Lizards Hold the Sun
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Average rating4.5
Archaeology has historically been a field for white men only.
Not anymore. Xiomara Chavez has dedicated her life to the preservation of her Mexican homeland. Out of hundreds of applications, she alone was selected to lead the creation of the Bunchberry Tribal Museum. Faced with her most remote project ever, Xiomara must rely on the help of Calehan, the aloof museum architect. Sparks fly in the archives as Xiomara struggles to refrain from dating in the workplace.
Tight-lipped Calehan Yellowbird has been tethered to Bunchberry, Canada for a thousand years. After the loss of his mother as a teen, Calehan has been providing for his family more than half his life. While he earned his architecture degree nearly a decade ago, the Bunchberry Museum would be his first official project. The pressure was immense, and Calehan felt the pressure of this project being his first…and last. Romance and dreams weren’t in the cards for someone like him. For Xiomara though, he was willing to take the chance.
Thrown among ancient artifacts, shooting stars, and cultural obligations, Calehan and Xiomara must decide if they belong to each other or if the responsibility to their tribes and families are where they must be.
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Have you ever read a book where you can feel the love and passion saturate every single page and scentence and word? Where you know the author poured their whole heart and soul and knowledge into their writing? That is this book.
Xiomara is an Indigenous Mexican archeologist, and Calehan is the architect on the reservation assisting with the building of a museum for the artifacts. This is a romance novel, where I feel like these two have set the bar now even higher of what a respectful and loving relationship should be.
Honestly writing this review is difficult because I loved every aspect of those book, from the culture (I love love love when books have passages on food and how food impacts the characters!) to really seeing what archeology means and what it entails and the side characters that fill out Bunchberry. But, of course, it is the romance that takes the stage here. Calehan is so wonderful and sweet and knows when to tease and to be serious, and I loved that they both felt human and had motivations and complex emotions and its so good!
! Spoilers!
There is a third act breakup, but it works so well here because the characters feel real, and the reasoning behind it feels so true to life. And it takes months! for them to get back together, and the whole time he is just being so respectful of everything and her choice while yes still trying to communicate with her, but not crossing any boundries!
I loved this book and have to do a reread soon as I may just have to break my fear of annotating.
CW: Grief, loss of a parent, loss of a spouse, racism
