Fated Love

Radclyffe has truly done it with this one. I have only been reading lesbian romance for approimately a year now, however, I have read everything by this author. To date this book is My Favorite. Great Story, Great Characters, Great Romance. I couldn't put it down. I read this in one sitting and have read it two more times since then. This is an excellent story. Again I love the hospital settings and the surgeons. Radcylyffe has a way of TRULY bringing her characters to life. There is no way you can't love Honor and her undying devotion to her late wife. Radclyffe does an excellent job in portraying her reluctance to pursue Quinn, but in the end you want them to be together. I also loved Arly. Excellent, Excellent, Excellent!

"Fated Love" is an engrossing romance and an excellent representation for the genre. Radclyffe brings to life the relationship and romantic love between two noteworthy characters who command respect and admiration. In a compelling medical setting, with prose that often rings poetic, and with a most satisfying conclusion, Radclyffe delivers what romance readers expect and what this reviewer and many readers believe is her best romance yet. What makes a great romance? Simple, two loveable and intriguing characters that not only capture each other's hearts but the reader's heart as well. Radclyffe makes an art out of writing appealing characters that readers find fascinating. Dr. Quinn McGuire is brilliant, tender, easy-going, patient, drop-dead gorgeous, and has a keen sense of humor. It is easy to fall in love with her and wish she were not only real, but cloned too. At twenty-eight, having completed a trauma fellowship, she has a promising surgical career in a leading New York City hospital. One has to wonder why she would leave it all for an emergency room position at Philadelphia Medical Center. The career change is a step down but things look up when Quinn sets her sights on the lovely Dr. Honor Blake. Honor can't deny the attraction to the newcomer of the department but her heart is under lock and key. In addition, she is leery of why a highly skilled surgeon would take a demotion. What is Quinn hiding? Quinn could ask the very same question of Honor as she has hidden secrets too. Quinn is a real charmer when she tells Honor, "With everything that's going on in my life right now, I can't figure out why I should feel so happy, but I do. I think it has something to do with being with you" (p. 152). She is so romantic even without trying. Honor finds it impossible to ignore her feelings for Quinn but she fights it as best she can. Honor is an equally admirable character. She's sensible, smart, responsible, loyal, and has a propensity for honoring the woman whose wedding ring she wears. She captures Quinn's attention from the moment she gazes her way. Radclyffe also imparts words of wisdom the reader can draw upon. Quinn describes how she deals with stress. "I'm not actually calm. I just seem to have this place inside me where things stop moving for a while. I go there, I guess, when everything outside of me is moving too fast" (p.150). It sounds like a very good idea. Medical professionals will appreciate the authenticity Radclyffe weaves into her work and laymen will feel privileged to be privy to the world of medicine. The author takes special care to ensure that readers don't have to be physicians to understand the medical jargon or to feel a part of the action. "Fated Love," a 2005 GCLS award-winner, is a sizzling, sexy, and satisfying romance. Adept characterization make Quinn and Honor easily feel like close friends. I highly recommend this tightly constructed, well-crafted, entertaining, thought provoking romance to everyone who

I am a big fan of Rad and "Fated Love" is one her best romances. Uber is absent, and that was welcome to me. The characters of Quinn and Honor are therefore built from the ground up and seemed fresh and new. They both have secrets but neither is "tortured and dark." What keeps a writer's work in lesbian romance fresh, to me, is one of two things. Either she plays with the basic formula or she does the basic formula *really well.* To me, Radclyffe has done the basic formula *really well* in "Fated Love." So I'm puzzled by reviews that suggest this book "breaks" the romance formula. How so? Two women meet, are undeniably attracted, but separated by a variety of factors. Over time they learn to respect, then to admire and like, and finally to admit to love. Together, they overcome the things that separate them. This journey is where all the fun is. This is the "straight up" romance plot of 80% of the lesbian romance books produced. The difference between novels is the writer's talent (Rad's is undeniable!) in breathing life into the story so that the reader experiences this familiar tale in a brand new way. "Fated Love" follows this precise, tried-and-true journey. It does so consistently, with zest and eroticism, in an exciting, fast-paced setting. As with "Love's Tender Warriors" (same basic outline) Radclyffe knows how to form, stir up and satisfy our expectations. Her erotic scenes are powerful and realistic. If anything, I liked "Fated Love" more than Warriors because the issues that separated Honor and Quinn were the kinds of things I, or any friend of mine, could be dealing with. Family concerns and health, career and outright terror to find yourself falling in love. They are Rad's usual strong-willed and extremely talented women, but both are fragile for different, realistic reasons. They are super women, but not superwomen. There are so many novels out there that follow this formula and do it with tired, mechanical, uninspired, forgettable stories that use the basic formula in the most mediocre way. (There are a few writers who seem to do little more than search-and-replace to change the character and place names before they call it a brand new book!) Only a few can do the beloved, familiar romance formula again and again and each time tell a story that is fresh and entertaining. So perhaps that's why some feel "Fated Love" is not a formula romance -- where Rad has broken the rules is in doing the formula *really well.* This *is* a formula romance for lesbians, and it's one of the really good ones. Good characters, exciting storytelling, excellent craftwomanship, hot sex and a truly believable conclusion. It's about as "straight" up as a lesbian romance can be!

