This sweeping novel follows Jaudon Vicker and Berry Garland's relationship over the course of 15 years. Set in Florida during the 1950's and 1960's, the book starts from their childhood when the classically girly girl Berry protects the boyish Jaudon from bullying classmates. We are along on their journey through college, Vietnam, even the budding LGBT community all while they stay bonded in a deep and powerful relationship.

You can feel in every word how much love was put into this book. The setting is real enough that you feel transported back in time and the level of detail becomes hypnotic. However, this book also gets bogged down in those details and the actual story slows to a crawl. When the plot moves, dear gods this book is beautiful. Otherwise, you feel every inch of those 342 pages. It's worth it though to get the full impact of Jaudon and Berry's journey. 3.9 out of 5.

Stevie‘s review of Rainbow Gap by Lee Lynch
Lesbian Fiction published by Bold Strokes Books 13 Dec 16

One of the first lesbian romance novels I bought was Lee Lynch’s That Old Studebaker, back when it was originally published, and I’ve been meaning to find out whether the author’s current works live up to the happy memories I have of that book. As with the previously mentioned book, Rainbow Gap focusses on lesbians growing up in less-than-glamourous surroundings and going on to have mundane but nonetheless important careers. By way of contrast to my memories of a coming-of-age novel, however, this book covers a broad period of lesbian history, seen through the eyes of two relatively ordinary women.

Jaudon Vicker and Berry Garland go to school together after Berry is abandoned by her parents to stay with her grandmother. Both come from families with considerable histories of living in their small South Florida community; although neither has a particularly well-off background, Jaudon’s parents – her mother in particular – work hard to make a success of their chain of grocery stores and to constantly extend and modernise their home. As the girls mature, they grow ever closer, spending much of their spare time in the treehouse on the Vickers' family property or out in the swamp around Berry’s grandmother’s home.

Although Berry could be one of the popular girls, she prefers to stay with Jaudon, who is bullied for the way she looks; when she is accepted onto a nursing course, she encourages Jaudon to take business classes so they can study together while Jaudon also manages one of her family’s stores. Berry makes friends, through her work and studies, with a number of lesbian and feminist activists; while Jaudon doesn’t always agree with their views, she respects Berry’s opinions and allows one of the women – a fugitive from the law – to stay with them, even though it places them both in jeopardy.

The path of true love doesn’t always run smooth – both heroines are tempted at times by other women – and Berry’s anti-war stance causes friction with Jaudon, when her brother is serving in Vietnam. Meanwhile, Jaudon faces opposition from her mother regarding the way she runs the store – particularly her hiring of African-American women to work there. Overall, though, this is a gentle book in which events unfold slowly (with one or two exceptions) and while the women’s circumstances change for the better, this happens only gradually.
A real feel-good novel: I can see I need to catch up with this author’s back catalogue.

Grade: B

href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31320408-rainbow-gap" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="Rainbow Gap" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1470127468m/31320408.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31320408-rainbow-gap">Rainbow Gap</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/485820.Lee_Lynch">Lee Lynch</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1890238422">4 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
I rec'd a copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Jaudon and Berry meet as kids - their tale spans 1950's/1960's. They are never swayed in their commitment to each other. Descriptions of South USA are beautiful and supporting characters interact well in the storyline. If you want romance, history, angst and overall fortitude read this!! Kudos!
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/31134832-gail">View all my reviews</a>

Berry Garland and Jaudon Vicker live in the backcountry of Central Florida. Growing up as kids on the outskirts of this small town, they learn to deal with the homophobia as they develop from best friends to lovers.

Berry wants to be a nurse, and is attracted to the politics of feminism and the women pushing for change. Jaudon is dealing with her bullying mother, and wants to learn as much about business as she can so she can eventually take up the reins of the family retail business.

Along the way, the events of the 1960s and ‘70s impact on their lives, reaching in from around the globe to change everything, including how Berry and Jaudon see themselves, and their world.

Berry and Jaudon are interesting characters and Lynch places them in an unusual place to examine the events of this decade. I was a bit taken aback by the placement of the story within this tiny backwater, but quickly realized that the story was much more than the lesbian romance I was expecting. By placing the story in such a small town, Lynch allows us to see the full impact of that changing decade on those on the very fringes of the 1960s storm.

Lynch has created a very different way to tell the story of the growing understanding of feminism and queerness impacted on the lives of those who lived through such extraordinary change. Jaudon, the more cautious of the two, and Berry the more adventurous spiritually, enables Lynch to differentiate the paths of two very different women within this time of flux.

This is a complex story of how external ideas change a group of people, as the tentacles of a more complex understanding of the world reach in from outside a small town to paint in colour what had been black and white. Fascinating and evocative, this is an interesting book.

Advanced reading copy provided by NetGalley for an honest review.