Books
SUNBEAMS AND RAINDROPS
Stormy Weather in Paradise?
Aggie Hollister feels blessed in her relationship with Wilma Saunders, a semi-retired concert pianist. Two seniors, she tells herself, happy and having a “second-time around” marriage with everything they could have wanted from life and love.
Suddenly, a predicament threatens their Sequim, Washington, paradise. Aggie hears a crash in Wilma’s bathroom and rushes through the house to find her cleaning up a mess. Wilma claims she’s okay but Aggie realizes this isn’t the first time that something has slipped out of her hands. Is this a little problem that may go away on its own—or a serious issue that could affect Wilma, Aggie, their relationship, and their lives?
All dreams of a river cruise in Europe are pushed aside as Aggie and Wilma attempt to solve the riddle created by Wilma’s fragile hands. Are Seattle surgeons the answer, or is there aid closer to home on the Olympic Peninsula that will help Wilma heal? Can they fly to the Continent this year, next year, or ever?
SUNBEAMS AND RAINBOWS is available from Amazon.com in paperback for $16.99, Kindle for $8.99, and in Kindle Unlimited for free to subscribers.
LONG-DISTANCE LOVING
Keeping the home fires burning . . . .
In this sequel to LIVES INTERTWINED: Love on Sequim Bay, vet tech Brittany Forrest and lawn girl Ginger Robbins have just moved into an old farmhouse with acreage on Washington’s Sequim Prairie—after spending nearly a year in a shared residence owned by a Sequim widow, Aggie Hollister. That experience in the big house overlooking Sequim Bay led to a friendship between Brit and Ginger—then a romance and a fledgling relationship.
Now Ginger is camping in the outdated Olympic Peninsula farmhouse with her Schnauzer Spice and Brit’s rescue dog Chica, while Brit has gone off to graduate school in veterinary science in Corvallis, Oregon. Having only lived together for a few weeks, both Brit and Ginger are worried about how they can keep their relationship alive when they are nearly six hours apart by highway and won’t be able to see each other more than a few times during the next four years.
Brit and Ginger struggle in their own ways to remain connected, hold onto their loving feelings, and protect their dream for the future. Can they pull it off, or will time and distance tear them apart?
LONG-DISTANCE LOVING is available from Amazon.com in paperback for $15.99, Kindle for $7.99, and in Kindle Unlimited for free to subscribers.
LIVES INTERTWINED: Love on Sequim Bay Synopsis
Brittany Forrest, 27-year old lesbian, animal lover and vet tech, needs a better place to live in Sequim, on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. Her rental loft over a barn has unsafe steps and costs her too much money. Noticing a sign by a large house along the road that passes Sequim Bay, she calls the owner of the five-bedroom home. Guessing she isn’t the only lesbian needing a better/cheaper place to live, Brit thinks that perhaps she can find other lesbians to rent with her—all enjoying a nice home with a gorgeous view and saving money, perhaps becoming friends. Aggie Hollister, the house’s owner, decides to help Brit make this unusual dream come true. A month later, Brit’s experiment begins. How will this all work out—a vet tech, a lawn-maintenance worker, a college student with a secret friend, a retired concert pianist, and a woman who has built a life caring for other people? And two dogs?
LIVES INTERTWINED: Love on Sequim Bay is available from Amazon.com in paperback for $15.99, Kindle for $7.99, and in Kindle Unlimited for free to subscribers.
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THE LITTLE RED BARN: An Olympic Romance: SYNOPSIS
After wandering aimlessly for years through the South Seas, tanned, athletic, and wealthy Kate Brighton returns home on a sailboat, docking briefly in Sequim, Washington. Deciding to explore, she stops for breakfast at a rustic coffee shop called The Little Red Barn. Angie, her beautiful server, is enticing enough for Kate to check out this stunning young barista as well as the town. Impulsively, Kate decides to stay in Sequim for a while, returning to The Little Red Barn to learn more about Angie. Despite their mutual attraction, the two are very different women: Kate avoids commitment and Angie has two young children. Their differences both in lifestyles and in age make for a sweet though sometimes painful story of life and love.
THE LITTLE RED BARN: An Olympic Romance, published Aug. 6, 2019, is available for $15.99 in paperback at Amazon.com. It is also available in Kindle for $5.99 and through Kindle Unlimited for free.
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THE ARTEMIS ADVENTURE: SYNOPSIS
She is barely eighteen and not yet a high school graduate, but Kiki Rodriguez already knows that the South Bronx holds no future for her. Lying on the hot rooftop, avoiding the stifling apartment and a family argument, she stares up at her star, the one she has found, the one she has named Artemis. She studies her star and knows that it is time to go. Not impulsively, for she has thought about it a long time, and she has a destination—family members near San Francisco, who hopefully can take her in and give her a chance to grow.
