Book Title: The Queering
Author and Publisher: Brooke Skipstone
Cover Artist: Cherie Chapman
Release Date: January 19, 2023
Genre: Contemporary F/F Romance, Historical F/F Romance, YA LGBTQ+
Tropes: Friends to lovers, Coming of age
Themes: Coming out, finding love late in life
Heat Rating: 3 flames
Length: 92 000 words/ 318 pages
It is a standalone story and does not end on a cliffhanger.
Buy Links – Available in Kindle Unlimited
Trapped between a homicidal brother and a homophobic podcaster eager to reveal her lesbian romance novels, a seventy-year-old grandmother seeks help in Clear, Alaska.
Blurb
Editor’s Pick Booklife Reviews: A fast-paced yet thoughtful romance of coming out and finding love in later life in Alaska
5 Star Clarion Reviews: A riveting novel . . . about love, courage, and solidarity
Trapped between a homicidal brother and a homophobic podcaster eager to reveal her lesbian romance novels, a seventy-year-old grandmother seeks help in Clear, Alaska.
Suffocating in a loveless marriage and lonely existence, Taylor MacKenzie lives only through her writing, using the pen name Brooke Skipstone, her best friend in college and lover before her death in 1974.
Afraid of being murdered before anyone in her family or community knows her life story, Taylor writes an autobiography about her time with Brooke and shares it with those closest to her, hoping for understanding and acceptance.
Accused of promoting the queering and debasement of America by a local podcaster, Taylor embroils the conservative community in controversy but fights back with the help of a new, surprising friend.
Can she endure the attacks from haters and gaslighters? Can she champion the queering she represents?
And will she survive?
At the end of the day, after all her students had left, Taylor walked to her classroom windows where “ve feet of snow pressed against the building up to the double-paned glass. Winter refused to let go, as always in March. The glaring sun could only force a glistening sheen on the white mounds before night formed a dull, frozen crust by morn‐ ing. The sky yelled, “Spring,” while the ground scoffed, “Maybe next month.”
She shivered and hugged herself. No one else had touched her for years.
A knock on the door frame and a “You busy?” caused her to smile and turn around. “Never too busy for you.” She had a special fondness for Grace. The girl had kept an eye on her house while Taylor and her husband taught in Native villages and kept the garden and flowers watered when they’d traveled in the summer. However, since her retirement and Covid, Taylor hadn’t seen much of Grace. Taylor had missed their gossipy conversations and being able to teach her about gardening.
When the regular English teacher had to quit because of family illness in the Lower 48, Taylor happily volunteered to leave retirement.
She couldn’t allow Grace to be taught by an aide or a P.E. teacher. The girl was an eager reader and writer, a rare combination in that school, and this was her senior year. She needed proper support so she could shine. “What’s up?”
Grace walked toward her, sporting a wry smile, holding the book Taylor had given her last week. “Interesting name, Brooke Skipstone. I need to ask you something.”
Taylor sucked in a breath. She knows.
Tall, slender, oval face framed by long, black hair and oversized glasses—Grace was considered hot by the boys but never seemed impressed by their attention. She held a copy of Crystal’s House of Queers against her chest. “Loved it. Seriously. It’s my new favorite. Will you sign it for me?”
Taylor’s eyes jolted up to the girl’s. “Sign it? Why would I sign it?”
Grace glanced at the door, looking for intruders. “Because you wrote it.” Raising her brows, she said, “I know you did.” The corners of her mouth stretched closer to her dimples.
Taylor could laugh and deny, and maybe her life would stay the same—alone, silent, immersed in a fantasy world she shared only with strangers—her readers. But she couldn’t stand hiding anymore like she had something to be ashamed of. She had denied herself belonging to a community of writers and other . . . lesbians.
Should-have-been-lesbians.
She’d only realized this truth a few years ago when the agony of losing Brooke had once again clutched her throat, this time with fierce anger.
She’d been shamed into being straight. Without Brooke to help her, she couldn’t summon the courage to be queer. So much heartache and fear followed her friend’s death, and Taylor crumpled.
A tear oozed out of her left eye as she turned toward the window to hide her wipe. “The sun is so bright today.”
“That’s what we call changing the subject.” Grace moved closer and laid the book on the sill.
Taylor couldn’t stop her fingers from touching the cover and then tracing the continuous line drawing of a passionate kiss, precisely like the first between her and Brooke. Both of them were shocked, but they were drunk after a long party celebrating their last college production. What happened that night still echoed in Taylor’s mind. The next morning was awkward, but they carried on as if nothing had happened. After all, they were trained actresses.
She’d been having flashbacks more frequently, especially at night. Sometimes she struggled to stay in the present. She’d look at something everyone else saw, but her mind ran a memory only she could see. She fought to leave the past and return to 2022.
After a deep breath, she said, “Why do you think I wrote it?”
Grace shimmied onto a desktop and held up one finger. “First, the town in your only book by Taylor Baird is named Anders Fork. In Crys‐ tal’s House, it’s Clear. But they’re the same town with a river park and a shooting range. Both in Alaska.” She held up two fingers. “The writing style is the same, though it’s much more “uid in this one.” Another finger. “Brooke Skipstone is not a real person. No social media, no photos of her anywhere. The only image is a silhouette of a girl with a ponytail, skipping over rocks.”
“Maybe she doesn’t like social media,” Taylor said as her heart pounded.
Grace shook her head. “Okay, but I can Google your name and find a photo of you. Yet there’s nothing for Brooke Skipstone. She simply doesn’t exist.”
Taylor’s palms became sweaty. The connection is so apparent. How has the secret lasted so long? The answer was immediately clear— because no one in this town would ever read Brooke’s books.
Brooke Skipstone is a multi-award-winning author who lives in Alaska where she watches the mountains change colors with the seasons from her balcony. Where she feels the constant rush toward winter as the sunlight wanes for six months of the year, seven minutes each day, bringing crushing cold that lingers even as the sun climbs again. Where the burst of life during summer is urgent under twenty-four-hour daylight, lush and decadent. Where fish swim hundreds of miles up rivers past bear claws and nets and wheels and lines of rubber-clad combat fishers, arriving humped and ragged, dying as they spawn. Where danger from the land and its animals exhilarates the senses, forcing her to appreciate the difference between life and death. Where the edge between is sometimes too alluring.
The Queering is her fifth novel. Visit her website at for information about her first four novels—The Moonstone Girls, Crystal’s House of Queers, Some Laneys Died, and Someone To Kiss My Scars.
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