fffriday | Recent Entries

Well, having been put off this one by the rather arch title, and attracted to it by positive reviews from various places, I eventually picked it up when I visited Gay's The Word in August.

This is a romance between a young astronomer and a countess ten years her senior. Lucy Muchelney has been trained by her father, who at the opening of the book is recently deceased. Catherine St. Day is widowed, a patron of science both depended upon and condescended to by the scientific society to which her husband belonged. Lucy presents herself as a candidate to translate an influential work by a French astronomer, and matters go on from there.

The romance is gentle and tender. Both partners have been hurt before but both are prepared to move past that. There's room for assumptions and misunderstandings, and room to correct them. The sex is frank, uncomplicated, and enjoyed (no mention of 'sin' or 'sinful', a particular pet peeve of mine when it comes to romance).

There is, as might be expected, a very strong feminist message, which worked by positioning Lucy as one of many women scientists facing systemic prejudice and exclusion, not 'the first one ever'. I assume that all the names mentioned were fictional; I did enjoy a shout-out to 'a young woman down the coast' who found a 'lizard skeleton'.

If I'm being picky, there were a few places where the period detail was off (for example, the scene where Lucy visits one of the gentlemen of the Society unchaperoned), and rather too much use of 'the countess', 'the astronomer', 'the younger woman', etc - but overall this is an enjoyable, readable romance.

oursin

Posted here: an early real-life instance of seething passions in a girls' school.

ursula

I read ARCs of two upcoming f/f stories via NetGalley recently.

Charlie Jane Anders' Victories Greater Than Death is a YA story about a girl who was raised on Earth but whose true identity is a six-foot-tall purple alien trying to save the galaxy. She falls in love with a Brazilian hacker who doesn't really trust all these promises of universal peace. It's a goofy, fun adventure that feels to me like a somewhat more nuanced take on the same ideas as Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. I posted a longer review here.

Aliette de Bodard's Seven of Infinities is a novella about two scholars. One is a mindship who has retired from a life of daring heists and knife-edge adventure. But the human she cares about, the virtuous woman from a poor family, has secrets too. This has some classic de Bodard motifs (the lover who is sometimes beautiful in human terms and sometimes beautiful like an ocean or a star, questions around mentorship and raising young people in a community). There's also a really interesting take on the interaction between an imperial exam system and computer-aided ancestral memory.

oursin

I have posted here about a fascinating seventeenth century romantic liaison between Constance Aston Fowler and Katherine Thimelby, who subsequently became her sister-in-law, and to whom she remained tied in bonds of affection throughout their lives.

shewhostaples

Proper English is a historical (1900s) romance-cum-murder mystery, the prequel to Charles' m/m thriller/romance Think of England. I read both back to back, and found that Proper English sat rather less comfortably within its secondary genre than Think of England did. However, it was still a pleasing romance with a very engaging central couple. The point of view character, an excellent shot, has been invited to join a shooting party in Scotland - and finds herself far more interested in her host's fiancée than he seems to be.

( Spoilers )

cesy

It's been recommended here before but I want to mention it again - Heather Rose Jones's Alpennia series is delightful historical fantasy of just the right amount of fluff and wish-fulfilment for me this year. Worth giving it a try if you're in the mood for something fun and happy.

shewhostaples

Once Ghosted, Twice Shy - Alyssa Cole

This is a novella in Cole's Reluctant Royals series, centred on Likotsi, assistant to the crown prince of Thesolo. The action, however, takes place in New York, where Likotsi has run into the woman with whom she had a brief relationship some months previously. We follow both the previous relationship and the current one. After flipping between the two timelines for a few chapters, it settles into the later one, moving from 'what happened' to 'what happens next'.

This was a gentle story about rebuilding broken trust, with some lovely details of food, New York, and, most particularly, clothes.

The other two both feature Episcopalian priests as one half of the central couple.

This Is My Body - Elena Graf

The priest in this one is also a former opera singer, so overall this might have been designed specifically to appeal to me. The other main character is a professor of philosophy. There were traumatic backstories on both sides ( spoilers ) which sometimes seemed a little heavy for the narrative to bear.

While I thought this had some pacing issues (it seemed ready to wrap up at the half way point, when an unsignalled twist was unceremoniously dropped in), and I wasn't entirely comfortable with the resolution, this was an enjoyable romance. Nice to see slightly older characters in the limelight, too.

Bobbi and Soul - J. B. Marsden

I was interested to read that the author is a former priest herself - so I assume that the church details are accurate! The other main character is a doctor. I enjoyed the rural Colorado setting. This was, I think, less ambitious than This Is My Body, but possibly more successful as a result. Only one traumatic backstory here (( spoiler ) in this case).

Both of these were the second book in a series, but worked perfectly well as standalones.

rachelmanija

A Song for a New Day review here.

A pandemic causes permanent social distancing in the US. Yes really.

There are two main characters, both queer women, but romance is secondary to worldbuilding and character development. The book had probably the best beginning I've read all year, but the second two-thirds were less strong.

ETA: Er, and it's actually Monday where I am. Aspect of the pandemic apocalypse which Pinsker did not predict: the total loss of the ability to know what day it is.

shewhostaples

More from my Bookcrossing haul:

Sing You Home - Jodi Picoult

Another of Picoult's 'ethical dilemma' novels, this one featuring a custody battle over some frozen embryos - with the debate being over whether they should be implanted in the uterus of the ex-wife's new partner, or that of the ex-husband's sister-in-law.

The first half of the book seemed a bit of a colour-by-numbers coming out story, with all the stock points about 'not like kissing a man' etc turning up right on cue. (Maybe I read too much fanfic.) However, it picked up considerably when it got to the courtroom drama part of the book, which I think is where Picoult's strengths lie, and it has a satisfying ending.

I was uncomfortable with the use of the old 'but shellfish!!!' rebuttal of Leviticus, which skirts a bit close to the antisemitism line for me, and I have to confess that I skimmed over some of the debates altogether, having heard them all before. I was less than impressed by the egregious bisexual erasure (not one mention of the word in the entire book, despite the main character having significant relationships on page with a man and then a woman).

Power & Magic: The Queer Witch Comics Anthology - ed. Joamette Gil

Does what it says on the tin, really: a delightful and varied collection of comics featuring queer witches, with a lovely diverse range of settings, styles, characters, and creators. I'm not a great comics reader so am probably missing some of the subtleties, but it made for a very enjoyable afternoon's reading.

These Witches Don't Burn - Isabel Sterling

A young adult novel set in modern-day Salem, Massachusetts. The narrator is a seventeen year old witch; so are her parents; so is her ex-girlfriend; and someone's out to get her.

It went darker than I was expecting (possibly the animal sacrifice in the first chapter should have given me a clue): this is a world where the worst can and does happen, and there's only so much you can do about it. Actually, it reminded me a lot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer - this time without the bisexual erasure. In fact, there was quite a range of sexual and gender diversity.

It's clearly setting itself up to be the first in a series, and I'm not sure that it needs to be: I don't feel any particular urge to find out what happens next, and I'd have preferred to have the last loose end tied up to make a satisfying standalone.

I think I need a break from first person present tense now, though, after the Picoult and the Sterling.

sophia_sol

Just realized I've been forgetting to let you folks know about the f/f book reviews I've written in the....year since I last posted here, whoops. Here's links to my reviews, along with a brief description of each!

1. A Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics, by Olivia Waite - Absolutely delightful historical romance featuring one woman who's a scientist and one who's an artist.

2. The Wolf and the Girl, by Aster Glenn Gray - The ending is ambiguous about whether it ships the two women or not but I think it falls under the spirit of this community. Historical fantasy featuring the early silent film industry and werewolves. Lovely.

3. In the Vanishers' Palace, by Aliette de Bodard - A Beauty & the Beast inspired novella. The worldbuilding is compelling, but the romance doesn't quite work for me personally.

4. Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir - Okay everyone's already heard about the lesbian necromancers, right? Anyway it's great as advertised, though a bit too far in the horror direction for me to be really happy with personally.

5. Catfishing on Catnet, by Naomi Kritzer - YA novel featuring lots of queer characters as well beyond the f/f relationship. Also a major character is an AI! Fun.

6. A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine - far-future SF, my favourite book I read last year, completely brilliant and riveting.

7. Once Ghosted, Twice Shy, by Alyssa Cole - modern romance novel, I liked the characters but the romance arc doesn't work for me personally.

8. The True Queen, by Zen Cho - historical fantasy, absolutely delightful.

shewhostaples

I 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.

( it came out in 1993, but just to be on the safe side )

oursin

Posted in my own DW: the saga of Sisterwrite bookshop, set up in Islington, North London, in 1978. A major centre of feminist and lesbian culture of the period - the account also gives a wider picture of that place and time and what it was like then - preinternet and very different.

hebethen

The year's still young, yes, but this is my favorite fantasy novel of the year so far! A young orc priestess runs away from her cult shortly before she was planning to offer herself up as a sacrifice to her god. Under the patronage of the mysterious, manipulative wizard who helped her flee to another world, she becomes a fighter and his loyal red right hand. However, her unthinking loyalty is challenged when she meets a frighteningly talented magical adept on one of her missions.

