Midtown by Alix B. Golden

Publisher/Date:  I Bleed Ink Publishing, June 2012
Genre:  Romance
Website:  http://www.alixbgolden.com

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

MIDTOWN, ATLANTA — Four friends sharing a house in the gay-friendly, upwardly mobile area of downtown Atlanta contend with love and life and drama in this entertaining book by popular blogger Alix B. Golden.

You should know Golden from A Brown Girl Gone Gay (and if you haven’t, you should). There, she writes about her Southern lesbian lifestyle with humor and flair, and her first novel is no different.

Midtown follows four lesbians under one roof, so you know that means — drama.

But not in a scandalous way (well, a little scandal). Ed, Ash, Ki and Brie became best friends while attending Florida A&M University, better known as FAMU, who got into plenty of mischief at the school.

Now as cohabitating adults, the four are living, working, and sleeping together (literally and figuratively). That’s where the drama comes in.

Ed can’t stop her woman, Taylor, from being unfaithful, despite giving her a manager’s position in her bookstore.  Ki and Brie can’t seem to settle down and find the right women, but decide to gain a cuddle buddy in each other. Rounding out the crew is Ash, the straight friend, back into town and ready to declare her newfound sexuality, and hopes they accept her.

Between these women is an unbreakable friendship, but their romantic connections are definitely complicated.

Golden’s Midtown is a crazy ride in a fast car — in a good way. The characters are appealing, and feel like women you might have known during your undergrad years — and you’d still hang out with them now.

Reviewed July 2012

Nightshade by Fiona Zedde

Publisher/Date:  CreateSpace, Mar. 2012
Genre(s):  Romance, Suspense
Pages: 144
Website:  http://www.fionazedde.com

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

The life of contract killer can be solitary. Just ask Brownwynne St. Just in Fiona Zedde’s NIGHTSHADE.

After losing their parents at 12 and 15, Wynne and sister Celeste harden into career women: an assassin and a pimp. Wynne admires her older sister as a role model of sorts, but even she can’t help her when love has stolen Wynne’s heart.

From the beginning of this novella, one would never think Wynne was capable of love. Pleasure, followed by the thrill of death, is her modus operandi, and there have been women whom she could have fallen for – if she wasn’t hired to kill them.

Time for love is something Wynne doesn’t see as important. Though she’d never admit it, she’s lonely, but her job fulfills her, something I don’t think she could quit even if she tried. She’s so good that her inbox is flooded with requests. It usually doesn’t catch up with her, until the past of one of her previous hits resurfaces in the form of a woman Wynne could easily off – or get off on.

Will Wynne kill love before it begins?

We’re used to the dazzling and tantalizing love stories Zedde provides, as well as the exotic lush locales and electrifying erotic adventures – Bliss, Every Dark Desire, and Taste of Sin are just a few – but Nightshade is a little bit different. More dangerous. More sinister.

Reviewed July 2012