke-bar energy of the earlier Moonlighters books.
In short: a rare, affectionate portrait of two older butches falling in love, in a package that ends just as it gets going.
What Readers Are Actually Saying (September 2026)
There is no viral moment behind this book and nothing new driving it in 2026. What it has is a steady readership built from three directions. First, the series: readers arrive from the earlier novellas, and at least one came via Kelly’s full-length Love & Other Disasters. Second, Library Journal reviewed it in May 2022. Third, audio: Tantor released an audiobook in 2023, narrated by Yvonne Roberts and Aven Shore and running 2 hours 50 minutes, and one Goodreads reader picked it up through Hoopla. It is also in Kindle Unlimited. The totals are modest — 952 Goodreads ratings, 691 StoryGraph reviews, 147 Amazon ratings at 4.6 — and several five-star Goodreads reviews disclose advance copies from the author.
Prefer audio? Listen to Wherever Is Your Heart on Libro.fm — the audiobook shop that supports independent bookstores.
Why readers love it (according to the discourse): The leads, first and above everything. “Older” and “butch” are the two words that come up in nearly every positive review, and readers in their forties and fifties say they want more romances with characters their age. Second, the softness — “soft,” “sweet” and “tender” recur constantly, set against two tough exteriors. Third, the lack of drama: multiple reviewers praise the absence of a breakup or misunderstanding twist. Readers also enjoy the Brandi Carlile thread; the title is one of her songs. StoryGraph’s crowd calls it lighthearted (76%) and hopeful (62%), and 80% say it is character-driven.
What readers argue about and complain about: Length, above everything. “Why was this so short” is the recurring note even in the five-star reviews. The language is the second theme and the sharpest. Two readers from one buddy-read group gave it two stars for the heavy use of slurs and aggressive talk, which one felt was trying to prove the characters’ masculinity. It is the one criticism with real force, though from a small group rather than the crowd. Third: tone. It is the quietest of the three novellas, and at least one reader missed the karaoke. Beyond that, one reader felt a miscommunication thread outstayed its welcome — while others say there is no such drama at all — and another found the characters said each other’s names too often. StoryGraph splits 46% yes to 25% no on whether the characters develop.
The series question worth asking first: Wherever Is Your Heart stands alone. The earlier couples, who are in their twenties, appear only in passing and never speak to June or Mal, so you can start here without losing anything. The numbers are also on this one’s side: it is the highest-rated of the three Moonlighters novellas, ahead of Sing Anyway (3.96 across 2,107 ratings) and Our Favorite Songs (3.90 across 1,193). A later bonus novella, I Didn’t Sign Up for This (book 3.5, 2023), averages 4.09 across 146 ratings. The earlier books give you more karaoke, not more June and Mal.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Wherever Is Your Heart a butch/butch romance?
Yes. Both June and Mal are butch lesbians, and readers describe it as butch-for-butch throughout. It is one of the clearest examples on our butch/butch list.
How spicy is Wherever Is Your Heart?
A 3/5. romance.io rates it “open door,” and readers describe the on-page intimacy as tender and sexy rather than frequent or extended. The strong language is more likely to surprise you than the heat.
Does Wherever Is Your Heart have a happy ending?
Yes, a happy-for-now. June and Mal end the weekend together with no breakup along the way, but the novella covers only the start of their relationship, so it stops short of a settled long-term future.
Do I need to read the other Moonlighters books first?
No. The earlier couples appear only in passing and play no part in the plot. Reading them adds some background about Moonie’s but nothing you need.
Is there an audiobook?
Yes. Tantor Audio released it in 2023, narrated by Yvonne Roberts and Aven Shore, and it runs 2 hours 50 minutes. It is available on Libro.fm and Amazon.
If You Loved Wherever Is Your Heart, Read These Next
For another short, warm indie novella with a shy butch at its heart and a romance that takes working life seriously, Get It Right by Skye Kilaen is the closest match in length and tone. If June and Mal’s gentleness is what won you over, Wrong Number, Right Woman gives you a soft butch lead at full novel length. And if you want the history behind older working-class butch women like these two, Stone Butch Blues is the essential read — though it is literary fiction and far heavier, not a romance.
For more in this register, browse our butch/butch lesbian romance guide or the full Book Reviews collection.
The Bottom Line
Wherever Is Your Heart sets out to give two older butch women the romance the genre rarely writes for them, and it mostly succeeds. The leads are memorable, the pining pays off, and the lack of manufactured drama lets the tenderness breathe. It is also too short for readers who want a full arc, ends on a promise rather than a future, and uses language that a small group of readers found too harsh to enjoy. Whether that trade works depends on what you want from a novella — but if you have been looking for butch/butch romance with heroines your own age, it is an easy yes. Check Wherever Is Your Heart on Amazon →
The Eikna Overall Ranking
On the Eikna scale, Wherever Is Your Heart ranks as a tender, low-drama indie butch/butch novella — rare in its leads and warm in its execution, limited by its length, and best approached for June and Mal rather than for a fully built romance arc.
The Evidence Scorecard
Overall ★★★★☆ 3.9/5
- ✓ 4.04 average across 952 Goodreads ratings
- ✓ 4.08 across 691 StoryGraph reviews
- ✓ Reviewed by Library Journal in 2022
- ✓ Several five-star reviews came from author ARCs
Romance ★★★★☆ 4.2/5
- ✓ Years of mutual pining finally pay off
- ✓ No third-act breakup, readers praise this
- ✓ Road trip gives them room outside the bar
- ✓ Covers only the relationship’s first steps
Characters ★★★★☆ 4.2/5
- ✓ 96% call the characters loveable on StoryGraph
- ✓ Two butch leads around fifty, rarely seen
- ✓ Trucker and bartender, readers love the jobs
- ✓ Growth split 46% yes, 25% no
Writing ★★★★☆ 3.8/5
- ✓ Soft, affectionate voice readers keep quoting
- ✓ 65% of StoryGraph readers call it fast
- ✓ Honest conversations praised by Library Journal
- ✓ Harsh language put off a vocal minority
Emotional Impact ★★★★☆ 3.9/5
- ✓ Turning fifty gives the stakes real weight
- ✓ Fear of being undesirable handled with care
- ✓ Readers near fifty say it spoke to them
- ✓ Quietest novella, few big dramatic beats
Heat Level ★★★☆☆ 3/5
- ✓ romance.io’s “open door” band
- ✓ On-page sex, flagged graphic on StoryGraph
- ✓ Readers call it tender and sexy
- ✓ Only nine romance.io ratings behind the band
Ending ★★★★☆ 3.8/5
- ✓ Happy-for-now with no breakup
- ✓ Standalone couple, no cliffhanger
- ✓ Final Moonlighters novella closes the trio
- ✓ Readers wanted more before it stopped
Re-read Value ★★★★☆ 3.9/5
- ✓ Around 100 pages, easy to revisit
- ✓ Two-narrator audiobook runs under three hours
- ✓ Included in Kindle Unlimited
- ✓ One reader remembered nothing years later
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