Something in the Wine by Jae

Publisher:       Ylva Publishing

What do you do when you decide to play a joke on someone else and the joke turns out to be on you?

Annie and Jake Prideaux have a typical sibling relationship, she’s an adult and he’s a perpetual kid.  One of Jake’s favorite things is to play practical jokes on his long suffering and “unconnected” sister.  He tells Annie that he’s going to set her up on a date with a close friend that he just knows she’ll like.  Jake neglects to tell Annie that his friend Drew Corbin is a woman.  Drew is totally focused on her vineyard, but has begun to realize that she needs more in her life.  She’s seen Annie before and is happy to have the date, but not when she discovers what Jake has done to them.  Instead of the explosion that Jake expects, the women decide to turn the tables on Jake and act like they have actually fallen in love.  This includes attending Prideaux family events where Jake discovers that he’s very uncomfortable with the situation and accuses Drew of confusing his sister.

Annie and Drew are both confused by the middle of the book.  Annie has never experienced feelings for a woman before, not that she took seriously anyway, and Drew knows that getting involved with a straight woman is disappointment waiting to happen.

Jae is becoming a young legend in the field of lesbian fiction.  Her books are longer than most romances and full of details and plot that have made her a multiple award winner.  What usually amazes her readers however is that she is a native German and writes better in English than a lot of her contemporaries.  Her books are amazingly free of mistakes, which means the reader isn’t distracted by errors that interrupt the story.

Something in the Wine is a coming-out romance about a slighter older character than is usually found in those stories and the typical already burned lesbian.  Though it isn’t Jae’s strongest book, it’s still an enjoyable story and entertaining.  If you like lesbian literature, it’s difficult to go wrong with this author.

Walking the Labyrinth by Lois C. Hart

Publisher:       Ylva

Lois C. Hart does not issue books as frequently as some authors, but when she does have one come out the reader can be sure that it will be an interesting story that is well produced.  Walking the Labyrinth continues that pattern.

The death of her wife from cancer has caused Lee Glenn to descend into a private hell where she doesn’t eat, doesn’t leave her house and has cut herself off from everything.  Her life has come to a shocking halt until her friends finally stage an intervention and she is forced back into the world.  Lee and her partner in a successful private security company decide she will take on a protection detail for a spoiled ex-model who says she is afraid of her husband.  This should be an easy assignment to help Lee ease back into things because the client wants to return to a remote part of Canada where she was raised.  Lee doesn’t realize she is about to meet a unique group of people who are going to help restore her soul.

Lee Glenn, a woman in her sixties, is about to discover that there is life after disaster.  Her guide on that trip will be Gaelle Germaine, the spoiled model’s mystical, spiritual mother.  Gaelle is building a labyrinth to help with her meditation and she coaxes Lee into helping her with the job.  Lee thinks spiritualism is “hooey,” but Gaelle is fascinating.  Just as feelings develop between them, Lee discovers something about Gaelle that is horrifying and it causes her to flee from what can only be more pain.  Lee isn’t the same person however and she cannot forget what she has learned from Gaelle.  Now the question is, is she strong enough to follow a new sense of being?

Where to start with the wonderful things about this book?  First, the story is about older characters.  This is particularly enjoyable in a genre that seems to be dominated by younger people who are just beginning the lessons that older women have completed.  The book also has a very appealing spiritual quality to it.  It doesn’t advocate any particular system, but opens the reader to probing thoughts and questions that can be pondered outside of the book.  The characters are also interesting.  Many people have known someone who has been destroyed by the tragedies of life.  They also know that calm, reassuring person who seems to radiate wisdom from a place deep inside.  These are the people you want to be like when you meet them, if you can just figure out how they developed that state of being.  And all of this is wrapped up in a story that is completely understandable.  No convoluted vocabulary or esoteric ideas that confuse the reader and get in the way of the message.

Lois Hart isn’t finished writing yet, but Walking the Labyrinth may turn out to be her magnum opus.  If so, she couldn’t hope for any better.

This is a highly recommended book.  Read it and prepare to go on a journey of your own discovery.