Pennance by Clare Ashton

Publisher:         CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

It is difficult to accept other reviews of this book when they call it “stunning,” “well-written” and give it other accolades.   Let’s grant them that they may have read the paper version and I read the ebook where all of the missing words, misspelled words and poorly constructed sentences showed up.  That doesn’t explain the praises for the plot though.  It contains some of the most unlikeable characters I’ve come across in some time.

The central characters are Lucy and Karen.  Lucy is living in seclusion in a cottage with the spirit of her dead partner, Jake.  She can hardly function because of the guilt she feels over not being able to save Jake in an accident she didn’t cause and that she barely survived herself.  Jake is inconsiderate enough to hang around giving her sad looks and doing nothing to help her move on with her life.  Lucy’s profound state of depression has her hiding from everyone and trying to escape everything by running every day.  On one of her runs she discovers that the manor house on the property is now inhabited by Karen and her two children.  Karen is recently divorced and has two of the most opposite children possible.  Her son is goodness and light and her daughter is straight out of “The Omen” or “The Bad Seed.”  Of course Lucy and Karen become friends and then an attraction develops between them.  As their relationship develops, the story takes a nasty turn as someone tries at least twice to kill Lucy.  If the reader doesn’t know immediately who it is, she just hasn’t been paying attention to the story.

The story in Pennance is fundamentally fine.  As the title indicates, both of these women feel that they have to atone for their lives.  What isn’t totally clear is why each one takes so much guilt on herself.  Lucy acknowledges that she and Jake didn’t really love each other and Karen’s husband is certainly contributed to their problems.  The constant harping on how much each one feels she screwed up becomes irritating after a while.  The real mystery in the story however is how everyone deals with Karen’s daughter, who shows definite signs of being a psychopath.  This child needs serious professional help, but instead is allowed to get away with the things she does and receives a type of reward (to her) in the end of the book.  There was already plenty of angst in this book without adding this child to the mix.

Pennance is one of those books that shows a writer has ability, but needs some help with polishing a book.  The author has said that the mistakes were in earlier copies and have been corrected; however, the copy that I read was purchased a while after the book was published and I would have presumed the mistakes would be gone.  What Clare Ashton needs is experience and a good editor.  She’s willing to write a story with an edge, which lesbian fiction sorely needs.  The edge needs to be smoothed out though, so that it slices instead of hacks at what Ashton is trying to say.

Heart Stopper by R J Samuel

Publisher:      CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Heart Stopper is a medical mystery and suspense story.  Its topic is so realistic that it’s frightening and it makes the title especially appropriate.

Priya Joseph is a woman caught between cultures.  Although her parents came from India, she was raised in Ireland, so she identifies as Irish, but can’t escape the expectations of an Indian daughter.  She also is a gay woman living in a straight culture, a situation her parents refuse to accept.  Priya retreats into the world of cyber code where everything is supposed to be black and white, pure and logical.  Emphasis is on “supposed.”  She is a very successful programmer for a company that makes heart pacemakers when her life starts to unravel.

Priya’s nightmare begins when she wakes up in the apartment of her boss and he’s dead.  She can’t remember how she got there, so she panics and flees.  Her boss’s sister Reyna first suspects Priya of having something to do with his death and then expects her to help uncover what happened to him.  The facts slowly reveal a conspiracy with frightening possibilities and that it may all be based on research that Priya did years before.  Pacemakers are being used in a way never intended.  As Priya tries to sort out the situation, she finds herself developing an attraction to Reyna and being hunted by people who don’t want the secret of what they are doing revealed.

This book could have used a stronger editor.  There are mistakes through it and some scenes needed to be cut back.  The medical jargon and details about pacemakers will probably be skipped by most readers.  The opening scene doesn’t seem necessary or pertinent to the rest of the book, but that’s a small issue.  On the whole though, the book is well paced and the characters are complex.

At least Heart Stopper is different from many of the books that are flooding out of lesbian presses now.  The story is unique and depends on true suspense to carry the plot.  It’s not a cookie cutter version of the usual mysteries that aren’t mysteries but vehicles for a love story.  The conclusion of the book also takes a different path from the usual easy happy ever after version.  With stronger editing, R J Samuel could emerge as a major writer in the genre.

