Up All Night...Reading

There is this assumption among the lesbian community, at least the one that I operate in, that there are no good lesbian fiction novels. While it's true that navigating the Lesbian Fiction isle is a lot like trying to pick out lipstick; you never know what is good/bad until you get it home and try it out, looking at it in the store doesn't ever give you an accurate assessment, and like lipstick shades, there are a lot of really crappy lesbian fiction selections on the shelves, there are some really great selections out there...so, let me offer you some of my faves...

Accidental Love by BL Miller.
Rose, a lonely young cashier, is driving home one night when she is severely injured after being hit by a car. Veronica, a beautiful and very rich woman, happens to be driving by and helps Rose to the nearest hospital and whatever else she can offer. Friendship turns into feelings of love as these well-developed characters fall for each other. Deception underlines nearly every page and it still manages to be one of the most severely romantic lesbian novels on my bookshelf. The big downfall: Nothing is sexy about grammatical errors and the grammatical errors/typos are abundant.

Kiss the Girls and Make Them Spy by Mabel Maney.
James Bond is held in an insane asylum and the secret service needs his help in tackling a plot to overthrow the Queen, so the Secret Service turns to Bond's butch and lazy lesbian twin sister Jane for help. With a little work, they believe that she can pass as James, but Jane's new girlfriend isn't what she appears and things only unravel from there. Um, can we say campy?, but it's the best kind of campy. Jane is a disaster of a character, meaning she's always drunk and doesn't have a job and never remembers the names of the girls she sleeps with, and it's brilliant. It's refreshing to read a lesbian author with some wit and humor and Maney has plenty of it to go around. This book parodies the books by Ian Flemming, not the movies, (which are different) but it's not imperative that you've read the original James Bond books to enjoy this book. This isn't Maney's only James Bond parody and she also has a "Nancy Clue" series.

Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters.
In pursuit of dangerous pleasures, Nancy Astley, a young oyster shucker from Witstable in the turn of the 19th century, falls in love with Kitty Butler, a male impersonator. Kitty's cross-dressing show moves to London and Nancy goes with her as her dresser. Nancy's story follows heartbreak, life as a gay boy prostitute, being kept as a rich woman's "plaything", and her relationship with a socialist social worker, and you are truly taken through London's sexual underground. While I think this book is classified more as "lesbian erotica" than "lesbian fiction," the character development, not the steamy plot line, is what moves this story and what makes this book so compelling; not all good erotica has well-developed characters. The best thing about this book is the unsubtlety: the title, the love interest is named kitty, she works with oysters, the pussy willow tree...it's fantastic.

Six of One by Rita Mae Brown.
Rita is most known for her book Rubyfruit Jungle, which is great, but I find this book to be her best. This story isn't explicitly about lesbians, but I'm recommending it here anyways. The story follows two sisters, Julia and Louise, through nearly a century of their life, with ensemble characters like their single mother, Cora, who works as a housekeeper for Celeste (who is a lesbian) and her lover. This book is hilarious! but more than anything it's about relationships.

The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith.
Published in 1950, this was the first lesbian novel that didn't end in death/suicide or heterosexuality. While this type of ending is more common now, the book deserves its props. Therese is in desperate need of cash flow for the holiday season, so she takes a job at a department store in Manhattan, where she meets Carol. Both women are in straight relationships when they meet, Carol is married with a daughter and Therese is dating Richard, but feelings blossom anyways. Their love isn't without consequence, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have a positive ending. What I love the most about this book is that it is about romance, pure and simple. It takes the women a while to sleep together, which I find refreshing from my 21st century viewpoint, and the only agenda for these two women is an authentic lesbian love story.

Radclyffe.
This is an author, not a novel, because I couldn't pick just one of her books to recommend. Radclyffe, (not to be confused with the 1920's author Radclyffe Hall, who published The Well of Loneliness, which is a lesbian fiction classic) is a current lesbian author who mostly writes lesbian action stories with really hot sex scenes. She penned the honor and justice series, and wrote a collection of stories about Provincetown. She also has a countless number of romantic lesbian fiction novels and just came out with an edited compilation of the best lesbian romance of 2009. She has won the Alice B. award twice and is the president of the independent GLBT publishing house Bold Strokes Books. My favorite thing about this author is that she really strives to show that lesbian love can be powerful; it doesn't have to be weak or hidden or manipulative or complicated, it can be plainly capable and strong.

HAPPY READING!