Fiction Monday – A Review of the Works of Fiona Zedde

Lesbian romance/erotica author Fiona Zedde (AKA Fiona Lewis) was born in Jamaica and raised there until she was 12 and her family moved to the U.S. She currently lives in the Tampa, Florida area. Though she’s an out and proud member of the black lesbian community, neither Fiona’s press nor her own website overtly call  her a lesbian. Either she eschews the label – doubtful – or it’s absence is by her publishers design in an odd effort not to offend the readers of her straight romantic/erotic fiction. I say odd, because anyone with eyes can easily see all of the fiction that she writes from her own site and can easily find references to her participation in gay pride, gay black pride and lesbian themed events all over Florida and everywhere she’s traveled or intends to.

Fiona’s work is top notch. Further, it fills a couple of voids in the realm of lesbian fiction, the primary one being the lack of fiction centered around the black lesbian community and the second being a lack of book length lesbian fiction that is a combination of romantic and erotic themes without leaning too heavily on romantic angst at one extreme or pornography at the other extreme. She has the pretty unique ability to enthrall the reader with romance – and a little bit of suspense – and also thrill them with steamy sex scenes that sizzle but don’t cross the line into Penthouse Forum drama.

Admittedly, I’m a Caucasian lesbian with only a little experience with the black community and precious little with my black sister lesbians. Zedde’s works, while leaning slightly toward mainstream romance and erotic, do tend to have more flavor given the influence of the African American experience. I very much enjoy that about them.

If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time, you know that I favor fiction authors with the ability to bring a setting to life and make a reader feel as though he or she is there. Zedde’s first book, Bliss, published in 2005, is just such a book. Reading it is like being in Jamaica. You can feel the ocean breeze and smell the jasmine and the exotic dishes cooking. She continues her sensory experience with her 2nd novel, A Taste Of Sin set in the US, mainly in Miami.

Her 3rd novel, Every Dark Desire, published in 2007, is again set in Jamaica but, in a departure from her norm, the book has a vampire twist. Given the movie and book craze over all things vampire at the time, it comes as no surprise that this book was written. It’s not one of my favorites of hers, since I was never into the whole vampire scene myself, but the book gets high marks from many readers. I do give the author high marks for trying something new and keeping things fresh.

Fiona was back in her usual form with the 2008 publication of Hungry For It set in Miami/South Beach. Here she weaves imagery with romance, eroticism and suspense masterfully. The main character this time around, is drawn from Zedde’s 2nd book, A Taste of Sin. This was a welcome surprise!

Fiona Zedde took a break of sorts from lesbian fiction until the much anticipated release of Dangerous Pleasures in February of this year. With this book, she’s back in form where imagery and relationships play a role. Unfortunately, the book left many of her traditional lesbian readers feeling let down. While there’s abundant lesbian interplay, there’s also a very straight component to the book and a real lack of closure overall for the two main characters. Honestly? I’d give it 3 to 3.5 out of 5 stars because it was well written but it left me feeling as though something I’ve come to expect from the author was missing. If you’re Bi, or if you like a good mix of gay and straight in your fiction, you’ll probably like this book a lot.