Seventy-year-old substitute teacher Taylor MacKenzie and her husband Marshall live in Clear, Alaska and have three children—two sons who they rarely see, and a troubled daughter who had died from a seizure years earlier. Taylor doesn’t trust Marshall, nor does he trust her, and the love they have for each other appears to be in the distant past, if it was ever there at all. Taylor finds solace in writing novels under the pen name Brooke Skipstone—the name of her college roommate who had been her best friend for years and then her lover for the two days prior to Brooke’s tragic death at the hands of someone close to Taylor. While their romantic relationship was short, it was extraordinary, intensely significant in Taylor’s life, and something she has kept a secret since then. When she writes as Brooke, she becomes her and feels free from dealing with her own unsettled life. But the LGBTQ+ genre she chooses to write about doesn’t sit well with the conservative town in which she lives. And her current book, an autobiography, stirs up a controversial commotion in her school, family, and community. Add to the mix a brother just released from prison who has a major bone to pick with Taylor, a couple of misunderstood teens, public condemnation against the LGBTQ+ community, and a surprising new love interest
for Taylor, and readers will have a hard time putting this book down.

One of the major attributes of THE QUEERING is in the clear sense one gets of the characters’ personalities—what they value, their fears, their strengths, and their motivations. They are interesting, sometimes unpredictable, and realistic despite their anomalous behaviors and actions. None of them is stereotypical—each one comes alive on the page as an individual based on physical appearance, internal thoughts, dialogue, and actions. The characters are engaging and the protagonist’s internal and external struggles are compelling and key to the intriguing plot. The amount of drama, conflict, tension, and crises keep the story moving at a fast pace, provocative, and exciting. Even readers who have never come close to living through the events that Taylor does will understand and feel for her. The way author Skipstone incorporates excerpts from the protagonist’s autobiography into the storyline is both original and effective. Most impressive is Skipstone’s skill in weaving together a complicated plot and the sensitive (and often misunderstood) subject matter of sexual orientation, and doing it in such a way that it will seem familiar to a wide variety of readers. Without actually saying it, she affirms the fact that members of the LGBTQ+ community are human individuals, just like everyone else—they bleed when cut, have meaningful relationships, are creative, have purpose and a voice—a powerful message.

Brooke Skipstone’s THE QUEERING skillfully blends together a wide range of elements—family dynamics, sexual orientation, homophobia, murder, and love—into a compelling story about one woman’s journey to unveiling her true self and rediscovering her values.

~Florence Osmund for IndieReader