Katie Raynes reviews Silhouette of a Sparrow by Molly Beth Griffin

May 19, 2013 in Lesbrary Reviews | Tags: , , , , | by | Leave a comment

Silhouette of a Sparrow

Silhouette of a Sparrow by Molly Beth Griffin is the story of Garnet, a teenage ornithology enthusiast who spends a transformative summer in a lakeside town. Set in 1926, Silhouette of a Sparrow combines captivating historical detail with realistic characters and emotions while keeping it all on a believable, relatable scale. I was drawn in immediately by the writing, which has a unique voice without edging into caricature. Garnet is very relatable: she considers herself to be a regular girl, even plain, but any threat of the boredom that sometimes accompanies these types of characters is averted by her intricately described interests. She’s passionately in love with birds, and she notices them everywhere, cutting silhouettes of them out of paper because her mother approves of that hobby over her childhood outdoor explorations.

Garnet has to navigate several things during her summer in Excelsior, Minnesota: the relatives she’s staying with consider her to be poor and low-class in comparison to themselves, but they have their own secrets; she left behind her father, a veteran who came home unable to adapt to life away from the war, and her mother, who is desperately trying to keep the family together; Garnet takes a part-time job in a shop, confronting both the bias against working women and environmental conservation issues that are close to her heart; and her drive to be independent and enjoy her last summer before graduating (and marrying) leads her to meet Isabella, a dancer who flaunts numerous social conventions. All of the subplots wind together to make a full story, and none of them are left hanging or unfinished.

Garnet’s developing relationship with Isabella is one of the highlights of the story for me (I admit I equally adore all the bird imagery, which has tendrils running through the whole book). Their courtship progresses slowly and sweetly. Garnet and Isabella get to know each other gradually, each revealing their fears and hopes as they grow more comfortable with each other. I love that Garnet doesn’t consider her romantic feelings for Isabella to be wrong – she’s worried about what her family would think, but she seems just as concerned that Isabella’s reputation, instead of her gender, will be the cause of the disapproval. Another thing that satisfies me with this novel is that the relationship between Garnet and Isabella isn’t the main focus - Silhouette of a Sparrow is about Garnet’s development from someone who doesn’t know what she wants to someone who does, and who finds within herself the strength to go after her dreams. Her relationship with Isabella is integral to this development, but it isn’t the core of the story. It’s a lesbian romance not simply for the sake of romance, but as part of the lives of what feel like real people.

Marcia reviews Dysphoria by Karelia Stetz-Waters

May 17, 2013 in Lesbrary Reviews | Tags: , , | by | 1 comment

Dysphoria

Dysphoria by Karelia Stetz-Waters
Artema Press, 2013, 350 pp

Dysphoria. On its own, the word means simply the state of feeling unwell. It is a loaded term, however, especially in the queer community. Trans*-folk use the word to describe the feeling of incongruity between how the body exists and how the brain expects the body to exist. Since the mainstreaming of that definition, dysphoria has also come to indicate any incongruity between brain and body, including such movements as transethnics, some furry lifestylers (humans with the belief that they are or connect to a particular animal), and apotemnophilia — self-desired amputation. This last borrowed definition is one of the major themes in Karelia Stetz-Waters’s debut thriller of the same name.

The story follows protagonist Helen Ivers as she begins her new job as president of a small New England college in the town of Pittock. Ivers is cool-headed and utterly capable, but she is haunted by the memory of her sister and her gruesome suicide. That haunting begins to creep into Ivers life as the college is rocked by the discovery of legs, dismembered by nearby train tracks. Flanked on one side by Drummond, the well-kept elder provost at Pittock, whose desire seems to lie with keeping the controversy quiet, and on the other with wild card Adair Wilson, a strikingly handsome lesbian drama teacher who is instrumental in finding the body parts and unwilling to let the tragedy go unsolved.

I found Dysphoria to be well-written, especially in comparison to many books in both the lesbian detective and thriller genre. The characters, especially Ivers and Drummond, are fresh and full-bodied (pun intended). At times, Stetz-Waters lingers in more literary and even experimental places, playing with form and perspective in some truly unexpected ways. I also found the story to be something truly original. As a fan of true crime, procedural shows, and, obviously, lesbian lit, Dysphoria definitely borrows from aspects of each genre but pulls together into something quite fresh. I especially identified with Helen Ivers. Her behavior, namely engaging in unfulfilling and utterly unerotic heterosexual sex in an effort to escape her own mental space, was frustrating (and frequently unpleasant to read) but I saw echoes of her thought processes in my own life.

Aside from the straight sex, Dysphoria also offers truly disturbing POV segments from the killer. We learn about his history of abuse, about his obsession with creating amputees — and the sexual nature of his fetish. I understand, as a reader, why this POV is included. It certainly ramps up the tension and creates a few “ah ha!” moments later in the book. For those more sensitive to stuff of this ilk, however, this might be the ultimate turn off.

