lightreads | Entries tagged with historical

Letters to Half Moon Street

3/5. Short epistolary queer norm historical romance with fantasy elements, about the shy (and possibly demi) younger son in London for the first time catching the eye of a society gentleman.

A charming frip of a book with good epistolary. This has all the trappings of an early nineteenth century historical romance, except it’s queer norm. The worldbuilding is paper thin – that’s not the point, I realize – but I’m the sort of person who asks too many questions of a book like this. Like okay, you’ve replaced heterosexism with a model that relies even more heavily on birth order, and yet that seems to have changed the way that class and inheritance and power work in this setting not at all or very little? How is that possible? Yes, I am interrogating the text from the wrong direction, I acknowledge I am the problem here. The author’s note is like “I wanted to write queer norm historical so I did and I stuck fantasy magic in it, so there,” and like, sure, I respect it. I’m just not the best at reading it.

A Gentleman's Gentleman

3/5. Historical trans m/m romance about the isolated earl who hires a valet for a trip to London to keep up appearances, because he has to find a wife for reasons, but oh yes, he’s trans.

Lovely slow burn historical that is very playful with several tropes – the dead twin, the tragic backstory, etc. -- all presented exactly as ordered, but in service to a trans narrative. I liked all of that a great deal, and Christopher himself is a charming mess.

I’m not rating this higher because the romance (with the valet, if that was unclear) did very little for me. This is single POV, which I think was done to preserve a late reveal in the book, but the net result is that the valet is something of a cipher and I just didn’t feel anything for these two as a pair (also, the reveal is not a surprise if you're paying attention at all, so not worth the trouble of concealing it, I think).

Still, I enjoyed this, and particularly recommend the audiobook for the delivery of Christopher’s dialogue. His fruity upper crust gentleman's accent is top tier.

Content notes: Loss of family, panic attacks, fear of outing, internalized transphobia.

A Ruse of Shadows

4/5. Book 8. Do not start here either.

Sherry Thomas is just really good at this. Even when she’s pulling the same tricks again – having our protagonists enact the whole plot of the book without ever explaining to the reader until the very end, false crime accusations again – I’m mostly happy to go for the ride. Here, that narrative secrecy works to enhance the way this book is also about the central romantic relationship, and how they decide what it’s going to be, and what it’s not, like adults and complicated people do.

Cocaine Blues and 20 more

4/5. Long-running series of historical detective novels about a wealthy woman in 1928/1929 Australia who solves crime, builds an unconventional family, and bangs half the men she meets.

If you’re wondering where I’ve been, here you go.

These are hard to talk about because I read 21 of them (not 22, though there is a 22nd book) and I had a pretty good time for most of them. But the most recent books were such a noticeable decline in quality that it’s left a bad taste in my mouth and now I just keep thinking about what I didn’t like. Let’s see what I can do about that.

Things to like: Phryne’s cheerful and unapologetic sexuality. The ways she is allowed to behave as male detectives do – horny, constantly drinking, etc. Casual poly relationships that suit everyone just fine and work beautifully. Mostly short mysteries with a range of solutions. Strong writing on a craft level, particularly in the middle books. An affection for the detective novels that Phryne herself reads, and a playfulness with their forms (Christie, Sayers, etc.). But with more frankness about the specific sorts of crimes that women and children are vulnerable to – incest and rape, forced relationships, botched abortion, forced childbearing, etc.

What I don’t like: Also Phryne, who is a lot of a lot. The repeated and unmistakable asephobia that emanates from the books themselves, not just Phryne who is the one to voice a lot of it (she’s one of those highly sexual people who thinks there’s something wrong/unnatural about people who aren’t, and the books let her attach these views to villains several times). The way the author just gave completely up on series continuity once the TV show started, to the point of suddenly adding a sexual overtone to a relationship that was previously platonic (and almost familial) in the books because the TV show went a totally different direction with it. It’s extremely disconcerting. The sharp decline in writing quality in the last few books. The extremely weird Sherlock slashfic interlude where Phryne bangs not!John Watson a bunch to make not!Sherlock jealous (ah and it turns out he’s not asexual after all, what a relief for everyone). The later books get real weird, guys.

