Movie Reviews: An Unexpected Love and Tru Love

An Unexpected Love
March 2003
Lesbian/ bi?

An unhappily married housewife and mother of two children (Leslie Hope) separates from her husband and gets a new job where she develops a mutual attraction to her female boss (Wendy Crewson)

Whole movie is on youtube if you don’t mind Danish subtitles.
This movie apparently was produced and written for Lifetime TV. I don’t know if it ever showed on TV but if so, kudos to them. I don’t think I’ve seen a made for TV movie that specifically dealt with a lesbian relationship.

So… I really liked this story. Both actresses did a great job and it felt believable. Yes, it is the cliché of the unhappily married woman who unexpectedly finds herself attracted to a woman for the first time, but it was well written.

What I liked about it was that all the characters involved act how one would expect they’d act in this situation. Kate and her husband are mutually OK with splitting up, although her husband would be fine keeping the status quo. Kate has always wanted to be a wife and mother and that’s what she went for. They have a nice upper middle class existence, but Kate is just not happy and decides that she wants a more fulfilling life.

She ends up working for Mac at Mac’s real-estate agency. Mac is an out lesbian. Both women get closer as they work together and Kate finds herself attracted as more than a friend to Mac. Mac is very leery when Kate professes that attraction because, um, Kate is straight and Mac doesn’t want to be some straight woman’s experiment and she doesn’t want to be a straight women’s secret lover. Mac has lost the love of her life and is also reluctant to find someone knew.

While they dance around each other trying to work out both an attraction and mixed feelings about that attraction, Kate gets the guts up to tell her husband, children and best friend about her attraction to Mac, which goes over…not well…at first.

This movie is a kind of a sweet romance, but it also deals realistically with all the issues around homophobia, possible “gay for you” as Kate can’t really say she’s now a lesbian, and fear for glbt person being used as a fling. It also addresses certain stereotypes of what straight people think about gay relationships. I liked that it wasn’t cheesy, nor was this movie melodramatic. In fact, all the characters act rather maturely for this kind of situation, considering.

The only negative thing I will say is that it did come across as too insta love for me at first on Kate’s side. There is a nice build-up of a friendship between Kate and Mac, but those special things that would occur between two characters falling in love seemed missing. They are just normal, good friends one min and suddenly Kate is kissing Mac out of nowhere. I would have loved to see more sexual/ romantic nuance between the women before that first kiss. However, it is an HEA and still an enjoyable movie.

Heat level: 2-- semi naked, sweet sex scene
Grade: 4 stars

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tru Love (Canadian)
2013
May/ Dec- lesbian/straight

A widow, recovering from the death of her husband, comes to the big city to spend time with her busy professional daughter. Instead, she forges an unlikely relationship with a commitment-phobic lesbian who has a past with her daughter.

I had watched A Perfect Ending, which I loved, about an older / younger women relationship. So I was attracted to Tru Love, hoping it would be as good for me as the other because it’s also is about an May/ Dec female relationship. Tru Love, while compared often to A Perfect Ending, is a very different film though, and can’t be compared really. Well not in story. I will compare it when it comes to personal feelings about May/ Dec love representations.

Maybe it was just my mood, but for most of it I felt a bit uncomfortable watching this. And while I just said Tru Love should not be compared to A Perfect Ending, what made that less uncomfortable for me was the fact that that relationship started out and is based on a business deal, so the lines are clear at the beginning and age difference wouldn’t be a factor in it. In this movie, it’s really about a love that develops between a 60 something woman with a late 30’s something woman.

For some reason, I felt a kind of dread throughout  most of the film mainly because I wasn’t sure I wanted to see these two characters actually fall in love and be intimate. And I’ll be honest in that probably my discomfort is that I’m an older woman myself and would feel weird being with a much younger woman like the one in this film. Although, actually, if I would put myself in the position of a younger woman attracted to an older one, that wouldn’t have made me feel uneasy at all.

Tru is a lesbian who seems to be fairly callous in her relationships with other women. She won’t commit to anyone and seems to have one night stands and brief relationships one after another, not even bothering to remember their names. Suzanne, one of those past women, asks Tru, who still has the key to that Suzanne’s house (side bar- I wonder how real it is that lesbians having brief affairs give each other keys to their houses after a few nights, which seemed to be the case in this movie), to let her visiting mom in. Suzanne is a lawyer and a workaholic.

Due to Suzanne never being home, Tru sort of entertains Alice, Suzanne’s mom. They like each other right away and start getting very close to the discomfort of Suzanne. On the one hand Suzanne is feeling a bit jealous of time her mom is spending with Tru, but on the other she won’t stop working. When she sees that Tru and her mom are getting a little too close she tries to thwart their relationship, which upsets both Tru and Alice, who think the other is avoiding.

As for Alice, her husband has died and for the first time she feels free to let go and enjoy life. The ghost of her husband is there and talks to her when she’s musing, so we get some background on what Alice’s life has been about.

Alice’s zest for life and enjoyment of Tru, and maybe also because she is an older woman who Tru relates differently to than women her own age, makes it easier for Tru to open up about her painful past. So we get to see why Tru is a commitment-phobe.

This story is just as much about a mother/ daughter relationship as an f/f relationship as tensions rise up between Alice and Suzanne about Tru. It also makes Suzanne confront her avoidance of any kind of a life outside of work. She’s very uptight and this cracks her shell.

So the crux of my discomfort is that I felt Tru and Alice connecting as two people might with that kind of age difference, but couldn’t see it entering into a more intimate thing, which it did. On the other hand, truly, I think I ended up liking this film because it does show that love and relationships between people can go beyond what society might deem appropriate or not. (between consenting adults) And I appreciate stories like this that go outside the box.

I’d definitely recommend this story if you’d be open to a May/Dec story with a much older woman.

Heat Level: 0 implied sex, no nudity

Grade: 4 Stars

Movie Reviews: Desert Hearts and Purple Sea

Desert Hearts
1985
Lesbian/ bi?/ May-Dec

It is 1950s Nevada, and Professor Vivian Bell arrives to get a divorce. She's unsatisfied with her marriage, and feels out of place at the ranch she stays on, she finds herself increasingly drawn to Cay Rivers, an open and self-assured lesbian, and the ranch owner's daughter. The emotions released by their developing intimacy, and Vivian's insecurities about her feelings towards Cay, are played out against a backdrop of rocky landscapes and country and western songs. 

- Written by Neil Lewis

This is a very sweet and touching love story and I loved this film. It’s also totally offbeat and not the usual kind of story outside of it being a lesbian story. For the time period it’s set in, it’s rather incredible that it was made as is. It doesn’t shy away from or act like being a lesbian is anything out of the norm, which I loved. I also thought it interesting to have an out lesbian in a story set in the 50’s. I guess if there was any place in the US that a woman could be somewhat open about being a lesbian in the 50’s, it could be Reno.

Vivien ends up on a ranch in Nevada, staying there until she can get a quickie divorce. It seems her lawyer has a package deal and this is why she’s there vs. a hotel in town. She’s a professor at Columbia University and doesn’t quite click with people at the ranch. She’s older, prim, quiet, rather uptight, thoughtful, and doesn’t really engage too much with the others. I didn’t blame her, they get on her case for putting on airs as it were.

She explains to her lawyer that while her marriage to another professor is OK and they get along, she feels something is missing and wants more out of life. She has no children and states he would not contest the divorce. It seems contradictory to her character as normally it’s a more passionate personality that would go to such huge lengths for a change. So she’s in a transition in her life although not really looking for any kind of excitement.

Cay is a young woman living on the ranch that her father’s long-time lover owns. She’s an out lesbian and is very outgoing. She works in a casino and is just living life, having brief affairs until “the one” shows up. She and Vivien start talking here and there and slowly they form a friendship. Vivien, while a bit embarrassed when she finds out Cay is a lesbian, surprisingly, doesn’t really judge her. And she’s curious about Cay and her life.

Other stuff going on is that the owner of the ranch, Frances, is a tough woman who feels threatened by Vivien and Cay’s relationship. Even though Cay is not her biological daughter, she thinks of her as such and as she sees Cay falling for Vivien, she gets jealous and causes problems. She sees Vivien as an interloper who’s trying to break up her only family.

What’s so lovely about this story is how actress Helen Shaver’s played Vivien. Cay, being young and brash, openly hits on Vivien. She’s attracted to Vivien in a way she’s not been with the others and feels Vivien could be “the one.” Vivien is a bit freaked out by it and keeps Cay at arm’s length even as she starts feeling something for her. Helen Shaver’s portrayal of a woman falling in love with another woman for the first time is amazing. She shows a deeply nuanced vulnerability and shyness when her character finally allows herself to be intimate with Cay. Both actresses made this story so believable and I felt they fell in love in a very natural, deep, and honest way.

One really good thing about this film is that it’s left off with a definite HFN. So often these lesbian movies leave off with some tragedy and sometimes you just want that the couple you rooted for to get together does and you’re left feeling good. And I liked that Vivien is the one who earnestly wants to keep exploring what they have together. So this is not a straight woman briefly falls for a lesbian then goes back to her life.

Definite recommend.

Heat level- 3-4 nude sex scene, beautifully done.

Grade: 5 Stars

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Viola di mare" Purple Sea (Italian)
2009
Lesbian/ historical

Set in 19th century Sicily, Angela and Sara have been friends all their lives. But Angela isn't like other girls, she's fearless, and when she develops feeling for Sara she won't hide them. To maintain the forbidden relationship that blossoms between the two women, Angela disguise herself as a man. The two women challenge the rules of society in order to be together in this lush period romance.

Based on a true story

This was an amazing film. Loved it! It’s just gorgeous all around, with the setting and the women and how their love story develops.

I can’t speak for the truth in historical value, but it seemed spot on. The film starts out with the main characters as children, growing up on a small island in which the only industry is rock mining. Angela’s father is the foreman for all the workers on the Island and he’s a cruel, hard man who rules everyone, including his family, with an iron fist. Her father was pissed off that she was born a girl and has never forgiven her mother or her for that.

Sara is the daughter of a maid for the Baron who owns most of what’s on the island. They grow up playing with each other and the other kids of the quarry workers. Sara and Angela are best friends, always together, but Sara has to go to the mainland with her mother with the Baroness. Angela is shown waiting faithfully for Sara to come back.

