Loving Venus- Loving Mars

Review- This Kiss (DVD)

2012-01-18T18:47:00.000-08:00

This Kiss (DVD)

2007

Contemporary/ Lesbian character

When childhood best friends Juliet and Lucy reunite insun-soaked Australia after a decade, they initially find it rather natural toslip into laughter and intimate bonding despite the fact that they barelyrecognize each another and an unresolved incident from their long-ago pastlooms over their heads. Of course, the operative word in the previous sentenceis "initially."

I knew nothing about what this movie was about. Again, Iperused through my library selection and am sort of just watching all thelesbian/bi themed movies available.

I’d love to say that this is a really good movie, but itdidn’t quite make it for me. It’s a good film if you’re in the mood for thetype of story in which childhood friends reconnect after years apart and gothrough the process of healing old wounds. On this level, it’s a decent movie.

It suffers too many issues though from stilted over actingto choppy pacing and weird filming. It’s kind of like watching an amateurishcamcorder film. However if the story and acting were a bit smoother, I think itwould have been a decent look at a coming out story.

What I did like about it was that both characters feelashamed about something and show a vulnerability that’s very realistic.

Juliet is a high-powered company executive who travels theworld. She’s under an extreme amount of stress and is popping pills to cope.Told to take a short holiday, she decides to go back to her home town, look upher old best friend and go to their 10^th year high school reunion.

When Lucy looks out the window sees her old friend gettingout of the car, she freaks and refuses to answer the door at first. She’sgained a lot of weight and feels embarrassed. She’s also still living in thehouse she grew up in supposedly happily married with two children. Sheeventually invites Juliet in who is shocked to see her friend looking sodifferent.

As the day wears on, the chit chat goes from superficialtopics, to reminiscing teenage events to what their lives are like now toreally getting into some deep and old wounds from events that happened beforeJuliet took off.

Major confessions also happen and while Lucy is jealous thatJuliet is skinny and gorgeous and living a full life, she also sees thatJuliet isn’t living the great life she thinks.

The big reveal, which was no reveal really, was that Julietshares with Lucy that she’s a lesbian. It’s something Lucy knew when they wereteenagers and she’s shocked that Juliet’s making a bit deal of it.

“The kiss” is part of what happens towards that end of theirday together and it’s very awkward for various reasons.

This isn’t a lesbian love story. It’s a story about twofriends, one who’s a lesbian who is trying to come to terms with it years laterand goes back to the one girl to whom she had her first same sex attraction to“confess” and move on.

I give it a skip if you thought you might like to watch it.If the acting were a bit better, or if I actually believed that Juliet was alesbian and in angst about it—the actress came off as someone out of touch withactually being a lesbian—it would be a good flick to watch.

Heat Level: 0

Grade: Was just OK

Review- The Last Best Tip (Grift-Girs) by Cassandra Duffy

2012-01-16T17:15:00.000-08:00

The Last Best Tip (Grift-Girls)

By Cassandra Duffy

July 4, 2011

Lesbian/ Paranormal/Erotic

16.6K words

Publisher: Sapphic Pixie Tales

Buy it Amazon, Smashwords, B&N

“This is a novella, actually it’s a novella with two shortstories attached to it, but even then it shouldn’t be mistaken for a novel.Like most summer trysts, when the heat is too oppressive for a long love-makingsession, it’s short, intense, hopefully satisfying, and over before you’relikely to succumb to heat stroke.” ~Cassandra Duffy

The lone anchor in Lucy’s life is a job she hates at aswingers club in the heart of middle America; without it, she would be justanother twenty-something college dropout, who never quite reached herpotential, and is as unlucky in love as most everything else. It’s a shame shehates her job. Sasha, her vampire crush, working in the bar across the way, isin a similar boat, but she has a way out…

Lucy breaks the law, breaks rules she didn’t even know shehad, and risks what little she has left to be with Sasha. In this sexy,lighthearted comedy of errors luck and flexibility aren’t always what theyseem.

I loved Cassandra Duffy's The Gunfighter and The Gear-Head soI was jonsen to try another of her books. This book actually contains threestories, all with a vampire theme. To be honest, I'm not that excited aboutreading vampire stories any more, however I do put that aside if there's aparticular author's work I have admired.

While the vampire aspect of these stories was really nothingmore than a character who happened to be a vampire, meaning for me, there's nomythology build-up to give that aspect a unique feel to it, what CassandraDuffy did do is create two unique characters in the first story and focus onthe dream like, nebulous quality of the typical vampire portrayal in the lasttwo. These, I did get excited about.

The Last Best Tip-- is about a vampire and a human who arepartners in crime. The blurb is an accurate description of this story so I'llgo from there. I have a soft spot for strong, clever women who have chutzpahand like to break the rules. Before Lucy and Sasha meet, Lucy didn't reallyever think about scamming people, but Sasha sparks that part of her that likesthat excitement. Both are working in jobs they hate and Sasha, the vampire andmore worldly person, convinces Lucy to work a con with her so they can opentheir own bar. Lucy readily jumps on this.

This story is fun and very erotic with strong exhibitionist/voyeuristicelements to it. I thought it kind of funny that these two rather wild and kinkyladies would want to open a normal lesbian sports bar in the Midwest afterhaving worked in fetish bars, but how their con turns out works out for thebest for them. As a couple, there's a lot of sexual heat, but the romanticangle is a bit glossed over. That was fine because these two ladies are juicyand that's what's interesting in this story.

An Eternal Night of Overtime--- Brooke is a young, formersurfer girl from Australia who lands a job as an assistant with a famous anddifficult designer Vendela. Vendela has a reputation of being weird andoff-beat. She has a home up in Barrow, AK and she wants Brooke to come up therewith her to work on her designs during the coldest and darkest time, Nov-Jan.

After Brooke arrives, she finds Vendela's massive stone andmetal house to be cold and unwelcoming and a bit shocking since Vendela createscolorful, splashy clothes. After Vendela arrives though, things get weird andBrooke can't tell if what's going on is a dream or real.

I have to be honest, at first I was reading this andthinking WTF? It's a story set in Alaska above the Arctic Circle. Already,that's odd because we're talking about a fashion icon who you'd think wouldwant to work in NY or CA. But it piqued my interest. Second, Brooke wakes fromsleep after being called by Vendela and walks downstairs not realizing whatshe's wearing. I was thinking, how can you not notice something like that? But asI read the story it all became clear and quite the turn-on.

This was my favorite story of the three. It's got a bitingstarkness to it that's really unique in an erotic story. And I love, lovestories, particularly sexual scenarios, in which what's going on is dreamy orhazy.

Haunted House on Top--- Cami, who's a vampire and her human,long distance girlfriend, Brianna, are meeting up for Halloween night. Cami'sgay best friend Lewis has told her about a haunted house that would be fun togo to and they need a special password to get in. When the girls get there thehouse is in a constant flux with rooms and people appearing and disappearing.

The girls' story together is basically that they are alreadya couple but this house gives them a chance at a different erotic sexualscenario. Or that's what I read in this. What appealed to me about this storyis again the vagueness and the shifting perceptions that the women experience.It brings in a mystery to what's basically short erotic story.

What I didn't really get off on in this story is thethrowing in of an odd assortment of demons in the form of weird animals. Thismade the story a bit hokey for me. I appreciate these kinds of elements ifthere's complex world building around it, but throwing in paranormal elementswithout that doesn't add to a story for me. But that's a personal pet peeve soYMMV.

Still though it's a cute story.

All in all I enjoyed this book. If you're into vampireparanormals and like unique and odd settings for sexual scenarios, this bookwill totally do it for you.

Heat Level- 4, somewhat graphically written sex, strap-on,exhibitionism.

Grade- Really liked

Review- Unknown Futures by Jessica E. Subject

2012-01-13T17:42:00.000-08:00

Unknown Futures (One Night Stand #77)

By Jessica E. Subject

Jan 3, 2012

Lesbian/ Sci-Fi

9K words

Publisher: Decadent Publishing

Buy it Amazon (Kindle), ARe, Decadent-

Attacked as a young adult, Jewel is left scarred and alone.She applies to the 1 Night Stand service, believing no one can see past herappearance to love her. But she doesn’t expect to be sent to a space stationwhere her date could be any number of unusual alien species.

Flavia left everything behind to be one of five humansworking for the Space Service space station. Extremely homesick, she is excitedto learn she will be a guide to a woman from Earth visiting the station for acouple days. She is immediately drawn to the petite woman, seeing past herscars to her true inner beauty, stirring unforeseen desires.

Unfortunately, Jewel is there for a date which Flavia hasn’tbeen told about. Can she contain her lust and simply show her a good time? Orwill she let her desire lead them into an unknown future?

I’m so glad that there are a slew of writers putting out f/fsci-fi/F. I don’t mind contemporaries, but I need to mix it up and there justaren’t that many sub-genres in lesbian romance that aren’t contemps.

Unknown Futures is a fairly short story but it did manage tooffer a lot and be engaging. I got a good feel for both the main characters andit was fun to read.

The main appeal of this book is both women, theirpersonalities and how their relationship develops. There’s not really a lot ofangst or tension and despite some issues that would block their gettingtogether, they get passed it fairly quickly.

Jewel has been scarred both physically and emotionally. Theonly person who she felt loved her and accepted her in her current disfiguredcondition was her mother who passed away. What I like about her is that whileit’s clear she’s an outcast, being treated differently because of her scars,she doesn’t wallow in self-pity and she does have pride. She feels self-consciousbut she get pissed at the thought that she’s been sent to the space station for a date because it's occupied with weird looking aliens who won’tobject to her looks. So I liked that, she has some spunk and fight for herself.

Flavia is a strong, self-confident woman.While being only one of few humans on the space station, she’s very picky aboutany love interest. When she first sees Jewel she’s immediately attracted and excited. WhatI liked in her is that she doesn’t feel attracted out of feeling sorry forJewel. Nor does she latch onto Jewel because she’s lonely for humans and herhome. She really finds Jewel beautiful and goes forit even though Jewel is shy at first.

The romance is nicely done, however, I think if this storywere longer it could have been more developed and nuanced. It did feel a bitrushed. Also while there a few sex scenes I felt they were written in a rushedway as well. I don’t need long drawn out sex scenes but if the writer does putthem in, it’s nice to feel that the characters are really into it and want tospend time exploring each other. Or maybe it was that heat between thecharacters was missing for me on that level.

What did come through though is that their heart/being attractionfor each is strong and amazing and they click right away. It’s just a feel good story onthat level. And of course there’s a satisfying happy ending.

On the sci-fi part of the story, well, it’s not long enoughto really develop the world-building in a lot of detail, but what’s written iscreative and gave a unique and interesting backdrop for the women to gettogether. There was one huge world-building plot hole, which you don’t getuntil the end, but after the fact I enjoyed this as a sweet love story and notso much for the sci-fi aspects.

Unknown Futures is a definite recommend. It’s an appealingand loving romantic love story.

Heat level: 3-4- sexual scenarios are sensual in languagebut not too graphically written.

Grade: Really liked

Lesbian Appreciation Week/ New Review sites

2012-01-12T19:38:00.000-08:00

So KatieBabs Lesbian Appreciation Week is going full blast. There's lots of great posts, many new, cool books and authors being promoted. And lots of chat about the f/f genre in general. Radclyffe did a great post on the publishing side and wrote stats. I love that.

Hop on over and join in if haven't made a visit yet and support the f/f genre! I've bought a few books from those blog posts and am excited to read them.

On other things, there's been two more review sites for f/f that I've seen in the last week. I'll be putting them on the side bar with the rest but for now I'll post the links.

Good Lesbian Books- What I love about this site is that the reviews are posted by genre and get even more specific with a list of books by theme.

Girls Only Reviews- Is a new site that reviews only f/f and lesbian. How cool is that? The more the merrier.

Reviews of Marie-Elise Bassett Songs of Sappho Books

2012-01-05T18:01:00.000-08:00

Over the holidays there were lots of book sales going on. One of them was at All Romance Ebooks wherein for a lot of their stock you’d get 50% back in ebook bucks. I like to buy cheaper books and then use my bucks to buy more expensive books when they build up.

I hadn’t been there for quite a while and did some looking. I wanted to get a few new-to me authors. I came across the books of Marie-Elise Bassett and one of them looked good to me. It’s an f/f set in Regency period and I’m kind of aching for anything but contemporary at the moment. It was only $.99 and even though it’s around 7K words, I thought if it sucked I wouldn’t be too pissed.

Each book is only $.99 so they’re so easy to buy. :D

Currently they’re offering ebook bucks rebate on these books at ARe so even cheaper!

Buy them Amazon Kindle, Smashwords, ARe, B&N

All books by Marie-Elise Bassett

Lily In Bloom (Songs of Sappho 1)

Oct 17, 2011

F/F

7K words, Musa Publishing

Lovely widow Lily Winslow isn't happy with her life. She longs for travel and adventure, but lacks the courage to leave her brother's home. Her brother wants her to marry a local squire, but Lily never liked being married. She especially disliked sharing her husband's bed and believes herself frigid. When Lily discovers a mutual attraction to her brother's governess, Emmaline, she undertakes a sensual journey which will bring all her dreams within reach.

MA's Review of Lily In Bloom

My Lady’s Service (Songs of Sappho 2)

Nov 1, 2011

F/F

8.5K words, Musa Publishing

When Lady Kate's parents make a match for her, she is horrified to discover that her new bridegroom is very rich and very old. The only person who can calm her fears is her maid, Hannah. Hannah sets out to teach her young mistress how to pleasure herself, but receives more in return than she ever expected.

MA's Review of My Lady's Service

A Sweet Revenge (Songs of Sappho 3)

Nov. 11, 2011

F/F

11 K words, Musa Publishing

Helen, Lady Hammersly is ready for a change. Helen knows she wants more from life than simply doing good works and trying to redeem the family honor after her husband’s public infidelity with his mistress. What she really wants is Jane, her husband’s cousin. She wants Jane in her bed and in her life forever. But does she have the courage to claim the life she wants?

The Food of Love (Songs of Sappho 4)

Dec. 11, 2011

F/F

13K words, Musa Publishing

Minerva Beverly knows better than to want what she can't have. After rejecting her father's plans for an arranged marriage, she takes a position as the literature instructor at a girls academy When overcrowding forces her to take a roommate, the gorgeous music teacher Isabella Korolli, the temptation to touch grows too strong. Minerva is willing to risk it all to discover if music really is the food of love.

This one was my favorite. There’s a really nice build up in the tension between these two before they hit the sheets. And Minerva has the characteristic of aching for something she’s never had, knowing she’s a lesbian but not knowing if Isabella is really sending the signals that’s she’s into women herself. There’s just a kind of sweet and vulnerable dance between them.

Bound by Fortune (Songs of Sappho 5)

Dec. 30, 2011

F/F

10.7 K words, Musa Publishing

Someone has stolen a famous diamond necklace and all clues point to an infamous jewel thief known as the Magpie. Widow Hermione Dunnaby thinks it’s the most exciting thing that ever happened to her—until she finds Perdita Blakemoor climbing through her window in the dead of night. Although Hermione isn’t completely convinced by Perdita’s protestations of innocence, she agrees to help uncover the thief.

Will Perdita and Hermione find the missing diamonds? Or will they find something else they've both been missing--and never dared to search for?

Review:

I read that first book, loved the writing style and story even if there were some things that bothered me so I got the other 4 books in the series. Apparently she’s writing short stories for this series one to come out every few weeks.

I immediately read all of them in the row and I absolutely love them and am kind of addicted to them now. I decided to do a group review because they are fairly formulaic with variations on the story of two women coming together sexually and romantically. Basically they’re all about a first time lesbian experience for one of the women, often one who is widowed or betrothed or is a spinster due to being a lesbian.

In all of them the women easily go for it even if it’s a shock to one party and I got off on that. The sex is very erotic. In each story there’s a bit of a build up to the relationship between the women, a nice dance around each other and then the sex. It’s often an erotic seduction by the more experienced woman. There’s something very soft in the way the sex is written as well.

Each story flowed nicely and felt fairly complete with a happy ending, often with circumstances that allow the women to stay together. And even though formulaic, they are still each very unique with compelling characters. For some I think the stories might be too short. For sure, I’d love a much longer book by this author. I’d scoop it up in a heartbeat. But because she’s got several stories out I felt in some way very satisfied.

I rather enjoyed the whole historical flavor to them as well. I’m really not knowledgeable about mores of the Regency period or language that would be used, or conditions under which women would have had their own possessions or be forced to marry, but it rang authentic enough to me for me to really enjoy them as historicals.

The only negative for me was some word usage. I’m not fond of nubbin or muff but the author did try to mix it up and didn’t use those words exclusively.

I actually can’t wait for the next one to come out. I like that they are quick, hot, entertaining reads.

Heat level- 4 on all the books. Erotically written but not extremely explicit.

Grade: Loved

Review- Best Friends Forever by Kai Lu

2012-01-05T17:35:00.000-08:00

Best Friends Forever

by Kai Lu

Nov. 15, 2011

Lesbian/ Contemporary- Not YA because of the erotic sexual content, butYA-ish.

10.7 K Words

Publisher: Extasy Books

Buy it Amazon (Kindle), Extasy books

Best friends since the third grade, eighteen-year-oldClarissa Faye and Elyse Jordan share everything— even after school detention attheir Manhattan Catholic school. Each has always wanted to share even more withthe other, but fear that their desires are sinful keeps the girls in silence,until both realize that love is stronger than the rules that dominate theirlives.

I really enjoyed this author's book Je Me Rends so I wasglad to discover that Kai Lu has a new f/f book out.

Like the other, it focuses on two young high school girlsand rather beautifully captures the innocence and eroticism of a first love,first girl/girl experience.

What I really enjoy about Kai Lu's writing is that there's adefinite unique feel to it. The description of the girls and the subtle nuancesof what's going on with them is so vividly expressed and I had the strongfeeling of reading a full bodied, highly feminized manga. But it never wentinto that dreaded school girl for letchy men story territory. It's reallyrather sweet and loving.

It's also highly erotic with very explicit sexual scenarios.

Oh and disregard the cover. It's an unfortunate coverbecause it gives the impression that what's written inside is strictly for themale gaze.

Again, I can't wait to read another of Kai Lu's books.

Heat level: 4

Grade: Really liked

KatieBabs Lesbian Appreciation Week Info

2011-12-27T13:02:00.000-08:00

Katiebabs AKA author KT Grant, is having a two week long lesbian lit appreciation week on her blog. There's a growing list of authors, publishers and bloggers who will be posting things during those two weeks to help support and give promo to lesbian lit/romance.

Any authors who write f/f and bloggers who talk about f/f who follow me and don't know about it yet, you can still contact Katie to participate.

And readers of this blog who loves reading f/f, please stop over to join in the discussion!

Here is the link to her post The 2012 Lesbian Fiction Appreciation Event (Jan 7- 21)

Pleas contact her at KatiebabsgATgmail.com

More Discussions on f/f Romance and its Popularity

2011-12-23T10:59:00.000-08:00

When Kirsten and I first started this blog, there was a fair amount of discussion about the popularity of lesbian/ f/f romance on the main romance blogs. I linked to those discussions and they are here.

We started the blog because we were kind of fed up with the constant criticism from the straight and m/m romance reading community that f/f was just not that popular because they don't want to read about women together for a variety of reasons. And the ewww girl cooties got thrown around quite a bit. We wanted a place for those of us who like reading it to be able to come and talk about reading girl/girl books without getting hit over the head.

We also argued about how even on GLBT sites opening at the time to promo authors of GLBT that f/f was constantly under represented and or non existent, or thrown in with the gazillion m/m books as the token 2 or 3 books, making them virtually hard to find. F/F was constantly shoved in the ghetto or in the back corner of the room and we pointed it out often.

It seems though, that over the last two years, there's not been too many negative or disparaging discussions about f/f and even DA one the main romance reviewing blogs starting having regular reviews of lesbian books... for a while. This was huge.

I've also, over the last 2 years, seen a lot more f/f books being offered with publishers putting out a lot more than in the past. Many of my Twitter friends will read f/f even if it's not maybe their most favorite; they read it and enjoy it at times. It just seemed like it was a non issue anymore. Or at least from my perspective.

