Katherine V. ForrestCritiques

not really a police procedural, though Kate Delafield is a lesbian homicide cop for the LAPD in the 1990s here, investigating the brutal murder of a gay man, but the way this one's structured it becomes as much about the trial that follows. i'd never read any of this series, and though i was sympathetic to the premise of the story, i was too often questioning the setup, which seemed to me rather pat and without nuance. worse, the author's writing was very stiff and stilted, to the point of being uncomfortable to read. i like Kate's point of view and her conviction and doggedness, so i rooted for her, but it was not enough to make me want to read more of this series.

While I enjoyed the book, i found it very dated. If I would have read it when I came out, just a few years after the book, I probably would have loved it.

Someday I need to start keeping track of where I find out about the books I put on my reading list, because this is definitely not the typical book for me to read. Which is a good thing, so thank you random person who recommended it to me.

Curious Wine is the story of a women's retreat at a cabin at a Lake Tahoe ski resort, and through encounter games and various intimate conversations share a lot about themselves. Two of the women, Diane and Lane, form a bond that leads to a sexual relationship. The problem is that up to that point they had considered themselves straight and have a lot of things to navigate in order to continue the relationship.

This was one of the first mainstream romance novels about a lesbian relationship by a lesbian author. The novel goes to great lengths to add "respectability" to the relationship by having two white, professional women who've previously had relationships with men as the protagonists who then put a lot of effort into making sure no one can consider their love "just a phase." This was certainly necessary in the early 1980s but feels awkward now. Nevertheless it is a sweet and honest story with well-developed characters.

Retired LAPD detective Kate Delafield’s life is in danger from a woman she helped convict of murdering her daughter and her daughter’s best friend twenty years earlier. The woman, Ellie Schuster, was released after spending nineteen years in prison when her innocence was proven with the help of a DNA test. A few months later Schuster began sending death threats to Kate. When a letter from Schuster arrives in the mailbox in front of her desert home in the Yucca Valley of California without a postmark, Kate knows she’s a dead woman walking, and Schuster is nearby. While her house is fortified like a bunker, Kate knows if someone wants her dead, the attack could happen anywhere at any time.

Katherine Forest has written a tension-filled novel about an iconic LesFic character. As Forest ratchets up the tension throughout the book and Delafield begins looking harder at her life, the book becomes increasingly harder to read while at the same time being harder to put down.

The ending is unexpected and more satisfying because of it. People who either haven’t met Kate Delafield before or maybe haven’t read the last few books in this series won’t be left out in the cold because Forest deftly reminds her readers of the major cases Delafield had handled over her thirty years as a member of the LAPD.

The only question that Forest didn’t answer by the end of the book was whether she will allow Delafield to go quietly into an unfettered retirement or whether she’ll be back in another book so we can see what she does in her retirement and whether she’ll find someone to love.

If you love police procedurals or thrillers or suspense or mysteries or books about familiar characters, then this book is for you. If you love well-written character-driven books, put this book at the top of your to-be-read list.

My thanks to Bella Books and NetGalley for an eARC.

This elegiac, emotional, powerful collection offers deeply personal stories that take place in the streets and on the sidewalks, in the bars, baths, and buses, behind the facades of those much-photographed Victorian houses. Like the queer communities, and through time.

I am glad Ms. Forrest came back with a new novel and am intrigued to see if this is a new beginning or a new end. I hope a new beginning for the Character Kate and longer books from Ms. Forrest.

I never thought that there'd be another Kate Delafield novel, and so I was stoked when I saw there would be a ninth book in the series. And for the most part I really liked this addition to Kate's story.

I do have to say that it took a bit for me to get back into the series. It's been awhile since I read the previous stories, and so some of the characters weren't right at the tip of my brain.

As we get into the story Kate is five months retired, off again with Aimee, and some of her... liquid habits are not good for her. Maggie, her best friend, is dying and in Hospice, and Joe, her former partner is missing.

Carolina Walcott, a Captain in the LAPD and Kate's former boss asks Kate to look into Joe's disappearance. She also gives Kate the card of Calla, the therapist that Kate had seen as a police officer, and who is no longer on the LAPD payroll.

There was a lot going on, including all of the above as well as some interesting stuff with Kate's nephew Dylan too. I do sort of wish that the story had had more about Dylan and his family in it, but what was there was pretty cool.

