Month: April 2013

Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon 2013!

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As promised, here are my readathon updated condensed into one post! (With non-lesbian books redacted.) It was a lot of fun, and I definitely want to do it again next time! Let me know if you participated or want to next time!

Hour 1:

Currently reading: The Body Geographic by Barrie Jean Borich

And how is it? It’s good! It’s the book I already had on the go. It’s a little bit too smart for reading at 5 am, but I’m doing okay, just having to re-read some passages in my sleepiness.

Pages read this hour: 54

Pages read so far: 54

Books completed: None

Food eaten this hour: Some popcorn… not the healthiest breakfast, but oh well.

Interruptions: None so far! Everyone’s asleep.

Anything else? As I said, readathon started at 5 am for me, so it was a little difficult getting out of bed. I’ve been listening to the birds wake up over the hour. I had to kick my roommate off the couch and back to her bed so I could read without waking up my partner! I’m excited to keep reading, but I’m also going to cheer more this readathon, and hopefully do more of the challenges. So here’s the introductory questionnaire for the first hour!

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?

British Columbia, Canada!

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?

I actually didn’t make much of a stack this time, so I’ll be choosing off the shelf as I go, mostly, but one of the ones I plan to read that I am excited for is Lunatic Fringe.

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?

Kettle corn, probably! And oreos.

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!

I’ll be reading mostly, but probably not entirely lesbian books this readathon! Because, well, the blog title should speak for itself.

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?

I did participate last year, and this time I’m a cheerleader! I’m on Team Owl, the tumblr team!

That’s it! See you next hour!

Continue Reading →

Kristi reviews Mountain Rescue: The Ascent by Sky Croft

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Kelly Saber is an expert climber and part of the Mountain Rescue team for her Scottish Highlands home, and the village she lives in is a place where everyone knows everyone, along with their business. When she meets doctor Sydney Greenwood after a rescue, they both quickly realize that the mountains are not the most exciting or precarious climb they will face. Sydney, an expert climber herself, quickly becomes friends with Saber and the rest of her team, a group as tight as many families. As attraction heightens between the two, they eventually move in and let their relationship grow. Yet Saber has a tough past, and even once she reveals the pain behind her, will she be able to let go of her own conclusions about life to believe that she and Sydney can weather any storm?

I found myself going back and forth with this book. I think that the main characters of Saber and Sydney were easy to invest in. I wanted to see them succeed, I felt the pain as Saber discussed her past with her parents, and the mountain climbing scenes were exhilarating and detailed. I did have minor issues with setting, but I chalk that up to my own ignorance about the Scottish highlands of present day (I read too many romance novels!), as it seemed more of an Americanized setting than one in Britain. Neither the dialogue or the village settings transported me overseas.

The other, larger, issue I had was with the pacing. I was glad to see a growing relationship between the two women, and while after several months they moved in together, that still didn’t throw me out of the story. It did move slow, however, with various scenes of dialogue that did not really center around Saber and Sydney, but circled around the men in their group: Doug, Jeff, Rich, Stuart and Coop. I found that some of the scenes, especially dealing with Rich and his obvious immaturity, not only dealing with the women but with life in general. He wavered between being earnest and obnoxious through much of the book. I enjoy supporting characters, but it drew out the pacing of the storyline enough that I wanted to skip pages to where “it got good”.

All in all, I think this book has many positive notes and excellent action scenes for the climbing rescues. If readers want a love story that builds slowly, that has some obvious tropes, but gives an uplifting story about rebounding from heartbreaks of many kinds, then Mountain Rescue: The Ascent, is a good choice.

 

Link Round Up: April 10-24

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Whoops, sorry for missing last week! Here are the les/bi/etc lit news and reviews!

LickingtheSpoon   TheWorldWeFound   HelloGroin

Autostraddle posted 23 Vintage Young Adult Novel Covers With Major Lesbian Subtext and Liberty Lit #18: Lesbian Literary Detective Work Is Overrated.

The Bold Strokes Book Festival posted a list of authors attending this year.

Butch In Progress posted Lesbians and Popular Culture; or, The Most Fun I Had While Reading an Academic Article in ages, maybe ever… because: unashamed breasts.

Casey the Canadian Lesbrarian posted Why I Don’t Want to Be a Queer Book Detective Anymore (Although I Do Still Want to Be Harriet the Spy) and Responses to Queer Book Detective Frustrations; Also, Apparently Queers Don’t Buy Enough Queer Books and Some Lesbians Hate Lesbian Books.

FY Lesbian Literature posted 

Gay YA posted Author Guest Blog: Diversity in YA.

The Golden Crown Literary Society posted 2013 Finalists for Goldie Awards.

ChaChing   SurvivalSkills   LeaveofAbsence

Lambda Literary posted 

Little Sister’s Bookstore posted 30 Years In Business.

The Lesbian Music Arts & Comedy Festival will be taking place July 19-22nd.

Queer Books Please posted 

Shelly’s LGBT Book Review Blog posted Gay and Lesbian Kindle Fiction Top 10 – April 15th, 2013.

Sistahs On the Shelf posted Soon On the Shelf.

Woman About Book Club in NYC.

howpoetrysaved   Valencia   TheOtherTypist

“A New Way for Gay Characters in Y.A.” was posted at The Atlantic Wire.

“Top 5: Lesbian fiction” was posted at The List.

“Queer Covers: Lesbian Survival Literature exhibits often-ignored information” was posted at The Guilfordian.

Amber Dawn was interviewed at Autostraddle.

Sarah Diemer posted

Nicola Griffith posted Hild ARCs!

Q. Kelly posted an excerpt from “Victoria’s Very Awkward Love Story”.

Malinda Lo posted 

Sassafras Lowrey was named a winner of the Lambda Literary Berzon Emerging Writer Award.

Cristy C. Road was interviewed at The Wip.

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Being Gay Is Okay Coloring Book—With Trading Cards was reviewed at Out.

One Fine Day by Erica Abbott was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

Dirty Money by Ashley Bartlett was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel was discussed at things mean a lot.

The Rainey Season by RE Bradshaw was reviewed at Terry’s Lesfic Reviews.

The Muse by Suzie Carr was reviewed at Lesfic Insomniac.

How Poetry Saved My Life by Amber Dawn was reviewed at The Vancouver Sun.

Tell Me by Deanna DiLorenzo was reviewed at Lesfic Insomniac (plus author interview!).

Desolation Point by Cari Hunter was reviewed a Terry’s Lesfic Reviews.

12   SwansandKlons   SecondChances

Snapshots of a Past by Julia Jay was reviewed at Lesfic Insomniac (plus author interview!).

Rebellion in Ulster by Angela Koenig was reviewed at Piercing Fiction.

Miss – Match by Erica Lawson and AC Henley was reviewed at Terry’s Lesfic Reviews.

Second Chances by Eliza Lentzski was reviewed at Lesfic Insomniac (plus author interview!).

I Await the Devil’s Coming by Mary MacLane was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

Swans and Klons by Nora Olsen was reviewed at True Colorz.

Crime Against Nature by Minnie Bruce Pratt was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

Right Out of Nowhere by Laurie Salzler was reviewed a Terry’s Lesfic Reviews.

The Princess Affair by Nell Stark was reviewed a Lambda Literary.

The Albino Album by Chavisa Woods 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.

Danika reviews The Inscrutable Mr. Elizabeth by Marlene Leach

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I have got to say, this was a deeply weird book. It’s not a romance, and it’s not a mystery. It’s sort of a paranormal thriller, I suppose. The plot is that “Mr. Elizabeth” is reluctantly part of a secret government organization, where her psychic powers are used to track down killers/threats to the “Organization”. Elizabeth can’t read people’s thoughts, exactly, but she can lock onto a person without actually meeting them and experience their emotions and other general sensations. Eventually, she is able to use this information to find people. Elizabeth does not enjoy this job, but the Organization is too powerful to disobey. When she is told by the Organization to find L., a serial killer who targets rapists and child molesters, she finds a bond with L. that no one was expecting.

I’m not sure how to even talk about this book without giving things away. It’s only 155 pages, so it goes by pretty quickly, but a lot of things happen. First of all, don’t expect very likeable characters. Elizabeth and L. are the main characters, and L. takes pleasure in killing people, even if they are bad people, and Elizabeth sympathizes with her to an uncomfortable extent. In fact, this is a lesbian book, and these are the two main female characters, so I don’t think I’m spoiling much to say there’s sort of something between them. And that’s a little weird. Also, definite trigger warnings for rape and violence. I also wasn’t expecting the paranormal aspect to this book. While Elizabeth’s powers don’t seem too unbelievable in the beginning, they do get more extreme over the course of the book.

Throughout The Inscrutable Mr. Elizabeth, I was not sure how I felt about it. The writing can be a little clunky at times, and it’s just such a strange plot, I thought. I really wanted to see how things were going to be wrapped up, and wow. Let me say this: I did not see that coming. The ending is a little ridiculous, maybe, and possibly over-the-top, but that’s what made it enjoyable. If you’re looking for a really different, kind of disturbing read, I think this one is worth a read.

Katie Raynes reviews The Last Uniform by Mera Hakamada

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The Last Uniform is a three-volume manga series by Mera Hakamada, originally published in 2005. It’s also my favorite series in the yuri genre – it has the honor of being the first lesbian manga I ever read that wasn’t exploitative or aimed unambiguously at the male gaze. This series is intended for an audience of 18-30 year old men (based on the magazine it was first serialized in), but it doesn’t contain the purposeful titillation or lesbians-merely-for-the-sake-of-hot-girls-getting-it-on that’s turned me away from a lot of yuri manga. I do have one caveat, though: the first two volumes were released in English by Seven Seas Entertainment, but apparently they didn’t sell well enough to warrant translating the third. I scoured the internet to find it in the original Japanese, and I finally was able to buy a used copy from a Japanese online bookstore. I’ve been working on translating it so I can find out what happens, but I’m only an intermediate Japanese speaker, so there’ll be no worries about spoilers in this review!

The Last Uniform (Saigo no Seifuku in Japanese) takes place at Camellia Hill High School and revolves around the lives of several girls who live in the dormitory there. The Japanese version of the manga was originally subtitled (in English) “Our Last Season,” which gives context to the translated title: this is the chronicle of the girls’ last years together at school. The four main characters – Ai, Fuuko, Tsumugi, and Beniko – share rooms, Ai with Fuuko and Tsumugi with Beniko. They’re also the series’ main couples, although their relationships develop at different rates. Ai is ostensibly the protagonist. She’s dutiful and somewhat serious, taking on the role of the cautious rule-enforcer in her relationship with Fuuko, who is reckless, goofy, and usually oblivious to other people’s feelings. When they’re assigned a new roommate, Ai becomes extremely jealous of any attention (even innocent) that Fuuko pays to the new girl. Because of this development, Ai begins to understand her true feelings for her friend.

Tsumugi and Beniko are the other central pairing, and they’re my favorite – Tsumugi is a prickly tomboy who shows she cares about her friends in roundabout ways, and Beniko is self-assured, elegant, and adored by scads of younger classmates. I consider Tsumugi’s feelings to be the most well-developed and relatable of all the characters. She knows that she’s in love with Beniko but she doesn’t know what to do about it, and she sometimes finds herself acting one way even when she knows she should be doing the opposite. On the surface, Beniko seems like the only one who can discuss her feelings without embarrassment, but it becomes clear over the early chapters that the things she says don’t actually reveal anything about her at all.

Other students who make up the supporting cast include Anzu, Ai and Fuuko’s new roommate; Kimiko, another student in the dorm; Asagi, a wealthy student who is obsessed with Beniko; and Tamami, Asagi’s friend and an amateur author of lesbian fiction. They make the love triangles into more complex polyhedrons, but the girls don’t bounce around between relationships. There’s a single intrusion of a boy who’s interested in Fuuko, but other than that, there’s really no question of who likes whom – it’s only a question of whether they’ll manage to get together.