I think there are a lot more women, straight women, out there who do like reading it but just don't talk about it much or don't like to share it on romance blogs due to the general, subtle judgments from those who are adamantly not into it.

However, I do still love the idea that f/f gets more exposure and that discussion about it can only lead to more people becoming open enough to try. Or at the very least, not put down those who do like to read it with the "eww girl cooties" comments.

What brought about this post is that there's been a few discussions in the last week that has stirred it up again.

Jessica at Read React Review- did this post recently and wondered that "We still really don’t see much f/f written, reviewed or talked about in the romance world."

She linked to this blog post about the distinct lack of lesbian (s) relationships in YA.

Both of these posts got quite a few comments and very interesting ones at that.

And a reaction post to the comments from Jessica's post "Ewww homophobic cooties" by same blogger linked in Jessica's post - Her post is about the underlying homophobia in many comments.

Then Katiebabs did a post about it here. She's an author of f/f and states that her f/f are her best selling books.

Katiebabs then decided she's going to have a huge forum/ discussion trying to get authors and readers to talk about f/f as a genre and what's actually going on. Is the "f/f doesn't sell" mantra really true at this point.

Here's her promo post here. She's going to have a week long lesbian romance appreciation week.

I think it's great that she's doing that. It will be really interesting if she manages to get a lot of input from authors, publishers and readers about how well or not well f/f romance is doing.

Review- The Gunfighter and the Gear Head by Cassandra Duffy

2011-12-10T15:44:00.001-08:00

The Gunfighter and the Gear Head

by Cassandra Duffy

Sept. 7, 2011

Lesbian/ Sci-fi/ Steampunk/ Western

98K words

Buy it Amazon, Smashwords

Sky-captain Gieo and her fleet of steam-powered dirigiblesare humanity’s best chance to turn the tide of the war against the alieninvaders, but only if Fiona can protect her from blind cultists, jealousex-girlfriends, and a town of apocalypse cowboys with suspect sanity.

Wow, this was the most unusual and fun book to read. I don’tthink I can even classify it as it’s kind of a hodgepodge of genres that cometogether in creative and delicious way.

It’s post-apocalyptic America. A war with an alien invadercalled the Slark has basically destroyed life and the planet as people knew it. Although thetime period is not clear, references to current pop culture are made so it’sclear it’s sometime in the future but not far from our current time. Since almostall has been destroyed, including most of the population, the remaining survivorshave come together in pockets around the country and are slowly setting uptheir own little societies and factions, many resembling the lawless towns of the West in America during the 1880’s.

In this new world, particularly in the central westernstates, women, prostitutes from Las Vegas mainly, have come to power and havestarted organizing armies and weapons to finally get control of the westernstates, which are still controlled by the Slark.

Most of this story takes place in Tombstone, one of the lastfree barrier towns between the Midwestern states and Southern states, whichhave formed their own societies based on old world mores, and the westernstates. Tombstone is basically controlled by a power hungry man who is able tocontrol everyone due to his monopoly of Slark fuel, which is far superior tooil. The hunters, those who hunt Slark and kill them, are a rough and tumblelawless group. However they’ve created their own codes of behavior, which are abit barbaric, but which they strictly adhere to.

Fiona, one of the main protagonists, is a deliciouslyintense character right out of Tarantino film. She’s a Slark hunter and takesno shit from anyone. She’ll kill without flinching or remorse if anyone breaksthe hunter’s code and to defend herself and what’s hers. She’s a renegade andhonorable warrior rolled in one and does what she has to to survive. She’s alsoquite powerful in Tombstone and people don’t mess with her since she has noscruples and parades the results of what happens when she’s crossed for all tosee. It’s quite the contrast to her former life as famous world top model.

Gieo, on the other hand, is a naïve genius dreamer who keepstrying to fly her dirigibles close to Slark territory to map out the areas theycontrol. She dreams of one day being part of an air force that will wipe themout. However, she’s the sort of happy-go-lucky type that can’t imagine killingeither. Her dirigible goes down in the outskirts of Tombstone and it happens tobe Fiona who’s out hunting who finds her and brings her back. She’s atechnological wiz and this is how she survives. Both women just happen to belesbians and the only women in the Tombstone.

These two make an odd but colorful couple. Fiona can’tbelieve it when after Gieo’s first night there, she finds Gieo surrounded bythe roughest of men blithely trading her fix anything tech services for machineparts and technology she needs to get her gear going again. In an interestingtwist of fate, in order to protect Gieo, the only other woman in town besidesFiona and who the crazy, fundamentalist cultist who live on the outskirts oftown want to kill thinking she's the devil, Fiona has to claim her as her property by law of thehunter’s code.

Gieo quite gets into this wearing a dog collar and lettingFiona treat her as property in a semi-serious, teasing and flirtatious way,which bugs Fiona since this is not what she’s about.

Their sexual interactions are subdued on the one hand, Gieo onlyletting Fiona rub off on her but not getting off herself and keeping somedistance, and yet, there’s a smoldering sexual energy that keeps them coming back for more.They kind of dance around each other in a somewhat cocky and playful way takingturns exerting power over each other.

I rather liked the push/pull and even theevasiveness on both parts in between some juicy sexual encounters. It’s a lustat first site but a budding love in a slow bloom, which made me root for themeven with the many obstacles, including Fiona’s past catching up with her inthe form of past lovers and betrayals. Fiona wasn’t a saint before she ended upin Tombstone. And Gieo, while being a straight up innocent in general, allowsherself to get seduced outside of her relationship with Fiona. However, I likedthe way it was handled. It showed character growth for both women.

Outside of the very entertaining and unique plot line andworld building, there are many fascinating characters in this story as well. Ithink Cassandra Duffy created a very sophisticated world with characters, eachhaving their own strong personalities---entrances and departures---that fullyadded to this story. Particularly all the women are portrayed as strong,sometimes ruthless, but very intelligent, which I liked.

The writing is very tight, no extra lines, characters oreven tangents that didn’t add to this story. Fiona and Gieo aside, I’d love toread more from this world that Ms. Duffy has created. She definitely has aunique voice.

I definitely recommend this book if you’re into any of thegenres but particularly if you just want a unique, entertaining read.

Heat level: 3 ½- sexual situations but not explicitly ordeeply graphically written.

Grade: Loved

Review- The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love (DVD)

2011-09-25T13:24:00.000-07:00

The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love (DVD)

1995

Contemporary/ Lesbian/ YA

While working part-time at her aunt's gas station, defianttomboy Randy Dean (Laurel Holloman) falls in love with Evie Roy (Nicole AriParker), a rich, straight honor student who's already in a relationship. Thetwo girls navigate the magical and confusing world of young love.Writer-director Maria Maggenti's touching and funny debut won the GLAAD MediaAward for Outstanding Independent Film in 1996.

This is such a cute, sweet story about two teenage girlsfalling in love for the first time. It’s done in realistic, honest, way butdoesn’t get serious or heavy. Both actresses did such a great job. For once Ibelieved both women were actually gay or attracted to each other unlike someother films I’ve seen recently.

Randy is a endearing character. She’s a tomboy/butch girlwho is basically out in her school. Everyone gossips about her behind her back oreven in front of her and she’s basically an outcast. But she does have a gayguy friend and she takes her situation with an ease that’s not typical of kidsbullied or teased for being different, which I liked. She accepts who she isand while it does bother her that she’s picked on, she doesn’t let it overwhelmher and even tells people to fuck off. She’s also struggling with many otherthings in her life. She’s failing in school and might not be able to graduateand she lives with her aunt who’s trying to keep a tight leash on her.

Evie is the complete opposite. She’s one of the cool girls,popular, and has intellectual interests. She listens to classical music andreads poetry and lives with all the creature comforts that being upper middleclass offers. You’d think she’d be really happy but she’s struggling. She’s notreally feeling it with her boyfriend, who’s actually portrayed as the moreemotional of the two, and there are hints that her over-achieving mother putssome pressure on her to be perfect all the time.

Both girls meet when Evie is worried that something’s wrongwith her car and pulls into the gas station that Randy’s aunt owns and whichRandy works in. Evie recognizes her as a school mate and they chat a bit. Inschool, they meet up again in the girls bathroom by accident when Randy goes infor a smoke, pissed off that she’s been chastised again by a teacher, and Eviecomes in crying after having a spat with her boyfriend. They get detention forsmoking and they start to form a friendship from that.

The rest of the movie is basically about their tentativecoming together first as friends and then as lovers. It’s very poignant inparts, particularly when Randy confesses that she wants to hold Evie’s hand ina restaurant. Those first moments when things have started shifting in arelationship between two people from a friendship to a budding love is capturedso beautifully and innocently.

Of course, there are kinks to this new love story. Randylives with her aunt, her aunt’s girlfriend and her aunt’s ex-girlfriend whoneeded a place to stay. So she’s in house of all lesbians, which you’d thinkwould be a good thing. However, they don’t have money, which causes friction. They’rea close knit, expressive group though compared to Evie’s staid home life.Shockingly, Randy’s aunt is not thrilled with this development even though theyall know Randy’s a lesbian as well. And she’s pissed off with Randy for lettingher grades drop and insists that she stop hanging out with this girl.

And Evie, whom I give a lot of credit to in this story sinceshe has a lot to lose by being courageous and befriending the school outcast,is so open minded if a bit innocently naïve about how her friends will react tothis new friendship. It’s not the reaction she thought or hoped for. But shedoesn’t let that affect her feelings or desire to stick with Randy, which I thoughtwas admirable.

The only thing about this film that went a bit hokey was theending. It was a bit over the top, but it also explained a lot more of how andwhy the girls found themselves attracted to each other, the family dynamics andso on that partially formed who they were as people comes to a head giving theviewer a more intimate view of who the girls are. It was also funny and a sortof typical, gloss over reality for a light--- unrealistic love overcomes all---American ending.

I definitely recommend this movie. It’s an all-around feelgood movie and shows a young, budding lesbian love in a, fun, positive, and non-judgmentalway.

Heat Level – 2 There’s some nudity in one sex scene. It’s a gorgeously, sensuallychoreographed sex scene that doesn’t try to titillate in sexual way as much asin a loving way.

Grade A-

Guest Author Post-The Allure of Vampires in Romance Literature by Paisley Smith

2011-09-15T16:58:00.000-07:00

Guest Author post: The Allure of Vampires in Romance Literature -by PaisleySmith

Why are we so fascinated by vampires in literature,especially in romance? Nineteenth century vampires represented sexual desiresthat were considered taboo in polite Victorian society. Both Dracula andCarmilla spoke to hidden lusts, with the penetration of the fangs mimickingsexual penetration.

Nineteenth century literature depicted vampires and theirbloodlust as wicked. But modern literature portrays vampire eroticism as supernaturaland the vampire becomes attractive rather than fearsome. They are the literary badboys and bad girls, only ratcheted up a notch.

Girls Who Bite, edited by Delilah Devlin for Cleis Press,offers fresh takes vampire lore with an erotic lesbian spin.

For bad girls looking for love…fangs are more than anaccessory.

These are no Twilight tales—the stories in Girls Who Biteare varied, unexpected, and soul-scorching. Bestselling romance writer DelilahDevlin and her contributors investigate vampire myths from around the world,and add fresh girl-on-girl blood to the pantheon of the paranormal.

Take a walk on the wild side with some of the hottest eroticromance authors out there. In La Caída, a Mexican “salt-eater” saves a fallenangel and redeems her own soul. In Bloody Wicked, a powerful witch’s spell tolure a lover turns her into a vampire’s love slave. Through a Pet Door, ashapeshifting vampire meets the dominatrix of her dreams. South African Impundulu sweeps you back into a vampire’s primeval beginnings. With a listof contributors that include Adele Dubois, Christine d’Abo, Paisley Smith, MylaJackson, Shayla Kersten and Vivi Anna, Devlin delivers a dark and sexy read youcan sink your teeth into!

Inside Girls Who Bite:

Bloody Wicked
A witch becomes a slave to the vampire lover she conjures

Al Dente
A jaded vampire in Romesavors a renewal of love

Dark Angel
After a fateful night in a Berlincabaret, a woman undergoes a blood rite

Pet Door
A shifter passes through the pet door of a dominatrix she seduces

Dark Guard
A detective partners with a sultry vampire to stop a serial killer

La Caída
A nagual rescues a fallen angel in the Sonoran desert

The Crystal Altar
An ancient crystalline cavern becomes the setting for a most unusual birthdayparty

Beloved
An Egyptian goddess exploring the remnants of her ancient world finds herimmortal beloved

Bound Lust
A human dominatrix frees a vampire submissive from loneliness

The Gift of Lillith

An immortal surrenders her legacy to give continued life to her lover

Madeline

Long lost vampire lovers rekindle their dark passion in London

Red Horizon

Sailing the seas, a modern day vampirate is seduced by her human captain

Impundulu

A vampire journeys to South Africa seeking her lover and creator

Night at the Wax Museum

A museum security guard falls for a vampire trapped in wax museum exhibit

She Knows I Am Watching
A New World Vampire in Oxfordfeeds her victim’s dark and secret fantasies

More information can be found at http://GirlsWhoBite.net

Order Trade Paperback Now

Amazon | Barnes& Noble
Books-A-Million | Borders
Indiebound
The Book Depository

More lesbian vampires from Delilah Devlin and Paisley Smithare coming soon in Bitten in the BigEasy, the first in the Femme Noirparanormal series!

For more information, visit http://www.jasminejade.com/p-9589-bitten-in-the-big-easy.aspx

About Paisley Smith:

Paisley Smith is a full timefreelance writer and can usually be found in front of her computer eitherwriting, chatting, promoting or plotting. It’s a glamorous life…working inone’s pajamas.

She attended college in the Deep South where she obtained a slew of totally uselessdegrees and developed an unrelenting sense of humor.

Her books can be found at Ellora’s Cave , Loose Id, and Cleis Press!

Paisley’ssite: http://Paisley-Smith.com

Review- War Games by K.S. Augustin

2011-09-10T16:51:00.000-07:00

War Games

By K.S. Augustin

July 27, 2011

Sci-fi/ f/f

96K words

Pub: Sandal Press

Ebook

Buy it Amazon (Kindle), B&N, Smashwords

What can you do when you start falling in love with thewoman you’re meant to kill?

Laisen Carros is a covert agent of the Fusion, sentundercover to infiltrate the Perlim Empire. However, the years she’s spent asCheloi Sie fighting Menon rebels on an alien battleground are starting toexhaust her.

To Lith Yinalña, Cheloi Sie is nothing but a war criminaland she considers it her personal mission to kill her.

Unfortunately for Laisen/Cheloi, the Empire and anidealistic assassin aren’t the only things she needs to worry about. Atreacherous subordinate—the ambitious Koul Grakal-Ski—is looking for any chanceto grab control of the territory. When Laisen and Lith start falling in love,it’s only a matter of time before Koul notices. And acts.

I won this book in a contest and I’m so glad I tried! It’s againthat rare SF/F book with a female protagonist who has a romantic interest inwomen, so it was a treat for me. The plot is fast paced, tension is kept highand the characters, all of them including the secondary characters, are allcompelling and fully developed.

I really have nothing negative to say about this book. Theromance and plot were interwoven in just the right way and with an equal amountof book space and development.

One thing I liked that might be reader preference is that alot of the story is intertwined with moral conflicts. Cheloi Sie/Laisen Carrosis the most morally ambiguous character in this story and it’s mostly from herPOV that this story is expressed through. I can’t really say that she’s amorally upright person, which I think will push some readers’ buttons, but Iloved it. I’m actually rather fond of characters who have to do things that areugly or wrong for what they feel is a greater good. That character who willmake decisions and not dwell on how it negatively affects their internal code.

Cheloi Sei is a general for the Perlim who are trying to getcontrol of the planet Menon in order to gain some foothold to fight their realenemy, the Fusion. Cheloi is a spy for the Fusion and has been sent toinfiltrate the Perlim by becoming one of them. To play her role to a T, sheneeds to make hard decisions in which she has to order the mass murder ofinnocent people so that her cover and loyalty to the Perlim is neverquestioned.

What’s interesting to me is that ultimately, maybe theFusion are not the altruistic people that they are presented as. On the surfaceit’s implied that they are the more “enlightened” group trying to curb the“evil” Perlim Empire from destroying and subjugating an innocent people on aforeign planet. However, like in most situations of war, it depends on whatside you’re on as to whether your side is the “right” side and that becomes aninteresting conflict inside of Cheloi. Is she just a pawn for an equallycontrolling Empire?

It’s interesting tome to think about these kinds of things because all of the characters in thisstory are acting and doing atrocious things, except for maybe Lith, in the nameof the rightness of their empire and ideology. It’s for the greater good. K.S.Augustin did a great job of really getting into the internal conflicts or lackthereof when the characters are confronted with things that go against theirbeliefs, like falling in love with the enemy, etc.

Cheloi is a strong, steely, unflappable woman. She can’tafford to make one mistake or her cover and her mission to take down the Perlimas a Perlim general will all be for naught. Her second in command, KoulGrakal-Ski, is an ambitious man and resents her for being appointed to aposition he felt was his. He’s looking at every turn to find something on herto take her down so he watches her every move carefully. He’s also extremelyloyal to the Perlim Empire and would never do anything to hurt it. His need tofollow orders and be loyal becomes Cheloi’s luck in her mission. But he stilltries to undermine her constantly.

To keep up with thestress of always being on top of things, she talks often to a virtualpsychiatrist with whom she can interact with inside her head through a chip. Inthis way we get a good chance to see what’s going on inside of Cheloi Sie’shead, what she really feels, how things really affect her and we get to seethat there are cracks. She’s very “human” and her relationships with the peopleshe works with do affect her deep down. She's also got a painful past and thatis constantly hinted at but comes out in bits and pieces, slowly allowing ussee where she comes from ultimately.

Outside of her intense attraction to Lith, she’sparticularly fond of Rumis, her adjunct who is extremely loyal to her and thePerlim empire. However, unlike the conniving Koul Grakal-Ski, Rumis ishonorable in his loyalty to her and it eats at Cheloi that she is beingdeceitful to a man she admires. There are painful consequences in Cheloi’slater decisions about Rumis, which I thought added a lot to the choices shemakes for her future and her loyalty to the Fusion. She pays severeconsequences emotionally for liking him and I liked that spurred characterreflection and growth.

So all in all I loved the dynamics of what drives all thecharacters. There are lots of interesting moral questions presented that madethis story really interesting to me.

Then there’s the romance. Lith is a young idealist who getsswept up in the romantic ideology of freeing her people from the Perlim Empireeven though her parents were born Perlim. She belongs to a small, rouge Fusiongroup who have sent her to kill Cheloi, whom they know to be a mass murderer ofinnocents. What she doesn’t know is that Cheloi and she are fighting for thesame side, which sets up the very interesting conflict for her in herattraction to Cheloi.

Right from the get-go there’s a strong attraction betweenLith and Cheloi, which both intrigues Lith and freaks her out. They get it onfairly quickly but if it’s found out that they are having an affair, Koul willhave an excuse to get rid of Cheloi, so they have only stolen moments together.

One thing I’ll say here is that while I did feel they areattracted, I couldn’t understand why Lith would put up with being coollydismissed after sex, which is what Cheloi does to 1. keep her distance knowingthat Lith’s the enemy and she shouldn’t lose her heart to her, and 2. to keepthe relationship secret. However, it was clear that Lith, while bothered by it,realizes that it’s necessary and can’t help herself, she wants Cheloi.

Lith's personal codes are called into question as well asshe's forced to make an important decision, which could jeopardize her missionto kill Cheloi and her break her heart at the same time.

While not the most passionate couple due to these issues,the romance is nicely and slowly developed. I felt that these two ache to betogether even if they’re rather reticent in their expression of it. And thereis a happy ending.

Outside of all of that, there’s a nice tension and suspensethroughout the whole book that kept the story exciting. There are so manytwists and intrigues and alliances and deceits that I kept reading just to seewhat would happen. I definitely recommend War Games if you’re into sci-fi andf/f and even if you’re not. It’s just a good compelling story all around.

Heat level: 2-3. The sexual scenarios are not toographically written. More sensually written with softer terminology used.

Grade: A-

For Labor Day, the fruits of my labor

2011-09-05T15:14:00.000-07:00

Summer is almost over and I've been the queen of DIY for thelast few weeks. Back in the day, I actually did construction. I loved it.Unfortunately, my body didn't and I couldn't continue with all the back andwrist problems. But I'm so stubborn and if I'm capable of doing something, I'mgoing to.

These last few weeks, and it's literally been like 6-8 hour,5 days a week work, I've been redoing our deck railings and working in thegarden, doing lots of yard work. And this last week I spent several days in thegarage, putting up a bunch of shelves, organizing it and cleaning it. It looksso good now.

But all of this means I've had no time to really read. Bythe end of the day I've been exhausted and vegetated in front of the TV orcaught up on Twitter and blogs I follow.

Last year I spent 6 weeks cleaning up the jungle that wasour garden areas and put in some landscaping stone walls. It was hard work andit was this time last year when I finished, so we didn't plant anything.

This year we went to anursery and got tons of plants. This is pretty incredible, since my whole life I've hate gardening. I always thought that my worst nightmare would be having to work in a garden for even a few hours. Now, I'm in love with it. Proof that people do change over time. heh

We also found these really cool solar lights that change color, which we've littered throughout the garden. I can't stop looking and enjoy how nice it all looks now. It feels good when you work hard and create something gorgeous out of a mess. But I guess that's what authors do as well, huh?

These pics don't do it all justice, but it's somewhat how it looks.

Before and After:

Buddha garden Before clean out

Buddha garden

Finished Buddha garden

Drive

Finished Drive

Walkway

Finished Walkway

Our Deck:

Semi finished Deck- guys did the flooring and put up old floor boards as temp railing. This was two years ago, so it was time to finish this project.

Finished Deck-

Finished Deck

Speaking of labor, I still haven't been able to get a job. :( There are tons of jobs for what I went to school for, but it's the old chicken and egg story. They require 1 year's experience. But how do you get that experience if no one will hire you? Well, lucky for me, I got accepted to an excellent volunteer program at a clinic. In this clinic I'm actually able to do MA work, so this is great for me. At the moment, I'm working 16 hours a week and really enjoy it. Hopefully this will look good on my resume and more importantly, give me some actual clinic experience. School is one thing, but reality is a whole different ball of wax.

In the meantime I need to start studying for my certification test, so still no rest for the weary. heh

I am reading. I've been reading full novels these last few months and, well, with only reading a few pages at night, it's slow going. So maybe when I'm done with my current book, which I'll be reviewing, I will read a few shorter ones.

Also speaking of labor, this post took me days to do since Blogger's new UI sucks hairy pigs ass. Ugh

I hope everyone is having a good day off and revving up for fall. All of our new Japanese Maples will be turning orange/red soon. They will be gorgeous! :D

Contest Whoohoo!

2011-08-22T06:56:00.000-07:00

I recently asked author Cathy Pegau if she'd be willing to do an interview and she was gracious enough to answer my questions. Cathy has just had a book, Rulebreaker, published and I loved it. Because I enjoyed it so much, I'm giving away 2 Kindle copies of Rulebreaker woot!

I hope you enjoy the interview : )

First, congratulations on your first published book! Did you know this day would come? Or did you fear it would take a lot more time? How many stories do you think you’ve completely written to get to this point?

Thanks so much! When I first started writing, I had delusions of grandeur and a five year plan that took a dozen to come to pass. With Rulebreaker being such a niche book, I was quite surprised it didn’t take longer to find a home. I was fully prepared to have it make the rounds then get stuffed in my virtual drawer.

I know EXACTLY how many stories I’ve written. Four full novels and three halves of novels. Plus dozens of pages of storylines for future novels.

You created an interesting character in Liv. She’s fairly complex in that she lives outside the law, and yet, she seems to have an inner code of honor. Was there someone in particular you based her off of?

You’re not the first person to ask me that : ) Liv is, I think, the Bad Girl (which, not so incidentally, was the original title for Rulebreaker) many of us have inside. Not evil, just willing to do certain things, mostly for cash, when normal means of acquisition are difficult. I didn’t have a particular person in mind, no, but reading about a couple of famous/infamous females helped shape her.

This blog is focused on promoting f/f stories. So I’d love to ask a few questions in that direction.

I know you love reading Sci-fi, so it’s a no brainer that you’d write a story in that genre. But what was it that made you decide the main love story would be between two women?

Did you find it more difficult to create a love story and write sex scenes between two women more so than writing a m/f story?

As much as I enjoy f/f, I didn’t consciously set out to write about two women. I knew it would take a very special person to cause Liv to break her personal rules. Almost immediately, Zia’s character popped into my head. I was a bit startled, but it felt right. The love story was organic enough that writing it came about relatively easily. I wasn’t trying to hook up two women merely for titillating girl-on-girl action. I actually found it easier to write the more sensual and emotional aspects of their relationship than when I write m/f. The physical scenes were new to me, but I don’t write graphic love scenes, even in my m/f stories, so a little extra reading and research worked to manage that. The hardest part was keeping the pronouns straight : )

In m/f the masculine/feminine dynamic makes for a great contrast/ conflict between two characters in a love story automatically. There’s so much to play with even if the male is a beta and the female is an alpha.

Both women, Liv and Zia, are strong alpha types in their own right. I noticed that Liv is more feminine around Tonio but more commanding with Zia, while Zia, who is definitely an alpha in her work, becomes rather soft and vulnerable when it comes to Liv.

Did you think when writing these women that you needed that contrast/conflict to make it interesting and not have two women who are too similar, or did it just want to happen that way?

I wanted two strong women, each with her own life, career, ideas and problems, but they still had to be individuals. Liv had been Tonio’s equal, but yes, in some ways she was willing to defer to him. When she felt like it, anyway : ) When she goes to work at Exeter Mining Liv has to take the reins in order to get her job done, so it suits her to be more forward with Zia. She plays the good little coffee girl in the office, but uses that to her advantage. Zia, on the other hand, is the cool, aloof exec when it comes to her job, but her personal life allows her softer side to come through. I actually wrote a character exploration scene with Zia and her former lover to get a stronger sense of her vulnerability.

I was quite amazed when you shared that your book had been picked up. This is because f/f still isn’t that popular, or nowhere near as popular as m/m in GLBT. While I do feel that more authors are writing it and more readers are open to reading it, I know publishers are still not as willing to go for publishing it.

The f/f market is way smaller than m/m, but hopefully it’s growing. There are some amazing authors and publishers out there. Carina Press is one of the larger publishing imprints to take f/f, making it more mainstream. Rulebreaker isn’t the only f/f story they offered this summer. Michael Merriam’s Last Car to Anwnn Station is a great fantasy with a f/f relationship. I think most people equate f/f and m/m with erotica, no matter what the heat level, and that may put them off. We’d find more readers if that assumption wasn’t made, which means more word of mouth about what’s available. Fingers crossed that f/f will get more exposure in the near future.

Did you fear that having a love story between two women would mean that your book would be passed up or that you’d be told to change it to a m/f?

As I wrote Rulebreaker, I honestly wasn’t thinking about the marketability. I just wanted to write an interesting story. I think if I had stopped to consider the market I might have put it away. But maybe not. I was having way too much fun with it. After writing and revising, as I researched the market, yeah, I was worried it was going to be passed up. I was told by more than one person the writing was fine but selling the story would be hard. No one suggested changing it to m/f. Which is good, because I wouldn’t have : )

I loved this story and think you have a great writing voice. Are there any plans for writing another f/f in your future?

Aw, thanks! There is definitely more f/f in my future! I’m working on the third book set in the same ‘verse as Rulebreaker (number two is a m/f). I also have a f/f historical paranormal western that’s been circling my brain for some time. That’s it at the moment, but I’m always coming up with something to distract me from what I should be doing : )

Thanks a bunch for having me here! I appreciate your support and enthusiasm on a personal level as well as for the f/f genre!

Just comment to enter to win a copy of Rulebreaker. I'm keeping the contest open until Sun. Aug. 28th. The winners will be announced at 6 PM PST on Sun.

If you don't have a Kindle, you can download the Kindle for PC or the apps for iTouch, iPad, iPhone. You can also read Kindle books on android phones and tablets as well.

Good luck!

Edited: All three commentors won a copy of Rulebreaker. Congrats! See comments section for info.

Review- The Sublime and Spirited Voyage of Original Sin by Colette Moody

2011-08-17T10:19:00.000-07:00

The Sublime and Spirited Voyage of Original Sin
By Colette Moody
March 2009
Historical/ Lesbian
204 pgs.
Pub: Bold Strokes Books

Buy it Amazon, B&N, ARe

The Gulf of Mexico, 1702: When pirates of the square-rigger Original Sin steal ashore to abduct a doctor to tend to their wounded, they end up settling for the doctor’s attractive fiancée—Celia Pierce, the town seamstress.

Together with Gayle Malvern, daughter of wounded pirate captain “Madman” Malvern, Celia becomes a reluctant participant in an unexpectedly thrilling journey through the Caribbean. For Gayle, Celia’s presence is at first a welcome and shapely distraction, but as her attraction to the seamstress deepens, she realizes that Celia comes to mean more to her than is almost certainly prudent. As Celia and Gayle navigate the perilous territories of gypsies, prostitutes, mercenaries, and slave-traders, they forge a partnership born of necessity that Gayle soon hopes will veer away from insurmountable danger—and instead detour directly to her bed.

This was such fun book to read! It seems really that most lesbian romances are contemporaries, so to read a story set in the 1700’s wherein the characters aren’t the typical of that time as well was a definite treat.

What I liked: Both of the main characters, Gayle and Celia are adventurous and strong. While Gayle has grown up on her father’s pirate ship and is used to the life of being a pirate, she’s tough enough to step up to the plate and has a good head on her shoulders for leading her crew and doing what’s best for the ship.

Gayle also has no compunction about killing other pirates from other ships who are evil incarnate and she’s quite aggressive about going after what’s hers. And while she won’t do nefarious things that other pirates are doing like slave trading, she sort of accepts that these things go on and will do what she can to stop it if it’s something that’s been requested of her. So she’s a juicy mix of heart and ruthlessness, which made her a much more compelling character than the usual.

Celia is an interesting character in that while she’s grown up as the daughter of a well to do man living a comfortable life in Florida, instead of craving a life of having continued creature comforts, she’s so open to any new adventure. In fact, she ponders how dull life will be with her betrothed, a doctor who doesn’t even get her subtle sarcasm about how less than thrilled she is to be with him.

After getting whisked away (kidnapped essentially) by Gayle and crew in need of a doctor, she’s intrigued and turned on by this unique, dynamic woman who’s the captain of a pirate ship and whose romantic preference is for women.

Celia also has no qualms about jumping when needed to fight for the ship and their lives even if she’s less inclined to get into scuffles if she doesn’t need to.

I thought their romance was a bit subdued, but their romantic and sexual dance was sexy and playful. They came across as a couple who definitely complement each other as well as enjoy the hell out of each other, both being game for anything.

The odd assortment of other characters: pirates, port shop keepers, family members are wild and colorful and added so much to this story. I also thought this pirate world, the ship, the towns, and situations were very descriptive and gave me vivid idea of what this world looked like.

What I didn’t like: there wasn’t much I disliked about this book at all. But one thing bothered me throughout the book and that was the constant reference to potential rape by gross, filthy, disgusting, violent men. Of course that was a reality. And I can imagine that the rare women who managed to be on a pirate ship would be a constant target of sex starved men. But still, it was brought up constantly and from many different situations. I kept imagining the worst case scenario even if it never happened. Even the thought of those women who were prostitutes willingly having sex with those men made me gag a bit. So for some reason my mind got distracted with that often while reading this book.

The Sublime and Spirited Voyage of Original Sin is a great read none the less and for the unique setting in lesbian it’s definitely worth reading. There’s tons of action, it moves quickly and there’s never a dull moment. Even when the women are getting to know each other, there’s always some excitement in the air.

Heat level: 3-4 some sexual situations not too graphically written but still spelled out. Heh

Grade: B+

Interesting Statistics

2011-08-04T07:20:00.000-07:00

Click to enlarge
Source: Online Political Science.org

I got this from the GLBT promo blog-

The big shocker on this? I had no idea there were so many GLBT persons in the Midwest. Wisconsin? Indiana? Illinois?

Pimpage

2011-08-03T18:16:00.001-07:00

A new anthology is coming out soon from authors Paisley Smith and Deliliah Devlin.

Pre-order for a discount at Amazon . It's in trade PB! Great for those who like to read paper.

Pop on over to Girls Who Bite to enter a contest to win Paisley Smith's Beguiled or Soft Swap

Advanced Review- Rulebreaker by Cathy Pegau

2011-07-26T10:11:00.001-07:00

Advanced Review-

Rulebreaker
By Cathy Pegau
Aug. 11, 2011
Sci-Fi/ f/f
89K words
Publisher: Carina Press

Coming AUG 8th

Buy it Amazon (Kindle), Carina Press

Liv Braxton's Felon Rule #1: Don't get emotionally involved.
Smash-and-grab thieving doesn't lend itself to getting chummy with the victims, and Liv hasn't met anyone on the mining colony of Nevarro worth knowing, anyway. So it's easy to follow her Rules.

Until her ex, Tonio, shows up with an invitation to join him on the job of a lifetime.

Until Zia Talbot, the woman she's supposed to deceive, turns Liv's expectations upside down in a way no woman ever has.

Until corporate secrets turn deadly.

But to make things work with Zia, Liv has to do more than break her Rules, and the stakes are higher than just a broken heart...

I was excited to read Rulebreaker for several reasons. I’ve read snippets of other stories on author Cathy Pegau’s website and enjoyed her writing, her style. Also, this book has a f/f love story and it’s sci-fi, a combination that’s fairly unique. I wasn’t sure what to expect since this is the author’s first published book, but I can tell you that I loved it.

I’ll be honest; it’s going to be hard for me to review this book. There were so many elements that I enjoyed, but how do you describe why you like chocolate vs. vanilla? It’s easier to come up with reasons I dislike a book. I’d love to do it justice though.

The plot: the plot of this story was definitely fun and unique. It’s about a group of con artists. It starts out with the heroine, Olivia, and her partner in crime almost getting killed by robbers at a bank they were in to actually rob. What a start! It sucked me in right away. When it turns out that one of the actual robbers is Olivia’s ex-husband, Tonio, even more interesting. It’s a great set-up for future conflict and set the intensity and excitement level kept throughout the book.

Outside of the main plot of Olivia and Tonio joining forces with others to con a major corporation, there’re juicy little side issues going on that created a lot of added tension and gave more insight to some of the characters. One is Olivia’s mother, a con artist herself who reinserts herself into Olivia’s life causing a lot of internal conflict for Olivia to deal with.

Although set far into the future, created with intricate world-building, typical social problems of the 21st century are present like corporate greed and abuse as well as current privacy issues of living in an high-tech world. I liked the contrast of future/present, which gave this story elements of familiarity and tension. Heh

The characters: Olivia, the main character, is a scrapper type who grew up in the world of con artists. Her mother taught her everything she knew, even used her in cons as a child. Olivia works at a normal, boring job to make money between robbing banks, but it doesn’t give her that adrenaline rush she craves. While she doesn’t think twice about screwing people over for a con, she is the reluctant hero/heroine type, which I love.

Her part of the con is to seduce a high-level executive to get information. Unfortunately, she develops a conscience where Zia is concerned, which screws her up. She’s a flawed character, which made her even more three dimensional and interesting.

Tonio is Olivia’s ex-husband and con artist himself. He pops back into Olivia’s life and asks her to work with him on a huge job. There’s still a fair amount of sexual tension between them even as they make it clear to each other that working together and sharing a space doesn’t mean slipping back into old patterns. Other partners on this job are definitely sketchy and he spends a lot of time watching her back against those guys even as he has his own greed in keeping it going.

I liked that while the sexual tension was there, he doesn’t push her nor does he act on advances from her. Actually I rather enjoyed that they are closer due to a friendship and having a shared intimate past. There’s something comforting in that. He’s a good, decent hero that everyone loves.

Zia is the mark who Olivia is to seduce and she's a lesbian. As a character, unfortunately, I couldn’t get as good a feel for her as the others. I think this is because of the 1st person POV from Olivia. Since Olivia has a past and lots of history with Tonio and her mom, I got a good feel for who those characters were through Olivia’s eyes. Since Zia is a new person to Olivia, there’s not as much insight from Olivia about who Zia is.

What I did get about Zia is that she’s a cool, tough, corporate executive who doesn’t take crap and who seems to not have a soft side. She also seems to be up to some nefarious things herself. Although as she and Olivia get to know each other, it’s clear that Zia is more vulnerable than she lets on.

Outside of the main characters, the rest of the characters are distinct and vividly drawn out, which added a lot more depth to this story.

The romance: this is hard for me to say because, well, I love f/f romances, but I just wasn’t really feeling the love story between Olivia and Zia. YMMV on that though. The trouble is I can’t put my finger on why. Their love story is built slowly enough to have a realistic development and build-up, all the right words and actions are used, their interactions are normal for a romantic story, but I just didn’t feel any real heat between them.

Part of that was most probably because I wasn’t feeling who Zia was. What her perspective was with Olivia. I couldn’t feel why she’d be attracted to Olivia other than Olivia is efficient, which I can see Zia would be turned on by. But what was personally going on that she became attracted to Olivia was missing for me. I also couldn’t feel why Olivia is attracted to Zia other than she feels sorry for and protective of her.

That said, by the end I did feel that they could be a long term couple and that they really loved each other. Their sex scenes were sensually written and I loved that Olivia accepts falling in love with a women with aplomb. It’s like, oh OK, I love a woman now. That’s it not a big deal was a huge plus for me. Moreover, their interaction causes a lot of conflict in Olivia, which causes her to rethink her life and what’s important, creating character growth.

And to be honest, the rest of the book was so good that the romantic issues weren’t really a big problem to me. I experienced this book more as an exceptional sci-fi suspense/detective/thriller with romantic elements.

All in all Rulebreaker is an excellent read. It’s suspenseful and has a lot of interesting twists and side corridors that are fun to go down. The writing is smooth with a perfect pace, which kept me on edge until the end. I can’t wait to read more of Ms. Pegau’s books. I’d love to read more from this sci-fi world that Ms Pegau has skillfully and colorfully created.

Heat Level: 3 – a few f/f sensually written scenes. Not very graphic but not side stepped as either.

Grade: A-

Pimping

2011-07-25T19:55:00.000-07:00

I've seen these books have just come out, but can't vouch for any of them. Thought I'd post them anyway in case someone is interested.

By the way, the first two books are in Kindle. The last not... so far. This is important to me since all are from small epubs I've never heard of and I just don't do small epubs anymore.

Second Best Fantasy
by Angela Kelly

GENRE: Contemporary • Erotica • Lesbian Fiction
LENGTH: 44,368 words

Info Here

BLURB:
Everyone dreams of being a rock star. Dating one is the second best fantasy.

Maggie O’Leary is a lonely lesbian dazzled by the talent and charisma of up-and-coming bisexual rock star, Janine Jordan. A romance with Janine could spell trouble, but Maggie can’t help falling in love.

Set in New York City during the nineties, Second Best Fantasy follows Maggie and Janine as they embark on an exciting and surprising journey together, which carries them through the music scene toward stardom, creative artistry, career satisfaction, and finally, battles with their own personal demons.

With support and encouragement from families and friends, their life seems to be headed down the right path. But Maggie and Janine learn love is seldom simple or easy, particularly when both women are also involved in committed relationships with their own addictions. Theirs is a tumultuous love affair from the start. Can they survive the curves and upheaval along the way?

Behind the Dunes
by Dorla Moorehouse

Behind the Dunes is the story of First Lady Sharon Bradford who on the wake of her husband´s infidelity and ensuing political scandal, meets a woman named Matilda on the beach and falls in love with her. When Sharon'a Secret Service bodyguard outs her, Sharon and Matilda journey to D.C. in order to deal with the fallout. Sharon has to confront her country and estranged husband while struggling to define her self, her sexuality, and her new relationship. While her struggles lead to tension in her newfound romance, Sharon still finds the strength to forge ahead with her new life. Dorla Moorehouse is a writer and dancer based in Austin, Texas. Her stories have appeared in numerous anthologies and websites.

