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Verdict: A cosy, genuinely likeable small-town fall rom-com with a shy butch doctor readers warm to instantly, held back by low stakes, a heroine a vocal minority can’t warm to, and a plot most readers describe as pleasant but forgettable.
Best for: Readers who want an autumn comfort read with a tongue-tied butch, a sunny bisexual femme, wedding chaos and open-door heat, and who are happy trading surprise and depth for warmth and a guaranteed soft landing.
Heat level: ★★★☆☆ (3/5 — romance.io’s “open door”)
Rating: ★★★★☆ (3.6/5 — a 3.83 Goodreads average across 3,359 ratings, with more than a quarter parked at three stars)
Tropes: Secret high-school crush, butch/femme, grumpy-sunshine, small town, forced proximity, wedding planning, opposites attract, friends with benefits that isn’t, dual POV, fall rom-com.
Not Just Gal Pals by Elizabeth Luly is the self-published first book in the Sapphire Springs series, a small-town lesbian romance set in a fictional autumn village in upstate New York — and the collision at its centre is Jenny Lynton, an almost-cancelled LA influencer hiding out in her hometown, running into Blake Mitchell, the town’s only doctor, who has had a crush on her since high school and still can’t say a normal sentence in her presence.
It holds a 3.83 average across 3,359 Goodreads ratings and a 3.68 on StoryGraph across nearly 1,200 reviews, and it picked up a Tantor audiobook narrated by Abby Craden the year after release. No trade outlet reviewed it that I could find. The numbers are solid and steady rather than loud, and the reviews behind them agree on almost everything except whether pleasant is enough. That question is the one worth answering before you start.
What Is Not Just Gal Pals About?
Not Just Gal Pals is a contemporary lesbian romance built on the Hallmark template and quite openly proud of it — reviewers reach for that word constantly. Small town means a clinic, a bookshop café, twins running riot and a best friend’s wedding that swallows everyone’s autumn; fall rom-com means cider, costume parties with a Jane Austen streak and very little that could genuinely go wrong.
Jenny is a woman who has drifted into everything, including a career she never chose, and who is harder on herself than anyone else is. Blake has built her life around not getting hurt again — back home, alone, her practice her whole world — and has assumed since high school that Jenny barely noticed her. Jenny, meanwhile, assumed Blake disliked her. The dual POV lets you see both misreadings at once, which is where most of the comedy lives and why the early chapters work better than the premise suggests.
What Makes This Butch/Femme Small-Town Rom-Com Work
- Blake’s awkwardness: The shy, tongue-tied butch doctor is the book’s most-loved element. Readers single out her “middle-aged man” texting — a lone thumbs-up emoji where warmth was called for — as the moment they fell for her.
- The fall setting: “Cozy” is the recurring word, and it is almost always attached to the season. Several readers saved it for autumn.
- Low angst: Readers repeatedly note there is no real third-act breakup, just minor drama, which makes it an unusually safe pick for anyone who hates the genre’s manufactured split.
- The supporting cast: Friends, family, a dog named Walter, a cat and a set of chaotic twins get mentioned almost as often as the leads. One reader rounded up a star for the dog alone.
- A butch/femme pairing played for warmth: Blake is the flannel-and-clinic butch, Jenny the polished bisexual femme, and the book mines the contrast for comedy rather than friction.
Book Synopsis
Jenny Lynton became an influencer by accident, and she is about to stop being one by accident too. A brand she promoted turns out to be something she should not have been promoting, the comments turn ugly, and her agent tells her to disappear for a while. So Jenny and her dog Walter head home to Sapphire Springs for the autumn, where her oldest friend is getting married and nobody much cares how many followers she has.
The catch is Blake Mitchell. In high school they were the only two out girls in town and they were never friends, because Blake was curt, cold and apparently allergic to Jenny’s existence. Now Blake runs the town’s only medical practice, keeps her heart firmly out of circulation after a bad ending elsewhere, and is — unknown to Jenny — just as undone by her as she was at seventeen. The bride pairs them up to plan the bachelorette party anyway.
