Books By Christian Gays Member, Patricia Spencer

Lie With Me

In this gender-bending lesbian romance, set in England just before the Regency Period, things aren’t always as they seem.

The Countess Maryam Wyndham’s solicitor has been siphoning her late husband’s estate into his own pockets and now she finds herself destitute. One last asset, Skylark Manor, stands between her and homelessness and she must sell it to the highest bidder so she can take care of her three young children.

The man who wants Skylark the most is the Marquis Julien D’Avenant, a half-English half-French aristocrat who fled the bloodbath in France after the revolution and has lived in near-seclusion since his return to England. When he does come out in public, he causes a stir. His nose is a beak, his face is slashed, and he dresses in an immaculately-tailored version of the long trousers worn by the working class revolutionaries who stormed the Bastille.

One look at the extraordinary D’Avenant takes Lady Maryam’s breath away. He has an air of wildness about him, a feral streak, a shimmering, shifting countenance. D’Avenant is an anarchist with eyes the colour of lapis lazuli. But as the owner of Edgemere Estate, which surrounds Skylark, he says her property isn’t worth anywhere near what her solicitor says she can get for it.

When she decides to go see the distant estate for herself, D’Avenant impulsively invites Lady Maryam and her children to stay at Edgemere while she does so. It is only on cooler consideration that D’Avenant realizes that opening his home to this beautiful stranger could destroy everything he has built over the past ten years.

Because D’Avenant is not who he says he is. He is a woman disguised as a man.

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Book length = 51,554 words
Sexuality = tame, euphemistic
This books reads like a contemporary novel.
Mature lead characters, including a single mother.

Note from Mary:  As of June 23, 2022 this book has a 4.7 out of 5 stars from 100 ratings on Amazon.com, and a 4.7 out of 5 stars from 82 ratings on Amazon.ca.

Mary's review of the book:  

Reviewed in Canada on July 7, 2021

The Hum of Bees

Eugenia has done everything right.
Darcy has done everything wrong.
The irony is they've both ended up in the same place.

Eugenia Gallant has given everything up for her work life.  Now she is being thrown under the bus by her superior.  He has replaced her with an interim, taken away her work keys, and ordered her to take her three months accrued vacation ‘to think things over’ before testifying at the upcoming court case.

Exhausted, betrayed, and reviled, all she wants to do is hide out for the summer somewhere where no one knows her.  But where in Canada can a woman go to hide from a nationwide media storm?

Darcy Gordon is all but a recluse.  She lives on her farm outside the village of Wellington on Lake Ontario and minds her own business.  She doesn’t watch TV, doesn’t have internet, not even a phone plan.  Returning to her ancestral home after a spectacular crash and burn, she has lost confidence in her ability to navigate the world.

When a mutual friend asks her if Eugenia can stay in the little cabin on her property, Darcy agrees as a favour, not knowing it will turn both their lives upside down.

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Lesbian, WLW, HEA
Length = Approx. 83,020 words
Emotional angst.
Life insights.
Mature lead characters.
Brief references to suicide, sexual abuse. No detailed descriptions of either.
Sex in context of a loving relationship.
First in the Prince Edward County Series.

Note from Mary:   This is Patty's newest book.  (Nov 15, 2021)
Buy the Kindle version or Paperback at Amazon.com or Amazon.ca.  I've just ordered mine.  It is currently ranked at 4.9 out of 5 stars on both Amazon.ca and Amazon.com.

Update July 19, 2022:  The Hum of Bees, won a 2022 Golden Crown Literary Society Award in the Contemporary Romance, Mid-length novels category!

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How to Survive Suicide: What nobody told me about how to survive losing my son to suicide

When my 17 year old son died by suicide in 2010, I got sucked into the bowels of hell.

Eighteen months later, my life was unrecognizable. My 23 year marriage had dissolved, I had left the country, and I was suicidal myself. My life was shattered, strewn around me like wreckage from a plane crash. Everything I had worked for and believed in was gone. I didn't care if I lived or died. I had nothing left from which to draw.

In searching for guidance, I found some books about grief in general (which don’t address the many suicide-specific issues of bereavement), a couple of suicide-related ones written from a dispassionate distance, and one voyeuristic book that was little more than a litany of disturbing descriptions of deaths by suicide.

I didn’t find a book that warned me about the interpersonal dynamics that often play out to the detriment of the survivors, or about the mindsets that confound recovery.

I didn’t find a book that assured me that with hard work on my part, this tragedy was not only survivable, but could eventually yield an unexpected bounty of gifts.

This book is rooted in my own experience and my analysis of it once I was able to see past the grief to the world again. It also draws on the patterns I’ve seen in the lives of other survivors who have shared their stories in the suicide survivors recovery group that I have facilitated since 2012.

This book is me, sitting with you, having a conversation about how I and others have gotten through this. It describes the dynamics and mindsets that work against you, the overarching pattern of recovery, and some concrete things you can do to help yourself heal. It’s all from the heart.

This book is the last thing that a person with depression (me) expected to be able to put together: a hopeful book about surviving a terrible tragedy.

Note from Mary:  This book is ranked 5 stars out of 5 on Amazon.com and 5 stars out of 5 on Amazon.ca

To know more about Patty's special son, Aiden, read "A Trailblazer Since Birth".

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About Patricia Spencer