It would be easy to just say that this is a really good book and that you should put it high on your list of things to read. but I guess that would be shirking my responsibilities as a reviewer. But if you’ve read any of my other reviews you’d know that several things catchRead More
Megan Casey reviews Fearful Symmetry by Tasha Fairbanks
For me, good books are the hardest to review. I mean, it’s easy—and sometimes not even fair—to find flaws in the work of writers who really don’t understand writing, but what do I say about a writer who does? Sure, Tasha Fairbanks’ characters are good, her prose is compelling, her plot is exciting and unusual—butRead More
Megan Casey reviews Megan Casey reviews Command of Silence, by Paulette Callen
After reading only a few chapters of this book, I wondered why it was not a best seller. It has all the trappings of one. Think of the play Elephant Man: it is a less-than-wonderfully-written play, but the subject matter guarantees it a wide audience just as a train wreck guarantees a gaggle of rubberneckers.Read More
Megan Casey reviews Red Rover by Liz Bugg
I confess that I like this book a little more than I originally thought I would. Maybe it’s because I liked the design and feel of the Insomniac paperback version, which is very easy on the eyes. Or maybe it was the very professional pace that Bugg was able to adhere to throughout. I alsoRead More
Megan Casey reviews Chicken Run by Alma Fritchley
Letty Campbell, ex insurance agent, becomes the owner of a small chicken farm in the small town of Calderton, a half hour outside Manchester, U.K. . When the niece of a neighbor asks her to introduce her shy but recently-out-of-the-closet aunt to the lesbian scene in the nearby large city, Letty finds herself smitten withRead More
Megan Casey reviews Ten Little Lesbians by Kate McLachlan
There is a lot that can be said about this book, not just about whether it is good or bad, but also about the style of its composition, its history, and its characters. This is true of all good books, of course, but not all books are good. It is no secret that Ten LittleRead More
Megan Casey reviews The Wombat Strategy by Claire McNab
Kylie Kendall, newly arrived in L.A. from a small-town in Australia, is a fresh catch compared to cold-fish, Sydney-based Carol Ashton, the protagonist of McNab’s first lesbian mystery series. To expend the metaphor, The Wombat Strategy is a pretty good catch. Kylie has grown up in Australia, working in her mother’s pub in Wollegudgerie. ButRead More
Megan Casey Reviews 1222 by Anne Holt
The first interesting thing I want to mention is that Anne Holt’s series is listed as The Hanne Wilhelmsen Novels. Not The Hanne Wilhelmsen Mysteries or The Hanne Wilhelmsen Adventures. The publisher—a traditional mainstream press—wants us to view these books as literary. In other words, something above the more lightly taken mystery genre, and certainlyRead More
Megan Casey Reviews Whacked by Josie Gordon
Lonnie Squires has an unusual profession for a lesbian mystery protagonist; she is an Episcopal priest. As far as I know, Joan Albarella’s Nikki Barnes is the only other woman of the cloth in lesbian mystery fiction. In fact, it is unusual to find religious references at all in the genre other than casual referencesRead More
Megan Casey reviews Wanted by T.I. Alvarado
Bird Blacker—who has one of the oddest names in lesbian mystery fiction—is an ex-police officer now working as a bounty hunter, probably the first bounty hunter in the genre. Comparisons beg to be made between Bird and Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum, and there are a few. Both women are tenacious and funny, both haveRead More