Meeting Millie

Written by Clare Ashton

Narrated by Gabrielle Baker

Oxford—celebrated city of dreaming spires and class warfare—is an ambition come true for lesbian, geeky, upper-middle-class Charlotte and straight, charismatic, working-class Millie.



Against the odds, theirs is an instant, best friendship. Forever.



Exuberant Millie is a breath of fresh air for polite Charlotte and a force of nature within the university's hallowed walls. And they are going to be the best lawyers of their year and change the world.



But their world changes instead when things go queerly sideways, and they haven't seen each other since.



Ten years on and Charlotte returns to where it all began. She has a new job at a prestigious law firm and Oxford is as beautiful as ever. She's a safe distance from her overbearing barrister mother Nicola and three office floors from her snappy college mentor, Olivia.



Then Millie bounds around the corner wanting to be friends again and it's as if the last decade never happened. Will it be different the second time around? Can they be friends again? Or will love and attraction change things?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Sep 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9798350847284

Clare Ashton

Clare Ashton's first novel, Pennance, was long-listed for the Polari Prize and After Mrs Hamilton is a Golden Crown Literary Society (Goldie) award winner. Her first foray into romantic comedy, That Certain Something, was a Goldie and Lambda Literary Award finalist and romance, Poppy Jenkins, is the Rainbow Award winner for Best Lesbian Contemporary and Erotic Romance.Clare Ashton grew up in Wales and lives in the Midlands with her partner and children.

[Melissa · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Now, THIS is an instant favorite. I loved this book and immediately wanted to listen again. I think the narrator does an excellent job differentiating characters. Just an all around great job.

As far as the story, if you are familiar with Oxford, this book is just chalked full of great locations and memories. It’s perfect. The characters are likable and develop wonderfully. Characters that I didn’t originally like at all in the beginning became my absolute favorites by the end. There’s plenty of heat too. It’s a sweet, sexy, entertaining, and heartfelt book that should be a staple in the lesbian romance genre for years to come!!

[Jude · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I already knew when I started listening to this audiobook that I would love it. I had a slight apprehension about the narration because there were tiny details I didn’t love completely in Gabrielle Baker’s performance of Finding Jessica Lambert, but none of them got in the way of my enjoyment with this one. She does Millie and Charlotte (and all the other characters) justice and I think I fell in love with the MCs even more through her narration. That’s saying a lot, since Clare Ashton wrote them splendidly in the first place.

I love Charlotte and Millie. I simply love them. They have extremely different personalities, they’re relatable, they’re complex and flawed, and good people. They’re perfect for each other, and would also have been perfect as friends, which is one of the reasons I love this story so much. The line between love and romantic love can be extremely thin. It sometimes needs to be crossed and sometimes not. The friendship is enough in and of itself, the romance isn’t necessarily “more”. That said, and Meeting Millie is a lovely depiction of that, friendship can be an excellent and strong foundation for a romantic relationship. Loving a person doesn’t always mean liking them but it does help when both go hand in hand.

I already wrote most of my thoughts in my review of the book (see my blog: judeinthestars.com), and they’re all still true. As I was listening, once the friendship took a turn towards romance, all I could think of was that Millie realising she finds Charlotte hot is a thing of beauty, even more so in audio. It’s sexy and funny, tender and enchanting.

I received a copy from the author and I am voluntarily leaving a review.

Read all my reviews on my blog (and please buy from the affiliation links!): Jude in the Stars

[miserableflower · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This story is 14 hrs too long. Theres waaaaay too much one had to wade through to get to the meet of it. Maybe its the narration which does do the British accent well... but it kind of nukes the spice to it? Idk theres nothing really that makes this stand apart from any other book with the same general synopsis? Its just an okay story for me.

Last note: as towards the spice..... wtf is with licking someone's eyelid????

[milliehennessy · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Did not finish book. Stopped at 40%.
Mainly I stopped because this was boring. The conversations were boring, all the talk about Charlotte and Millie's jobs was boring (I don't like job small talk IRL, so why would I want to read it?), and at almost halfway through I didn't see any chemistry between the two women.

The flashbacks to their college years were a bit confusing and really weren't adding much. They were best friends because the story told me they were.

A lot of the dialogue wasn't so great either. Multiple examples of people just blurting out shit like "I thought you'd be married to so-and-so with kids by now", which I know is a thing real people assume, but having more than one example of it in the book felt odd. The way Millie's curves were talked about was also awkward and maybe even a little over sexualized. The convo where they're adults and Charlotte straight up asks where Millie gets all her curves felt so unbelievable, especially among two people who used to be friends.

I also thought this was a "college girlfriends broke up and move out of each other's lives, but then meet again as adults" type story. But early on, Millie is very obviously straight, so it's really more of a "lesbian crushes on her straight friend for years until she gets mad about it and destroys their friendship" type story, which I just didn't feel like reading. It's possible I misread the blurb

Regardless, this one just wasn't for me and I don't care how it ends (though I can probably guess lol.)