Fast forward many years and both women are in their early 20’s. Sara comes back and they start their friendship up again. Only this time, Angela makes it clear pretty quickly that she’s in love with Sara and tells her she will marry her. At first Sara is a bit shocked, but quickly warms to that idea and falls in love with Angela as well.

I have to say that I really felt these two were in love. They have so much passion for each other, particularly Angela, who never wavers for a second.

Unfortunately, these two women are living in a place and time when their love is absolutely unacceptable. When Angela’s father tells her she will be married soon, she confesses she loves Sara and is locked up.

What happens after that is such a twist and I’m not sure it could have actually happened as it did, but the idea that it could and they could get away with it is interesting to think about.

Angela’s mother comes up with the idea to call in a favor from the priest and have Angela’s name changed on her birth certificate to say she’s a male. This allows her and Sara to marry. Although her father goes along with it and makes her now the foreman in his place because she is now a man, of course, many in the village don’t accept it and problems do arise, but they manage.



This is such a passionate story of love between two women. And even though not traditionally having an HEA, it’s still a beautiful, satisfying love story.

Heat level: 4- full on naked sex scenes – not done salaciously though

Rating: 5 Stars

Movie Reviews: Stud Life, Blue is the Warmest Color, Cloudburst

Stud Life (British)
2013
Lesbian Stud-Femme/ Gay

JJ is a hot black British 'Stud' Lesbian. Together with her best friend Seb, a white gay pretty boy, they work as wedding photographers and run around the urban London LGBT scene. When JJ falls in love with a beautiful and mysterious woman, JJ and Seb's friendship is tested. JJ is forced to choose between her hot new lover and her best friend.

This was a really good film. I think it’s not easy to find a lesbian film with black characters, but even more so, harder to find a film about a sub group within the lesbian community. I enjoyed it on every level and thought it an interesting mash up of types of characters.

So the blurb for this film is pretty much what the movie is about. It’s basically about these characters going through life as GLBT persons and trying to find love.

JJ and Seb make and interesting friendship. Both get on great and I felt the writers, filmmakers, and actors did an amazing job of making me believe that these two unlikely friends really do love each other and have each other’s backs.

Both JJ and Seb are having short, non-serious flings with others but no one is really sticking for either of them. And for Seb, a dorky, sensitive drug dealer, Smack Jack, keeps hitting on him, but Seb can’t stand him. Since they all hang out in the same circles they keep coming across each other and Seb finds there’s more to him than he first judged. In the meantime, Seb is sexting through the internet with other gay guys. He is rather a romantic though and wants to find a keeper.

JJ is a stud lesbian who finds herself attracted to a femme lesbian she met at that bar they all hang out in. What I loved here is that she is a stone butch/ stud and the movie really shows the relationship/sexual dynamics of a stone butch/femme relationship. Her girlfriend Elle wants to have sex and touch JJ but JJ really does keep in control. I liked that contrary to the “stud” reputation of being tough, she shows vulnerability when expressing to Elle that she will not allow sexual touching. She’s worried that Elle will not accept that. They do hug and cuddle a lot, which showed how they feel for each other. They both accept the conditions just to be close to each other. However, Elle has a secret that derails their relationship for a while. And it’s something that I felt made Elle a lot more human and vulnerable.

As the story progresses, the average day in these characters’ lives is expressed in all facets, including homophobic attacks on them, back biting within the GLBT community and the use of GLBT by straight people for kicks. And it also shows JJ and Seb just being friends going through issues with each other as lovers enter the picture.

It also has an assortment of entertaining, colorful side characters as JJ and Seb are shown photographing all kinds of events with all kinds of straight/ GLBT people.

Finally, there is a happy ending for both JJ and Seb and it’s a really sweet, satisfying, romantic movie. It’s definitely a movie for anyone who wants to watch something a bit different in GLBT. All the actors in this film make it worthwhile to watch.

Heat Level 2: some sex scenes, some nudity, but nothing graphic.

Grade: 4 ½ Stars

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

La vie d'Adèle (French)
Blue is the Warmest Color
2013
Lesbian/ bi/ YA

Adele's life is changed when she meets Emma, a young woman with blue hair, who will allow her to discover desire, to assert herself as a woman and as an adult. In front of others, Adele grows, seeks herself, loses herself and ultimately finds herself through love and loss.

This movie was hyped up the wazoo as you all know. I usually head the other direction of anything this hyped and talked about, and luckily I did, because I could watch it without everyone’s opinions in my head about it.

So right to the point, it didn’t do as much for me as I’ve read it did for others. Maybe it’s more due to my age. This is really a YA story and it’s mainly about the passion and pain of a first love. On that level it’s quite good and I can see how this film would hit all the spots for a young person. I probably would have loved this in my 20’s.

I almost didn’t finish it as well. This is a 3 hour movie and I had the feeling the director or camera person must be in love with the lead actress who played Adele because it seemed the camera was on her all. the. time, in every scene and with non-stop shots of her just staring blankly or expressing with her face. To be fair, I think the actress who played Adele did a great job. But I felt about maybe an hour of the film could have been cut because endless scenes of her crying or looking blank seemed too much.

