Dorothy Rice Bennett books in order

Two women, who have every reason not to be attracted to one another, share a house and a dog and gradually find they have feelings they didn't expect--and don't want to own. Do they belong together, despite their differences, or should they move on to other people and other places? 

Artist Valerie Stephans has fled San Francisco following the death of her longtime partner Doreen Hawkins. She has embarked on a new life in Eureka, an historic community and artist's colony on California's scenic but remote North Coast. To make ends meet, Val decides to take in roomers, and as the novel begins, she opens the front door to a scrawny young woman with deep blue eyes who needs a place to live--and has more mental baggage than personal belongings. 

Locked in their landlord-tenant relationship, Val finds Gina Fortenham a mystery, and the reclusive tenant attempts to remain so. Why Val wonders, as do her lesbian friends, would a woman with a doctorate in English literature work as a waitress rather than teach college? And is she a lesbian?

They give each other a passing glance at an Ohio truck stop. Jennifer is driving west, escaping from threatened harm in Pittsburgh. Stacy is hitching to California, running from being rejected as a lesbian by the military and her family. 

Entranced by the tall, blue-eyed blonde, Stacy sticks out a thumb, and after a moment’s hesitation, Jennifer offers a ride to the stocky young woman with the spiked hair. Jennifer has no clue where she is headed; Stacy wants to reach San Francisco. They continue west together, and as miles and terrains slip by, the two forge a tentative friendship despite vast differences between them.

When they eventually arrive in the City by the Bay, it seems natural for them to continue pooling their resources for a small apartment while looking for jobs. Yet, as weeks pass, Stacy longs to explore San Francisco’s famed homosexual community, where she can meet other lesbians for fun, sex, and love. Jennifer, although attractive to Stacy, is apparently straight and therefore off limits. 

For Jen, the future is an unwritten book, but the arrival of an old friend from home pushes her into the dating world—something for which Jennifer is largely unprepared.

She is barely eighteen and not yet a high school graduate, but Kiki Rodriguez already knows that the South Bronx holds no future for her. Lying on the hot rooftop, avoiding the stifling apartment and a family argument, she stares up at her star, the one she has found, the one she has named Artemis. She studies her star and knows that it is time to go. Not impulsively, for she has thought about it a long time, and she has a destination—family members near San Francisco, who hopefully can take her in and give her a chance to grow.

Packing a duffle with her few belongings, taking her hidden cache of money and a Greyhound bus ticket, she leaves a note, says goodbye to her home, and boards the nearest subway headed for New Jersey. As she travels further west, her plans begin to unravel, but she first feels fear when she is abandoned in Kansas. Alone in the middle of corn country, she appeals to her star. The answer? A friendly truck driver assists her as far as Salt Lake; an auto carrying college students pushes her forward to the Bay Area.

But disgusted by their irresponsible drug use, Kiki jumps out of the car at dusk in Oakland. And, by accident or fate, at the gates of a women’s college, her real star-guided adventure begins.

After wandering aimlessly for years through the South Seas, tanned, athletic, and wealthy Kate Brighton returns home on a sailboat, docking briefly in Sequim, Washington. Deciding to explore, she stops for breakfast at a rustic coffee shop called The Little Red Barn. 

Angie, her beautiful server, is enticing enough for Kate to check out this stunning young barista as well as the town. Impulsively, Kate decides to stay in Sequim for a while, returning to The Little Red Barn to learn more about Angie. 

Despite their mutual attraction, the two are very different women: Kate avoids commitment and Angie has two young children. Their differences both in lifestyles and in age make for a sweet though sometimes painful story of life and love.

Brittany Forrest, 27-year old lesbian, animal lover and vet tech, needs a better place to live in Sequim, on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. Her rental loft over a barn has unsafe steps and costs her too much money. Noticing a sign by a large house along the road that passes Sequim Bay, she calls the owner of the five-bedroom home. 

Guessing she isn’t the only lesbian needing a better/cheaper place to live, Brit thinks that perhaps she can find other lesbians to rent with her—all enjoying a nice home with a gorgeous view and saving money, perhaps becoming friends. Aggie Hollister, the house’s owner, decides to help Brit make this unusual dream come true. 

A month later, Brit’s experiment begins. How will this all work out—a vet tech, a lawn-maintenance worker, a college student with a secret friend, a retired concert pianist, and a woman who has built a life caring for other people? And two dogs?

Vet tech Brittany Forrest and lawn girl Ginger Robbins have just moved into an old farmhouse with acreage on Washington’s Sequim Prairie—after spending nearly a year in a shared residence owned by a Sequim widow, Aggie Hollister. That experience in the big house overlooking Sequim Bay led to a friendship between Brit and Ginger—then a romance and a fledgling relationship.

Now Ginger is camping in the outdated Olympic Peninsula farmhouse with her Schnauzer Spice and Brit’s rescue dog Chica, while Brit has gone off to graduate school in veterinary science in Corvallis, Oregon. Having only lived together for a few weeks, both Brit and Ginger are worried about how they can keep their relationship alive when they are nearly six hours apart by highway and won’t be able to see each other more than a few times during the next four years.

Brit and Ginger struggle in their own ways to remain connected, hold onto their loving feelings, and protect their dream for the future. Can they pull it off, or will time and distance tear them apart?