Reading

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reviews: books

Books I've Read: October 2024

I'm chunking these posts based roughly on the number of books, so some cover one month, some two.

Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton -- (audio) What if Regency England social politics but murderous dragons? I found it a fascinating worldbuilding project. My notes say "peculiarly interesting." I felt that things wrapped up too tidily at the end with the "good guys" all getting rewarded and escaping consequences. I recall having some other thoughts about the gender politics but I'd have to go back and re-read to recall specifics.

The First Rebellion by M.C. Beaton -- (audio) I had signed up for a new audiobook outlet (Chirp) that often has significantly reduced sale prices, so I've periodically taken the opportunity to try some books that I wasn't specifically looking for. (In general, I've tended to be unsatisfied with the books I've picked for that reason, but you never know.) Straight historic romance. Supposedly a "naïve bluestocking rebel wins the heart of a rakish nobleman by being unruly and rude to him" but I found it really hard going. The characters were childish and unlikeable and the male lead isn't worth winning. DNF.

Mary and the Birth of Frankenstein by Anne Eekhout -- (audio) Spotted this one when pulling titles for the podcast. An imaginative story coming up with a (fictional) backstory for events that inspired details in Frankenstein. My notes say "very literary and more than a bit Freudian." There is a sapphic plot thread but it doesn't have a happy ending. Content note for sexual grooming and abuse.

The Duke at Hazard by K.J. Charles -- (audio) A delightful homage to Georgette Heyer's The Foundling, featuring a naïve young duke and his quest to prove himself competent and independent. Utterly charming and satisfying. It combined enough parallels with the original to amuse the reader while diverging in enough points to be its own thing. Certain characters in the conclusion cross over with The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting. (I've occasionally noodled f/f Heyer-homage plots and reading this got me thinking strongly about the social and economic logistics of how to do a sapphic version of Cotillion. To the extent that I have an outline-and-notes document for it.)

Craze by Margaret Vandenburg -- (audio) A history lesson about queer life in 1920s New York City, dressed up as a novel. Entertaining and informative, if occasionally overly erudite for some readers. Read in the context of interviewing the author for my podcast.

The Fire and the Place in the Forest by Jeannelle M. Ferreira -- (audio) Short fiction and poetry focusing on sapphic relationships, especially in historic settings. Even though my main format for fiction these days is audio, I'd buy Ferreira's work in that format no matter what because even her prose is poetic and that's the best way to receive it. (Advisory: I am not exactly unbiased as she has sold me stories.)

The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells -- (audio) Secondary world fantasy. I'd been wanting to check out some of Wells' earlier work and this came up on sale (if I recall correctly). Amazing worldbuilding, though with a bit of a "generic fantasy" feel in the prose. I did have the same issue I had with the first Murderbot story I read, which was feeling like it was overloaded with blow-by-blow fight scenes. (But maybe I'm alone in finding that a negative?) This is a romance novel at heart, with many standard tropes gender-flipped due to the social structure, which resembles that of social insects.

If I do one of this posts per day, I should be caught up by the end of December. That will be my goal.

Entry tags:

reviews: books

Books I've Read: August-September 2024

The subject line is a lie -- I finished no books in August 2024 due to spending the entire month traveling (Worldcon and sightseeing).

A Shore Thing by Joanna Lowell -- (audio) Sapphic (sort of? one character is transmasculine but still somewhat female-identified?) historical romance. This had beautiful writing and a much more complicated plot than a simple romance, involving artists and bicycle touring in Victorian England. It did feel on occasion that there were a few too many progressive issues crammed into the plot, as if all the bases needed to be covered at once. The author has several other books that braid lightly with this one in terms of characters.

A Liaison with her Leading Lady by Lotte R. James -- (audio) Lesbian historic romance involving a theater company in early Victorian England. The title had led me to expect something more leaning towards erotica and I was pleasantly surprised to be mistaken. The writing was, overall, very nice though sometimes just barely short of over-the-top in style. On the whole, it felt well grounded in the history, though sometimes the concrete everyday details felt thin. There were several "theater culture" aspects that felt highly anachronistic, like they might have been mapped backwards from modern practice. The romance plot was both formulaic and believable.

How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler -- (audio) Character is trapped in a "Groundhog Day" cycle in a fantasy role-playing-like world and must figure out how to succeed through trial and error when every error means death and starting from scratch. It's...ok? I guess? I DNFed this after a few chapters. I'm not a fan of "D&D look-and-feel" books and I just couldn't get interested in the story. I read this around the same time as John Scalzi's Starter Villain and felt the two had a similar feel, so if you liked the latter you might like this one?