The other major issue I had with Dysphoria was with love interest and plot driver, Adair Wilson. Because the book stays in Helen Ivers’ perspective most of the time, and because Ivers herself does not know much about Wilson, the character is left largely undeveloped. Wilson seems to act mysteriously when the plot calls for tension, to explain herself when Ivers needs the relief. Even the descriptions of Ivers’ attraction to Wilson are spotty at best. Aside from Wilson’s shocking beauty, I had trouble understanding why Ivers was attracted to her. Some of the circumstances the two women are involved in are entirely unromantic and even disturbing — on a level completely different from that of a serial killer. I felt like I should be fascinated and enamored with Wilson, but was given no reason to. Sadly, much of the book’s success hinges on this.

I will also draw attention, once more, to the title. Dysphoria. As I don’t possess any expertise in psychology, I cannot speak to the legitimacy of any of those who claim the term as a method of expressing body/mind disintegration, but as an ally of the trans* community and best friend of a genderqueer individual, I found myself pausing on multiple occasions when the lives of “transexuals” were used to (perhaps) legitimize the dysphoria of amputee “wannabees” — and by more than one character! I doubt it is Stetz-Waters’s intention to marginalize people who may be a part of her audience, but given her reassurance to me as introduction that she was, in fact, a “gold star” lesbian, I don’t think Stetz-Waters is all too concerned with being inclusive.

My reservations aside, I found Dysphoria to be, for the most part, an engaging and even thrilling read. As an alternative to much of what is currently available in lesbian crime thrillers, Dysphoria is well written, edited, and plotted. Each reader may have to contend with the level of violence, disturbing content, and casual marginalization they are willing to endure for fiction. While mildly curious about the sequel reportedly in the works, I don’t believe I will be tuning in for more of Stetz-Waters’s thrillers.

Kit reviews The Daughter Star by Susan Jane Bigelow

May 16, 2013 in Lesbrary Reviews | Tags: , , , , , , | by | 4 comments

TheDaughterStar

The Daughter Star / Susan Jane Bigelow

Candlemark and Gleam, release date May 28 2013 (e-ARC)

What a rotten way for everything to turn out. Freighter pilot Marta Grayline is grounded, trapped on her miserable home planet by an intrasystem war that’s separated her from her beautiful girlfriend, her career, and everything she loves.

When her sister Beth offers her a way out by enlisting in the Novan Emergency Fleet, Marta jumps at the opportunity to get back into space.

But when her ship is attacked and destroyed, she finds herself stranded on a mysterious space station with a crew that won’t answer her questions.

And, of course, then there’s the aliens – the planet-destroying Abrax that somehow seem to have a hold on Beth.

They’re coming for Marta, too.

She’ll have to face ancient forces, her own doubts, and the inside of an alien mind if she wants to get some answers, complete her mission, and unlock her own latent potential. The Daughter Star, the red beacon in the night sky, may yet be the key to the freedom and understanding Marta so desperately wants.

I jumped on The Daughter Star as soon as its galley showed up in my inbox (thank you, Danika and Candlemark and Gleam!) because Bigelow’s Extrahuman series has been on my TBR pile for months. After finishing this novel, everything else by the author has just moved up a few hundred notches, because The Daughter Star is one of the richest, most thought provoking SF novels I’ve read this year. Or last year. I haven’t actually felt this excited about aliens as a genre or construct since discovering (only a few decades late) Octavia Butler and Lilith’s Brood a couple of years ago.

Imagine that you have to leave Earth. That votes have taken place. That debates have gone on for over a year and that you, along with everyone else, have directed to a window that, you are told, opens out onto another planet. You have no choice. You—or your government—have already voted. One window–you don’t know which—will bring you to beautiful, peaceful Ad Astra. The other—and this is where you suspect you’re going, as you are neither rich nor influential, brings you to Nea. Nea. Where the gravity bites and all the plants want to kill you. Imagine the tensions that would exist between these two planets. New countries form. Bodies must change to suit new atmosphere, new gravity. Languages evolve. And, over the years, imagine asking why. Why these two planets? Why one Elysium to the other’s hell?

Now imagine that you’re long settled on Nea. Inhospitable country has led to strict borders and local governments, including one particular puritanical outpost on a rain drenched peninsula where you are, as a good young girl, expected to marry and produce enough offspring to flood the rest of your forsaken planet with the right sort of people. The aliens—the Abrax—are long gone. Earth is dead. You are frustrated, stifled, and the only gay in the village. You get out. You leave your sisters and parents and find a way out your country, off your planet. You join an interstellar trade fleet and do not particularly care about the inherent inequalities between planets, just so long as you can get off your own. You meet a beautiful woman. You can see the stars.

