I believe you know by now how much I love age gap lesbian romance novels with a great plot and awesomely built characters.

‘’The Red Files’’ by Lee Winters is a great age-gap lesbian romance novel involving political turned to gossip reporters Lauren King and Catherine Ayers.

Lauren King is a smart, young, and yet ambitious reporter at the L.A. Sentinel who doesn’t get the recognition she deservers according to her talent. She is from Iowa and she started from scratch at the school’s paper, yet even at college the paper’s the editor wouldn’t let her write a political article. Thus, she moves to L.A. for her big breakthrough. 

She is at the beginning of her career and she needs a mentor.

At this point she can only get a job at the L.A. Sentinel as a gossip reporter with a mentor like the ‘’the Caustic Queen’’, Catherine Ayers. They dislike each other from the start. And on top of it, Ayers ‘’smells’’ of old money and seems to be from another social class than Lauren and she seems to throw it to Lauren’s face all the time.

Ayers does anything to ignore, disapprove and does whatever she can to insult her.

Those two are like fire and ice!

This is why they are so great to read about and follow the trouble they can go into. 

Catherine Ayers is an intelligent veteran political reporter. She has the guts for a great story and she never quits until she gets the best of it.

I loved the mystery surrounding Catherine Ayers regarding who she dates, what has happened in the past. 

She is a very beautiful woman with thick auburn hair, grey eyes and awesome body, yet her notoriety is due to her cutting tongue and bad attitude.

But why a woman with her professional status is now a gossip reporter at the L.A. Sentinel ? Why the decadence?

Gossip says she was an awesome political reporter in Washington DC, yet at one point she discovered a story who would bring down a very well know individual, yet the story proved to be fake. Thus, her downfall.

Catherine recognizes in Lauren King a part of herself, I assume and she pushes her away and insults her to stay away, proving her ice-queen demeanor, but why? Is Lauren a threat to her success? Does she want Lauren not to face the same crap she is been through? Or the feels Lauren is trouble for her ?

What could possibly bring those two together ?

They even have different tastes for cars, food and many others.

Do opposites attract? As hell they do!

Catherine and Lauren are in a competition for the Hollywood mundane gossip and parties. We know Lauren’s ambition, but what drives Catherine?

Catherine is always driven by a good story and she recognizes one when she sees it.

One evening, Catherine and Lauren  both attend the same party with different partners and notice some strange discrepancies there:  a bunch of prostitutes that seem out of California attend a party by just mingling with the crowd. Lauren managed to talk to the driver who drove the girls back and forth the state of Nevada and he also mentioned pink Champaign  that never got to the party.

Catherine noticed before Lauren’s talent and she knows Lauren has a story now and she knows nothing about it and her guts tells her it’s more than just a gossip story and she needs to get under Lauren’s skin to fill her within the story by promising her involvement and a great adventure.

Lauren sees Catherine’s enthusiasm about the story and even she is not eager to stand by her side, she is driven by her taste of adventure.

And adventure they have and the reader all along their side.

Loved Lauren’s car : Red Chevrolet Chevelle 1977

I loved the how the plot is shown to the reader within their eyes and their intelligent assumptions. The story they have in front of their eyes drives the reader to read the book with the speed of light and the romance comes unexpectedly.

I enjoyed very much how the reader discovers layers of Catherine’s personality, her style and her spirit evoking a sensitive and attractive human being who’s trust has been shattered to pieces in the past and it’s hard to gain by strangers, yet Lauren’s adventurous and sincere nature somehow gets under Catherine’s skin.

I liked it how they called each other by their last names. 

It was an awesome read. I loved how their personalities collided and then came together. It’s like a story within the story, the romance within the chase of the political story.

Lee Winter posted where from she is got the inspiration for the characters and the locations:

 

 

I have also read ”The Brutal Truth” by Lee Winters, an age gap lesbian romance also involving two reporters but for fashion magazines and I must confess I loved both ”The Brutal Truth” and ”The Red Files” and I believe they are two very different books with unique characters, nice dialogues and great plots.

I find it rather impressive to find two such books, each of them unique on it’s part.

Excerpts from book: