Review- Hush Now by L.A. Green

Hush Now 
By L.A. Green

Sept. 14, 2012
Historical/Lesbian/Interraci/Romance
216 pgs Pub: Dog Ear Publishing

When Rebecca Montgomery, daughter of wealthy plantation owner Grafton Montgomery, falls in love with Ruth, a slave, her life is turned upside down. Their journey of self-discovery takes place in a historical period of the imagination-one filled with vibrant characters, intrigue, danger, and the underlying theme of hope.
A wealthy plantation owner's daughter falls in love with a beautiful slave women and their lives are turned upside down...this is a love story about secrets that might never have been told.

When I was reading another mid 1800’s southern romance, which was between two white women on opposing sides and ideology during the civil war, I internally asked the same question the authors of this book sort of did. I wondered what if the daughter of a wealthy plantation owner actually fell in love with one the female slaves? I thought it would be an intriguing story but one that would have to be told, for me, without abuse of privilege or the main POV being the privileged character. Hush Now comes very close to that story I wanted to read. It’s a beautiful love story between two women stuck in a time and circumstance that makes it virtually impossible to be together.

Rebecca is a strong woman who is all about running her father’s plantation while he’s ill instead of being a proper Southern lady and looking for a husband. Unconventionally, she likes to wear men’s riding breeches as she rides around the plantation checking on it and makes sure the overseer is acting properly. She considers herself and her father more enlightened and progressive as far as slave ownership goes in the South and treats her father’s slaves with more respect than most of her station. Due to this, her family is considered by many in town as slave lovers, which is cause for problems to them at times.

What I love about Rebecca is that during the course of her growing relationship with Ruth she starts to really get it. She goes past the “I treat my slaves well” attitude to really understanding  her privilege, getting how wrong it is to enslave other human beings and trying to do something about it. She also doesn’t abuse her privilege when it comes to Ruth even though it would be easy to do so. Not only that, she’s conscious of that power and takes great pains to be careful she doesn’t let it take over even when her love and desire to be with Ruth is so intense. And even though she loves Ruth so deeply, ultimately she’s willing to sacrifice her own desires to do what’s right.

Ruth is also an interesting character, who I fell in love with. Too often in interracial love stories, the POC POV is not that developed. One thing I really wanted in reading a story like this is a strong representation of the POC POV. The authors mostly deliver on this point although I felt there could have been more about her. Or let’s say more about her life and who she was before being bought by the Montgomerys. I did get a good feel for who she is though. Ruth’s desires for freedom and seeing her family again who have escaped up north, and fearing really loving Rebecca due to the huge disparity in their social stations, drives a lot of how she reacts to Rebecca trying to prove her love.

Ruth is intelligent, well read—reads Shakespeare with Rebecca---, and is proud. Very telling is that she consciously dumbs down her speech and uses subservient body language to survive, which is painful to read. On this level, the authors didn’t shy away from showing the harsh realities of being enslaved in the South during this time. What I loved about her is that even though she has been treated as property, humiliated, separated from her family, and lives in fear that maybe Rebecca is just using her as she’s been used by white owners in the past, she still dares to allow herself to feel the love she feels for Rebecca. It’s an even bigger risk her loving and being with Rebecca than for Rebecca, so I had a stronger feeling for her.

What shines through this whole story is the love the both women share for each other. They have nothing but secret glances and stolen moments together and yet they manage to express and share their deep love and need of each other. It’s both beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time.

One thing outside the love story that I enjoyed was the plot twist that creates an opening for Rebecca find a way for them to be together. Not sure if it’s something that could have actually have happened, but I can imagine gays during this time period did such things in order to exist and be with their loves. For Ruth and Rebecca it’s the only way even though it pains Rebecca that they still have to live with the pretense that Ruth is a servant.

In a way, even though the ending is unconventional for a romance, it fits with who the characters are. It’s maybe the only choice they could have made. Would love to read a sequel to find out how it all works out.

Other than Ruth and Rebecca’s romance, there are a lot of other characters that add some interesting and offbeat elements to this story. Chet, Rebecca’s long time beau offers some lightness and humor and plays a huge role in how things turn out for the women. And then there’s Teenie, the main house cook and caregiver to the Montgomery family. She’s always in the spotlight as she’s loved by everyone. However, her lightness and humor and that she’s loved but still has the status of slave is a constant reminder that this story is set in the south.

The only thing negative I’d say about this book is along technical lines. There were issues for me with tense and POV changes in the same paragraph. It wasn’t enough to hurt my experience, but was something that jarred me out of the story at times.

I would definitely read a sequel to this story. Somehow it felt as if the women were just on the precipice or beginning of their journey together, one that didn’t quite ever give them a chance to really fulfill their love for each other and it’s only natural after getting so invested in them that I’d want the story to go on. 

Heat Level- 2 some sex scenes written in mild language.

