Two reviews
May. 22nd, 2020 09:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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fffridayI won a BookCrossing sweepstake of lesbian books a little while ago, so I have several FFFridays worth to keep me going. Here are the first two.
Keeping You A Secret, Julie Anne Peters
One of those books that was pretty groundbreaking in its time, one of a handful of titles that came up when I looked for stories for teens with a f/f relationship at its centre. And this is a solid story that holds up well enough in comparison with those that followed, but from this distance it no longer seems like anything particularly out of the ordinary: another romance, another coming out story, another account of homophobia both institutional and personal. I'd love to have read it a decade ago, or more.
As for the second, the protagonist's identity as a lesbian is a big reveal part-way in (though it's fairly obvious if you know you're looking for it) so I'm putting everything including the title under a cut.
A Grave Talent, Laurie R. King
I picked this up feeling in the mood for American police procedural. Which this is, and a good one. However, the epigraphs - from the detective works of Conan Doyle, Sayers, Chesterton, and others - place it in another tradition, as well. Sayers seems the most apposite, and is quoted within the dialogue as well as at the beginning of a section: an early signal that this book will be about more than the mystery, and indeed it delves deep into the havoc that a career in detection can wreak on a relationship. I wasn't entirely convinced by the murderer's motivation, but I don't think I was really reading this for the murderer. I liked the protagonist, Kate Martinelli, and I liked her rapport with her superior, Al.
This came prespoiled for me, but it's worth noting that King goes to considerable lengths to conceal the gender of the protagonist's partner, Lee. I'm not sure how quick I'd have been to pick that up, unspoiled; but the fact that she keeps this going for a good chunk of the book further demonstrates how compartmentalised a detective's life can be, and the suffocating effect of the closet.
Keeping You A Secret, Julie Anne Peters
One of those books that was pretty groundbreaking in its time, one of a handful of titles that came up when I looked for stories for teens with a f/f relationship at its centre. And this is a solid story that holds up well enough in comparison with those that followed, but from this distance it no longer seems like anything particularly out of the ordinary: another romance, another coming out story, another account of homophobia both institutional and personal. I'd love to have read it a decade ago, or more.
As for the second, the protagonist's identity as a lesbian is a big reveal part-way in (though it's fairly obvious if you know you're looking for it) so I'm putting everything including the title under a cut.
A Grave Talent, Laurie R. King
I picked this up feeling in the mood for American police procedural. Which this is, and a good one. However, the epigraphs - from the detective works of Conan Doyle, Sayers, Chesterton, and others - place it in another tradition, as well. Sayers seems the most apposite, and is quoted within the dialogue as well as at the beginning of a section: an early signal that this book will be about more than the mystery, and indeed it delves deep into the havoc that a career in detection can wreak on a relationship. I wasn't entirely convinced by the murderer's motivation, but I don't think I was really reading this for the murderer. I liked the protagonist, Kate Martinelli, and I liked her rapport with her superior, Al.
This came prespoiled for me, but it's worth noting that King goes to considerable lengths to conceal the gender of the protagonist's partner, Lee. I'm not sure how quick I'd have been to pick that up, unspoiled; but the fact that she keeps this going for a good chunk of the book further demonstrates how compartmentalised a detective's life can be, and the suffocating effect of the closet.