Sweet Kisses and Lesbian Wishes
by Kissa Starling

From the critically acclaimed author of lesbian erotic romance comes an irresistible collection of novellas and short stories including Ps. I Love You, Helga House, I Heart You, Lesson Learned, and others. Her work has been nominated for awards and has appeared in many award finalist and winning anthologies.

Oh look, it's that cover again!

Review- Nurse Lovette by Paisley Smith

2011-07-23T12:51:00.001-07:00

Nurse Lovette
By Paisley Smith
July 22, 2011
Contemporary/ f/f/ Erotica/ Kink/ Fetish
Novella- 15-29K

Buy it Ellora’s Cave

After two failed marriages, Avery Walker is encouraged by her therapist to explore her secret obsession. She can’t get off without fantasizing about submitting to intimate examinations—performed by a hot female nurse. When she joins a medical fetish website, she expects to find a partner who’ll provide a little probing and maybe some sexual release to help Avery get in touch with her kinky side.

Then she meets Nurse Lovette…

The consummate professional, Darby Lovette is determined to keep her relationship with Avery one of nurse and patient—nearly impossible when the gorgeous woman is on the exam table, willingly submitting to unspeakably intimate “procedures”. The fact that she’s loved and lost helps Darby maintain her resolve; falling in love isn’t part of her treatment plan. But Avery’s determination to explore sex with a woman just might be the cure for what ails them both.

Reader Advisory: This book employs myriad toys created especially for erotic exams, no holes barred, and, ahem…perhaps a sensual enema—or two.

Um, wow, I loved this book! I knew this book was going to have kink in it, that it was most probably going to be a good one-handed reading story with not much more to it.
But surprisingly, Nurse Lovette is far more than a fetish erotica story. It’s actually a sweet story about budding love and opening up and characters finding out who they really are by accepting and exploring their unique sexual fantasies with each other.

I don’t deny that Nurse Lovette is pretty much non-stop sex and with a specific kink. And damn, but it’s obscenely hot sex. Although YMMV if it’s not something you can imagine as sexy in a fantasy setting. Let’s face it a gyn exam is something most women dread and would rather skip. However, I felt it’s written so that the sex is more generic, with a specific fetish around it. What struck me most though, is how much heart and affection was infused into this story.

As erotica, I don’t really expect a love story. In this novella Paisley Smith managed to create enough romantic tension and at just the right pace that I was dying for these two women to get together.

Avery has fantasies of medical, specifically gynecological, procedures being done to her to get off sexually. She’s in therapy trying to figure out why this is so since she thinks it’s weird. Incidentally, all those fantasies only include female practitioners; no male Drs. She feels that these fantasies and needs are getting in the way of experiencing true intimacy with someone. She’s been married a few times and none of her husbands or boyfriends have been able to satisfy her or been willing to explore this with her. Her therapist suggests she find a person who’s willing to cater to her kink outside of a romantic relationship to see if she can find the source of it and maybe get over it.

Darby is a real nurse who works with patients who are dying. While she enjoys her job, due to the nature of it and other day to day things she has no control over, she has a strong need to dominate, to have some control in her life. So she has set up part of her own home as a Drs. office to offer private clients their nurse kink fantasies. She sticks to the fantasy and treats every client as a real patient in a Drs. office. Just coming off a nasty break up with her girlfriend who dumped her due to being bored with the kink aspect of their relationship, she’s determined to keep all clients at arm’s length, staying strictly professional.

Avery starts going to Darby for these sessions several times a week but finds that she wants more. Darby makes her feel things she’s never felt before and her desire and need to really connect with Darby on a deeper emotional level starts eating at her since the boundaries have been set and she wants to respect Darby in that.

For Darby, Avery’s response to her, her vulnerability, her willingness to really get into it with Darby is turning her on. Cracks in the wall of keeping it professional are freaking Darby out and she acts even more coolly with Avery, trying to keep her distance. But her job and her own intense attraction to Avery are shattering her cool facade.

Nurse Lovette also explores those feelings and thoughts that a character would feel who’s realizing that maybe they’ve been wrong about their sexual leanings and not known it. It’s written in a realistic, honest way. Both characters actually have some growth through their connection, which made this story far more than the typical erotica.

If I wouldn’t have been familiar with Paisley Smith’s books, I would have passed this book up. It would have been a shame because it’s ultimately a sweet, warm love story.

Heat Level: 5

Grade: A-

Pimping

2011-07-22T09:39:00.000-07:00

Pop on over to Delilah Devlin's Blog where Paisley Smith is guest blogging and comment to win a free copy of Nurse Lovette

Review- Drifting Flowers- DVD

2011-07-21T08:19:00.000-07:00

Drifting Flowers
DVD 2009
Chinese/ GLBT/ Lesbian

OFFICIAL SELECTION, BERLIN FILM FESTIVAL! Teddy Award-winning Director Zero Chou (Spider Lilies) weaves three poetic tales as the lesbians in Drifting Flowers seek their true identity. In the first story, Jing, a blind singer, falls in love with her band s tomboy accordionist Diego. In another time and place, Lily, an elderly lesbian and Yen, her gay friend, create an unexpected bond and support each other in a time of crisis. Finally, we see Diego before she joined the band, when as a teenager she came to grips with her identity.

I saw this film in my library selection and thought the cover was gorgeous. I’m also partial to Asian films and it’s rare to see an Asian film with a GLBT subject matter so it was a no-brainer to watch it. This film was touching, sad, poignant and different at the same time.

The first story is about a blind woman, Jing, who is taking care of her much younger sister. She’s a lounge singer and social services is trying to take her sister away since she keeps late hours and the sister is not doing well at school. Diego, a butch lesbian who plays the accordion as background music for Jing, befriends both of them and tries to help. Jing accepts Diego’s friendship and her love without question.

What’s interesting in that story is that the younger sister, who is about 9 years old, becomes jealous and sullen whenever Diego shows Jing any attention since she’s fallen in love with Diego. And when she sees them kissing, she starts acting out and treats her sister cruelly. In the end, social services convince Jing that her sister is better off with a foster family who love her and can give her good home.

There’s no love story here, just a brief glimpse into Diego and Jing’s long relationship as the ending of the story shows the younger sister coming back as a young woman. What’s compelling about it is how it’s told and the interesting relationship dynamics between the characters.

The second story was a bit confusing and vague, but just as compelling. Lily, a lesbian in love with a woman, Ocean, and a gay guy who is with Yen, get married to please her family. Both couples are shown in the beginning at the wedding laughing at having fooled the families. In the next scene it’s maybe 40 years later and Lily has dementia. Yen has gotten AIDS and his partner started cheating on him, blowing him off. Having nowhere to go, he looks for Lily. Lily, in her mind, thinks Yen is Ocean and keeps telling him to stop dressing like a butch because it will cause problems for them. So she dresses him like a woman all the time. It’s clear that she has lost Ocean for whatever reason and the grief has destroyed her.

This story was rather sad but very human. Two lost souls trying to find some peace in familiarity with each other. It’s never really clear though what happened to Ocean, nor why Yen would tolerate being dressed as a woman since he gets beat up in the park for doing so. However, it’s still an interesting story on the realities of being a gay person in that culture.

In the third story we get the back story of Diego. She’s a young girl, maybe in her teens, and she’s clearly butch. Her mother tries to get her to wear a bra but she feels disgusted at having breasts and binds them with a long strip of cloth.

Her family is in the “puppet” business, a sort of carnival side show thing and they are having a hard time keeping it going. The competition has started pimping his daughter out as a sort of semi stripper/singer in place of the puppets to get business and it works. Diego goes to the show to watch and is called on stage to tease/seduce, the girl thinking Diego is a young man. The two girls hit it off, and the other girl sexual seduces an inexperienced Diego.

I liked this story mainly because Diego’s butch-ness is accepted to some degree by her mother and family. Her mother tells the brother that she would like to give some of the family money to Diego since she realizes that Diego isn’t “normal” and will never find a husband to take care of her.

What was also good in this story is the Diego herself accepts who she is. She doesn’t care what people think and she doesn’t try to conform. This gave her an air of innocence as she goes about just being who she is.

All in all it’s a good film. There’s not a lot of actual relationship development; it’s really just snippets in characters’ lives. But it does give an interesting and maybe realistic portrayal of a gay person’s life in China.

Heat Level- 0- a few kissing scenes

Grade- B+

Book Pimping

2011-07-18T18:20:00.001-07:00

Normally I probably would pass up a book with this kind of title, cover and or content because it does come across as the typical lez pr0n for the dudes. However, the author is Paisley Smith and I just happen to enjoy her books. When I found out this book was coming out, I actually got excited. If anything she does write some really hawt f/f smexing. For that alone it's probably worth the read. heh

It's decidedly f/f kink, so it won't be to everyone's taste, but I think she's one of the few authors I can take reading kink from.

Coming this Fri-- July 22 at Ellora's Cave

Blurb:

After two failed marriages, Avery Walker’s therapist encourages her to explore her secret obsession. She can’t get off without fantasizing about submitting to intimate examinations performed by a hot female nurse. So when she joins a medical fetish website, she expects to find a partner who’ll provide a little probing and maybe some sexual release that will help Avery get in touch with her kinky side.

That’s where she meets Nurse Lovette. Darby is the consummate professional, determined to keep her nurse / patient relationship with Avery from becoming too familiar. After all, Darby has loved and lost because of her need to soothe patients beyond traditional nursing. But Avery’s determination to explore real sex with a woman just might be the cure that wasn’t part of Darby’s treatment plan.

Publisher Note: This book contains plenty of girl-on-girl sex, employing the use of myriad toys created especially for erotic exams, no holes barred, and ahem…since this is a medical fetish story we would have been remiss not to include the administration of an enema—or two.

Review- Out on the Sound by R. E. Bradshaw

2011-07-12T18:22:00.000-07:00

Out On the Sound
By R. E. Bradshaw
Aug 22, 2010
Contemporary/ Lesbian
292 pgs in PB

Buy it Amazon

If you like a good story with laughter, tears and suspense then this is the book for you. In her late thirties, Decky Bradshaw was set for life. She had an incredibly lucky life up to this point, excluding the brief marriage to her son's father. She had a great job, plenty of money and a very comfortable existence. Decky figured if someone ever came along that tickled her fancy she'd know. She never thought for one second it would be a woman. Neither did her mother. Follow Decky as she finds new love and deals with her, "Tennessee Williams in drag," overly dramatic, southern mother, Lizzie, and the hurricane of events she brings.

Where to start, where to start. This was a long, long book. However, I finished it, so that’s a pretty good sign.

I bought this book because it’s a coming out story with older characters. Unfortunately, almost every coming out cliché was in this book. It was almost like a “look at me, I’m so gay” coming out story. And it includes name dropping of almost every well-known gay celebrity, musician and author to make sure that we all know how gay the characters are.

I don’t want to slam this book totally. I liked the author’s voice. The writing itself flowed well. I was able to read it and I did enjoy some of it. But overall it had quite a few flaws for me.

The first issue I had was the unrealistic way in which the women come together. Decky and Charlie meet briefly a few times. Then they get together for one night. It’s Decky’s first time with a woman and the next day, Decky is saying things like:

“well, I guess it’s settled then. We are a couple and I’m out of the closet, ready or not.”

Really? She wasn’t even in the closet. She had never fallen in love with a woman before. And instead of just wondering where she’s at as I suspect a person falling in love with another person of the same sex and having gay sex for the first time would, she knows now she’s actually gay.

The thing is, Decky’s been hanging out with lesbians for years and never once had any attraction or clear idea that she even might be gay. You’d have thought that she would have had some sort of indication before now. So, somehow that didn’t ring true to me. And it took only one night together to start calling themselves a couple, which came off to me as a bit ridiculous.

The only thing that mitigated that was that their relationship does develop through the rest of the book. So while I can’t say this is a romance in the traditional sense due to no romantic build up, from the point they sleep together they really are a couple and there is some romance as they try to figure out their situation.

This book is written in three parts. The first is Decky and Charlie coming together and the shit hitting the fan in their small community where Decky is well known, that she’s suddenly gay. The second part is about some major homophobia in the form of a whack job mother and dickish guys with the whole “we’ll fuck the lesbian” out of you threats and attacks. Then part three is about them getting justice and the whole town rooting for them. It all came across as too over-the-top and like one huge cliché.

One thing that would have helped this book is if it would have been cut down by a third. The author goes on too many unimportant tangents like descriptions of food, preparing food, local history, as well as detailing daily mundane events that bog things down and take away from more exciting or interesting plot points. Maybe some readers would like all those little details, and they are good to a degree, but I did a lot of skimming through those paragraphs.

Then there’s Decky’s mom. She’s written as a raving homophobic lunatic that apparently the whole town knows is “eccentric” but doesn’t seem to mind. Apparently she has a lot of influence and inspires fear in anyone who dares to oppose her. I think the author was trying for some humor there, but it didn’t cut if for me if that’s the case. Lizzie is crazy. And the fact that she sits on the board of the local university that Charlie has come to teach at and that she is a community leader to some degree had me wondering. If she’s that whacked and unstable, why would she have any position of power in that community? She’s essentially just a bully. It is explained away as a bi-polar condition but her characterization came across as more cunning than having a mental disability.

Moreover, she’s soooo over the top homophobic as to be a caricature. I know people like that exist. And for all I know it’s an actual description of someone the author knows. However, a Westboro Church member, which is pretty much the extreme out there, doesn’t hold a candle to how homophobic Lizzie came across. So, no, she wasn’t just an eccentric character that people would laugh off, or even one that I would think Decky would stick around to get berated for on a regular basis. But that’s me.

Also unrealistic is Charlie defending her at the end. At that point Lizzie comes across then as a poor misunderstood grump. So not how she’s characterized.

The best part of this story was the trial, the last part. And I only got excited because there were some elements of surprise and mystery in how it was written. How Molly, their lawyer, builds the case and breaks down the prosecutor’s case was pretty entertaining. Enough so that my brain finally got engaged, because until then it was like a run on story.

I might try another book of R.E Bradshaw’s. This was her first book and maybe the whole, “isn’t it so exciting that I’m gay now” will not be the focus, but just the two characters and who they are will come out and shine.

Heat level: 1- not erotic- sexual scenarios mostly hinted at.

Grade: D+

Bisexuals, Bodice Rippers and lesbian fiction-- Oh My!

2011-07-08T15:20:00.000-07:00

Wow, so I've been out of school for a month now and still not working and I haven't managed to do much on this blog. I'm still debating whether or not to really keep it going. I admit, it was nice just read as I pleased and not worry about getting a review up or coming up with a post. I'm not ready to get out of the game altogether yet, but still not willing to go full force again. But I do like getting info out there about new books coming out and such.

There are a few books coming out in the next few months that I do want to promote so I will still be around for a while.

So... these last few weeks there's been some interesting posts that sparked some outrage and or had some interesting points of view.

If you've been on Twitter and follow romance people and those who write/read GLBT, you might have come across this post by Dan Savage during Pride Month. It's a post about Bisexuals. Of course, pretty much every bisexual author I follow who read it was up in arms as well as me. Don't get me wrong, I like Dan Savage.

I've been reading his column since the early nineties, The Stranger being a local free and alternative paper here where I live. But he went along party lines on this one and while he tried to stay somewhat politically correct in the post by acknowledging that Bi's exist, the gist was once again, that you're only bi because you haven't recognized you're actually gay, well for kids anyway. He does make a disclaimer that if you’re older and still identify as bi, you’re probably bi.

One thing that bothered me in this article was the insinuation that a bi partner should be honest with their straight partner that they're bi. I'm all for being honest with your partner about your sexual preferences and so on. You should be if you love that person. But the implication in this is once again that the bi person is a flake who because they can't decide which sex to be with, will cheat or never be happy with the sex they're with.

Seriously, I don't understand this. This would be like a heterosexual person telling their heterosexual partner, "oh, by the way, I'm heterosexual so beware; I might become attracted to another heterosexual person." Who thinks that way? No one. It also implies that bi's fall in love willy nilly. That anyone with a cock or pussy can seduce them away from the partner they're with more so than any heterosexual or gay person could be seduced away from their partner.

Dan is also chiding bisexuals for not coming out. Well, if he read his own article, maybe then he'd understand why. Typically, straight people just don't get it if a person says they're bisexual. What does that mean? You're gay? But you like the opposite sex too? And gay people just outright diss bi's altogether because, well, they can operate in a hetero normative world or they're just in denial about being gay. Isn't the argument that bi's are just confused until they figure out they're gay the same argument straight people say to gays? "Oh you're just going through a phase, you'll realize after you meet the right guy or girl that you're really straight and just experimenting now."

And he argues that if bisexuals would come out to everyone then there’d be less hostility by all those judgmental straights and gays, basically saying, it’s the fault of all those bisexuals for how they’re treated because they’re not out there yelling from rooftops that they are bi. I don’t know, does he blame gays then for not running around telling everyone that they are gay for all the homophobia attacks out there? No. It’s ridiculous.

I'm not saying there aren't people who say they're bi who figure out they are actually gay or straight. But why get on someone's case about how they identify? Who cares really? As far as I'm concerned a person could identify as a cat if that's what they feel. It's not my business.

Really, who would want to come out and say they're bisexual with each side giving them shit. They don't fit into a nice neat category that people can understand.

I think it's nice when people come out of the womb knowing they are straight or gay. But for that confused kid who has attractions to both and are just trying to find their way, I guess I only gets better if they finally get in line with that they are gay or straight.

To be honest, I'd say that over the last few years I've definitely gone from a 0 to 2 on the Kinsey scale. In fact, I've actually told friends and family, including my husband, that I'm probably bisexual. I have no problem saying this. But then again, I'm older and very secure in who I am and my sexuality. And... I give a crap what people think about it. I just don’t care.
But I can imagine being a much younger person and having attractions to both men and women and not saying a thing to anyone. Especially not when you'd get crap from both sides of the fence.

Moving on....There was an article, the second in the last few months, going on about how romance novels are ruining women's ability to have realistic expectations in life and relationships. *sigh* You can read the article, but the comments say it all.

What gets me in these articles is that the main message is that women are just too stupid to think for themselves. That we're all a bunch delusional idiots who can't distinguish between fiction and reality. What always gets me is that these are women who write these articles and they are supposedly psychologists.

Well, here's the thing...

A "huge number of the issues that we see in our clinics and therapy rooms are influenced by romantic fiction"

This is the problem right there. First there is no actual study to back up what they are saying based on people who read romance who aren't in therapy. But most glaringly is the fact that they are using women who come to therapy as their source of statistics. As far as I know, and I've been in therapy, most people go into therapy because they are unhappy or discontented with something in their lives anyway. Of course they're going to bitch about something that's not right or perfect in their lives.

I wonder though how many actually went into therapy and said "I read romance novels all the time and I'm so unhappy because I don't have multiple orgasms without any foreplay and my husband isn't a millionaire with six pack abs. How can I get that?"

This article isn't a diss on romance readers, it's a diss on women and their intelligence. But what's new, right?

Moving on some more...Sarah Diemer, whose book The Dark Wife I reviewed, did an interesting post on the lesbian genre in general. She wonders why lesbian books are predominantly contemporaries or mystery/spy/suspense and often coming out stories, and why there aren't more fantasy or other sub genres within lesbian out there.

I thought this kind of interesting. I've been reading lesbian stories/romance for a quite a while now and she's right. There really aren't that many fantasy or other stories with gay characters, but not having the whole "I'm gay" focus out there.

I know there are some paranormal books only recently seeping into the lesbian genre. In my case though, I'm really sick of the shifter/vamp paranormals, so lesbian or not, I probably won't read them and are not too aware of them. But I do enjoy fantasy, sci-fi and other paranormal and there's not much out there. She does have a point.

"Is the lesbian genre remaining as status quo because women who love women want more and more and more stories about detectives and cops and office managers…or does it remain this way because lesbians will always buy a story about lesbians and don’t have any other choice but to buy these books if they want to read a lesbian book?"

This is an interesting question. I wonder if it isn't because gay persons are always on the outside of things in a heteronormative world. Many have to keep their private lives quiet or they chose to so they don't have to deal with homophobia and other judgments. So maybe in fiction they can be gay and in boring, everyday jobs and lives, without all that other reality stuff coming in?