It was mostly a mystery. I honestly wasn't sure whether or not Kate would find Joe and if she did if he'd be alive. but, near the end there was a bit of a suspense thriller too and that was cool.

I'd also love to see another book in the series, but if there's not another one I thought this one ended in a good place too.

Synopsis: Carolyn was the perfect wife. She took care of the house, cooked meals, and attended to her husband's business needs as well as his personal needs. Their first real conflict came when Carolyn chose to keep a job that prevented her from preparing his breakfast. Leaving for work early meant that she returned early. One day she realized that someone was using the swimming pool. Val, the next door neighbor and artist, loved to swim. Carolyn and Val became fast friends, but the husband was jealous and did all he could to keep them apart. It wasn't until his meddling threw them together that they both realized that they preferred the company of women to that of men.
Review: This was a well written story that explored the depths of relationships among men and women. It also looks at the violence that can result from 'a man scorned'.½

Featuring the stories of faculty Stephen Beachy and K. M. Soehnlein

Pretty cheesy but it was the first lesbian fiction I read, so it holds a special place in my heart.

well, i was a little worried about her writing, but found it to be ok. here and there it was a little overly dramatic but compared to everything else that my lesbian book group has been reading from this time period, she has more talent. (i should say - everything else that is put out specifically for lesbian audiences by a lesbian press.) so i was glad to see that.

but the story was just so implausible all around that i had trouble suspending belief. forrest is a mystery writer so i think she has more imagination than this. reading about these two women was the main point, so the rest of the stuff around it that was extraneous anyway could have been more believable. (which would have made their situation more believable, too, i think.)

that said, i really, really like the character of lane (and kind of wish this was told from her perspective instead of diana's) and enjoyed reading this. it was over the top sweetness, sure, but i actually enjoyed that exploration and found it...well...sweet.

i have quibbles. the women who aren't diana and lane aren't too well drawn, so i found them hard to keep track of (except for liz because she was so strangely hostile and aggressive). that vivian calls herself vivian could hardly have been more annoying. again, the likeliness of some of their conversation and actions was so low as to be distracting when it happened. oh, and i hate the insinuation that lane makes that diana can't be bi, and that she needs diana to fully come out to herself as a lesbian before they can be together. (it was just one sentence and maybe not even what katherine v forrest was saying, but it's how i took it.)

this book filled a huge hole in 1983 and that hole doesn't really exist anymore. the society she writes about mostly doesn't either, and so i think that much of this book isn't relatable anymore, which is fantastic, but this book still has its place, and i still enjoyed reading about these two women and their passion for each other.½

This is just a note, not a review: One of the things I keep coming across in the Delafield series, at least in the later books, is the idea that Kate knows that she needs to work on her relationship with Aimee, keeps hinting at this knowledge in the book and then . . . . oh look, books over, let's now repeat this in the next book while at the same time undoing what little had been promised in previous books.

If I remembered how to make spoiler tags, ah, it's in formatting tips. Note: not sure if this will work.
One of the books ends with Kate agreeing to go to couples counseling and thinking about how she will need to contact, wants to contact, that therapist who she meet when she got shot.

The book after this promise occurs indicates that Kate has not spoken with this therapist since her last session years ago related to the being shot incident.

And her relationship with Aimee is in even worse shape.

It's an interesting series in one specific way. The first book came out in 1984. And a few came out that decade, the '90s, one in the '00s, and then this one in the '10s. 29 years. Some series allow their characters to age and the like. Most, though, tend to stick to a certain range. Like, if a series started with a character at a specific age, somewhere along the line, they just become "an adult" without spending too much time indicating that the character started at roughly 29, and is now 58. Just keeping it at "youngish, middle-agish, still alive" type.

I mention all that because Kate does age. The book is filled with remembrances of her past. The various cases, various locations of her life. Buildings that meant a lot to her which are completely gone now. The book is deeply tied to past and its impact on the present.½

Every book up until this one involved an investigation into murder. This time it's Law and Order. Opens with murder. Shortly thereafter the police arrest a man for the crime and he confesses. Rest of book is the murder trial.

One of the big points that pop up in both the defense of the defendant and among police officers who are supposed to be investigating the case is the "Homosexual Defense". Two-fold: 1) guy deserved to die because he was gay; 2) defendant deserves to get off due to how a "normal common sense person" would freak out if a homosexual person attempted . . . well, breathing near them.

Oh, and less seen, but this "homosexual element" also impacts the prosecution. None of the male attorneys want the case, so it gets "dumped" onto a female attorney who has never done a murder trial before.

Kate's police partner basically shuts down and wants nothing to do with the case when it turns out that the murder victim is a gay man, and the murderer, during the confession, notes that he freaked out and that's why he killed. Ed wants the guy to get involuntary manslaughter, if that, because gay people are icky. Also, the police officers interviewing neighbors, witnesses, etc., are quite brief as they don't wish to be involved with the case. So Kate has to handle the police side by herself. Mostly.

I wasn't sure how the murder trial would go. How it would be written. I had not read one written by Forrest before. First two witnesses were basically described as "they got up, they gave their testimony, they got off the stand." So, it wasn't looking that thrilling, but then things picked up. In the end, the trial parts were probably among the best scenes I've read.

Most books I rate five stars I know right away that it's possible. Oh, something might happen that lowers it, sometimes all the way to 1 star, or even no stars, but I tend to know. This one? Sneaked up on me. I figured for the longest time, while I was reading it, that it would likely end up being somewhere between a three and four star work. There wasn't really anything to put it there, just nothing that leapt out at me grabbed me by the neck and screamed "this will be a five star book". At least not till the last part of the book. Where it kind of hit me how deep the book was. How . . . bah.

Mostly I was noticing things, before this revelation, like how this head homicide detective only seemed to get involved with women when they are part of her investigation. There's a back story there that may or may not be spoiler-y. Happened in the first book. Happened in this one. And they are the kind where people in need hook up, and not people in love. That's one of the things I noticed. It is not something I'd add or subtract stars for.

The racial, homophobic annoyances that popped up in the first book were toned down. A lot of the things like that were toned down. Still there but milder. Which is odd, in a way, when you consider the plot of the book. heh.

Right. I'm not great with reviews so I'll just leave it as normal. Just some notes randomly strewn about in a small "what do you thing" box.

“Nothing interesting can possibly happen in a cabin full of women.” So ends the first chapter of Curious Wine, Katherine Forrest’s classic novel of the early 80’s in which 6 women bring their personal issues to a beautiful Tahoe cabin for a weeks skiing in an era when encounter groups were in, padded shoulders were the norm and lesbian romance was definitely still in the closet.

Diane is depressed about breaking up with her boyfriend. As she meets the group she instantly bonds with the gorgeous but cool Lane, high powered lawyer with a trail of downtrodden men. The remaining four women are led by Liz, the angry and bullish “first wife”, Chris her uptight and narrow-minded spinster sister, Millie the aging hippy and Madge who’s too scared of the truth to find out if she is being betrayed. Add into the mix a large quantity of alcohol and some grass; a meltdown is bound to happen.

Needless to say the encounter games don’t go to well, feelings of pain and anger get out of hand and rather than bonding the group ends up hurting each other with truths they don’t want to know. Out of which the sensitive Diane reaches out to Lane for comfort. One thing leads to another and suddenly they are on the verge of a sexual encounter.

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Let me start by saying I LOVE THIS BOOK. Yes its short and obvious and so unrealistic.. but i love the characters, the story is so sweet, and i can fogive the dated games, clothes and behaviour because of what it represents.

Curious Wine was Katherine V. Forrest’s first novel, published in 1983 and is without a doubt a classic. It is one of the groundbreaking novels of its generation, it moved away from the pulp fiction into romance, was solidly about women and was written by a lesbian for lesbians.

Today many reviews criticize it for the soppy and cheesy sex, the paucity of terminology and the unlikelihood of two ‘straight’ women having sex, falling in love and deciding to live happily ever after in 3 days. People – normally women who probably were barely born in 1983 – complain about the ridiculous encounter games, the dated fashions and the shallow plot and characterisation.

But to do so is to take the book out of context. This is a first novel written in a virtual vacuum of lesbian romance. In 1983 women did try to bond in stupid games, they were this nasty to each other – they thought they were ‘helping’ when in retrospect they were destroying each other. At that time there was virtually no current lesbian fiction – the pulp fiction of the 50’s and 60’s was homophobic and frequently written for a sleezy male audience. And the sexual norm of the day was either Deep Throat style porn or uptight bosom heaving Mills and Boon.

