Sweet Fire

This reader can't help but enjoy just about anything Saxon Bennett (also search under Bennet on some sites) writes. She's a master at bringing together a host of delightful characters and weaving their tale of six (or less) degrees of separation. This not only ensures at least one character for each reader to identify with, it also ensures a book well worth the purchase price because there is more than one story told. In 'Sweet Fire,' the sequel to 'A Question of Love,' Bennett brings back the enigmatic artist Emerson, the newly-enlightened and liberated Hope, Hope's former unenlightened lover Pamela, Emerson's agent Lauren, and several others from the lesbian-dominated town of Heroy, Arizona. She introduces charming 5-year-old Nicole and Aimee, Pamela's current lover. Although the foundation of the book is the lives of Emerson and Hope, this sequel centers around Aimee, Pamela, and Lauren. And, although Pamela is more of a supporting cast member than a headliner, her failure with women is the central plot element for this story. Well before the end the reader can't help but pity this character, but it's obvious she's her own worst enemy. I'll not give away the best parts of the book. However, I will say it's another great story by the talented Bennett... one you'll not want to miss. Of course the prequel has to be read first -- this one does not stand alone. Highly recommended, Suggested accompaniments... a carafe of chardonnay with cheese and crackers...

This is the sequel to the author's earlier novel `A Question of Love'. The best part was while the novel is set 6 years after the end of AQOL we get to see delightful, and I mean delightfully wonderful, vignettes of the characters lives for the past 6 years. Hope and Emerson have a 5 year old daughter that is the definition of precocious without being nauseatingly cute. She is a joy and a hoot at the same time. What I found most fascinating was a different perspective on fidelity from other romance novels I have read, so I hesitate to call this a romance. I don't want to give any plot points away but it was so interesting that adultery is not only tolerated, it is actually encouraged and celebrated by those surrounding one of the couples. The writing is terrific and the whole novel is laden with humor and passion. I look forward to reading the author's other 8 novels, the most recent is `Back Talk' published in 2006

We've all dreamed of a place where lesbians outnumber everyone else, if only to fuel our private fantasies. Saxon Bennett creates Heroy Arizona for us and plops a manipulative ex-girlfriend that anyone can hate in the midst of a happily nesting couple starting a new life with their daughter. At times Sweet Fire is soap operaish, but I hardly think that's at all a bad thing in a book that is so funny, so sexy and so on target about what happens when a community of lesbians takes over a town. I enjoyed it beginning to end.