Desert of the Heart by Jane Rule

Filmed as Desert Heart - this original novel has now been reissued by Virago Modern Classics
 
This was the freedom she wanted, an animal freedom exposed to the emptiness of sky and land and water. As she stepped forward, Ann flipped into the water and was gone. Evelyn Hall, running from her disastrous marriage of sixteen years, arrives in the neon-lit desert heat of 1950s Reno - the only place in America where she can apply for a quick divorce.

Arriving at her guesthouse she meets free-spirited Ann Childs, a casino 'change girl' fifteen years her junior. Overwhelmed by both the vast, lonely beauty of the Nevada desert and her magnetic attraction to Ann, Evelyn must gamble all her own certainties and conventions to win a new kind of freedom. Bold, witty and shimmering with desire, this groundbreaking 60s novel is an unforgettable queer classic.
 
Introduction by Jackie Kay
 
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'An undisputed lesbian classic' - Sarah Waters