REVIEW: If the Shoes Fit (Wedding Heat) by Giselle Renarde

The latest entry in Giselle Renarde's Wedding Heat series, If the Shoes Fit, is also the first entry in the series with a transsexual lead. It's a very unusual story, quite different from what I've come to expect from Giselle, while also managing to capture everything that I love about her. It's a story of lost love found, of loving acceptance, and of the power behind our fetishes . . . and our fears.

Farrah is a transsexual who has allowed herself to slowly retreat from society because she is tired of being admired as fetish fuel, rather than being loved as a woman. She is sick of the men who come up to her in bars to admit always wanted to be sucked off by a tranny, and then can't understand why she isn't flattered by the comment. Plumbing (and the expense involved in correcting it) is already such a day-to-day concern for her, she really has no interest in men who choose to latch onto something unwanted as a fetish.

Lance is a slightly older man with whom Farrah once fell in love with as a younger gay man. The age gap that separated them has lost much of its significance over time, and when they reunite at a wedding, sparks are immediately rekindled. He is a man with a fetish, one that broke up his marriage, but one that Farrah can fulfill as a woman . . . no matter how uncomfortable it initially makes her feel. In Lance's case, his fetish is not for her plumbing, but for her feet. He is a man with a serious foot fetish, a love for women's shoes, and a desire to use the two to please the women to which they are attached.

It makes for an interesting contrast, not to mention a subtle commentary on the power of our minds to direct our sexuality - precisely what Farrah has longed for a man to realize. The exploration of the fetish is both wonderfully sensual and extremely sexual, despite the fact that no clothes (other than Farrah's shoes) are shed. It is also wonderfully romantic, with the two lovers reconnecting after so long, older and wiser, and intimately aware of what they once allowed to slip away.

Although we're left to wonder about the possibilities of a white wedding and a home with a white picket fence, there is no doubt that this is a happily ever after ending.

[Reviewed by Sally]

♥