“Run around just so I don’t have to think about thinking
That silence sense of content that everyone gets
Just disappears soon as the sun sets”
–Wake Up Alone
Author: lesreadoutloud
Snow Patrol
“Forget what we’re told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that’s bursting into life”
–Chasing Cars
Lyn Gardner – Give Me A Reason
Intelligent, confident and beautiful, Antoinette Vaughn had it all until one night she went to help a friend and paid for it… with a life sentence in hell.
Four years later, Toni’s judgment is overturned, but the damage is already done. She walks away from the prison a free woman, but she’s hardly free. Actually, she’s hardly alive. A prison without rules can do that to a person.
She was raised amidst garden parties, stables and tennis courts, but now a dingy flat in a decrepit building is what Toni calls home. It’s cold, dark and barren just like her heart, but it suits her. She doesn’t want to leave much behind when she’s gone, but the simplicity of her sheltered existence begins to unravel when a beautiful stranger comes into her life.
How does anyone survive in a world that terrifies them? How do you learn to trust again when everyone is your enemy? How do you take your next breath and not wish it were your last? And if your past returned…what would you do?
REVIEW
If you’re an avid reader of books in the lesbian fiction genre, you’ll eventually cross paths with Give Me A Reason. It has the highest number of reviews on Amazon (currently 200), and its rated an average of 5 out of 5 stars. Give Me A Reason was released around the time when everyone and their mama were losing their minds over Orange Is the New Black, which probably contributed to the book’s huge popularity. Talk about being at the right place at the right time… but really, this is a great novel in its own right.
Reading this novel, I assumed the author was English or Scottish (she’s actually an American from Florida) and I don’t know if she’s ever spent any time in the pokey or if she watches a lot of prison shows and documentaries, but her writing is incredibly detailed on both accounts. She has quite an imagination, to say the least. What I like about this story is that it doesn’t lack in originality, and it really draws the reader into its world. My only gripe is that whenever I read the phrase “give me a reason” in the novel, it reminded me of listening to the Fugees’ cover of “Killing Me Softly” on Power 106 in 1996. The song played on the radio 7x per hour, every hour, every day. In other words, “give me a reason” got REALLY old REALLY fast. You can only bounce that ball so many times before it goes completely flat.
The main characters of this story, Toni and Laura, are both FIERY. They’re portrayed as strong women with strong personalities. The beauty in their friendship and eventual romantic relationship is that they allow each other to simply be the individuals that they are. Toni has her episodes, and Laura has her temper tantrums, but they manage through those experiences and move forward together. They don’t view each other as improvement projects, and love joins their lives together like puzzle pieces.
I spent six months stuck on this damn book. I couldn’t stop reading it because I enjoyed it so damn much. At the time, Give Me A Reason was the third lesbian fiction novel I finished reading so I didn’t have a collection of favorites in my re-reading rotation.
This is a great novel to read during the long winter season. I would recommend reading a few chapters a night before going to bed, and savoring and stretching it out as long as you can.
SOUNDTRACK
1. James Blake – Retrograde
2. Travis – Writing To Reach You
3. Amy Winehouse – Wake Up Alone
4. Depeche Mode – Somebody
5. David Grey – Please Forgive Me
6. Keane – Somewhere Only We Know
7. Snow Patrol – Chasing Cars
8. Adele – Make You Feel My Love
9. Ed Sheeran – Kiss Me
10. Sam Smith – Lay Me Down (Acoustic)
11. Nick Drake – Northern Sky
12. Ellie Goulding – How Long Will I Love You
CHEERS!
This book would be best read with an….
EARL GREY HOT TODDY
-1 oz of bourbon
-1 tablespoon of honey
-2 teaspoons of fresh lemon juice
-6 oz of boiling water
-1 packet of Earl Grey tea (I would recommend Tetley)
-Orange wheel
Boil water and pour into a mug. Steep the tea. Mix the bourbon, honey, and fresh lemon juice with the tea. Float the orange wheel on top. Warm and cozy!
John Mayer
“I love you more than songs can say
But I can’t keep running after yesterday”
–All We Ever Do is Say Goodbye
Gerri Hill – At Seventeen
Madison Lansford and Shannon Fletcher met when they were ten years old. Madison-daughter of wealthy parents and Shannon, daughter of their live-in maid and cook-became fast friends, yet both knew their place in life. There was never a doubt that they would become lovers…there was also never a doubt that Madison would marry and maintain her social standing in the community. Little by little, they grew apart, their love affair ending with Madison’s marriage and pregnancy. Now, years later, Shannon returns to her old hometown to care for her ailing mother. Can they rebuild their friendship? Or will their new-found closeness bring back memories of their long-lost love? Travel through the years with Shannon and Madison and watch their love unfold as they move from teens to young women and into adulthood.
