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.

On the Rocks: A Willa Cather and Edith Lewis Mystery by Sue Hallgarth

Publisher:                   Arbor Farm Press

There is nothing worse than a book that doesn’t deliver what it says it is.  If a title says it is a mystery, then there should be a mystery.

The book starts with a murder.  Willa Cather actually owned a home on Grand Manan, an island in the Bay of Fundy, and the story is set there.  While she and Edith Lewis are out in a boat one day, they see a man’s body thrown off of a cliff.  The rest of the story is more an explanation of village politics and the events that follow the murder than it is a mystery.  Who committed the crime and why becomes clear early in the story.

On the Rocks is more about the relationship between Cather and Lewis than it is about the mystery.  For people who are Cather fans, this might be interesting, except it’s based on conjecture.  The book assumes that Cather and Lewis were lovers.  That is a topic that is much discussed in the literary community, however, since Cather refused to address it herself and there is no direct evidence in either direction, writing the story this way reflects the author’s own interests more than the truth.  At any rate, that doesn’t make the book a mystery.

The book is rather bland for mystery fans and anyone else should remember it’s listed as fiction.  It isn’t challenging reading.  Keep that in mind if you decide to buy it.

The demise of Blue Feather and the role of small companies

I've been thinking for a while about what to say about the news that Blue Feather is closing.  I keep trying to straighten out the jumble of thoughts I'm having.

First, like everyone, I'm sad to hear about Blue Feather.  I talk to Emily Reed a lot and I know she's been struggling to keep the company going by herself while she dealt with children and a full time job and life in general.  I thought highly of Blue Feather before I ever met Em.  She focused on quality and not quantity, which appeals to me more and more.  She also published "different" authors.  By that I mean those that didn't always fit the cookie cutter mold.  I didn't care for every book the company put out, but I found them refreshing in their uniqueness.  How can you argue with a company that brought us Joan Opyr, Kieran York, Chris Paynter, Erica Lawson, Kelly Sinclair and others?  And I would defy anyone to find a mistake in a Blue Feather book.  Yes, this is a great loss indeed.

I don't think we give our "smaller" publishers enough credit.  It's almost funny talking about smaller publishers among small publishers.  Even Bella and BSB are small in comparison to mainstream companies, but our small presses are truly small. 

My sister Leigh and I toured the Bywater plant when we visited Marianne Martin recently.  It didn't take much.  We stepped from the house into the garage and there it was.  There is a little office with a copier and then the books are stockpiled in another section of the garage.  If you order a book from the Bywater site, you might not know it, but it's sent to you by Marianne Martin herself.  Yet, when I looked on the shelves, there was Joan Opyr, Bett Norris, Wynn Malone, Jill Malone, Georgia Beers and Marianne.  I suspect there are similar setups at Affinity, Bedazzled, Sapphire and the others.

In the rush to self-publishing, we need to give the really small presses more credit.  They usually can't hire full staffs.  They hire editors and cover artists by the job and when you email the company, you're just as likely to hear directly from the owner.  They don't have warehouses, secretaries or whatever.  They may use a distribution company, but that's about it.  Yet, many of the words I used about Blue Feather would also apply to these companies.  Bella and BSB turn out huge numbers of books now, but, with a few exceptions, they have a disturbing familiarity.  It's the really small companies that are taking a risk on some of the more daring writers.  For that reason alone, I hope we don't lose more of them.

Chris Paynter and Karen Badger have already announced they're going to self-publish.  Karen has a snappy logo for Badger-Bliss Books.  I hope they do well.  Catherine Wilson gave a wonderful presentation at the GCLS conference about how time encompassing this is if you really want to sell your books.

To the other authors, don't disappear on us.  There are companies that will probably come to you.  Find a place where you are comfortable.  Let us know what you're doing and keep the books coming.

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.

