Lie With Me
A Sheena’s Favourite on The Lesbian Review!
A penniless Countess. A rich Marquis. A grand deception.
In this ‘disguised as a man’ lesbian romance set in England just before the Regency Period, things aren’t as they seem.
The Countess Maryam Wyndham’s solicitor has been siphoning her late husband’s estate into his own pockets and now she finds herself nearly destitute. One last asset, Skylark Manor, stands between her and homelessness and she must sell it to the highest bidder to take care of her three young children.
The ‘man’ who wants Skylark the most is the Marquis Julien D’Avenant, a half-English half-French aristocrat who fled the bloodbath in France after the revolution and lives in near-seclusion since his return to England. When he does come out in public, he causes a stir. His nose is a beak, his face is slashed, and he dresses in the long trousers of the working class revolutionaries who stormed the Bastille.
One look at the extraordinary D’Avenant takes Lady Maryam’s breath away. He has an air of wildness about him, a feral streak, a shimmering, shifting countenance. D’Avenant is an anarchist with eyes the colour of lapis lazuli. But as the owner of Edgemere Estate, which surrounds Skylark, he says her property isn’t worth anywhere near what her solicitor says she can get for it.
When she decides to go see the distant estate for herself, D’Avenant impulsively invites Lady Maryam and her children to stay at Edgemere while she does so. It is only on cooler consideration that D’Avenant realizes that opening his home to this beautiful stranger could destroy everything he has built over the past ten years.
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Book length = 51,554 words
Sexuality = tame, euphemistic
This books reads like a contemporary novel.
Mature lead characters, including a single mother.
Available on Amazon.ca and Amazon.com
Mary’s review of the book:
5.0 out of 5 stars Every sentence is so descriptive and perfectly crafted
Reviewed in Canada on July 7, 2021
The first lesbian romance I ever read was “Patience and Sarah”. I have read many more since that introduction but none touched my heart as it had, until now, with Patricia Spencer’s “Lie With Me” – a title with clandestine meaning.
The story line is wonderful, well-researched, historically accurate, and every sentence is so descriptive and perfectly crafted that immediately I was immersed in each scene.
The characters are developed with such detail that I related easily to each one, and the events so well-documented, specifically one moment of great panic and fear, that I wondered how the author could possibly describe such an event with such insight, if she had not experienced it herself.
Patricia Spencer is an amazing story-teller, and I personally, am hoping for a sequel. I felt the end of the story could easily be the beginning of a whole new storyline, with the same characters and new adventures.
This is definitely a GREAT READ. Highly recommended!
The Hum of Bees
The Prince Edward County Series (2 books)
Goldie Award Winner!
Can a fragile recluse and a woman hiding from a media storm find love?
Eugenia Gallant has given everything up for her work life. Now she is being thrown under the bus by her superior. He has ordered her to take the summer ‘to think things over’ before testifying at the upcoming court case. Exhausted, betrayed, and reviled, all she wants to do is hide out where no one knows her. But where in Canada can a woman go to hide from the nationwide media storm she herself unleashed?
Darcy Gordon is all but a recluse. She lives on her farm in beautiful Prince Edward County and minds her own business. She doesn’t watch TV, doesn’t have internet, not even a data plan on her phone. Returning to her ancestral home after a spectacular crash and burn, she is hiding out, afraid that her past may come to light–or worse, that she might get pushed so hard again that she will repeat the unthinkable.
When a mutual friend asks Darcy if Eugenia can stay in the little cabin on her property, Darcy agrees as a favour, not knowing it will turn both their lives upside down. For what future is there for love between a recluse and a prominent public figure? Between a woman based in Ontario and one who must return to British Columbia?
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Appx. 83,000 words.
Emotional angst but HEA.
Life insights. Mature lead characters.
Passing references to suicide, sexual abuse. No lingering or detailed descriptions of either.
Sex in context of a loving relationship.
First in the Prince Edward County Series
Available on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca.
The Life Bestowed
The Prince Edward County Series (2 books)
Is a future possible when the past hasn’t been healed?
Jean Louise (“Scout”) Neal has been living a predictable life that even she describes as ‘same-old’. She’s a Nurse Practitioner in beautiful Prince Edward County, Canada. She has her home, her routine, and her Gal Pals. Life is under control, just the way she’s always liked it.