The art is simple and unadorned, and it definitely improves over the course of the series. There are some distracting art errors early on – backwards hands and things like that – but I found it charming and expressive for the most part. The romances are handled very lightly, with hugs and kisses being as far as anything goes. There’s only a minimum of the standard yuri “But isn’t it weird for two girls to love each other?” ambivalence. I love it because of this, and because the story really is about the characters and their relationships rather than the expectation that “forbidden love” will excite the reader. That’s something I truly appreciate in manga involving lesbians, and it’s pretty rare.

Jill reviews Empress of the World by Sara Ryan

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There’s something special about a good teenaged summer story, which is why human beings keep making movies and writing books about them. And Sara Ryan’s Empress of the World is our very own classic summer teen story, with the added bonus of queer sexual awakening. Published in 2001, it came out long before the apparent current tidal storm of gay YA (http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2013/03/new-way-gay-characters-y/63563/) that the world is suddenly paying attention to. I’ve been wanting to read it forever, and what a sweet and satisfying story to wait for.

Nicola Lancaster is our main girl, and we meet her as she’s just arrived at the Siegel Institute Summer Program for Gifted Youth–essentially, summer camp for nerds. So not only is it a summer story, it’s a summer CAMP story, which are even better (although they don’t do many camp-y things and mainly just take classes at the Siegel Institute, but go with it anyway), and it’s a summer camp for NERDS story, which is the best. As is wont to happen at summer nerd camp, Nicola soon makes some wonderful, interesting friends: the amazingly manic computer geek Kristina, awkward music theory wiz Kevin, sweet sleeper Isaac, and of course Battle, of the beautiful blonde hair and lovely green eyes. In between studying for her archaeology classes and practicing her viola (nerd!), Nicola quickly begins to realize that her feelings for Battle are perhaps not just-friend feelings, and that maybe Battle feels the same way, but is that even possible, since Nicola has spent so much time enamored with boys in the past? (We all obviously know the answer to that one.) Yet it’s never with shame or disgust that Nicola questions her new feelings, but more a bit of confusion, and mainly awe. But like all summer stories, summer has to come to an end eventually, making Battle a somewhat bittersweet love interest from the start.

Nicola and her friends are funny and likeable, and Empress of the World is a quick, great read that pulled me in right away. Perhaps the used, somewhat battered copy of the novel I have helped this notion, but the writing had an almost classic, genuine feel to it, like all of the YA books from the ‘70s I grew up reading and loving. Yet at the same time, it felt surprisingly undated. The only part that stuck out was one moment when only ONE of the friends owned a camera, being as this was still the age before they all would have flipped open their smartphones, but being history, science, and music nerds as teens is timeless, and Katrina’s interest in programming still completely works.

The one thing that slightly bothered me was, as the book wore on, the gang as a whole but particularly Battle, gave Nicola a lot of guff for being over-analytical, for always having to name and classify and understand every situation and feeling and thing, to the point that it seems it might draw Battle and Nicola apart forever. Yet I personally didn’t think Nicola was over the top in this regard at all; she actually seemed rather normal for a teenaged girl. And I felt like Battle’s harping about it simply made Nicola feel ashamed of her sensitivity and thinkiness, instead of simply being okay with, and proud of, her open, vulnerable soul.

While the conclusion is somewhat open ended, a sequel to Empress of the World came out in 2007, The Rules for Hearts, and I would definitely be interested in checking it out one day, along with some short stories that were released in an updated, deluxe edition of Empress of the World last year.

Laura reviews Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay & Lesbian Liberation by Urvashi Vaid

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Have you been on the internet at all in the past two weeks? Yes? I’m guessing the cover of this book probably looks familiar to you. If not, try it in red:

That’s right: we’re talking about gay marriage! Marriage equality! A hot topic for around the world right now. While we won’t hear the US Supreme Court’s verdict until June, that certainly isn’t going to stop the internet from deliberating.

Speaking of which, have you seen this one?

Or maybe this one?


They’re symbols being posted, generally, by queer people who don’t support gay marriage or the HRC. When I first saw these symbols making the rounds, I admit – I was baffled. So I did what I always do. I bought some books.

Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay & Lesbian Liberation by Urvashi Vaid begins with a history lesson on gay political activism in the United States. Vaid writes,

“Throughout the history of our resistance to prejudice, gay people have clashed over a fundamental question about the overall goal of our movement. Are we a movement aimed at mainstreaming gay and lesbian people (legitimation), or do we seek radical social change out of the process of our integration (liberation)? Gay and lesbian history could be read as the saga of conflict between these two compatible but divergent. Legitimation and liberation are interconnected and often congruent; the former makes it possible to imagine the latter. But our pursuit of them takes different roads and leads to very different outcomes.”

Today, proponents of legitimation argue to the straight world that gay people are just like straight people, with the one small difference of who we are attracted to. They lead the fight for gay marriage, arguing to straight people that we are merely a minority, and that prejudice against us is irrational and unconstitutional.

Proponents of liberation, on the other hand, often believe that marriage is part of an oppressive sexual and political order. They argue that vast set of protections available to married people should also be available to single mothers, unmarried couples, single people, etc. Many feel that gay marriage should not be the top priority for the LGBT movement and would prefer to push for broader social change, in which “racism, homophobia, sexism, economic injustice, and other systems of domination are frankly addressed and replaced with new models.”

Of the two camps, Vaid is more of a liberationist, but certainly not an unquestioning one. Throughout the book, she deliberately lays out the limitations of both approaches. (Legitimation: elitist, preoccupied with single-issue politics, tends to leave many groups behind, does not make society more just. Liberation: idealistic and impractical, slow moving, not easy to relate to, tends to be disorganized.) She sternly calls out those making personal attacks, and the movement’s tendency to tear down our political leaders. At the book’s conclusion, Vaid calls for a new understanding among gay people, and for more debate among all political sides in the LGBT movement.

Although Virtual Equality was published in 1995, Vaid’s analysis is relevant, and indeed, anticipated many of the issues that the movement now faces two decades later. Her clear-eyed analysis of the supremacist right as a totalitarian regime is one I believe has only increased in relevance over time. So, too, her exploration of the economy of queerness, with the queer as consumer, and its corollary, the selling of gayness.

One other prescient point that I thought Vaid articulated particularly well is why the “born this way” argument is misleading and ultimately not politically advantageous for LGBT people. She writes,

“Homosexuality always involves choice – indeed, it involves a series of four major choices: admitting, acting, telling, and living. Even if scientists prove that sexual orientation is biologically or genetically determined, every person who feels homosexual desire encounters these four choices.”

Further,

“Because we choose to engage in gay behavior, says the right, we are not entitled to legal protection. Gay activists most frequently respond to this argument with an assertion that homosexuality is innate. … But in doing so, we radically limit the original reach of our political movement. Where we once sought to free the homosexual potential in everyone, by making it safer to be gay, lesbian, or bisexual, we now assert the conservative view that all we want is the freedom to be our biologically determined selves. History shows that the shelter of biology has never protected a people from persecution. The right does not care that we were born gay; they object to us because we are not straight.”

I like to imagine how differently her anthem might have turned out if Lady Gaga had read this book before penning her pop hit. Or how much further we might be if this book was required reading for every LGBT person about to enter a leadership role. Or what would happen if every Facebook activist changing their profile picture were to read this book. (Do our allies really understand the full historical weight of the symbols they’re using? Do we? I know I didn’t.)

I have a lot of respect for the work Vaid did as the director of NGLTF, and her decades of queer activism. If you’re even remotely interested in LGBT history, involved in social activism of any kind, or just want to put political discussion about LGBT issues into context – I can think of no better source than Urvashi Vaid and Virtual Equality. I highly recommend this book to you.

Bonus: for further reading, Vaid just put out a new book called Irresistible Revolution: Confronting Race, Class and the Assumptions of LGBT Politics. I’m excited to pick it up.

Isabelle interviews author Clare Ashton

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I had never heard about Clare Ashton until I read the following review of her novel After Mrs Hamilton at C-Spot Reviews. I added the book to my Amazon wishlist and downloaded it to my iPad a few weeks later. I was hooked right from the beginning and couldn’t put it down. After Mrs Hamilton has also been nominated for a Goldie award!