REVIEW
This is the third book I’ve read that’s written by the infamous Gerri Hill, and she certainly doesn’t disappoint. She has the lesbian romance-writing formula down, so I know that I’m always guaranteed a good time. (Snicker) At Seventeen is no exception to that formula. Her novels are pretty quick reads, and perfect if you’re sitting at an airport and need to kill some time before a flight. There aren’t a lot of surprises in the novel, and there’s a comfort in it’s predictability. You know that you can expect good writing and a good ending with Gerri Hill, which is the appeal of picking up her books. At least, it is for me.
Here’s the good, the bad, and the ugly with this novel:
The Good – This is almost like the lesbian version of Nicholas Spark’s The Notebook, but the story starts in childhood, ends in (early-ish) adulthood, and no one dies together while holding hands. There’s a clear distinction between what happens in the past and what happens in the present, so there’s no confusion for its readers. It skips back and forth until about a third into the book, then it continues on in the present. The storyline of At Seventeen is really its strong point, and the buildup of the romance between Madison and Shannon is very nicely done.
The Bad – The characters were a bit one-dimensional. Characterizations bring a depth to the story and because of it’s absence in At Seventeen, it left me wanting just a little more. Some of the characters’ actions, especially Shannon’s friends, were confusing. Even when there was some clarification in the end, it wasn’t very satisfying.
The Ugly – There’s a kid in the story. I have no gripes about a kid being in any story, but his presence doesn’t add very much to it. And I get it, you could justify that his existence helps reinforce the message that things happen for a reason, but I felt like he was moved around like a Monopoly piece. It was almost too easy to roll the dice and move him down the board when they needed him to disappear.
It wasn’t my favorite from Gerri Hill, but I enjoyed the novel and it provided a nice little escape for a few hours.
SOUNDTRACK
1. Priscilla Ahn – Dream
2. John Mayer – All We Ever Do is Say Goodbye
3. Regina Spektor – Fidelity
4. Whitney Houston – Saving All My Love For You
5. John Mayer – Friends, Lovers, or Nothing
6. Colbie Caillat – Realize
7. Mariah Carey – When I Saw You
8. Janet Jackson – Where Are You Now
9. Meiko – Lucky We Are
10. The Cure – Love Song
11. Ed Sheeran – Thinking Out Loud
12. Jason Mraz feat. Colbie Caillat – Lucky
CHEERS!
This book would be best read with a….
SOUTHERN COMFORT CHAMPAGNE COCKTAIL
-1 oz of Southern Comfort
-Dash of Angostura bitters
-4 oz of chilled champagne (M&R Asti is recommended)
-Twisted lemon peel
Pour the Southern Comfort in a champagne glass. Add a dash of bitters, then top off with the champagne. Garnish with a twisted lemon peel.
Sam Palladio
“Every single broken heart will lead you to the truth
You think you know what you’re looking for
Until what you’re looking for finds you”
-When the Right One Comes Along
Melissa Brayden – How Sweet It Is
Molly O’Brien is a sweetheart. Her friends and neighbors all think so. While she enjoys her quiet life running the town bakeshop in Applewood, Illinois, she wonders if there could be more. After losing the love of her life four years prior in a plane crash, Molly thinks she’s ready to navigate the dicey dating waters once again. However, you can’t always pick who your heart latches on to. When Jordan Tuscana, the beautiful younger sister of her lost love, returns to town, Molly finds her interest piqued in a manner she wasn’t prepared for.
All secrets are uncovered, Molly and Jordan must figure out how to navigate the difficult terrain of their multi-faceted relationship. Especially when something much deeper seems to be bubbling between them.
REVIEW
The publisher’s summary of this book definitely gave me pause. Just to wrap my head around the storyline of girl falls in love with deceased lover’s little sister…. it seemed too heavy of a read for me.
This might sound a little ridiculous, but what nudged me over the edge was that the woman on the cover of this novel looks a lot like Jillian Michaels. I have a minor crush (okay fine, I own 7 of her DVDs) on her. And How Sweet It Is was the only Melissa Brayden novel that I hadn’t finished. It really turned out that I saved the best for last.