You are Marta Grayline, and you are going to have obscene, glorious amounts of character development before is done.

Marta moves from the rather flippant, naive, infuriating girl conjured up by The Star Daughter’s blurb into a questioning, determined, and often powerful woman by the time you see the last of her. I won’t spoil the plot—I can’t, it would go on too long. But watching Marta navigate her way through personal space, as well as the real kind, is a beautiful thing. Her relationships—with her siblings, with her planet, with co-workers and Abrax and the woman she is sure is the love of her life—are all so well drawn that I would forgive Bigelow if plot took a back seat. And it never does. I’m still left breathless by that. Every time I thought I had The Daughter Star figured out—and there were three distinct points where I was sure that I knew where this book was going—I, like poor Marta, was thrown something else. And does the twisting plot, character development, and the novel’s Serious Social Questions make for dull, worthy reading?

Like hell. The Daughter Star is often laugh out loud funny. Novans, as you might expect, have developed whole new avenues in gallows humour. Marta’s complete adoration for a girlfriend she barely ever gets to see—the way she can twist a memory to suit her longing–will touch many readers. Her relationship with Beth—the youngest and least known of her siblings, is also stunning. It was almost unfair that The Daughter Star had an ending to match of the rest of it: self contained enough for satisfaction, but still leading strongly to the other stories Marta has to tell.

Enough of this. Go read.

Link Round Up: May 9 – 15

May 15, 2013 in Lesbrary Links | Tags: , , , , | by | Leave a comment

SisterMischief   StartingFromHere   Nevada

Autostraddle posted More Than Words: Dyke Pt. 2 — Dyke Dynasty.

Bold Strokes Books posted Building Worlds: A Conversation Between Jane Fletcher and Nora Olsen.

Gay YA posted If Only There Were a Gay [or Lesbian] Version of…

Housequeer posted Queer Young Adult Fiction To Curl Up With.

The L Fest (The Lesbian Music Arts & Comedy Festival) is happening ​July 19-22nd 2013 in Staffordshire, England.

Queer Books Please posted Episode 17 – Time Travel & Nuns & Willa Cather.

OtherSide   MandOForever   WingedDiemer

Sistahs On the Shelf posted Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books Dealing With Tough Subjects.

Women and Words posted Cool Stuff Coming Up.

Sarah Diemer posted 125,000 WORDS: Project Unicorn’s Six-Month Anniversary and 125K of Lesbian YA Fiction FOR FREE (Plus Cover Reveal!) and The Mermaid Rib, a Free YA Short Story — Part of Project Unicorn (A Lesbian YA Extravaganza).

Malinda Lo posted Why there’s no HUNTRESS sequel.

Catherine Lundoff posted Bisexual Book Awards info (June 2).

huntress_arc_cover_web   TheSummerWeGotFree   HarleyLoco

Harley Loco: A Memoir of Hard Living, Hair, and Post-Punk, from the Middle East to the Lower East Side by Rayya Elias was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

The Very Thought of You by S Anne Gardner was reviewed at Lesfic Insomniac.

The Summer We Got Free by Mia McKenzie was reviewed at Autostraddle and Lambda Literary.

I am Your Sister: Season 2 by Ericka K. F. Simpson was reviewed at Sistahs On the Shelf.

Relative Stranger by Barbara Treat Williams was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

For even more links, check out the Lesbrary’s twitter page! We’re also on Facebook and tumblr. 

This post has the covers linked to their Amazon pages. If you click through and buy something, I might get a small referral fee.

Tag reviews Reclaiming the L-Word: Sappho’s Daughters Out in Africa edited by Alleyn Diesel

May 14, 2013 in Lesbrary Reviews | Tags: , | by | Leave a comment

ReclaimingtheLWord

Reviewing this book was a decision I kind of hem-hawed about with, mostly because it’s about lesbian-identified women in/from the African continent, and as someone who’s never been to the African continent or anywhere close, I felt like yes, I should probably leave this one alone since these are experiences I could never really claim, and wouldn’t try to. But having read it I feel the real need to review it, to get out there that this is a really amazing, touching book and I think it can speak to anyone on any level.

It’s a non-fiction set of autobiographical stories, which is the first thing that attracted me to it. To see women, lesbian women, telling their own stories and having them published is still a rarity, and as a lesbian I always want to know more about what other lesbians all over the globe are going through. There’s this common theme in all our stories, and at the same time I’m upset to see anyone else go through the same pain and heartache, it’s comforting to not be alone. One thing to keep in mind is how very different every experience is, and I think this volume shows that well. There are women who identify as lesbian and women who do not, there are transgendered women, there are women who received support from their families and women who did not. Some women are from countries where discrimination against them and their partners is illegal but unenforced, some are from countries where discrimination is not only legal but societally encouraged as well; some of them were pulled out of the closet and some of them came out themselves. All of them hit home with me, and by the end of each woman’s story I felt like they’d been speaking directly to me personally.

