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Gran Leon Books - Blessed Twice
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List Price: $12.95
Our Price: $11.65
Your Save: $ 1.30 ( 10% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Outskirts Press
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9781432730512
ISBN: 1432730517
Label: Outskirts Press
Manufacturer: Outskirts Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 272
Publication Date: 2008-08-11
Publisher: Outskirts Press
Studio: Outskirts Press
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Editorial Reviews:
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The problem with starting over in another state after losing your partner is that your new friends don't understand why you can't just get over it. They never saw how you were together, how much you loved her, how she was your life. They only see a number: three, as in, the number of years since she died. That's all the evidence they need to begin pressuring you to get back out there again. It doesn't matter that you've told them to back off. No, they feel it is their duty to butt into your life and ambush you with blind dates.
This wasn't a predicament Briony Gatewood anticipated when she relocated for tenure at a prestigious university. Yet after a year with her new friends, they've ceased being merely concerned and moved on to obnoxious. As if being fixed up wasn't bad enough, the dean at her college just volunteered her to teach a potentially career damaging class. Along for the experimental course is the socially challenged M Desiderius, a fellow professor who won't ever win a faculty popularity contest. But as they start working together, Briony begins to understand M's aloofness and is intrigued by the shy, brilliant, passionate woman. Enough so that she's starting to believe her friends when they say it's time to move on. And M, as complicated as her past has been and reticent as she seems now, may be the perfect person to help Briony finally heal and love again.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: The Love of a Good Woman?
Comment: I had read Galli's Uncommon Emotions, and thoroughly enjoyed the humor, and relatively light hearted story line. I appreciate what she was trying for with Blessed, but have to wonder if she missed the mark.
Briony is a college professor who lost her partner three years prior to the beginning of the book. She is raising their son, and working as a professor in the Washington D.C. area. Enter M... not a typo. M is sullen, shy and introverted... all the things that attract a single mother still mourning the loss of her partner. So that's not terribly believable, but what Galli does well is examine Briony's desire to move past her loss for her sake and her son's.
As the story progresses, it becomes obvious M has a few issues, not the least of which is her physical inability to touch or be touched. It comes as no surprise this issue's root is a past of abuse. What does come as a bit of a surprise is the author's assertion that the love of a good woman (Briony) can turn it all around for M. Anyone who has ever known an abuse victim knows that is rarely, if ever, the case.
Furthermore, I couldn't help wondering as I read the book, what's going to happen when M isn't so fragile? When it is clear that Briony is attracted, in part, to M's vulnerability and tragicness, how will the relationship survive M reconciling her pass?
Customer Rating:
Summary: There is life after tragedy
Comment: Blessed Twice is a novel about experiencing life-shattering tragedy and discovering that you can survive it. Briony Gatewood lost her partner Megan in a rock climbing accident three years ago. She and her son Caleb have struggled through their grief and Briony is finally ready to move on with living. To try and make a new start, Briony has moved them from Vermont and all of their familiar surroundings and family to Charlottesville, Virginia, where she is a professor at the university. It's there that she meets M Desiderius who is as successful and interactive with her students as she is aloof and nonengaged with the staff. When both women are "volunteered" to work on a project in summer school, Briony discovers that M is withdrawn because she is shy. As they get to know each other better, it's revealed that M had a terrible early life that makes her unable to interact with people naturally. Briony realizes slowly that she is falling in love with the brilliant and tortured woman, but she also knows that any relationship they can hope to have is going to take a great deal of work and patience on her part. She sees a second chance at love if she can help M break out of the protective shell she's built around herself.
Galli has set another book in familiar surroundings with a supporting cast of characters she's introduced before. The book is skillfully developed as Galli deals with Briony's emotions as she tries to get over losing Meg and raise their young son properly. There is a lot of humor injected when Briony's friends decide to set her up with various women they know and she has to endure a series of "dates from hell." It's appallingly obvious to Briony and the reader why these women are still single and inappropriate matches, so the wonder is that her friends don't see it. M is the truly interesting character as a person who is so traumatized by her childhood that the simple touch of another person causes her excruciating pain. The "therapy" she dabbles with to overcome these feelings gives a view into the world of dominance and submission that is both informative and disturbing. The strength of the book is that Galli doesn't rush the development of the characters and the situations. These aren't two women who are destined to fall into bed the first time they're alone and they don't. They have to work to build the trust that will make any relationship possible and that takes time.
Blessed Twice is an interesting story about a couple that doesn't fit the normal pattern. That makes it refreshing and worth reading.
Customer Rating:
Summary: can't wait for the next one!
Comment: OK, first I'll nitpick: University of Chicago is NOT a state school!! Now that I've gotten that out of my system, I have to say that I greatly enjoy this author. As far as lesbian romance goes, Lynn Galli's books are very satisfying and re-readable. While I like Uncommon Emotions and Wasted Heart the best, all of her books are great and well worth reading.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Galli at her best
Comment: Lynn Galli has always been a wonderful writer but I feel this is her best effort.She deals with a very difficult subject and does an excellent job of it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: An excellent and moving return to form for this author
Comment: I was somewhat disappointed in Imagining Reality, though Uncommon Emotions got high marks from me; therefore, I was initially hesitant when I found that this book was returning once again to Virginia and the sometimes suffocating group of friends who bogged Imagining Reality down. I was pleasantly surprised, and pleased that the author focused this book on two characters only peripherally involved in "the group." It's not that I don't like the group. In fact, Galli has created an interesting and ultimately lovable group of women. But sometimes juggling all of those forceful personalities dilutes the thrust of her narrative line.
That was not a problem here. Briony only moved to Virginia fairly recently. She's friends with the group, but also feels comfortable telling them to butt out. Except even she is unsuccessful in enforcing her wishes when they seem determined to set her up on blind dates with hilarious results. Briony has recently felt she can move past her long-time partner's untimely death in a rock-climbing accident, and her son Caleb is encouraging as well, tired of seeing his mother unhappy. This realization on her part coincides with her being volunteered at a department meeting to teach a summer course with M Desiderius, an aloof and somewhat mysterious woman whose quiet competence, and warmth with her students and children endears her to Briony.
The careful and patient way Galli moves their tentative relationship along is a breath of fresh air. The supporting cast of friends lend some color, but never becoming overwhelming, or overtake the focus. Briony's gentle nudging, and M's cautious acceptance are endearing and tender, as M courageously moves past a difficult childhood, all the while helping heal Briony's own hurt. There were some somewhat awkward dominant/submissive scenes with M in a sex club that at first I wondered about, M's discomfort in the proceedings putting me off initially. But as the characters gained more context, they made more sense, and my fears were assuaged.
Galli continues to show great promise. This was a strong novel, with clearly told story, and I look forward to further growth from this author.
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