Tighter, Tighter by Lynn Kear

Publisher:      CreateSpace (Independent Publishing)

You can’t go home again.  Well, you can, but it can be very problematic if someone thinks you committed a murder you’ve been hiding from for years.  Kath Branch disappeared from her hometown in 1975 and went on to become a famous rock and roll star.  She doesn’t realize that a local shop owner Billy Carlson was killed that night or that Billy’s daughter-in-law prosecutor Meredith Carlson has Kath pegged as the murderer.  Meredith convinces Kath to return to town for the first time to perform in a charity event.  Meredith thinks she’s going to expose Kath as a killer, but she unleashes secrets that the Carlson’s, Meredith’s family and Kath have kept hidden for a long time.  What follows is a perfect example of why you should be careful what you start because you may not like where you end.

Tighter, Tighter shows that Kear’s writing is progressing, which is always a good thing to see in an author.  This book has a complex story with different sub stories that weave around each other to create the larger tale.  She switches scenes between the past and the present without being confusing and gives the reader a chance to see how attitudes have changed in thirty-five years.  This is crucial for understanding the outcome of what happens.  Kear includes a lot of details without letting the story bog down and lose its pace.

Most people would probably put this book in the mystery category.  It’s true there is a murder at the heart of it, but the larger story is about the relationships between people and what drives them to make the choices they do.  It shows how the choices made years before shape what comes after them.  Sometimes when those decisions are made, you know they aren’t really what you want to do, but they are what you have to do.  That was especially true years ago of people who had same sex attractions and that perspective plays a huge part in this plot.  Finally, the story is about keeping lies and how, even when done with the best of intentions, that can lead to tragic complications in people’s lives.

Tighter, Tighter had a few editing mistakes in it, but, overall, it was an enjoyable book.  The solution to the mystery isn’t really known until the end and that’s always a plus.

The Girl Back Home by R.E. Bradshaw

Publisher:                CreateSpace

Jamie Basnight is on her way home in disgrace.  She was an expensive, successful lawyer in Durham, NC, and then threw away a long term relationship with a woman she thought she loved.  Now Jamie has returned to her childhood home on the Outer Banks to become a country lawyer and try to recover from what she has done.  As she begins to rebuild her life she reconnects with old friends, including the woman who was the object of her first crush.  Though she is hoping for reconciliation with her lover Mary Ann, Jamie can't deny her feelings for Sandy, who is married with grandchildren.  What follows is a swirl of events and emotions, complicated by Sandy's marriage and Mary Ann's reappearance.  Whatever the result is, Jamie's life is never going to be the same. 

Bradshaw's book is a treat for anyone from southeastern Virginia or the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  It's full of references to places that are familiar and cultural traits of the area.  Bradshaw does an excellent job of describing them.  That's also may be one of the book's drawbacks. The descriptive passages are extensive.  For someone who isn't that interested in the geography of the area, there are long stretches that may be jumped over.  There are also mistakes that would be picked up with more careful editing.

The rest of the book is what is expected of a typical romance.  The pacing and the characters are well handled and the reading moves quickly.  There is a particular scene of confrontation near the end that is told very well and shows Bradshaw's ability to write.  The love that the author has for the area comes through in the story and almost becomes a character itself, adding to the richness of the tale.  In all it's an enjoyable read.

 

A Great Place for a Seizure by Terry Tracy

Publisher:                CreateSpace

The author says in her biography that she's a former journalist.  That's probably where some of the problem started.  She didn't think she needed an editor.  She was wrong.

This is supposed to be a book about epilepsy and how it impacted on the life of Mischa Dunn, the main character.  It's an important subject and this book could have been extremely enlightening, but Tracy has no focus in her story.  She allows it to wander all over the place, covering topics and events that have nothing to do with Mischa dealing with her epilepsy.  There are long passages about life in Central America, how non-profit organizations in Washington, DC, function and what life at Cambridge is like.  Periodically Mischa has a seizure.  They're all described the same except that they occur in different places.  The one place where Tracy delivers is in the period when Mischa is pregnant and she discusses some of the ramifications of epilepsy on a pregnancy, but there could have been so much more.

