Black Blade Blues by J.A. Pitts

[warriorofworry]

One of the unexpected side effects of the acceptance of gay/lesbian/bi/trans relationships has been that it is no longer remarkable to find a gay character in a novel.  

Except, how did I miss this one? The main character is a lesbian, in the process of coming out!

I know I'd pigeon-holed this in my mind as just another urban fantasy, but it exceeded expectations. The story is fast paced, but not shallow. Sarah Beauhall is a journeyman smith, and prickly - at best - at her night job as a prop manager for a small movie production company. Between the two jobs, she struggles to keep a roof over her head, and her car on the road.   For fun, she practices battle with a S(ociety for)C(reative)A(nachonism) group headed by her lover's brother.  

When Sarah reforges a mythic sword, she becomes the focus of a battle between good and evil. The events that follow - and her own stubbornness - threaten to estrange her lover, end both of her jobs, destroy a forge, and finally menace the lives of every person she loves. Yet she makes decisions in this epic struggle with the quotidian considerations foremost, as so many of us do. (Or would, if you reforged a magic sword. Admit it.)   

There's more than a bit of wish fulfillment here, but it's so deftly done that it almost got past me. (You'll see it when you read it.)   There are also plenty of real-world consequences.

J. A. Pitts - male, and I think heterosexual, eschews the prony male gaze on women having sex to write realistic and tasteful love scenes. The one heterosexual sex scene, on the other hand, seemed gratuitously violent. More important to me personally, he gives a pitch-perfect rendition of the internal conflict inherent in coming out – a reminder that difficulty in saying “I am” and "I would like” can be universal to the species.