Because I had really enjoyed it, I thought I’d contact Clare Ashton about an interview for my blog. She accepted immediately and emailed her answers back within a couple of days. She was also most patient with me when I asked further questions. I hope you will enjoy the interview and that it will encourage you to read her books.

Clare Ashton, can you introduce yourself in a few words?

I’m a UK writer who writes stories with suspense, romance, intrigue and humour and an awful lot of lesbians. I also add (not always intentionally) a dash of something darker that can make readers feel uncomfortable. I grew up in mid-Wales where sheep outnumber humans, so a significant countryside setting is never far away in my writing.

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

I read very widely as a kid from The Hobbit and Lord of Rings, Dune and other sci-fi to (later in my teens) Jane Austen classics and Anna Karenina. I think I had a higher standard of reading back then than I do now! Nothing better than curling up with a good trashy romance these days. I also stole books from my parents’ bookshelves by Tennessee Williams (The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone) and Françoise Sagan (Bonjour Tristesse) – wonderfully different tales of love that have stayed with me over the years.

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

As an adult, I think the books that made their greatest impression were The Secret History (Donna Tartt), Fingersmith (Sarah Waters), The Blind Assassin (Margaret Atwood) and the Tales of the City series (Armistead Maupin) – all books with a great twisting story and that has definitely influenced the kind of story I like to write.

I always seem to add a surprise or two and sometimes have a little bit of an edge and darkness too. On the other hand I still re-read Jane Austen. A review of After Mrs Hamilton has some very un-Austen like elements), I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.

Who are your favorite lesbian authors?

Sarah Waters must come top. I usually find books that revel in their descriptive passages a bore, but she just does it sublimely and her writing makes me drool. She also has real, vivid and compelling characters and my favourite novels of hers have a brilliant twisting tale too. It’s wonderful that someone of her calibre writes lesbian novels.

I’m a sucker for a good romance too. And of the books I’ve read recently Chris Paynter’s Survived by Her Longtime Companion definitely had that kick to the gut, choke-you-up element in the Eleanor and Daphne storyline. I also love Diana Simmonds’ light romances written in her expert and witty style. She makes writing look like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

Is After Mrs Hamilton your first novel?

It’s the first novel for which I completed a first draft. It’s a complex tale and that draft had several problems with it that I didn’t know how to fix back then.

I moved on to a shorter tale (Pennance) to improve my writing skills. Pennance has a much simpler plot although still with a twist and turn. It’s more dominated by the atmosphere of its wintery setting in Cornwall and it’s been described as a modern gothic romance.

After I’d published Pennance I went back to rewrite After Mrs Hamilton. I was also very lucky to work with an editor (Diana Simmonds) and that was crucial for me sorting out that early draft and making it the story that I always wanted it to be.

What inspired you to write your first book?

After Mrs Hamilton was the kind of book that I wanted to read: a page-tuner, with twists and turns, fascinating lesbian characters and a great dollop of romance and sex. All tastefully done of course!

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

After Mrs Hamilton is unapologetically a lesbian book, just by the sheer number of lesbian characters in there. Pennance I think is more a mainstream book, set in a remote rural setting with a broad range of heterosexual as well as lesbian characters.

Did you know right from the start that you wanted to write this sort of novels?

No, I didn’t. It’s only been recently that someone told me that I was writing intrigue-romances. I only set out to write an interesting story.

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

I love the fantastic differences in regional flavour that you get between continents and indeed between regions in a country. One thing I think UK writers are particularly good at is literary works which appeal to the mainstream and have lesbian main characters (novels by Sarah Waters, Jeannette Winterson, Charlotte Mendelson, etc.).

It’s a pity that there is less lesbian genre publishing in the UK though. Most lesbian writers that I know of tend to be published by US publishers, and although I love their work (Cari Hunter’s excellent and gripping – Snowbound for example), I wonder if there would be more esoteric works available if there were more lesbian publishers here. It’s great to see other indie writers doing well in the UK, such as Kiki Archer and Rachel Dax, and I hope that indie writers extend the range of work available.

