Reviewed by Jess
TITLE: Graphite & Glitter
SERIES: None
AUTHOR: Shae Connor
PUBLISHER: Self-published
LENGTH: 70 pages
RELEASE DATE: February 27, 2017
BLURB:
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 choice: let her go, follow her halfway across the country—or become part of the reason for her to stay.
REVIEW:
I’m pleased that this review will be posted on March 8th, which is International Women’s Day. Let’s celebrate with books about our favorite awesome, strong ladies!
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.
RATING: 
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