New employee Quinn Maguire shows up at Philadelphia Medical College's ER/Trauma Unit on a quiet Monday morning, but before she's even had a chance to be introduced to the lone woman sitting behind the intake counter, a gunshot victim is wheeled in. Quinn looks around, can't find an attending physician, and immediately takes over the victim's care with the help of a nurse and the woman who first greeted her whom she assumes is a resident. Big mistake. Instead, it's Honor Blake, the chief of emergency services. Fortunately, Honor doesn't hold Quinn's assumptions against her. While both women are secretly impressed with the skills the other displayed in saving the patient's life, they're also wary of the other. So begins an uneasy alliance during which circumstances draw Honor and Quinn together, and they find themselves unaccountably attracted to one another. Honor can't figure out why a surgeon as skilled as Quinn chose to leave a prominent position at a big-time New York hospital to be an attending ER doctor at a university hospital in Philly. And Quinn can't figure out why Honor shies away from her when it's clear there's an undeniable pull between them. Both of them have secrets they refuse to divulge. How can they work together, much less become friends-or more-so long as each is so carefully guarding her own little world?The story of these two women's lives-and the twists and turns that take place to bring them to the same place-is impossible to put down. With ample angst, realistic and exciting medical emergencies, winsome secondary characters, and a sprinkling of humor, FATED LOVE turns out to be a terrific romance. It's one of the best I have read in the last three years. Run-do not walk-right out and get this one. You'll be hooked by yet another of Radclyffe's wonderful stories. Highly recommended. ~Lori L. Lake, author of lesbian fiction and freelance reviewer for Midwest Book Review, Golden Crown Literary Society's The Crown, The Independent Gay Writer, and Just About Write.

There is an old Yiddish proverb that - roughly translated -counsels: "A man plans, and God laughs." Read one way, the aphorism suggests a cruel power governing the universe - a sadistic deity who chortles merrily as we go about our lives making plans that will never come to fruition because of forces beyond our control. Certainly, to the two central characters in FATED LOVE - the latest offering from Radclyffe (lesbian romance's answer to Nora Roberts in both quality and prolificness) - the fates have seemed unkind. Both Quinn Maguire - a precociously gifted trauma surgeon - and Honor Blake - the ER chief who is her new boss - once thought they'd achieved everything they'd ever desired in this life. Quinn was poised on the brink of the career she'd trained for; Honor had built a home with her high-school sweetheart and their daughter. And then, in a heartbeat, all was lost. Two lifetimes of plans were dashed. But in this story of love and loss and pain and healing - and the terror that accompanies these experiences - Radclyffe suggests that perhaps "God laughs" not out of amusement at our despair and shattered dreams. Instead, the fates laugh at our human plans because what the universe has in store is so much more - more intense, more erotic, more wonderful - than anything we might plan on our own. Because the paths of Honor's and Quinn's interrupted lives converge in the Emergency Room where they both work, and Radclyffe's masterful hand guides these two strong, resilient women through the process of moving forward to life, to love, to the future. FATED LOVE is exquisitely written. There is no writer of lesbian romance working today who conveys pure depth of emotion as truly as Radclyffe. Her characters scale the heights of erotic pleasure just as intensely as they plumb the depths of despair and hopelessness. And it should also be noted that FATED LOVE is a celebration of family - of the true bonds that connect us and of the sanctity of love above all else. Ultimately, love must be the power that guides us - because life is fragile and joy is evanescent. So read FATED LOVE, and be reminded of all the wonderful things the universe must have in store.