Books I've Read: Jan-Feb 2023
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hrjJanuary 2023
Valiant Ladies by Melissa Grey - audio
I had high hopes for this re-telling of the real-life story of two young women in 17th century Peru who became sword-wielding vigilantes to fight crime. Unfortunately, in the end it was a Did Not Finish. While the premise of the book is absolutely my cup of tea—or maybe mug of ale in this case—the story never quite grabbed me. The language felt repetitive and slow, and the main characters had a lot of anachronistically modern attitudes. Sometimes that sort of thing is a deliberate authorial choice to provide the reader with a more solid connection to the story, but in this case it felt like the author really wanted to be writing about modern teenagers, but dressed them up in costumes.
The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo - audio
A re-working of The Great Gatsby focused around the character of Daisy’s friend Jordan Baker. Jordan is re-imagined as a bisexual Vietnamese adoptee, but the story also throws magic into the mix, including explaining Gatsby’s rise as being due to a bargain with demons. My reading notes say, “Vibes, all vibes!” It’s very much a story where atmosphere is a central character, and I suspect that if you aren’t at all familiar with The Great Gatsby you might stumble in places trying to follow the plot.
Hen Fever by Hen Fever - text
A lovely short romance in which two lonely women bond and fall in love over breeding chickens for the local poultry show. It had a lot of complexity for such a short work. The setting is several decades after her Feminine Pursuits series so I don’t think it’s meant to connect to it, at least not that I noticed.
The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting by K.J. Charles - audio
Like pretty much every book by this author that I’ve read, the prose and character studies are excellent…and like many of them, I feel like she leans in a little hard on “hate sex turns into true romance.” But as usual, the characters have good intentions even when they have conflicting goals and everything works out.
February 2023
The Sugared Game by K.J. Charles - text
Usually I'l rip through a K.J. Charles book in a few days, but I put this one down for about three months before returning to finish it. The mystery/adventure aspects picked up toward the end, but in the earlier parts it felt like the plot was mostly an excuse for loading in as many sex scenes as possible. The balance felt off. (This whole series ended up feeling that way for me.)
Court of Fives by Kate Elliott - audio
One of the things that really cheers me in a book is the inclusion of incidental, casual queerness in genres that are only gradually allowing the reader to expect that as a possibility. This series is inspired significantly by the social and political dynamics of Greco-Roman Egypt. The protagonist is marginalized due to her mixed-class heritage and gender, but hopes to find fulfilment in a ritualized athletics competition. Personal and high-level political upheavals disrupt that plan but her training gets put to good use. The book puts a number of interesting plot developments in train for the sequels. In the background, we see how the same socio-political dynamics disrupt her sister’s sweet romance with another girl, and I’m looking forward hopefully to see if they’re allowed a reunion. Like many YA books, there were a good number of "Oh, honey, no!" moments, but I'm sure they're deliberate.
Spectred Isle by K.J. Charles - audio
So as much as I grouse about not being in sync with the sexual content in Charles's novels, I keep being pulled back time and again by the characters, so take that as very high praise from me. This is another fantasy-infused romantic thriller, this time set between the world wars. The protagonists not only deal with the legal persecution of gay male relationships, but with deep personal distrust of each other and very little in common other than being drawn into the same plot. So, in order to bend the plot to a romance, it’s necessary for sexual desire—unrelated to affection or admiration—to be an overwhelming force. There was more body-horror here than is usual in her books, which is definitely Not My Thing.
The Henchman of Zenda by K.J. Charles - audio
The dynamic mentioned for the previous book works better for me in this alternate take on the classic novel The Prisoner of Zenda, because the central characters are not framed as a romantic couple, but as rivals, possible adversaries, and only incidentally fuck-buddies. (The listen inspired me to check out a couple of video versions or the original story, and I have to say, I love KJ’s spin on the “true story” much better.)
