Life's Little Edge by Roselle Graskey

A coin has two sides - Heads and Tails - and so has Callan O'Malley. One is O'Malley the ex-soldier harden by battle and the responsibility of keeping her men alive. Now she is living life on the edge, running illegal guns to Spyder the leader of the local biker gang. The other one is Callan a woman devastated by the tragic loss of her partner Ellen in a car crash, which might not have been purely accidental.

O'Malley is the one who wins Terry in a bet of "One Punch" against her boyfriend Trey and given the "ethics" in the world of bikers, O'Malley has to keep what's her's! Which put's her on the spot with Trey, who really don't like to lose his bread winner.

Terry on the other hand seems to be a rather meek woman who really don't mind to change hands as she is getting tired of Trey's hard handling and the fact that he spends her wages on poker. On the other hand she is not quit sure what O'Malley wants from her except perhaps a bedmate....

While O'Malley is the one winning the prize, Callan is the woman to take Terry in and keep her safe at night when nightmares ruins her sleep, and eventhough O'Malley is the one to do the dealing with Spyder and throw the punches when needed - and sometimes they are needed very badly - it's still Callan, who gets into bed with Terry at night.

"Life's Little Edge" is a tightly woven drama where you have to question what is true and what is double crossing make believe - so I think I'll leave you with this teaser on the storyline. It is a great story - one of the best if you want a good mix of drama and romance. The tightly woven drama keeps you on edge and the well developed romance sweetens the deal considerably. 

As often the case with on line stories you will find several little mistakes in the writing that might give you reason to read a sentence twice, but it doesn't kill the joy of reading. I guess that the mistakes have been ironed out in the printed version published by P.D.Publishing.

If you are hard pressed for time this week then let this be the one story you choose to read, I don't think that you will regret it.

When Your Heart's on Fire .... Smoke gets in Your Eyes

Sometimes it's easy to see yourself in someone else's line of work. To imagine going through the doors of a Hospital or an office building on a Monday morning ready for another workday. To see yourself interviewing patients, victims of a felony, "pushing papers", attending meetings and generally just doing the things we watch professionals do in RL and on TV.

But can you imagine yourself heading down the road in a speeding fire engine, can you imagine going towards a burning building instead of running away from it or donning a breathing apparatus preparing to go in ? Probably not ! But don't worry you don't need to harbour a death wish to look up the stories mentioned below sporting fire fighters and the ladies that they cast hot glances .... just stay clear of the fire!

So where to start? Well fire fighters of the female gender got to be kind of butch, so I thought that we could head in the direction of Larisa to see if she has a fire fighter among her protagonists. Yeps - found one .... her name is Jake, she has raven coloured hair and lives at the fire house or she did until she got suspended for putting herself at risk ... again. It is Artemis luck that Jake did put herself at risk, otherwise Artemis would have died, stuck in her car when it caught fire in a crash. "Flames of a Soul" is a pretty standard Larisa fic - go for it if you want to watch a fire fighter do her heroic work of saving lives and getting singed by hot flames and ... a bit of loving.

Let's move on to something a little more poetic this time a fic sporting Jo - chief of the local fire department - and Sisters - a twin house on a lakeside. If you listen real carefully you will probably be able to hear Jo's cursing over the noise of hammering and electric work tools being put to use next door. Miranda and her young daughter Hope has taken over the other half of the twin house, and Jo is not amused - this is after all "her" house, where she can mop around - undisturbed - thinking of her disastrous relationship with Laurel, her fights with the Town Council and her latest conspiracy theory. This time Jo has a lucky mix to brood over - one dead man, a murder suspect on the run, an innocent child, a woman with a lot of cash, a new beautiful, and blond neighbour, and her own heart. If you look up "Where There's Smoke" you can watch Jo do her heroic fire fighters act while she looks for a murderess and gets tangled up with a hot blond. I found the story well worth my reading time.

