Best Lesbian Love Stories 2005

This has to be my favorite lesbian anthology of the year, and each year it doesn't disappoint. Once again, Angela Brown has assembled a collection of fine authors, writing some of the best lesbian fiction around. Stories are varied. The opener is a cheeky tale about an author trying to seduce her editor through the story line of her novel. Another one that made me chuckle aloud was a gloriously wicked story about two (...)driving to a Star Trek convention. But the majority of stories are reflective rather than uproarious, poignant and emotive tales, for the most part finely-crafted and incredibly readable. My personal favorites were "The Accident" by Mary Vermillion, a subtle little gem full of parallels and allusions, "Parting Agents" by Carol Guess with its poetic language, and "Dublin Buy & Sell" by Maggie Kinsella, a tale of unfolding love with a straight woman. Contributions by well-known lesbian authors Judith Nichols, Rakelle Valencia, and Karin Kallmaker certainly don't disappoint either. In all, out of 23 stories, there were only two that I failed to find engrossing--a pretty impressive percentage for any anthology

Best Lesbian Love Stories 2005 is a collection of well-written prose by a variety of national and international authors, including one from Ireland who has a wonderful sense of humor. These stories evoke well-drawn, believable characters that exhibit a compelling range of emotional depth. Yes, the majority of them are lesbians but they are also daughters, caretakers, mothers, sisters, and above all human beings who struggle, along with everyone else, to do the best they can and have a good life. The last story of the collection, Attempts At Rescue, combines three love stories - one involves an elderly man and woman, the second this elderly woman and her granddaughter and the third embraces the budding awareness of the granddaughter's sexuality as well as her first love relationship with another woman. I thoroughly enjoyed the author's eloquent contextualization of the three "types" of love that work together to suggest a few of the commonalities relevant to the human experience.