In This Small Spot by Caren J. Werlinger

Publisher:       Corgyn Publishing

Is it necessary to say anything about a book after the word “Magnificent” is used?  Only if anything else helps to get someone to read this book.  If you read the blurb on the cover, just remember that this is not a book about religion, but about how religion can be one aspect that enriches a person’s life.

In This Small Spot is a powerful story about love, not just of the heart, but of the soul.  It juxtaposes two plot lines, one dealing with the profound love between two people and the other about the equally profound love of a woman for God and the community of women who bring her closer to his will, whatever that may be.

Dr. Michele Stewart suffers a loss that would devastate anyone.  Her partner Alice, her life and her breath, dies young from cancer and leaves Mickey adrift in the world.  Though she is a highly successful surgeon and teacher, with many people who admire and love her, Mickey feels helpless.  She’s lost her anchor and realizes that she is losing the ability not only to connect to others, but to understand herself.  She’s drawn to St. Bridget’s Abbey with the hope that joining the contemplative life will provide her with the peace she needs to reestablish herself.  Mickey is not running away from what happened to her, but towards something more that she hopes she can become.

Mickey is forced to give up her career, possessions and everything, but learns that, when you strip away the facades, you find what is truly in the person.  Things do not always go smoothly.  There are personality conflicts, difficulties with cursing and a powerful temper that needs to be curbed.  With a lot of prayer, her share of penance and some humor, Mickey gradually taps into what Alice loved about her all along; her strength, gentle caring and gigantic heart.  Mickey is one of those people who makes other people better for knowing her and that begins to transform the abbey.  Just as Mickey feels comfortable with her new life, she discovers that the healing she has sought has opened her up to the love for another woman.  That, plus an incident that nearly costs her life, has Mickey reevaluating everything again.

Caren J. Werlinger is emerging as one of the most powerful voices in dramatic lesbian fiction.  Her stories are always different, strong and interesting.  She doesn’t feel the compulsion to write the same story over and over with just a change of names, but comes up with compelling characters with unique stories to tell.  Once you start reading one of her books, it becomes almost impossible to stop reading until the end, even though you keep hoping the book won’t end.  Werlinger weaves a spell with her stories that draws the reader in and won’t let her go.  The reader will wish she knew these people.

Werlinger also shows great confidence in her stories.  She doesn’t write according to a formula and isn’t afraid to include things that some would rather not read.  This is a good place to say that In This Small Place has an appropriate, but sad ending.  Not unhappy, but poignant.  It takes courage for an author to do that when most readers say they want “happily ever after” in each book.  Readers shouldn’t focus on the ending of a book, but on the quality of the experience of reading it.

If you haven’t read any of Caren Werlinger’s books, start here, but don’t let this be the last one you try.

Holding On To Faith by Joy Argento

Publisher:          Ride the Rainbow Books     

Faith Hughes and Sami Everette meet because they attend the same church and become housemates when Sami rents a room to Faith.  Religion is very important to both women, especially Faith, and at first things go fine.  Before long an attraction develops between the women and the title of the book takes on two meanings.  Faith decides that, to save them both, she has to marry a man like her church, family and society expect her to.  Sami finds herself reexamining her beliefs in light of her feelings for Faith and trying to persuade Faith not to go through with this farce at the same time.  The question becomes whether Sami can have faith and keep Faith at the same time.

This book needed serious editing.  There is an editor listed at the front of the book, but the reader will quickly wonder if she did anything.  There are mistakes on practically every page.  Sometimes it’s a word left out or the wrong verb tense in a sentence.  In one place a character “padded” another one on the head instead of “patted.”  A character has on a skirt with “pleads” instead of “pleats.”  If this had only happened two or three times, it wouldn’t be worth mentioning, but it was rampant from beginning to end.

The story itself is alright.  There have been other books about the same topic that covered it better, but this one gets the idea across.  Sometimes being religious and gay is difficult.  Some parts of the story seem rushed and there is the obligatory crisis that resolves the issues.  A little trite, but it works for this story.  Faith can be an irritating character for those who don’t understand what it means to be raised in an environment that hammers in the idea that homosexuality is a sin and a mental illness.  Those communities still exist and that means that Faith’s behavior is not unusual, if difficult for some people to understand.  The reader may feel at times that someone needs to take a stick and hit one of the characters in the head with it.  The problem is whether it should be Faith for how she thinks or Sami for how she puts up with Faith. Faith is the weaker of the two characters, so she has the most to overcome, but it’s aggravating that she has no appreciation for the search that Sami goes on to see if religious beliefs can be made compatible with homosexuality.  Sami’s character is definitely drawn with more compassion.

Holding On To Faith is fine for general entertaining reading.  If mistakes bother the reader, it’s going to take a lot of teeth gritting to get through this.  If intolerant religious beliefs are a trigger factor, this isn’t the book for you.

Agape by Maytee Aspuro y Gonzalez

Publisher:         Hillside Press

Agape is the second book in a trilogy about Episcopal priest Beth Kelly and her partner Nicole Thera, who sees herself as a spiritual person, but not a believer in religion as Beth practices it.  Beth has taken a sabbatical from her position with a church to work as a chaplain in a hospital.  She is struggling to regain the closeness she once felt to her god.  Nikki is trying to rebuild her business after it was destroyed by a fire.  The main issue in the book is whether two people who have such different views can find a way to communicate and co-exist.

This book is unique because it deals with the tensions that exist in a relationship when the partners have such different visions of religion.  It could be said that Aspuro y Gonzalez makes the story more complicated by having the couple be lesbians, except that their lesbianism never really plays a part in the discussion.  These are not women who are battling a church.  They are trying to find a way to bring their ideas together as much as possible to make their lives work.  Beth’s beliefs shape every part of her life and it is a struggle for her that Nikki will not share her feelings.  Nikki isn’t an atheist.  Quite the contrary since she is an avid student of all theological texts.  She takes a more universal view of religion and god though and cannot share Beth’s total surrender to her own vision.  Nikki doesn’t want to share Beth with God, but she realizes she has no choice if wants to live with a woman she truly loves.

The interesting aspect of this book is that it doesn’t follow the traditional formula of romances, but deals with a very real issue that confronts many couples.  There’s never any doubt that Beth and Nikki love each other, but their lives are founded on basic and fundamental differences.  Any relationship requires compromises in order for it to work, but some compromises are bigger than others.  These women have to struggle to find a faith in each other that can provide a foundation strong enough to support their differences.  This is a battle that often doesn’t end successfully for the people involved.

Religion, or the lack of it, is a very personal and emotional topic for most people.  It takes great confidence for an author to tackle it as honestly as Aspuro y Gonzalez does.  She takes the reader on a journey with her characters.  Beth and Nikki don’t preach at each other.  Each of them has questions about her own beliefs, but she stands by her basic position.  This is not a story where once partner suddenly renounces what she has said and accepts the other’s values.   By open and honest discussion they search for the common ideas that bind them together.  Where they end up may not be what the reader expects.

Agape is a thoughtful book, but the story is told basically as a romance.  A reader doesn’t have to be concerned about being bogged down in theological discussions, but she may find herself weighing her own beliefs while she enjoys the story.  It’s an easy book to read, but not for someone who is looking for the simple romances that are so popular.