Now imagine yourself in a burning building, smoke making it hard for you to see your surroundings,  then a fire fighter comes along .... what to you do - get up and follow her or sit back and let her walk away?  Well if you have tried just about everything to kill yourself you might be thinking that this is your best chance of getting rid of your life, so I guess you might actually stay. If that fire fighter is worth anything she will probably just throw you over her shoulder and carry you out. This is not really a story on fire fighters as Alley - our heroic fire fighter - is just doing her stretch of community service as a fire fighter, her day job is much less heroic, but to Erin she proves to be a real life saver. Look up "Trial by Fire" if you want a short humorous romance with just a little bit of smoke inhalation.

Fire fighting is a dangerous business, but somehow even in the worst of times our protagonists always, always ....  manages to walk out of the blazing fires alive. But Cheyne Curry do makes you wonder if this is also going to be the case for Jenna once she joins her colleagues of fire fighters at the site of the World Trade Centre on 9/11. If you want to know if Jenna makes it and reunites with her lover Brynne then look up "The Pocket Watch". This is not a mushy romance but an account of the devastating experiences of 9/11 - so don't open "The Pocket Watch" unless you are ready to turn back time and relive the terror of 9/11.

As you are probably aware Fire Fighters are not the only emergency personnel who will lend a helping hand to a woman in need. So if you have finished putting you life at risk then join Donna and Aleta who are paramedics when they respond to a 911 call at four o'clock in the morning. I guess that in this line of business you get to see the most bizarre things and finding a tennis shoe attached to a nice but very swollen calf protruding from the living room ceiling of a house must be classified as bizarre  - at least if you take account of the hour. "Match Made in Heaven" is a short, fun fling - it wont take you long to read, and it might put a smile on your face. 

Now lets get back to business - when that 911 call comes in and the dispatcher calls your unit you don't have time for flirting even if you line of business is not to run into the flames, but to administer to the sick and wounded as a paramedic. Don't worry we will still find a few tough cookies in this line of work .... even some of those delicious ones, you know the one's crispy hard on the outside and soft ... when you bit into them!

"Lights and Sirens" by Jeanine Hoffman is the story of Chloe, a paramedic who is able to put her own life in danger to save others, but is too scared to face her feelings and risk her heart for love. This time though Chloe is in luck as Cait - her best friend and love interest - is willing to step up to the plate and ask for what she wants. If you choose to look up the story of Chloe and Cait you'll be treated to the story of their lives and those of their close friends and colleagues - romance in the line of fire and such seems to be the order of the day. The story is well worth a read if you take an interest in the work of paramedics and fire fighters.

There are still a few stories with prize fire fighting women to explore if you fancy this theme, but the once mentioned above are the ones I prefer:

• "Incendiary" by Geonn Cannon
• "Blown Away", "Fire and Ice" and "Second Wind" by Kim Baldwin
• "A Fire Ignited Within" by Nanook
• "The Blaze", "Inferno" and "Flashpoint" by ArdentTly

Looking at the World from above

There are many things that I would never do ....  One that comes readily to mind is this one - I would never attempt to do a free climb!

It's fun to go up on an indoor climbing wall, secured with rope and harness and with an able instructor at hand, but doing a free climb ? Please .... it would be tooooo taxing not to mention dangerous.

That said I do see the attraction of being able to control your body and mind in the way necessary to climb an almost vertical face of a boulder or cliff, and I do think that free climbing, mountaineering and the likes makes a great backdrop for a storyline.

So why not venture out with Rain for some free climbing ? Maybe you want to prepare yourself a little before you attempt your first free climb? You could join Theran Ryan for her free climbing courses with the master climber Kiera Aigner. If you are a novice Theran will lead the way as she is well prepared to take on the challenge of free climbing, but she might gain more than just a few new skills on the walls when she joins Kiera's courses. 

As for you - well you can enjoy a couple of crafty women and an introduction to free climbing, and even if the storyline is simplistic and the romance too shallow and much too fast moving for my taste - I did enjoyed the free climbing!