A Case of Possession & A Flight of Magpies (Charm of Magpies) by K.J. Charles - audio
OK, let me go into some of my thoughts more deeply, given that I was going through a massive K.J. Charles binge at this time. This author might seem an odd obsession for someone like me who is focused so strongly on sapphic fiction. But the simple fact is that K.J. Charles is an amazing writer—she has an ability to create vivid and nuanced characters that fit their historic settings and yet are recognizable and varied “types” that resonate with this modern reader. And she finds ways for her same-sex couples to be together despite the challenges of the times. All of which makes me rather disappointed that the couple of times she’s written female couples, she just doesn’t seem to have found them as interesting to write about.
But another interesting aspect of reading KJ’s work is that, because I find her writing itself so satisfying, the books provide me with a useful way to define and calibrate how I feel about degrees of sexual content in historic romances, and various types of relationship dynamics. Overall, KJ’s books have far more sexual content, and it’s far more central to the story, than I’m interested in. It isn’t even a matter of the gender of the people involved—I’d feel the same way about that level of sexual content for a female couple. I’m willing to put up with it for the sake of the characters and story, in the same way that I’m willing to put up with boring fight scenes in superhero movies for the sake of the underlying story and characters.
But that means that when the relationship in question doesn’t work for me, the premise that the characters are fated to end up together because of their mutual sexual desire isn’t enough to make it believable. Or perhaps, “believable” isn’t the right word, because I’m quite willing to believe that people end up in bad relationships because the sex is good—I’ve seen it in real life among people I know. But it means that I become much less invested in the story because, for me, great sex isn’t sufficient motivation. So, for example, the central relationship in books 2 and 3 of the Magpies series (A Case of Possession, and A Flight of Magpies) is like pebbles in my shoe. The two characters profess their love for each other despite conflicting goals, lack of trust, and poor communication, based solely (as far as I can tell) on the fact that their sexual kinks are complementary. Mind you, I love the fantasy worldbuilding in this Victorian-set series, with its magically-based thriller/mystery plots. But I’m simply not invested in the couple.
Valiant Ladies by Melissa Grey - audio
I had high hopes for this re-telling of the real-life story of two young women in 17th century Peru who became sword-wielding vigilantes to fight crime. Unfortunately, in the end it was a Did Not Finish. While the premise of the book is absolutely my cup of tea—or maybe mug of ale in this case—the story never quite grabbed me. The language felt repetitive and slow, and the main characters had a lot of anachronistically modern attitudes. Sometimes that sort of thing is a deliberate authorial choice to provide the reader with a more solid connection to the story, but in this case it felt like the author really wanted to be writing about modern teenagers, but dressed them up in costumes.
The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo - audio
A re-working of The Great Gatsby focused around the character of Daisy’s friend Jordan Baker. Jordan is re-imagined as a bisexual Vietnamese adoptee, but the story also throws magic into the mix, including explaining Gatsby’s rise as being due to a bargain with demons. My reading notes say, “Vibes, all vibes!” It’s very much a story where atmosphere is a central character, and I suspect that if you aren’t at all familiar with The Great Gatsby you might stumble in places trying to follow the plot.
Hen Fever by Hen Fever - text
A lovely short romance in which two lonely women bond and fall in love over breeding chickens for the local poultry show. It had a lot of complexity for such a short work. The setting is several decades after her Feminine Pursuits series so I don’t think it’s meant to connect to it, at least not that I noticed.
The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting by K.J. Charles - audio
Like pretty much every book by this author that I’ve read, the prose and character studies are excellent…and like many of them, I feel like she leans in a little hard on “hate sex turns into true romance.” But as usual, the characters have good intentions even when they have conflicting goals and everything works out.
February 2023
The Sugared Game by K.J. Charles - text
Usually I'l rip through a K.J. Charles book in a few days, but I put this one down for about three months before returning to finish it. The mystery/adventure aspects picked up toward the end, but in the earlier parts it felt like the plot was mostly an excuse for loading in as many sex scenes as possible. The balance felt off. (This whole series ended up feeling that way for me.)