Just a forewarning, if you have a sweet tooth, you may want to read this book on a full stomach. Or just imagine that the Jillian Michaels look-alike is yelling at you to abstain from eating cinnamon rolls and to drop and give her 20 for even thinking about it. I don’t think that it’s a stretch to assume that the author enjoys chocolate and sweets. Actually, I think she’s really borderline obsessed with chocolate. (Midnight Chocolate, anyone?) Maybe I can bribe her into writing one more book for her Soho Loft series. Melissa Brayden, I will give you 500 chocolate Santas if you make my Christmas wish come true. Please?! Pretty please?!
Aside from the description of the decadent desserts that make my thighs feel like they’re ever expanding, the writing in this novel is a real treat for its readers. The author has a mighty set of ovaries for writing this story. She treats each of her characters with dignity. There isn’t a sense of real betrayal, and thankfully, no one in the story is demonized or dehumanized. It’s written sensitively and respectfully, without undermining the love in the past between Molly and Cassie, and the love in the future between Molly and Jordan. Brayden doesn’t gloss over the tough conversations on the complexities of the different relationships, and navigates the readers through those waters with ease.
You really experience the small-town America feel with this novel. The author is adept at changing settings without compromising the writing, or the readers feel for the story. Although, Brayden’s writing has a familiarity and comfort between the stories, that’s not to say that she’s a typecast author. Her stories are as varied as her characters, who are always interesting and unique. What I also enjoy about Brayden’s writing is how she subtly ties the characters in her novels together. Just to give you an example (and this hopefully isn’t too much of a spoiler), in How Sweet It Is, Jordan has a meeting with a potential investor Emory Owen, one of the main characters in Heart Block. The reader gets a sense that none of the stories really end. Perhaps, this is a clever way for the author to have her readers revisit her novels? If it is, I’m a sucker every time. I’ve reread her books so often, that I’ve practically memorized the words. No joke.
After finishing this review, I’m almost tempted to add a dessert section…
SOUNDTRACK
1. Heartless Bastards – Skin and Bone
2. Elliott Smith – Sweet Adeline
3. Duncan Sheik – She Runs Away
4. Ani DiFranco – You Had Time
5. Paper Kites – Bloom
6. David Grey – This Year’s Love
7. City and Colour – We Found Each Other In The Dark
8. Iron & Wine – The Trapeze Swinger
9. Fisher – I Will Love You
10. Sam Palladio – When The Right One Comes Along
CHEERS!
This book would be best read with a….
GODIVA CHOCOLATE MARTINI
-2 oz of Godiva chocolate liqueur
-2 oz of creme de cacao
-0.5 oz of vodka (I would recommend Belvedere)
-2.5 oz of half and half
Mix all the ingredients in a shaker. Shake Shake Shake Shake Shake Shake Shake Shake Shake Shake Chica Shake Shake, Mentirosaaaa. Pour into a chilled martini glass. Ladies and gentlemen, you are now entering chocolate heaven.
Holiday Book-Bag 2015
We’re officially in the holiday season! It’s that time of year when we take out our winter clothes, prepare meals with our crock-pots, dress our cats and dogs in ugly sweaters, dodge elbows and grabby hands while shopping for gifts, drink peppermint mocha lattes from Starbucks, and for some of us… get warm and cozy with some holiday reading. For your reading, listening, and drinking pleasure…
HOLIDAY READING
Melissa Brayden – Kiss the Girl
Lyn Gardner – Give Me a Reason
Ann McMan – Jericho
BL Miller – Accidental Love
RJ Nolan – L.A Metro
JINGLE ALL THE WAY
Ella Fitzgerald – Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas
Frank Sinatra – A Jolly Christmas From Frank Sinatra
Mariah Carey – Merry Christmas
Michael Buble – Christmas
Puppini Sisters – Christmas with the Puppini Sisters
A LITTLE CHRISTMAS CHEER
Ultimate Alexander
-1 oz of cold brewed coffee
-8 oz of coffee ice cream
-1 or 2 oz of brandy
-1 oz of chocolate syrup
-Whipped cream
-Chocolate shavings
Process the cold brewed coffee, coffee ice cream, brandy and chocolate syrup in a blender. Pour into a glass and garnish with whip cream and chocolate shavings.
The Grinch
-2 oz of Midori
-1/2 oz of lemon juice
-1 teaspoon of simple syrup
Mix the ingredients into a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake it off. Strain into a martini glass.