If you want to mix mystery and rock climbing you could try Manda Scott's "Stronger than Death" it's her third book in print of mysteries with the lesbian therapist Kellen Steward who lives in Glasgow, Scotland.

Once you have mastered the free climb you might want to put your feet a bit closer to the ground. You can still go up high, very high ... you might even attempt to reach the summit on Mount Everest, but if you choose to do so, you will need all the help you can get to succeed, and remember - as with the free climbing - you are putting your life in danger. 

If you have the wish to do the extraordinary then join Veronique "Ricky" Bouchard as she attemps to guide a group of wealthy climbers to The Top of the World and to get them securely back to base camp - something that might well cost Ricky her life. 

Bel-Wah's (aka Belle Reilly's) "High Intensity" is mostly the story of the Everest climbing team, the conflicts within the team and the disastrous climb, but you will find romance too - I just didn't find it real convincing. So if you choose to join Ricky for a chance to summit on Top of the World, do it for the right reason - to see the sight, to test your body and mind ... not to find romance. Remember - on a dangerous trek likes this one - love might make it hard for you to make the right choices and put you and those in your care at risk!

I found Bel-Wah's account of this disastrous climb to be close to Jon Krakauer's account of his summit in the spring of 1996 in his non-fiction account "Into thin air" - which is a real compelling read. Should you like to explore the topic further the author Rosie Thomas has a more general fictional approach to some of the same events on the expeditions described by Jon Krakauer in her novel "White".

Now for the easy stuff! Trekking on Mt. Kilimanjaro ..... you probably know where I'm going to lead you this time - on "The Road From Kilimanjaro" by KG MacGregor .... so I'm just going to say that this is where the less than perfectly fit women might want to go mountaineering. Even if it's not a walk in the park it seems to be doable and the romance ..... well lets just say that Mary Kate and Kristin do break the ice in the slow and believable fashion needed for a mushy romance.  

Ramble - Soccer, Pictures and ...

From The Big Picture at Boston.com

Its not like Soccer is a big theme in the world of f/f fan fic so if you want to play ball you are much better off if you pick a basketball or perhaps a softball for you entertainment. 

On the other hand it seems that the Women's World Cup - which just took place in Germany - has produced an amble amount of pic's displaying fit women taking part in ball games so I thought ... why not share a link.

If you want to look in on the fighting in The World Cup you could look up The Big Picture at Boston.com. While you are there you might want to take a look at the pic's from Pride or on a quite different note ... pic's form The World's Most Dangerous Countries for Women ... I'm warning you this last group of pic's is not a pretty sight to see.

While we are on the  subject of pictures you might want to know that Sarah Waters' "The Night Watch" has made it from page to screen, but judging from the review posted at AfterEllen.com it's not a TV adaptation quite as successful as "Tipping the Velvet" or "Fingersmith".

Further on Sarah Waters .... you can catch a few of her suggestions for your summer reading posted on AfterEllen.com if you follow this link. I for one will put J. Courtney Sullivan's "Main" on my "to do list" - I really did enjoy her first novel "Commencement" featuring the lives and love of four women grads from Smiths College.

As this ramble started with a picture I think that I ought to leave you with yet another link to pictures you can explore try dykestowatchoutfor.com and don't worry I'm not sending you off to look up dirty pic's. This is Alison Bechdel's website exploring her comic strip "Dykes To Watch Out For" - if you like comics  you can search the free archive for strips.

So why this ramble ? Well I'm really not a soccer fan - never could understand why 2 times 11 women would run around for ONE ball ?? ... Give the girls something to play with !! No I'm not thinking that kind of balls ..... !!! So again why the ramble ? Well actually as an excuse to point you in the direction of "America's Sweetheart" yet again. This fic feature a couple of ex-soccer players - one even an Olympian.

I know you probably just finished the fic as I mentioned in my last ramble ;-) If you did like it you might want to let the author know ? You can find a mail address for Catherine Burk in the comment to the story. I hope that all your appreciative mails might lure CB into finishing and posting a new fic for us !