Forced into planning meetings, then into rescuing the wedding itself when the planner is sidelined, the two start to discover that the history they each remember is not the one that happened. But Jenny’s life is in Los Angeles, her break has an end date, and Blake has already learned what it costs to fall for someone who is leaving. The question is whether a season is long enough to find out what this is, and whether either of them is brave enough to ask for more than one.
My Review
What this book does well, it does very well: it is warm. The town is lived-in, the friendships feel like they predate the book, and the season is written with real affection — the leaves, the cider, the café named for a real book reviewer. Readers call it a Hallmark movie in book form, and for once that is praise as often as criticism.
The second strength is Blake. A butch heroine whose defining trait is being hopelessly bad at talking to the woman she likes is a very good engine for a rom-com, because the misunderstanding is built into her rather than bolted on by the plot. Her texting is the book’s best running joke, and StoryGraph readers call the characters loveable at a rate of 86%.
Where it struggles is weight. The most repeated reservation in the reviews is not that anything is wrong, but that nothing much is at stake — “cookie cutter,” “formulaic” and “fun but forgettable” recur across independent three-star reviews, and even a sympathetic blogger at Jude in the Stars rated it 3.5 and suggested you might not remember much afterwards. Jenny is the second theme: a vocal minority found her superficial, and her grievance about cancel culture irritated several readers enough to name it specifically. The enemies-to-lovers tag also oversells things — the hostility is a misunderstanding between two people who barely spoke, and it dissolves the moment they do. And the obvious fix for the LA problem sits in plain view long before Jenny sees it.
One expectation to reset: the cover and the title promise a rom-com, and whether it is actually funny splits readers cleanly. One reader says she couldn’t read it at work for laughing; one two-star reviewer says it simply isn’t funny. The more reliable promise is cosiness. If “rom-com” is what drew you, calibrate toward gentle rather than zany; if you just want to feel good for an evening in October, you are exactly who this was written for.
My honest note: A four-star mood in a three-and-a-half-star story — a lovable butch lead and a beautifully set season carrying a plot with almost nothing in its way. If you need stakes, this will drift past you. If you want comfort with some heat, it does the job it promises.
| Element | In Not Just Gal Pals |
|---|---|
| Central relationship | Blake Mitchell & Jenny Lynton — shy butch small-town doctor and bisexual influencer, secret crush since high school |
| Core tropes | Secret crush, butch/femme, grumpy-sunshine, forced proximity, wedding planning, opposites attract |
| Setting | Sapphire Springs, a fictional small town in upstate New York, across one autumn |
| Heat level | 3/5 — open door, with a playful streak |
| Series | Sapphire Springs book 1 — complete romance, HEA; later books are new romances in the same town |
| Content notes | Social media pile-on and cancel-culture storyline, past relationship heartbreak, on-page sex including doctor roleplay, handcuffs and a sex toy |
How Spicy Is Not Just Gal Pals?
A 3/5. romance.io places it in its “open door” band on 19 reader ratings, and the reviews back that up: it is a slow start, then the chemistry turns hot once the two finally act on it. Readers who mention the heat mostly enjoyed it — one audiobook listener singles out the roleplay, the handcuffs and a toy from a bachelorette party game as highlights, and another sums it up as Hallmark with some spice. One reader wanted more of it.
The element worth knowing in advance is the doctor roleplay. At least one StoryGraph reader stopped at 56% because of it, saying it gave her the ick; no reviewer I found flags anything beyond that. For butch/femme romance in the same heat band, Fall Into You and It’s Never Going to Happen sit at the same level.
Who Should Read This Book?
You’ll likely love it if: you have a soft spot for a shy, tongue-tied butch, you read by the season and want something that smells of cider, you prefer your romance low-angst with no dramatic breakup, and you enjoy an ensemble of friends, family and pets around the couple.
