Reviewed by Dee
TITLE: In the Distance There is Light
AUTHOR: Harper Bliss
PUBLISHER: Ladylit publishing
LENGTH: 210 Pages
RELEASE DATE: September 8, 2016
BLURB:
Two women lose the man they love. All they have left is each other.
Sophie’s life is turned upside down when her partner, Ian, dies in a tragic accident. The only one who can understand her devastation is Ian’s stepmother, Dolores. Together, they try to make sense of their loss and rebuild their shattered lives. While their shared grief brings them closer, it also takes their relationship in an unexpected direction. Where does sorrow end and romance begin? Or has Ian’s death blurred the lines too much?
If you love deeply emotional lesbian romance with a twinge of controversy, don’t miss this intense but hopeful novel by chart-topper Harper Bliss.
REVIEW:
This story was very different to what I expected. In my humble opinion the blurb is too vague, considering the content. Even the taboo warning didn’t prepare me for what I read. In fact, I stuck my hand high in the air going, gimme, gimme, gimme, having complete and utter faith in this author to be able to pull off the love story between a heroine and her mother-in-law.
So what did I expect? A story of forbidden love, packed full of emotion and self-discovery. Did the story deliver on that front? Hell yes. Because come on, this is Harper Bliss.
So what didn’t I expect? The ladies to be in bed together before the dirt even settled on Ian’s grave. They are literally sleeping together within a week. Thankfully they waited a few more weeks before they became sexually intimate.
As with most of this authors books you can bet your boots the sex will be steamy. For me, such content in this story turned me off rather than on. Not because of the age difference, something I had no issue with. But the scene in the pantry, at the party, was done in poor taste, in my opinion. It was so utterly disrespectful I wanted to bitch slap them. But hey, everyone deals with death in their own way, right?
The fact both women are widows adds another layer to this story, as does the eventual meeting with the man who knocked Ian off his bicycle. My heart broke for him, how easily his grief was dismissed. The accident was no fault of his own. I can’t even begin to imagine the weight he had to carry on his shoulders.
I guess the thing I least expected was for Ian to be such a pivotal character in the story. The two heroines often talk about him, which is totally to be expected. The epilogue features Ian, too. A lot of page time is given to Sophie’s journal entries made to Ian. I get life is for the living and you have to move on, but some of the entries made me recoil. I quote “I’m going to seduce your mother and I’m not going to apologize for it.”
This story is told in first person, present tense and completely from Sophie’s POV. Even so it is never really explained when she decided she might be a lesbian or bi, but does that even matter? And of course not hearing Dolores POV, it’s left to the reader to draw their own conclusion about a number of things.
Other than Dolores eye colour and the fact she wore glasses, I have no clue what these two women look like. While I like being able to draw my own picture, I like to have some kind of descriptor to build it upon.
Even though a number of things didn’t work for me in this story, I urge readers to grab a copy and come to their own conclusion.
RATING: 
BUY LINK: