A Delicate Refusal

FINALIST: ELISA ROLLE RAINBOW AWARDS 2014

Long before the concepts of asexual and demi-sexual (and others) became the nomenclature and culture that it is today, women who were not sexual, or not very sexual, or only sometimes sexual, were characterized by the disparaging word "frigid." The word was solely intended to castigate the woman. It took some brave men and women in today's world to start to recognize the various and different aspects of asexuality as authentic and valid. But women in 1914 were left to figure it out on their own...and two of them did. 

ENGLAND, 1914

Two friends, brought together by circumstance and a mutual attraction that threatens to be torn apart by fears, family secrets, and mysterious afflictions, face an even bigger adversary in the face and form of a world war.

    As World War I begins, England tries to maintain its “splendid isolation” policy, but the British people are quietly enduring their own misgivings, facing their own fears and wondering how long they can bear witness to carnage without a response.

    Into this milieu of intrigue and uncertainty, two women begin a most unusual love affair. Theirs is a love sustained by hope and encouraged by letters but threatened by their own private fears and the worldwide anxieties covering the earth like a dark shroud.

   As all of Europe drives itself to the brink of destruction, can an uncommon love survive the concussive blasts of doubt and deceit, of estrangement and misunderstanding? Who lives to love? Who lurks in the background watching the affair from the distance of déjà vu? And who presents “a delicate refusal” to become a tragic hero?

   From the author of The Blondness of Honey, a Golden Crown Literary Society Finalist in the Historical Romance category, comes the latest novel, A Delicate Refusal**.**