Also, one of the reasons this film was so talked about is that it has one of the longest sex scenes ever in a regular (non porn) movie. For me, it was way too much because it wasn’t the only sex scene. Compared to other sex scenes I saw between women in the few lesbian films I watched before this one, I felt these were just one step below porn, which isn’t bad per se, if you want to watch porn. And while the sex scenes expressed the passion and intensity of the physical attraction between these two women, it didn’t express any of what might have been true love between them.

The other negative; I get tired of “lesbians fuck around and can’t commit for a long time” kind of thing I see and read so often. Emma is living with someone when she meets and has sex with Adele. Emma then starts hanging out with an old girlfriend while living with Adele. Adele cheats on Emma with a guy. I mean seriously, can’t anyone stay together?

On to what I loved. I loved that at least before the women get physical, there is a relationship build-up. They don’t just meet and suddenly they’re in-love, like some of the other films I watched. And the film did make an interesting statement about the difference between passion and love. What Adele and Emma have is a sexually passionate relationship. In the end it makes a statement that sexual passion doesn’t always equal long term love or that it’s enough to sustain a long term relationship.

It’s also a movie that shows the growth of Adele as she goes through all this pain of a first love and then moving beyond, learning and growing up. So this was a positive. 

Even though this movie didn’t float my boat as much as other people, I would still definitely recommend it. It is intense and show sexual passion in all it’s facets.

Heat level: 5+ -numerous, fairly graphic sex scenes with full nudity.

Grade: 3 1/2  Stars


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cloudburst
2011
Lesbian

The best geriatric lesbian road movie you have ever seen. Thelma and Louise eat your heart out.

I watched about the first 20 or so mins of this film and stopped. DNF. I had high hopes for this film. I love Olympia Dukakis and thought this would be a great lesbian film about older lesbians trying to stick together as they age.

Unfortunately, I felt it was off. Dukakis’ character Stella is rather crass from the get-go. I could see where she was coming from, but it was a bit over the top and off-putting. She’s gruff, but not in that older woman give a shit, cute and amusing way, no, she fights and argues with most everyone with lots of over the top cursing, and needlessly I felt. She pretty much alienates everyone except of course, those that accept her as she is.

It starts out with Dot, Stella’s partner for over 30’s years, breaking a bone after a fall and needing full care for a few weeks. She’s also almost totally blind. Dot’s granddaughter, who unbelievably is totally clueless that her grandmother is a lesbian and who has no real idea about what her grandmother is about, insists it’s time for her to go into an assisted living facility. This enrages Stella who feels she can still take care of her. And also it will mean they cannot be together. The granddaughter also tells Stella she may stay in their house for a little while, until she finds another place (the house was Dot’s mother’s house and so legally, hers), which of course pisses Stella off because it’s THEIR house. 

Where I stopped watching was when the granddaughter tricked Dot into signing some papers giving up her house and getting into the assisted living facility under the guise of keeping Stella from getting charged with any negligence in Dot’s fall. Dot is smiling as she gets into the car with her granddaughter, while Stella is bangs on the car window screaming.

The level of cluelessness all around is also what bugged me. Dot has been with Stella for 30 years and yet she trusts her granddaughter over Stella and doesn’t even try to stop the granddaughter from driving away, wondering why Stella is screaming.

Then, again, Stella’s personality is off-putting to me. As the granddaughter is driving away, she’s calling her a bitch and a fucking cunt, etc. No. Seriously, I have the mouth of a sailor, I drop the f word all the time. But there’s constant cursing with antagonistic personality type and then there’s just cursing here and there.

Maybe if I would have kept watching I might have loved it, but I just couldn’t. I think it probably told the story of many older lesbians who have no legal rights with each other and also who have no place to be together like assisted living, or nursing homes or such, which I think is an important story to tell. I just wish it was told a bit differently or that the beginning didn’t put me off too much to finish it.

Grade: DNF

Review- Bailey's Run by Ali Spooner

Bailey’s Run
By Ali Spooner
Jan 2, 2014
Contemporary/ Lesbian/ Mystery/ Paranormal
358 pgs
Publisher: Affinity Ebook Press NZ LTD
Kindle Edition

Bailey Chambers mourns the loss of her lover, Nessa, in an unsolved carjacking. When Tommy, Bailey’s brother becomes a victim of a gay bashing, Bailey assumes his case will be handled the same way as her lover’s—lackadaisically.

Desi Dexter assigned to Tommy’s case, feels Bailey’s disdain toward her and her partner. Through tenacious police work, Desi, is able to uncover the reason for Bailey’s attitude, and convinces her that she is sincere in solving the case.

Mutual attraction sparks, and before they can move forward with their fledging romance, Desi, and her partner Braxton, uncover the presence of a serial killer.
What will happen to Bailey, when, Desi, becomes engrossed in another case, can their relationship survive?

This is one of those stories that was quick to read and was entertaining with a lot of fun characters, but which didn’t really excel in one area. It’s both a romance and a mystery of sorts, however, the romance developed fairly quickly without too much ado and the mystery didn’t have enough tension or mystery actually. Bailey’s Run is carried mainly by a gaggle of characters interacting and several random events happening, which was fine as is.

