Pirate Web Sites

There is a discussion on Facebook about a site that is offering people's books for download free. We're not talking about older books that have been around and probably run through the bulk of their sales. Authors are finding their books that have just been released on these sites. No one is posting the site, I don't blame them, and I won't either. YOU know if you've been downloading books for free though.

This reminds me of when they started offering downloaded music and people thought they were "clever" because they were getting music free. This isn't right, folks. I know some of us have limited funds and books, even some ebooks, can be expensive, but taking a person's work for free is just plain theft. It's the same thing as me finding out you're not home and forgot to lock your front door, so I go in and clean out your refrigerator because I can. It's the same as your neighbor finding a way to tap into your cable or whatever and getting internet, phone and TV services free while you pay the bill.

If you want to read books and your money is seriously limited, there are things you can do:

1. Ask your local library to order the books.

2. Many authors give away free books all of the time.

   Enter their drawings or whatever they're doing.

3. Borrow books from friends you know who buy them.

4. Many of the book publishers and different groups have

   ways of helping you get some books. Ask them.

5. Join one of the many online groups and see if there is

   someone there who will share with you or give you some

   books free. That doesn't get the author a sale, but

   someone paid for the book at one point.

Please don't take free books from any site "just because you can." Most of these authors don't make that much money to begin with. Don't drive them out of the business just so you can put something over on someone.

Besides, it's just not fair.

Falling Colours by RJ Samuel

Publisher:       Self-published

Let’s start by saying this is a fun book to read.

The major character Kiran is unique.  Although she was raised in Ireland, her parents are from India, where they now live.  From her father she has inherited the ability to be a vision painter.  A person can pay Kiran to paint what he or she most desires and it will come true.  Since she is the only vision painter in Ireland, Kiran has plenty of work, but it’s not easy.  The effort is draining and she must live by the restrictions imposed by the painters in India.  The most serious of those is that she is not supposed to bring anyone back from the dead. 

Of course, that is exactly what happens when Kiran meets Ron, who is devastated by the suicide of his wife Marge.  She was a terrible woman to everyone else, but he loved her and can’t understand why she killed herself.  All he wants is a chance to talk to her again.  Kiran has no idea what she is about to unleash.  Marge comes back just as dominating as she was in life and totally tuned out to what other people need.  Ron is thrilled, their daughter Ashley is appalled and Kiran has to fix this mess.  In the process, she falls in love with Ashley and finds herself in the middle of a murder mystery.

Samuel may not have intended this book to be so funny, but Marge takes it in a direction that can’t avoid it.  Once she makes it clear that she was murdered and did not commit suicide, Marge won’t give up until the mystery is solved.  The fact that she is a ghost and really shouldn’t be appearing in front of people doesn’t impress her in the least.  She exasperates Ashley and drives Kiran to a near nervous breakdown, but nothing will stop her on her quest.

RJ Samuel has used the theme of a person caught between two cultures before, but Kiran has a comic twist that makes her fun while revealing the struggle she goes through.  The book is a slapstick mystery in the best tradition of the old 1930s movies.  It would be great to have a sequel to this book to see where Samuels could take the characters, but Kiran would have to bring Marge back again.  That might be too much for any of them to take.

Read Falling Colours.  It’s fresh; it’s different; it’s worth it.

Why you need to attend a GCLS conference if you read lesbian literature

In ancient times, it was common for tribes to split up their members and send them to live in different parts of the territory so that everyone would have plenty of resources to survive.  Once a year however, they would have a meeting of the tribe to reconnect with friends and family, celebrate accomplishments, perform important rituals and make decisions for the coming year.  It occurred to me today, as I began my journey home, that this is exactly what a Golden Crown Literary Society conference is about.  It is a coming together of a tribe.  We meet, we greet, we support, we laugh, we cry.  We hug, we argue and we tease each other.  Most importantly, we learn things about each other, the books and the components of putting them together.

 
I think this year's conference might be the best one ever.  I don't know if it was by planning or luck, but the sessions seemed to be very seriously planned and they provoked some very interesting discussions about the literature and where it is headed.  There were a lot of new people here and people who don't come very often.  I hope they're encouraged to keep coming after this conference.

