Jax Meyer’s Lesfic Journey
On this episode of Les Do Books Tara Scott finds out Jax Meyer’s Lesfic Journey, including 4 F/F romance recommendations
Lesfic author Jax Meyer joins Tara in this episode to share how she first discovered lesbian fiction, how that led to her becoming an author, and four lesbian romances that she recommends.
Listen to the podcast here
Check out Jax’s recommendations:
Casting Lacey by Elle Spencer
Publisher Bold Strokes Books
Available on Audiobook Yes, narrated by Melissa Moran
Synopsis
Coming out is easier when you’ve got someone by your side. At least that’s how the hyper-private Quinn Kincaid sees it. When her publicist suggests a good old-fashioned sham of a Hollywood relationship, Quinn reluctantly agrees. And that’s how the star of Jordan’s Appeal, TV’s highest rated legal drama, ends up with a fake girlfriend – the very real, very sexy, and very gay soap star Lacey Matthews.
In Casting Lacey, Elle Spencer gives us a hilarious new take on a classic storyline, complete with nosy mothers, fawning assistants, and two beautiful actresses who might learn about true love. If they don’t kill each other first.
Get this book on Amazon US, Canada and Germany
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Perfect Rhythm by Jae
Publisher Ylva Publishing
Available on Audiobook Yes, narrated by Angela Dawe
Synopsis
Pop star Leontyne Blake might sing about love, but she stopped believing in it a long time ago. What women want is her image, not the real her. When her father has a stroke, she flees the spotlight and returns to her tiny Missouri hometown.
In her childhood home, she meets small-town nurse Holly Drummond, who isn’t impressed by Leo’s fame at all. That isn’t the only thing that makes Holly different from other women. She’s also asexual. For her, dating is a minefield of expectations that she has decided to avoid.
Can the tentative friendship between a burned-out pop star and a woman not interested in sex develop into something more despite their diverse expectations?
Contains mature themes.
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Just Physical by Jae
Publisher Ylva Publishing
Available on Audiobook No
Synopsis
After being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, twenty-five-year-old Jill Corrigan takes herself off the romantic market. Not wanting to become a burden to a potential partner, she focuses on her career as an actress instead.
On the set of a disaster movie, she meets stunt woman Kristine “Crash” Patterson, whose easy smile instantly makes Jill wish things were different. Meanwhile, Crash is trained to fall, but she didn’t count on falling in love.
Despite their growing feelings for each other, Jill resolves to let Crash into her bed, but not her heart.
As they start to play with fire on and off camera, will they really be able to keep things just physical?
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As Long as Love Lasts by Jea Hawkins
Publisher Wicked Hearts Publishing
Available on Audiobook No
Synopsis
2018 – She doesn’t know if a marriage is worth fighting for.
Peyton Kennedy quantifies everything in terms of numbers and risk. She looks at a problem and solves it, leaving no piece of the puzzle out. When her young, too-whimsical wife inherits a derelict farmhouse from a distant aunt, Peyton can only see the bottom line. Too much work. Too much money. Time. Energy. Definitely not worth saving.
But her wife knows how to get her way and Peyton finds herself roped into renovations. This… this may be the straw that breaks her marriage’s back, and Peyton’s worried about how not worried that makes her.
That is, until a seventy-year-old bundle of letters and a time-worn diary fall on her head.
Before she knows it, Peyton is drawn into the story of her wife’s great aunt, Marty, a woman who dared defy social conventions for the love of another woman.
1939 – She doesn’t know what love is.
Marty Bell thinks life will fall neatly into place. Her mother has expectations: A husband, wealthy enough to give Marty security for the rest of her days. When she meets a beautiful circus worker who shovels dung and pounds stakes for a living, it’s the first time Marty sees that she can stray from the path.
Soon, her life is dictated by not just her mother, but the upheaval of war and the one thing she never expected to find: love.
And Marty will risk anything and everything to hold onto it.