Content notes: All sorts of crime, including against children. Rape, incest, sexual exploitation, violence, murder, generally as aftermath and not on-page.

An Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love

3/5. An extremely silly “historical” romance about two rival ornithologists competing (and accidentally working together) to find a particular magical bird.

I think I’m over India Holton now. This is her fourth book, and to say they are variations on a theme is to vastly understate their repetitiveness. It’s a pleasant enough theme – a cartoonish approach to plot, a romance with little real conflict but hitting the same general notes every time of reaching each other through loneliness, banter, entirely unexplicated worldbuilding, a light narrative voice that says things in the general tone of “he kissed her so quickly the narrative could not come up with a metaphor.” Some playfulness with tropes, but it never amounts to anything, like the inn room they are forced to share that has not one bed, but seven. Cute, but nothing other than cute.

A pleasant diversion, but I’ve had four of them now and I think I’m good.

A curious Beginning plus seven more books

3/5. Series of historical mysteries with a “slow burn” het romance subplot, featuring a naturalist and her partner in many senses.

I’m about to complain about these, but I feel in fairness I should also point out that I did read eight of them. They’re comfortable popcorn books with a growing cast of colorful secondary characters and a variety of mystery/suspense plots.

But they’re also pretty annoying. Veronica, our protagonist, has a case of not-like-other-girls-itis so bad, it really ought to be fatal. These books are just heavily overclocked in general; Raybourn has zero chill about anything ever, including some very delicate emotional things. Also, this is one of those “slow burns” that I don’t think earns the name. Sure it takes them like five books to hook up, but that’s more annoying than tantalizing when they got fake married and started having whoops-we-almost-kissed moments in the first hundred pages of the first book. It’s not slow burn, it’s just here’s a fire but we’re not going to do anything about it for a series of more or less stupid or arbitrary reasons for an annoying length of time.

I did read eight, though. Fun, quippy, frequently annoying, generally entertaining.

Content notes: Murder of all sorts, a lot of stuff that is blurring together now

A Power Unbound

4/5. Conclusion to this trilogy of queer fantasy romance historicals. I was waiting for this one as the couple was signaled in a prior book and I was like yes, inject it into my veins.

And yes, the romance is great. They fight each other hard across a huge and painful class divide. But they’re also playful about it; they work out much of the messy tension of their relationship via blazing hot class-based sexy roleplay. Here for it.

The other plot stuff does, you know, plot things, which I didn’t care about as much and I also thought landed too thematically on the nose for a book about the power of class and the power of magic. But it’s still a great time, and I’ll still read probably anything she puts out.

Content notes: Passing mention of rape. Deeper discussions of grief and loss. Various forms of compulsion – magical and otherwise.

Slippery Creatures, The Sugared Game, Subtle Blood

4/5. Trilogy of 1920’s queer romances in which a soldier come home from the trenches has his quiet life of bookshop ownership disturbed by a plot involving national security, which brings him into the orbit of a high-strung socialist (or is he?) aristocrat.

These had an uphill climb with me. I picked them up because I really wanted to be reading Freya Marske’s latest, but my library hold wasn’t in yet so this was the next closest queer historical (very different otherwise, obviously). So I was disgruntled about that, and then I was put off by the second hero, who is the self-hating type who tries to make sure that he makes everyone hate him as much as he hates himself, oh but it’s all entirely necessary self-sabotage, don’t you know. Blech.

But this is KJ Charles, so wouldn’t you know that by the second book, I was all in on this relationship. It is hard work for both of them, which is one of my favorite things. And they both change in painful, believable ways. And she made a very good choice not alternating POVs here – watching the other hero slowly change his life from the outside is beautiful, having to hear all his crap from the inside would have been intolerable.

Good, chewy, sexy, spyful.

Content notes: Past self-harm, familial abuse, violence.

Bombshell

3/5. Historical romance about a girl gang that solves various problems like humiliating a noble that abuses women. One of the gang – the the fatale – ends up entangled with a dude whose entire deal I have forgotten in the week since finishing this book.