The speeches by Ann Bannon (about what she went through to get published) and Lori Lake (about the history of the literature) were particularly effective and reached the crowd.  There was a powerful session where readers spoke out about what they wanted to see in the books.  I was very happy to see that a number of authors attended to hear what we had to say.  KG MacGregor facilitated a panel called "I Wish I'd Written That" that involved Georgia Beers, Katherine Forrest and Karin Kallmaker.  Salem West led a discussion about "Editors' Pet Peeves."  Excellent.

I attended the first half of a class by Lynn Ames and Sandra Moran on researching and writing historical fiction, then had to miss the second half to attend a session on character building given by Linda Kay Silva.  It's a shame they were against each other because every author could have benefited from them.  My sister attended the session about young adult literature offered by Andi Marquette and felt that it was very good.  I took notes on Katherine Forrest's Master Class about what has to be in a manuscript and there was a spirited discussion in the session on the role of tragedy in LGBT novels.  Catherine Wilson gave a commanding explanation how how to market your novel to the mainstream.  She had me convinced it could be done, if you're willing to invest the time.

Other sessions included writing freedom, how to write mysteries and horror stories, create cover art, researching complex issues in government, politics and law and many others.  There were also author chats and author readings.  There were things to engage a variety of people and, while a lot of serious discussion went on, there was plenty of laughter.  There was even a discussion about how to write about food, which I made a point to avoid.

After going through some shaky years, the GCLS seems to be on a firm footing and growing.  More importantly, it appears to be growing into the type of organization that I have advocated for over the years.  A number of the winners of this year's awards gave credit to members of the GCLS who mentored, beta read or edited for them.  They met at the conferences.  There are education programs being offered, online interview shows, and more and more books being nominated from companies and people not associated with the bigger publishers.  Now GCLS is going to make a push to add more diversity of all kinds to the membership.  We need to get those younger people involved.  GCLS can be meaningful for a lot of people.  My sister, who is the niece and sister of lesbians and the mother of a young gay man found Ann Bannon's speech especially meaningful.

GCLS is not cheap to attend.  There's the conference, room, food and other things to pay for, but the members didn't hesitate to dig into their pockets andto raise money to help support the programs and create scholarships.  A number of women attended because of the generosity of other women and even more will be able to do so next year.  It's not just a great learning experience, but where else can you get warm and strong hugs from so many women, many of whom are the authors you enjoy.  One young author said that, because of where she lives, she didn't think she'd ever been in a room with more than two or three lesbians at a time, so seeing 300 of them at once was a life changing experience.

The conference is in New Orleans next year during the last week of July.  That's the lower middle of the country, so most of us are within reach.  I feel pretty safe in saying that, once you attend a conference, you'll wonder why you didn't before.  Come and see if I'm right.

Midnight In Orlando by Amy Dawson Robertson

Publisher:                   Fox in the Brush Books

Readers want to enjoy good stories and they want to know that an author can be trusted to deliver on that point.  Amy Dawson Robertson is quickly joining the ranks of those who can be depended on to deliver the goods.  Though she is better known for her Rennie Vogel series of adventure/suspense novels, Robertson proves in Midnight in Orlando that she can perform just as well in other genre.  Officially this is a romance novella, approximately 100 pages long, but it reads with the depth and development of a full length book.

Anyone who has ever attended a lesbian literary conference will feel comfortable with the setting of this book immediately.  It takes place in Orlando, Florida, where lesbians are gathering to celebrate the books written for and by their community.  The story features two “Con virgins,” the term used for people who are attending the conference for the first time.  Susan Voight is a lawyer from Baltimore who faces the same problem many professional women encounter.  She works so many hours that there is no time to form a personal relationship.  She escapes the stress of her job by reading lesbian romance novels and that is what impels her to suddenly decide to attend the conference.  Nic Green believes she is neurotic and suffers from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, although her therapist keeps telling her that neither is true.  She has been a successful author of lesbian romances for many years and is considered a mysterious icon because she has never appeared in public.  Nic decides to expand her horizons and try meeting some of her fans, which is what brings her to the conference.

What proceeds from this is a string of humorous situations bringing the women together.  Susan finds herself trying to duck a lawyer’s conference that happens to be in the same hotel, afraid that someone will discover her reading choices.  Nic goes to bizarre lengths to make herself “comfortable” in her hotel room and hide out, only to discover she is the keynote speaker for the conference.  For a while Susan believes that Nic might actually be mentally ill because of her behavior, but there is something compelling about each woman for the other.  Swirling around them are the events of the conference.  People who have attended one of these meetings will recognize the events and possibly some of the supporting characters that Robertson peppers throughout the story.

Midnight in Orlando is a gem.  It’s short enough to read quickly, but the characters are completely developed and enough is revealed about the events to make the story flow smoothly.  It’s a good example of how writing can be compact yet contain a great deal of information.  This is good reading, plain and simple.

Frozen by Carla Tomaso

Publisher:              Carma Press

What is your worst nightmare?  Carla Tomaso has come up with a worse, but funnier one.

Elizabeth always had a difficult relationship with her self-centered domineering mother Helen.  Now she’s in her forties, alone, suffering from low self-esteem and, frankly, looking forward a little bit to when the old woman finally dies.  Helen is sick, crippled and possesses a sizeable fortune.  In Elizabeth’s mind, death would be a kindness to both women.  When Helen dies, Elizabeth discovers that her mother has concocted the ultimate “gotcha.”  Helen has found an experimental process that not only freezes a person to bring her back, but regresses her age to an earlier point.  If Elizabeth wants to inherit her mother’s estate, she has to agree to adopt Helen as a child and raise her.

Elizabeth believes she’s been given a second chance with her mother.  She can raise the baby properly and create a better person than Helen was in her past life.  They will have the loving relationship that they never really had before.  All will be right with the world.  Imagine her surprise when she gets to the facility and discovers that Helen has only been regressed to the age of ten, still has all of her memories and, worse, her attitudes.  What follows is a hilarious and slightly scary story of what happens to both women as the years progress.  Think of a slapstick version of The Omen.

Carla Tomaso has a different sense of humor.  It might not appeal to everyone, but that would be a shame.  She takes on some of society’s biggest taboos and twists them, including gender rivalry, infidelity, and murder.  Tomaso approaches the subjects from a decidedly altered viewpoint.  This allows the reader to consider some serious issues while laughing at the situations.  She manages to do this without changing her characters, which many authors would find the normal course.  There is no happily ever after second chance for this mother and daughter.  Elizabeth is always rather hapless in knowing what to do about her mother and Helen never becomes endearing.  Helen managed to ruin the one true relationship in Elizabeth’s life and tries to do it again.  In the end Elizabeth will come to realize what she should have done differently the first time around and that some scientific discoveries should not be explored.

Suspend your sense of propriety.  Feel free to giggle at things that you know you shouldn’t.  Frozen is an enjoyable, if sometimes guilty, pleasure.

A Poem For What's Her Name by Dani O'Connor

Publisher:      Spinster's Ink

What happens when you give up on love?  Doc is a professor and the head of the English Department at the college where she works.  She tries to find love, even to the point of enrolling herself in Internet dating.  What follows is a hilarious series of the worse dates ever endured by anyone and Doc is convinced the kind of woman she is looking for just doesn’t exist.  Just as she adjusts to the idea that she will spend her life alone, Doc meets a young woman who changes her mind.  Not only do they form a relationship, but they end up making a life-long commitment.

This is a romance and a comedy.  Some of the dates Doc finds herself on will have the reader howling with laughter.  There’s nothing complicated about the story or that requires any deep thinking.  It’s just to be enjoyed.

If someone is looking for a book with which to have a good time, A Poem For What’s Her Name is that book.

Marching to a Different Accordion by Saxon Bennett

Publisher:     Bella Books

Marching to a Different Accordion continues the story of Chase Banter, her partner Gitana, their daughter Bud and their friends who were introduced in the earlier book Family Affair.  For those fans who like Bennett for her quirky characters and funny plots, she doesn't fail to deliver in this book.

Chase, as usual, finds herself at the center of a human tropical storm.  She and Gitana are trying to parent a child who is smarter than both of them.  Bud at four reads philosophical tomes, collects dictionaries and teaches herself foreign languages.  This doesn't seem to faze Gitana, but has Chase in turmoil as she struggles to stay ahead of her daughter.  Chase's career writing heterosexual mystery novels is very successful, but it's drawn the wrath of the Pink Mafia, who accuse her of deserting the lesbian community.  They demand that she write a lesbian novel immediately and Chase is afraid not to do it.  Adding to the distractions is Chase's friend Lacey who has decided to open a lesbian center from which lesbians will launch their bid for world domination.  Chase has to wonder how out of touch she has become with her lesbian world because she didn't know they were trying to achieve domination.  As usual, Chase, who is a control freak, is not in control of her own world, but her family and friends will keep things in some sort of order for her.

Marching to a Different Accordion features two Bennett trademarks – there are numerous funny episodes and the children seem light years ahead of most of the adults in maturity and intelligence.  What is different about this book is the rather serious discussion that goes on about the nature of the lesbian community and whether or not it's losing its culture as it is assimilated into the mainstream.  Bennett doesn't deliver a lecture, but handles this with her typical humor.  Chase becomes quite concerned that she's "losing her lezzie" and the topic keeps coming up, so that the reader eventually has to think about where she stands on the issue.  It provokes a number of questions about what will happen to the homosexual community as its members become more accepted and have less need to hide themselves.  It also reflects the beginning divide between those who will support inclusion and those who advocate separation, an argument that has occurred in other persecuted minorities.  Where Bennett shows her ability and experience is that the two different themes don't conflict with each other and one does not affect the enjoyment of the other.

The reader can enjoy Marching to a Different Accordion just for the humorous situations that occur around Chase.  For the reader who is looking for something with a little more depth to it, that is also here.  Either way the reader will enjoy the experience.

Bingo Barge Murder by Jessie Chandler

Publisher:    Llewellyan Worldwide Ltd. (Midnight Ink Books)

Bingo Barge Murder is the debut novel for Jessie Chandler and the first in the Shay O'Hanlon mystery series.  It's another entry in the genre of slapstick stories that feature a bumbling amateur and her friends.

Shay O'Hanlon runs a coffee shop called The Rabbit Hole where her most difficult job is making a proper latte until the police want to talk to her best friend Coop about the murder of his boss.  Instead of working with a police detective who Shay finds very attractive, she decides to try and solve the situation herself.  The consequences result in kidnappings, more murders and tangling with Mafia hit men.  The entire plot revolves around a shipment of very valuable nuts that Shay manages to steal and that several other parties want.  Along the way Shay acquires a large, but loveable dog and manages to put more of her friends in danger.  Even taking the beautiful  Detective Bordeaux into her confidence doesn't insure that Shay will be able to rescue her friends or escape injury herself.                      

Readers who enjoy farcical stories with humorous characters will probably like this book.  It has the stereotypical people – the hapless friend who can't do anything right (Coop), the feisty older woman who doesn't know when to be quiet (Eddy) and the unrepentant gossip (Kate).  The villains also fit into typical role models.  None of the characters are developed beyond their roles, so they tend to be rather flat.  The story moves along at a clip however and has enough ridiculous situations to be amusing.

True lovers of mysteries will probably want to avoid this book.  There really isn't a mystery in it except to wonder how many inept maneuvers characters can make in one story.  Not once, but twice, Shay knows that "dangerous" people are after her and, instead of insulating herself and her friends from the threat, she decides to go to sleep or do something else which allows the criminals to catch up to her.  All Shay can talk about is how efficient and good at her job  Detective Bordeaux is, but then she treats the police like they can't solve a simple case.  Shay, who has no training at all, manages to keep finding evidence that is in plain view, but seems to have eluded the police when they went through the same area.  Bordeaux reveals that the police have been working on the case for months with few solutions, but Shay is able to settle everything in a matter of days. Vicious killers can't deal with an old woman or manage to shoot a gun and hit someone who is standing right in front of them.  After a while these inconsistencies become irritating.

Bingo Barge Murder isn't a bad book.  It simply contains many of the missteps made by first time authors.  There is enough good about it to hold out hope that Chandler will improve with experience.  She has a strong cast of characters to work with and that might be where the book went astray.  Since it is the first in a series, it reads more like Chandler was trying to introduce her cast than focus on telling a compelling mystery.  The book is fine for an entertaining reading, but it's not one that has you turning pages because you can't put it down.

She Waits by Kate Sweeney

Publisher:               Intaglio Publications

Kate Sweeney introduces a new mystery series with her first book She Waits.  Her heroine Kate Ryan is a klutz.  She doesn't mean to be, but Kate can't seem to do much without having an accident of some sort.  It actually makes her rather endearing.   