Contemporary and historical lesbian romance intertwine in this emotional tale of a diary, an elephant, and four women who know that few things matter more than finding someone who loves them just the way they are.
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Find Jax Meyer online
Transcript
please note this transcript has not been edited and is automatically generated meaning certain words will be incorrect
hi I’m Tara and welcome to les do books email me at Tara@thelesbianreview.com with any questions or comments or come join the Facebook group so lesbian early book club I’m joined today by Jax Meyer whose second book a marine awakening has recently released exclusively on Amazon and will be out later this year on audible welcome Jax morning and I also want to add that if you are one of those people that does not use Amazon or can’t use Amazon you can email me at Jax Meyer author at gmail.com and I will send you a copy that’s pretty great and I think you should take her up on it because I mean who doesn’t love a book so you’re here today Jax to talk about your journey as a less ‘fuck reader and how that led you to became an author so where did that begin so I’m one of those people that also annoys the heck out of me in that until about a year year and a half ago I didn’t know less Vic existed and I don’t know why I came out 20 plus years ago and I realized there gonna be some people already screaming and going there were books then I know that now oh but I didn’t realize that at the time because I grew up in rural Wisconsin where we didn’t have queer book stores or even feminist bookstores we were lucky to have bookstores at all so my exposure to books with queers of any type typically came from like curve and Advocate magazine so that was my only exposure and then still ahead to figure out where to find them so early on I did read some way to my brown and that was great I read things like bachelor god of Carolina but those types of things are more literary fiction and not as fun as less Vic in my opinion no judgments people who prefer that and then I remember the biggest thing was me finding so much blues which as a butch that was like the most important book probably for my entire life and that really made a big impact but at the same time I still hadn’t found just romance or just happy books things that made me feel hopeful about the future instead of somewhat scared and depressed and so it was a weird time then before Amazon being able to just search for things and find things and send it to you and no one even knew what you ordered and then right during this time period I joined the Marine Corps and that’s the time of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell I couldn’t have books around I couldn’t dare go into a bookshop and look without risking someone finding me and actually that that theater and those feelings are very integral to a marine awakening and it was very cathartic to to write that because it’s a I was excessively scared more scared than I needed to be probably but that really kept me from looking for books at that time in my life so once I got out and that was a whole thing with being discharged under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell somehow the only thing I was finding were comics so dykes to watch out for Jane’s World which I adored and worked really well but i still can’t tell you why I haven’t found less Vik until a year and a half ago in between that time period it might be that I was just didn’t recognize that I needed romance in my life and I don’t know but about a year well actually at this point now about three years ago my wife had an idea for a story and I was like this is a great story I’m totally fascinated but she has some neurological issues and so I knew in order for the story to exist I needed to help so I started doing research and as part of that research I was googling like the top lesbian romance books and for some reason didn’t find the lesbian review yet at that time I’m not sure why but it’s cool because I found it later and that’s what matters but I found a list that was probably just some random like AfterEllen list or something and Found ended up choosing Melissa Braden waiting in the wings and that was my fur lesbian audiobook and I love it and I’ve listened to it again I still love it but at the same time there was culture shock for me the language of romance can be a little different and feel a little cheesy the first time coming into it in no way is Melissa Braden really a cheesy writer but it was so different and so I was like this is interesting and I think I had to let myself admit that I liked it like I had to give myself a little time so that gave me my first taste of realizing there were some good stories out there and then give it a few more months and the Fiasco of he who must be Not Be Named happened with the election and I was angry all the time and I couldn’t stay angry like that so I pulled back from news and I said I need something that makes me happy and something that reminds me that there are lesbians in the world and they can be happy and so that is when I found the lesbian review and I found the top 100 books to start with and the very first book pretty much knocked me over because Bridget Essex has the world’s greatest cover to a night to remember and I was obsessed I was like I have to read this book this cover is amazing I have to read it and that turned into a binge of Bridget Essex books which is a wonderful thing because even when she’s angsty I feel like she’s wrapping me in a warm hug and it was exactly what I needed and that was the end of my ability to say I’m not reading romance because that’s now pretty much 95% of what I’ve read so that was all I mean that all happened just at the very end of 2017 and then into 2018 when I discovered Jai’s butch big lesbian bingo thing and I was like cool I’m gonna explore everything and still nothing in the back of my mind about writing my own stories I still struggle to consider myself a creative person on that front and yet the evidence is right in front of me so I found that I reading a bunch enjoying all these different types of books but really focusing on just women and remembering that there are all these different lives out there that are so different from mine and yet there’s similar aspects and then in March or April so I’d read probably 60 to 80 books at that point cuz I read really fast and I listened to audio books at the same time while I’m driving a lot and I woke up I’d had a dream and I was like this is kind of a funky dream it was really short but I had run into my junior high band teacher at a college I was like that’s just a weird situation have happen anyway so it stayed in my mind for days I was just trying to figure out how that would even come about and it started to crystallize into the story that became dal segno and I don’t know I just started writing and I started reading books because J under her real name Sandra girth publishes books on how to write which were really great and so I was reading those and actually sent her an email and I was as considerate as I possibly could because I knew she didn’t need to respond she does this for a living and there’s nothing more annoying to people than someone asking for favors from people they don’t know to do their job for free so it was literally one paragraph and I said I’m a little confused about this deep third writing point of view if you have any comments cool and if not I totally respect that and it was fine but she emailed me back and that was awesome and she gave me a little compliment and helped fix my issue and all in like three paragraphs she’s very impressive and so that gave me enough encouragement to then keep writing and reach out on the less Vic love slack group which Caren Malone runs and we have an aspiring authors channel on there because a lot of people after they read enough they start writing and so we ask questions we get feedback just resources it’s a wealth of knowledge and somehow in that process of a little dream snippet but within less than six months I had a published book and I we just went I’m not sure how this happened but it needed to happen because I made it happen working three jobs with a four-year-old and a wife and and all that and then I couldn’t stop writing so now I’ve just been writing consistently for the past year and then my to be read pile it just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger so a little behind on my reading but I do keep reading because it’s important and I feel like then just scratching the surface of less fake even though I’ve read over a hundred books in the last year that are just less big so that’s my long story that’s so good that made me so happy and I think there are a lot of people that would identify with it I similarly also found it just because of like a list on Jezebel like nice it’s sometimes hard to I think it’s getting easier to find now I think it’s getting a lot easier to find now but when I found it like eight years ago I had no idea and you almost needed like a gilded invitation to – to the secret party that is less Vik behind the big party that is the rest of publishing you’re listening to the news being talk show the lesbians all choke on your hub of podcast information so do you have some favorite books that you might want to recommend to listeners I have too many favorite books I am a I’m a pretty forgiving reader as long as I am entertained and then then I’m automatically like cool I like the book and then if I learned something or it was just really exceptional that I love the book and there’s a lot of in those categories and that’s even with me really focusing on primarily kindle unlimited books because don’t have a lot of money yet so I don’t read a ton of traditionally not even traditionally published but as far as less vaq published publishing house type books because that cost more money and Elle would be in a lot of trouble if I spent all our budget on books I’m sure we’re all in the same position actually but the first one that really like blew me away as the like truly I wanted to keep reading it even though it tortured me as I read it was Casting Lacey by l Spencer it’s so good and it drives me crazy and I want to strangle them constantly in the book and yet I love it so much and so that that one definitely was my my top recommendation for over the longest time and still is but it’s one that people know so well at this point that I feel like I can mention it but most people already should have read it if you don’t like if you haven’t read it read it unless you really