If you want to read an novel full of deep characters agonizing over coming out, or compare this to modern sexplicit girl on girl action you will be disappointed. But it is a great novel. It is well worth the read – at 160 pages it wont even take too long. And it deserves the title classic for its groundbreaking exploration of a woman’s reaction to her first lesbian encounter.

I'm sad that this novel was the last Forrest wrote in the Delafield series because I think it's the best of all of them.

For most of the rest of the series Kate has taken small steps during each book, but in t his one she leaps forward. And because of the way the previous books were written it doesn't seem like the leap is out of character for Kate.

Also, for the first time (at least that's how it seems) there isn't some strikingly beautiful woman that Kate finds 'odd' and yet can't 'do' anything about it. Finally the character seems as though maybe she's not looking for the next thing, but has figured out her life a little.

The murder is that of an older woman, but for once the murder is not the entire point of the novel. Instead Forrest switches between the court case and some parts of the police investigation (nicely skipping over the boring parts of the investigation).

It's a great book with a great balance of case story line and Kate's personal story line. Five stars for sure. Still, I wish there were more books in this series.

I'm not a humongous fan of short story collections, but this one is a cool bunch of stories.

Some of them were a bit weird plot wise, like "The Gift, "Mandy Larkin", "Survivor" and "Force Majeur". They were all well crafted and a fun read too, just definitely out there a bit. More like her Coral Dawn series than her Kate Delafield one.

Speaking of "Daughters of the Coral Dawn", it was interesting that "Mother was an Alien" is the first chapter of "Daughters of the Coral Dawn." I've read the book, so, I skipped that story.

I loved "Benny's Place", and although I didn't get the title at first, I liked "Xessex" very much.

My second favorite story was, "O Captain, my Captain", a story of two women on a space mission to get something from an asteroid field I think (I wasn't concentrating on the technical aspects of the story). The twist was awesome and I didn't see it coming.

And then, "The Test". It was hilarious and depressing and gratifying and just an awesome short story. It was my favorite form the entire collection and I'd love to see more background etc on that world. Very cool. Overall definitely a five star collection.

I'm not sure exactly what I think about this novel, even after reading it. The basic story isn't all that new or different. Carolyn Blake is a married housewife (mostly) type. She meets Val Hunter, who's renting the house next door. Val is an artist and has a son named Neal. They become friends and as Carolyn's marriage slowly falls apart they start the 'how do I really like/love you' dance.

An interesting part of the book was that, yeah, on the surface it's about both women coming to grips with their sexuality. But it also touches on the themes of conformity and control.

Forrest writes the the male protagonist , Paul Blake, amazingly. He seemed to me to be the best written character of the novel and more than once I wanted to strangle the guy.

I also liked how Forrest paralleled the Reagan/Mondale election a bit. It wasn't a big part of the story, but it anchored the story in time.

The only big problem I had with the book was that the end seemed rushed. There's this big event and then the rest of the book seems like everyone has somewhere else to be and so it just ends with a sort of 'and everyone lives happily ever after'. The end just seemed rushed compared to the great building of the rest of the story.

This seventh book in the Kate Delafield series is again different from the ones before it. There's a lot more going on in it, and some of it is even personal.

Kate has a new partner, Joe Cameron, and throughout the book we get to sorta find out why Torrie Holden, Kate's partner in "Liberty Square" and "Apparition Alley" is no longer Kate's partner. There's also a new Lt., a woman, Caroline Walcott. I hope that she's in the next book too, since the character, though not a warm and fuzzy one is definitely an interesting one.

The mystery is the murder of an old man at the La Brea Tar Pits (which we get reminded a few times isn't actually tar, but more like asphalt).

I learned some cool things about the history of paleontology (and anthropology). I'd heard of some of the stuff, Lucy for example, but Forrest put in a bit of the less well known info on finds through the years too. It was also interesting to see Kate teaching Joe (who wasn't just Kate's new partner, but a newly minted Detective as well) how to be a Detective, not just have them doing their job without explanation.

How does Kate get herself into these situations. Oh, wait, there'd be no novels if she didn't.

The novel starts a bit In Media Res, in this case an arrest. The arrest doesn't quite go as planned and instead of being on her desk in Wilshire Division inundated with cases she gets to go to the police psychiatrist, and those scenes were really interesting back and forths. But, also she manages to get herself situated smack dab in the middle of a bad shooting case against a guy named Luke Taggart.

