Wild Things

Coming out is hard. Some find it more difficult than others. No matter what the circumstances, you never know how your family and friends are going to react. Faith Fitzgerald has more than her family to face, she also has to reconcile her sexuality with God and the Catholic church. On top of it all, the person who has most recently stirred her passion is Sydney Van Allen, her boyfriend's sister. Sydney is considering running for Senate and is hoping for backing by the right supporters. As such, she has cleaned up her life as a recovering alcoholic and is a celibate lesbian. To make matters worse, she adores her brother, but falls quick and hard for Faith. The women fight their feelings with everything they have, but cannot deny their love for one another. They disrupt many lives and dispell many aspects of faith, knowing God wants us to love one another. This is by far one of Kallmaker's best books. As always, she does a masterful job giving the characters depth and dimension. The story is complete, and there aren't too many distractions from other characters or sub plots. This one is destined to be a classic and will be on my shelf for many years to come. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

There is a lovely luminous quality to so much of this book. One of my favorite scenes is where Faith and Sydney are walking in a field. When I read it I thought of Sting's Fields of Gold. Later I learned that the author had been deliberately trying to invoke the feeling of that song without actually referring to it -- did she ever succeed!The passion, too, is astonishingly erotic, explosively conveyed and exquisitely detailed. Give me that over the two or three sentences I'm reading in a lot of uber books these days. Most of all, I love that both these women are smart, and it shows in all they do. They're moral and compassionate and the kind of women I really hope do exist. Sydney or someone just like her *does* need to be in government!

Karin Kallmaker is a newly discovered author to me. Wild Things was the first of her books that I have read and it drew me into wanting to read everything she has written. The story line is interesting and the anticipated love scenes were excellent. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in lesbian novels.

Everything that Karin Kallmaker writes is good. She just gets better each time she writes a book. This story is interesting in that it presents some interesting conflicts. What if you think you're about to marry the right man and then find yourself falling for his sister? What if the sister has a bright political career that could be destroyed by the voters knowing she is a lesbian? And, just to add another complication, how do you keep from falling in love with your brother's fiance? The answers to these questions make for a very interesting story.

Yet again, Karin Kallmaker surprised me. Half of the book is written in first person, giving us the narrative of Faith Fitzgerald's unwilling attraction to her boyfriend's sister. Faith's story is alternated with Sydney Van Allen's. Sydney is running for political office and has a promiscuous past to live down. She's not looking for a relationship, and certainly not with her brother's almost fiancee. These two women are mature and focused, and very strong. But when confronted by feelings they can't ignore they must find yet more courage to turn away from the safe and expected paths of their lives toward each other. Faith thinks of Sydney as the Wild Thing, the temptation she can't resist, but Faith is definitely Sydney's Wild Thing as well. The love scenes are intense and tender, the story truly touching. It's a must read for anyone who is tired of the Bible being used to condemn their lives because it is uplifting, too.