Hot Buttered Rum
-2 oz of dark rum
-Cinnamon stick
-1 pat of butter
-1 slice lemon peel
-Boiled water
Put the cinnamon stick, lemon peel, and rum in a mug. Fill the mug with boiling water and the butter. Stir the butter.
Candy Cane Martini
-1.5 oz of vanilla vodka
-1.5 oz of white creme de cacao
-1 oz of peppermint schnapps
-Mini candy cane
Mix the vodka, creme de cacao, and peppermint schnapps in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake. Pour into a martini glass and garnish with a mini candy cane.
Hot Cider Nog
-1 cup of half and half
-1/2 cup of milk
-1/2 cup of apple cider
-1 large egg
-1/4 cup of sugar
-1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
-Pinch of ground nutmeg
-Pinch of salt
-3 oz of bourbon
-1/4 cup of whipped cream
-2 cinnamon sticks
Whisk together the first 8 ingredients in a heavy saucepan. Cook over medium-low heat and whisk occasionally, until mixture thickens and coats a spoon. (About 15 minutes). Stir in bourbon. Pour into a mug and garnish with whip cream and a cinnamon stick. Makes 2 servings.
Patricia Highsmith
“Love was supposed to be a kind of blissful insanity”
–The Price of Salt
Patricia Highsmith – The Price of Salt
The Price of Salt tells the riveting story of Therese Belivet, a stage designer trapped in a department-store day job, whose salvation arrives one day in the form of Carol Aird, an alluring suburban housewife in the throes of a divorce. They fall in love and set out across the United States, pursued by a private investigator who eventually blackmails Carol into a choice between her daughter and her lover.
REVIEW
The first question in my mind was why the heck would the author name her novel The Price of Salt. As I read into the book, it started making sense. What is salt? Salt is an essential nutrient that preserves and sustains life. Salt sits on your dinner table and you shake it on your food if it’s bland and you want to enhance the taste. I interpreted salt as a metaphor for love and it’s application into the story, as well as it’s trans-formative power in Therese’ drab and lifeless existence before she met Carol, is masterful.
With this novel, you’re either going to hate it or love it. There are certain aspects of this story that can feel very unsettling, and some might even consider Carol or Therese as a sort of antihero. I was undecided about Carol’s character for most of the novel. It wasn’t until the last few chapters that I could better understand and appreciate the depth of her love and her pain. The tone of The Price of Salt is somber, and a love story within that tenor is like the beauty of a rainy day. This novel’s intensity will leave no doubt to the reader that it is rooted in a deeply personal experience of the writer. The writing breathes life through the author’s first-hand knowledge of a love that was once considered an abomination within her society.
In 1989, in reference to this novel, Patricia Highsmith is quoted, “Prior to this book, homosexual male and female in American novels had had to pay for their deviation by cutting their wrists, drowning themselves in a swimming pool, or by switching to heterosexuality (so it was stated), or by collapsing-alone and miserable and shunned-into a depression equal to hell.” I would consider Highsmith as one of the pioneers in queer literature, and her contributions helped pave a happier road for fictional lesbian characters.
The Price of Salt is a priceless gift from the past, and the type of story that stays with you long after you’ve turned the last page.
SOUNDTRACK
1. Astrud Gilberto & Stan Getz – The Girl from Ipanema
2. Patsy Cline – Crazy
3. Billie Holiday – Easy Living
4. Otis Redding – Try a Little Tenderness
5. Frankie Laine – Jezebel
6. Johnny Mathis – Chances Are
7. Nine Simone – To Love Somebody
8. Ella Fitzgerald – Embraceable You
9. Platters – Only You (And You Alone)
10. Joe Pass – All The Things You Are
11. Billie Holiday – All of Me
12. Doris Day – Secret Love
CHEERS!
This book would be best read with an….
OLD-FASHIONED
-2 oz of rye whiskey or bourbon whiskey. Rye, if you want spicier. Bourbon, if you want sweeter.
-3 dashes of bitters.
-1 splash of water
-1-2 tsp of simple syrup
-Orange peel
-Large ice cube
Mix the simple syrup, water and bitters in a rock glass. Drop the large ice cube in the glass. Pour the whiskey over it. Mix well. Twist the orange peel over the drink, then rim the glass before dropping it in the drink. Welcome to the 50s!
Les Read Out Loud 