Peggy J. Herring

Oh dear, where to begin? If you want to avoid cliche, avoid this book. It is full of it right from the start. It is also extremely predictable with the complete waste of any opportunity for conflict. Conflict existed, but it was never properly explored to its full dramatic effect, very limp.I felt as if this book never got going and the medical issue with the brother was thrown in because the author thought, "gee, I'd best put something in here to try and bring whatever it is I am writing to a head." Resolution was way too swift, again with lack of exploration. Not sure why it was called Beyond All Reason. there did not seem to be enough real conflict or issues between the two main characters to warrant it. In fact I think there is more dramatic effect in the sibling/family dramas in 30 seconds of that German soap Verbotene Liebe than there is in this novel. Perhaps with a better writing style the issues in the book could have had a better chance of coming alive off the page. As it stands, the novel is pale and dead.… (more)

Honestly I don't get it. I read a ton of pure romances, but I've read enough of them to know that this one was quite nonsensical. There was a lot of words (or a middling amount of words, 195 pages of them), but there didn't seem to be any sort of theme or underlying structure that connected them.

There was a bit of a plot, I think, but even that didn't get introduced until halfway through the book and then it seemed to be seen again until the end of the novel.

I was excited when I saw the summary for the book since I think that one of the most interesting themes out there is how the men and women in our military dealt with Don't Ask, Don't Tell. (And, I'm very glad that now I can say dealt in the past, not deal in the present).

Unfortunately, as with some of her other books, this didn't live up to its back cover PR. And again it just seemed like the skeleton of a novel, like maybe if the author bulked it up some, added in more detail and filled in some of the blanks, then it could have been at least a three star book if not a four star. But, it was a two star, and honestly one of them was sorta 'cause it was a lesbian romance fiction book.… (more)

Jackie is an ad manager of some sort. I'm not sure what exactly her job was, since other than some vague hints, not to mention the fact that Jackie met Valerie there, we didn't really learn much about Jackie's job.

Anyway, Jackie and Valerie meet, there are problems, secrets, etc., and then the book resolves and is over. I do have to say that my favorite part of the book was at the end, the 'six years later' part. But, other than that it was an underwhelming book.

I never really got the hang of what differentiated the characters, they could have all spoken any of the lines and it wouldn't have changed the story. Also, to me, none of them read as the age that they were supposed to be. Valerie and DJ seemed older than twenty four and Carla and Jackie younger than their forties.

Finally, the plot was just so out there on so many levels, and as in "Hot Check", it seemed like a good start of a novel, but not at all a totally fleshed out one. Halfway between a short story and a novella.… (more)

Alice is a young woman whose life is all work and no play. Ricky is another younger woman whose work is play. They meet and fall madly in love.

It's not a bad novel, but now that I've read quite a few lesbian fiction romance books, this is not among the top ones. The plot is good and unfolds in a logical manner, the dialogue is nice, and the two main characters are pretty well fleshed out. But on the other hand the story seems very choppy. Sometimes the reader gets a ton of info for no apparent reason, really detailed descriptions of something or something that happens and other times stuff just seems to get skipped over.

As for the other characters, they all seem to be the same, save for Christine, they're there just to propel the main characters' stories forward and their little subplots don't even get wrapped up.

It just seemed like an unfinished book. A good kernel of a plot that could have been expanded on, but wasn't.… (more)