The power of family and religion can be detrimental yet this reading balances faith with longterm love to become a winner. Kallmaker enriches the characters through the fabric of politics and art history. Im now not only eager to read more Kallmaker but want to watch The Lion in Winter

4.5 stars. This is a book that I finally found again in my Scribd download list. I had even asked for it in the lesbian audiobooks FB group because I had remembered the plot but not the title.

When I stumbled upon it again, I saw at once why I had been looking for this book: A woman, Faith, is with her boyfriend Eric. When she meets his sister Sydney, a politician about to become senator, Faith can't fight her sexuality anymore.

First of all, I liked that Sydney was a politician. As always, I would have liked more insights in the political agenda overall, but I'm a sucker for a good political romance. In this case, however, politics are merely the reason why openly lesbian Sydney can't be with Faith.

I also liked Faith's journey. Raised a devout Catholic, she still lives at her parents' at 34 and is happy with Eric making no sexual advances. When she meets Sydney and meets again a woman of her part, with whom she had a sexual relationship in college, step by step, Faith becomes more and more brave and independent.

Also, Faith is a true history nerd. I loved how immersed she was in Eleanor of Aquitaine's life and the book spends a good time on that. Very fitting and I truly loved it.

There were some minor thing I didn't like so much. First of all, while I love first person narration, and especially for Faith, it took me a while to get used to the third person narration of Sydney's POV. This made me understand a lot less than Faith and I would have loved to have more insights of her. Althoug there was good chemisty I didn't really get WHY she fell for Faith. The book was only 5 hours something long and I would have loved this to be a little bit longer.

All in all, I'm very glad I discovered this book. I realize I'm very late for the party as this was published in 1996. But hey, it was released as an audiobook in 2020 and Abby Craden did a fabulous job as always.

n  “What about the war?”n

4.5 stars. This made me waaaaaaay more emotional than I expected it to. Like, crying on the treadmill kind of emotional. It's probably just the mood I'm in; I don't know if this would have landed for me in the same way on any other day, and I can't say that anyone else would find it as emotional as I did. But I really loved the exploration of a repressed lesbian held back by the jaws of religion, her devout and abusive parents, and the negative, confusing experiences she's had with sex and desire. I really connected with Faith. And I really loved Sydney, the love interest, as well, and the conversations about addiction and sobriety and recovery. Their connection was just as sweepingly romantic as most of Kallmaker's romances are; she writes lesbian desire and intensity in a way that always strikes a chord with me. This was pretty close to being a 5 star, with some of the friendship stuff, and just the feeling of the romance, but there were also a few things in the latter half that I didn't love. 

This is a romance between Faith, a Catholic history professor who's been struggling with and repressing her sexuality for years, and Sydney, her boyfriend's sister, who's currently looking to get into politics. It's fairly short, and spends a lot of time on character development for both women, getting to the heart of both their issues, making them feel like well-rounded people. But it also excels SO MUCH as a romance. Like, there are moments in this that I feel like will live in my mind forever. I don't have the same relationship with religion as Faith, but there were enough similarities that her struggles with it felt really poignant. Faith's journey almost hurt to read, with all of her inner turmoil and conflict. Ugh, and the bits about the one woman she was with previously, and how she turned desire into a weapon and almost something ugly for Faith. No wonder she couldn't make peace with it. I loved that each chapter started with little Bible quotes that gave some insight into the journey, and also affirmed in the end that Faith could still have a relationship with God, but not the toxic one her parents and the church had taught her. The passages about her research and the historical women she wrote about were really interesting, especially in the ways the author wove it into what was happening in her life. I LOVED her friendship with fellow professor James; that made me bawl, and gave me some stuff to think about.
 

n  If I held back a piece of myself from everyone, who could truly mourn me?n

I really liked her relationship with her boyfriend as well. I don't especially love reading about infidelity, but this was handled in just the right way. And it helped that they genuinely felt like such good FRIENDS, and that he was such a great person. His relationship with Sydney was great too. I think the conversations about alcoholism and recovery were really apt and well done, especially because Sydney doesn't exactly have a cool serenity about it; it's something she still wrestles with all the time. Which, of course, made it more believable. There were lots of minor characters and little conversations with side characters that really brought this whole book together, and made it feel full: Faith with James, her siblings, her older historian friend, and Patrick (that hit especially hard); and Sydney with her brother, her assistant and her friends. But the romance is of course what swept me away. Really intense and it feels inevitable, the way they're drawn to one another. I love a good deployment of the 'what are you doing to me?' line. So much great chemistry; I was swooning for them constantly. Kallmaker has a way of writing sex scenes that aren't particularly explicit, but are always sooooon sexy and all-consuming and lovely.

Some spoilery thoughts: It genuinely makes me so sad that James and Faith never had a deeper relationship and they never knew they had queerness in common. His death hurt my feelings, but especially that aspect of it. Oh man, if I think about it too much I might start crying again. Faith at the funeral was just so gutting, but also cathartic. I also loved her connection with her therapist who turns out to be an ex-priest. Really good conversation, lots of things about religion that I already know, but it's good to see Faith learning and deconstructing. 

Some things I didn't love. Faith was really fucked up by being made to watch The Gay Agenda and she learnt and internalised a lot of harmful ideas about the gay community. (That they're all sex fiends, etc. I've never seen the film and don't want to, but I can imagine.) While in Chicago, she and Sydney end up in a gay neighbourhood, and she sees a lot of the same activity on the street, like gay couples on the street in revealing leather, BDSM-esque stuff, et cetera. She's especially disturbed by a lesbian couple she sees where one women has another on a leash. And I just didn't like how that whole section was handled. I would have liked for Faith to come away from that accepting that sure, there are some hypersexual parts of the community, and no, not every queer person is like that, but no one has the right to judge anyone. Instead, it felt like the message we took away was that those "stereotypes" were something that the gay community has to fight against? IDK how the author meant for it to come off, but it came off as very judgey.