Grade: Really liked it

Review- Mitchie by Catherine Blackfeather

Mitchie

By Catherine Blackfeather

May 22, 2013

Lesbian/ Historical 1860’s

218 pgs

Pub: Self

Fear sends a young girl fleeing her home in Canada's interior disguised as a boy. She comes to live among men, finding her way to a new town in the West, where she finds a place for herself. This new life is threatened, as her old life comes in pursuit. Her journey, both physical and emotional, brings her to a deep self-realization of who she really is, how she truly feels about life, love, and the importance of living honestly.

I was rather excited to read this book. The trope of a woman dressing and acting as a man is a favorite of mine. I also liked the idea the story taking place in a brothel. I felt it could be a really interesting story. Unfortunately, there were several issues that kept this book from popping for me.  

I loved the beginning. Mitchie was left with a man who took her and her mom in and has been sexually abusing her since her mom passed away. In a moment of luck, she takes advantage of some boy’s clothes falling off a donation cart in town and decides this is her chance to run away and start a new life. Pretending to be a boy is a perfect guise for her. Mitchie has guts and I felt she’s going to be an interesting character.

She makes her way by doing laborer jobs that stray boys are doing all over, and manages to keep to herself so she’s not found out. Slowly she makes her way across Canada and ends up outside a brothel in a new town. Seeing a girl having a hard time chopping wood Mitchie offers help and the owner of the brothel lets her stay on. Mitchie settles in and starts working with Maisie, the brothel housekeeper/cook/odd job girl. Slowly the boss and girls accept her and her life is going well. Not soon after Mitchie arrives, Maisie seduces her when she accidentally walks in on Mitchie bathing and see’s she’s a girl. Maisie is into girls and has asked the working girls who’ve denied her.

This is the point where things kind of went off track for me. The issue for me was the abrupt manner in which it happened and how easily Mitchie, who is still very young and naïve about a lot of things, goes along with it without having any hesitancies. Also, Maisie’s approach is rather nonchalant and not particularly about Mitchie but that Mitchie was another girl to try and hit on.  Don’t get me wrong, the sex was written fairly hotly and Maisie and her have a friendship due to working together. However, it felt slightly predatory on Maisie’s part and like it was just plopped in at that point without any kind of build-up to it. From that moment on they are inseparable and in love, which again felt off due a lack of a deep emotional connection.

The next issue I had with this story is that for a good part of it it’s mostly tell and not show. The author didn’t really get into the head of any of the characters in any depth, so I didn’t get too invested in them. Even now as I write this I have no idea who Mitchie is and she’s what this story is all about. I’m not saying this is a boring story, no, I kept reading and enjoyed it to some degree. But I think there was so much potential to really get where the characters were coming from in a more intimate way if the show part wasn’t in the sex only.

The story also took a few turns that also lead to a disconnect in its cohesiveness I felt. Instead  of really developing the characters and relationships, random events and injustices were used to keep up any reader engagement or connection. For instance,

Spoiler:

Maisie isn’t Mitchie’s lover for the whole story. And the second person that steps into Mitchie’s life as a lover, again, sort of abruptly starts it and there’s no feeling about where’s she’s coming from. I mean she’s known Mitchie for a few months and there were really no interactions between them until Mitchie gets seduced by her.

End Spoiler

Maybe the reason this book didn’t work for me is because this is the second book I’ve read recently that used social injustice and or religious morality to drive the story and not the characters. I have read a lot of books recently in which social issues an attitudes pertaining to homosexuality are a huge part of the book. However, they were used as something that added depth to the characters, who they are, and not in place of, so I know it can be done.

I would say the best part of this book is Beryl, one of the prostitutes in the brothel. Beryl is a smart and interesting character for her time. I liked that she’s really OK with the fact that she prefers women and is able to keep the sex she has with men for money as a business transaction in her mind. She’s not that stereotype of the messed up whore, but that of a woman who has made choices that work for her and she’s OK with for the moment.

And the preacher’s wife was in some ways a very sympathetic character. Out of all the characters she’s the only one I felt had the potential for growth. She had a nice mix of having a heart that tried not to judge with her Christian morals-- she did---but she’s not malicious in her religious mind as the preacher is. She’s conflicted in many ways between her religious stance and reality. She’s the only character my mind latched onto with any curiosity to know more about and wonder if or how she will change.

How the book ended was also as abrupt as the sex being plopped in out of nowhere. There was no real feeling of retribution or closure on any level, which was bothersome as the whole story is mainly about injustice perpetrated on Mitchie. So that left me frustrated and feeling the story was incomplete.

I think, all in all, that if the author had gotten into the character’s heads more I would have loved this book. Maybe next time.

Heat Level: 4 several graphically written sex scenes. Fisting, FISTING?, which seemed really out of place for  this story and innocent little Mitchie as a character.

Grade: It was OK