It could also be that most lesbians who write lesbian romance or books tend to be older and there's a generational gap in taste going on? Younger lesbians who are growing up in a world where there's still lots of homophobia but a lot less than there used to be and in a world where it is more acceptable to be gay than ever, might want stories that reflect their current lives and pop culture trends--- the recent explosion of YA paranormals.

To be honest, most of the lesbian I've read has been exactly what she's talked about. I would love to read more historical lesbian as well as pretty much any sub genre within lesbian. Maybe I need to look around more. But I think it's great that younger lesbians might bring, new, fresh and unique stories to the genre.

Another interesting point she said was that most of her readers are straight. This surprises me because the reason that Kirsten and I even started this blog was because we were fed up with the lack of f/f available compared to say m/m within the GLBT genre. And we were tired of the straight girl "ew girl cooties" on message boards at even the mention of two women together in a romance.

Even now, author Jill Sorenson reviews lesbian and Bi oriented books on Dear Author and if you look the comments are always far less then for reviews of m/m. So it's interesting that her readership is mostly straight. The comments for the post are pretty interesting though.

Review- It Should Be a Crime by Carsen Taite

2011-06-29T10:50:00.000-07:00

It Should Be a Crime

By Carsen Taite

Aug. 2009

Contemporary/ Crime/ Lesbian

240 pgs.

Pub: Bold Strokes Books

Buy it Amazon, Bold Strokes, B&N, ARe

Forbidden romance coupled with high-stakes courtroom drama.

Two women meet in an alley and fulfill their mutual desire with a night of passion, neither expecting more than the few lusty hours they shared. Weeks later Morgan Bradley and Parker Casey meet again, but this time one is a law professor and the other her student. A series of events lands them in the middle of a high-profile murder trial, but the twists and turns of the case are no match for the spiral of increasing attraction as they work side by side in the defense of justice.

This is my first Carsen Taite book. I’ve been meaning to read one for quite a while since my first love is mystery/crime/suspense and her books seem like good crime stories. I wasn’t disappointed; it was a great read all around.

Both Morgan and Parker are interesting characters in their own right. What I liked was that they were equally matched, both having some strengths and weaknesses that got balanced as their romance develops. Sometimes their reactions and actions contradicted their general personalities, which meant that both of them weren’t stuck in fixed ways of being, making them more fun as characters. Also, the power difference dynamic brought out some interesting qualities in both women, and not in expected ways.

Morgan is a famous and well known criminal lawyer. She’s pretty much at the top of her game and has become an expert at what she does. After seeing her long term (romantic) partner with someone else, she decides that a one night hook-up is just the ticket, something that’s totally out of character for her. Later on, she does say that she feels love is more about the practicalities of relationships: paying bills, mortgages, bank accounts, shared responsibilities and this is who I felt Morgan thinks she is, and who she’s probably been until now. But Parker brings out the more passionate, unpredictable and wild side of Morgan, which keeps Morgan on her toes, trying to keep her normally unflappable self, unflappable. It’s not easy though since Parker occupies her mind regularly, in ways she’s never known before.

Parker is also a complex and fun character. On the one hand, her only long term relationship ended in disaster due to differences in opinion about ethics and a definite betrayal, but on the other hand, she basically only has one night stands, never really going past the first time with someone. She’s a bit of a player and blows off those one night people, even if she does try to do it nicely. A former cop, she got disillusioned by the Blue code of Silence over unethical cop behavior and is now channeling her do the right thing standard into being a criminal lawyer. She’s more passionate though and less clinical in her way of thinking than Morgan is as well as being just a bit more soft and heartful in her approach. She’s much more willing than Morgan to see what her feelings are about in this and to cross her personal line to explore with Morgan.

Of course, outside of the excellently written crime drama of this story, which was perfectly paced to keep up some mystery, this is foremost a romance. And there are obstacles that both Morgan and Parker need to get over to eventually have their HEA. In this case, it’s a matter of ethics, a running theme throughout the book. Morgan is Parker’s professor as Parker is in her last semester of law school, and their feelings for each other are hard to keep separate from their personal rules about never getting involved with someone they work with or have a more business like relationship with.

This is a legitimate foil for them since they hooked up before they each knew they would have any kind of working relationship. And then there are a few other issues like Parker’s ex being the picture and a real estate agent helping Morgan find a house that seem derail their relationship even further. The blow hot/cold by Morgan, who is really uncertain about how to deal with this new development, did get drawn out a bit too much at times for me. But Carsen Taite managed to rein that element back in each time just when it would start to become too much.

I would have given this book five stars or an A+ because it’s a well written story that flows nicely. However, even though I liked the development of the romance between Morgan and Parker, it was missing some spice, or spark that I needed to feel that these two would die without each other. Other than that, I highly recommend this book. And for what it’s worth, I really got off on the lawyerly/crime technical part. As a crime drama it’s clear that Carsen Taite knows what she’s talking about.

Heat Level: 3- some sexual scenarios, nothing too graphically written.

Grade: A-

Marriage for All

2011-06-25T05:59:00.000-07:00

So Proud of you New York!

Review- Deux: The French Kiss Chronicles Book 1

2011-06-23T06:47:00.000-07:00

Deux: The French Kiss Chronicles Book 1
By Em Petrova
March 25, 2011
Contemporary/ Bi / Erotica
7.7K words
Published by Breathless Press

Buy it Breathless Press, ARe, Amazon

Jane is a wife and mother who's stuck in a rut. Spending too much time at the gym perfecting her physique, she learns that what she really wants is someone new to share her body with.

After Margot's divorce, she's feeling frumpy and unloved. Until one day, Jane corners her in the dressing room and makes it perfectly clear that she finds her ripe curves desirable.
Together, the couple shares the passion they thought long dead, and in doing so, discover they harbor a deeper need—to find love.

I was attracted to Deux from the blurb. The wife and mother “stuck in a rut” had me curious; I’m always wondering what “stuck in a rut” means and if it’s a good excuse to go with a long unfulfilled sexual desire for someone who’s not the partner. If it’s a lame excuse, it could be a negative factor for me.

I was also attracted to the “she’s feeling frumpy and unloved” part of Margot’s description. There’s just something nice about someone who’s feeling undesirable getting some juice, being wanted by someone. So this story looked promising to me.

Since this is such a short story, and it was pretty much all sex, there’s not much to really talk about. There’s no character development really, nor any past history to get a feel for these characters other than what’s in the blurb. However, for what it is, it’s a hot little read if you’re jonesing for a nicely written erotic f/f that will give you hotflashes.

At first I was a bit uneasy about Jane’s nonchalant attitude about what her husband will feel when he finds out about this little escapade. In the blurb, as I pointed out, Jane's bored. However, from her inner dialogue, she’s absolutely in love with her husband and they have a great and satisfying sex life. So her “rut” is more about having strong fantasies that she feels she needs to actually experience. Although she has shared these with her husband, she’s not discussed actually doing anything. So he doesn’t know.

This would have put a bad taste in my mouth if it weren’t for how the husband reacts.

Not only does it turn him on, he’s all over her and the sex they have is hotter than ever. I have admit that did mitigate for me the fact that Jane treated the whole thing as if she bought an expensive pair of shoes that they couldn’t afford and not that she had sex with someone she’s been attracted to for a while without discussing it with her husband first.

The downside for me was that I felt it would have been nice if this story was a bit more drawn out. Jane is the aggressor in the initial sex between her and Margot, but I felt that Margot just went along a little too easily for someone who’s never thought about being with a woman. There was no shock, or hesitation really. Nor much of what she was feeling in the whole thing. They sort of go from being acquaintances to naked, 0-50 without much dancing around each other. Had this whole thing been more fleshed it, this book would have really popped for me.

I also felt that the author took one of the usual short cuts in a short erotic story in that she told more than expressed feelings of love. Jane muses to herself how she has strong feelings for Margot over and above the sexual attraction, but there’s nothing there to show how that developed. So we know she has more than sexual feelings for Margot because she said it, which to me is a bit lazy in writing.

Ultimately though, I liked how this book was written even if it’s not too involved. The sex between the women is very erotic and nicely written. I could see that this is more than just one time thing to scratch and itch. The same goes for the sex between Jane and her husband. It’s clear they really enjoy each other. The husband wants in the action, but is willing to wait and let Jane have her time with Margot to let things develop first. This is one of my favorite types of reads in that way. And there is the set up for the next book in the series where the three of them do come together, which I’m going to read.

Heat level: 5- pretty much non-stop sex—f/f, f/m.

Grade B

Review- The Dark Wife by Sarah Diemer

2011-06-18T15:24:00.001-07:00

The Dark Wife
by Sarah Diemer
May 11, 2011
YA/ Fantasy/ Lesbian

Buy it Amazon, B&N, Smashwords

Three thousand years ago, a god told a lie. Now, only a goddess can tell the truth.

Persephone has everything a daughter of Zeus could want--except for freedom. She lives on the green earth with her mother, Demeter, growing up beneath the ever-watchful eyes of the gods and goddesses on Mount Olympus. But when Persephone meets the enigmatic Hades, she experiences something new: choice.

Zeus calls Hades "lord" of the dead as a joke. In truth, Hades is the goddess of the underworld, and no friend of Zeus. She offers Persephone sanctuary in her land of the dead, so the young goddess may escape her Olympian destiny.

But Persephone finds more than freedom in the underworld. She finds love, and herself.

The Dark Wife is a YA novel, a lesbian revisionist retelling of the Persephone and Hades myth.

First I’ll start off with a disclaimer that I know nothing of Greek mythology other than the most basic of stories. I do know some of the gods and what they represent, but that’s the extent of my knowledge. So I read this book basically at face value as a sort of epic fantasy set in the world of Greek mythology. However, I think this story might be really fun and interesting to someone who does know a lot about Greek mythology. I understand it’s a different twist on the Persephone/Hades original story.

This is a debut, indie published novel by author Sarah Diemer and it’s quite impressive. The writing is absolutely gorgeous, lyrical and clean, like writing is her second skin.

I’ve never read any YA books. I’m an older woman and essentially they don’t appeal to me. But this book brought up that inner awe and wonder I felt when I read Marion Zimmer Bradley back when I was a young woman. Those stories that sparked my imagination. There’s a similar feeling about this book and those books. Like those books, the world building is lush, layered and colorful and exquisitely executed in The Dark Wife.

Persephone is young goddess who’s been brought up by her mother Demeter. She fell in love with Charis, a wood nymph from her mother’s forest, and they were having beautiful love affair when Zeus raped Charis and turned her into a rose bush. This shattered Persephone’s heart into a thousand pieces. Even more devastating, Persephone finds out that Zeus is her father and that her mother is helpless to save her when Zeus decides it’s time for her to live on Mount Olympus with him and the other Immortals.

Hating him with a passion, Persephone feels this is a fate worse than death and escapes to the only place she knows Zeus has no influence, the underworld, which is ruled by Hades. She has met Hades before and something about Hades intrigued her and grabbed her heart, so she felt that she would be accepted by Hades and given safe harbor.

While in the underworld, Persephone learns many things and finds out that she has a special destiny, one that has been prophesied. But can she muster the courage to go through the hell she might have to endure to fulfill that?

Persephone is a great character. She’s so innocent and loving and pure, but has tremendous courage to fight for what she believes in. She's willing to risk things to have her life. The Dark Wife is written in first person POV and usually I find that POV to be limiting or the story is told in linear fashion by the character. In this story, Persephone is that rare self-aware character who has deep insight to her being, the subtle layers of her emotion getting recognized and expressed, which turned her more into a multi-dimensional and rich character than is usual.

If there is any gripe I have with this story it’s that it would have been nice to get more into Hades’ head. She’s the least developed character in my opinion. I got a better feel for Pallas even, a dead person living in the underworld and friend to Hades. Hades is the main love interest for Persephone and while I felt it to be a sweet love story, due to the lack of depth in her character, some build up and tension was lacking in that area.

That said, where the story lacked in a romantic build up for me, it shined in the intensity of the drama and growth of Persephone as a character. So it’s just a minor complaint for me.

The Dark Wife moves at a fast pace and there’s really never a dull moment in Persephone’s life. There’s a perfect balance of action with reflection so it doesn’t slip into a too much of either area at the expense of the other. The plot is rather typical to fairy tales or fantasy with many of the same elements of good vs. evil with a sort of moral/spiritual aspect to it, however, it felt fresh to me, like I’ve read something new and unique.

I will absolutely be buying Sarah Diemer’s other books. I love her writing style. Much heart and passion comes through and her ability to spin a fantastic and original tale is above par.

Heat rating: 0- this is not an erotic romance. There are beautifully written, and not in the typical purple prose, sexual scenarios that are not graphic in nature, but express clearly what the characters are feeling. That in itself is an art. This is a YA after all.

Grade: A

Review- My Summer of Love (DVD)

2011-06-14T06:05:00.001-07:00

My Summer of Love (DVD)
2004
Contemporary/ f/f/ Drama

In the Yorkshire countryside, working-class tomboy Mona (Press) meets the exotic, pampered Tamsin (Blunt). Over the summer season, the two young women discover they have much to teach one another, and much to explore together.
Life is so cosmic sometimes. Last Dec. during my school break, I ordered some DVDs from the library and thought I had gotten them all. Well, I just finished my last quarter of school and there was an email in my box that a film I had on hold came in. What? But just in time for me to have something to watch as I take a few days before I start booking it on job hunting.

Anyway… this was a strange and intriguing film. Certainly not the usual fare in coming of age stories. Set in a quiet and small village in Yorksire, there’s a quiet, stark, intensity to this film including the acting that added a lot of dimension to what was not much dialogue or action.

This is basically the story of what seems to be two girls who come together out of both boredom and a need to have an ally. They’re both a bit rebellious, different and seem to be lost. However, there is a shocking twist to the end that turned this movie into more of a psychological portrayal of sociopathic behavior, which made this film for me.

Mona is a young woman who’s basically lost her whole family. She never knew her father, and her mother died of cancer. All who’s left is her brother. He was a bit of a rebel-rouser, always getting into fights and getting arrested, but while doing time in jail, he found Jesus. To the dismay of Mona, he turns their little family pub into a meeting place for the local born again Christians, living solely for Christ and preaching non-stop.

This drives Mona insane who feels she’s lost her only family and that he’s a phony. Just floating through life, she surreptitiously meets Tamsin, a local rich girl who’s family lives on a huge estate on the hill overlooking town.

Tamsin is home from boarding school for the summer and the girls hook up and start hanging out. Tamsin is just the diversion and friend that Mona needs since she pays attention to her and they seem to have a lot in common despite their different economic and social backgrounds. Mona can relate to Tamsin with her tales of woe that her sister has died of anorexia, sobbing as she recounts that story and the fact that her parents ignore her. Tamsin is also kind of intense and unique, not the usual fair in a young girl, which intrigues Mona.

Their relationship turns sexual and they egg each other on to destructive behavior. Seemingly in a world of their own, they promise to love each other forever. That is until…

All I can say is that I loved this film. It’s so offbeat and odd. The sexual relationship between the girls develops quite naturally, although this part of the film was presented more as a side bar than used as a titillation factor. It’s more about creating an insular, private world in which both girls feel they are safe and have someone who gets them.

Emily Blunt’s acting made this film. Often she just looks or stares, saying nothing, which keeps you wondering what Tamsin is about. And her acting, Tamsin acting is done really well.

If you’re in the mood for something unique, psychologically intriguing with a girl/girl theme, this movie is perfect.

Heat Level: 2- some sex scenes, but no nudity or graphic portrayals.

Grade: A-

Review- Soft Swap by Paisley Smith

2011-06-10T17:25:00.000-07:00

Soft Swap

by Paisley Smith

Contemporary/ f/f/m/ Erotica

May 25, 2011

Novella-15-29K

Buy it Ellora’s Cave

Jess has always been curious about being with another woman. Soon after her husband Ben gives her the go-ahead to join a swingers’ website, Jess meets another couple interested in a little girl-on-girl swap.

Tina is drop-dead gorgeous and her husband Bradley is equally hot. With Ben’s blessing, Jess is soon experiencing wholly new pleasures at the hands of another woman; pleasures wrought by soft fingers, a feminine tongue…a sexy strap-on. But sex is rarely just physical. As Jess delves deeper into this taboo lifestyle, she wonders how newfound feelings for Tina will affect her relationship with her husband.

Jess quickly discovers she’s not as prepared as she thought for some aspects of her newly defined sexuality—including the fact her darkest, most secret fantasy might finally be fulfilled.

Anyone who’s read my reviews here knows that I’m a fan of Paisley Smith. She writes about bisexual characters, which are pretty rare in the romance world and I enjoy her writing style quite a lot. Fortunately, Soft Swap was another hit for me.

Let’s start with the characters. They are all easy going types who don’t angst too much about what’s going on with their partner’s needs or desires to experiment. This was a plus for me. Of course, since this story is told in 1st person by Jess, we get into her head for most of this story. And really, it’s anyway all about her in that the other characters are there to support her fantasy and desire.

Jess and Ben decide to get with another couple to amp up their sex life and to explore some of Jess’ fantasies. Jess has always dreamed about being with a woman and Ben finds this kind of hot. Before I go further here because I know many readers of f/f dislike the whole chick being with a chick to turn the guy on scenario, I can tell you, this isn’t it. While Ben does love the idea and finds it a turn on to watch Jess get it on with Tina, he never goes into that territory of it being about him. It was just a nice side effect of Jess’ fantasy for him and he stayed very respectful to her in that.

Tina and Bradley have been swapping with other couples for a while, and while Tina has been with and enjoys women, it seems to be more of a fun thing to do for her than a need.

They all readily jump in when it comes time to get it on, but there were ground rules. I liked this. This becomes important because certain boundaries get explored, including Jess’ desire to be with Tina without the men, and it kept the story more about Jess’ desire to explore with Tina, but with Ben’s and Bradley's blessings.

One of the downsides for me in this story was that Jess’ character sort of mind fucks about who or what she is, a common thing in first experience bisexual stories. Is she gay, is she bi, does she just want to have sex only with a woman sometimes, does she want a full on romantic/sexual relationship with a woman, does this mean that she doesn’t love her husband anymore, etc.

For me this sometimes goes too much into realistic territory, like I’m reading someone’s real diary or hearing about a real experience in which a person is working out very real issues that I imagine do come up for someone who wants to a.) explore sex with someone other than their partner and b.) explore with someone of their own sex for the first time.

On the one hand I respect that this aspect is brought into this kind of story, on the other, I tend to enjoy stories of this kind when the characters just enjoy their fantasies and go for it without too much angst-ing. Fortunately, there is enough fantasy around this whole thing that I didn’t get too wrapped up in her inner dialogue. And Jess does recognize that she's over-thinking things, which did mitigate some of me neg feeling around it.

For those who are wondering, while Jess has a really good time with Tina and finds that she has some feelings for her, she’s very clear that she loves Ben and there’s no way that this whole turn of events means that she has to choose Ben or Tina. She comes to love Ben even more that he allowed her to go with her fantasy and this solidifies their relationship even more.

The sex. Wow, yes, there’s lots of sex in this short story. And it’s hot sex. Spicy, hot, juicy sex. It’s why I will label it erotica. However, it’s not written as a bunch of bodies just getting it on. Paisley Smith managed to infuse a lot of warmth, some tenderness, and a dose of respectfulness into the sex scenes. This is what made this story a bit more than the usual erotica for me. There’s also a slight amount of D/s dynamic in those scenes which kept them from getting too sugary sweet or vanilla.

I highly recommend Soft Swap if you’re looking for an erotic story that feature f/f/m, with a good feeling. It’s well a written and fun fantasy.

Heat Level: 5 – F/f, f/f/m, anal play, strap-on, spanking.

Grade: B+

MA's Review of Soft Swap on Goodreads

More Book Pimping- Rulebreaker By Cathy Pegau

2011-05-29T21:01:00.000-07:00

So people- one of our regular commenters and contributors of reviews, and a great supporter of this blog and the f/f reading community, has written a sci-fi- f/f story, which is being published by Carina Press. It's her first published book. Woot.

I'm so excited! I've read some of Cathy's stories on her website and love the way she writes. So I'm very happy that she got published. And with a f/f to boot!

