The Butch and the Beautiful

July 11, 2016
Ripper’s fun contemporary pairs up two opposites who most definitely attract each other. Jaq is a high school teacher who loves her community, sponsors her school’s Gay-Straight Alliance, and wants to fall in love with a sensible low-risk woman. Hannah—whose baggage includes her messy divorce, her high-drama reputation, and her playgirl ways—is definitely not Ms. Right, but she’s got Jaq hooked. The two have amazing chemistry, but Jaq has preconceptions and trust issues, and Hannah is still emotionally tangled up with her ex. This leads to frustration and misunderstandings on both sides, and the two have to learn to communicate if they’re going to fit into each other’s lives. Ripper neatly incorporates plenty of queer friends for both women to round out the present-day setting of fictional La Vista, Calif., and perhaps provide some fodder for sequels. This is a sweet and spicy romance with a wonderful community component.

July 1, 2016
Jaq and Hannah are related through a tenuous constellation of exes. When they meet as members of a wedding party, the connection is quick and strong.Jaq is happy in her routine. She teaches during the day, works out with her best friend, occasionally hits up ye olde queer bar on the weekends. Hannah is in the process of selling a house with the woman she's divorcing and moving to La Vista for work. This is the most recent book in the Queers of La Vista series in which each title is a play on that of a soap opera and set in the fictional town of La Vista, California. It's unsurprising, then, that much of Jaq and Hannah's drama is manufactured. Jaq is afraid of being hurt, doesn't want to disrupt her routine, and is very aware of Hannah's rumored instability, but she keeps getting pulled back in by the superhot sex and way she enjoys her company. Hannah is dealing with a bunch of changes, is unsure of what to make of Jaq, but knows that she's a fun distraction. If the plot sounds vaguely familiar, that's because it's the same basic formula that writers have been substituting for actual plot since the beginning of time. There's the hint of a story involving a couple of Jaq's students, but unfortunately, the author resolves it too quickly to be very interesting. Choppy dialogue, undeveloped characters, and cliches dressed up as plot make this novel kind of a snooze.

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August 1, 2016
Dedicated high-school teacher Jaq is standing up for her ex, Liz, in her DIY wedding to Marla, and attorney Hannah is a stunning maid of honor. She's also in the middle of a nasty divorce, and she's also one of Liz's exes. Hannah propositions Jaq by saying, You know this means we have to have sex, right? She provides other happy surprises; she leads when they dance, and when they're in Hannah's room, she makes no assumptions about butch Jaq's preferences in bed, a welcome change. Hot and graphic one-time sex, an accidental meeting at Sunday Mass, coffee together, Hannah's declaration that divorce is a drawn-out death knell for a life you once thought you'd live all leavecommitment-shy Jaq conflicted. She wants this self-proclaimed crazy woman but is leery of the reality of a steady lady in her life. Add a second date with smoking-hot sex, and Jaq thinks, I'm in so much trouble. The second in Ripper's Queers of La Vista series, after Gays of Our Lives (2016), is a believable, entertaining, and simmering read.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)