Katherine V. Forrest’s Getting Rec’d

Mar 17, 2023 | Authors Getting Rec'd

Author Karin Kallmaker recommends Delafield by Katherine V. Forrest

Welcome to Authors Getting Rec’d! Each week, we’ll bring you a new sapphic book recommendation from a favorite sapphic author. Find out what authors are reading and why, plus read about the personal connections between authors and books.

This week, Karin Kallmaker explains why Delafield is a must read.

Karin has been a fan of Katherine V. Forrest’s work for nearly 40 years. In fact, this author has also been a longtime mentor and has edited several of Karin’s books. For Karin’s part, it is a relationship filled with awe and deep respect. She had been both looking forward to reading the finale of the series and dreading it because of everything that the main character, Kate, has seen and told her about our community and its history.

Let’s hear more from Karin about why Delafield is a must read:

What’s unique about these detective stories is that Katherine Forrest decided at the outset that Kate would age in real time. Every book is an insightful – often humorous but not always flattering – snapshot of queer life the year that book was published. Kate’s ongoing dilemmas living in the closet, fearing discovery and reprisal, dealing with being the rare woman in her field, plus Kate’s innate and unrelenting integrity that costs her time and again – the whole series is like reading a long, intriguing biography of a lesbian life from the 1980s to the 2020s.

Because of how true Kate is to her time as she lives it, she can be incredibly frustrating. Her struggle with alcohol doesn’t get an easy fix. Her love life falls apart because she makes mistakes. Her imperfections are, for me, truly validating. Kate endures in spite of herself, as do we all.

Oh, and there’s an intricate, character-driven mystery driven by meticulous procedural rigor. Kate observes everything. In this finale she revisits a case from an earlier book (Murder at the Nightwood Bar) and asks herself if she did the right thing all those years ago as deadly consequences arrive on her doorstep.

Tempted? You can get Katherine’s book here:

Karin Kallmaker is the author of Touchwood – 30th Anniversary Edition, which has a special connection to Katherine V. Forrest.

Here’s Karin to tell us more:

Touchwood is set in an extraordinary time and place in the American LGBTQ world: the emerging Gay Nineties of San Francisco. I didn’t start writing romance thinking about them as mini-histories. Touchwood became a history of a kind because of the age gap between the characters, and my attempt to bridge the mindsets between the 1950s and the 1990s. The elder Louisa made choices that the younger Rayann can’t even wrap her head around.

Thirty years later, both perspectives are now “history.” The first draft of the novel didn’t include any of that, however. But Katherine V. Forrest was its first reader. Her feedback, gentle but very firm, was that I owed our community a better effort – we deserved to see the fullness and complexities of our lives, even in romance novels. I dug deeper. The final Touchwood is a reflection of everything Katherine poured into the Delafield series: our lives matter in all their mess and glory.

Thank you, Karin, for sharing what book is on your nightstand right now and paying it forward by showing some book love to a fellow SapphFic author!

About Karin Kallmaker:

Karin Kallmaker believes that love is the universal story and reflects that in all of her work. From 1989’s In Every Port to recent releases like Simply the Best and Velvet in Venice, everyday women become the heroes of their own lives as they recognize and accept the love and respect they deserve.

Visit Karin’s website!

Are you a SapphFic author who would like to give a shout out to another SapphFic author whose book is one of your “5-star Reads?” Let us know!