Currently there's no link yet, but RULEBREAKER is coming out this Aug. So put it on your calenders.

Here's her gorgeous new cover:

Tentative Blurb:

Liv Braxton, a small-time thief stuck on a backwater planet, takes on the gig of a lifetime filling in as executive assistant at Exeter Mining Company. Her job is to download incriminating files, but Liv finds herself unexpectedly torn when she falls for Zia Talbot, the beautiful and alluring VP she is supposed to betray.

Book Pimping

2011-05-23T09:45:00.000-07:00

I haven't read this book, but it does look interesting. I thought I'd pimp it here in case any readers would be interested. It's a YA lesbian mythological story written by a new Indie author,

The Blurb:

The Dark Wife
by Sarah Diemer

Three thousand years ago, a god told a lie. Now, only a goddess can tell the truth.

Persephone has everything a daughter of Zeus could want--except for freedom. She lives on the green earth with her mother, Demeter, growing up beneath the ever-watchful eyes of the gods and goddesses on Mount Olympus. But when Persephone meets the enigmatic Hades, she experiences something new: choice.

Zeus calls Hades "lord" of the dead as a joke. In truth, Hades is the goddess of the underworld, and no friend of Zeus. She offers Persephone sanctuary in her land of the dead, so the young goddess may escape her Olympian destiny.

But Persephone finds more than freedom in the underworld. She finds love, and herself.

The Dark Wife is a YA novel, a lesbian revisionist retelling of the Persephone and Hades myth.

Click on author's link for buying info. Also, the author is offering it for free as well. Info on the same author's link. It's a great chance to read an unknown author risk free.

Author Pimpage- Coming Out May 25th!

2011-05-20T17:18:00.000-07:00

Buy it Ellora's Cave

Jess quickly discovers she’s not as prepared as she thought for some aspects of her newly defined sexuality—including the fact her darkest, most secret fantasy might finally be fulfilled.

Review- Wildthorn by Jane Eagland

2011-01-19T19:14:00.000-08:00

Wildthorn

by Jane Eagland

Young Adult/Historical (Victorian)/Gothic/Lesbian Romance

Novel (352 pages)

By Guest Reviewer M.A.

Buy it Amazon

They strip her naked, of everything—undo her whalebone corset, hook by hook. Locked away in Wildthorn Hall—a madhouse—they take her identity. She is now called Lucy Childs. She has no one; she has nothing. But, she is still seventeen—still Louisa Cosgrove, isn't she? Who has done this unthinkable deed? Louisa must free herself, in more ways than one, and muster up the courage to be her true self, all the while solving her own twisted mystery and falling into an unconventional love . . .

Originally published in the UK, this well-paced, provocative romance pushes on boundaries—both literal and figurative—and, do beware: it will bind you, too.

I found Wildthorn's premise and cover art intriguing. The novel itself left me with very mixed impressions. The author built an interesting, informative storyline around a powerful, admirable heroine. Setting and atmosphere portrayed in beautiful language captivated me until I couldn't put the book down. This novel boasts all the earmarks of excellent gothic romance and throws in a pinch of social commentary. Eagland's descriptive writing is well above average, compelling and lyrical.

The plot unfolds via Louisa's struggles to survive the indignities of her seemingly fraudulent commitment to a lunatic asylum alternating with flashbacks portraying past events leading up to her institutionalization. Use of flashbacks often risks distracting a reader or losing his interest, but Wildthorn is a novel where this method works very well and packs quite an impact. Chapters separate flashbacks from the main narrative, so it’s hard to get “lost.”

The author provides insights and hints as to why Louisa might have been diagnosed as mentally ill and who might have diagnosed her and committed her. Readers familiar with the Victorian era should have a better sense of the causes leading to Louisa's situation, but the dehumanization, loss of privacy, and other abuses Louisa faces or witnesses at Wildthorn are no less horrible for the knowledge. These points are meticulously well-researched, as are other aspects of Victorian culture. Period and setting are alive and well in Wildthorn.

Although I enjoyed this book in most respects and considered it well worth my time, I felt characterization and plotting suffered, particularly during the book's falling action and ending. I realize Louisa is supposed to be a "modern woman ahead of her time," but I found some of her attitudes and characterization improbable. It struck me as unlikely Louisa (daughter of a comfortable, middle-class Victorian family) would lack basic understanding of etiquette, the importance related to family social connections and "good breeding," and so on. Louisa is an intelligent, sensible female, and most highly intelligent people learn how to conform sufficiently to function in society. We are frequently shown how intelligent Louisa, an aspiring medical student, is, but at other times she sounds like a complete social moron. I believe Eagland intended to make Louisa more relatable to present-day readers, but it cost authenticity. Louisa doesn't sound like a genuine Victorian girl/woman. Even Victorian women pushing for suffrage and other social reform adhered to some degree to the social and cultural standards of their time. Instead, Louisa sounded like a 21st century girl trapped in the past, constantly bewildered and horrified by limitations placed upon her due to her gender.

I have mixed feelings about the romance subplot revealing Louisa's same-sex preferences. On one hand, I applaud Eagland for introducing interesting and very human lesbian characters. At the same time, Louisa's lesbianism struck me as a tad gratuitous and not relevant to the plot. The romance itself wasn't all that pertinent to the story and, for me, at least, Eliza's romantic attraction to Louisa cheapened her willingness to believe Louisa's story and aid in her escape. I also doubted Louisa's sincere feelings for Eliza; Louisa's situation as an inmate at Wildthorn was so horrible, it seemed to me she'd love anyone who showed her any kindness or compassion. Eagland did her best to portray realistic affection and attraction growing between Louisa and Eliza, but I just couldn't buy it given the circumstances.

The tight storytelling fell apart near the end when the mysteries behind Louisa's ordeal are revealed and the subsequent aftermath. Eagland seemed to go out of her way to absolve everyone involved of real blame. The responsible parties are all either stupid, jealous, misinformed, impaired by substance abuse, or a combination of the above. I liked that Louisa found forgiveness and prepared to go on with her life on her own terms, but I would have felt better about it if the principles in the conspiracy experienced real consequences directly related to their actions.

As for the final chapter and "happy for now" resolution to Louisa and Eliza's romance, I found it believable, but also sort of sad. Throughout the entire story, we witness Louisa's steadfast refusal to conform to society's limitations standing in the way of her dreams to study medicine, but she conforms to social expectation and conceals her love affair under a mistress/servant relationship. Again, it just sort of "pulled me out of the book." Louisa did exactly what many Victorian men (and, I suppose women) did when attracted to people "beneath them" socially.

I liked this book in terms of its overall style and its subject matter. The conclusion’s not perfect, but I enjoyed the journey and will read it again.

Heat Level: 0 – 1 (1 very brief, non-explicit love scene)

Grade: B+ (excellent writing quality, historically accurate, execution suffers a tad toward the end)

Taking A Break

2011-01-17T16:49:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about writing this post for about two weeks, but always think once I do it, things will change and I'll look like an idiot. But I don't want that people come here thinking there's going to be a post any time soon.

I'm taking a break.

I've lost my reading mojo and have been working through one book for weeks now, only reading a few pages a day. I have no juice to read at the moment. And truthfully, I have little juice for this blog as well, for now.

For a couple of years now, to keep this blog going, I've read mainly f/f or lesbian to have something to post. I'm a bit burned out on reading mostly f/f and even romance. Done for a while.

I think to get my mojo back I need to not feel pressure to keep the blog going. Moreover, I need to read more mystery/suspense, which is my first love, or other genres that interest me.

I will probably do a last review when I finish the book I'm reading, but won't promise when that will be. It really is a good book and I love the story and writing, so my taking forever to finish it is not a reflection on the book itself.

Of course, now that I've announced this, I might read 5 books in two weeks. LOL But I doubt it.

And as always, anyone who wishes to post a review or any connected to f/f or lesbian content, you're more than welcome.

Hopefully, I'll be back before long.

Thank you to those of you who stop by and do read this blog.

Review- When Night is Falling (DVD)

2011-01-05T09:57:00.000-08:00

When Night Is Falling (DVD)

1995

Drama/Lesbian

95 mins.

Successful in her teaching job at a conservative religious college, Camille (Pascale Bussières) looked forward to marrying her adoring, minister boyfriend (Henry Czerny) and settling down to the conventions of family and career. But a chance encounter with a beautiful, irresistibly sensuous young female circus performer named Petra (Rachael Crawford) is about to transform Camille s predictable life into an electrifyingly erotic adventure.

Captivated by Petra s impulsive sexuality and passionately free spirit, Camille is drawn into a world whose existence she never dared imagined: A world of hypnotic sensuality, rapturous self-discovery and exquisite erotic pleasure.

Now, walking an emotional high-wire between the familiar past and the forbidden future, Camille must choose between the love she can t forget... and the desire she can t resist.

This is a gorgeous, gorgeous film. It’s got a unique, off beat, erotic ambiance to it that you don’t see too often in film. And it’s one of the most beautifully portrayed love stories between two women that I’ve seen so far.

The blurb to this film is right on target so I’ll go from there.

The first thing that grabbed me about this film was the almost quiet way in which the women in this story get together. You can feel an underlying controlled passion between them, but it develops in a slow, gentle and seductive way. This gives time to see what these two women are about as individuals, but also how they come to terms with what they are feeling. It felt natural and real.

Camille is almost stoic. She’s following what she’s been taught to follow, that is a fundamentalist Christian POV of life. But it’s clear from the fact that she’s not been too overjoyed about marrying her long time lover and has been putting him off that she’s not feeling too passionate about her life. Something is missing, not right, but she doesn’t know what that is.

After she meets Petra, something in her is awakened. I loved that she’s very hesitant, even denying it to some degree, while allowing herself to open up to Petra at the same time. She doesn’t run from what she’s starting to feel, which is so against her upbringing and life philosophy, but she doesn’t jump right in there with Petra either.

Petra, on the other hand, really wants Camille and puts it out there many times. Often it’s a bit too much for Camille and Petra backs off realizing that Camille is struggling with this whole new aspect of her life. But Petra sticks with it until Camille come around. I loved how she shows just enough to let Camille know that she’s desired, pushing it just a little, but at the same time subtly seducing her by just hanging in there and not walking away.

The scenes between the women are just exquisite. The love making is sensuous and tender and highly erotic. The backdrop of the Petra’s life in the circus, along with the music, colors, ambiance, added so much to the sensory aspect to this film. The sexual aspect between Camille and Petra came across as something deep and primal. The kind of sex you have when you’re deeply in love and only that person can complete something in you. It’s just stunning.

There are some other issues in this film. It is painful to see Martin, Camille’s long time lover, who really loves Camille, go to pieces. This isn’t one of those nasty husband/boyfriend stories so the women gets what she needs with a woman. He’s a good guy. A guy who is willing to let this affair go to be with her. It’s just that Camille doesn’t feel strongly towards him and it’s kind of sad.

But I did like that Camille is honest with herself and the minister/ dean of the Christian college she teaches at. I liked that the religious part wasn’t heavy handed; rebelling against it is not used as an excuse for Camille to be attracted to Petra. Both Martin and the minister kind of change their tunes a bit and are willing to let it go and forgive her as opposed to kicking her out of the school and church and or leaving her because of this affair. This made Camille’s love for Petra and her decision to be with Petra a choice. This is how I wish to see love between women portrayed.

All in all I highly recommend this film. I might even buy it, it was that amazing for me. If you really want to see a real love story between women, done in an exotic, sensual and unusual setting, one that quietly seduces you without flash or trying for shock value, this is the film to see.

Heat level: 4- a few naked sex scenes both m/f and f/f. Fairly graphic, but very sensually and tastefully done.

Grade: A++

Trailer:

This and That

2011-01-04T13:15:00.000-08:00

School is back in swing again. Ugh. My vacay went too quickly. But I had a lot of fun. The Mr. is still off, so we’ve been watching a lot of movies, going places and cleaning up last year’s paperwork, bills, filing and getting tax stuff ready.

I didn’t manage to finish one book that whole time. Mostly it’s because I was busy doing other stuffs and only reading at night. I have a hard time reading books when the Mr. is home; I get too distracted. So no book reviews.

And I still haven’t bought any new books even though my options grew. I did download a library book, which if I don’t get to is no biggy since I didn’t pay. I’m just curious how it works and how or if it will just disappear from my iTouch.

I was going to do a New Year's post, but I felt rebellious. I’m just contrary that way. Everyone did a New Year resolutions post, top 10 books, etc. so it's my natural inclination to go the other direction. Anyway, I don’t do NY resolutions. It just jinxes it if I state I WILL do something. And top 10 books? I probably only reviewed 10 books for the whole year. snort

What I did do a lot of is search for books I might like to read in Kindle and other formats.

I came across some interesting things in my searches for f/f movies and books though on Amazon's Kindle section. It’s a really sad thing that the search term “lesbian” brings up first erotica and porn. This just shows how invasive the concept of two women loving each other is tied to sex and (male) fantasy. I had to dig deep to find actual lesbian or f/f romances or stories.

Here’s some facts of what I found:

I saw a link to this:

Amazon’s 100 Best Sellers in Gay/Lesbian Fiction for Kindle, on Twitter the other day. So I went and checked it out. It’s sad really for the readers of f/f or lesbian books. What I found when I looked the books over:

Out of 100 there are only:

11-- are f/f or lesbian

I think there is one transgender out of all the books.

Out of those 11:

3--are erotica.

5 – are straight to lesbian stories, some of the girlfriends taking it to next level kind or in crappy marriage and fall for a woman kind.

(3 of them are by the same author, R. E. Bradshaw)

2-- have a strong female character that might be a lesbian or goes with women, it’s not clear from the blurbs.

1—is a true lesbian story by an author I’ve read and liked, Georgia Beers.

It’s sad that there’s only 11 f/f or lesbian out of 100 in best selling gay/lesbian.

If you then type in just “lesbian,” what comes up again for the best selling is mostly all erotica. Hmmm… I went through pages before I started getting to mostly romance or non anthology/erotica stories. Which means, the best sellers are mostly of the “Hot lesbian sex” variety. :/

Wow… that’s kind of disheartening. Where are all the Bold Strokes lesbian romances? They are all in Kindle format. I don’t get it. Why is it all erotica for pages and pages?

If you search “lesbian romance,” you get more actual romance options, but it's still a lot of erotica.

You do have better luck if you don’t stick within the Kindle Store. If you search “lesbian” or “lesbian romance” in books, then you get more of the bold strokes books type of books. But many are not kindle. Bella Books are not offered in Kindle.

Then I found a few links to lesbian themed movies after typing in “lesbian themed movies.” This is one person's listmania and gives a lot of good movies. A better search term than "lesbian movies," which brings up all porn.

Me loving Asian films, I was searching for a Japanese lesbian film. Alas, I didn't find what looked like a decent one. But here's a list of Asian lesbian themed movies. I've seen a few of them in the last few weeks and hope to watch some more at some point.

This got me to thinking about how I'd really love to read a Japanese, written by Japanese, lesbian story in books. I'll have to search deep to see if there wasn't one written already.

Anyway... I don't know how much reading I'll be getting done. I know, how pathetic of me. So many books I want to read, and yet, I have a hard time just sitting down and reading them. It's been more fun watching movies.

So I hope you all have a good start to the new year and that good things happen for everyone this year.

Review- French Twist (DVD)

2011-01-04T11:19:00.000-08:00

French Twist (DVD)

1996

French (in French Language)/Comedy/m-f, f-f/ Lesbian

104 mins.

Sassy, sexy, and utterly outrageous, this comedy treat received outstanding critical acclaim and a Golden Globe Award nomination! Saucy suburban housewife Loli is furious when she discovers her playboy husband is a wild womanizer who has been cheating on her left and right for years! But things take an unusually funny turn when the van of a tough-talking, tender-hearted woman named Marijo breaks down in front of Loli's house! From then on, expect the hilariously unexpected as Marijo and Loli's relationship develops into much more than just a friendship ... and between the two of them, they devise the perfect revenge!

Hilarious, but totally improbable story that uses tons of stereotypes for comedic affect that would never go over if American made. This is what I love about French movies, they go places you’d never see in American films that I find refreshing. French Twist has some really funny, laugh out loud, moments and I enjoyed it even if it was pretty out there.

Loli and Laurent have a nice life in French suburbia. Or so Loli thinks. Laurent is boinking every female that moves, except for her, but she’s oblivious to that. She caught him cheating on her once in the past and forgave him after he said he wouldn’t do it again.

One day, the car of a woman, Marijo, breaks down in front of their house. Marijo asks if she can call to get help and in the meantime fixes a blocked drain for Loli. Marijo is the classic stereotype of a butch lesbian. Even Loli’s son asks about the “man” in the house. Marijo and Loli spend the day chatting and talking about their lives and having a few drinks and things get a little more intimate than either expected.

I will say on this point that Loli seems to be the free and open type and I totally bought that she would be open to advances by Marijo, even though Marijo is older and not a particularly hot physically. Marijo has a certain warmth and easy vibe around her and she rather gently comes on to Loli, which Loli responds to very easily.

Where the fun starts is that Laurent comes home to this “diesel dyke” and wants her out of the house right now because she’s well, a “dyke” and he’s a homophobe and doesn’t like butch dykes. (dyke the word he uses constantly) Loli convinces him to let her stay for a while because she likes Marijo.

To pay back for the help, Marijo insists on taking Loli and Laurent out to dinner and he invites his best friend who wants to meet Marijo thinking it will be fun to mess with her. I know this sounds awful and it is to some degree, but there's pay back. They make continuous offensive homophobic jokes and say things like “well, talking man to man” to Marijo, which she laughs off because she knows something about Loli, they don’t. Heh.

Each of the characters were overtly stereotypical stereotypes for a reason I thought though. Exaggerating the characters’ negative traits do make it easy to root for the wronged character at any point because it’s a fast lane to stir up emotions within the viewer.

Anyway… at the restaurant, Laurent catches Loli and Marijo playing footsy under the table and the shit hits the fan. Suddenly he realizes that his wife can find love with someone else and that he could seriously loose her. TO A “DISGUSTING BUTCH WOMAN!” He can’t believe it; he’s incredulous. How could this happen to him?!, HIM?!!! The tables are turned and this pisses him off.

He drags Loli off then kicks her out of the house. Then he laments, freaking out to his bud, “for men cheating is nothing, nothing, just fucking. But for women, that’s another story.” Maybe you can see why at this point it does satisfy something for those people in the audience who’ve been cheated on or wronged by an asshole.

The rest of the movie is about how these three people try to get along in this new situation. Loli is not about to lose Marijo who gives her love and attention and whom she’s fallen in love with, Laurent keeps trying to find ways to get rid of Marijo, but puts up with her while trying to win back Loli. And Marijo keeps sticking around because she wants Loli.

There are lots of twists and turns to the plot, some of which are ridiculous—or it would be the rare people who could manage it. But it is funny and entertaining with the tables being turned on each of the characters at different points. The power shifts often and while in the beginning it’s more about revenge, real feelings develop and mess with these characters.

Eventually we see that the characters don’t totally fit those stereotypes. Laurent and his friend are typical macho, homophobes, but Laurent actually does love Loli and cares about his family. And Loli is not the typical ignored wife without power either, she’s pretty feisty and is willing to exert that power to her advantage. Marijo looks like the gruff, male-ish, aggressive butch lesbian on the surface, and yet she has a huge heart and is really soft and feminine inside, crying over the hurt she’s causing, even over pain Laurent is feeling.

The ending will be a bit surprising to everyone. It’s an ending that would never be accepted by an American audience. And this is another reason why I love European movies. They don’t take the typically moral or traditional viewpoint often and usually end with characters living outside the box. It’s a nice fantasy at any rate.

Who made this film for me was Marijo. The actress who played her was the writer and director of this film. I thought she brought some levity and complexity and humor to what is the typical cheating husband, neglected wife story. The actress who played Loli was pretty amazing as well.

