A classic Xena Uber. You can read my review here: http://reviews.c-spot.net/archives/1899 ( )

Ah, so I have read the web version of this book so many times since it was put up way back when I'd lost count. But, this was my first reading of the published book. They are definitely different, although not as drastically different as I thought it might be.

The novel is crammed full of story, and so here and there it comes across as a bit wordy, but, I'd much rather have too much story than no story.

It centers around two women. Dar, a Corporate VP, and Kerry, the director of a small company that just got swallowed by said Corp. It's not a surprising romance plot. The same sort has been done forever. A character who's in charge, but too much in charge, and then a second character stands up tot he first. And the first falls in love with the second and vice versa. In this case, Dar and Kerry are the two women who fall in love.

How they fall in love felt almost real. It's not like some books where first the two main characters get together and then the problems and twists happen. In this book, they slowly get to know each other as their relationship progresses.

There are various corporate disasters that they get to deal with as well as a couple of personal ones too.

I really liked the dreams that both Dar and Kerry have at different points in the story. They're cool like Easter Eggs that work in the story on multiple levels. I also liked that there were parts here and there in the novel that got a bit thriller-ish, and the inner monologues of most of the characters were some of the best I've ever read.

It's a great read. Some of the tech stuff is a teeny tiny bit out of date-ish, but the story resonates across the years. ( )

I've heard nothing but good things about this book, and since it fit one of the squares for a challenge I'm currently doing, I decided to take the plunge. And I have to say, I didn't really like this book.

It's Xena uber fiction (for those who don't know what that is, it's fan fiction taking the characters of Xena and Gabrielle and placing them in different time periods). So Dar is Xena and Kerry is Gabrielle. And the author takes great pains in letting us know this at every opportunity. Look, I've read a lot of fan fiction in my day, and I liked it to a degree, but I never got into Xena (I know, I know, bad queer girl!) and it felt like every page the reader is being reminded just who these characters "really" are. So that took down the enjoyment factor for me.

I also don't think that the book has honestly held up all that well; technology changes quickly, and it's painfully obvious that this book is not exactly recent, shall we say.

Also, what is up with all of the "the taller woman," "the younger woman," etc? Change it up a little. It got annoying after a while.

I do like that the romance is a slow build; no one can really accuse this story of being in the instalove category.

I also appreciate that this is a "classic" in lesbian fiction. But I just didn't like it. ( )

I love the characters in this series. This first one is also about the beginning of the relationship between Dar and Kerry, which is fun to read and to revisit. I love Dar's attitude and her IT knowledge. ( )