Turning the Page

Georgia Beers
Renaissance Alliance Publishing
1930928513

Melanie Larson, a 33 year old Marketing executive has decided it's time to make changes in her life. Little does she know what the next four weeks will bring! After several very successful years with "corporate America," Melanie's company has been purchased by a larger company and the executive offices are moving from Chicago to Seattle. Rather than move West, Melanie has decided to accept a severance package and to take some time off. Melanie Larson needs to decide who she is and what she wants from life. At the behest of her uncle, she finds herself checking in on her rather footloose cousin, Samantha.

Recently divorced, Sammi has all but abandoned the small bookstore that her father purchased a couple of years prior to help "stabilize" her marriage. Melanie finds Sammi residing in a charming little carriage house behind an old farm house, outside of Rochester, New York.

Minutes after arriving in Rochester, Mel meets Taylor Rhodes, an attractive lesbian (outed in introduction by Sam) in her late 20s who lives in the main house next to Sam's cottage. Taylor moved back into her parents' home several months ago, after the sudden death of her mother, in order to look after her father, Benjamin Rhodes. In the last few months, Ben has begun to live his life again and he finds Melanie to be a very attractive woman. The trouble is, so does Taylor.

Beers captures pictures of a lesbian community in a city of approximately 200,000 people in the urban northeastern US circa the turn of the 21st century in realistic, humorous and insightful ways. She details the problem such cities have with maintaining a women's bar, the "gay gentrification" that is common in many historic neighborhoods, and the role of softball in the lives of many a lesbian. Further she pays tribute to the TV show, Xena Warrior Princess and the lesbian community's role in the show's fandom and success. Beers does this via "Xenite" Taylor and eventual convert (puns intended) Melanie who names her bookstore, "The Quill is Mightier" after an episode in the show. To have a story that records a bit of the whole Xena phenomena without actually being a fanfiction or "uber" story is really quite interesting. As part of Melanie's "Lesbianism 101" process, Beers also provides a little tribute to Katherine Forrest's Curious Wine perhaps THE classic lesbian romance novel (certainly in my top five).

Turning the Page is a charming contemporary romance written with wit, compassion, and eros. The characters are interesting. Melanie's coming out is well handled. The politics are relatively mild and the angst is limited to a required level. -- Reading Turning the Page is a delightful way to spend a quiet weekend. Hopefully Ms. Beers will gift us with other such pleasures.

-MJ Lowe

Visual Sonnet

Judy Francesconi
Shake It Up Productions
0962995924

Francesconi captures dreamy, lush, stylized images of women loving women in Visual Sonnets. The over 70 duo tone photographs of mostly couples, many nude, in this collection are quite lovely, and the narrative is equally romantic. If you are familiar with the photographer, Judy Francesconi's work, then Visual Sonnets will not be a total surprise.

Although most images don't seem to have been published, there are some that have appeared in her calendars, as cards, etc. Francesconi's subjects are beautiful and her photographs really do have the feel of sonnets; carefully composed images within a particular style designed to communicate to the viewer. These celebratory images communicate a sensuous, even intimate delight to the eye.

It is the nature of "coffee table" books to be expensive. Visual Sonnets is within the typical range for such art books; however, it is disappointing that it's not a hardcover book for the price. Still if you are someone who revels in Francesconi's work, you'll enjoy this volume.

-MJ Lowe

Death by the Riverside

J. M. Redmann
Bella Books
1931513058

Newly reprinted, Death by the Riverside is the first of the Micky Knight mysteries (the third, Intersection of Law and Desire won a Lambda Lit Award). Here is an opportunity to meet Micky and her wonderful assortment of friends. The ensemble cast that Redmann creates is an amusing crew of friends and family (Puns intended). Each individual is clearly defined and easily recognizable with detailed backgrounds that evolve over the series.

Written in the first person, all the Micky Knight stories have a contemporary version of the gritty, gumshoe feel of classic noir mysteries. The action in Riverside (and Micky's irreverent humor) begins immediately as she finds herself helping a "tasteful" young blond socialite track down the fiance that spurned her. When said socialite turns out to be quite familiar with lesbian sex while laying a trap to cut her brother out of his share of the family inheritance for being gay, Micky decides to even the score. Thus she finds herself meeting the socialite's grandfather, the Holloway family patriarch and his other granddaughter, Cordelia. This meeting opens the door to ghosts from Micky's childhood which she tries very hard to smother with alcohol and women and foreshadows many storylines in the series.

At the request of a sort of friend, fellow karate student, and NOPD detective Joanne, Micky soon finds herself drawn into efforts to break a regional drug ring that turns out to be using part of the Holloway plantation as a shipping and storage location. There's a great deal of page turning action as Micky tries to help the police, her new friend Barbara, not to mention the good doctor Cordelia AND keep herself alive while catching the bad guys.

