Kelly Rand

Book Info: Genre: F/F Erotica
Reading Level: Adult (explicit)
Recommended for: fans of F/F erotica

My Thoughts: While not normally a fan of erotica, I quite liked this short novella. The writing is very nice, beautiful descriptions, and Annette is an interesting character, as is Sadie (although Sadie remains mysterious to the end). It almost makes me want to visit the crossroads mentioned, just to see the scenery.

While F/F erotica is not for everyone, if you've been looking for some, this is a good choice.

Disclosure: I received an e-galley from Riptide Publishing via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Synopsis: Since finding her father’s body at the bottom of the basement stairs, Annette’s been drifting through her days, watching cars pass down the rural Ontario crossroads beside her house. Her brothers have no great ambitions, but Annette remembers a time when she did. She just can’t remember what they are.

Then she meets her neighbour, Sadie, a tattooed, world-weary, newly single portrait artist. Something about Sadie awakens something in Annette—the essence she captures in her subjects, perhaps, or the way the old familiar crossroads seem so fresh and promising from the view out Sadie’s window.

Annette begins to help Sadie, cleaning brushes and filing invoices between long lazy afternoons of conversations and shared silences. Soon, though, Annette wants more from her enigmatic neighbor, and their slowly heating friendship melts into passionate nights. Somewhere along the way, Annette discovers that her lover has illuminated for her, as with the people Sadie paints, not just her essence but her own endless worlds of possibilities.… (mere)

This short story wasn't quite what I thought it would be (although that's not why I gave it two stars).

It's mostly about Annette, an 18 year old young woman who just graduated High School, not to mention found her father's dead body, and so she is sorta sleeping through the days. Then Annette notices a moving truck at the next door neighbor's house. One of the two women moves out and Annette introduces herself to the other, Sadie. She's a portrait artist with quite a few tattoos who's also just broken up with the woman who moved out. The two women get to know each other, helping each other out in the way that they need it the most.

I think that my biggest problem with the short story was that in a short story even more than in a full length novel every single fact and piece of description and dialogue should have a purpose and in this story there were just too many dangling pieces of story. There were also a couple of place where the word usage was really wrong and really yanked me from the story.

Overall if you've read other things by Kelly Rand or Riptide Publishing I'd say give the story a try, but otherwise, give it a miss.

I got this advanced galley through Netgalley on behalf of Riptide Publishing.… (mere)