Customer Reviews

Friends and Lovers

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Danielle, the protagonist in "Friends and Lovers," seems to try to bring everyone down to her "in-the-closet" level. Maybe it's because she's so busy bed hopping, she doesn't see that she does not love others, but rather needs/uses them to better understand herself. Danny also isn't sure who her 16-year-old daughter, Tracy, is. At times, Tracy comes off more mature than Danny. Danny also mistrusts her mother's capacity to understand Danny's lesbian nature. This is revealed at the end of the book when Danny's attraction to women is finally exposed, and the mother gives her a beautifully carved statue of a woman. With all the trials and tribulations that Danny experiences during her various capers with three different women, she chooses Kara, her best friend, who also brings the years that they have already shared between them. Finally, with all the different characters and sex scenes, Ms. Calhoun did not repeat herself.

As someone who has read all of Jackie Calhoun's books, I would have to rate this as better than most of them. The story is more detailed and develops over a period of months. This allows the characters to present themselves more fully and the outcome of the book isn't obvious from the beginning. At one point you will wonder how exactly is Danny going to figure out her situation with Maureen, Kara and Chris. And how long can she keep her numerous "evenings out" and what's really going on during them secret from her mother and daughter. It's a pleasant short read, full of sexy passages, and not a bad way to spend an afternoon.

In this outing, Calhoun introduces several characters each carrying their own brand of baggage. The book's central character is Danny, newly divorced and newly attracted to women. Her life is complicated by Maureen, Chris, and her best friend since grade school, Kara. The ebb and flow of Danny's relationships with these women is the plot of the book.

Calhoun doesn't skimp on the secondary characters either. There's the gay couple who ostensibly open a bed & breakfast but it caters primarily to AIDS patients and there is the Wisconsin scenery.

Calhoun is a very good writer who has the talent to be an even better writer if she would stretch to write more complicated plots. Granted, I've only read three of her books, but the characters, while well-drawn in each book, are interchangeable. For instance, Danny could be the central character in any of Calhoun's books - in other words, the names change, but the story remains the same. Her publisher should do Calhoun and her readers a favor and let Calhoun stretch her talents.