Fun wish fulfillment girl power romance that feels extremely modern because it is written for a very specific angry social media using lady of the late Trump early pandemic era. So if you go into it for that particular emotional servicing, good plan. If you go in for a historical romance, eh, less good plan.

Mostly, though, I’m realizing I need to stop reading one-off straight romances. Series? Sure. A series has time to breathe and be iterative, which I’m just now realizing is why I like them – they work a little bit like fanfic. But one-offs? About straight people? I just can’t manage interest nine times out of ten, and my success rate in picking that tenth book is not improving with time.

Yes I realize this is part of a series, but it’s the kind where each book does a different couple. I get why this is popular, but I’m realizing it’s exactly the sort of thing that keeps leaving me cold.

He Who Drowned the World

4/5. Sequel to She Who Became the Sun, concluding this duology about the girl who dresses as a man – becomes a man, in most ways – to found the Ming dynasty.

Woof, this is a ride. I kept thinking, in mingled admiration and confusion, I don’t like this sort of thing, why do I like this so much? This is a violent, lurid, tragic seething psychosexual drama. Emphasis on the psychosexual. And the drama. And – well, really all of it. None of those are big draws for me.

But the thing is, there is a deftness, a depth to the way these books peer into unfittingness, and a complexity they afford themselves by way of having all of the central players be variously engaged in defying/escaping/suffering/manipulating/enduring/subverting/destroying their gender and sexuality. None of their modes of being would be particularly notable by themselves, but together they illuminate. Bloodily. Furiously.

Content notes: Um. A lot of death in horrible ways. Masochism. Homophobia and cisism. Domestic violence. Some complicated consent stuff.

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

3/5. Lady pirate on the ancient Indian Ocean comes out of retirement for one last job, also her last husband may not be entirely human.

Lukewarm on this one. I know I’m in the minority here, but there is just something about Chakraborty’s writing that sucks the sparkly essence of interesting things away. Here, I wanted piracy, lady swashbuckling, lots of salty ocean love, and some chewy historical sailing stuff. Nope, none of that. I think maybe a swash was buckled once if I’m being generous, and if this allegedly great sea captain actually thought about the (all-consuming, to my knowledge) mechanics of sailing her ship even once, I missed it.

Also, Chakraborty had the poor judgment, in my view, to leave not only one note telling us how much research she did to make this historically accurate, but two! I mean okay, you do you, but I gotta say all the linguistic anachronisms and modern modes of thought in this book would not have bothered me if she didn’t make such a point of all the hundreds and hundreds of books she read for research. Do your research if it makes you happy, but you still have your historical pirate using very specific 2010’s internet speak and separately referring to a man as “so hot,” so maybe next time do the research and shut up about it so you don’t make people think your book is something it’s not?

There’s some nice made family stuff here, and complications with her daughter’s origins, and also an adventuring trans teenager. But this is setting up a series that I have little to no interest in following.

Content notes: Lots of violence, some body horror, threat of rape, some consent stuff as the result of magical influence

Longshadow

3/5. Another historical fae fantasy romance in this series, this one F/F. Take my opinions with a bigger handful of salt than usual, as I read this while a GI thing ripped through my household. In fact, I read 2/3 of it in a few hours while lying on the couch next to Cb, neither of us really capable of getting up, and I can’t swear I was conscious for every part of the book. It’s cute, it’s quirky (there’s a brother who is a ghost, which is cute and sad), it has a twist that you should see coming 200 pages off because even I in my reduced state figured it out like 100 pages in advance. It continues to be committed to found family, creating family through adoption, non-neurotypical people, and generally ripping the British aristocracy up one side and down the other. All good stuff. I continue to be a little “hmm” about how these books use fae-ness or the consequences of fae magic to stand in for various kinds of non-neurotypicality, but it’s a “hmm” where I think I’m coming around to what the book is doing as valuable and interesting. Still marinating on it.

Content notes: Recollection of parent loss, depictions of grief and loss of a child.

The Secret Service of Tea and Treason

3/5. Third in this charming fluffy trilogy of historical fantastical romances. This one switches modes yet again to spies (the previous two did pirates and witches) so like . . . it’s a lot. This was my packing book – I packed pretty much all of my wife’s 2,000 plus books while reading this) and it’s somewhat surprising that I have any thoughts about it at all. But I do, because this book is attempting that thing where 90% of it is silly and campy fun, and then a tiny sliver of the other 10% is like “oh actually, these two people who are falling in love have been horrifically abused since childhood to indoctrinate them into serving their governmental organization for life and we’re going to take that seriously for just this one scene and then go back to making jokes about it.” Woof. That’s a hard trick to pull off, and this book does not land it.

A Tempest at Sea

4/5. Latest in this series about a girl!Sherlock. Here, Holmes is hiding aboard a cruise ship when a murder occurs, which might force her out into the open into Moriarty’s sights.

This really shouldn’t work as well as it does. It’s not at all a fair mystery – it hides the true sequence of events behind a series of spaced out flashbacks that are there for no structural reason at all other than to increase suspense. And the bulk of the book takes place in a series of slow but tense conversations in a single room with a small selection of characters that does not even include Holmes. Action-packed it is not. And yet.

And yet this book, like the rest of the series, is steeped in the lives of women. In how they can be destroyed carelessly, even casually by a man, and how that destruction – the loss of respectability – is disastrous and also opens up some entirely new doors. It’s about double-standards and living with them and defying them. And also, the stupid suspense tricks actually work, hmph.

Side note: Hold onto your hats, kids. Since the last time I posted, we have bought on a house, begun nearly a dozen separate renovation projects, moved, and switched Casterbrook's preschool. I am very behind, and boy do I have stress reading for you.

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries

3/5. Fantasy with strong romantic subplot about the socially-inept academic planning to winter in a remote northern village in order to make observations to finish her faerie encyclopedia. She gets entangled in faerie nonsense and village life, particularly after her annoyingly charming colleague, who might be fae himself, follows her.

Nice if you are into faeries (I am not) or, alternatively, the sort of romance where the woman is way too laser-focussed and practical to notice that the (deeply impractical and foppish) hero is absolutely crazy about her (I can definitely be persuaded). This book skims very lightly over a whole heck of a lot of things, like oh I don’t know the entire development of this alternate history world, or how our heroine’s career has been impacted by misogyny (the book really does not want to name that). So if you can stop yourself from thinking too hard about that, or how this book supposedly takes place in 1913ish but it could easily pass for 1993 for all the sense of time, then here you go. It’s a lot of faerie stuff and some nice village life stuff and some romance stuff, and never you mind about anything else. I leave it to each reader whether all of this is a virtue or a slight.

Content notes: One startling instance of self-mutillation for plot, not psychological reasons. Some faerie ensorcelment stuff.

When Women Were Dragons

3/5. Memoir of the “mass dragoning” of 1955, when hundreds of thousands of women, “wives and mothers all” transformed into dragons. This, and the subsequent mass gaslighting about it, have profound effects on a young girl who grows up in a world in which women keep turning into dragons.

Another feminist rage book. It’s dedicated to Christine Blasey Ford, if that puts it in context. And I found it pretty disappointing. The concept is fine, the story has its interesting moments and a lot of (deliberately) enraging moments. Our heroine is a brilliant mathematician whose father doesn’t think women need an education, if that gives you some flavor.

But it’s just . . . disappointing. The metaphor is supposed to be interesting enough to carry 150,000 words. It would have been better suited to, maybe, 15,000. And maybe this is unfair of me, but this is Barnhill’s first adult novel, and while it has the pacing and preoccupations of an adult novel, it has the nuance of young adult. Which is to say, not nearly enough. A dragon at a protest carries a sign saying “our bodies, our choice,” in case, you know, you didn’t get it. Women are oppressed and turn into dragons in rage, or women are liberated and turn into dragons in joy, men are terrible, no one wants to acknowledge any of it, that’s about it.

Content notes: Misogyny of many sorts, parental death from cancer, parental abandonment, homophobia.

The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen

4/5. M/M historical about a newly-entitled baronet and the smuggler he used to bang, whoops.

Ah, this is some good fuckbuddies-to-enemies-to-lovers shit, is what.

Somebody can correct me if I’m wrong, but AFAIK this is Charles’s first novel of modern length – i.e. not one of these slim 70,000 word books she puts out. And yes, more of this please. The thing is, she’s so damn good at packing intensity and emotion and context and history and community into the smaller books. Each of her words, taken by itself, is doing a lot of work. And she carried that through to these 100,000 plus words, so you get this great love story and also a truly excellent sense of place and time and also a good dozen vivid and interesting secondary characters and also also some good jokes. The broader cast here, and their interlocking stories, is so great that I was occasionally like oh yeah, this is a romance, I forgot when we turned back to that. This is not an insult.

Content notes: Parental abandonment, violence and threats.

A Restless Truth

4/5. Sequel to last year’s delightful A Marvelous Light, this one about a murder investigation on a ship making the New York to London crossing, also a steamy F/F romance and pornography and a jewel thief and a parrot.

I think the word that best describes the quality of this book is bawdy. It’s frank and funny and blunt and creative and, very specifically, queer about sex, which is super refreshing in a historical. Also, the dynamic of the experienced jaded woman hooking up with the intense virgin and getting way more than she bargained for is A+.

Also A+ is the set up for book three, which will feature a different romance that I would like injected directly into my veins right now because it is going to be 100% my jam. And yeah, hopefully that book has a plot that's a bit less "hey let's have a plan that involves a seance for no other reason than the vibes, yoe," but honestly, whatever, I enjoyed the vibes.

Marrying Winterborne

4/5. Historical het. He is a wealthy Welsh department store owner; she is a shy noblewoman with a secret. Their engagement was previously broken in the B-plot of a prior book, but she’s not having it.

I bounced off Kleypas before, but Fated Mates told me to read this, and once in a blue moon I do what I’m told. It’s a lovely, sexy, sharply-observed romp about class and heredity and what it feels like to be wanted after being so very unwanted for a long time. It even made me almost appreciate a plotline about secret parentage, which is generally a huge turnoff (the period-appropriate attitudes about how character and personhood are determined by “breeding” are just so blech, and I find it suspicious how many books really want to spend a lot of time wallowing in all that). But this version is compassionate but also critical, and it worked for me.

But let’s be real, the appeal of this book for romance readers is going to be that he loves her so deeply and so devotedly, and by God nothing is going to stop him. The conflict here isn’t will they or won’t they but will she value herself enough to believe in him.

His at Night

4/5. Historical romance. She is desperate to escape the control of her abusive uncle. He is a noble and secret agent of the crown who pretends to be mildly mentally disabled to hide his work (like you do?). She entraps him into marriage, and stuff happens.

Somehow, I’ve read many Sherry Thomas books, but only now am learning that English is not her native language. That is particularly impressive considering not just the skill of her writing, but the control of language. She is precise and careful with it, and you can tell that she says what she damn well meant to.

Anyway. This is the first book of hers classified as pure romance that I’ve read (the others were mysteries in the most part). This book is thorny and sexy and uncomfortable and, in the last, lovely. The two of them are alike in many ways – both living lies to protect themselves – and they aren’t very nice to each other in part because sometimes we are worst to those who reflect what we hate in ourselves.

There is a lot going on in this book that I think is commenting specifically on the historical romance genre, which I have dabbled in but certainly have not read enough of to fully appreciate. The bad first time sex, the problematically sizzling subsequent sex scenes that co-opt the reader into that space the characters are in of you’re enjoying this aren’t you? Well. Maybe you shouldn’t The flourishes of the plot that have a distinct bent towards the gothic. The careful attention paid to the web of relationships around the main couple, and how their actions have consequences for many, not just themselves.

It's a very particular book, and a good one, and a hard one in places, all while pretending to light airiness.

Content notes: The sort of complicated consent issues that arise around period-accurate notions of how marriage between a man and a woman ought to work and also when you throw alcohol into the mix; drug use, forced and not; violence.