If Soccer is not your game - you can find a few other sports themed fic's on the Listmania page among others "The Deal" by M. Ryan. This is a real gem even if golf is not your sport. The romance is great and you might even find the added theme on the life of women in Newsbizz catching.

And to leave you with a little something .... you might take Pride in this ... they do seem to have fun!

Boston.com from Athens Pride

Ramble - Revisiting Old Friends!

Do you ever get tired of exploring new territory ? Meeting new people ? Do you sometimes just long to wander around all the safe haunts ... to go to that place by the river you know is so tranquil, to have a drink at the café that you know serves the best coffee, to meet up with the friend you know will make you laugh and kick your butt because you need it ... again!

In RL we can't always lounge around in the safe places, we have to venture out into the unknown, be daring, try our hands at things that we don't know if we can do, but in the world of fan fiction we don't have to be daring all the time. Sometimes we can just sit back with an old favourite fic and enjoy a good read - no harm in that! Let someone else struggle with all the new stories for a little while.

If you feel the inclination to visit with a few of my old friends from the mushy part of the uber fan fiction universe feel free to join me as is ramble down memory lane .....

This time my ramble takes off in Michigan with Keegan the pregnant ex-soccer player who still has a flame burning for her former partner Gwen "America's Sweetheart". However much I think that even expecting mothers should keep up with their exercises this is not about exercise or sport for that matter, but a mushy romance that will show us that it's possible to win back the love of your life if you are willing to risk your heart - and I guess that some things or rather some women are worth a bit of a risk.

Hmm I just realized that I never put "America's Sweetheart" on the Top10 page - what a miss - even with some rough spots in the dramatic parts of the storyline - this is a gem - if you like mushy romance.

If mushy romance wont satisfy your cravings you might want to wander down a little dark side street .... this is where you'll find the mushy romance with an erotic twist or maybe it's the other way around ... erotica with a romantic twist?? Anyway don't read these stories at work .... never did understand why anyone would take time out to read fan fiction during office hours - sorry I have high work ethics .. perhaps be course I love what I do?? 

"Caution: Under Construction" .... don't worry this is not an unfinished fic but an extra long and well crafted story by Vertigo sporting the ultimate butch construction worker Sheridan, her rather undisciplined dogs and a long legged brunette Keefer that proves to be just the thing Sheridan needs to quit her habit of playing ladies for one night stands. The women are sweet, the romance mushy and the sex scenes plentiful!

If you are still struggling to keep warm take a few step farther down the little dark street and look up Wilder and her long time friend Darcy while they take an almost scientific approach to establishing whether sex with a woman is more pleasurable than with a man. You might take a guess at the outcome before you look up "Unlimited Sexual Favours".

Let's move back up toward the main street where the light is better and the atmosphere less steamy ! This time lets knock on Delaney's door, she is a player like Sheridan, the butch construction worker from Vertigo's "Caution: Under Construction", and like Sheridan she has a soft heart under her tough exterior, but it's well hidden and even her friends aren't quite sure that she has one. The woman to teach Delaney to play by a new tune is Hannah. A sweet woman who needs a friend and certainly shouldn't be used for an one night stand, but that's all Delaney is about isn't it ? If you want to know what made Hannah vulnerable and how Delaney tackles the new challenge then look up "Endgame" by Meghan O'Brien.

The view is even better if we aim for high ground or perhaps even the summit of Kilimanjaro. If you feel like taking a real hike whiles relaxing on the sofa then venture out with Mary Kate when she decides to follow her dream of trekking to the top of the Kilimanjaro. This is not just an adventure but turns out to be a well crafted romance when Kristin joins the trekking party on "The Road from Kilimanjaro".

I have several "old friends" that I revisit from time to time, the above mentioned fic's are just the one's I have revisited recently. If you want to know a bit more about the stories mentioned before you venture out for a first time visit then look up the reviews by way of the author tags. 

I would love to know if you have a favourite story that you revisit from time to time - maybe I've missed out on something ;-)