Lorna Jackson’s characters earn every scrap of comfort they get, sexual and otherwise. In the title story of Dressing for Hope, a bar singer finds her “future is getting crowded” when two ex-lovers turn up at the Hope Hotel to catch her gig, a third is on his way, and #2 gives her a phone message from #4. From the tiny stage, she notices the Harley women. “I admire how every step and glance is a sexual act. Their nail polish is libido. They wear tri-coloured rosebud tattoos in places I barely wash. They are as alert as I am to the mood of the room and pass through.” “Round River” uses Paul Bunyan yarns to ease communication among a newcomer to a BC logging town, her lumberman lover Duff, and his very attractive 20-year-old son. Her deeply rooted inner conflicts almost sour the three-way relationship. But Duff finds the centre of peace and understanding for them all in a metaphor of work. “My father used to say, ‘Hand-falling trees was so quiet,’ but I’ve done it, too, and I know there’s no difference. … The bounce of timber hitting dirt is loud no matter how it was cut or who cut it.”