These stories are real and heartfelt in a way that really brings them home, exactly the way I was hoping when I picked this book up (or opened its PDF, if you want to get technical). It isn’t something that you have to relate to in order to understand where these women are coming from, it’s very approachable and for that reason I think it’s a fantastic volume, a read that I would recommend to anyone.

My absolute favorite part of this book is the poetry by Mavourneen Finlayson throughout the whole text, in between most of the pieces. It brings together whatever pain or hope each piece put forward or makes you feel, kind of smoothing everything over and cleansing the palate for the next part. Her poems are all amazing and unique, and often I find in poetry that anything queer is a surprise, but in each of hers it’s latent throughout the whole poem, no matter its length. Her poetry brings the whole theme together, I think, in that the theme is exactly what it’s stated to be: reclaiming the L-word, by, for and about Sappho’s daughters Out in Africa.

Casey reviews Wildthorn by Jane Eagland

May 13, 2013 in Lesbrary Reviews | Tags: , , , , , | by | 2 comments

Wildthorn

A nineteenth-century insane asylum seems hardly an appropriate place for a teenage lesbian romance.  Jane Eagland, though, manages to make this both believable and exciting in her young adult novel, Wildthorn.  This historical tale is not just a romance, though that was my favourite part; in fact, a larger portion of the book is dedicated to interrogating some of the atrocious Victorian social attitudes to mental illness and gender non-conformity.  The “isn’t-it-horrible-what-they-did-to-women-back-in-the-day” is a bit heavy-handed and reductive at times, though; what bothers me mostly about this is the implication that nowadays women are ‘free’ from sexism.  Actually, what I found remarkable —and at the same time depressing, of course—is how certain sexist belief systems, like victim-blaming, are at work in this fictional Victorian universe and are still alive and well today, albeit in different forms.

So the novel deals with some pretty serious issues, and it’s not as light as you might imagine; or, at least as I imagined when I picked it up wanting a cute, melodramatic romantic thriller.  Louisa Cosgrove is from a middle-class English family and she’s, of course, exhibiting all the typical signs of baby dykedom: she wants to follow in her father’s footsteps and be a doctor; she has no interest in feminine pursuits like needlepoint and pointless social calls; she has very strong feelings for her older cousin Grace.  While her life is already in shambles following the death of her father, Louisa ends up being sent to Wildthorn asylum, and you’re left in suspense for most of the book as to how or why this happened.  Was it her jealous, underachieving brother who orchestrated this?  Has she been mistaken for someone else?

The novel is a bit of a slog in the middle section, where Louisa is trapped in the asylum; this is how Louisa feels, of course, so on the one hand Eagland is mirroring Louisa’s experience.  On the other, it gets a bit tiring, and depressing.  Once the romance picks up, though, the book gets pretty exciting; plus there’s the whole issue of how she is going to escape!

If you love Sarah Waters and have already plowed through all her books, I would recommend picking up Wildthorn.  It’s an obvious connection to make, but I really think Eagland nails the same kind of Victorian melodrama that Waters does, in the spirit of some of my favourite nineteenth century British writers.  I love how a lot of the chapters end with a dramatic cliff-hanger, such as “It’s all been in vain, I’m going to die…”. The dot, dot, dot, of course, is key.  Unlike Waters, though, because Wildthorn is a book for teens, you don’t get the fun racy sex scenes.  But it is a little more explicit than the original Brontës, so there’s that, and it might tide you over until Sarah Waters’s next book is out.

Also, if you want feminist historical young adult fiction set in Victorian England, I highly recommend Libba Bray’s Gemma Doyle series, which has some paranormal/fantasy elements as well as an awesome lesbian character!

Hannah intereviews Cari Hunter

May 12, 2013 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , | by | Leave a comment

carihunter.jpg

Cari Hunter, author of Snowbound, has kindly agreed to answer some questions for this blog.

Cari Hunter, can you introduce yourself in a few words/lines?

I live near Manchester in north-west England with my partner and two cats. I’ve been a paramedic for eleven years and, more recently, an author with Bold Strokes Books. I like hiking, baking, running, writing, catching up on sleep, and frogs – though not necessarily in that order and certainly not at the same time.

As a child and teenager what were the books that made an impression on you?

Growing up, I read voraciously. Sending me to my room as a punishment never worked, as that was where all my books were. Ian Serraillier’s The Silver Sword shaped a lot of my summer holiday playtime, then later I developed a big crush on Nancy Drew. And if anyone knows the twist at the end of The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tyler you’ll understand why that was another one of my favourites.

Who are your favorite authors today and do you think their writings influence your own?

I’m a fan of Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel series, the first three of which are my regular comfort rereads. More recently, I’ve raced my way through all of Karin Slaughter’s novels. Occasionally her plots are a little shaky, but her character development and story arcs just keep you coming back. She’s also very funny, which is unexpected given the gruesome nature of her themes. Last year, Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein stopped me in my tracks and then broke my heart. It’s a long time since a book has done that to me and I’ll recommend it to anyone and everyone till I’m blue in the face. I’m not sure about these authors influencing me, but I’d love to be half as good as them.

Who are your favorite lesbian authors?

I’ve only recently got back into reading ‘LesFic’ – the local lesbian book shop closed its doors a few years ago and I fell out of the habit of keeping up with new releases. Sarah Dreher was my first LesFic experience and remains one of my favourite authors. I love her snappy dialogue, her sense of humour and her supporting characters. There’s a real nostalgia to picking up her books these days, which also adds to their charm.

How many books have you written so far? Have you written anything else?

I’ve had two novels published with BSB – Snowbound and Desolation Point – and my third, Tumbledown, is due out in 2014. I’m currently working on a new story; it’s not contracted at the moment, but I live in hope.

I wrote a whole series of fan fiction for the Terminator TV show (Sarah Connor and I have a long-abiding love affair) plus some shorter pieces for Rizzoli & Isles, which is a crappy show but very fun to fic. I haven’t written any fanfic for a while, but it makes for a nice change of pace so I’ll almost certainly get back to it at some point.

What inspired you to write your first novel?

It’s more “who” than “what”: my partner. She wanted a story for Christmas, so I set about writing Snowbound for her. I never imagined it would turn out to be a novel; it was certainly never conceived as such, which explains its rather unconventional structure. Unfortunately for my partner, once I got the writing bug I went off on a tangent and ended up writing a couple of novels’ worth of Sarah Connor fic while she waited for her Christmas present. I did buy her something in the meantime though – I’m not a total cheapskate.

Would you say that you write lesbian fiction or novels where lesbians are the main characters?

I would say I write lesbian fiction. There are tropes and conventions in the genre that I think Snowbound and Desolation Point make use of. Even though Snowbound wasn’t written for publication, I knew of BSB and LesFic in general and I’d read a lot of online fic, so their influence was there in the background.

Did you know right from the start that you wanted to write this kind of novel?

With Snowbound, I knew what kind of story I wanted to write, but I genuinely wrote it for an audience of one, hence setting it close to home (no research necessary!) and focussing on a medical scenario (not much research necessary). It was only after BSB contracted it that I thought, “Bugger, better go and check some of this stuff out.”

Does it make a difference to be a British and/or a European author?

It definitely makes a difference. Snowbound wears its Englishness on its sleeve. It’s set just down the road from me and it’s chockfull of northern colloquialisms, cups of tea and local foodstuffs. Its police are armed with nothing but batons and a sense of humour, and the plot revolves around that good old-fashioned British obsession: a spell of terrible weather. When I sent it to an American publisher, I was sure it would be rejected for being too damn English, but they wanted it and they kept it exactly as it was, and I love them very much for that.

Desolation Point is a different kettle of fish in that it takes place in the USA, but I knew I wanted to play with the UK/US cultural divide and I had already chosen a mixed pairing for my central characters. While Alex is from Boston, Sarah’s from up here near Manchester, so I could still write a story where someone got to say “bloody hell-fire” and “bollocks”, which suits me just fine.

How did you conceive the plot for Desolation Point?

To be honest, I pinched its main premise from one of my own fics. In my fic, someone runs the lead characters off the road and then spends the night hunting them down. At its most basic level, Desolation Point grew out of that. I had the initial parallel scenes – Alex’s assault and Sarah’s car crash – buzzing around in my head when I was finishing the edits on Snowbound, so I had a good idea of what was going to shape the characters. At first I thought about having a flood trap Sarah and Alex in the park, but I couldn’t make that work, so I sent Sarah up a mountain instead, set the storm against her and then had her stumbling across the main villain, which established the chase element. I had the main beats of the plot sketched out from the beginning, but I’m useless at sticking to a plan, so things remained very fluid throughout.

Did you draw your inspiration for the main characters in Desolation Point from real life? Or did you totally invent them?

I invented them from scratch, but there are odds and sods in the dialogue or descriptions that have come from walks my partner and I have done. We play the “I love my love with an A…” game when we’re knackered and trying to get back home. Sarah talks a lot like me and I too have to drink my tea while it’s hot enough to burn my throat, but otherwise she’s her own character.

In both Snowbound and Desolation Point the setting seems to be an integral part of the story. Could they have been set in another environment? Why did you choose the US as the setting for your second novel?

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I regularly walk in the Peak District, which meant I could describe it with confidence in Snowbound. Also, I doubt there are many LesFics set there, so the story has the advantage of novelty in its location as well as in its vernacular dialogue and general Englishness. It was staunchly northern English as well – I’m a proud northerner – and setting it elsewhere would necessarily have diminished that, which would have been a shame.

