This lesbian story entranced me and left me begging for more.
Sometimes it’s good to go back to the books you really loved. On a lazy Saturday, I looked for a book to spend some relaxed hours with. I thought about a mix between action, crime and romance, so I started to re-read Gun Shy: Book One in The Gun Series by Lori L. Lake. I skipped dinner and missed one of my favorite TV episodes, not able to stop reading, to see how the story ended. It was such a pleasure to re-read this all-time classic, that I would like to draw your attention to it.
The opening scene was really brilliant for me and once again got me hooked; I had no desire to stop reading and to go outside into the “real world.” The story opens with Desiree Reilly (Dez), a formidable cop at the St. Paul Police Department, capturing a pair of rapists and in the process saving two young women, Sara and Jaylynn Savage (Jay). It is a meeting that electrifies both Dez and Jay. Jay, a young, innocent woman in her mid-20s, decides to become a police officer in order to get to know Dez, her heroine.
Gun Shy covers a year in their lives. At the beginning of this year, Jay leaves the structured world of a college student. As fate would have it, Dez, known as the “Ice Queen” in her department, is assigned as Jay’s field training officer. The two women begin a long and complicated dance toward friendship and love. The self-protective walls of isolation Dez has spent years building around herself are getting lighter the longer she is exposed to Jay’s warm and lively humanity.
Gun Shy taught me a lot about life as a patrol officer in St. Paul, Minnesota: the daily grind of what the police really do, combined with some brilliant action scenes. The plot moves forward easily and logically and once again drew me in.
For me Lori L. Lake is a writer who learned her craft from the old school. There were so many skillful “show don’t tell” scenes in the book, which always left evocative images in my mind. It allowed me to feel what Jay and Dez felt – in the good and the bad times. That’s what I love about a good book – having this huge cinema screen inside me, showing the pictures like a good movie.
Both main characters are well-developed, likeable people with strengths and weaknesses. The story is well crafted and flows smoothly. Gun Shy is not only another lesbian romance with a few police scenes. It is so much more. Love and crime are the slow-pacing counterpoints to each other. Gracefully, Lori L. Lake led me, once again, through the complex process of Dez’s ability to get beyond her fear of personal relationships. Several hours later in the red dawn of the next day, I had the answer to my question: Are Jay and Dez brave enough to face their love?
The book once again was a colourful tapestry that entranced me and left me begging for more.
After putting Gun Shy back in my bookshelf I recognised a sequel Under The Gun, but that is a story to be saved for another lazy day.