Court of Fives by Kate Elliott - audio
One of the things that really cheers me in a book is the inclusion of incidental, casual queerness in genres that are only gradually allowing the reader to expect that as a possibility. This series is inspired significantly by the social and political dynamics of Greco-Roman Egypt. The protagonist is marginalized due to her mixed-class heritage and gender, but hopes to find fulfilment in a ritualized athletics competition. Personal and high-level political upheavals disrupt that plan but her training gets put to good use. The book puts a number of interesting plot developments in train for the sequels. In the background, we see how the same socio-political dynamics disrupt her sister’s sweet romance with another girl, and I’m looking forward hopefully to see if they’re allowed a reunion. Like many YA books, there were a good number of "Oh, honey, no!" moments, but I'm sure they're deliberate.
Spectred Isle by K.J. Charles - audio
So as much as I grouse about not being in sync with the sexual content in Charles's novels, I keep being pulled back time and again by the characters, so take that as very high praise from me. This is another fantasy-infused romantic thriller, this time set between the world wars. The protagonists not only deal with the legal persecution of gay male relationships, but with deep personal distrust of each other and very little in common other than being drawn into the same plot. So, in order to bend the plot to a romance, it’s necessary for sexual desire—unrelated to affection or admiration—to be an overwhelming force. There was more body-horror here than is usual in her books, which is definitely Not My Thing.
The Henchman of Zenda by K.J. Charles - audio
The dynamic mentioned for the previous book works better for me in this alternate take on the classic novel The Prisoner of Zenda, because the central characters are not framed as a romantic couple, but as rivals, possible adversaries, and only incidentally fuck-buddies. (The listen inspired me to check out a couple of video versions or the original story, and I have to say, I love KJ’s spin on the “true story” much better.)
A Case of Possession & A Flight of Magpies (Charm of Magpies) by K.J. Charles - audio
OK, let me go into some of my thoughts more deeply, given that I was going through a massive K.J. Charles binge at this time. This author might seem an odd obsession for someone like me who is focused so strongly on sapphic fiction. But the simple fact is that K.J. Charles is an amazing writer—she has an ability to create vivid and nuanced characters that fit their historic settings and yet are recognizable and varied “types” that resonate with this modern reader. And she finds ways for her same-sex couples to be together despite the challenges of the times. All of which makes me rather disappointed that the couple of times she’s written female couples, she just doesn’t seem to have found them as interesting to write about.
But another interesting aspect of reading KJ’s work is that, because I find her writing itself so satisfying, the books provide me with a useful way to define and calibrate how I feel about degrees of sexual content in historic romances, and various types of relationship dynamics. Overall, KJ’s books have far more sexual content, and it’s far more central to the story, than I’m interested in. It isn’t even a matter of the gender of the people involved—I’d feel the same way about that level of sexual content for a female couple. I’m willing to put up with it for the sake of the characters and story, in the same way that I’m willing to put up with boring fight scenes in superhero movies for the sake of the underlying story and characters.
But that means that when the relationship in question doesn’t work for me, the premise that the characters are fated to end up together because of their mutual sexual desire isn’t enough to make it believable. Or perhaps, “believable” isn’t the right word, because I’m quite willing to believe that people end up in bad relationships because the sex is good—I’ve seen it in real life among people I know. But it means that I become much less invested in the story because, for me, great sex isn’t sufficient motivation. So, for example, the central relationship in books 2 and 3 of the Magpies series (A Case of Possession, and A Flight of Magpies) is like pebbles in my shoe. The two characters profess their love for each other despite conflicting goals, lack of trust, and poor communication, based solely (as far as I can tell) on the fact that their sexual kinks are complementary. Mind you, I love the fantasy worldbuilding in this Victorian-set series, with its magically-based thriller/mystery plots. But I’m simply not invested in the couple.
