I love the Hobbs series by Elena Graf because of the amazing characters she has created, they are smart, emotional and vibrant and every addition to the Hobbs comunity is a special one and the stories they are involved in. It’s wonderful to read a ten book series that keeps the reader wanting for more and I think Elena Graf did a great job in writing it.

So, yes, „Extended Capacity” is book nr.10 in the Hobbs Series by Elena Graf, but it can also be read as a standalone book.

The Hobbs characters are not the typical lesbian romance characters, because the Hobbs series is not about romance, but about real life, and in real life people are flawed, thus the Hobbs characters are far more complex than rommance characters. They are at different stages in life: Liz (the town’s family doctor) and Lucy (the Episcopal rector and opera star) are happily married and Lucy’s soprano career heads off again, Sam (the architect and Liz’s best friend) and Maggie (Liz’s ex-wife , Lucy’s friend and a former actrees) are connecting deeper within their relationship, Sam is working, while Maggie didn’t go back to the stage, but is helping her daughter Alina with her grandchildren , Cherie (Liz’s nurse) and Brenda (Hobbs’s sherrif), Olivia (the Hobbs town manager) and Amy (cardiologist, Liz’s colleague) are getting closer, Courtney (the Hobbs Elementary School school principal) and her partner, Mellisa (a lawyer in Boston) Susan Gidney’s (Lucy’s first lover and, now, priest and teacher in Hobbs) relationship with Bobbie (Liz’s new P.A.) flourishes and they become closer, the deacon soon to become priest Sudan refugee, Reshma John, than Teresa, Grace, the Sudan refugee family Reshma helps out.

The meaning of the title : „Extended Capacity” – can have more meanings:

“Extended capacity magazines protruding more than on (1) inch below the firearm are prohibited.

Extended capacity within the partnership offers more opportunities for such partnerships to be established and nurtured.

Extended capacity signifies the number of before- and after-school children a provider may care for on top of their regular capacity.

Extended capacity means the capacity as defined in Section 9.2 of this Agreement.

Section 9.2. 17 Each new hire shall remain in probation status for a period of not more than ninety (90) work days 18 following the hire date. During this probationary period the District may discharge such employee at its 19 discretion.”

Source: https://www.lawinsider.com/

I think it’s about the first and the last one.

The Hobbs characters have been through a lot, they are mature women in their sixties or seventies, they have been through life and they have vast life experience in so many areas: the hardships, the risk taking, the effort and the drama of reality, love, sexuality, religion, self-discovery, self-understanding, self-acceptance, the improvement of character, knowledge and talent, the becoming more confident, more assured of themselves. Yet, Elena Graf puts them in a new, unexpected, sad situation : a shooting at the Hobbs Elementary School.

Elena Graf writes about violence against children in Hobbs, a small town in Maine with empathy and sensitivity. This must be really hard, because the author herself has witnessed it and she wanted to write about it, to draw attention on how the victims’ relatives , teachers, friends feel about such raw pain and how their lives go on, how the shooter’s mother feels or how the person who left one school door open and the shooter might have gone through it feels.

I think this is one of a kind book, that needs more appreciation because of the above.

There are so many new situations the characters are going through that leave the reader amazed.

When the shooting happens every woman from Hobbs gets involved and helps as they are a strong community. Lucy, Maggie, Amy and Reshma help the relatives of the victims while Liz and Brenda create a plan to save Susan and Courtney who are held captive by the shooter.

Liz becomes the Hobbs hero as she manages to free Susan and Courtney.

However, the psychological scars are deep for Liz and they influence all her relationships.

Susan and Courtney  encounter similar problems (coming from the same source) but they are affected differently than Liz.

I really liked how Elena Graf exposed Liz’s feelings, hurts and her anti-hero attitude.

It was very percetive how she could evoke through words raw emotions like everyone’s initial reaction or the attitude against the devastating horror the shooter made, then the emotional meltdown for the victims’ relatives and teachers.

The Hobbs lesbian community seems to get through this sad event in their lives and Lucy’s music or Liz’s and Cherie’s and Maggie’s homecooking are rays of light after the darkness of the situation they were all into.

The book ends in a more positive tone and, hopefully, with new stories involving the Hobbs women.

 I highly recommend „Extended Capacity” by Elena Graf as an exquisite read.

P.S.: The book is dedicated to the victims killed at Sandy Hook Elementarry School on December 14, 2012. However, some weeks after the book was released, on October 25, 2023,  sadly, a spree shooting took place at two locations in Lewiston, Maine (a sad coincidence that should have never happend).