Throw Away The Key by Taj McCoy

“You deserve good things.”

Reading more sapphic romance books is something that has been top of my reading priorities this year. So when my auto-buy author Taj McCoy announced that she would be releasing a sapphic novella this February, I was all over that.

In this spicy novella, we meet Emma who is the best friend of Zora (from Zora Books Her Happy Ever After). After years of living with her best friend, she feels that now is a good time to give her BFF & new man some space. Emma is ready to live in her own space & on her own terms. While appartment hunting, Emma finds the perfect spot, but unfortunately the prospective landlady is rather frosty during all of the encounters Emma has with her. Will her landlady defrost before being renamed ‘Ice Queen’?

The last sapphic romcom that I read was very cringe & had little to no character development, so I was so pleased that Taj was able to deliver on all fronts with this sapphic novella & reignite my hope in this genre.

If you are after some spicy scenes, then I do not think that this book will let you down (Keep some water near to you, Lord knows you may need it).

I really liked Emma as a character, she is a feel good character & one who owns her flaws, she felt very true to life, and I believe that a lot of women will relate to her. What I adored the most about Emma, was that no matter what adversity she faced, she always remained true to herself.

As for Sadie, it took me a good 60% of the book to warm up to her. Her coldness left me with hardly any sympathy towards her. Mainly because Emma had experienced something similar, but still extended grace and respect to everyone she encountered.

With this being a novella, I tend to expect the romance to start quite soon, this one however, I felt as though it should have developed a bit later in the story, just so that we had a bit more sexual tension between the two.

As a huge lover of Zora Books Her Happy Ever After, I was happy to have a glimpse of Zora & Reid’s life, as well as the OG herself, Ms.Marion.

As far as novellas go, this one did it for me, it was light, trauma free, spicy + it saved me from falling into a reading slump.

Thanks for the ARC @the1whowill.

Release date: 20-Feb-25

⭐️⭐️⭐️.95