About the lesbian part of this film, I read a few reviews of this movie on Amazon and many just didn’t believe that Loli, who’s a beautiful woman, would go with Marijo who’s not that beautiful and kind of sexually unappealing. But I believed it. One because Marijo is very loving and tender with Loli. It’s something that women want and respond to from any sex. And second, Loli is very passionate, easily following her heart without judgments. And third, I personally found Marijo appealing as a character and as a women. There are a few very nice scenes between the women, naked, in the bathtub or in bed. Or just lying together holding each other and it’s clear they really feel something deeply for each other. It's not erotic though.

I liked that it wasn’t totally the lonely wife gets with a woman story to get back at her man. Loli really loves Marijo and it’s clear that it’s painful for her to lose her. So she chooses to be with Marijo even after Laurent starts acting right and making it up to her. The only time she falters and gets pissed is when Marijo’s old lover shows up. That was an interesting twist as well. And thankfully this didn’t go the way of the “lesbians don’t fall for straight girls, they will break your heart by using you for a brief fling.” Nor did it take the route of preferring the m/f relationship over the lesbian one. There is an happy ending for all.

For those readers of this blog who like the f/f/m polyamorous story, this might make you happy, even if Marijo will never really be a lover to Laurent. It’s a very rare story on that level anyway. I highly recommend this film for the humor and for the fact that it does break all kinds of stereotypes by the end.

Heat level: 2- Actress who played Loli is naked through a lot of the film and there are some m/f and f/f naked in bed scenes. And one very sweet naked bathtub scene with Loli and Marijo.

Grade: A

Cool Link for Kindle readers of bi/lesbian

2010-12-29T08:33:00.000-08:00

For those of you who might have gotten a reader that can read Kindle books, or if you read Kindle books on your computer, I found someone who's creating a Listmania list of books for bi/lesbian Kindle book readers on Amazon. They are all books she's read and reviewed.

She reads across genres, but likes fantasy and sci-fi. And I like the way she writes her reviews, they're: clear, concise, and in-depth.

Link here

Review- Saving Face (DVD)

2010-12-28T18:04:00.000-08:00

Saving Face (DVD)

2004

Drama/Comedy/Chinese American/ Lesbian

91 mins.

In English and Chinese (w/subtitles)

When 48-year-old widow Hwei-Lan Gao (Joan Chen) informs her less-than understanding father she's pregnant, he banishes her from Flushing until she remarries or proves Immaculate Conception. With nowhere else to go, Hwei-Lan moves in with her grown daughter, Wil (Michelle Krusiec), a Manhattan doctor who doesn't want a roommate, especially since she's met Viv (Lynn Chen), her sexy young lover. So Wil does what any dutiful child with an expectant, unmarried mother on her hands would do: she proceeds to set Hwei-Lan up with every eligible bachelor in town.

Oh yeah, this is what I’m talking about. Finally, a cute, humorous film that portrays a lesbian falling in love story realistically including all the family issues around it. This was a particularly endearing film because it’s set within the Chinese American community, which includes three generations trying to live different levels of old country cultural values within a vastly different American culture.

Wil is a young surgeon who has a brilliant career ahead of her. Every week she goes to Flushing (NY), insisted by her mother, for the weekly dance, where everyone goes to hook-up, find marriageable partners for their kids, and do some gossiping. Her single mother has been trying to set her up with a good guy, but she just goes through the motions every week because she’s gay and is afraid to tell her mother.

Hwei-Lan, Will’s mother, has her own little secret. She’s pregnant, to the shock of the community and shame of her traditional father who kicks her out of their house. She’s been living there since her husband died 17 years ago and has never found another suitable partner. (By the way, Joan Chen is freaking hot in this film. She’s one of those rare women who seems to get better looking with age.) Having nowhere to go, she moves in with Wil to Wil’s dismay.

In the meantime, stressed out Wil is slowly getting seduced by Viv, the daughter of the chief of surgery and Wil’s boss. Viv is very attracted to Wil and manages to get her into her bed, eventually, since Wil is a lot more cautious. They see each other as often as possible and their feelings start growing for each other. Unfortunately, while Viv comes from a more open-minded family who accept that she’s gay, Wil is reluctant to come out to her more traditionally inclined family and this causes some friction between them.

To get her place back and have her own life, Wil starts setting her mom up with potential husbands since it’s not proper for a woman to live alone. Those scenes by the way were hilarious as Hwei-Lan goes out on date after date with all kinds of losers. However, this won’t change the fact that Wil needs to come to terms with her love for Viv and coming out to her family.

What stood out for me in this film was the warmth, love, and eventual family/community acceptance that came through. I love it when people are shown to let go of, or at least put to the side for further introspection, their biases, beliefs, cultural mores when the reality of life butts in.

Saving Face flowed so nicely showing just everyday people trying to deal with events that throw them out of their comfort zone. In this case, they all rise to the challenge without it coming across as phony for the sake of a feel good movie.

The acting is very natural and there’s a good feel for all these characters and what they’re about. The writing is clean and dialogue witty and poignant as well. The writer/director of this film, Alice Wu, is a Chinese American and also a lesbian and she did right by all groups, staying genuine and never stepping into stereotypes without sensitivity.

The love scenes between Wil and Viv are very sexy, light and naturally done. The lesbian thing was integrated nicely, meaning it wasn’t the main focus of the film but wasn’t treated as minor either. Nor did it seem to be thrown in as a focal point for comedic affect, like in Kissing Jessica Stein.

And did I mention Joan Chen? LOL Yes, I’ve been in love with her since Twin Peaks and The Last Emperor. She was amazing in this film. Everyone was.

I absolutely recommend seeing Saving Face. Not only for the lesbian aspect, but for the fun and charm of it. It’s a sweet, beautiful film all around.

Heat level: 2/3- Some light nude sex scenes between women.

Grade: A+

My Precioussssssss

2010-12-26T15:48:00.000-08:00

So I finally was able to open up my iTouch and play with it. Woot! It's been taunting me since Black Friday, just sitting there saying "play with me, you know you want to." snort

The first thing I did was to take a picture of our annual Christmas dinner, courtesy of Safeway and processed foods makers. I used to cook years ago, but since we are only two and I end up doing hours of cooking and then cleaning up, I don't do that anymore. It took us all of 15 mins. to go in the store, pick up a 1/2 cooked turkey breast, some salad fixings, and pre-done stuffing and mashed potatoes, et Voila! All prepared in 10 mins. LOL

The next thing I did was to start downloading ebook apps. I was right on that. snort

I downloaded: Kindle, Nook, Stanza, and Bluefire for buying and reading books.

So today, I was going to try it all out and see how I can manage getting books on my iTouch, but seriously, I can't find one book I want at the moment. WTH?

I looked through many Kindle books and can't find one I want to buy.

I did the same with Smashwords, Nook, All Romance Ebooks, my Library and I didn't see one book I was hepped up to read. :/

I'm itching to try at least one. It's the main reason I got an iTouch, although it's a tiny screen. I finally have lots of options. Maybe that's the problem? Too many options all the sudden? Heh.

I also got all excited and downloaded, Twitter and have Google Reader all set up. Best of all maybe is the My Fitness Pal (free) an app in which I can track my calorie intake for the diet I intend to go on. :D I'm hoping it makes me all excited to stick to it.

I probably won't get much reading done anyway. The Mr. is home until next Mon. and we got a boat load of movies to watch. Mostly Asian warrior/samurai/martial arts type of flicks. I love them as well, so we're on the same page. Although we did rent Cop Out, which was pretty funny. Typical Bruce Willis stuff, which I enjoy.

We'll probably rent a few more before the week is out.

I also have some lesbian centric movies on hold from the library, which will come this week probably. So more movie reviews.

Anyone read a good f/f or f/f/m book lately? I have a few f/f/m that I want to read. But you all know how it is, you have an huge TBR pile and psychologically think, it's always going to be there so I can hold off for that new juicy one that turns me on. But I need a new juicy one that turns me on.

So, did anyone get anything really cool for Christmas or whatever holiday you celebrate?

Did you get what you wanted? I hope everyone had a nice holiday.

Happy Holidays

2010-12-24T16:34:00.001-08:00

Review- Do I Love You? (DVD)

2010-12-23T13:37:00.001-08:00

Do I Love You? (DVD)
2002
Lesbian/comedy/drama
74 mins.

In the vein of GO FISH and I`VE HEARD THE MERMAIDS SINGING, this charming lesbian film deals with the everyday complexities of love, sex, and relationships. This festival favorite won the Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festival award for Best Director (Lisa Gornick), and realistically chronicles the lesbian life in today`s London.

I thought this would be a good movie. It says it’s a lesbian romance on the cover and the DVD pics suggest it is. Um… no, it’s not. It’s a sort of lesbian Woody Allen meets Seinfeld type of movie in that it’s kind of artsy, neurotic and a story about nothing. I think this was supposed to be an humorous, satirical look at city lesbian life, but missed the mark. It did have some funny moments and I think it’s a film worth watching. But I didn’t get what the focus of it was; it seemed to just ramble all over and I didn’t see the point of much of what happened.

This movie is about the main character, Marina, trying to answer some questions about who she is, life, being a lesbian, men, mortality and so on through an intellectual deconstruction of her life. Yes, it was that exciting. :/

I don’t mind stories like that. And I kind of did enjoy the voice of Marina, who is actually the writer and director of this film. She does have a way of expressing herself that had some appeal. But it would have been nice if it went somewhere, or if the character/s had some growth in that.

A secondary focus is supposedly on a realistic portrayal of the lesbian scene in London. If that’s the case, it might be realistic, but it’s not very flattering. It shows only the worst of what I believe might really be the case.

All the characters, most of them lesbians, seem to not have any sense of commitment in their relationships or lives. They’re all cheating, or thinking of cheating on their partners. They all come across as selfish and clueless about how they affect their partners and each other. They seem to willy-nilly blow off live-in partners without care about how they might feel. Even the ones who get dumped don’t come across as devastated, they simply have an “oh well” attitude, which made me wonder what the hell these people are doing with each other. Why even be in a relationship?

It’s like they’re all a bunch of superficial users. None of the characters had any redeeming qualities, including Marina, who comes across as completely selfish and self absorbed.

Mostly this is about Marina. She goes about questioning why she’s a lesbian in weird ways. She’s in a relationship with Romy in the moment, but she decides maybe it’s a good idea to try and sleep with men to figure this out, even though she’s been a lesbian for years and seems to have had no problem with that previously. It never comes across as her trying to figure out if she’s gay or not, just WHY she’s a lesbian. I don’t think you can answer WHY you’re straight or gay, so this seems a sort of pseudo intellectual contrivance to have some sort of premise for this movie, or there’s no story.

So she gets into bed with these guys she knows or meets who know she’s a lesbian but she can’t go through with it, every time freaking out and leaving even though those guys really want her. Huh? She’s even decides to cheat on her Romy with an attitude like, well, that’s what we do. But when Romy asks her, she says no, because she’s only been in bed with men, she hasn’t had sex with them even if it was her intent originally.

She also tries to get answers from her parents, which got a bit weird at times. They seem to take her being a lesbian in stride, but are kind of flaky about her neurotic ramblings about everything. Her father asks her what lesbians do in bed, and she gets very specific about how she becomes her inner man who wants to thrust her throbbing penis into the open female. Squick on talking to the father so explicitly.

She grills her partner about what it was like for her to suck men’s balls before she got into women, which makes her partner uncomfortable. And they nonchalantly decide to split up like they never did give a shit about each other. I didn’t feel any connection between them anyway, so no big shock.

Other story lines: a straight copy writer writes a series of articles with a lot of intellectual mind fuck about Freud and how being a lesbian is like narcissism, in that a woman who loves a woman is like loving herself. This writer hooks up with a lesbian and sleeps with her to get fodder for her articles. What’s weird is that the lesbian who sleeps with her got pissed at that article, calling it rubbish. And when the lesbian confides that she fantasizes about a man sometimes sexually, this article writer brings her boyfriend to have a threesome. He nonchalantly, like he’s doing this lesbian a favor says he doesn’t mind just watching if that would make her feel more comfortable.

Like just totally clueless characters all around in this story.

I don’t know, if you can get it for free from the library, which I’m glad I did, it might be worth watching. I wasn’t bored with it, it just didn’t make too much sense. I don’t know if the writer/director is a lesbian herself, but she did a sorry job of portraying lesbians in a good light with this film. Not that it’s her job to do so and not that it isn’t a realistic portrayal, it might be, I don’t know. The lesbians that I actually know are all in long term, loving, committed relationships, so that’s my personal experience of the lesbian world. It seemed though she went out of her way to make all the lesbians in this movie look bad, which is kind of sad.

My sister told me that it’s a running joke amongst lesbians that there are no good films about lesbians. That they are either too stereotypical or show the worst of them. I’m starting to realize what she means.

Heat level: 1- minor sexual scenarios… no nudity

Grade: C-

This and That

2010-12-22T07:59:00.000-08:00

I read this on EREC blog by Emily Veinglory. She keeps track of publishing news, new epublishers, and general ebook news.

There's a publisher in the UK, Embrace Books, that has started a new line called Saffron to publish lesbian stories. Here's their mission statement about it:

Saffron at Embrace

Quality lesbian fiction, including short romance and erotica.

These stories engage the reader within a world of female-female relationships, in a range of romantic, erotic, historical, paranormal, crime, thriller and suspense fiction.

From significant commercial fiction to hot, irreverent erotica, Embrace Books provides a brand-new British home for powerful lesbian writing with a global outlook.

I clicked on their Saffron section and see that at this point there's only one book coming out in spring 2011. Hmmm...

The blurb about the writer states that she's bisexual. I wonder if they did that to give her more credibility in writing a lesbian romance? I noticed things like that for other author bios as well.

I think it's good that more and more epubs and such are promoting lesbian or f/f stories, but Emily wondered out loud that many think there's a difference between f/f and lesbian. It's a discussion that we've had often here and other places.

I've reached a point where that line has become very blurry for me. In the beginning, I only related to stories with bisexual or sexually fluid characters. But since there aren't that many stories like that out there, I have been reading more and more straight up lesbian stories.

What I see at this point is that inside myself, I'm seeing less of a difference. But I know that many straight readers who enjoy f/f romance outside of the context of a lesbian relationship will still see it as separate. And I think lesbians will not see them as similar either.

But again, this is an issue of labeling, so we'll see. If they are labeling it lesbian, then it gets tricky for readers. Straight women won't read it, and lesbians will expect full on lesbian characters, not a bisexual or sexually fluid, gay in the moment character.

On to other things:

I've been watching this cute series on Vimeo- a youtube like service, about a group of lesbian friends and their life in LA called, That's What She Said

Each video is only like 5 min. long, but it's an ongoing drama done by real friends and I really enjoy it. So I'll post the first one here.

TWSS: Episode 1 - Pilot from TWSS Online on Vimeo.

Review- A Village Affair (DVD)

2010-12-21T17:00:00.001-08:00

A Village Affair (DVD)
1995- British TV
English/Drama/Lesbian-bi
100 mins.

Based on the bestselling novel by Joanna Trollope
Recently returned to England from New York City, vivacious heiress Clodagh Unwin befriends a couple new to her village. The husband is entranced by the young aristocrat, but Clodagh has eyes for someone else: his wife, Alice.

Alice has a gilded life--beautiful children, a handsome husband, and a stately home. Secretly, she’s depressed after the birth of her third child and unhappy in her marriage. Clodagh proves irresistible. But when tongues start wagging, the women learn that love might not be enough.

Based on the bestselling novel by Joanna Trollope (Friday Nights, The Rector’s Wife) and filmed in picturesque countryside, this British production stars Sophie Ward (The Shell Seekers), Kerry Fox (Welcome to Sarajevo), Nathaniel Parker (The Inspector Lynley Mysteries), Jeremy Northam (Emma, The Tudors), Michael Gough (Batman), and Claire Bloom, with a young Keira Knightley in one of her first screen roles.

I had high hopes for this movie, as I do all the books I read and films I watch. Unfortunately, the strongest emotion I had about this film was, meh. It’s just a bland and predictable story all around.

Unoriginal stereotypicalness (yes, I know it’s not a word):

1. Alice, the main character, is depressed. She’s an artist who’s been unable to get her artistic mojo back. She’s also not into sex with her husband and feels all around blah about life. She's ripe for someone to come in and get her in touch with herself again. It’s explained away as postpartum depression by her…

2. Meddling and intrusive mother-in-law who’s a famous author of gardening books and is used to getting her way. She has no problem interfering in her son and DIL’s life, running things all the time, which causes stress to Alice, but which the son is oblivious to.

3. The local who comes home after being in America is known for being the wild and adventurous girl. She’s just a bit different from all the villagers, shoving their prejudices in their face. No one knows that she’s lesbian though. They all think she had some exotic affair with an American and came back home after it went bust. But they prefer she'd leave so they don't have to look at their own small mindedness.

4. The out-of-touch husband. While in this case he's not portrayed as a complete oaf, he's so chirpy and on the surface, just going along with everything and not really looking too deeply at why Alice is miserable.

5. Small town mentality. Alice and her husband move to small town in hopes of starting a new life and getting Alice out of her rut. Everyone knows all about them before they even get there and have spread the word.

6. Gossiping old bitties aplenty.

7. There’s an older woman odd ball who bucks the conservative trend and is laughed at behind her back by the locals because she’s into new agey stuff and has a local wives club for self awareness groups.

8. The droll, henpecked husbands all having secret affairs to get away from their uptight, meddling old bittie wives.

I’m already falling asleep. Yawn.

Clodagh has come back from America after a nasty break-up. Her wealthy parents have a party and introduce her to Alice and her husband. Clodagh and the husband hit it off a little too well and this pisses Alice off. Right away she hates Clodagh. But Clodagh has eyes for Alice and insinuates herself into Alice and her husband’s lives, playing with the children, hanging out at their house all the time and helping Alice out.

Of course, the gossip is all about how Clodagh is a flirty little whore having an affair with the husband. He actually misunderstands Clodagh’s attention, which to me was excessively flirty, and comes on to her, claiming it’s just a vacation from his wife and marriage even though he’s never done that before and he does love Alice. It’s just a side thing. :/

What’s really going on is the Clodagh is trying to subtly woo Alice. And she does. Her vibrant and insinuating energy does get Alice out of her rut and she starts to feel more alive because of Clodagh. That was weird to me, because she really came across as coming on to the husband. Why would she do that if it’s Alice she wanted? This was part of the reason I didn’t get too turned on about the lesbian affair in this case. Or didn’t buy is a much as I could have.

When Clodagh finally admits that she’s a lesbian and wants Alice, Alice falters in shock for like two seconds, then she’s all over Clodagh. OK. I could see it even though Alice is a bit too stoic in it all and doesn’t really come across as overly excited about it.

She and Clodagh do spend the next few weeks though playing and having sex and enjoying, saying I love you’s all the time. It’s clear that they do have feelings for each other. How strong they are though, will be tested.

9. It’s all about the kids.

When the shit hits the fan and it all comes out, there’s a lot of yakkity yak, old bittie flouncing, overacting: both Clodagh and the husband are devastated with lots of anguished tears and melodrama, as Alice vacillates between the husband and Clodagh. However, Alice just kind of goes on with her life, not really seemingly too concerned about the devastation she’s caused. The big issue is that she doesn’t want to lose her kids and can she really live a lesbian life?

There’s nothing really wrong with this film, it just didn’t spark anything in me. I think I even surfed the net a bit while it was running. Not a good sign.

I thought the scenes between the women were nicely done though. There was no shying away from any physical, nude or not, contact and declarations of love, that might shock for a TV movie. But it wasn’t salacious either, trying for titillation. The Brits, from what I’ve seen of BBC productions, aren’t afraid of real lesbians in their movies. So I thought that was actually cool of them to produce this even if it didn't say anything new.

It wasn’t all negative about the small town thing. There were some characters who support Alice being a lesbian and offer to still be her friend after she and Clodagh have been shunned. At least they didn’t make it all stereotypical. It’s just too bad that the whole movie fell into ho hum typical ending territory. It could have been such a dynamic, pro lesbian story.

Heat level: 2- some nudity, implied sex mostly.

Grade: C+

Review- Fire (DVD)

2010-12-20T10:50:00.001-08:00

Fire (DVD)
1997
Indian (spoken in English)/Drama/F/F
104 mins.

Sita and Radha are young Indian women whose husbands choose celibacy or mistresses over their wives. The two women become friends and grow closer together, forming a forbidden but liberating relationship. A lush, passionate story of emancipation and love, in a closed society. Major controversy led this movie to be widely attacked and banned in India.