You may want to skip it if: you need a heroine you’ll admire from page one, you want real obstacles or a plot that surprises you, you expect enemies-to-lovers to mean actual enemies, or roleplay in the bedroom is a hard no for you.
In short: a cosy, likeable autumn romance that asks very little of you and gives back warmth rather than depth.
What Readers Are Actually Saying (September 2026)
There is no breakout moment behind this book and no trade coverage — Amazon’s editorial block carries only the narrator’s bio, and I found no review from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus or the other trade outlets. What it has instead is a well-run indie launch that has kept paying out. The book went out widely as an advance copy through NetGalley and BookSirens, and roughly a quarter of the most visible Goodreads reviews are ARC reviews timed for the start of autumn 2023. Then Tantor released the audiobook on 25 June 2024, narrated by Abby Craden and running 7 hours 15 minutes. One Goodreads reviewer found it simply by searching Craden’s name for new lesbian fiction. Three years on it still sits inside Amazon’s top 400 lesbian romance titles on Kindle — quiet, steady word of mouth.
Prefer audio? Listen to Not Just Gal Pals on Libro.fm — the audiobook shop that supports independent bookstores.
Why readers love it (according to the discourse): Cosiness, first and by a distance — “cozy,” “cute” and “sweet” are the recurring words, and they almost always come with the season attached. StoryGraph’s crowd tags it lighthearted at 91% and funny at 53%. Blake is the second reason: readers adore her awkwardness, and two reviewers say they related to her texting more than they would like to admit. Third, the lack of a manufactured breakup, which multiple readers name as a relief. Listeners mostly praise Craden’s distinct character voices, and readers comparing it to other titles reach for Delilah Green Doesn’t Care — the small town, the wedding, the old crush — and for Pride and Prejudice, whose misread-first-impression shape it borrows. One reader flags Jenny’s dyslexia as welcome representation.
What readers argue about and complain about: Blandness, above everything. “Cookie cutter,” “formulaic,” “average” and “forgettable” recur across independent three-star reviews, and the two-star and one-star reviews go further — boring, painfully dull, no spark. Jenny is the second theme: several readers found her superficial or simply hard to like, and her rant about cancel culture is named as an irritant by at least three reviewers. Third: the chemistry. A group of readers say they never quite believed the two were falling for each other beyond enjoying each other’s company, while another group calls the chemistry natural and the physical scenes fun — a genuine split. Smaller notes: one continuity error, a final 15–20% one reader found rushed, and one listener’s complaint about a shrill secondary voice in the audio. On StoryGraph, 3% of readers marked it did-not-finish, which is low — people who start it generally get through it, even when they shrug at the end.
The series question worth asking first: Not Just Gal Pals stands on its own. Blake and Jenny get their HEA in Sapphire Springs — one reader says so in exactly those words — and the later books are sold as new romances set in the same town. The good news is that the series climbs steadily: Novel Problems (book 2) averages 3.98 across 1,309 Goodreads ratings, The Floral Arrangement (book 3), an enemies-to-lovers fake-dating romance, sits at 4.12 across 963, and the holiday instalment Deck the Hauls (book 4) is at 4.25, though on only 24 ratings so far. If this one leaves you fond of the town but wanting more bite, the series gets better.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Not Just Gal Pals a butch/femme romance?
Yes. Blake is the flannel-wearing small-town doctor — one blogger describes her as the shy butch doctor with a crush — and Jenny is a polished bisexual influencer. The contrast between them drives much of the comedy.
How spicy is Not Just Gal Pals?
A 3/5. romance.io rates it “open door,” and readers describe a slow start followed by fun, playful on-page scenes, including roleplay and handcuffs. It is warmer than most Hallmark-style romances but not an explicit, scene-heavy book.
Does Not Just Gal Pals have a happy ending?