Again, as in the previous books, Forrest weaves the cases as such a tight tapestry it's amazing. After reading hundreds of mysteries I've gotten a feeling for who the bad guys will be, how the authors write them and the different ways they try to hide them in plain sight (or slightly off stage sight). And in each book Forrest has managed to surprise me with most of her stories' twists and turns. It's refreshing.

A solid four stars and an interesting look at the inside of an IA-ish sorta investigation.

It seems like Forrest likes the closed room mysteries. Or at least mysteries that are close to the closed room mystery, where you only have so many suspects and you know that one of them did it.

This one took place in Washington D.C. Where Kate was visiting for seminars with the FBI as well as a reunion with those she served with in Vietnam. Her Girlfriend/Partner is there with her as well, and although we don't get to learn about the girlfriend much in this book, we learn oh so much about Kate's past. Oh, and they solve a murder from the inside instead of the outside.

The book was interesting in a few ways. There seemed to be much more dialogue than previous books in the series. There also seemed to be oh so many more important secondary characters. And it was also interesting to see the Kate character outside of her natural habitat, her comfort zone. Now, if one of the next three books gives me more back ground on Kate's girlfriend I'd be a happy clam.

As an aside, it was also interesting how Kate's new partner was introduced in such an oblique way.

This is the fourth book in the Forrest's Kate Delafield series, and I thought it was the best so far. All of Kate's personal stuff from the previous three books that has been bubbling under the surface during the murder investigations come to a roiling boil.

The book starts with a murder, as usual. It was the murder of a gay man, Teddie Crawford, in the restaurant he owns. Kate's job, of course, is to find out who did it. She does, but this isn't a police procedural like the previous three, but more like a legal mystery.

Most of the book takes place in the courtroom, prosecuting the alleged murderer that Kate catches. And it's amazing stuff. Forrest has managed to gloss over the most boring parts of the trail and plays up very, very well the more exciting parts.

I also really liked how Forrest approached Kate and Aimee's relationship that started in the previous book and the friendships with those from the Nightwood Bar (from the second book). This was the first book that really felt like it was more than just a stand alone story with the same characters from the rest of the series.

I'd give this an awesomely intense five stars.

The third book in the Kate Delafield series of mysteries was just as good as the previous two.

The story starts with a murder as usual. The murder of a man who had been an informer during the McCarthy hearings. All those who live in the rent controlled Beverly Malibu apartments are suspects and I was pleasently surprised that Forrest kept me guessing for who of the suspects actually did it.

I'm also starting to like the character of Detective Ed Taylor, perhaps Forrest is writing him differently, or maybe I'm just getting used to the character.

Kate is still Kate, but while in the first two books she didn't seem to grow as a character, in this one she does and I'm interested to see where Forrest will go with Kate in the next novels in the series.

A solid novel, good mystery, and a whole lotta references to Candace Bergen.

This second book in the Kate Delafield mystery series is so much better than the first one on multiple levels. They mystery itself seems more tightly constructed and there's more of a 'usual' mystery than in "Amateur City", one set up in a more conventional way.

It's the murder of a young woman in the parking lot of a strip mall that also includes a lesbian bar that begins this mystery. From there it wasn't too surprising a middle or an ending, but it was an enjoyable read.

Again, there were lots of characters and each of them was just as --unique-- as in the first book.

I will say that the whole 'fling with a person somehow related to the case' thing got a bit old, but, we'll see what happens in the next book in the series.

Perhaps it's because it's been awhile since I've read a real Science Fiction novel, or maybe it's the novel itself, but it took awhile for me to get into the flow of this novel. There was a lot of world building that Forrest had to do, both in regards to the futuristic (2199) Earth where some of the story took place, as well as major world building of the planet Maternas. And it did take me awhile to get the lingo of the novel down, but once I got into the meat of the story, it flowed like well oiled piece of spaghetti.

It's also an interesting book because of the multiple levels it works on. You can read it and simply read the words for what they are. Or, you can consider what was happening in and around the time that it was written/published. 1984. Or, there's also a depressing way to read it, to do it while you realize that not much has changed since then.

One thing that I thought was cool and unexpected to me (after all, read anything about the book pre-reading it and you'll know it's about women and a lot of women) was the awesome environmental message that's sprinkled throughout the book. If only we tried to treat our Earth with a quarter of the compassion that the citizens of Maternas did. (Although, I have to admit, I like meat, I really do).