The title suggests that this work is about family or friendship, but Blood Sisters by Mary Jacobsen is much more.  It’s about a deep abiding love that knows no boundaries or labels, a story about soul mates and the struggle to come to terms with childhood traumas and the choices people make to effect their own healing.
Blood Sisters tells the story of Val Summer and Emily Ashmont.  The two women meet in college and find that there is an instant attraction between them.  Val is a lesbian and an inveterate romantic.  Ashmont, as she is first called in the story, seems to be Val’s opposite, a self-proclaimed heterosexual, a person who scoffs at the idea of romantic love, and a woman who keeps a measured distance, even from her deeply devoted friend Val.  Ashmont is a pragmatist to Val’s idealist.  However, by the end of the story, we realize that these two women are not opposites, attracted to each other as if they were of different polarities, but different sides of the same coin.

The tale is told mostly by means of correspondence.  Val’s faithful communications to her friend, which she mails to Ashmont on a regular basis after college, and Ashmont’s responses, which are seldom mailed because she fears too much exposure, even to her soul mate.  Ashmont keeps the correspondence, both Val’s and her own, compiling them into the two women’s adaptation of the epic story of Gilgamesh, a narrative very dear to Val’s heart.
As Val travels through her life seeking healing from a traumatic childhood, falling in love with woman after woman, each of whom leaves her in the end for one reason or another, Ashmont trudges through her own days looking for redemption from her own childhood demons, selectively participating in heterosexual relationships that seem never to penetrate beyond the surface.  A constant undercurrent of sexual tension between the two women is evident from the start, but Ashmont insists that she can never love Val “that way” and continues to fend off Val’s cajoling advances, even from a distance, over the span of years.
As the childhood trauma of each of the two women is revealed, we see that they are on similar paths to healing, but with each discovery, we wonder whether or not they will ever grow up, heal, and discover where they really belong.  This continues right up until the very end of the story, making it seem more mystery than romance at times.

Blood Sisters is a richly fulfilling love story.  Jacobsen presents a mixture of engaging humor and touching emotion, especially surrounding Val’s relationship with her cousin Dez and his partner Raymond who are instrumental in helping Val through some tough times in her life.
The story of Val and Emily’s relationship is a beautifully played counterpoint melody.  Jacobsen portrays friendship and love and harmonizes it with healing and growth so well that the final impact of the ending leaves us thoughtful about its soft, sweet, and unexpected ending.  This 2006 release from Haworth Press is not to be missed.

Reviewed by Anna Furtado
Anna Furtado is the author of The Heart’s Desire – Book One of The Briarcrest Chronicles, a Golden Crown Literary Society “Goldie” Award Finalist, distributed by Starcrossed Productions www.scp-inc.biz.
Anna is also a book reviewer and monthly feature column writer for Just About Write and a book reviewer for The East Bay Voice (www.eastbayvoice.org) .
Email: annaf@annafurtado.com
Website:  www.annafurtado.com