Fresh Tracks

What better way to spend a holiday than surrounded by friends in a place that you love? This is the opening premise of Fresh Tracks by Georgia Beers. What starts out looking like a simple story of friendships however, quickly becomes a study of relationships - how they change, how they affect the ways we view each other and how they can be threatened if they aren't nurtured properly. Amy Forrester and Jo Cooper have been partners for many years. They share an extremely stable and loving relationship that is still nurtured with a healthy sexual desire for each other. No lesbian bed death here. They share many interests and friends and open their cabin in the woods to four of their friends to spend the holidays between Christmas and New Year's with them. The surprise addition of Jo's niece Darby to the mix doesn't seem to be a problem, at first. What Amy and Jo don't know is that their friends are not as happy as they themselves are. Molly and Kristen are in serious trouble, struggling to restore a relationship that is being killed by overwork and misunderstandings. If they aren't careful, they can lose everything they share with just a few harsh words. Darby, who has a reputation for loving and leaving her women, doesn't intend to be the trouble maker in this situation, but finds herself drawn to Molly in a way she's never felt before. If Kristen isn't careful, she's going to find that all of the hours of work she's been spending creating a career to support her dreams for herself and Molly will have built a future for no one. Sophie is trying not to let her broken heart ruin the holiday for everyone else. She's struggling to survive her first holiday alone since discovering that her lover had been cheating on her and left her. She vacillates between bitter anger and despair that she will ever trust anyone again. Unfortunately, Sophie finds herself rooming with a woman who represents her own betrayal. Laura is living on her own for the first time since cheating on her unsuspecting husband with a woman she found out didn't love her after all. She's trying to cope with a new understanding of herself and the guilt she feels over how she treated her husband. What she doesn't need is the condemnation that radiates from Sophie, who just can't help herself. Amy and Jo find that, instead of a pleasant few days enjoying the wilderness with their friends, they have to deal with all of the drama spilling over from this group. They have to strike a balance between supporting their friends and letting them solve their own problems. More than once they're going to wonder if they should have just kept the cabin to themselves. Beers always provides a good story. This one might also make you think.

Funny, sexy and intelligent Terrific holiday reading. What more could a reader want at the holidays than a story of friends gathering in a gorgeous cabin in the woods for a week of fun with snow on the ground and a roaring fire in the fireplace (and elsewhere). Amy and Jo have a loving long-term relationship, it is fun to see their passion and camaraderie (they are best friends who are also lovers). It's not all snowflakes and mistletoe however. Molly and Kristin have been together seven years and are very much in love but both have let outside commitments pull them apart where they are in danger of becoming strangers. Laura is newly divorced after eleven years of marriage and Sophie is still suffering from her girlfriend leaving her six months ago for another woman. Fast paced for a such an intimate story this is truly a page turner. It is impressive the amount of details about the characters the reader learns in such a limited amount of time. Truly terrific writing. I could not get enough of Amy and Jo they are a tremendous couple, my heart went out to Kristin and Molly as they struggled, and watching Laura and Sophie find their path to new lives was riveting. If you liked the author's other stories, including `Turning the Page', you will love this book. From the publisher's website - Seven women, seven days. A lot can happen. There are three things that Amy Forrester loves most in the world: Jo, her wife of fifteen years; spending time with her closest friends; and her cabin in the woods. What better way to spend the week between Christmas and New Year's than having all three! When she invites her three best friends to join her and Jo in their mountain hideaway, all she expects is good food, fine wine, and lively conversation. Unfortunately for Amy, there are three things that she doesn't count on: her best friend's relationship is falling apart; her two other friends share a secret that causes nothing but conflict and discomfort; and the arrival of Jo's fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants niece Darby, who has a habit of leaving broken hearts in her wake. Childhood friends, new lovers, and old rivals share beginnings, endings, and the uncommon bonds of friendship in a story filled with romance and possibility.

Author Georgia Beers makes some fresh tracks herself with this novel, demonstrating real growth in skill and technique. This is a wonderful book, very enjoyable, and a delightful change from the usual construction of a romance novel, in which one woman meets another woman, a growing attraction must overcome or set aside obstacles or differences, etc. Fresh Tracks gives the reader more than just one couple's interest in each other to ponder. It looks at seven women, some already in long-term relationships, some having recently lost their partners, and even one woman who has not yet figured out the value of sustaining a relationship through trouble and good times. For this group, New Year's resolutions take on more importance. This is author Georgia Beers' fourth novel, and it shows growth in both style and technique, as well as offering the reader something new in romance. Friends of Amy and Jo gather in a cabin in the woods for a week's vacation. If you're a fan of lesbian romance novels, then this might recall for you the classic that revived this genre, Curious Wine. Whether it was intended or not, Fresh Tracks pays tribute to 1983's Curious Wine, with this contrast: the women in Curious Wine were straight, except Lane. The women in Fresh Tracks are all lesbians, each and every one. Jo and Amy are the hosts, and have a solid relationship. Molly and Kristin are a couple whose relationship is on the verge of failing. Laura and Sophie are both recovering from broken relationships; Darby is single and young and the spark that almost causes a meltdown of the whole week of togetherness. It may be unfair to draw a comparison between these two novels, but the parallels are there, and it won't hurt either novel. Katherine V. Forrest's groundbreaking novel is considered the standard, a novel that began the whole industry of lesbian romance, remarkable for its bold eroticism and its romantic setting. Fresh Tracks has the romantic setting, and Beers has decided on a style and construction that is very enticing for the reader, each chapter from a different character's point of view, and each section of the novel marked by the next day of the week between Christmas and New Year's. This a lovely book, set in a cabin in the woods, a snowy holiday retreat, each character in turn making amends and resolutions and new starts.

I thoroughly enjoyed Georgia Beers' first three novels, but was blown away by this latest masterpiece. It takes a special author to deliver this quality of work and I'm sure her friends at Bold Strokes have been instrumental in her success. I have always liked books by Saxon Bennett and have always considered that author the best at writing stories with a myriad of characters. That is, until this latest book by Beers hit my bookshelf. Beers brings together seven women - interconnected via their respective relationship to the happily married Jo and Amy - in a remote cabin in the middle of nowhere and in the middle of winter. In some ways, the cold is inside their cabin as well as in the wilderness. Jo and Amy have been married a long time. Jo is fifty-years-old, and the couple maintains a healthy bedroom relationship. They are very happy together and hope to enjoy the holiday with their friends. Molly shows up without her wife of nine years, Kristin. Molly is Amy's very best friend and still has a hard time talking about the troubles she's having with Kristin. In fact, she finds it easy to ignore the problem and to flirt profusely with Darcy, Jo's Casanova of a niece who turns up unexpectedly to spend the week as well. Things get really dicey when Kristin finally shows up and sees the way Molly is acting with Darcy. Laura and Sophie are single and do not know each other. They show up with problems of their own. They are cheater and cheated on, respectively - they simultaneously understand and loathe each other, but are unquestionably drawn together as the tension increases. This soap opera kept me reading all through the first night... then I read it again the second night. The book is fantastic, engaging, melt-in-your-hands hot... The characters are beautiful, well defined, strong women the reader can relate to in more ways than not. Anyone who has been in a bad relationship will understand the angst. This book is most certainly not to be missed and is absolutely guaranteed to become a lesbian classic.