Maxine Wore Black

Maxine Wore Black by Nora Olsen is a story that takes place around a transgender girl named Jayla. Jayla is a shy person and feels inadequate about herself due to a lot of different reasons. She is a high school dropout and due to that has to take menial jobs just to get by. One night Jayla and her best friend Francesca go to gay prom and during this event Jayla meets Maxine and completely falls for her. Maxine has a girlfriend already but this does not stop her from pursuing Jayla. Jayla feels bad that Maxine wants to cheat on her girlfriend Becky with her so she tells Maxine that while she is still in a relationship nothing can happen. Now at this point the book was dragging and I was hoping it would pick up and get better. Wrong. It did not get better it just got strange. Maxine kills Becky then calls Jayla to help her cover it up. Which Jayla does because she is so in love with Maxine yet she barely knows her. Who in the world would do that? Jayla thinks Maxine "belonged to royalty of another time period". The police decide that becky committed suicide. Which does not add up. Maxine is actually takes control of Jayla's life and she basically lets her. And at no point did I ever see this as the abused partner scenario like the author tried to make it look like. Jayla knew that Maxine committed murder but loved her so much it did not matter.

The book gets weird and there are parts of it that had been properly put in the book and pursued it would have given the story some bit of a realistic and enjoyable plot. Jayla's best friend Francesca who now never sees or talks to her is not concerned about her. Why? Or like the autistic child Jayla would babysit for who saw the whole murder take place. Jayla tells Becky's mother in a letter what really happened to her daughter and that Maxine killed her. What Becky's mother did made no sense. Even Becky's best friend Danny who she has known her whole life knows Maxine is guilty. I tried not to give too much information away about the story.

Watch out could Maxine still be out there?

• Maxine Wore Black page
• Bold Strokes Books page
• Nora Olsen page

I recieved this book from NetGalley for an honest review

Taken By Storm

MY REVIEW

Lives depend on two women when a train derails high in the remote Alps due to an avalanche. Hudson Mead who is an extreme skier and Steffi Graham who is a rock climber set out over deadly terrain to get help for the others who are buried in the train under the snow from the avalanche some severely injured with sparse food available. Steffi is a librarian who does not have much experience in the harsh dangerous ice and snow conditions and to make the situation more difficult has a lack of confidence in herself. Hudson on the other hand is a reporter for the Associated Press having been in war zones, natural disasters, wherever the story took her but Hudson has no climbing skills and is not used to relying on anybody but herself and her cameraman Joe who is her best friend. 

This is one of the most amazing fiction adventure stories I have ever read. I found my hands hurting from gripping my Kindle so hard do to the fact this story has you by the seat of your pants the whole way through. The book also goes deeper into peoples psyche on the will to survive and having to put full trust into someone you do not know. All the characters are very well developed. This is considered a lesbian book. I assume do to the fact there are lesbians in the book and it has a very small romance part between women. I believe this book is for everyone! If you love adventure books you will love this one. 

Read it you will not regret it! 

                                (I recieved this book from NetGalley for an honest review.)