The summary on Bella’s site didn’t excite me much so I wasn’t really looking forward to reading it for the book group in which I sometimes participate. I’m not a religious person at all – I still refer to myself as being on God Strike, much to the dismay of my close friend who is also a Jehovah’s Witness. But that was only part of it for me. I wasn’t very keen on incorporating the GBT into my L reading. I know, that’s bad of me, but I’ve sort of gotten into this lesbian romance rut and it can be hard to break out of. But I’m so happy that I finally decided to read this.

The Children of Mother Glory was a great read. From beginning to end, I was completely involved in the stories. Each of them held my attention and drew me in – even when I didn’t want to care, I still did. When I was about halfway through, I had a hard time explaining to my wife just what the book was about. I think I can do a better job now but you will probably still want to check out the synopsis on the author’s site and on Bella’s site. In a nutshell, these four stories cover the LGBT spectrum for specific periods between 1909 and 2007 (I think it was 2007 – don’t have my copy handy to check and I didn’t write it down in my notes.) Each of the stories deals with members of the Potter Church, or Potterites, who are a pretty strict sect of Christianity. The church demands a lot of it’s followers and they take it very seriously. You can get the specifics about each story from one of the links above so I’m going to get into my review.

The four stories in the book are interrelated, all coming back to Mother Glory and Emma. It was nice to see the characters from the previous stories come up again throughout the book. One of the unique things about this book is that the individual tales aren’t wrapped up neatly at the end of their sections. The reader gets more of the tale in the parts that follow. I also thought the author changing tense and point of view was an interesting change. The first two were told in the past tense, third person. The third, set in the 1980’s, is told in first person, past tense, and the final is told in present tense, third person. It immediately made me wonder if the segment in the ’80’s perhaps relates more to the author. I guess I’ll ask her when she joins the book group tomorrow. Looking forward to that…

I highly recommend this book. I found the entire work interesting, different, and very well written. I do want to point out that one of the things that made it refreshing for me was that it was not a romance at all. There is physical intimacy in each of the stories but I wouldn’t classify this as a romance. I see it as a study of some of the issues LGBT people have had to deal with over the past 100 years or so. The religious aspect brought us a community of people to read about but it wasn’t the only thing that brought us all together.