Karin Kallmaker

Karin Kallmaker is a long-established writer of lesbian romance whose fiction ranges from contemporary realism to stories shaped by fantasy and myth. Unbeliever follows Professor Hayley Carnegie, whose life is focused on caring for her twin, Kylie, until a mysterious book of blank pages and a compelling new neighbor disrupt her certainty. Kallmaker’s official page identifies the story as part of the Coin of Love setting and notes that an earlier version appeared in the 2005 Bella Books collection Bell, Book and Dyke. The same collection became a Golden Crown Literary Society finalist in lesbian fantasy. Magic in Unbeliever does not replace its emotional center; it changes how Hayley understands care, grief, and the possibility of connection beyond what she can explain. A cat named Bast and the book’s emerging words give the novella a playful imaginative frame. Readers receive a compact example of Kallmaker’s ability to combine queer relationship fiction with speculative elements, while the publication history connects the revised standalone work to an earlier anthology context.