Higher Review — Is It Worth Reading?

Verdict: A rare butch-for-butch Rosh Hashanah romance with real heat, a Sephardic artist lead and a synagogue community readers love, held back by a heroine who dithers and a months-long timeline that the page count never makes you feel.

Best for: Readers who have been hunting for two butches falling for each other, who want Jewish life on the page beyond Hanukkah, and who can forgive a thin middle and a conflict that some readers found flat.

Heat level: ★★★★☆ (4/5 — romance.io’s “explicit open door”)

Rating: ★★★★☆ (3.8/5 — a 4.16 Goodreads average across 81 ratings, with StoryGraph and the written reviews running cooler)

Tropes: Butch/butch, rivals-to-lovers, grumpy-sunshine, holiday romance, two tops, stuck-in-place heroine, meddling younger sister, community project, queer Jewish family, novella.

Higher by Roz Alexander is the second book in the self-published Hot for the Holidays series, a short contemporary lesbian romance set in the run-up to Rosh Hashanah — and the collision at its centre is Tali, a synagogue assistant who has been meaning to finish rabbinical school for seven years, being thrown together with Maple, an ambitious Sephardic artist who dates butches only, on a temple project to save the bees.

It holds a 4.16 average across 81 Goodreads ratings, 3.91 across 34 StoryGraph reviews, and it came out on 1 September 2021, a week before the holiday it is built around. Nobody hates it — no one-star ratings on Goodreads and only two at two stars — but the written reviews are noticeably cooler than the star count, and they keep circling the same two problems. Both are worth knowing before you start.

What Is Higher About?

Higher is a holiday romance that is less about the holiday than its series siblings. The action starts months before Rosh Hashanah and runs up to it, with the temple’s new-year plans as the thread tying the two women together. At 188 pages and roughly 43,600 words by the Smashwords count, it is a long novella, and it sits in the enemies-to-lovers family in its lightest form: the blurb calls it a sexy rivalry, and readers describe a grump-meets-sunshine friction rather than real hostility.

Tali is the one who is stuck. She came home to help her grandparents raise her younger sisters after a family death, took a steady job at the synagogue, and let the last semester of rabbinical school become “eventually.” Maple is the one who is moving. She has built a career as an artist and teacher, speaks Ladino, and is trying to break into a Jewish art world that rarely makes room for Sephardic artists. She is also strictly butch-for-butch, which is what makes Tali — short, chunky, nervous and very much her type — a problem.

What Makes This Butch/Butch Romance Work

Two butches, on purpose: The most praised element by a distance. “Butch4butch romances are so rare” is the note readers hit again and again, and even the two-star reviewer names it as one of only two things worth praising. It is the reason most readers picked it up.
Jewish life written from the inside: Readers single out the synagogue community, the insight into Jewish life, and a Sephardic lead, which one StoryGraph reviewer says is rarely seen. One reviewer calls the religion and community the standout of the book.
The two-tops question: The butch and stone-butch identities are not decoration. Several readers enjoy how the book works through who tops whom, and one describes the sex as a battle between two tops with obvious glee.
The supporting cast: Tali’s sisters and family get real page time, and readers mention the sibling storylines and a supporting character named Anna with affection. The same family is also what drives one reader to distraction.
The bees: The #savethebees project gives the book an unusual spine, and one reader singles out the pollinator material as a highlight while another wanted more of it.

Book Synopsis

Tali Blue has a plan, and she has had it for seven years. She will go back and finish rabbinical school. Just not yet. In the meantime there are sisters to look after, grandparents who need her, a job at the synagogue that she does well, and a grandmother who keeps lining up nice women for her to date. It is a good life, and it is standing completely still.

Then her younger sister volunteers her for something. The temple wants to rethink how the community marks Rosh Hashanah, and the plan has something to do with honey, apples and the bees that make one of them possible. The artist brought in to help is Maple — accomplished, opinionated, a teacher with a solid reputation and a restless streak — and from their first meeting the two of them rub each other the wrong way in the most distracting fashion possible.

Maple has spent a decade putting her career first and she is not looking for anyone, whatever her mother says. But Tali is exactly the kind of butch she wants, and the sparks between them are not all professional. The trouble is that both of them are used to being the one in charge, in bed and out of it, and Tali has a long habit of talking herself out of anything that might change her life. As the new year approaches, the question is whether a woman who has been waiting for seven years can finally decide what she wants — and whether Maple will still be there when she does.

My Review

The best thing about Higher is that it exists. Butch-for-butch romance is thin on the ground, and this book does not treat the pairing as a novelty: both women are butch in different ways, their identities shape the chemistry, and the question of who gives and who receives is part of the romance rather than a punchline. Readers who came looking for that find it, and they say so with real warmth.

The second strength is the Jewish world around them. Tali works at the synagogue, Maple is a Sephardic artist fighting for space in a Jewish art world that rarely makes room for her, and the book finds space for conversations about racism inside Jewish spaces as well as the everyday texture of community life. One early reviewer calls it “packed with detail and consideration.”

Where it struggles is Tali and time. The most repeated complaint is that she is frustrating — one reader stopped at 67% because she was too wishy-washy, another found both the beginning and the end annoying, and even a five-star reader calls Tali an enemy to herself. Alongside that sits the timeline: the story covers months, but readers say they had no sense of time passing, with the two-star reviewer saying they would have believed it all happened in a week. A third reader says the event that brings the women together stays vague — they never learned what it was or how the planning went. One reviewer says the conflict fell flat, and another found the early tension tapered off too soon and never warmed to the relationship complications.

One expectation to reset: this is sold as a Rosh Hashanah romance and a rivals-to-lovers story, and it is only loosely both. The holiday arrives late — one reader who had read the other two books was surprised how little happens during it — and the rivalry is more friction than enmity. If you want a festival story with the holiday on every page, calibrate; if “rivals” made you worry about cruelty, relax — this is grumpy-sunshine with sharp edges.

My honest note: A five-star premise and a four-star world in a three-and-a-half-star novella, where the heroine’s hesitation fills the space the plot should have used. If a dithering lead ruins a romance for you, this will test you. If you have been waiting for two butches and a synagogue full of family, it is exactly what you were looking for.

Element	In Higher
Central relationship	Tali & Maple — stalled synagogue assistant and ambitious Sephardic artist, butch/butch
Core tropes	Butch/butch, rivals-to-lovers, grumpy-sunshine, holiday romance, two tops, community project
Setting	Tali’s hometown synagogue community across the months before Rosh Hashanah; romance.io’s readers tag it New York State
Heat level	4/5 — explicit open door
Series	Hot for the Holidays book 2 — standalone couple, readable in any order
Content notes	Explicit sexual content including anal play, antisemitism and discussion of racism in Jewish spaces, homophobia and butchphobia, transphobia, past death of a parent, adoption and an absent father, chronic migraines, family pressure

How Spicy Is Higher?

A 4/5. romance.io places it in its “explicit open door” band, one below the top, though from only three ratings, and the reader reports back that up. The sex is on the page and, by several accounts, a main attraction: one reader says it was so steamy it fogged up their glasses, and another enjoyed the tug-of-war between two tops. Reviewers also mention mutual masturbation and some anal play, which one reader says was not for them but will be a plus for others.

The thing worth knowing in advance is that the book lives between labels. One reviewer calls it romance-slash-erotica; another, who has read the series, says they would not call it erotic romance and prefers “steamy.” One reader felt Tali dropped her inhibitions about bottoming too fast; no reviewer I found flags anything beyond that. For butch/butch romance at the same heat, Touch the Sky and Desperate Times sit at the same level.

Who Should Read This Book?

You’ll likely love it if: you have been looking for two butches in love, you want Jewish characters and community at the heart of a romance, you enjoy explicit scenes where power is negotiated rather than assumed, and you like a big, meddling family around the couple.

You may want to skip it if: a heroine who keeps talking herself out of happiness frustrates you, you need a strong sense of time and plot in a novella, you want the holiday itself on every page, or you prefer low heat or none.

In short: the pairing and the community are worth the trip; Tali’s dithering and a vague middle are the price.

What Readers Are Actually Saying (September 2026)

There is no viral moment behind this book and no sign of a new one. It is a quiet 2021 indie release with a small, loyal readership: 81 Goodreads ratings but only 16 written reviews, 34 StoryGraph reviews, 44 Amazon ratings, and a Kindle Store sales rank around 990,000 when I checked, which means almost nobody is finding it by browsing. It picked up early readers through Booksprout advance copies, and later readers arrive through the series and through searching for butch-for-butch romance specifically. I found no trade or blog review of this title — The Lesbian Review covered the author’s Matzo Match and a later book, but not this one — and no audiobook.