(I edit the uklesfic blog with Cari Hunter and you can find a list of all current UK lesbian authors here)

How did you conceive the plot forAfter Mrs Hamilton?

It started with a character, Clo, who works as a highly paid and sympathetic escort for older women. She was a character who had been kicking around my head for a while, and I’m very fond of her, and I wanted to give her the greatest romance and love.

She had an interesting background, but then I weaved in her best friend Laura’s background too. Laura was adopted and doesn’t know who her parents are and she is also on the cusp of a life-changing relationship. Combining those really made the story very interesting. It evolved from there over several weeks of outlining and living through scenes in my imagination – my favourite part of writing (daydreaming I suppose!)

Did you draw your inspiration for the main characters (i.e.Clo, Fran, Susan) from real life? Or did you totally invent them?

Clo was initially based on a couple of people I know very well, but as with all characters, the more I outlined and wrote the more she changed into a distinct character with her own voice, mannerisms and personality, so much so that I hope the original inspirations do not recognise her.

Fran, a fantasy older love interest, was based on gorgeous French actresses like Catherine Deneuve and Fanny Ardant with a bit of Kristin Scott-Thomas thrown in. But again, to me, she is unrecognisable now and is just Fran

Do you have a favourite character in this novel? Which one?

One of Clo or Fran. They are both real, damaged, attractive and fascinating. I love those two and they have the most deeply romantic history and relationship (albeit a little unconventional).

How has the novel been welcomed so far?

People have really liked the twisting tale, and like me, have found the complex characters of Clo and Fran intriguing. Some loved Fran, as an attractive but real older (mid-fifties) heroine, others liked the damaged, quirky and loving Clo.

Readers have also found the tale of Laura very thought-provoking and made them react very emotionally to her and Susan. After Mrs Hamilton is a very charged tale. It’s a collision of several people who didn’t know they were previously connected and the outcome is emotionally explosive and dramatic.

Most importantly someone said it was just “a bloody good read”. So I’m pretty pleased with that!

I noticed that food is mentioned in both novels and plays an important role in the bonding process between the characters. Is this how you see food?

Yes, I do see food, its preparation and eating together as important for bonding in various social situations. In the books I meant it to reflect the low emotional state of the characters when they eat poorly and then to show the support and love that is introduced into their lives by the character preparing the more nourishing food. Clo in After Mrs Hamilton is a giving and loving character and her expertise with patisserie and other cuisine reflects this. Her ability to choose perfect food for people reflects her versatility as an escort – she satisfies people’s very basic needs in a rich way.

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

When I was writing After Mrs Hamilton, I kept having ideas for short stories, which was very distracting. There are a couple of those ideas that are still demanding to be written. No doubt I’ll start having ideas for novels as soon as I try to write them!

Thank you Clare for your availability and your time.

NB: Both novels have Kindle editions

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Danika reviews Survival Skills by Jean Ryan

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1 I have found an odd thing about writing reviews: I tend to find it a lot easier to describe what I don’t like about a book than what I do. If I put down a book that I hated, I can very easily write a review detailing every flaw. But it’s a lot harder to explain why a book appeals to me. So although I really liked Survival Skills, I’m not sure I can properly convey it!

Survival Skills is a collection of short stories, and it is one of those quietly beautiful books. The stories flow naturally, and although they do not end tied in a neat bow, they don’t feel abrupt, which I have found often happens in short story collections. There is a mix of lesbian and straight protagonists in this collection, but I definitely recommend reading them all.

I understood this collection even better when I looked at the publisher: Ashland Creek Press describes itself as a publisher with a “mission to publish a range of books that foster an appreciation for worlds outside our own, for nature and the animal kingdom, and the ways in which we all connect.” I hadn’t considered it until after reading the publisher’s blurb, but Survival Skills does include a theme of nature. Throughout the stories, pets feature prominently, or a character chases hurricanes, or a woman finds herself competing with an octopus (or a parrot) for her girlfriend’s affections. This isn’t completely overbearing, but it does offer a thread throughout the collection. It also seemed to ground the stories; it made the problems seem less overwhelming when the stories kept coming back to other living things, fitting these stories into a larger network. But it is the human struggles that are focused on, with nature as a backdrop.

Mostly, I liked Survival Skills so much because the writing style really appealed to me. Usually I can tell within the first page or two whether I will enjoy an author’s style or have to slog through it. With this one, I immediately wanted to settle in and read more, and I put Jean Ryan’s novel, Lost Sister, on my to read list as soon as I finished Survival Skills. Needless to say, I highly recommend this one.

Danika reviews Nevada by Imogen Binnie

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Nevada

Nevada is one of the books that I’ve been most excited to read lately. It’s pretty much the first trans lesbian novel I’ve heard of, I like the (weird) cover, the blurb sounding promising, and it’s by a publisher I already like! That’s a lot of positive points! So I was also a little bit nervous about actually reading it, in case I ended up being disappointed. Luckily, from the first page, I already liked the writing style. Here’s the first two paragraphs (warning for S/M, choking):

She’s choking me. She’s really in there, fingers mashing my trachea, and I can’t breathe, Maria thinks.

It occurs to her that she truly can’t breathe–but she can’t bring herself to care. There was a time in her life when this was new, when she was at least as hot for being choked as Steph was for choking her, but now they’ve got an apartment together–a cat, good lighting–and Maria can’t even muster a shiver. She acts like she’s into it.

It’s a style that will definitely appeal to some people and totally turn off others. It’s deeply introspective, in this post-post-modern, post-hipster, over-analyzing, ironic way. Maria disassociates from any emotion, but analyzes herself and her life continuously. The narrative is in third person, but most of it takes place in Maria’s thoughts, as she tries to figure out what she wants from her life and her relationship. She’s stalled, feeling like she’s an expert on being trans now, but not being able to stop thinking about it for twenty minutes. She feels stuck in her job and relationship, but doesn’t know what else to do.

I feel like this will appeal the most to queers in their 20s, or at least, it did to me. I couldn’t help completely relating to Maria’s thought processes:

It’s frustrating but you can’t just be like, Okay brain, think. Because your brain is like, I am thinking! I am thinking at you, and then you’re like, Jesus, brain, relax. I just mean we need to think about this conversation. . . . She’s like, are you listening, brain? This is way too meta, her brain says.

as well as relating to her self-conscious search for authenticity while acknowledging that it is an impossible and self-indulgent quest, and generally trying to establish a sense of identity while also dealing with internalized queer and feminist critiques of any label, idea, or emotion you may have. (Though I am cisgender and therefore can’t pretend to personally understand many of the things that Maria grapples with.) I know that other people may read it and completely roll their eyes at all of this, however, so if you don’t like the writing style and internal monologue by the first three pages, you probably won’t enjoy the book.

Because this is more of an internal struggle, there isn’t much of a plot happening in Nevada. Maria faces a kind of crisis that forces her to face her own apathy in her life, and she grapples with this. Still, although I knew that not much was going to happen in the book, I still was a little disappointed by the ending. There really isn’t any kind of resolution.

A little more than halfway through the novel, you are introduced to another character, James, who carries a lot of the focus from that point onward, though most of the narrative is focused on both Maria and James interacting. The reason I had liked the book so much up to that point is that I really liked Maria, as flawed and navel-gazing as she was. I wasn’t very interested in James–or, more specifically, I didn’t want to move away from Maria. I hadn’t expected another main character to be introduced so late, and I felt cheated out of more of Maria, even though she is present in most of James’s section as well. I often feel this way about a change in point of view halfway through a story, however. I’m okay with alternating if I know it’s going to happen, but if it happens late in the book, I feel like I just got plunged into a different book before I was finished with the last one.

Still, although I wasn’t entirely satisfied with the ending, I did really like the style of Nevada as well as the characters, especially Maria and Steph (her girlfriend. We get one chapter from her perspective, and I kind of wish we got more.). If the style appeals to you, definitely pick up Nevada, just don’t expect a tidy ending, and do expect a shift in point of view. (As an aside, this book makes me even more hungry for more trans novels, especially trans lesbian ones. I’m glad that Topside Press is making trans narratives a priority, and Nevada definitely sets the bar high.)