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I have no personal attachment to the North Cascades but, having spent a year working on Desolation Point, I couldn’t envision that being relocated either. The title would have to be changed, for a start, and I’m rubbish with titles. I’ve never been to that particular part of the States, but I did so much research trying to get everything right that I think I could find my way up Desolation Peak blindfolded!

I agonised about Desolation Point’s location before starting it. I didn’t want people to assume I’d chosen America just to broaden my audience (BSB’s readership is primarily American); in fact, I wondered whether I was shooting myself in the foot by not sticking to the English setting from which a lot of Snowbound’s appeal stemmed. Ultimately, though, I needed a couple of things to make the plot in Desolation Point work: one of my lead characters had to be proficient with a gun, and the location had to be expansive enough to get my central pair well and truly lost. I considered the Scottish Highlands and the Peak and Lake Districts over here but they just weren’t remote enough, so I decided to move things across the pond. That also solved the gun problem – as an American ex-police officer, Alex would know her way around a firearm.

Some readers might be a bit put off by the violence displayed in both books. Why did you think it was necessary to include details and descriptions?

Both stories have involved some genuinely nasty characters and I really do believe that if you’re going to have violence in your plot then it should hurt and it should have consequences. I suspect a lot of that stems from my day job, where I see the effects of brutality and trauma on an all-too regular basis. I’ve always tried to write realistically; the women in my novels are not super-humans, just normal people who get caught up in horrific circumstances, and they do things to survive that they’d never imagined themselves doing. If they get hurt, it takes them a while to get up again; and – because I don’t want to write cartoonish, toothless villains either – they do tend to get hurt. I never want to make the violence gratuitous, but nor do I want to shy away from the details or the after-effects. I hate books where a character gets assaulted in one scene and shows no sign of it in the next; anyone who writes like that has never sat opposite an assault victim and listened to them cry or tried to stop them bleeding.

I hope there’s enough humour and lighter moments scattered through the books to counteract their more brutal aspects, though I appreciate that the violence may be too strong for some people’s taste.

Between Snowbound and Desolation Point do you have a favourite character? Which one and why?

Oh, that’s a difficult one! I do have a bit of a soft spot for Sarah. She comes into her own in the latter stages of Desolation Point and she was a real darling to write. Having said that, most of the fun came from having her bounce off Alex, so they sort of come in a pair. Can I have them both? I’m having them both.

How has Desolation Point been welcomed so far?

So far, so good. I’ve had a lot of positive feedback and a fair few people telling me they’re looking forward to the sequel, which is a relief! It’s still early days and I know it’s inevitable that there are folks who won’t like it, possibly for some of the reasons I’ve already mentioned, but the majority of people I’ve heard from seem to have enjoyed the heck out of it.

Are you currently working on a new book? Would you mind telling us a little about it?

I finished Tumbledown, the follow-up to Desolation Point, in the year between Snowbound and Desolation Point’s publication dates. It’s my first shot at an all-out twisty thriller and is earmarked for release in 2014. Until the edits for that come back, I’m working on a new story set in England (in the Peak District, again) which is a sort of thriller-mystery in which the two main characters are long-time friends and occasional lovers. I thought it’d be interesting to explore an established friendship rather than the stereotypical two strangers falling rapidly in love. At the moment, its working title (courtesy of my partner) is Aye Up: It’s a New Story! and I have no idea whether it’ll ever reach publication. I’ve got about another 60,000 words before I start worrying about that!

Thank you Cari for your availability and your time!

NB: Both novels have e-book Kindle editions

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Carol reviews Finding Bluefield by Elan Barnehama

May 11, 2013 in Lesbrary Reviews | Tags: , | by | Leave a comment

FindingBluefield

Finding Bluefield by Elan Barnehama

Publisher: Bold Strokes Books

Genre: Fiction

Overview from Amazon:

“When Barbara Phillips arrives in Bluefield, Virginia, to begin her medical residency, she thinks she is headed for an uneventful few years filled with work in an obscure little town where no one knows her—which is exactly what she wants.

Everything changes when she enters Nicky’s diner and begins a journey that will last a lifetime as she falls in love against her better judgment and best-laid plans. The free-spirited Nicky later attends the 1963 March on Washington and impulsively and anonymously sleeps with a man in hopes of getting pregnant and starting a family with Barbara. When Nicky gives birth to Paul, her sister steps in to adopt Paul for his own “protection.”

Nicky, Barbara, and Paul escape Bluefield and make a life in upstate New York, only returning to Bluefield years later upon hearing of the death of Nicky’s sister. As their journey comes full circle, Barbara, Paul, and Nicky find their return to Bluefield is the catalyst for facing family secrets and forging family ties.”

