The Evolution of Love - Softcover

Lucy Jane Bledsoe is the author of five previous novels, including A Thin Bright Line. Her fiction has won a California Arts Council Fellowship in Literature, an American Library Association Stonewall Award, the Arts & Letters Fiction Prize, a Pushcart nomination, a Yaddo Fellowship, and two National Science Foundation Artists & Writers Fellowships. She’s been a six-time Lambda Literary Award finalist and a two-time Ferro-Grumley Award Finalist. Bledsoe lives in the Bay Area where she spends as much time as possible kayaking in the bay, as well as hiking and cycling in the hills.

"Given our current seemingly endless string of natural disasters, this is a timely story and a compelling one. In the context of a twisting plot, in the company of appealing characters, Bledsoe asks us to think about the resilience of love and hate; what our responsibility to each other is; and who we really are, right down to our DNA. Highly recommended."
―Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves and The Jane Austen Book Club

"Lucy Jane Bledsoe's writing leaps off the page with striking clarity. Her characters take you by the hand and lead you through their freshly broken lives, and with them you'll discover shelters of friendship and loyalty."
―Shanthi Sekaran, Author of Lucky Boy

"Lucy Jane Bledsoe’s The Evolution of Love offers a terrifyingly detailed and believable vision of life in the Bay Area after a devastating earthquake. But more than that, she offers us a vision of what is possible when individuals, even in the most desperate circumstances, refuse to give up on love and hope. The Evolution of Love is the book we all need these days: a post-disaster page-turner that’s also a blueprint for how we might live right now."
―Naomi J. Williams, author of Landfalls

"This fast-paced nail biter of a novel uses a disaster in the near future to explore a basic question: can love save us from ourselves? I read ravenously to find the answer. Lucy Jane Bledsoe is a brave and brainy writer, and The Evolution of Love is a rare mix of erudition, adventure and hard-won wisdom.
―Summer Wood, author of Raising Wrecker

“In a lucid, urgent novel riven by timely concerns and authentic feeling, Bledsoe’s characters reveal how our greatest hopes most often live in community.”
―Edie Meidav, author of Kingdom of the Young and Lola, California

"As a child growing up in California I created a dystopian fantasy world fueled by the visions of Margaret Atwood, Aldous Huxley and George Orwell. I seemed to have an internal GPS which I worked hard to develop because I knew I would need it once the Tempest was upon us. I devised escape routes for every imaginable natural and man-made catastrophe. Reading The Evolution of Love was like re-living my childhood. I was committed from page one and fell in love with, and was frustrated by, every flawed and highly complex character. It is a gifted writer who can take me through a full range of human emotions and leave me wanting more. I hope that Lucy Jane Bledsoe’s The Evolution of Love is only the beginning, because we sure do need a guide book for our beleaguered species just about now."
―Del LaGrace Volcano, Artist/Activist/Educator

"The Evolution of Love features a number of intersecting plotlines and an intriguing cast of disparate characters. Bledsoe writes this strange new world with a confidence that the reader can trust..."
―Lambda Literary

Praise for A Thin Bright Line

"It triumphs as an intimate and humane evocation of day-to-day life under inhumane circumstances."
―New York Times Book Review

"Empowering and bold."
―Publishers Weekly

"A stirring and deeply felt story."
―Kirkus Reviews

"Gripping historical fiction about queer life at the height of the Cold War and the Civil Rights Movement."
―Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home

"Lucy Jane Bledsoe's A Thin Bright Line is a testament to courage and perseverance in the face of oppression. It's also a compelling, literary page-turner worthy of standing alongside the works of Pat Barker and Graham Greene. It reminds us that we are nothing, deep down, without love and dignity."
―Patrick Ryan, author of The Dream Life of Astronauts

Praise for The Big Bang Symphony

“In this compelling novel, Bledsoe captures the deadly beauty of the southernmost continent....A well-balanced humdinger of a story keeps this unusual novel hurtling along like a skidoo on the ice."
―Kirkus Reviews

Praise for Biting The Apple

"Pound for pound, Bledsoe's books are hard to beat....Bledsoe, who seems incapable of a false or unwieldy sentence or motion...takes us there to the end of the journey one unflinching page at a time."
―Kevin Killian

"A haunting and profoundly satisfying novel."
―Lambda Book Report