There were also like two occasions where Sydney was described as presenting masc/wearing masculine clothes, 'but still very much a woman' and that was annoying to me. Idk why. I love masc women, but the emphasis on 'you could never mistake her for anything other than a woman though!' was slightly obnoxious. Also, when referring to the days where she slept around a lot, Sydney got really slut-shamey about her past self. It's understandable that she was no good associations with that time of her life, since she was drunk all the time, but I hated the way it was phrased. And then there was a crack about Magic Johnson (saying that she was as bad as him, expect she never caught anything) that I hated.

So I couldn't give this 5 stars. But all of the ways this hit me emotionally still made it a really wonderful, really solid read. It was one of those novels that made the interesting choice of having one person's POV in first person (Faith) and the other in third person (Sydney) and I sometimes find that distracting, but I was fine with it here. I wasn't all that invested in the political plot, but that was also fine, since it didn't take up too much of the book. Most of the conflict is internal, which was fitting, for these characters. I listened to the audiobook as read by Abby Craden, and as always, it was so lovely. A lot about this just hit home for me. Definitely want to get more into Kallmaker's backlist; not all of them are winners, but they very often are.

Content warnings: cancer, death, religious bigotry, homophobia, parental abuse, alcoholism

n  She kissed me again. I pulled her to the ground, and through the flurry of gold I saw the vivid sky and reached up to pull it down over us. Safe and warm in her arms with her heart pounding against mine.n

The description above is incorrect. Here's a quick synopsis:

Sydney Van Allen is a rising star on the political horizon. Faith Fitzgerald is a dedicated scholar and award-winning author. Thrown together by fate, these strong, independent women find themselves impassioned by a dangerous longing that compels them to surrender- body and soul!

A pure and simple classic.

Listened to the audio on Hoopla. Kallmaker and Abby Craden are a perfect set up for a great listen. Even though this was set back in 1996 it was good story. And being of the similar age as these two characters I can completely relate to the homophobia of Faith’s parents. Times have certainly changed in 28 years for the better.

Well, hot damn. That’s it, I feel like that alone could be my review for this Fallback Book.

First published in 1996, Wild Things seems awfully apropos for 2019 since it takes place in a politically charged time in Chicago. I’m writing this review on the eve of Chicago possibly voting in its first openly Lesbian Mayor.

Sydney Van Allen is on the cusp for running for the Illinois State Senate. Extremely wealthy and smart, she seems a shoo-in for the candidacy except that it’s the late 90’s, she’s a woman, and a Lesbian. But if she can keep squeaky clean, maybe, the powers that be will back her.

Then Sydney’s brother Eric enters the picture with his new girlfriend, Faith, historian, author, professor who secretly struggles with her Catholic religion and her true self. Not to mention some parents from hell.

There are these gorgeous moments of intimacy between Sydney and Faith that are intense and poetic and leave you weak. Then the author calmly moves on with the rest of the story and character building with just as much thoroughness and skill as you could want. There’s much talk of politics and European history so it can be a little sluggish at times if that’s not your thing.

I’m in awe. Count me among the Kallmaker acolytes now.

3.5— left wishing for so much more

t“I didn’t say any more, knowing I would not get what I so badly wanted: forgiveness and acceptance. It wasn’t here. It never had been.”

t“It was not a chance thing. Renee had not been an aberration, I admitted to myself. I was...lesbian. There would be no absolution because I knew there was no cure.”

t“If I was not truly known by myself and my friends, would God know me? Could any God forgive a life that continued to be a lie?”

t“tBecause if it was real, then Renee was right. I wanted to be with women and I was damned.”
+ • + • + • +

Its a very cute, entertaining book but everything seems to happen in like warp speed... Would've loved if the author developed & expounded on the characters & the narrative more. But it was still an enjoyable read.

No esperaba que me gustase tanto como lo hizo.
Los personajes hablan mucho de sus pasiones, de lo que les gusta, de sus miedos y no se centra solo en la relación si no que puedes conocer a los personajes fuera de ella.

Me gusta que se conozcan y poco a poco se enamoren, que no sean perfectas.

Me gustó como trata el tema de la religión y la homosexualidad, la hipocresía dentro de la iglesia.

Aunque puedes empatizar con la protagonista, algunas veces me resultaba demasiado que renegase tanto de quién es diciendo cosas tan desagradables del colectivo.

Es verdad que poco a poco aprende a respetarse y a respetar a los demás deconstruyendose en temas lgbt.


Me ha gustado mucho que se hable de mujeres en la historia (gracias a esta novela he conocido a Leonor de Aquitania), de feminismo y de libertad.

4.5 stars

There were many interesting parts of this story, but ultimately it wasn’t for me. I enjoy religious sapphic fiction, but there were aspects of the story that were a bit off topic that I just didn’t connect with. I also didn’t enjoy Sydney’s desperation and blame of her attraction to Faith every time they were romantic or intimate, it was strange.

2.5 stars

CW: religious trauma, homophobia, repeated slurs, family violence, internalized homophobia

First off- I should've double checked two things: 1) the author... Kallmaker felt familiar but I didn't double check if I had read her before. Had I done so I would've realized that I didn't like her style and saved myself the trouble. And 2) the original publication date... this was first published in print in 1996 (audio version 2020) and it shows. I came out in the mid 90's and have no nostalgic feelings for that time or desire to revisit the past. That said, I'm sure I would have read this and all her other books at the time (largely you took what you could get) and I've honestly read worse but now, I expect more from queer books.

I'm chalking this read up as lessons learned.