(There are extras in the DVD that show major riots over this film and how the Hindu fundamentalists called it blasphemy. Not because of the lesbian factor, but because of both women being Hindu. It’s very interesting. I wonder if it would be different now 13 years later?)

OMG, this movie was so gorgeous, sensual and poignantly moving. Set in India, within the rather strict but normal cultural mores, this film shows a love that comes out of the despair of having to conform to that culture and the fight to have that love. This story was real and honest, the acting amazing, and the truth of life as a woman in India brutally shown. But there is an HFN as the women go for it against all odds, which considering what happened could have ended so sadly.

The film starts with Sita being newly married to Jatin. It’s clear right from the start that Jatin is not into her. Obviously this has been an arranged marriage as is still the custom in India. After their honeymoon they go back to his family home where they live in the same house with Jatin’s older brother Ashok, his wife Radha, as well as the ailing and bedridden mother Biji and a servent, Mandu. Sita accepts this as this is what is expected of her.

They are a middle to upper class family and run a family business renting movies and running a small restaurant. We quickly start to see traditional Indian family dynamics at play that makes it clear that the men get to do what they want while the women are there to be their dutiful wives and make babies.

Jatin is in love with his mistress, a Chinese girl, who refused to marry him, so he goes to her every night, leaving Sita alone. And when he finally does have sex with Sita, it’s perfunctory and cold, just his duty to get her pregnant. Sita is a young Indian woman and her ideas of wifely and familial duty to the exclusion of her own desires is more modern, which clashes with her traditional husband’s family. She has dreams she wants to fulfill. Her only ally in the house really is Radha and they soon form a close bond.

Radha is much older than Sita and as the eldest son’s wife, she has the full responsibility of taking care of the household, including full care of her mother-in-law who’s had a stroke and is helpless. Unfortunately, as a woman in India her main value is to produce a son and since she’s barren, her life as a woman will never be fulfilled. To deal with this, Ashok spends all his time with a guru who teaches that all desire leads to misery. So he’s decided to take a vow of celibacy to challenge his desire for sex, but forces Radha to lie next to him to test himself and then pushes her away. This further makes Radha feel unloved and worthless even though she honors him in that. She’s basically gone through life doing her duty and not thinking about what she feels or wants, accepting her fate.

Outside this, the mother, who can’t talk and see’s everything going on, tries to show her disapproval at anything that strays from traditional, cultural ways by ringing her bell or spitting on people. On top of that, there’s a man servant Mandu who when asked to watch Biji while everyone is out, watches porn on Biji’s TV, while she’s in the room, not giving a crap at how disrespectful that is. He’s also noticing that Radha and Sita are getting closer than sisters-in-law should be and he’s a major player in what happens, which of course is not good.

There are several things that I really loved about this film. The main thing I got off on was how simply, lovingly and innocently the women go from a bond of being wives in the same boat to reaching out to each other in a more intimate way. It wasn’t salacious or awkward but came across as a natural extension of their bond. Although they both know what they are doing is wrong in the eyes of their religion and culture, they don’t feel it’s wrong. And even more unbelievably, they don’t push each other away in angst or fear, nor do they get all giddy with each other either although you see the progression of their beings becoming lighter as time goes on.

There are lots of correlations to mythological Hindu stories that tell moral stories, one having to do with Sita and having to prove her love through fire. That story doesn’t end well even if she does pass the test to Lord Rama her husband. Radha was the beloved of Krisha and so devoted to him. Both stories tell of love that is pure and so passionate. In the movie, Radha tells Ashok, who is controlling all of his desire that living like that for her made her dead inside. That desire made her feel alive and she was choosing, desire and life, meaning Sita.

I don’t know if the writer did that on purpose, but I thought it interesting that culturally, the denial of love and passion between men and woman and the enforcement of duty on the woman is the ideal when Hindu Gods and Goddesses are beloved and worshiped because of their living for passion and love at all costs.

On the negative side, one could say that the men in this movie were stereotypes of the typical domineering male, even for India. However, as someone who lived in India for a total of 2 years, I didn’t find it far from the truth at all. Although I will say that Ashok is a more complex character than the typical autocratic male. He sticks with Radha even though she's barren, when often the case is that a man will divorce a wife if she cannot bear children, particularly a son. He does love her in his own way. And out of both brothers, he’s the more compassionate one. But his cruel reaction to Radha being with Sita is I think a typical one, at least in some parts of India. It was all about him and shame to him and his family.

One thing that I’ve noticed in a lot f/f or lesbian stories is women becoming lovers not because of a sexual preference, but because of their station in life as second class citizens and being pushed to deny personal desires to satisfy that of a man. Or having to be submissive to men. It’s often in reaction to something against men. I wonder how often that is the case? In this movie it’s the case, but it’s true to that culture and wasn’t contrived as I think is the case in some romance novels as a way to bring the women together.

Fire is, in the end, is an uplifting movie. I makes love the most important thing over and above cultural mores and religious dogma. Sita and Radha find love, support and compassion in each other that is denied to them by their culture and status as women with their men. It’s a beautiful, sweet film and I highly recommend it if you can get a chance to see it.

Heat Level: 1- one or two sensually done sex scenes, mostly implied sex- very minor nudity.

Grade: A+

Review- A Grave Talent by Laurie R. King

2010-12-19T10:10:00.000-08:00

A Grave Talent
by Laurie R. King
1993
Mystery/Detective/Lesbian character
342 pgs.-Bantam Books

Buy it - anywhwere

This gripping debut of the Kate Martinelli mystery series won the Edgar Award for Best First Mystery, generating wide critical acclaim and moving Laurie R. King into the upper tier of the genre. As A Grave Talent begins, the unthinkable has happened in a small community outside of San Francisco. A string of shocking murders has occurred, each victim an innocent child. For Detective Kate Martinelli, just promoted to Homicide and paired with a seasoned cop who's less than thrilled to be handed a green partner, it's going to be a difficult case. Then the detectives receive what appears to be a case-breaking lead: it seems that one of the residents of this odd, close-knit colony is Vaun Adams, arguably the century's greatest painter of women, a man, as it turns out, with a sinister secret. For behind the brushes and canvases also stands a notorious felon once convicted of strangling a little girl. What really happened on that day of savage violence eighteen years ago? To bring a murderer to justice, Kate must delve into the artist's dark past—even if she knows it means losing everything she holds dear.

This is the first book of Laurie R. King’s that I’ve read and I quite liked it and her writing style. What stood out for me most with A Grave Talent were the intriguing and well developed characters. The plot was sort of typical to a mystery/thriller, but I got off on the characters the most.

I’ll also admit that I got this book because I read that one of the main characters, Kate, a police detective, is a lesbian. I wanted to see how a mainstream author was able to write a lesbian character that a mainstream publisher would publish. On this level, I was very surprised that it was more a factor than I thought it would be.

What’s interesting though is that Kate, as a character, really doesn’t stand out in this book even though the series is named after her and she is the main character in the next few. Because she’s a lesbian and on the police force, she’s rather tight lipped about her personal life to her new partner and the head of the task force, Hawkin. So she really doesn’t come out as a strong personality for the first ¾'s of the book.

Also, for some reason, Ms. King decided to keep the fact that she’s a lesbian on the Q.T. for the first half of the book, only describing her partner Lee in generic, non gender identifying terms. Why she did that I don’t know, but I feel that it kept Kate from really opening up about who she is, which blocked us the reader as well. Once it comes out and Kate allows Hawkin into her house and private life to protect Vaun Adams a victim, then we get to see some of what Kate is all about.

Who really came through as an intriguing and complex character was Vaun Adams. While thankfully not written as the typical tortured artist, there is so much mystery about her. Being a victim of her strange personality basically, she’s learned to be rather laconic, not showing much of what she’s thinking. As an artist, she’s all about observation, which gives a cool, but deep aura about her. I couldn’t get enough of her. And that was an issue for me. When there’s a character that is well written and turns me on basically, then I want more. But Vaun is kept an enigma for most of the book and I guess that’s part of what kept me reading.

The next character is Hawkin. I loved him as a character. He’s also not stereotypical. He’s a deep thinker who has a lot of insight and observational ability. He’s a rough and tumble detective, however, he looks past the obvious about people and there’s a quiet intensity that he shows as well. He’s also non-judgmental about people and life, which allowed for him and Kate to interact without all of possible homophobia and sexism that is used in many cop stories with GLBT or female characters to create tension.

The plot also worked very nicely. Yeah, it’s sort of typical; the sociopathic serial killer type thing is common, but what worked here for me was that the pacing was right on. There’s a nice slow build up. Although I will say there were some confusing or implausible things even for a detective story. I tend to suspend disbelief a lot in this genre because well, if the author writes it in an entertaining way, then I’m enjoying and I let things go. But the ending was a bit of a let-down and I saw it coming on the suspense part.

Some other things readers might be bothered about, but which I wasn’t, is that this is set in San Francisco and there were some stereotypical issues around a cult like hippie/alternative lifestyle group where some of this story is set. I found it unique though since Vaun is not the type to be able to fit into mainstream life and that was a good set up for her and the story line.

About Kate and Lee’s relationship, it’s mentioned more often than I thought. And we do get some insight into their relationship, how they interact and relate. Especially towards the end. And in the end, I was rather shocked actually that the whole Kate being a lesbian and being out at that point to her boss and colleagues was treated normally, with some lighthearted joking and a “we don’t care, you’re a great detective” kind of stance. It’s always a slippery slope for a straight, mainstream author portraying a GLBT character to not veer into stereotypes.

I read on AfterEllen in an interview with Ms. King that at the time she wrote the book, she didn’t even think about how offensive it might have been to write a gay character like that. That it was possible to be rife with stereotypes and misunderstandings. However, I think she did an excellent job of it. And I feel it was very gutsy of her to do so even if her intentions for writing a lesbian character were more for practical purposes.

All in all, complex characterizations with good mystery makes A Grave Talent a recommend for me. Especially if you’re into the mystery/detective/suspense genre.

Heat level: 0 only hints at a sex life.

Grade B+

Love the Holidays!

2010-12-17T12:40:00.000-08:00

I listen to Christmas music usually non-stop from Thanksgiving on. I think I only heard this version of this song this year. I searched all over and found that it was Alison Krauss and Yo-Yo Ma. I became a fan of Alison Krauss first time with the CD she did with Robert Plant. It's one of my favorites. And Yo-Yo Ma, loved his music in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. The DH has a CD of his.

Love all the different instruments in this; the whole ensemble: Krauss' voice with violin, viola, bag pipes.... is just gorgeous.

Next up is something I only found out about this year. Love this: The Calgary Hitmen Hockey Team does a Teddy Bear Toss every year to give to needy kids and kids in Hospitals. What a great idea!!! Why don't more sports teams do that? Have give a gift/food/anything day. I'll bet they'd get so much. They got over 23,000 teddy bears this year. Amazing!

REVIEWS--

I ordered several lesbian oriented movies from my Library to watch during the vacay and to review. Of course, they all came at once. So the next several reviews will be movie reviews, since I only have a week to watch all of them.

I'm almost done with Laurie R. King's A Grave Talent.

I give kudos to Laurie R. King for writing a main character who's a lesbian. While it's a mystery and the Kate Martinelli is a police detective, Ms. King did include actually quite a bit of her life with her partner. For a mainstream author and publisher to do this, is remarkable. It was actually her first published book in 1993.

A Grave Talent is an excellent book. I highly recommend it if you're into mysteries. I'll probably write a review for it even though there are like thousands of them on Amazon and Goodreads.

Just a little note about Ms. King. I went to the Mystery Writer's Convention in Indianapolis in 2009. She was there. I kept seeing this striking woman walking around looking like a classic grandma with her white hair in a top knot bun. She was on several panels I went to. She's very young and alive in her energy and I enjoyed her talks. But at the time I was more attracted to see Charlaine Harris, who was also there.

Anyway, the last day they had the book giveaways. Unfortunately, it was set up rather badly, with nary much space between rows of authors for people to move about. It was too chaotic. I had marked the books I wanted and tried to get to those authors. It wasn't happening. I got stuck in a very slow moving mob right in front of Ms. King. I looked at her and smiled and she smiled back. Then she said, "you want one of my books?" I said OK and took her book. LOL One never knows how one will come across an author sometimes.

After that I noticed on Goodreads that her books were listed under GLBT, or lesbian. So I bought my first Kate Martinelli book. I will definitely read some more. The writing is very good and characterizations well developed.

What's unfortunate, I read some reviews that say "I loved the book until I found out the main character was a lesbian." WTF is that? I find it interesting that people would get so uptight about that. It's not like Kate's relationship with her partner is front and center. But everyone has their buttons, right?

Review- Running On Empty Dreams (DVD)

2010-12-15T14:00:00.000-08:00

Running On Empty Dreams (DVD)
May 12, 2009
Contemporary/bi/drama

Sydney has played the part of a devoted wife to her husband for years, but her world is shattered when she meets Jane and is instantly attracted to her. She is quickly overwhelmed with the intensity of her love for Jane and the lustful passion that they share. Now Sydney is faced with a choice between the forbidden love that she craves and the undying love of her husband.

I have three words for how I experienced this film. What The Fuck. Seriously, WTF was that? This has to be thee worst film I’ve seen in years: bad acting, totally disjointed story line with all kinds of conflicting issues, plus weird social/political/ religious statements thrown in. There were some good points, but they don’t make up for the train wreck that was most of this film, which is too bad since it could have been really good.

This is going to be a long review, sorry. Basically I’m telling you the whole story since it was all over the place.

It starts out with Sydney and her husband Corey moving to Phoenix, Arizona for a better life. Apparently he will now be able to stay home instead of traveling for his job as a private investigator for a huge firm. Unfortunately, Sydney's been having hand tremors and when she finally collapses, it’s discovered that she has thyroid cancer, a perfectly treatable cancer except for they have NO money. And for some reason the Dr. who tells her this is the coldest prick out there, telling her matter-of-factly that she has to come up with the money or she’ll die, which I didn’t get. Why would she even go back to that turd?

Seriously… I don’t even know where to continue on this review because at this point I find myself wondering what to focus on. This movie was all over the place.

Right away we see that there’s trouble in their marriage that moving and making more money won’t fix. Corey was a marine, a decorated marine, a hero. He’s missing the glory days of that and is constantly looking for constant ego validation that he’s still a hero, and part of that is being able to provide for his family. That sounds great, but he’s wound up a little too tight if you know what I mean and I feared at every turn he would go postal on everyone’s ass.

It doesn’t help that Sydney bitches that he’s never home. But in order to have the money they need, he needs to travel for his job. It's a no-win situation. Unfortunately, for him it’s all about him and Sydney’s dreams of becoming a screenwriter are treated as trivial. Oh and he talks to her like this, “Sydney, you’re going to die, of course I’m thinking of what a waste it is for you to dream about being a writer.” WTF?! To say Sydney’s unhappy is an understatement.

In the meantime, Sydney hooks up with the single mom (Jane) who lives across the street and who’s guy is in jail, to do play dates with their kids. The dialogue between the two is stilted and weird, with Jane saying things like, “you’re not like anyone I know” with her eyes sort of saying, like you know, special….and other weird things that seemed out of place. They carry on a typical platonic girlfriend relationship for a while.

Meanwhile, Sydney and Corey are fighting non-stop. But Sydney does get her cancer taken care of and has to take thyroid medication for the rest of her life now, something she balks and acts incredulous about. WTF?

One day, out of the blue with no lead up, no warning, no close ups of lingering eyes or desires or any indication of Sydney’s growing feelings, without any connection really, she runs over to Jane’s all anxious and bursts out that she’s wanted to kiss her from day one and that she’s going insane with want of her. Jane’s all mellow hippie, Arizona sunshine on the surface, “oh wow, oh cool, like really?”Not shocked at all, but not biting either.

Out of nowhere though comes the classic stereotypical butch lesbian walking by who happens to give an ominous warning to Sydney that she’ll be sorry. This before Sydney and Jane even fully get it on.

Being lonely because Corey is away again, Sydney hangs out with Jane over night and things happen. Like they go for it. After that Sydney goes to the priest to confess that she’s committed adultery. The priest says he can’t help her. WTF? She needs to go to a counselor. She goes home, smashes the bathroom mirror with over acting emo angst, then decides to stop taking her thyroid pills, which will kill her. WTF?

Onto the next WTF? This lesbian shows up again when Sydney and Jane are outside talking about their love, warning them again that they are on the wrong path. When Sydney tells this lesbian---- who’s always dressed like a guy, head band on, sporting tattoos, grabbing her crotch, smoking and talking like John Travolta in Welcome Back Kotter---- to blow it out her ass, this lesbian goes all emo on them, talking tough… “yeah, I’ve fucked women, lots of bitches, I know what it’s all about. I had one, (inhales smoke) but she broke my heart, left my ass, then I found Jesus. He’s the man. He’s the one I give my heart and love to.” OK, W.T.F? All the sudden religion is brought into this? And it just happens to be a lesbian who, “god no, I’d never be with a disgusting man, but I chose to give my life to Jesus,” who gets all judgmental on them? Then she gives Sydney a card to come to church with her to see what a bad, evil thing she’s doing and Sydney goes, “OK.” While Jane laughs it off. WTF?

Sydney goes to this church, which has a congregation of like 2 people, with a female preacher who talks about when you follow God’s plan, you are doing right. Sydney then argues with the lesbian all the way home about what bullshit the church is and how can what she's feeling be so wrong?

So was that whole thing thrown in there to give someone a chance to diss the church’s stance on homosexuality? I tell you, I was getting so many mixed messages from this film. At that point I was starting to feel like this was a thinly disguised homophobic film even though it was about two women falling in love.

In the meantime, Corey is alternately smashing things and or sitting on a pile of steaming rage with controlled stares at the wall because HIS wife left him. He goes over to Jane’s trying to find her, but Jane, twat that she is, laughs in his face and tells him he’s an idiot. OK, first of all, the guy’s about to blow shit up and you’re egging him on? WTF?

Sydney moves in with Jane and they have a nice relationship for about a week. Then Sydney says she got an offer on her script and she needs to go to Sedona, alone, to write this script.

Spoiler about the ending**********************

I’m going to tell you the ending because I can’t imagine anyone would spend a dime or two minutes to watch this film. Sydney goes to Sedona and we see clips of her hanging out, being in nature, happy, content, and then the next thing she’s in a coffin dead. OK, W. T. F! Apparently she never took her pills again and chose to die instead, leaving all her insurance to her husband and kid. OMG.

Then at the funeral, the husband makes a huge scene when Jane shows up. But Jane tells the husband that it was her who saved Sydney that first night when she collapsed on the road, but didn’t say anything because she wanted Sydney to love her without feeling debt. What? OK, so all along Jane was seducing Sydney? She didn’t even know Sydney. Ugh… this movie pissed me off so much at how stupid it was.

End Spoiler***********************

I just didn’t get what this film was trying to say. You supporting gay love? You dissing it?

This is what was shown at the end of the film:

“It’s estimated that 18% - 35% of lesbians in the US were ever married, based on several research studies” –Amity Pierce Buxton, PhD, founder of Straight Spouse Network

“Which are you?”

What? Which am I what? A cheating spouse who’s become a lesbian? A straight chick who’s become a lesbian? A divorced woman who’s now a lesbian? A spouse of a turned gay person?That’s such a weird thing to have at the end of a film. It makes me feel like there’s something subversive going on.

I checked out this site, yes, it does exist, and it’s a group to support spouses and partners of people who “turn” gay or are bisexual and it seems to be pro GLBT in that they don’t advocate trying to change the GLBT partner who has come out. But it’s just weird to see that at the end of a film that sends out mixed messages about the rightness or wrongness of suddenly falling in love with someone of the same sex while being married.

The good parts. Yes there were some good parts. I thought how the women were together was very nice. Very natural once they got together. And it did feel real. If only the acting weren’t so melodramatic or disjointed, this could have been a beautiful film about two women who fall in love. Oh well.

I can’t recommend this film to anyone. Not unless you get off on train wrecks of awfulness.

Heat level: 2. Some nudity, some lesbian kissing.

Grade: D-