Packing a duffle with her few belongings, taking her hidden cache of money and a Greyhound bus ticket, she leaves a note, says goodbye to her home, and boards the nearest subway headed for New Jersey. As she travels further west, her plans begin to unravel, but she first feels fear when she is abandoned in Kansas. Alone in the middle of corn country, she appeals to her star. The answer? A friendly truck driver assists her as far as Salt Lake; an auto carrying college students pushes her forward to the Bay Area.
But disgusted by their irresponsible drug use, Kiki jumps out of the car at dusk in Oakland. And, by accident or fate, at the gates of a women’s college, her real star-guided adventure begins.
THE ARTEMIS ADVENTURE by Dorothy Rice Bennett, 305 pages, now available in quality paperback (currently $13.94) at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble online, and Outskirts Press online, discounted 10 percent. It is also available in Kindle for $4.95 and through Kindle Unlimited for free.
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GIRLS ON THE RUN: SYNOPSIS
They give each other a passing glance at an Ohio truck stop. Jennifer is driving west, escaping from threatened harm in Pittsburgh. Stacy is hitching to California, running from being rejected as a lesbian by the military and her family. Entranced by the tall, blue-eyed blonde, Stacy sticks out a thumb, and after a moment’s hesitation, Jennifer offers a ride to the stocky young woman with the spiked hair. Jennifer has no clue where she is headed; Stacy wants to reach San Francisco. They continue west together, and as miles and terrains slip by, the two forge a tentative friendship despite vast differences between them.
When they eventually arrive in the City by the Bay, it seems natural for them to continue pooling their resources for a small apartment while looking for jobs. Yet, as weeks pass, Stacy longs to explore San Francisco’s famed homosexual community, where she can meet other lesbians for fun, sex, and love. Jennifer, although attractive to Stacy, is apparently straight and therefore off limits. For Jen, the future is an unwritten book, but the arrival of an old friend from home pushes her into the dating world—something for which Jennifer is largely unprepared.
Despite personal successes in their new world and their deep liking for each other, growing conflict over their lifestyles threatens to force Stacy and Jennifer apart.
GIRLS ON THE RUN explores families, friendship, sexuality, love, and the role of destiny in our lives.
GIRLS ON THE RUN BY Dorothy Rice Bennett (published June 30, 2016) is now available at amazon.com, Barnes and Noble online, and Outskirts Press, 346 pages, quality paperback, for $17.95. GIRLS ON THE RUN is also available on Kindle for $4.95 at amazon.com and is free for those participating in Kindle Unlimited.
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NORTH COAST: SYNOPSIS
Valerie, an aspiring artist, has fled San Francisco following the death of her longtime partner and begun a new life in Eureka, a remote community on California’s scenic North Coast. Val advertises for a roomer and opens the front door to a tall, blue-eyed young woman with more mental baggage than personal belongings.
Locked in their landlord-tenant relationship, Valerie finds Gina an intriguing mystery, and the reclusive tenant attempts to remain so. Why Val wonders, as do her lesbian friends, would highly educated Gina work as a part-time waitress rather than teach college? And is she a lesbian?
Eventually, Gina reveals an emotional crisis over her sexuality that has left her with a large debt. She longs to live in San Francisco, which for an Illinois farm girl seems the pinnacle of sophistication, and where she wants to teach and create a future.
Living together with a dog named Sam pulls Valerie and Gina into tentative intimacies which each fights to ignore. Valerie is stable and envisions only a dedicated relationship with another mature adult. Gina, still sorting herself out, thinks that writing and teaching are her top priority. Physically attracted, they grow on each other, but their minds continually fight off the spark. And, since their ages and life goals are so different, their friends also warn them off.
Gina finally says goodbye to Eureka and sets course for San Francisco—after a bittersweet farewell. But as her battered Beetle heads down the 101 to the big city, she—like Valerie—is unsuspecting that her heart may know more than her head.
NORTH COAST: A Contemporary Love Story by Dorothy Rice Bennett. Quality paperback, $16.95. Published by Outskirts Press, June 2015. Available at amazon.com, Barnes and Noble online, and Outskirts Press. Also available at Amazon in Kindle edition, $4.99, and free on Kindle Unlimited.
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Learn about author Dorothy Rice Bennett
If you are thinking of self-publishing, contact Outskirts Press before you make a decision about how you are going to publish. I have had a very good experience with this company, which is now the largest publisher in the US for independent authors. For more information, use the following link to get started: outskirtspress.com