The two main characters, Bailey and Desi, are very likable characters. Bailey is a truck driver during the week, but works in her Aunt’s bar on the weekends. Many women have been trying to catch Bailey’s eye, but since the murder of her partner, she’s not been interested in dating. For her, her partner was perfect and she has no desire to find a replacement. She’s also still grieving as there was no closure in that her partner’s killer was never found.

Desi is a detective who’s just trying to do the right thing in life. She’s a tough but warm woman and has a good working relationship with her partner who is supportive and doesn’t have judgments that she’s a lesbian. She meets Bailey when she’s called on the case of Bailey’s brother Tommy being severely beaten outside her aunt’s bar. Although Bailey is very cold and snippy with her, she feels a spark between them. Something about Bailey attracts her.

For Bailey it’s the same, but her anger over the police not doing anything about her partner’s death has left a bad taste in her mouth and she blows Desi off. On her own, Desi checks out what happened to Bailey’s partner and totally gets Bailey’s anger since the investigation was shoddy to non-existent. Between working on Bailey’s brother’s case and deciding to work behind the scenes to reopen her partner’s murder case, she manages to become closer to Bailey. Bailey slowly opens up to Desi, feeling attracted to someone for the first time since her partner’s death, and feeling also that Desi is on the up and up with her.

They are very cute and sweet together and the romance develops easily, quickly and nicely without too much conflict once Bailey is on board. While there’s a pretense of staying apart for ethical reasons, they don’t pay too much attention to that on a personal level.

Outside of the romance, there are several plot lines. Desi and her partner Dexter, besides going after the men who jumped and beat up Tommy, get reassigned to cold case after they solve who killed Bailey’s partner. Desi discovers a pattern of killings and they realize that they might have a serial killer on the loose. They also figure that the killings happen around the same date every year and that date is coming up soon.

The author goes back and forth between them and the serial killer, giving us insight into who the killer is and their investigative process. I felt this part was not really that well developed as there was no tension built up in finally finding the killer really. I kept expecting more tension or maybe more danger for certain characters, but that never happened. This part of the story felt more like a reason to bring in more characters and keep the story going.  

Spoiler********************************************************************

Also, and this is something that bugged me, an FBI profiler is brought in. Her father was FBI and she’s allegedly some kind of serial killer expert. She works with a partner, also her life partner outside of the job, who is a psychic. Unfortunately, this part of the story was off to me. Basically, all the FBI profiler does is have her partner do her thing while she does zero investigating. They felt rather like unnecessary and extraneous characters thrown in there to add more character interaction even though as characters go they are likable. And about the psychic thing, well, I think I would have been on board with that if the psychic didn’t come up with all the answers right away versus having an actual investigation, which included some psychic help. Due to that it went into hokeyville for me at times. 

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

What does work in this story is the connection between all the characters. The characters get together a lot for fun, food, home cooking and entertainment while they deal with what seems like non-stop issues. They have a great camaraderie and all support each other. I loved that Fubar, Bailey’s aunt’s bar, is one of the central places they meet up and that it features drag queen shows. Most of the characters are either gay or supportive of the gay community and that was rather nice to read as well.

And, well, this is stupid and most people won’t care, but there was a rescued kitten. Desi finds it in an alley and brings it home. The kitten actually gets a fair amount of detail and attention and I found myself worrying about it when both Desi and Bailey can’t get home and loving that it was part of the story.

So, while there were some issues for me in this book, overall it’s a good read.

Heat Level: 2 – sex mostly implied not graphically written

Grade: 4 Stars

Review-Little Black Dress by Scarlet Chastain

Little Black Dress
By Scarlet Chastain
August 12, 2013
Lesbian/Contemporary
70 pages
Published by Evernight Publishing
Kindle Edition

Paris: The romance and fashion capital of the world. So what the hell makes Jamie Scotts, an IT geek from New York, think the city of lights holds the answers? Driven by need for change, she lies to her boss about her fluency in French and becomes the company’s first international sales person. Fluent? She can barely ask for directions to the ladies’ room.

Jamie’s a duck out of water with her low maintenance style and New York accent. Her unsuccessful sales pitch almost sends her home, until she meets the epitome of elegance, Giselle Bianchi. An unlikely relationship blossoms as the dress designer takes Jamie under her wing. Giselle’s guidance not only reveals Jamie’s missing je ne sais quoi, but also unlocks repressed passion with the help of a little black dress.
I read Scarlet Chastain’s Bella Key and really liked it, so when I was in the mood for something short, sexy and emotionally satisfying, I picked up this story. It totally hit the spot and was exactly what I wanted.

Jamie is a smart woman on the fast track in her company. She’s been the top sales person and convinces her boss that she can get the company’s product into the European market. The chutzpah and sales skills that got her where she is in the US doesn’t exactly translate in France, where she’s lacking language skills, sophistication and cultural nuance to open the doors. In a moment of serendipity, Giselle enters her life and things change drastically.

Giselle is an elegant but down to earth woman who has built her own business in the fashion world. She sees Jamie having a hard time at a café and decides to step in to help. They start up a friendship as Giselle helps Jamie navigate the world of doing business in France.