Why readers love it (according to the discourse): The pairing, first and by a distance — “rare” is the recurring word, and readers who identify with it say the book felt honest and personal. Second, the Jewish community: readers praise the insight into Jewish life, the Sephardic lead, and the way the characters’ identities are woven through the story rather than bolted on. Third, the heat and the humour together; one reader says they chuckled several times, always a good sign. StoryGraph’s crowd tags it lighthearted (75%), emotional (58%) and funny (41%), rates it fast-paced (57%) and character-driven (75%), and every reviewer who answered says the cast is diverse. One four-star reader calls it easily the best of the three series books, because it has more room to breathe — notable, given that the most common complaint elsewhere is about room.

What readers argue about and complain about: Tali, above everything. Her stop-start indecision is the complaint that crosses independent reviews, and it drives the more detailed of the two Goodreads DNFs, which also objects that nobody in her family has boundaries. The second theme is time and structure: the story spans months but reads as days, the synagogue event that drives the plot stays vague, and 62% of StoryGraph reviewers answer “complicated” when asked about character development. Third: the conflict, which one reviewer says fell flat and another says tapered off after a hot first meeting. Then the smaller splits: one reader found the writing style did not work while another calls it intricate and thematic, and whether it is erotica or a steamy romance depends on who you ask.

The standalone question worth asking first: Higher stands alone. Each Hot for the Holidays book follows a new couple at a new holiday and the series is billed as readable in any order. No reviewer reports a cliffhanger or an unresolved couple, and the author has said the series grew out of needing stories where things turn out good, sweet and safe — though no review I found spells out the final chapter, so treat the happy ending as all but certain rather than quoted. For where to go next, the series is consistent: Matzo Match (book 1, the Passover butch/femme story) averages 3.99 across 137 Goodreads ratings, and A Masc for Purim (book 3) sits at 4.15 across 89. That puts Higher at the top of the series on Goodreads, by a hair.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Higher a butch/butch romance?

Yes. The author bills it as a butch-for-butch romance, and readers consistently name the pairing as the reason they picked it up. Both leads are butch, and who tops whom is part of the story.

How spicy is Higher by Roz Alexander?

A 4/5. romance.io rates it “explicit open door,” and readers describe several on-page scenes. It is a steamy romance rather than erotica, though readers disagree on exactly where the line falls.

Does Higher have a happy ending?

Almost certainly. No reviewer reports a cliffhanger or a breakup ending, and the series is designed as standalone love stories. No review I found describes the final chapter in detail.

Do I need to read Matzo Match before Higher?

No. Each Hot for the Holidays book follows a different couple at a different Jewish holiday and can be read in any order. Higher is book 2 and requires nothing else.

Is there a Higher audiobook?

Not that I could find. Libro.fm does not stock one, and the Amazon listings show only the Kindle and paperback editions.

If You Loved Higher, Read These Next

For another funny butch/butch romance with a strong community around the couple, Touch the Sky is the closest match, at the same 4/5 heat. If the heat and the two-butch dynamic were the point, Desperate Times puts two butches in a conservative ranch town with frank heat and a heroine who also divides readers. And for the same author’s queer Jewish holiday world at a different festival, Matzo Match takes the series to Passover with a butch/femme couple.

For more in this register, browse our butch/butch lesbian romance guide or the full Book Reviews collection.

The Bottom Line

Higher sets out to give butch readers a love story between two butches, set inside a Jewish community that is written with care. The pairing is genuinely rare, the synagogue and family world feel lived-in, and the heat is on the page with real negotiation in it. It is also a heroine who hesitates more than the book can carry, a timeline that never lets you feel the months pass, and a conflict some readers found flat. Whether that trade works depends on what you came for — but if you came for two butches and a new year full of honey, it is worth an evening. Check Higher on Amazon →

The Eikna Overall Ranking

On the Eikna scale, Higher ranks as a rare and warmly specific indie butch/butch holiday novella — hot, funny and rich in community, held back by a hesitant heroine and a vague middle, and best approached for the pairing and the Jewish world rather than for a tightly plotted romance.