Month: January 2012

Mfred reviews Passion’s Bright Fury by Radclyffe

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Trauma surgeon Saxon Sinclair does not want Jude Castle filming a documentary in her top-rated NYC trauma center.  Jude Castle does not want Bossy McBossersons Sinclair telling her a damn thing, ever. Both have emotional baggage and dark secrets to hide.  

Radclyffe gets so many things right, I find her romance books  a joy to read.  Each character, for all the dark emotional turmoil, felt relatable in basic and fundamental ways.  The dialogue was natural, the humor sincere, and most importantly, the romance felt hot.  

One thing that bothered me: narrative-interrupting inner voice.  Occasionally, the third person narration would veer into a character’s internal, first person voice for a sentence or two.  It wasn’t always super clear when this was happening, so there were a few passages I had to re-read in order to understand who the hell was talking and why.  

A second issue I had was with the near tragic ending.  A book that is about the relationships between two people, their emotional struggles, etc. etc. does not need an explosive but OMG! saved-in-the-nick of time climax to get to that happy ending.  In fact, having characters realize the depth of their love simply because their beloved almost died?  I found it really obvious.  

I really like how Radclyffe creates intelligent, emotional women— and that neither of these attributes takes anything away from the other. I also like they way she writes lesbian relationships.  Her books are realistic about being gay and out, while also telling a love story.  Passion’s Bright Fury showcases these talents.

Anna reviews Roller Coaster by Karin Kallmaker

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As I’ve mentioned before on this site, I’ve read pretty much everything written by Karin Kallmaker, and I am pleased to report that Roller Coaster is her best effort in years. The novel is almost twice as long as her usual work (according to her blog it’s the longest book of her career), and her deliberate approach pays off as she takes valuable time to develop her characters and build a believable scenario.

Two women, an aspiring chef and an aspiring actress, meet on a stalled roller coaster for a brief but candid exchange that changes each fundamentally. Twenty-three years later, Laura Izmani finds herself interviewing for the position of private chef for the famous stage actress Helen Baynor. Laura knows very well that Helen is the woman she met on the roller coaster, but is wary of bringing up the incident because she divulged her struggle with cocaine use at the time. Helen splits her time between New York and California, but her fierce devotion to her children–twins whose father died when they were in the womb–and money mean that she can afford the services of a personal chef to cook for them while she is out of state.

Laura has spent the intervening years roaming the globe, and is hoping to settle herself in a quiet place for a while before figuring out her next step. Her identity as the product of a Jamaican mother and a white father means that she’s acutely aware of potential outsider status, especially in the rich enclave in which Helen resides. For her part, Helen is struggling with the challenges of growing older in the public eye and finding roles so she can continue a remarkable career. She has sacrificed most personal relationships, aside from motherhood, to the pursue life on the stage.

As Laura and Helen encounter romantic challenges with other people, Kallmaker quietly but effectively sets the stage for their relationship as they live and work together in a family setting. But there are still several secrets between them–Laura continues to be reluctant about revealing their shared past–and Kallmaker makes her characters work for a satisfying conclusion. Recommended.

For a lesbian romance with a similarly driven actress as a main character, try Gun Brooke’s Course of Action.

Link Round Up

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AfterEllen posted Your New School Library: “Parrotfish,” “Down to the Bone” and “How Beautiful the Ordinary”.

Autostraddle posted End Times Approach For LGBT Newsweekly, Gay Bookstore and Feminist Bookstore and Reading Rainbow 2012: The Things We’re Finally Actually Going To Read This Year (mostly not queer books).

Babbling About Books posted The 2012 Lesbian Fiction Appreciation Event Starts Now!

Elles Books posted The 6th Lesbian Literary Award!

Gay/Lesbian Fiction Excerpts posted Buyer’s Remorse excerpt by Lori L. Lake.

GLBT Reading posted Every challenge must come to its end.

Good Lesbian Books posted Our Eleven Bestselling Books of 2011.

Lambda Literary posted

Pride Source posted Best [Queer Books] of the Year.

QueerType posted January Publishing Notes.

Readings in Lesbian and Bisexual Women’s Fiction posted Readings with Jett Abbott.

Shelly’s LGBT Book Review Blog posted Coming Out as Gay or Lesbian – Top 8 Books.

Women and Words posted Save a bookstore?

    

Joy Argento was interviewed at Bibrary Book Lust.

Elora Bishop posted THE FLOWER WITCH — New Novel Coming Soon!

R. E. Bradshaw posted Just a little rant about piracy, file theft, and Lord, I need chocolate.

Ivan Coyote telling “Maiden Heart” is up on Youtube.

Sarah Diemer posted an excerpt from her upcoming book Ragged: A Post-Apocalyptic Fairy Tale.

Emma Donoghue posted a Life Lessons writeup at The National.

Sarah Toshiko Hasu, author of Megume and The Trees, was interviewed at Curve Magazine.

Patricia Highsmith and Marijane Meaker were written about at The Ink Brain.

Kay Lahusen was written about at Elisa.

Malinda Lo posted I’m teaching a free workshop on writing fantasy and science fiction!

Sarah Schulman was interviewed at Words With Writers.

Rachel Spangler wrote A Celebrity Is Not A People.

