Cast Me Gently
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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Teresa Benedetto and Ellie Ryan couldn't be more different, at least on the surface.
Teresa still lives at home. As much as she loves her boisterous Italian family, she feels trapped by them and their plans for her life. Their love is suffocating her.
Ellie has been on her own for years, working hard to save up enough to live her dream of escaping from Pittsburgh to travel the world. Except leaving isn't that simple when she knows her brother is out on the streets of the city somewhere, back from Vietnam, but not home.
When Teresa and Ellie meet and fall in love, their worlds clash. Ellie would love to be part of Teresa's family, but they both know that will never happen. Sooner or later, Teresa will have to choose between the two halves of her heart—Ellie or her family.
Set in 1980, the beginning of the Reagan era and the decline of Pittsburgh's steel empire, Cast Me Gently is a classic lesbian romance.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Werlinger (Turning for Home) sets this graceful and touching portrayal of first love, and its effect on family and friendship, against a backdrop of 1980s Pittsburgh, Pa. Pharmacist Teresa Benedetto works for her large Italian-American family's chain of drugstores and feels stifled by their expectations. Bank teller Ellie Ryan is also restless, needing more to her life than work and the search for her homeless veteran brother. The attraction between Teresa and Ellie is immediate, but as their relationship grows, so do the choices that each of them must make: do they stay in lives that are familiar, or do they take the next step into independence and interdependence? The difficulty of each woman's decisions is never underestimated, providing portraits that are complex and realistic, and Werlinger avoids soap opera neatness, instead depicting nuanced and multifaceted relationships and events. While there's enough detail to place the story firmly in its time and place, the social issues that Werlinger portrays homelessness, sexism, and Christian attitudes toward queerness are both timeless and timely.
