Hard
to say what’s more fun: discovering a fantastic new (to me) writer, or telling
everyone who’ll listen about this fantastic writer they simply must read.
Author Emily L. Byrne puts me in this happy conundrum with Desire, her recent
collection of eleven finely-wrought f/f erotic romance tales.
Byrne
offers readers a dizzying diversity of setting, vibrantly evocative, sharply-focused,
and practically always unforgettable. From the tourist-choked thoroughfares of Viva
Las Vegas (with its hot-to-trot Elvis drag kings) to the revolutionary
Nicaragua of A Night in Estelí, the churches and art galleries of
Florence in A Room with a View, and the wintry cityscape of Minneapolis in
the hauntingly surreal Cherrybridge and Spoon. Nearly as dazzling and varied
as her settings, Byrne seems to traverse disparate genres with the breezy
nonchalance of a master, whether it be sci-fi (Diplomacy), sword and
sorcery (Heart’s Thief), espionage (The Old Spies Club), realist mainstream
(Summer Stock), or contemporary romance with a bit of magic thrown in
for good measure (The Goddess Within).
But
it’s her characters who truly make these stories stand out, from the lonely
police detective in The Further Adventures of Miss Scarlet, to the
environmental activist falling madly in love with the female park ranger in the
delightful Treehugger; the once-burned (literally) in-love starship
commander in Diplomacy, the empathic burglar in Heart’s Thief, the
bewildered goddess-for-a day of The Goddess Within, or the young
American activist stealing a dangerous moment of passion with an itinerant
journalist in A Night in Estelí.
Emily
L. Byrne is a fantastic writer—one you simply must read! Desire
is enthusiastically recommended.
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