Yes. Blake and Jenny end together with an HEA, and readers note there is no real third-act breakup — just some minor drama before the ending. At least one reader felt the final stretch wrapped up quickly.
Do I need to read the Sapphire Springs books in order?
No. Each book is marketed as its own romance set in the same town, and book one resolves fully on its own. Reading in order lets you meet the recurring cast first, and the later books rate higher on Goodreads.
Is there an audiobook of Not Just Gal Pals?
Yes. Tantor Media published it in June 2024, narrated by Abby Craden and running 7 hours 15 minutes. Listener reaction to the narration is mostly warm.
If You Loved Not Just Gal Pals, Read These Next
The title readers reach for most is Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake — the same homecoming, small-town wedding and old-crush engine, with more heat and sharper edges. If the autumn butch/femme mood is what you came for, Fall Into You delivers it in a single sitting. And if Blake’s shy, soft butch energy won you over, Wrong Number, Right Woman gives you a full-length slow burn built around the same kind of heroine.
For more in this register, browse our butch/femme lesbian romance guide or the full Book Reviews collection.
The Bottom Line
Not Just Gal Pals sets out to be a sapphic Hallmark movie and mostly succeeds. The season is beautifully set, Blake is a butch heroine readers fall for on sight, and the absence of a manufactured breakup makes it one of the safer comfort reads in the genre. It is also low on stakes, carried by a heroine a real minority can’t warm to, and forgettable enough that even its fans say so. If you want to spend an autumn evening in a small town with a tongue-tied doctor and some open-door heat, it is worth the trip — and the series gets stronger after it. Check Not Just Gal Pals on Amazon →
The Eikna Overall Ranking
On the Eikna scale, Not Just Gal Pals ranks as a cosy indie butch/femme seasonal rom-com — warm and genuinely likeable, held back by low stakes and a divisive heroine, and best approached for Blake and the autumn mood rather than for a romance with real obstacles.
The Evidence Scorecard
Overall ★★★★☆ 3.6/5
- ✓ 3.83 average across 3,359 Goodreads ratings
- ✓ 3.68 on StoryGraph across 1,197 reviews
- ✓ 28% of Goodreads ratings sit at three stars
Romance ★★★★☆ 3.6/5
- ✓ Secret-crush misunderstanding drives the comedy
- ✓ Readers praise the slow friendship-first build
- ✓ No manufactured third-act breakup
- ✓ Several readers never believed the chemistry
Characters ★★★★☆ 3.6/5
- ✓ 86% call the characters loveable on StoryGraph
- ✓ Shy butch Blake is the standout
- ✓ Pets, twins and friends widely loved
- ✓ Jenny called superficial by a vocal minority
Writing ★★★★☆ 3.7/5
- ✓ Easy, quick, readable prose
- ✓ Autumn setting written with real affection
- ✓ Dual POV sets up the running joke
- ✓ Humour splits readers; one continuity error flagged
Emotional Impact ★★★☆☆ 3.1/5
- ✓ 91% of StoryGraph readers call it lighthearted
- ✓ Blake’s old heartbreak gives her some weight
- ✓ One reader admits to a tear or two
- ✓ “Forgettable” recurs even in positive reviews
Heat Level ★★★☆☆ 3/5
- ✓ romance.io’s “open door” band
- ✓ Playful scenes with roleplay and handcuffs
- ✓ Slow start, hotter once they connect
- ✓ One reader DNF’d over the doctor roleplay
Ending ★★★★☆ 3.8/5
- ✓ HEA in Sapphire Springs confirmed by readers
- ✓ Standalone couple, no cliffhanger
- ✓ Only minor drama before the finish
- ✓ One reader found the last 15–20% rushed
Re-read Value ★★★★☆ 3.6/5
- ✓ Seasonal comfort read readers save for autumn
- ✓ 7h15m Abby Craden audiobook for a second pass
- ✓ Sequels rate higher and share the town
- ✓ Predictable plot leaves little to rediscover
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