No Corpse Is an Island by Gato Timberlake

Publisher:       Blue Feather Books

Elizabeth Taylor (yes, that’s the name) knows she’s not that good at being a private detective.  As she says at the end of the book, she’d rather be known as the most stylish and best looking PI than the cleverest.  This could explain why the story falls flat.

Taylor is hired to find the research papers of Stan McCormick, her roommate’s dead fiancé.  The circumstances of McCormick’s death are suspicious, which makes the case more interesting for Taylor.  Her investigation takes her to Grafton Island and the college where McCormick did his research.  The island, which sits in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay, is caught in a war between the original settlers, mostly fishermen, and the new arrivals who are interested in developing the waterfront property.  The characters there are as peculiar as the ones Taylor meets at the college.  When Taylor falls for one of the island women, she decides she has to prove who the killer is so that it won’t interfere with her love life.

No Corpse Is an Island is a light weight mystery.  The story is alright, but it never develops the suspense or tension that most readers expect for this type of book.  The detective seems more interested in a possible girlfriend than she is in the case.  Timberlake moves along telling the story, but there aren’t any great confrontations or frightening threats.  Taylor does receive some messages, but even those don’t seem to carry much weight.  Most of the book is spent presenting a rather long list of potential killers and why they might be the killers, but they’re very run of the mill.  There is a little twist at the end when the killer is revealed, but the story just doesn’t have any kick to it.

The best part of this book is the description it gives of the bay islands and the lifestyle that exists on them.  The Chesapeake Bay islands have been settled since the earliest days of the American colonies and have developed a very unique existence.  Timberlake certainly captured that well.  The reader can feel the ocean breezes and smell the salt, as well as appreciate the characters who live there.  That alone makes the book enjoyable.

Someone looking for a book to spend some time with will find No Corpse Is an Island acceptable and it’s very informative about life around the bay.  Mystery lovers will probably find a lot lacking however.

Lemon Reef by Robin Silverman

Publisher:       Bold Strokes Books

Seldom does a book with so few pages, approximately 250, contain so many topics.  Childhood friendships, sexuality, family relationships, first love, coming out, child endangerment and murder twine around each other creating this story.  The wonder is that Robin Silverman is able to do this in an effective manner without confusing the reader completely.

Jenna Ross is called back to her hometown after the death of her childhood friend and first lover Del Soto is ruled an accidental drowning.  There are people who question that because Del was an excellent diver and she was not getting along well with her husband.  As Jenna investigates the incidents in the present, they conjure up stories from the past she shared with Del.  Flashback scenes explore the relationship that existed between Jenna and Del, while the current scenes involve solving the mystery of what happened to Del and the effort to save her daughter Khila.

Lemon Reef is a complex story.  It ties together themes of poverty, abuse and sexual discovery with murder.  At times that makes reading the story difficult.  There is so much going on in the book that issues are watered down.  In the beginning of the book the pacing is uneven and the timeline seems to be confused, but these problems disappear as the story goes on.  There are also a number of extraneous scenes that don’t add to the story, but lengthen it and sometimes get in the way.  Taking those out would make the story more powerful and to the point.

This isn’t an easy book to read because it touches on a number of painful topics.  Del suffers from abuse most of her life, first from her family and then from her husband.  She has to deal with that as she and Jenna try to come to grips with their sexuality.  The girls present a study in contrasts that are too familiar to many people.  Del decides to suppress her homosexuality and try to fit into a world where she really isn’t comfortable, while Jenna takes on the struggle to fight for who she is and try to exist in that same world.  There is an inevitable sense of doom that hangs over their young love.  Many lesbians and gays can identify totally with what the girls go through.

Lemon Reef is not a depressing book however.  It’s thoughtful and it’s instructive and it’s an interesting story.  Sometimes it cuts close to the bone with the emotions it exposes, but ultimately it’s a positive story.  Younger people who read it may not understand the angst in the book.  In this time when things are beginning to change rapidly for gay people, it’s easy to forget what life was like not so long ago.  This isn’t exactly light reading, but it’s good reading and it deserves a chance.