Graphite & Glitter

by Shae Connor

All that glitters might just be gold.

Adrienne Michaels’ best friend is getting married, and Adrienne’s not feeling it on the night of the bachelorette party. Then she meets Tessa Smith, bass player for an all-female glam rock tribute band. After a one-night stand worthy of the hottest rock star fantasies, Tessa surprises Adrienne by asking her on a real date, and Adrienne soon finds Tessa’s side gig pales in comparison to the down-to-earth music geek beneath the glitter. Tessa even helps Adrienne through a family loss, but when Tessa gets a sweet job offer in another city, Adrienne has to make a let her go, follow her halfway across the country—or become part of the reason for her to stay.

Genres: Novella, Lesbian, LGBT

82 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 27, 2017

About the author

Shae Connor lives in Atlanta, where she’s a lackadaisical government worker by day and writes sweet-hot romance under the cover of night. She’s been making things up for as long as she can remember, but it took her a while to figure out that maybe she should try writing them down.

Shae is part Jersey, part Irish, and all Southern, which explains why she never shuts up. When she’s not chained to her laptop, she enjoys cooking, traveling, watching baseball, reading voraciously, giving and receiving hugs, and wearing tiaras. In her copious spare time, she volunteers as director and editor of the Dragon Con on-site publication, the Daily Dragon.

Reviews

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book free from Love Bytes and the author in exchange for an honest review.

This review was first posted to Love Bytes: LGBTQ Book reviews. It has been slightly edited here for content.

For a relatively short novella, there’s a lot of great stuff going on in the story. The sizzling sexual tension between straight-laced professional Adrienne and glam-rocker Tessa culminates in a hot one-night stand within the first 10% of the book, but that’s only the beginning of a great relationship between two women who have good heads on their shoulders and know what they want.

The women in this book feel like real people when it comes to their actions and dialogue. The sex scenes are even adorably realistic. Instead of just going through the mechanics of on-page sex (oral sex, fingering, etc.), Connor has the two women laugh together, ask questions, and read body language to see what works best, making their sexual encounters even hotter. It pulls them together emotionally and gives them great chemistry right off the bat.

I also like the lack of melodrama when it comes to their romance. After their one-night stand, both women go on with their lives, and when they realize they want to see each other again, they reconcile that easily. This is a more mature romance between mature characters who, for lack of better phrasing, cut out all the bullshit. They like each other, so they make it work!

Since there’s a lot going on, I don’t think the blurb does this layered story justice. While the romance between Adrienne and Tessa is absolutely lovely, one of the best parts of the book is Adrienne’s struggle to understand her complicated relationship with her distant father. It resonated a lot with me and my own experiences with my dad, and I think many others will relate to it as well. And seeing Tessa support her through everything was awesome.

My only wish is that this was a longer story that took more time to expand Tessa’s character. She starts out as a wild-card bassist (it’s always the bassist!) in a glam rock cover band, looking like a member of Jem and the Holograms, but her hidden depths are quickly revealed. I wish we could spend more time with her, because she’s a really neat character, but the novella length prevented a closer look.

While Connor is a prolific M/M author, this seems to be her only F/F story so far. I really hope she writes more F/F, because she’s very good at it! She’s found that great mix between sex and emotion that so many lesfic authors take years to perfect.

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a quick, lovely read. The first encounter is really hot, and I enjoyed how the relationship built. It's probably closer to a 3.5 stars for me, but I'm rounding up because of that first sex scene and how much I liked the premise.

[Terri · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you're looking for a pretty romance with just the right amount of plot to support it, this is your short, sweet read. The women feel instant attraction, but the romance is measured and felt real, as did Adrienne's grief about her father. Three solid stars for these lovely elements that brought tears to my eyes.

I can't really speak to the sex scenes since I skimmed them. I skim many sex scenes in many kinds of stories so it's not just this one. :)

But I did also skim a few other sections. In my opinion, this needed another edit to remove excess verbiage and unnecessary detail throughout. If a certain length is needed, more plot works better than more words. On the other hand, if that's the author's way (voice or habit), then it's just a thing I deduct stars for.

[Jude Sierra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review to come