FANNY BAY, BC – JUNE 2023 – The movie Brokeback Mountain gave viewers insight into the secrecy and pain which often surround bisexuality. It also indirectly served as a catalyst and inspiration for a new intriguing novel set for the most part in Victoria, BC.
In Daring Decisions, author Dorothea L Gordon explores the impact different sexual attitudes have on one particular family. The woman is heterosexual, the man bisexual, and there’s a gay man in the picture as well. Gordon shows how the divorced heroine learns to embrace love relationships in their different forms, including one she previously refused to consider.
After German psychology student Lotti Seidel meets the love of her life in Canadian military doctor Joseph LeBoutillier, she follows him to Canada. But Joe has a secret and after twenty years, Lotti discovers it. She throws him out in a fit of rage and refuses all contact with him for many years after.
Now, at fifty-seven, she is a successful court-qualified handwriting expert. Her career is everything she dreamed of but her love life is still in shambles. Craving intimacy she gets involved with unsuitable men and all of her relationships go down in flames.
Family events force Lotti to meet Joe again and their feelings for each other become impossible to ignore. Lotti and Joe are still deeply connected, and his husband, Michel, is more than willing to share. When Joe almost dies in an accident, Lotti gradually discovers how much she still loves him. Now she must choose between the conventional life she always thought she wanted and a relationship that has the potential to break her heart—or heal it.
“When I speak to reporters or the public, I want to make them aware of a world that they generally don’t hear much about yet which is very real,” says Gordon. “According to statistics 60% of the LGBTQI+ society identify as male and female bisexuals. There is still a lot of shame in male bisexuals who marry women so they can fit into the norm of many societies’ expectations. I personally know families whose lives have been turned upside down because the wife felt deeply betrayed and could not accept her husband’s sexual orientation.”
Gordon, a retired high school teacher, holds a B.A. degree in foreign languages and a Master’s degree in education. She lived in Victoria for 40 years before she moved to the east coast of Vancouver Island. Now she uses her life knowledge and experience to introduce readers to subjects which don’t get much publicity such as handwriting analysis, psychic awareness, and past lives exploration. Her memoir, When Life Has Other Plans…Discover the Hidden Gifts, tells the true story of her spiritual awakening through many adversities.
Daring Decisions (CAD $22.00; ISBN 978-1738143504) is a 322-page paperback published by DLGordon Productions, is available from Amazon, and directly from books@dlgordon.ca (shipping costs apply).