Turn Back Time by Radclyffe

Publisher:               Bold Strokes Books


If you are a fan of Radclyffe's books, you may find that Turn Back Time seems very familiar. Not only are the characters standard Radclyffe fare, but the plot is very reminiscent of Fated Love.
Pearce Rifkin and Wynter Thompson are surgical residents who met years before in a brief encounter. They felt an immediate attraction, but circumstances were against them. Now they find themselves in the same hospital where Pearce is the Chief Surgical Resident and trying to compete with the reputation of her father, a brilliant surgeon. Wynter has fallen behind in her residency due to complications in her personal life and she's determined to catch up and show her skills have not suffered. As can be expected, the two find themselves drawn to each other, but any chance they might have at romance has to compete with their personal situations. Romance isn't what either one planned on, but it may be what they need. When they find their lives are about to be ripped apart again, the question becomes whether or not they can stand up to the forces working around them and find the happiness they see is possible.

Turn Back Time and Fated Love have many similarities. Both have two doctors who work together on the same team. Both have one of the doctors have a daughter that the other doctor develops a relationship with. Both have one of the doctors face a life threatening condition. The stories are also dissimilar. In one book both doctors are surgeons and in the other they are both Emergency Room physicians. There is no looming father figure in Fated Love and the danger in that book is a medical condition, where the danger in Turn Back Time comes from an attack. Once you have read one though, you can't read the other without a feeling that you've already been in this story.

Turn Back Time is very expectable and predictable, but a nice read for a long afternoon or evening. It's just that there is nothing new in this story, nothing daring. It's technically well crafted and follows the same pattern as most of Radclyffe's books, which means you can expect a nice romance, but nothing exciting or different. Some people read books for exactly that type of experience. They want to read a pleasant story with a happy ending. In that case, Radclyffe will never fail the reader. If you're looking for a book that intrigues you or draws you into the story though, read this one and keep looking.

The Midnight Hunt by L.L. Raand (Radclyffe)

Publisher:              Bold Strokes Books

Radclyffe, writing as L.L. Raand, enters the arena of supernatural fiction with a book that is full of dangerous creatures and heavy on eroticism.

The Praetern species  - Weres, Vampires, Mages, Fae and Psi – have revealed themselves to the human world and are now fighting for full recognition as citizens with their rights protected.  The leader of the Praetern Coalition is Sylvan Mir, the Alpha of one of the largest packs in North America.  Sylvan is beautiful, charismatic and dangerous.  She will go to any extent to defend members of her pack, which is how she meets Dr. Drake McKennan.  One of the younger pack members is attacked by renegade Weres and Drake tries to treat her in the hospital.  Sylvan warns Drake to stay away from Were patients for her own safety, but inevitably Drake is bitten by one that she tries to help.  As Drake is initiated into the pack, she presents a distraction for Sylvan and a threat.  Sylvan has never mated because she has to focus all of her attention on protecting the pack and pushing through the laws that would protect the Praeterns.  A mate would not only distract Sylvan from doing any of her jobs, but would also be a vulnerable point of attack.  Drake wants Sylvan, but a relationship could cost them their lives.

The Midnight Hunt deals with more than one subplot.  Supernatural creatures are cast as another group that is fighting for civil rights and the reader can't help but draw analogies with the fight other groups have gone through.  There is also the conflict within the Praetern community between those who want to fit into general society and those who don't see a need for that, also reminiscent of real groups.  The focus of the book however is the interaction among the pack members, their hierarchy and casual attitudes about sex.  This book may be presented as speculative fiction, but it's also a work of erotica, to the point of almost overdoing that aspect.  Sometimes the characters are so focused on releasing sexual desires that the reader might wonder how they find the time to do other things.

There is a good story at the center of this book and fans of supernatural fiction will probably find it particularly appealing.  The explanation of Were society is interesting and the book works well as a set up for the later books in the series that the author promises.  She may be writing under a different name, but it shows the solid writing for which Radclyffe is known.

The Lonely Hearts Club by Radclyffe

Publisher:              Bold Strokes Books


If you're looking for a romance that's a little different, Radclyffe is providing what you need in The Lonely Hearts Club.

Liz Ramsey gets the best news she could possibly hear, but it couldn't come at a worse time. Liz is finally pregnant and she has just discovered that, not only has her partner been cheating on her, but she doesn't want children. She has friends she can depend on however. Candace Lory, an old girlfriend, likes to play the field, but she'll stand by Liz no matter what. Brenda Beal is the steady one who holds the trio together, but she's hiding secrets that will shock her friends if they're revealed. There is a wild side to Brenda that no one suspects.

The women soon find themselves being distracted from each other by their other relationships. Liz becomes involved with Dr. Reilly Danvers, who could be the loving partner she had hoped to share her child with. Candace finds herself drawn to a lawyer in Liz's firm who may give her a reason to finally settle down, and Brenda has an amazing mystery woman who is more than willing to be the submissive to Brenda's dominance. Could the three friends who want the best for each other be about to achieve exactly that?
 
Radclyffe does her best work when she writes her stand-alone novels. This book has a fresh concept. It's not often that a lesbian novel features a central figure who is pregnant and alone. It presents a view of lesbian life that isn't common yet, but is growing.

The characters are especially well drawn, each with its individual personality. While Liz and Reilly are the major focus of the book, the most interesting character might be Bren, who represents practically reverse personalities. Any of these people could have carried the book and that makes them stronger than is usually seen in this genre. This is the type of writing that Radclyffe excels at when she writes to her strengths. Even though the book sticks to the usual "formula," it has some interesting twists and the characters keep drawing you through the story. It also speaks clearly to the value of friendship. The Lonely Hearts Club is a good read.

Promising Hearts by Radclyffe

Publisher:                Bold Strokes Books

Promising Hearts is the sequel to an earlier Radclyffe novel Innocent Hearts. It brings back the characters of Jessie and Kate, partners who are running a ranch in Montana; Mae, the kind-hearted madam of the local saloon; and introduces Dr. Vance Phelps, a one-armed female Civil War veteran. 

Vance arrives in the Montana Territory under less than positive circumstances. In the last skirmish before Lee surrendered at Appomattox, she was wounded badly enough that she lost her left arm from the elbow down. She had faced a difficult enough future as a female surgeon in the 1860s. To be a one-armed female surgeon seems impossible, so she has arrived in the West with her confidence shaken and her career appearing to be at a dead end. Instead, Vance finds a kindred spirit in Jessie, a friend in Kate, and Mae, a woman who accepts Vance exactly like she is and only wants to help her heal. This quartet has a lot to deal with. It would seem to be enough that they are lesbians leading an unconventional lifestyle in a small town on the frontier in the 19th century, but they also have to contend with cowboys, rustlers and the town's society ladies. They draw on strengths each one has to survive and carve out a place for each of them in the community while discovering the ability to love deeply.

Radclyffe's historic detail is excellent. She is able to describe things so that you feel as if you're in the Civil War medical tent, cutting off arms and legs as bullets tear by. Or you can visualize the setting as Jessie and Vance creep up a valley to try and lay a trap for deadly rustlers. Nothing in the book is particular to Montana, so the story easily could have been set in Colorado or Wyoming, but it definitely is a western. All four of her characters have admirable qualities, but, for a lesbian novel, the characters of Jessie and especially Vance are written to be almost too masculine. The characters are extremely believable, but the reader may have to keep reminding herself that they were women. Their mannerisms, behavior and speech scream male. This isn't a matter of them being "butch." If someone wanted to cast this story for a movie and substitute men for those two roles, little of the actual story would be changed or lost. In her other books, Radclyffe has a tendency to write one of a pair as more masculine, but she goes beyond her normal boundary in this book. 

On the whole though it is an enjoyable, well-written story, with the romance that is expected in a Radclyffe novel. Promising Hearts is one of Radclyffe's better written books and certainly an enjoyable story to read.

Night Call by Radclyffe

Publisher:              Bold Strokes Books


Night Call is another Radclyffe novel based on an area that is familiar to her as a retired doctor, the medical profession. It reprises some familiar characters while introducing new ones.

Jett McNally is a helicopter pilot and a veteran of the Middle East war. She's having trouble getting over what she saw in combat, plus she's trying to mend from a broken love affair, so working the night call flying the medivac chopper at a local hospital suits her fine. Her social life is limited and so are her friendships, so she doesn't have to share anything about her past with anyone. She can live a shadow existence without attracting much attention, she thinks.

Dr. Tristan Holmes is highly respected for her skills as an anesthesiologist and is well known for her "love them and leave them" lifestyle. She's not looking for a relationship, but can't help being fascinated about the enigmatic Jett when they start working together. In fact, Tristan can't seem to get Jett out of her mind. She becomes determined to discover what makes this woman tick and finds, to her surprise, that she might be interested in more than just adding another notch to her bedpost.

Drs. Honor Blake and her partner, Quinn Maguire, introduced in earlier books, are central figures in this story. They provide a picture of wedded bliss and family ties that encourages Tristan to keep pursuing Jett, no matter how distant she seems.

Night Call is another romance written in the style that Radclyffe's fans have come to expect and enjoy. It tells a familiar story of two women who meet, overcome an obstacle and find each other, with some sex scenes to spice up the plot.

There was real potential in this story for Jett McNally's situation to be explored. The role of US women in a combat zone is a new one with many complications of adjusting to those duties while not really being considered battleground soldiers. This would have been a chance to examine the feelings of those women and the struggles they go through in a system that is confused about their status, but Radclyffe didn't choose to take that course except on a superficial level.

If the reader is looking for a predictable story that hits all of the expected buttons, then Night Call fits the requirements. It's easy escapism for a few hours of entertainment.

Trauma Alert by Radclyffe

Publisher:                  Bold Strokes Books

Ali Torveau focuses all of her energy on her work as a doctor in a hospital trauma unit.  By keeping busy she doesn't have to remember a tragedy that has haunted her for years.  It also distracts her from the fact that she doesn't have much social life to speak of.  That's why she's not happy when firefighter Beau Cross shows up in a class Ali is teaching EMT certification.  Beau is brash, arrogant and reckless, or so Ali believes.  She's everything Ali tries to avoid, but Ali can't stop thinking about her.  Beau is smitten with Ali the first time she sees her, but has her own demons to deal with.  She appears cool on the outside, but Beau is running from her own painful past.  She needs to save lives and she needs to love Ali.  Ali can't love Beau.  She can't take the chance of suffering another loss in her life.

Trauma Alert is part of a series from Radclyffe that will feature First Responders, professionals who react to a crisis on the ground level.  These books are meant to be romances.  Anyone who expects to learn much about how these people are trained or carry out their jobs will need to look somewhere else.

With a clearly stated purpose, the characters become the focus of the book.  Secondary characters are used to provide background material or to illustrate personality traits of Ali and Beau, but there is no mistaking that this book is mainly about the interactions between them.  Radclyffe knows what to write into her characters so that the story moves along.  Though they may appear complicated to other people, the reader will quickly figure out that they aren't really.  They are simply two women who have been hurt and haven't figured a way to get over that yet.

Radclyffe has a winning formula.  She basically writes the same two characters, giving them different names and putting them in different situations in each book, but following the same progression to the same result.  It's difficult to argue with success and her many fans prove that they like what she writes.  The plot isn't complicated, but the story is well told and there are a number of sex scenes thrown in to spice up the activity.