Review: 3 out of 5 stars

This story takes place between 1960 and 1983 and follows the lives of Nicky and Barbara.  The story is interesting especially as you place it into historical context and realize how much more difficult it was to be in a same sex relationship in the 60’s and 70’s and the extent that they had to hide their relationship.  Having said that there were definitely times where I couldn’t fathom some of the decisions that Nicky would make just assuming that everything would be wonderful.  She’s not just wearing rose colored glasses she has an entire rose colored bubble around her.  I was disappointed in the lack of ramifications from several of these decisions.  Especially the one where Nicky sleeps with a stranger because she’s always wanted a child.  I just couldn’t relate to Barbara’s non-response to (a) being cheated on and (b) Nicky making such a life altering decision for both of them… without any input from Barbara.

Half way through the story, I realized that although I couldn’t relate to Nicky’s decision making process the story itself was interesting in that it portrays two women living their lives like any other couple and that not all relationships look the same.

Jordan reviews Kissing the Witch by Emma Donoghue

May 10, 2013 in Lesbrary Links | Tags: , , | by | 1 comment

Kissing the Witch

Far too many people often forget the power of a story. Stories change worlds, or particularly they shape worlds, and people. If you don’t believe me, just look at how much Disney has managed to shape the mentality around romance and love for many people of the current generation. And luckily it isn’t only Disney that understands this concept. Emma Donoghue, and her collection of thirteen fairy tales Kissing the Witch, understands the power of a story, such as the one that is weaved through these tales.

It all starts with the Tale of a Shoe and Cinderella and ends with the Tale of a Kiss and a Witch, but these aren’t just thirteen separate fairy tales with a touch of real and positive female relationships. Each one of these tales, from the shoe to the kiss, is threaded together by the women in the stories. In a way this novel actually reminds me of a method that the L Word had used for its third season, interlocking various women through the past and present by bringing up a story at the beginning of each episode and moving from one woman (or guy) to the next. But Kissing the Witch does it with stories instead of events and does it in a way that proves there is always another chapter beyond the happily ever after.

We start this story with a young girl being whisked to a ball after she asked to go. And although she dances with the prince and expects to go with him, things change and instead she finds herself tossing her shoes aside and finding the woman who had brought her to the ball. It doesn’t end there, though: as they are going off together, we are led right into another story and this one is about the godmother before she was off bringing girls to balls. And each story continues one after another, based on one of the characters in the previous one. It eventually got to the point, half way through that I was turning it into a game trying to figure out who would be the next person to tell their story and what tale it might be, especially since it isn’t always clear which tale is a retelling of what!

Like most fairy tale retellings, though, you’d be able to recognize many of these stories if you knew another version of the tale. You’ll find Beauty and Beast, Donkeyskin, Rapunzel, Snow White, and even the Little Mermaid. Now you might also be surprised to find that not all of the stories in this book are lesbian retellings, but they do all have a common mentality.

They are simply stories focused on the power of relationships between women: all relationships. One is the friendship shown between two women (The Tale of the Skin), another focuses on a step mother and her step daughter (The Tale of the Apple), or even a keeper who becomes someone else for the girl she keeps (The Tale of the Hair). Regardless each one of these stories, sensual or supportive, shows the positive sides of relationships that women can share, and if this doesn’t seem like such an interesting and revolutionary idea, then you haven’t read enough fairy tales.

Often times the tales of old try to pit women against women, with the classic step mother and step sisters always being terrible to the girl in cinders, or the witch and queen that curses the young and fair girl that happens to be more beautiful. It is a common occurrence and one of the more unfortunate themes rampant in fairy tales. Instead, Emma Donoghue put the power back in women’s hands with these stories. Each one was not only interesting in the method of not focusing on the prince or husband but in some cases exciting to find out what happens next even though they were already known tales.

It’s usually hard for me to pick favorites with fairy tales, because I find many of them amusing, but in this case I think the ‘Tale of the Hair’ won out finally, due to some blind elements and an interesting narration that focused more on sounds that really got me thinking, and such a well done spin involving the prince in the story.

However, that is just from the retellings, my absolute favorite from this set was actually the last one, told by a witch narrator we know by no other name, ‘The Tale of the Kiss’. As far as I can tell, this was not a fairy tale retelling, but I could be wrong and if I am, I would love to see the original story it was based on. Regardless, this one had a bit more power behind it, possibly because it was original from the author, but it had an interesting focus on the power that people give to each other and to themselves, and most of all it had an open ending. What do I mean?

Well, the thirteen stories don’t just end with The Tale of the Kiss. Much in the same way all the previous stories before it led to a new tale being discussed by one of the characters, this one ends with a direct slant toward the reader continuing the story, essentially indirectly asking the reader what they will do with the knowledge of the stories they just read. I found it a brilliant ending for a collection of interlinked pieces and it really gives me an idea about creating a challenge to have everyone continue the ‘Kissing the Witch’ by creating the next story and the next, and the next.