Kate was once a private investigator, but, after a horrible incident that is never fully explained, she gave up that occupation to become a very successful wildlife photographer.  When the book opens, she is on her way to Galena, Ill., to spend a peaceful weekend with her sister.  While she is in the area, some friends have asked her to visit a friend of theirs who is having some problems.  Maggie Winfield has had some strange things happen to her and her friends are hoping that Kate can help her figure out what is going on.  Maggie doesn't want anyone else to help her, especially Kate after the way they meet.  Kate is driving down the road and nearly hits Maggie as she crosses the road at a high rate of speed on her horse.  For a while, things go downhill from there.  As the mystery unfolds it is clear that Maggie's rather eccentric family is hiding secrets and that these secrets are related to what is happening to Maggie.  There is a string of unusual deaths, including Maggie's parents and a long time family employee.  Maggie is quite wealthy and her death would make someone very rich.  Then there's the ex-girlfriend Allison who seems to be tied into everything.  Kate has more clues than she knows what to do with and they don't seem to fit together. 

Two of the best characters in the book are Maggie's Aunt Hannah and Kate's dog Chance.  Hannah is the walking definition of blunt, irrepressible and buttinski.  Sometimes it's difficult to tell what interests her more, solving the mystery or getting Kate and Maggie together.  Chance is a gem.  Totally dedicated to her mistress….or whoever will scratch behind her ears, and with a sharp nose that keeps turning up the clues in the case.  Add to these two Kate's sister Teri and her husband Mac and you have the supporting characters that should transfer with this series very easily.

Sweeney has written a well-structured book to introduce a new series.  She Waits contains an interesting mystery that isn't solved until the final pages.  A possible relationship between Kate and Maggie is set up for exploration at a later time and enough hints have been dropped as to what the tragedy was in Kate's life that readers will be encouraged to buy the next book.  She Waits is a very satisfactory introduction of a new character in lesbian fiction.

All the Bold Days of My Restless Life by Sharon Stone

Publisher:                  Alyson Books

Zany was a term that was sometimes applied to the screwball comedies made for television and the movies in the 1950s and 1960s.  It meant something that had little redeeming quality except that it was hilariously funny.  If there was ever a book that fit the definition of zany, this one is it.  Very few things make me laugh out loud, but I found myself roaring at many of the incidents described and the closing scenes had me literally howling.

Bailey Conners is the head writer for a soap opera called All the Bold Days of My Restless Life.  She presides over a writing staff made up of people who are only slightly less nutty than the actors she has to deal with.  There is Peter, her assistant, who is determined to help Bailey meet Ms Right after her girlfriend dumps her.  He manages to arrange three blind dates from hell.  The first is with a woman who has a midnight online sex show and likes to use her dates as her "special guests." The second regales Bailey with intimate details about why she has six children and how that has convinced her to start dating women. Then the last is a cop who gets drunk and starts shooting rats as they walk down the street, causing an encounter with some of New York City's finest.  Encouraging Peter is his partner Alec who absolutely refuses to wear his glasses so he is constantly mangling everything he reads.  For example, he berates Bailey and Peter for the poor offerings on TV, until Peter points out that what he has read in the TV Guide as "Ten With Macaroni" should have been "Tea With Mussolini."  When Bailey isn't trying to avoid more of Peter's dates, she's dealing with a goofy bunch of writers, the idiot daughter of the boss who has been added to her staff, and a truly weird assortment of network executives and directors.

Then there is the show itself.  Every horrible cliché that can be written about a soap opera applies to this one.  What can you say about a show that has a main character named Aruba, her mother is Myrtle Beach and her stepsister is Bermuda Schwartz?  And then there is the fact that the two major stars of the show spend all of their time trying to do each other in professionally.  Derek Young is the vain aging leading man who has built his entire career around this show and he is determined to have the female star fired.  Morgan Gable, who plays Binaca, is a hold over from the glory days of Hollywood.  She's not only smarter than Derek, but more attractive to both sexes.  These two haven't had a line written for them that they can't twist while on air, giving their ad libs wholly different meanings than what Bailey's writers intended and driving the censors crazy.  The final scenes of the book deal with a special "live" performance that will leave you weeping with laughter.

This is a tremendous spoof of soap operas, much like the movie Soap Dish, but better.  If you have read Sharon Stone's other book, Love Letters in the Sand, you will not be prepared for this book.  They are so different it's difficult to believe that the same person wrote them.  If you don't  like satire and take your soaps seriously, this is not the book for you.  However, if you enjoy a book that reads quickly and makes you giggle, check this one out.