hate cussing then don’t read it that you would want to read for the three people who haven’t read it yet and they really should because I agree it’s so much fun I would say just the important things for me with that is that it’s a a pretend girlfriend story between two actresses who kind of hate each other at first and then they end up not but they do in a really creative way that will fuel all of your fanfic fantasies for probably the of your life and actually it was a good thing that you scooped it while it was still in Kindle unlimited because it’s been picked up by bold strokes books exactly no I snagged it like right when it came out I early on started following random authors and somehow found her pretty early they did a really good job of marketing through like book Twitter and things like that it’s it’s rather impressive from this side now so that was great it’s I I have the audio book though as well because I can’t not own this book another one you need to look at my list now cuz again massive list I’ve got my to J’s so anything bye bye J is amazing and enjoyable and I can’t actually separate out two books because they were too important in my life so perfect rhythm really helped me understand asexuality in general and I’m starting to understand my own demisexuality because I learned from examples a lot dude being autistic so for me every single s Vick book is research because I am learning how to be a person which sounds really weird if you’re neurotypical but every person that is autistic is going yep exactly so it’s not about mimicking either it’s just about seeing different possibilities it’s like it opens up my world to go oh yeah I can just I can do this in my life now because I didn’t it didn’t even occur to me that I couldn’t that it could I don’t know it’s weird autism is weird sometimes so perfect rhythm really helped me understand that and begin that journey at least and then sorry just to not to sake but would you mind explaining I think I think there our listeners who would probably might understand asexuality but they may never have heard of demisexuality sure for that’s okay I literally ranted on Twitter this week because someone wanted to to people we’re trying to push demisexuality out of the ACE spectrum though it is by definition part of the ACE spectrum and it’s a whole thing and I am NOT an expert I’m still learning this so in a sexuality the big the key thing is that person doesn’t experience sexual attraction that doesn’t mean that they don’t have sex or enjoy sex they may or may not it’s really about that attraction and in demisexuality it gets a little fuzzy because there’s a sexual connection usually between a person but only when there’s a real connection there like so there needs to be an emotional connection between the two people but that still doesn’t mean there’s sexual attraction so there may be sexual attraction and just only with like one person or only after a really connect a deep connection has been made with them or if there might not and so for me it’s like 90% of our lives is spent just like any other person on the asexual spectrum where we’re not walking around and seeing people and going oooh I feel like I want to have sex with them I’ve never I’ve never experienced that and I didn’t realize until was 40 that I hadn’t that’s a weird thing to go 40 years about noticing but you know until you talk to people you don’t realize how different everyone is and so that’s where with with demisexuality there’s there’s usually just there’s more instances of you may actually have normal sexual relationships but only with certain people in my case yeah like I know if I’m not emotionally connected to someone in some way shape or form I definitely wouldn’t want to be touching them and there’s probably a lot of people that can recognize that too but it’s just like there wouldn’t even be like a fantasy about someone like like an actress I’m like I just I’d be like cool I’d like to know them as a person but there’s not a sexual component to it that’s just completely foreign to my brain I don’t know if that helps it helps a little it does and I think that will help other people too so what is the other Jay book that you were going to mention um so the other Jay book is just physical so in there the main character has MS and it’s early in in her diagnosis and so she’s okay sometimes she’s okay not some not okay other times and then she meets crash the stunt woman and there’s this whole constant of like there’s interest but she doesn’t see a future with her as a sexual being because of her MS because it’s so unpredictable and in my life my wife has Lyme and neurological issues from seizures and there’s actually a lot of overlap between MS and Lyme and people get mistakenly diagnosed with both all the time and so reading it I could hear like I could have heard it in my wife’s voice I was just like yeah you’ve said that before and I and so it was something I could really relate to very very easily though I’m not a stunt person and that part was amusing but ya know I’m hurt so I really like that book because it shows a very realistic portrayal and that’s what Jade is really well she research as well and she makes sure she gets really good beta readers that check her on her stuff so those are like two that really stand out but I