Anyway, the interconnectivity of this novel was really what set this one majorly apart from other ones I’ve read and gave each tale a little more power. Of course, not all of the pieces were perfect, I actually didn’t particularly care for ‘The Tale of the Bird’ and I had trouble keeping up with ‘The Tale of the Cottage’ because of the narrator’s voice through it, but overall I still enjoyed those stories, they just fell lower on my memorability of them than the others.

Other than that, there really isn’t much of anything to say bad about these fairy tales. The writing style was wonderful and makes me glad I wrote my fairy tale rewritings in first person narrative too and the stories most of all had something to say. You could almost say there was a hidden lesson in each of them, with the last one having a not-so-hidden lesson. Regardless, this is one novel I’d recommend to really anyone, with a particular focus on showing people how it is very possible to portray women with meaningful and positive relationships (and not drama filled ones), lesbian or not, and still have a story to tell.

Karelia Stetz-Waters reviews Looking Through Windows by Caren Werlinger

May 9, 2013 in Lesbrary Reviews | Tags: , , , | by | Leave a comment

LookingThroughWindows

Reading romance novels is bad for you. I read that in graduate school. Actually, I read a whole book to that effect. (Don’t worry. I love the genre. This isn’t a polemic.) To be fair, the study I read looked at heterosexual women. Nonetheless, one can draw some comparisons.

The classic romance novel pairs two flawlessly beautiful people in an exotic setting where, despite the fact that they are ostensibly wrong for each other, they have sex so fantastic it changes the PH of their blood. They get up in each other’s business starting on page twenty, then enjoy 300 pages of erotic courtship in which no one ever has to clean the sink trap, go to the doctor, or figure out what the cat has disemboweled on the back porch.   No wonder readers’ lives pale by comparison.

Until now.

Looking Through Windows by Caren Werlinger tells the story of Emily, a young teaching assistant grieving the death of her girlfriend, and Ann, a Peace Corp volunteer, finally back in the United States and wondering why heterosexual relationships leave her unfulfilled. The story charts their blossoming friendship and love and the challenges placed in the way of their relationship.

I knew Looking Through Windows was not going to be a standard romance when Ann and Emily admit their mutual attraction and then decide not to act on it because neither of them is emotionally ready.

What? No! I thought. They are supposed to melt into a pool of viscous lust, not make an emotionally intelligent choice that honors their friendship and supports the possibility of a deeper, healthier relationship in the future.

Therein lies the strength of Werlinger’s book.  This isn’t escapist fiction. This is a realistic portrayal of – surprise! – mature love. This is not to say the book is without drama. Actually, it has a lot more than I expected given the leisurely pace of the first half of the story.

[spoiler, highlight to read] When Emily loses Ann (temporarily) and then loses her leg to cancer, my heart wrenched. When Ann sees Emily in the hospital – emaciated from chemo, bald, amputated, and vomiting in a basin – there is no way to mistake this for a Harlequin Romance. That’s a good thing. [end spoiler]

Unlike the classic romance that – studies show – leaves the reader wondering why don’t I live in Barbados and have abs like sculpted granite? Looking Through Windows will make the reader appreciate the things that truly make for good relationships. I  finished the book and hugged my wife, thankful for our beautiful life that does not happen in Barbados and does involve cleaning the sink trap and identifying the bottom half of whatever it was the cat killed on the porch. Two thumbs up!

Now, I wouldn’t be true to my profession, if I did not offer a little constructive criticism. Perhaps because Werlinger’s book was a realistic portrait of life, not a fantasy, some parts move slowly. Unlike the average romance, the heroines in Looking Through Windows have jobs, exams, friends, families, landlords, chores, and conversations with people who are only tangentially related to the romantic storyline. On the flip side, when tragedy strikes, it strikes quickly and unexpectedly (rather like it does in real life), giving the second half of the book a much different feel than the first.

Incidentally, one of the really nice features of this book is the cast of sympathetic supporting characters. There are bad guys, but there are also a lot of kind people who try their best. It makes Looking Through Windows a very hopeful story, even as it deals with some difficult themes.

If you are looking for the quintessential romance novel, complete with butch-femme sports-bodice ripping, this is not it. If you are looking for a good drama that makes you hold your own loved ones a little closer, I recommend Looking Through Windows.  Buy it for that friend who is always messing up her love life. There is a lot to learn here.

I am also pleased to report that Caren Werlinger’s long anticipated novel In This Small Spot is soon to be released by Corgyn Publishing.  I look forward to following Werlinger’s career as she definitely has a lot to offer the lesbian community.

By Karelia Stetz-Waters
www.kareliastetzwaters.com

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