For Good
An Out in Portland Novel
An Out in Portland Novel
by Karelia Stetz-Waters
Releasing
July 5th 2016
Forever Yours
Forever Yours
From
The Book Junkie Reads . . . For Good: An Out in Portland Novel . . .
Marydale Rae has a strong sense of self. She knows who she is, what she wants, how to get it, and most importantly don't care what others think of her. She lives by her own rules and make her life suit her. She has a past that she was constantly reminded of. No matter that facts that are presented she will continue to pay for the past as longs as she lives in Tristee County Oregon.
Small town life has a way of keeping you down, especially when it is mostly owned and ran by a power family. Being an outsider coming in making waves and causing attention to be brought your way is not the way to stick around for long. This sleepy small town feel was just a pretense under it all was an ugliness, content, illusions that was making for a read that started to drag. The bright spot was Marydale and Kristen.
There were good characters in both Marydale and Kristen. I could feel the struggle that was going on within them both to make something from the ton of crap coming their way. I was looking for more of a relief to be interspersed here and there. These woman showed that there can be some good that comes even if it wasn't until the very end.
The was an emotional read that will take you through the wringer. The writing was good. The concept was there. The reality maybe was just more than I could handle when I went into the read looking for something different. Emotions will be stirred and passions ignited, but maybe for different reasons than you think.
Small town life has a way of keeping you down, especially when it is mostly owned and ran by a power family. Being an outsider coming in making waves and causing attention to be brought your way is not the way to stick around for long. This sleepy small town feel was just a pretense under it all was an ugliness, content, illusions that was making for a read that started to drag. The bright spot was Marydale and Kristen.
There were good characters in both Marydale and Kristen. I could feel the struggle that was going on within them both to make something from the ton of crap coming their way. I was looking for more of a relief to be interspersed here and there. These woman showed that there can be some good that comes even if it wasn't until the very end.
The was an emotional read that will take you through the wringer. The writing was good. The concept was there. The reality maybe was just more than I could handle when I went into the read looking for something different. Emotions will be stirred and passions ignited, but maybe for different reasons than you think.
**This ARC was provided via NetGalley
in exchange for an honest review.**
Blurb
For Kristen Brock, Tristess County, Oregon, is just a stepping stone. She doesn't fit in to the small town community, but that doesn't bother her; she's not here to make friends. A few years as district attorney will look good on her resume, and then she'll be able to get any job she wants in a big city law firm. But then she meets Marydale Rae, who inspires feelings Kristen never imagined . . .
For Kristen Brock, Tristess County, Oregon, is just a stepping stone. She doesn't fit in to the small town community, but that doesn't bother her; she's not here to make friends. A few years as district attorney will look good on her resume, and then she'll be able to get any job she wants in a big city law firm. But then she meets Marydale Rae, who inspires feelings Kristen never imagined . . .
Marydale
didn't intend to hide her past from Kristen, but the prospect of a friend who
doesn't know she spent time in prison is too tempting to pass up. Add in the
kiss they shared, and Marydale never wants Kristen to know the truth. But in a
town like Tristess, secrets are impossible to keep. Being together puts both
Kristen's job and Marydale's parole in jeopardy. But is a chance at forever
worth the risk?
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Kristen heard a man at the front of the crowd
say, “Now I’m going to let my colleague tell you about what you’re going to
taste.” A few people clapped.
A melodic woman’s voice chimed in. “Thank
you. We both come from a farming-ranching background, so we understand the
importance of raw ingredients. We have our own twelve-acre farm north of St.
John’s.”
The room was hot.
Sierra said, “It’s really crowded. Do you
want to try the next one?”
“We put our heart and soul into this production.”
The woman’s voice floated over the crowd.
Kristen couldn’t see her, but the cadence was
familiar. It was the same slight twang that had infused Marydale’s voice when
she told stories about Tristess.
The man interrupted. “My friend here actually
waters the ground with her tears.”
The crowd chuckled.
“No, I’m serious,” the man said. “The first
night after planting she goes out to the fields—”
“And you’re going to taste all of that,” the
woman cut in, “when I pour the first round.”
Kristen edged forward, listening.
“What is it?” Sierra asked.
The couple in front of Kristen stepped to the
side, and Kristen stepped into the space they had vacated. Behind a folding
table covered in a black cloth, a banner read Sadfire Distillers.
On either side of the table, a bronze contraption, like some steampunk creation
from the Alberta Arts Walk, released a blaze of flame. But Kristen wasn’t
admiring the craftsmanship or thinking about the liability of open flames in a
low-ceilinged room almost certainly over the 148-person capacity listed by the
door. She wasn’t thinking about anything now, because she wasn’t breathing,
because it was
Marydale behind the table, like a vision in a dream. Her blond hair was pulled
up in an aggressive bouffant ponytail, and her arms were tattooed in a swirl of
oxblood and black, the bodies of women intertwining in the ink. She looked
older and tougher and gorgeous.
“So what are we going to taste, Mary?” It was
Aldean beside her.
Marydale took a skewer from the table,
wrapped a piece of cotton around the end and dipped it into a snifter.
“We’re going to start with the Consummation
Rye,” Marydale said. She flicked the end of the skewer through the flame at her
side, tilted her head back, opened her mouth, and, accompanied by the “ooh” of
the crowd, she lowered the torch into her mouth. The flame disappeared. She set
the skewer down and lifted the snifter to her lips and, in flagrant violation
of Oregon Liquor Control Commission server regulations, took a long sip.
“Well played,” her friend said. “What do you
taste, Mary?”
Marydale turned to Aldean. “You’re going to
find this surprisingly smooth for such a young whiskey, although it does still
have a bite, and I think that’s part of its charm. It’s going to mellow, but
you’re going to miss its youth.”
Kristen felt the stiff, gray fabric of her
suit holding her in place. Marydale was there, only feet away, real, breathing,
her hair glistening. Kristen had practiced this moment in her imagination a
thousand times, this exact moment when their eyes met and Marydale recognized
her.
For just a second, Marydale seemed to lose
her train of thought. Then she resumed. “Large commercial distilleries produce
consistent quality, but they sacrifice character.”
Kristen had dreamed about this reunion. She had
seen Marydale in the crowds around Pioneer Square and in the quick flash of a
TriMet window, her face forever disappearing into another person’s image. A
rational voice in the back of her mind told Kristen she was overreacting. The
strange longing that filled her when she thought of Marydale was just the first
pangs of middle age creeping into her thirties. It was the kind of nostalgia
Sierra and Donna would never feel because Sierra lived in a semi-platonic,
semi-polyamorous partnership with Frog and Moss, and Donna dated a never-ending
roster of assholes.
Marydale held the glass up to the flame.
Someone lowered the lights, making dark shadows of Marydale’s eyes.
“First,” she said, “you’ll smell the earth.
Now, don’t let those wine connoisseurs get away with telling you it smells earthy,
like that’s a thing. Earth is specific. Farmers know that. This is our parcel.”
She smelled the whiskey. “If you’re very careful—and please don’t drink to
excess because you’ll miss everything—you can smell the roots of our heritage
oak. Yes. Aldean is right. They’re there, too.” She put the glass to her lips
and took another sip. “It’s frost on a really clear day in December when you’re
lonely despite all the Christmas going on around you. You can also taste
summer’s wildfires. This batch was aged in barrels made out of ten percent
reclaimed wood from the Firesteed burn. And if you haven’t seen one of those
fires up close, you haven’t looked into the eye of God.”
The crowd hushed.
“Now, here I’ve got a little bit of water,”
Marydale went on. “It’s from Multnomah Falls, and, friends, even if you don’t
take your whiskey with water, you need to at least taste it
with water. Water opens the whiskey up.” She poured a little bit of water from
a silver pitcher and smelled it again. “There it is.” She paused and looked
directly at Kristen. “Your old lover’s perfume woken from the leather seat of
your pickup the day you take it to the scrap yard. The body. Lovemaking. Loan.
Madrone bark in sunlight. The pencil you once used to write love letters.” Her
voice grew louder. She raised the glass to the crowd. “A woman’s hair slick
with sweat. That first taste, so strange and so familiar.” She took a sip of
the whiskey, set it down, and beamed at the crowd. Her teeth were perfect.
The crowd applauded.
“That, friends, is how you taste a whiskey,”
Aldean said.
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Author Info
My wife recently dubbed my writing “so-ro,” short
for romance with a social conscience. I guess that’s what I do. Whether I’m
exploring the problems of gentrification or the evils of human trafficking,
every book I write has a lesbian romance at its heart and a social issue in
mind. They’re the kind of books that read like fun, lazy-Saturday page-turners
and yet leave your unexpectedly enlightened. That’s two for the price of one
and way more fun that keeping up with the news.
When I’m
not writing, I’m being inspired by my amazing community college students and
hanging out with my lovely wife and my charming spuglette (that’s a technical
term for spaniel-pug mix). I’m a fan of snakes, corn mazes, popular science
books on neurology, and any roadside attraction that purports to have the
world’s largest ball of twine.
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