Widdershins posted a guest post, about writing lesbian fiction, at Beyond Romance.

    

“[Alison] Bechdel’s ARE YOU MY MOTHER gets 100K first printing” was posted at The Beat.

KT Grant’s Lesbian Fiction Event was posted about at Publishers Weekly.

Glad Day Bookshop, the oldest queer bookstore in the world, is for sale. It was written about at The Star and Gender Focus.

“Remembering Naiad” was posted at Huffington Post.

“Great Queer Authors for Women” was posted at The Desoto.

The Songs of Sappho books by Marie-Elise Bassett were reviewed at Loving Venus – Loving Mars.

Speaking Out: LGBTQ Youth Stand Up by Steve Berman was reviewed at The Indie Reviewer.

The Sealed Letter by Emma Donoghue was reviewed at Deccan Herald.

The Last Nude by Avery Ellis was reviewed at Kissed By Venus.

Jane Lawless Mysteries by Ellen Hart were reviewed at Shelly’s LGBT Book Review Blog.

Best Friends Forever by Kai Lu was reviewed at Loving Venus – Loving Mars.

The Swashbuckler by Lee Lynch was reviewed at Bosom Friends.

The Indelible Heart By Marianne K. Martin was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

Out of Time by Paula Martinac was reviewed at Friend of Dorothy Wilde.

Jericho by Ann McMan was reviewed at Good Lesbian Books.

The Lies That Bind by Susan X. Meagher was reviewed at C-Spot Reviews.

me@you.com by K.E. Payne was reviewed at Never Too Fond of Books.

Keeping You A Secret by Julie Anne Peters was reviewed at Birds Flying South.

The Wedding Party by Tracey Richardson was reviewed at Piercing Fiction.

Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century by Graham Robb was reviewed at Shelly’s LGBT Book Review Blog.

Open Water by Pol Robinson was reviewed at The Rainbow Reader.

Our Time: Breaking The Silence of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” by Josh Seefried was reviewed at Gay/Lesbian Fiction Book Reviews.

The Vicious Red Relic Love by Anna Joy Springer was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

My West by Patricia Nell Warren was reviewed by Elisa.

Affinity by Sarah Waters was reviewed at Booked All Week.

Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters was reviewed at 120 Units.

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson was reviewed at Looking for Lola and GeekeryDo.

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson were reviewed at The Reluctant Reader.

Danika reviews Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme edited by Ivan Coyote and Zena Sharman

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I’ve been a fan of Ivan Coyote for years, so I had high expectations for this collection. It absolutely delivered.

It’s hard to sum up Persistence other than using its own subtitle. It contains a huge array of different kind of butches and femmes (and a futch, and some switches, and…), embodied by many different genders and sexualities.

The writing it top-notch, and there are a lot of big names:  Ivan Coyote, Jewelle Gomez, S. Bear Bergman, Joan Nestle, Sinclair Sexsmith… The content ranges from academic essays to poem and short stories. Some are incredibly personal, and some are political declarations. I really appreciated the amount of essays that approached how race intersects with butch/femme, and a few that also address class.

If I could guarantee one thing, it’s that at least one entry in this collection will piss you off. There are opinions all over the spectrum in this collection, and there is a lot to be debated. For example: do butch and femme constitute each other, or can you be a butch without a femme and vice versa? Are femmes more privileged by having “passing privilege”, or are they invisibilized, or are people just not looking hard enough for femmes? Is the concept of “butch” too tied to whiteness to be used in an antiracist way? Can other sexualities and genders by butch or femme, or only lesbians? Where do butch and femme fit into the trans spectrum, or vice versa, or are they unconnected? It is the trans questions that are particularly divisive. But I think this range is the strength of the collection: it is a good attempt to encapsulate a broad-ranging community that is entirely in flux. And the voices are strong, so even the essays that were actively angering me were still compelling.

I definitely recommend Persistence, even (especially?) if you’re not butch or femme or know very little about butch and femme. It is an important part of the queer community as a whole today, and lesbian history as well. There are quite a few contributors that I will now be seeking out in a longer format.

Danika reviews Hellebore & Rue edited by JoSelle Vanderhooft and Catherine Lundoff

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I’m going to be honest: the only thing I was really looking for in Hellebore & Rue: Tales of Queer Women and Magic was for it to live up to its cover. I mean, look at that cover! It’s definitely one of my  favourites.

The good news is, it does! It seems like every review of an anthology has a disclaimer that all anthologies have varying quality between stories, which is true, but Hellebore & Rue had a much, much higher standard of writing in the stories collected than I am used to in most anthologies. There was only one story where I felt the writing didn’t compare to the other stories, and it turns out that it is the first story published by that author, so that makes sense.

There are all kinds of “magic” the stories, from fabulism to whole fantasy worlds, but they all manage to establish their reality well in a short story.

I think this anthology will especially appeal to readers who are looking for “incidentally” queer stories.

Overall I highly recommend Hellebore & Rue, especially to reader who enjoy the fantasy genre. And since I noticed a higher standard for their stories than I’m used to, I’ll be keeping an eye on the editors (JoSelle Vanderhooft and Catherine Lundoff), as well as the publishing company (Lethe Press).