This is a short, but sweet and complete, nothing left hanging or short-changed, story of two women who hit it off and open up to each other without too much ado. Both characters are nicely written and they just click with each other. The setting felt real and added a lot to the feeling that these two are on a romantic adventure and falling in love.

I like these stories by Scarlet Chastain.  They are great for a quicky feel good romance with some juicy sex.

Heat level: 3

Grade: 4 stars

Review- The Artist's Muse by Alyssa Linn Palmer

The Artist’s Muse
By Alyssa Linn Palmer
Oct 13, 2013
Lesbian/ Romance
57 pgs
Pub: Bold Stroke Books
Kindle version

Broke and desperate after her girlfriend leaves her for a man, Colette finds a job as an artist’s model. When she arrives for an interview, she’s surprised to meet a striking young woman, Lise Beauclerc. Her relief at not having to pose for a man turns to infatuation as she observes Lise during their sessions, creating fantasies in her mind during the hours she poses.

Colette has no idea if Lise would return her affections, and when she finally gets up the courage to ask her out, their connection is more than she’d ever hoped for. However, a few days later, Lise introduces her to Marcel, her former fiancé. They seem intimately involved, and Colette is devastated. Will her dreams of Lise be unrequited?

I’ll be honest, it took me a while to decide to buy this book. The blurb attracted me but the only other book I read from this author also had a triangle that was hard for me to understand and frankly didn’t work out that great. Then there’s the price, it’s almost $5 for 57 pages. That in itself was a huge deterrent. I think that price point for that amount of words is insanely ridiculous.  But I justified it in my mind with it being published by Bold Strokes Books, which has a good reputation and who charge more because they’re a niche publisher. I accept that. That’s still a lot of money for such a short book, but… I bought it.

I say all that because in the end I’m glad I didn’t go with my hesitations. This turned out to be a really good story even with some issues. I was left feeling good and that I had read yummy, erotic beginning to a love story.

The blurb pretty much expresses what the story is actually about so I’ll go from there.

Who made this story for me was Lise. Since we don’t get her POV, we have to see her through Colette’s lens and any response through action and dialogue from her. Lise seems to be in her own little world while drawing as Colette poses. She doesn’t act like Colette is any more interesting to her than as a prop and inspiration for her art work. I liked that because it was a nice contrast to Colette’s constant inner sexual fantasy musings about Lise, which seemed to go on and on and got a little boring. The mystery of Lise and her indifferent demeanor was what grabbed my attention.

At first I thought the first person present POV from Collette was not going to be interesting because I didn’t find her to be a character that appealing. As the story progresses though, we do get to see more about what Lise is like from her interactions. Unlike Colette, she has a quiet outer reservedness that belies her passionate and maybe slightly kinky personality. She seems much more mature than Collette in how she acts, but is maybe younger? 

This is one thing I kept trying to figure out. Both have graduated college already but Lise mentions that she chose Colette to model because she’s older. However, the vibe around Lise is that she’s the older one. She’s very grounded and self-assured about her work. She also has the money to pay for a model, something I wouldn’t expect of a young, struggling artist. I pictured her at first to be in her 40’s, which as I read on, was not the case.

She also quietly takes the lead in an interesting and fairly erotic way after she accepts an invitation from Colette. It’s something that says a lot about who Lise is, maybe the most telling thing about her and it was nothing she said.

Then there’s Colette. Compared to Lise, she seems to be somewhat immature even though maybe older. She’s instantly smitten by Lise and falls in love with her in like a day. This is something that bothered me about this story. Colette has only posed for Lise maybe 3 times. They spend one night together and Colette talks and acts like they’ve known each other for months and has an expectation of Lise and of a romantic relationship that seemed out of step with the actual amount of time they’ve known each other. It fits her personality as this is how she’s described, that she falls quickly and easily, but for me her attraction was mostly from her own inner fantasies vs any real connection at that point in time.

However, what I did like about her is that she does act on her attraction and gets the guts up to ask Lise out even though Lise has not shown any particular interest and Colette has no idea if she’s into girls. I also liked that she was willing to risk stepping out again after a major heartbreak.

It’s a short novella so there’s not too much depth to this story, however, it was left on a positive note for me. And it was a fairly sensuous story.

The other thing that I enjoyed and which also added to my final positive feeling for the book was the setting. I felt the author really captured the feel of the women living in Paris. At times I wasn’t even sure what time period this is set in. It could be any time since there was no mention of modern technology like cell phones or such. But the women wearing chignons and going to old movies did give it somewhat retro, European feel. Also the world in which they live of artists and theater people also added to the non- contemporary ambiance of this book.

I do kind of wish the That Artist’s Muse was more drawn out and or we could have gotten Lise’s POV as I think it would have added a lot more depth to this story. However, in and of itself it is a good read. I’d recommend it.

Heat level: 2-3- not too racy but not too bland either

Grade: Really liked

Review- Imperial Hotel by Diane Marina

Imperial Hotel
By Diane Marina
Jan 1, 2014
Lesbian/Era Historical 1940’s/Romance
32 pgs
Kindle Edition

In a posh hotel in New York City in 1948, two young socialites are introduced by their mothers. As their friendship grows, so does love. Will Lily and Joan's love prevail? Are they brave enough to stand up against the social standards of the time, or will their love simply become part of the history of the Imperial Hotel?