could go on and on for an hour about her books alone I think a lot of people could so for the other Jea Hawkins which is spelled Jea the big book that I’m recommending my heart is called as long as love lasts and that book actually has two time periods in it and two couples in it that are related and it’s a fascinating look at historical time period along with a modern couple trying to work out their stuff in their marriage like they’re ready to divorce at the beginning of this book so one doesn’t know it it’s it’s a really interesting like way to look at relationships and that hit probably too close to home as well and probably went for a lot of longtime married people that there there are things that start to build up that you’re not talking about anymore and so you have to find a way to come together and regain that that intimacy that you had early on that brought you together in the first place so it’s a it’s an interesting book it’s at times incredibly heartbreaking and frustrating especially the historical part which is why I tend to shy away from historical romance in general the time period just makes it impossible for it to be just relatively happy all the time but I push through it because everyone talked about how great it was and it was worth it and I definitely enjoyed it and so I recommend that one a lot because as an independent author you know Indies don’t get as much easy publicity sometimes and so that’s one that I think everyone should read and maybe just hasn’t heard of before so those are kind of my three plus one so I have a massive list on Goodreads and I I am constantly recommending books on Twitter and trying to get more and more books known I respected +1 on a list I love lists I’m all about the top lists I’m a LESBIAN view and I’m constantly putting the lesbian review out there because you do such a good job of this all of you do a great job on the reviews and of giving a good overview and a good feel for a book I as a reader that’s incredibly invaluable well thank you so much I know all the other reviewers will be thrilled to hear that you said that so yeah just thank you yeah so where can people find you online if they want to connect with you if they want to know a lot of things about me or better or worse twitter is this is the best place because it’s so easy and that’s where all my book people are so on twitter i’m butch jacks and then which is funny i’ve had that name for about twenty years and if I’ve got account for a really long time and then on Facebook I do have an up page Jax Meyer and Meyers ME ye are for people who realize how many variations there are Jax Meyer author that’ll pull me up there I try to remember to post things on there but I haven’t set it up to cross post bits from Twitter yet either so it doesn’t get as much but if you don’t like to hear the daily thoughts of especially a person actively writing that’s safer you don’t have to listen to my ramblings or find out how many pages I edited today and then I’ve got a web site I don’t even remember what it is honestly at the top of my head but it’s linked from both and you know for a lot of people they don’t really like to have their email clogs so I was reminding people you can follow offers on Goodreads and on Amazon and they’ll let you know when we have new books that come out and then you don’t have to worry about following newsletters per Sade so yeah most of my online time spent between Twitter and slack so if you are a less pic reader which you probably are if you’re listening to this you can actually look up less Vic love or just reach out to caramel own on Twitter or something and she’ll get you hooked up with it we talked about lots of things they’re not just books but we do talk a lot about books and so an especially if you’re an aspiring author like we’re all ridiculously helpful sometimes / helpful and you know if it’s just you’ve got this much done but you’re struggling with a blurb well we’ll help you with your blurb that’s the most invaluable piece I think probably that entire bit is no matter how experienced you are at writing a blurb is difficult so having someone read it and say mm-hmm that’s not quite right here so helpful so definitely come in join the fun we’re a little wacky but we’re relatively safe that is all for this episode thank you so much Jax for joining me oh thank you so I’m Tara and you’ve been listening to Les Do Books remember to email me at Tara at the lesbian review.com with your questions or comments if you’re an author who’s interested in joining me please reach out you can send an email to the same address and you can come on and you can chat about your story finding less Vik or the books that you love any of the trends that you see in the industry whatever you like if you’ve enjoyed this episode please check out the show notes where you’ll find a patreon link for the lesbian talk show or visit patreon.com slash the lesbian talk show our patrons get exclusive content like bonus podcasts author interviews reviewer interviews and no one else gets access to them you can also join our Facebook group the lesbian review book club to talk about these books and anything else reading and loving to find this and many other great shows all you need to do is search for the lesbian talk show on iTunes pod being stitcher or Spotify