Can't Spell Treason without Tea by Rebecca Thorne -- (audio) This is more or less the archetype of the "D&D-world coffee shop AU". Two women escape their roles in a fantasy kingdom and run away to start a combination tea and book shop in a remote village. Plausibility does not come into the question, so I don't judge it on that point. But I just couldn't find it in myself to care about the characters and it was another DNF, which is a shame because "lesbian light fantasy" should be catnip for me.

Netherford Hall by Natania Barron -- (print) Regency-esque fantasy with sapphic romance, in a world featuring magic, vampires, etc. I wanted to like this more than I did. It felt like there were a lot of unconnected details and the conversation-to-action ratio was a bit high. Very imaginative. Don't go into it expecting a historic setting though.

Going to finish up this post with "all K.J. Charles all the time" though I didn't actually read them back-to-back. (I was working on trying to fill in the gaps in the catalog.)

Gilded Cage by K.J. Charles -- (audio) Gay male historic romantic adventure. A sharp, fierce, polished little gem of a story. It kept teasing me with cross-references to characters form the Sins of the City series and now I want to see relationship charts.

Any Old Diamonds by K.J. Charles -- (audio) Gay male historic romantic heist adventure. Comes before Gilded Cage in series order and it was interesting to read this one out of order. See previous comments about wanting to trace connections to Sins of the City. Oh, and excellent as usual.

Rag and Bone by K.J. Charles -- (audio) Gay male historic romantic adventure with magic. A lovely little sweet relationship and a plot where people who do questionable things for good reasons get rewarded. Not sure if this ties in with any of her other series.

Hopefully I'll continue posting a few months every day until I'm caught up, rather than getting distracted and letting it lapse.

Entry tags:

reviews: books

Books I've Read: June-July 2024

Yeah, yeah, it's been a year and a half since I posted these review-like-objects. I keep reading notes in a spreadsheet, so I'm not entirely writing these from memory. I figured I'd try to get caught up as a year-end project.

Saint of Steel books 1-4 (Paladin's Grace, Paladin's Strength, Paladin's Hope, Paladin's Faith) by T. Kingfisher -- (audio) Delightful, if formulaic, fantasy romance series in which broken people find wholeness with each other. They don't necessarily have typical HEA endings, though sufficiently to meet Romance (with a capital R) requirements. There's a series through-line, and other books/characters in the world get passing references. The romance threads involve significant amounts of people obsessively thinking about sex, destructively pining, and then enjoying significant amounts of on-page sex. Gender pairings included m/f and m/m but no f/f.

Rose House by Arkady Martine -- (audio) Interesting "what if a smart house...no a really smart house" story, not so much horror as suspense and mystery. Well done, though it didn't blow me away.

The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older -- (audio) I was doing a bunch of reading for awards and was finishing up the novella category. My initial notes indicate that the story didn't really hook me and that for an exotic exoplanet setting I wasn't getting a lot of clear sensory impressions. I think that impression was wrong, because (having read further in the series) I have very strong sensory memories of the setting and enjoyed it enough to keep going with later books. There's a mystery and a f/f "second chance" romance between college sweethearts, and a strong Sherlock Holmesian vibe for the primary detective character. I'm going to contradict my initial notes and give this a strong rec. (Getting ahead of myself somewhat, I particularly liked how the meaning of each title in the series becomes clear late in the book with a bit of punch.)

A Bluestocking's Guide to Decadence by Jess Everlee -- (audio) Lesbian historic romance. I liked this better than I was expecting to (since I was expecting another cosplay historical). The setting made good use of an existing community of non-conformists (in several senses), offering an acceptance of queerness while the plot conflicts are entirely separate from sexuality.

The Perils of Lady Catherine De Bourgh by Claudia Gray -- (audio) This is part of a light mystery series focused on two original "next generation" characters spun off of Jane Austen's novels. (The male and female protagonists are very tentatively working their way toward a romantic relationship, with the main barriers being class differences and the male protagonists being neuro-atypical.) A very likeable story, though I confess I spotted the culprit in the mystery very early on, based on the one potential suspect that the protagonists never seriously considered. I like the gradually advancing overall arc of the series.

Unfit to Print by KJ Charles -- (audio) Gay male historical romance. This one has a rather sweet second-chance romance, though I found the resolution of the non-romance plot to feel rather rushed. The sexual dynamics were more to my taste than in some of her books (where I don't always feel that the characters actually *like* each other very much, but are just horny for each other).