Publishers Weekly
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Subtitled A Novel After All , these polished and smartly paced stories about lesbians in love loosely revolve around Babe Daniels's bar in Oakland, Calif. Leading off is the tale of how Babe left the Roller Derby, rescued Sharon Winston and her baby Tara from a home for unwed mothers, and got them to California, where Babe began working in the bar she finally buys. The bar draws women from all over: Kate Solomon, a terminally ill, Pulitzer prize-winning photojournalist, leaves her lover Crissy to drive a van across the country, searching for the lesbian nation. Fearless Faye Fletcher is a regular--an old Roller Derby queen and early lover of Babe's, now a drunken has-been, defeated by the death of her young daughter. The members of Babe's softball team, the Dykeball Losers, have their stories; Sharon, bothered by Babe's promiscuity, wonders what she wants from her relationship. Lesbians of many stripes--timid, tough, fearful, assertive--people the pages with some fairly explicit sex and a hard-to-believe buoyancy. Donnelly, billed as the lesbian Damon Runyon, writes as though she were cheerleading. But when she steers clear of sentimentality, cliche and melodrama, her stories are lively, moving and ring true. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Library Journal
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Donnelly's first novel reprises the lives and loves of the lesbian women who frequent Babe's, a women's bar in the Bay Area. Skillfully woven into a myriad of characters and plots are the stories of bar owner Babe Daniels, her longtime lover Sharon, and lesbian daughter Tara. Kate, who hopes to capture the elusive and hidden ``lesbian nation'' on film; the lonely Rose; and exotic dancer Luna are but a few of the intriguing women presented here. Their joys, fears, hopes, and desperation are effectively captured in Donnelly's dry, Raymond Chandleresque style: ``Babe raps a Lucky--no filter thank you--against the bar, torches it, and settles back to survey her domain. She likes what she sees, and all of it--from the vinyl bar stools cracked like lipstick at 3:00 A.M. to the very last bottle of Southern Comfort--is hers.'' Alternately humorous, sad, gruesome, and poignant, this fine first novel is a welcome addition to libraries with established gay and lesbian fiction collections. See LJ 's ``First Novelists,'' p. 41.-- Kevin M. Roddy, Oakland P.L., Cal. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Amateurish first novel composed of portraits of women whose paths cross in a lesbian bar in Oakland, California. Babe Daniels first turned to bartending after she shattered her leg, had to give up a promising roller-derby career, and ran off with an unwed mother and her newborn baby; now, at last, she's the almost legendary owner of Babe's, known for her ""razor-sharp wit,"" though the reader is treated mostly to a string of clich‚s that Babe can't deliver without giving either a sly wink, impish grin, or wicked smile. Her patrons include fighters and survivors as well as the ""crippled capitulators, stumbling along clutching a couple of tattered dreams, a handful of tarnished golden-moment memories all wrapped up in shadows,"" as well as a prominent photojournalist (suffering from a fatal illness) who wants to document ""the lesbian nation"" before she dies (""Now this is a photograph,"" Abby had oozed. . .""). The author mixes toughness and sentimentality with a clumsy old-fashioned style and moments of unintentional humor as she relates a series of melodramatic life histories. Fans of explicit, lesbian fantasy/pornography will be moderately rewarded (for wading through hundreds of dull pages) by a couple of competent but uninspired soft-core chapters towards the end. This is not an introduction to the lesbian nation, however, but to a novice writer. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.