Meanwhile, the reader learns bits of the past that Micky tries desperately to hide from herself and others. Redmann's depictions of the scars left by childhood abuse are powerfully accurate in all four of the Micky Knight stories. Indeed many of the questions raised or hinted at in Death by the Riverside are not answered until the fourth novel, Lost Daughters. Redmann's well developed characterization has the reader wishing she could have a beer, or maybe a po'boy sandwich with some of these women. Certainly you will find yourself looking for the upcoming reissue of the Deaths of Jocasta to follow their continuing adventures. And to cheer Micky on as she struggles to reclaim her past and heal herself.

Substitute for Love

Karin Kallmaker
Naiad Press
1562802658

What would you be willing to do in order to secure the health of your mother, your child, your love? Reyna Putnam has sold her soul to the proverbial devil to guarantee that her terminally ill mother has the best care that her father's money can buy. Grip Putnam, the result of generations of politically powerful men, is determined to be President of the United States. Thus he carefully controls his media image as a conservative radio pundit as well as the image of his family. His only surviving child, Reyna is part of that image; a lesbian daughter is not. Reyna walks a careful tight rope, trying to maintain her sanity, and some self identity while she continues personally abhorrent work that keeps her father paying those health bills.

Holly Markham has spent most of the 16 years since her mother's death in an accident, hiding. She hides her body in multiple layers of clothing that reflect her need for self-protection from people who should be her allies in life as well as her self-denial.

But Holly has just done something extraordinary. She quit her job in protest because a coworker has been fired for being an out lesbian. Holly quit her job because it was the right thing to do. This righteous act snowballs as Holly finds herself questioning her eight year relationship with Clay, an older, male, college instructor who is controlling and critical, and her feelings about a host of other issues. In a matter of weeks Holly's life will change completely as she discovers several surprises about her mother, her early childhood and herself.

Kallmaker's characterization, humor and story telling skills continue to develop with each novel she writes. Substitute for Love may be her best book to date. --Although part of me continues to prefer her scifi/fantasy titles written as Laura Adams, this is like the difference between Cherry Garcia and Chunky Monkey. Both are good. It depends on your mood and taste. -- Kallmaker gives us a glimpse at the mind of a mathematician through Holly's thought process. She points out the frustrating futility that our nation's health care system creates for people who are not independently wealthy. Yet she pokes fun at the liberal Clay's touting of "a simple life" without understanding the trade off in human labor, supplied by Holly for eight years, required to achieve it.

The Putnam Institute, located in Orange County, California, is symbolic of several extreme right-wing political groups in the area. Kallmaker uses its work to address a number of methods similar groups employ in their campaign against homosexuality, i.e., fund-raising, "ex-gay" therapy, and the hypocrisy of people who pass. Kallmaker manages to address all these issues without interrupting the romance or seeming "too busy." Kallmaker even manages to give readers hope that the socio-political wave the right has been riding may have already crested.

Kallmaker is dependable for highly erotic scenes that will leave the reader warm and dreamy. The action between Holly and Reyna is no exception to this skill. Substitute for Love is a keeper. One that I expect to read more than once.

-MJ Lowe

Finding H. F.: a Novel

Julia Watts
Alyson Books
www.alyson.com
1555836224

Life in towns like Morgan, Kentucky has never been easy for queer teens. The Appalachias of southeastern Kentucky continues to hold claim to the title "buckle of the bible belt." And children are still being named things like Pierre Beauregard --after his father's favorite CSA general-- and Heavenly Faith --her memaw was hoping her daughter's illegitimate child will grow into the name rather than following her mother's footsteps. Bo and H.F. for short, please, are struggling through their high school years in Morgan in Finding H. F.: a Novel by Julia Watts. The increased awareness of gay and lesbian issues in the new millennium increases queer teens' visibility and their vulnerability to peer punishment.

As H.F. who narrates this story of coming out and coming of age in 21st Century Appalachia, says "I guess I'm lucky, though, because I'm not the only one in school who's different. I don't have to be a lonely gazelle limping along while the lions stalk me. I've got Bo for a friend, and bless his heart, he's got it a lot rougher that I do. The sissy boys always have it harder than the tomboys." (8)

At the end of their sophomore year, H.F. decides she needs to look up the mother who abandoned her 16 years before. She convinces Bo to take a road trip to Florida. The teens, who have never been out of the state, pool their resources, pile into Bo's old Ford Escort and head south. Along the way these two young explorers find a loving gay community, role models, friends and the potential for a positive life.

Watts' novels are always a treat. (Reading Wedding Bell Blues made this reader laugh out loud. So go read her other novels too!) Her humor and characterization together with her understanding and insightful depiction of life in the Southland allow us to laugh at life's ironies. Don't let the cover of Finding H.F put you off. It's illustrative of an epiphany for H.F early in the novel and sets the tone for her coming out.

-MJ