Under the Southern Cross

by Claire McNab

Overview

The vast, forbidding Australian Outback… the grandeur of Ayers Rock… legendary Alice Springs… the Great Barrier Reef… the primal beauty of Cape Tribulation…

Two women, from different continents, with different values, collide with spectacular results… UNDER THE SOUTHERN CROSS.

American Lee Paynter has built her Small travel agency into an international tour company. Brash, confident, openly lesbian, her great love is her business. Women? They’re to enjoy and let go.

Alexandra Findlay is pursuing a career in Australian tourism with quiet focus and determination, convinced that her career is the best she can hope for in her arid, closeted emotional existence.

Now Alex has been assigned to accompany Lee on the American woman’s visit Down Under, to win Lee’s company over to Australian tourism. Suddenly Alex’s quiet life explodes… And Lee is challenged by a woman unlike any she has ever known.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781594930294
Publisher:	Bella Books
Publication date:	05/01/2005
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	180
Product dimensions:	5.38(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Claire McNab has written over 50 books and is known in her native Australia for crime fiction, children’s novels, picture books, self-help, and English textbooks. Her first mystery, Lessons in Murder, was published in the U.S. in 1988. Now a Los Angeles resident, she teaches not-yet-published writers through the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. She is the author of three lesbian mystery series featuring Inspector Carol Ashton, Agent Denise Cleever and Detective Kylie Kendall.

She has served as the president of Sisters in Crime and is a member of both the Mystery Writers of America and the Science Fiction Writers of America. She lives in Los Angeles.

Editorial Reviews

The author of the Carol Ashton detective series has departed from her usual genre to write a diverting novel about a lesbian struggling with the problems of coming out. Employed as a tour director in Australia, Alexandra Findlay faces a dilemma when she falls in love with Lee Paynter, the openly lesbian head of a U.S. travel company, whom she has been assigned to escort on outback tours. An earlier affair whose exposure resulted in her lover losing a job has made Alexandra sharply aware of what public knowledge of her sexual identity could cost her, particularly since she works with Steve Monahan, a homophobe who is competing with Alexandra for a promotion. McNab has a sure hand with the colorful Australian setting, and the erotic scenes play well, but her serious theme demands characterizations with more depth.-- Harriet Gottfried, NYPL

Library Journal