Verdict: A funny, warm and genuinely rare butch/butch small-town romance with a single-mom farrier, a scene-stealing donkey and a supporting cast readers love, held back by a romance that several readers found more physical than emotional and a second half that slows.
Best for: Readers who have been hunting for two butch heroines on the same page, who like a kid and a found family woven into the love story, and who are happy for the connection to run through heat and banter rather than long getting-to-know-you conversations.
Heat level: ★★★★☆ (4/5 — romance.io’s “explicit open door”)
Rating: ★★★★☆ (4/5 — a 4.32 Goodreads average across 616 ratings, tempered by an advance-copy-heavy review pool and a recurring “attraction, not romance” complaint)
Tropes: Butch/butch, forced proximity, single mom, small town, found family, strangers to lovers, slow burn, dual POV, caregiver heroine, third-act separation.
Touch the Sky by Katia Rose is the second book in the self-published Balsam Inn trilogy, a contemporary lesbian romance set in La Cloche, a fictional village in Quebec’s Laurentian Mountains — and the collision at its centre is Tess, a butch farrier who has moved from English-speaking Canada to give her daughter a stable life, landing on the farm of Jacinthe, a loud, overstretched butch who runs trail rides, nurses her mother and has no time for anyone.
It holds a 4.32 average across 616 Goodreads ratings, with 82% of them at four or five stars and almost nothing below three. By several reviewers’ account it is also rare: a romance between two butch women, from an author whose readers count how many of her books they have read. The praise is loud; the criticism is quieter but keeps coming from the same direction, and that direction is worth understanding before you start.
What Is Touch the Sky About?
Touch the Sky is a small-town lesbian romance in the full sense of the label. La Cloche is a place where neighbours show up unasked and where the friends at the heart of the series are opening an inn together. It is also autumn in rural Quebec, horses and trail rides, and French words run through the dialogue — which one French-speaking reader singles out as a pleasure.
Tess arrives with almost nothing settled: a farrier business to take over, a ten-year-old daughter, Shel, and a housing plan that has just fallen through. What she lacks is room to want anything for herself. Jacinthe lacks the same thing for different reasons — she is running La Grange Rouge, caring for her mother Gabrielle through multiple sclerosis, and starting a business with her friends. The book alternates between their points of view, so the reader sees how badly both want to stop being the one who holds everything up.
What Makes This Butch/Butch Small-Town Romance Work
- The butch/butch pairing: The single most praised element. Reviewers call it rare and refreshing, and a few say it is the first butch/butch romance they have read. The author herself frames it as a butch-for-butch love story.
- The humour: StoryGraph readers tag it funny more than any other mood (70%), and the chaotic first meeting — Jacinthe chasing an escaped donkey across the farm — is the scene reviewers bring up most.
- Shel and the single-parent thread: Most reviewers praise the ten-year-old as well written, and her bond with Jacinthe as the sweetest thing in the book.
- The supporting cast: Gabrielle, Jacinthe’s mother, is repeatedly named as a favourite, alongside the returning friend group from book one and Joaquin, the donkey readers have adopted as a mascot.
- Yearning with reasons: Readers say the obstacles grow out of who these women are — a mother and a caregiver who cannot afford a mistake — rather than out of contrived drama, and one reviewer says the third-act separation felt earned rather than silly.
Book Synopsis
Tess has rebuilt her life around one priority: her daughter. After years of raising Shel on her own, she has found a farrier business to take over in La Cloche, a small French-speaking town in the mountains north of Montreal, and a chance at the stability neither of them has had. Then the place she arranged to live falls through, and she ends up renting on a horse farm run by a woman she first meets sprinting after a runaway donkey, covered in manure and swearing at full volume.
That woman is Jacinthe Gauthier-Laframboise, and she does not have room for tenants, let alone for a quiet, guarded butch who is decidedly not her type. Jacinthe is already running trail rides, keeping the farm afloat, looking after a mother whose MS makes some days harder than others, and helping her best friend and her cousin launch the Balsam Inn. Tess, for her part, has sworn off dating until her daughter is settled, and the landlady’s daughter is the worst possible place to break that rule.
Sharing a farm leaves them nowhere to hide. Shel attaches herself to Jacinthe almost immediately, Gabrielle takes Tess and her daughter into the household’s orbit, and the two women keep ending up in each other’s way. The question is whether two women who have spent years putting everyone else first can make room for something of their own — and what it would cost Tess, and the life she is building for Shel, if they try and it goes wrong.
My Review
The pairing is the reason to be here, and it is handled with real affection. Two butch heroines on the same page remain unusual enough in published sapphic romance that reviewers keep saying so, and Rose makes them distinct rather than interchangeable: Jacinthe is rambunctious, profane and running on fumes, Tess is gentle, watchful and careful to a fault. Readers describe both as tough and tender at once, which is exactly the balance this pairing needs.
The second strength is everything around the couple. La Cloche works as a place rather than a backdrop, Shel is written as a real child with her own opinions rather than a plot device, and Gabrielle gives the book its emotional floor — a mother living with MS who is strong, proud and sometimes not able to manage. StoryGraph’s crowd calls the characters loveable at a rate of 100% and says 80% show strong development, which is about as clear a signal as that site gives.
