One is meek. The other brash. Can two broken souls find a place they belong?
San Francisco, 2007. Laurie Lamont craves security. Having survived an abusive father and snared a job as admin for a Silicon Valley startup, the twenty-something stays focused on the three H’s – home, husband, and healthcare. But when she discovers her would-be spouse is secretly in love with another man, Laurie fears her dreams are destined to crumble.
Malini “Mal” Kumar is unapologetically herself. Loud, outspoken, and direct, the bold Indian woman flees her controlling family and their plan to force her into an arranged marriage. Facing a tough real estate market, the fiercely independent woman accepts a roommate offer from a female techie she barely knows.
Thrown by unfamiliar feelings, Laurie falls for Mal’s extraordinary strength, while Mal finds herself captivated by Laurie’s loving kindness. With social forces conspiring against them, can these emotional opposites find their forever?
Returning to the boom-and-bust era of turn-of-the-21st-century California, author Anat Deracine delivers a thought-provoking tale of unanticipated love. With gorgeous, lyrical prose, she explores the beauty and terror of sapphic awakening at a time when same-sex marriage was illegal and women were afterthoughts in the toxic tech-bro-dominated world of the emerging online economy. Her Golden Coast is an uplifting work of LGBTQ+ historical fiction. If you like strong queer characters, well-crafted turns of phrase, and deep themes of liberation, then you’ll adore Anat Deracine’s story of unexpected opportunity.
Deracine (author of Driving by Starlight) charts a tender and complex sapphic romance across the ever-shifting landscape of San Francisco. With an insider’s keen eye, she paints the thrills and anxieties of tech startups in the early 2000s, filled with extravagant parties and abrupt layoffs. Laurie and Mal’s love story is further shaped by seismic shifts in American politics, from the financial crisis and Obama’s election to the DREAM Act. Her Golden Coast gives voice to the queer women who came of age before gay marriage was legalized—and fought for their place in male-dominated industries.
Deracine’s prose is graceful, comparing love to art—“the smell of it, the complexity and uncertainty of hue and the ache in her wrist”—and musing on the power of being “in the world but free of it.” Though the plot centers on Laurie’s self-actualization, the novel is at its finest when it turns to Mal, who continually renegotiates family loyalties while refusing the marriage expected of her. Mal singlehandedly demonstrates what Laurie gradually learns: that women can create lives for themselves and each other beyond what can be imagined. This fast-paced, sensitive novel is perfect for readers itching to see the heroine get the girl—those who realize that no, nothing is promised, but anything might be possible.
Takeaway: Two women create a life together in early 2000s Silicon Valley.
Comparable Titles: Taleen Voskuni’s Lavash at First Sight, Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body.
Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A-
Marketing copy: A