I saw that the author posted this book on Goodreads and I bought it mainly due to the mention of the time period and that it’s set in NYC. Ultimately, I liked this story. It’s short but expresses enough to get hooked into the characters. And while not erotically written in language, what the two young women experience together is erotic and deeply passionate.

At first I thought there was too much tell and was fearful that the whole story would be told in such a way. It’s told from Joan’s POV and she gives the background on how she first met Lily and what she felt. They’ve met through their mothers’ introduction. Lily is engaged to be married, but this doesn’t sit well with Joan as both women start to get close. And while Joan doesn’t really get why she feels this way, she doesn’t question it too much either.

At the point that both women understand that they have special feelings for each other, there is a nice shift in the story in that there’s enough dialogue to start getting a good feel for where both women are coming from. Their first sexual interaction is sweet and shows the intensity of their feelings. This is probably what turned me on most about this book.

What was missing for me is that this book didn’t have a strong feeling of being in the 1940’s. Maybe it was because both women are from upper class families and the way they speak didn’t include much slang or colloquial speech of that era. Outside of having to hide what they feel due to an unaccepting society, there really was nothing that made this story stand out as a retro story. Would have been nice if there were some cultural references to the era in the form of clothing style or music, etc.

The ending was also wrapped up a little too perfectly for me. But overall this is a sweet,  feel good love story and I would highly recommend it. I’m pretty sure I will read another of Diane Marina’s books. She does have a pleasing writing style.

Heat level: 2- one sex scene, not graphically written. More suggestive.

Grade- Really liked it.

Review- Silver Wings by H.P. Munro

Silver Wings

By H. P. Munro

Oct 15, 2013

Lesbian/Era Historical 1940’s/Romance/Multicultural

251 Pgs

Pub: self?

Kindle Edition

When in 1943, twenty-five-year-old Lily Rivera is widowed, she finally feels able to step out of the shadows of an unhappy marriage. Her love of flying leads her to join the Womens Airforce Service Pilots, determined to regain her passion and spread her wings, not suspecting that she would experience more than just flying.
Helen Richmond, a Hollywood stunt pilot, has never experienced a love that lifted her as high as the aircraft she flew…until she meets Lily.
Both women join the W.A.S.P. program to serve their country and instead find that they are on a collision course towards each other, but can it last?

This book was a lucky find for me. In fact, I don’t remember how or where I heard about it, but I’m glad I bought it. It’s one of those stories that crept up on me and left me feeling a bittersweet sadness. Not that this is a sad book, not in the least. It’s an upbeat and beautiful love story as well as an accurate depiction of the time period and history of the W.A.S.Ps.

Lily has lost her husband in the war, and being a pilot, decides to join the W.A.S.P program to help out her country. Coming out of her interview she passes Helen, a beautiful blond woman who somehow attracts her attention.

Helen notices Lily right away and feels the same immediate attraction. She is a lesbian however, so it’s not a strange feeling for her.  Luckily for them, they end up being assigned the same living quarters at the training camp.

The two women become fast friends during their training and slowly little glances and innocent touches start happening between them. They both feel an energy between each other, but circumstances don’t allow them to explore or acknowledge it. It’s especially uncomfortable for Lily because she’s aware of an attraction but doesn’t completely understand the nature of it.

Even though the 40’s was not a time period where same sex couples could be open, and especially it was illegal in many places and particularly the military, it wasn’t that odd if women cuddled or slept in the same bed or comforted each other. This is exactly the situation that Lily and Helen end up in and living and working together in a close atmosphere gives them a chance to get closer and have little touches without attracting suspicion. At the same time, it created more sexual tension between them until they were able to finally express their true feelings. What’s nice about how their romance developed was the fact that their relationship as friends had time to grow as well. So it’s totally believable that they would invest in a future relationship.

While the romance is in the foreground, there are a lot of other aspects to this story that made it a fun and gratifying read to me. First are the other characters who stand out in their own right. The women assigned to bay four are an eclectic mix of women who all have distinct personalities and all come from completely different backgrounds. As the women slowly get to know each other secrets that some are hiding come out. Secrets that could potentially be harmful. But they all accept and stick up for each other and I liked this. It’s actually kind of refreshing to read a story with a bunch of female characters in which at some point it doesn’t turn into a catty bitch fest.

Also on characters, the author doesn’t go for the default, which was also refreshing. Lily is Hispanic and shares an apartment in NYC with an African American woman, both working in night clubs as a musician and singer. Lily, besides being a great pilot, is also a concert violinist in the NY Philharmonic. One of the other women is married to a black man, who is a lawyer but serving in war. She hides that she’s married because her marriage is illegal in Texas but not in her state of MA. So I loved that the author didn’t go with stereotypes, which actually made it more realistic and appealing due to that.

Other issues of the time were addressed as well. A local Texas dept. store wouldn’t serve Lily because they “don’t serve Mexicans.” Racism and sexism of the time are realistically shown but are tempered by the women themselves standing up against it.