Where it struggles is the romance itself, and this is a recurring theme rather than one reader’s grumble. Several reviewers say the attraction is never in doubt but the relationship is: they wanted more scenes of the two women actually talking, spending time together and learning each other before the hookups started. A 3.5-star reviewer says she never understood why they fell for each other. Two readers also found the second half slow, and two found the word “butch” repeated to the point of distraction.
One expectation to reset: the cover is soft, sunset-coloured and cosy, and readers do describe the book as wholesome and feel-good. The sex is not. It is explicit and frequently rough, with a lot of what reviewers call “top energy” on both sides. If “cosy” drew you, expect more heat than the jacket suggests; if the heat drew you, the cosiness won’t get in its way.
My honest note: A four-star book with a rare pairing and a lovely town, where the chemistry is more convincing than the courtship. If you need to watch two people fall in love through conversation, this may leave you unconvinced. If you want two butches, a great kid and a donkey with a grudge, it delivers.
| Element | In Touch the Sky |
|---|---|
| Central relationship | Tess & Jacinthe — single-mom farrier and trail-riding farm owner, butch/butch |
| Core tropes | Butch/butch, forced proximity, single mom, small town, found family, slow burn |
| Setting | La Cloche, a fictional village in Quebec’s Laurentian Mountains — a horse farm and a new inn, in autumn |
| Heat level | 4/5 — explicit open door |
| Series | Balsam Inn book 2 of 3 — standalone couple with an HEA; the trilogy is complete |
| Content notes | Explicit and rough sexual content, parental chronic illness (MS) and caregiver burnout, an absent father, past child neglect, discussion of abortion, frequent strong language |
How Spicy Is Touch the Sky?
A 4/5. romance.io places it in its “explicit open door” band, one step below the top, and the reader reviews back that up with some enthusiasm. Reviewers call the scenes hot, primal and not safe for work, one warns readers to brace for “an overdose of top energy,” and the Joyfully Jay reviewer describes the two women as rough and almost violent with each other when they finally give in. The trilogy is marketed as steamy, and here marketing and reading experience match.
The thing worth knowing in advance is tone rather than content: the sex is intense and dominant from both sides rather than gentle, and at least one reader missed a tender scene to balance it. No reviewer I found flags anything beyond that. For other explicit-open-door romances with butch heroines, Spindrift and Three Reasons to Say Yes sit in the same band.
Who Should Read This Book?
You’ll likely love it if: you want two butch heroines rather than a butch/femme pairing, you enjoy a child and a found family woven into the romance, you like explicit, high-chemistry love scenes, and you want a small town you would actually move to.
You may want to skip it if: you need long conversations to believe in a couple, you find kids in romance a distraction, you want the heat gentle rather than rough, or heavy swearing and a sagging middle stretch pull you out of a story.
In short: a rare pairing and a lovely setting, with a romance that runs on sparks more than on slow getting-to-know-you.
What Readers Are Actually Saying (September 2026)
There is no breakout moment behind this book, and not much independent critical attention either. The Lesbian Review covered both Paint the Moon and the third book, Catch the Wind, but not this one; the only outside review I found is Joyfully Jay’s take on the audiobook. What drives it instead is Katia Rose’s own readership. Reviewers routinely mention that this is their seventh, ninth or twelfth of her books, and a large share of the early reviews come from advance copies sent by the author or through StoryOrigin — nine of the first thirty reviews shown on Goodreads say so. Read the average with that warm, loyal crowd in mind. The second channel is audio. Tantor Media released the audiobook in May 2026, narrated by Allie Shae, who also narrated book one, across 10 hours and 40 minutes; Joyfully Jay gave the story 3.75 stars and the narration 4, singling out Shae’s natural French delivery. The final book arrived the same month, completing the trilogy.
Prefer audio? Listen to Touch the Sky on Libro.fm — the audiobook shop that supports independent bookstores.
Why readers love it (according to the discourse): The butch/butch pairing, first and above everything — “rare” and “refreshing” are the recurring words, and more than one butch reader says it is a pairing close to their own heart. Second, the humour: the donkey chase, Jacinthe’s mouth, Shel’s deadpan advice. Third, the people around the couple — Shel, Gabrielle and the friend group from book one — with the child staying central instead of fading out. StoryGraph’s crowd tags it funny (70%), emotional (67%) and lighthearted (64%).
What readers argue about and complain about: The romance itself, above everything. The most repeated criticism — from a four-star, a 3.5-star and a 4.25-star reader independently — is that the two women are clearly attracted but rarely shown building anything beyond the hookups, and that more friendship before the sex would have sold the love story. The second theme is pace: one reader found the second half boring on reflection, and the Joyfully Jay reviewer says the story can feel as if not much is happening. Third, the word “butch” itself — two reviewers say the book tells you so often that both women are butch that it starts to feel like the author does not trust the characterisation to show it. Beyond that, the splits: one reader wished Shel were more present while most praise how much she is there, one butch reader marked it down simply because she dislikes children in romance, and a couple flag the strong language. One practical note — a reader says the story ends sooner than the progress bar suggests, because the final stretch of the ebook is a preview of another book.