Some messages do come through clearly.  The author doesn't like doctors and thinks they don't do a good job of treating epileptics.  That may be true, but epileptics aren't the only ones to complain about doctors not paying attention to them.  The author also doesn't like the way society reacts to epileptics.  That's a valid complaint, but it gets lost in all of the other stuff she throws in the book.  Finally, epilepsy can be very isolating for the person who has it.  That makes this book even more important in that it could have explained to people how they should react, what is the proper behavior.  Mischa scorns them however and rejects help, while thinking they're terrible.  After a while, the reader may wonder why anyone would bother trying to be her friend and why someone hasn't punched her in the face.  Instead of creating empathy for epileptics, Tracy has created a character that often acts like she doesn't know what she wants from other people.

The story just drags, then it ends.  The ending doesn't make much sense or add to the stated purpose of the book.  There is enough in this story that, if it had been given to a good editor, the unnecessary filler would have been taken out and a good story would have been left.  Too bad that's not what happened.

A Celtic Knot by Ana Corman

Publisher:                                 CreateSpace

A Celtic Knot is about two women who don't get along at first, but feel an attraction.  Catherine O'Grady lost her father to cancer and her mother Dana is a five-year survivor of breast cancer.  She doesn't trust the medical profession and can't stand to be around hospitals or sick people.  Catherine would rather bury herself in her bookstore and stay away from anything to do with medicine.  Olivia Carrington is an oncologist who treats Dana and clashes with Catherine the first time they meet.  Olivia knows immediately that she would like a closer relationship, but Catherine doesn't believe their worlds can be combined.  Olivia starts sending Catherine a jigsaw puzzle, a few pieces at a time.  She hopes that as Catherine solves the puzzle, she'll also find a resolution to their situation.

This isn't Corman's strongest book.  The basic story is OK, but it's not fully developed and the timing seems to be off.  The story seems to indicate that a period of time has passed and then a statement is made that makes it much shorter. Too much of the story is too convenient or coincidental to be believable and it's full of cliches.  The dialogue is contrived and dated and the book needed some decent editing.  There are too many contradictory facts in what the characters say.

What makes this book more interesting is the information it provides about treatments for breast cancer and attitudes within the medical community.  As Catherine and Olivia confront each other, the reader gets a feel for what goes on in real situations like this.  Otherwise, this is an average and predictable story.  

Made For You by Geneva St. James

Publisher:                   Alpha World Press (1^st edition); CreateSpace (2^nd edition)

Julie Bell is dumped by her girlfriend Adrienne and, despite the fact that months have passed and Adrienne seems very satisfied with her new girlfriend Meagan, Julie is determined to get her back.  Julie totally ignores the fact that she destroyed the relationship by spending too many hours at work, ignoring Adrienne and the obvious signs that there were problems.  Instead she believes all she has to do is prove Meagan's low character and everything will go back to what Julie defines as normal.  Julie's emotions are out of control and she does ridiculous things to justify driving by where the other women live, arranging meetings with Adrienne and disturbing them with phone calls in the middle of the night.  Her world is obsessed with achieving her goal and she can't maintain a relationship with anyone else.  Her friends try to get her to give up what she is doing, but she dismisses them because they refused to take her side in this situation and that makes her angry.  Julie is determined that, if she can just show people who Meagan really is, then everything will go back to normal.

What is truly disturbing about this book is that some reviews are saying that it gives an accurate view of lesbian relationships and that every reader will be able to relate to at least one character in the story.  In reality Julie verges on the manic in the way she behaves.  While some scenes may have comedic value, for most of the book the reader probably will want to slap this woman and tell her to get on with her life.  That anyone thinks this is representative of lesbian life is disappointing.

This review is based on the original version of the book which was poorly produced with double spacing between sentences, extremely large print and lots of white space on the pages.  The result is that the story is much shorter than the page numbers would indicate.  The second edition published by CreateSpace may correct these problems, but buying a copy to find out wouldn't be worth it.

Made For You was difficult to read because of the cringe factor.  Some of what Julie does is difficult to read about because it's so embarrassing.  Some of the other characters in the book are much more interesting than the main character.  This might be alright for a few hours of escapism, but, with so many lesbian novels being published now, the money could be spent better on something else.