The other interesting part is the actual history of what the W.A.S.P.s did. While they didn’t fight in the war and weren’t part of the military, their contribution was great. The author really got the historical facts correct and the small, intricate details accentuated and created an authentic feel that this was set in 1943 and that the women were pilots.  

Ultimately though, it’s about two women who fall in love and try to navigate how to be together during this time period and being separated due to their service and social mores of the time. I liked that the author did both a prologue and an epilogue from current time. It gave a strong feeling of a life- long interesting history of a woman, her love, and other women who had guts and lived what they wanted to.

Heat level: 3- not very graphic written, but several sex scenes. Also, first time to read very erotic foreplay and sex in terms of how one starts and preps a plane for take- off.

Grade: Really liked it

Review- Ghosts of Winter by Rebecca S. Buck

Ghosts of Winter

By Rebecca S. Buck

April 9, 2011

Lesbian Romance, Contemporary, (some historical stories inside)

288 pgs

Pub: Bold Strokes Books

Can Ros Wynne, who has lost everything she thought defined her, find her true life—and her true love—surrounded by the lingering history of the once-grand Winter Manor?
When Ros unexpectedly inherits Winter Manor on the condition that she oversee the restoration of the remote and dilapidated house, it seems the perfect place for her to retreat from her recently failed relationship, the death of her mother, and the loss of her job. But Winter Manor is not entirely at rest. The echoes of its past reach forward into the present, and Ros’s life is perceptibly shaped by the lives—and loves—of the people who inhabited those rooms and corridors in the centuries before her.
Then Anna arrives. The architect—with her designer clothes, hot car, and air of supreme professionalism—is at first an unwelcome, if necessary, intrusion. But as Ros learns Anna’s truths, she finds solace from her past losses in their developing intimacy. And when their love is threatened, Ros must decide whether her own ghosts will forever define her, or if she can embrace her life for what it is—past, present, and future.

Just to be clear, I think the blurb is not quite right and gives a false impression. This is not a ghost story. I think I had the impression from the blurb that it might be to some degree. It’s a contemporary that includes three stories of prior inhabitants of the house interspersed throughout the story. “Echoes of the past” don’t reach forward and Ros is not shaped by their lives.” She’s actually shaped by her own past and current feelings towards Anna. Also, for an FYI, the renovation doesn’t stir up ghostly energy either, which is a common thing in some renovation stories.

For the most part I really enjoyed this book. On the level of the love story, it was great. Roz and Anna have great chemistry even if there are some glitches in getting together. The best parts of this story are when Ros and Anna are interacting. And I felt the author built up their connection at a nice pace. I think though that there was maybe a bit too much filler in between their interactions that I felt were not that pertinent. But it did stretch the story enough to create more emotional and sexual tension as their attraction grows.

Ros is a down to earth woman who seems to deal with things in an understated, straight forward way. She just seems to go with the flow. She’s also hippie-ish in the way she dresses and is into eastern spirituality. She practices yoga, smudged the house when she arrived, and meditates. Both she and Anna are into these things, which is something that gave them common ground. While she doesn’t believe in ghosts, she does believe that the energy of the past inhabitants can imbibe a house.

Anna is like her complete opposite. Anna is cool, always collected, elegant and never really shows what’s she’s feeling or thinking.  She’s also very rich and unabashedly enjoys the finer things in life that money can buy. What I liked about her is that even though on the surface she seems more reticent, she initiates their interactions and has a vulnerability that contradicts her external demeanor.

Between both women, I felt that Anna changes the most with their connection even though Ros’ process is more in the forefront through most of the story. And maybe that’s because we don’t get Anna’s POV until the end of the book. Most of the story is told or expressed through Ros and what’s going on with her as well as her observations on how she thinks Anna is reacting to her. This is something that I felt lacking in this story. I would have loved to get Anna’s POV as well, how she perceives Ros and why she’s attracted to her during the process.  

I liked that the author created two characters who are from opposite social and economic backgrounds. This is something I don’t see explored too much in lesbian romances. I liked that Ros is not intimidated by Anna’s wealth and that Anna doesn’t feel guilt or superior about her wealth and that she enjoys it. They joke about it in an easy way.

There were some parts of the book that, while not impacting me negatively, didn’t really float my boat.  Ros’ inner dialogue, which is constant, often got too repetitive and redundant. There were also some sections that went on too long that didn’t add to the story, like a couple of pages of yoga positions that I skimmed through.

Also, I might add, that from other reviews, the historical stories of past residents of the house were liked by most readers. They are kind of interesting and add an historical flavor. However, I was not that crazy about them due to being too short to be developed stories, and… they took away from the current story between Ros and Anna, which is what I found most yummy about this story. I kept thinking, yeah, yeah, let’s get back to Ros and Anna.

That said, spoiler:

All the stories are about love that can’t be and all of a homosexual nature. Not unrequited, but one of the parties decides it’s not their time to be together, which mirrors a lot of what’s going on with Ros with regards to Anna. So those stories do sort of mirror the current situation even though this new resident breaks that cycle.       End Spoiler

I absolutely recommend this book though. It’s a feel good love story between two interesting characters and it does capture the falling in love process in a sweet, vulnerable way.

Heat level: 2 – few sex scenes not too graphically written

Grade: Really liked it