Works by
Jane Vollbrecht
(Writer)

Close Enough: An Historical Novel in Three Parts (2007) -- Nominated 2007 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction
Aspiring author Colleen McCrady is summone
Part One:  It's 1941. Hilda Stenkewicz has a secret -- she gave birth to an illegitimate baby and surrendered it to virtual strangers. To try to get past her heartbreak, she moves away from her hometown, where she builds an enduring , loving relatiohship with her landlady, Elaine Huebner.

Part Two:  Frannie Brewster knows she is an adopted child, but she knows nothing about her birth mother (Hilda Stenkiewicz). Frannie goes to college, and promptly falls in love with the beautiful Terry Sterns. A classmate's smear campaign ruins Frannie's first love affair. She joins the Women's Army Corps to try to make a new start, only to have her heart broken again. A stroke of luck brings her back together with the lover she thought was lost to her forever. They find that they share a common bond -- one that will shape the rest of their days.

Part Three:  A chance discovery by Hilda's niece, Meg, renews Hilda's hope that she may be able to locate the child she gave away more than forty years earlier. Meg and her cousin, Billy, go in search of Hilda's offspring, but in the early eighties -- before everyone owned cell phones and fax machines and before internet searches were commonplace -- they have almost no resources at their disposal and no clues to guide them. They draw ever closer to finding Hilda's child, but can they get Close Enough?

In Broad Daylight (2007) -- Nominated 2007 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction
Aspiring author Colleen McCrady is summoned to the office of Standing in Sappho's Shadow Publishing's editor-in-chief, Elizabeth Albright. Elizabeth helps Colleen hone her writing craft, and in the process, the two find that they have more in common than just a love of well-written books. When Colleen uses a new novel to tell Elizabeth about a dark secret from her childhood, Elizabeth finds herself drawn into an intriguing tale of love and hate, bigotry and acceptance, heartbreak and triumph. In the process of solving a fifty-year-old mystery involving the disappearance of a black farmhand from Colleen's childhood hometown, Elizabeth and Colleen must also decide if they can step out of the shadows and stand together In Broad Daylight.

Second Verse  (2007)
It's been two years since Gail Larsen, editor for Outrageous Press, has so much as held hands with anyone. Her isolation is self-imposed, due to the guilt she feels over an accident involving her beloved Marissa. Then a special editing assignment throws Gail together with Connie Martin, one of the leading ladies of lesbian fiction. Gail is at first amused by Connie's pit-bull personality in a Pekinese body, but amusement turns to attraction, and attraction to heart-wrenching torment. Following an intense month working with Connie on her soon-to-be-released book, another opportunity comes Gail's way. Her lifelong friend, Penny Skramstaad, asks her to come to their hometown of Plainfield, Minnesota, to help clean out Penny's parents' house. For more than thirty years, Gail has harbored an unanswered longing for Penny. When Gail and Penny go to the homecoming dance at Plainfield High, old ghosts re-emerge, and Gail and Penny are forced to finally confront them. With Connie on one side and Penny on the other, Gail fears she's trapped between two women-one she'll never have and one she doesn't want. As Gail comes to know the truths about both Connie and Penny, she also comes to know herself, perhaps much better than she ever thought she might. One thing she's sure of: she wants a partner who will dance with her for the rest of her life. Can she find someone who'll last through the Second Verse?

Heart Trouble (2006) -- Nominated 2006 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction
On one of her business trips, Jackie Frackman meets Beth Novatny. The two women feel a mutual attraction, but Beth is involved in an unsatisfying long-term relationship that must be dissolved before she and Jackie can pursue their feelings for one another. Anyone who has ever loved someone so right -- who sometimes turns out to be someone so wrong -- will see herself in this novel about the tumultuous relationship between Jackie and Beth. Make the journey with them and see if Jackie finds a way to cure her chronic Heart Trouble.

Picture Perfect (2005)
Kate Bingham is living the life of a high-powered accountant in Atlanta while trying to mend a severely broken heart. When she travels to see Nora, an old friend in North Carolina, she is reintroduced to Nora's daughter, Casey. Kate and Casey team up to tackle the challenges brought on by Casey's aging parents. Along the way they discover an attraction to each other but... can it withstand Kate's consuming career drive? Will a job offer in Connecticut end the relationship before it even has a chance to begin... Or will the two somehow find their way to a picture perfect romance?