Then she starts working with Professor Kit Delaney, a trans woman who is teaching health care providers how to give culturally-competent medical care to sexual and gender minority patients. Recovering from the loss of her long-time marriage, the last thing Kit needs is to fall in love again.
Scout knows little about trans people, but a cautious step at a time she and Kit deepen their relationship. Same-old goes out the window. Then crisis strikes and their families enter the picture. It becomes clear that in order to move forward as a couple, Scout and Kit also need to look back.
The Life Bestowed is an angsty, slow burn romance between mature women that examines the complexities of love and identity and explores how our wider circle of loved ones are woven into the very fabric of who we are.
The stories in this series stand alone.
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
Two years in research and writing, this book has been professionally edited as well as sensitivity-read by trans women to ensure respectful portrayal of a trans character. Humanity is wildly diverse. The trans community is not monolithic any more than the cis community is. Since the main character, Kit, is in her mid-50s, her experiences reflect generational particularities as well as individual ones. She is also from Ontario, Canada, so her cultural influences, use of regional language, and political environment may differ from those of trans women in other parts of the world.
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Note from Mary: This is Patty’s newest book. (February 6, 2024)
Buy the Kindle version or Paperback at Amazon.com or Amazon.ca.
I’ll Get You Home
A scandalous combat photographer.
An irreproachable TV Producer.
Three days under siege.
Pulitzer Prize-winning combat photographer Brenna Rease has spent two and a half years embedded in a war zone. She has witnessed enough atrocity to push her to the brink of madness and she knows she has to get out before it kills her. But when she’s offered the documentary of a lifetime, she can’t resist one last assignment.
TV Producer Grace Alcott finds Brenna’s personal reputation repugnant, knows she will be a management nightmare, and wants nothing to do with her. But with her job on the line, she is forced to hire her anyway.
Before they know it, the two of them are on a Herc C-130, flying into the heart of a besieged Balkan city just as a major military offensive is launched.
For three hellish days in 1994, convinced that escaping alive is impossible, they never consider what it will take to survive once they get back home to Washington, D.C.
Love. War. Family. Redemption.
By Goldie Award winning author Patricia Spencer.
Notes:
– The first third of this book is set in a war zone. It portrays intense situations.
– This is a sequential trilogy. Books do not stand alone. They must be read in order.
How to Survive Suicide:
What nobody told me about how to survive losing my son to suicide
A hopeful book about surviving an unthinkable tragedy.
Have you lost a beloved to suicide? Are you in breathtaking emotional pain? Are you feeling like you are losing your mind? Are your relationships under extreme duress? Are you even contemplating ending your own life?
As the mother of a 17 year old son who took his life in 2010, I have stood in these shoes. This slim volume tells you what you can expect for the next while.
It tells you about the interpersonal dynamics that often play out to the detriment of the survivors, about the mindsets that confound recovery, and what strategies you can use to avoid them. It describes the overarching pattern of recovery and some concrete things you can do to help yourself heal.
These essays explore the many unexpected ways that my life outlook was affected and how becoming aware of my thinking, and changing it where needed, helped me to heal so that today I am stronger than I ever was before.
Don’t get me wrong. A life-altering event has just occurred in your world. There will be many changes. You will never be the same again. You’re on a long, hard road. But I can attest that if you do the emotional work and don’t give up, in the long run you can also emerge from this grievous loss with unexpected gifts of insight and compassion and love.
I’m not a mental health professional or a grief counsellor. I’m a mom who was devastated when she lost her beloved child. But now, years later, I am also a mom who can laugh and feel hopeful and not be bitter. This book is rooted not only in my own experience, but also those of other people who shared their stories with me in the suicide survivors recovery group that I peer-facilitated.
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
This book is now sold under the pen name P. M. Spencer to separate it from the romance line.
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Note from Mary: This book is ranked 5 stars out of 5 on Amazon.com and 5 stars out of 5 on Amazon.ca
To know more about Patty’s special son, Aiden, read “A Trailblazer Since Birth”.
About Patricia Spencer
I have a checkered past, through which the love of reading and writing has remained a constant. I started my writing career at seventeen as a proofreader for a city newspaper, worked as a reporter / photographer, wrote screenplays, produced a feature-length movie, became a technical writer and requirements analyst, and briefly digressed into nursing.
Now that I am retired and living in Canada, I have the freedom to do what I love to do: Write. And read. Thank you for your interest in my books.