The series question worth asking first: Touch the Sky stands on its own. The author describes the trilogy as interconnected standalones, readers confirm you can start here, and Tess and Jacinthe get their HEA. Paint the Moon (book 1) holds 4.23 across 1,465 ratings and Catch the Wind (book 3, May 2026) sits at 4.33 across 465, so the series holds its level. Beyond the series, her standalone sports romance Catch and Cradle has a far larger readership, at 5,861 Goodreads ratings.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Touch the Sky a butch/butch romance?
Yes. Both Tess and Jacinthe are butch lesbians, and the author describes it as a butch-for-butch pairing. Reviewers consistently name it as one of the few butch/butch romances they have found.
How spicy is Touch the Sky?
A 4/5. romance.io rates it “explicit open door,” and readers describe the scenes as hot and rough rather than gentle.
Does Touch the Sky have a happy ending?
Yes. Tess and Jacinthe get an HEA after a third-act separation that one reviewer praises as earned rather than contrived. There is no cliffhanger, and the next book follows a different couple.
Do I need to read Paint the Moon first?
No. The Balsam Inn books are interconnected standalones, and readers confirm this one works on its own. Reading book one first adds context for the friend group and the inn.
Is there a Touch the Sky audiobook?
Yes. Tantor Media released it in May 2026, narrated by Allie Shae, at 10 hours and 40 minutes. The Joyfully Jay reviewer rated the narration 4 stars and praised Shae’s French.
If You Loved Touch the Sky, Read These Next
For the closest match in pairing, Wherever Is Your Heart is a tender butch/butch novella about two women who have pined for years — gentler and lower-heat. If Shel and the single-parent thread won you over, Three Reasons to Say Yes puts a single mom and her kids at the centre of an equally hot romance with a butch lead. And for another small-town book at the same heat — with, notably, the same more-physical-than-emotional complaint — Spindrift is the natural next stop.
For more in this register, browse our butch lesbian romance guide or the full Book Reviews collection.
The Bottom Line
Touch the Sky sets out to give two butch women a full-length, fully steamy small-town love story, and mostly succeeds. The pairing is rare and affectionate, the town is charming, and the humour and heat both land. It also leans on attraction where some readers wanted courtship, slows in its second half, and tells you its heroines are butch more often than it needs to. If a butch/butch romance is what you have been looking for — or you just want a warm, funny, explicit small-town book with a great kid in it — it is well worth your time. Check Touch the Sky on Amazon →
The Eikna Overall Ranking
On the Eikna scale, Touch the Sky ranks as a warm, high-heat indie butch/butch small-town romance — rare in its pairing and rich in its supporting cast, held back by a courtship that runs on chemistry more than conversation, and best approached for the couple, the kid and La Cloche rather than a slow emotional build.
The Evidence Scorecard
Overall ★★★★☆ 4/5
- ✓ 4.32 average across 616 Goodreads ratings
- ✓ 4.08 across 129 StoryGraph reviews
- ✓ Series holds its level across all three books
- ✓ Advance-copy readers dominate the early reviews
Romance ★★★★☆ 3.9/5
- ✓ Rare butch/butch pairing readers celebrate
- ✓ Pining and yearning consistently praised
- ✓ Third-act separation called earned, not silly
- ✓ Three readers wanted more courtship, less hookup
Characters ★★★★☆ 4.3/5
- ✓ 100% call the characters loveable on StoryGraph
- ✓ Shel praised as central and well written
- ✓ Gabrielle a repeated reader favourite
- ✓ One reader preferred Jacinthe as a side character
Writing ★★★★☆ 3.9/5
- ✓ Humour named in review after review
- ✓ French dialogue praised by a French reader
- ✓ 72% of StoryGraph readers call it medium-paced
- ✓ “Butch” repeated often enough to distract two readers
Emotional Impact ★★★★☆ 4/5
- ✓ 67% of StoryGraph readers tag it emotional
- ✓ Caregiving and single parenthood carry real stakes
- ✓ Readers report laughing and tearing up
- ✓ Second half slows for at least two reviewers
Heat Level ★★★★☆ 4/5
- ✓ romance.io’s “explicit open door” band
- ✓ Readers name the heat as a draw
- ✓ Marketed as steamy, and delivers it
- ✓ Rough rather than tender, one reader missed softness
Ending ★★★★☆ 4.1/5
- ✓ HEA for Tess and Jacinthe
- ✓ No cliffhanger, trilogy now complete
- ✓ Separation resolved without contrivance
- ✓ Ebook’s bonus preview makes the end feel abrupt
Re-read Value ★★★★☆ 4.1/5
- ✓ La Cloche is a place readers want to return to
- ✓ Allie Shae audiobook, 10 hours 40 minutes
- ✓ Two sibling books at 4.23 and 4.33
- ✓ Thin getting-to-know-you scenes limit a second pass
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