It's a story about breaking free of indoctrination on multiple levels, and I really liked the romance. Fire metaphors are apt here: it's a slow burn to start, but they'll set the world on fire to keep each other safe. For those who didn't click with Gideon the Ninth because GtN was more about gonzo flair than careful worldbuilding, TUN is very strong on the worldbuilding front!

Further thoughts on my journal.

hebethen

February: it's been a hell of a month. But I did get to read a couple of F/F things so far! Both of these deal with the weight of expectation placed on a single person.

First, Rivers Solomon's The Deep. It's a novella set in a multi-medium shared universe (hence the co-credits), where an undersea merfolk civilization descended from the pregnant women thrown overboard from slave ships. The novella follows a neurodivergent historian from this civilization and what it means for her to bear that history alone, trying to walk the painful razor edge between remembrance and suffocation, peace and vacuity. The historian's growing love for a land woman is a significant (though not sole) part of what helps break her out of her cycle. There's some very interesting SFFnal worldbuilding amidst the allegory, and I also found the postmortem in the afterword illuminating.

Second, Lee Winter's Shattered, a short superhero romance novel with mild alt-history elements. Our POV character is a cynical tracker tasked with retrieving errant superheroes (powerful humanoid aliens who have sworn to protect Earth), and in the course of tracking down an elusive hero from the first generation, they strike sparks -- at first antagonistic, then, as they explore the conspiracy behind the superheroes, romantic. I found that the details sometimes clashed with the overall theme and messaging in distracting ways, and the editing seemed to reflect non-native English syntax at times, but I appreciated its take on one-night stands and ( spoiler? )

hebethen

On the heels of finding out that "Winter Sojourn", the Muna/Henrietta fic I recced, was in fact essentially a postcanon bonus story from the original author herself, I 1) was filled with awe and glee and 2) thought it was a good opportunity to reread some other recentish short fiction of hers.

"If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again", about an imugi trying to become a dragon, took the Hugo for Best Novelette and made quite a bit of a splash (at least among my circles), but did you know she also wrote a sequel short story? "Head of a Snake, Tail of a Dragon" (2,369 words) is a wry, sweet follow-up about love, loneliness, and second chances of all kinds; less a coda and more a new adventure, and tropey in the best of ways. It can be read on its own, but I think having read the novelette made it funnier. ( Very minor spoiler )

alias_sqbr

This is a translated Japanese f/f comedy romance light novel, about a Japanese lesbian who finds herself in the world of the m/f dating sim she was playing...and does her best to avoid all the male love interests the game throws at her and instead win the heart and good ending of the game's haughty villainess.

It's pretty silly, and the romance didn't quite work for me, but it's a lot of fun, and a lot more queer and generally thoughtful than I expected.

An English translation

Here's my full review including content warnings.

rachelmanija

Absolutely fantastic, terrifying literary horror. Sarah Crowe, a depressed lesbian writer, moves into a spooky house with a spooky tree to recover from her girlfriend's suicide; her roommate is an artist with some odd resemblances to her dead girlfriend...

No happy endings - the entire book is Sarah's journal found after her own suicide - but if you like horror and metafiction, you will love it.

The Red Tree.

hebethen

Here's a second quintet of FemslashEx 2019 recs, this time for stories exceeding 5k in length! Damn but people really pulled out all the stops for this.

1. spreading wide my narrow hands (6740 words) by lastwingedthing
Fandom: Jane Eyre
( more metadata )

This post-fire Jane Eyre AU, which I originally came across as a rec from

letzan, is an impeccably crafted pastiche of the source material. It manages both to give much-needed voice to Bertha Mason and paint a convincing slow burn between Jane and her.

( + four origfic )

hebethen

I had the good fortune to come across two of these in a row without even having had to look for them!

First: Naomi Kritzer's Catfishing on the CatNet, a near-future SF thriller about an internet-loving teen and her mother constantly on the run from a mysterious abusive father, contains a sweet and very organic f/f subplot. It's apparently set up to be the start of a series, and I'm really looking forward to the next book.

Second: Shamim Sarif's The Athena Protocol, a contemporary-ish spy thriller featuring a small all-female rogue spy agency, also contains an f/f subplot, though perhaps a tick more sub than CotCN depending on how you look at it. This romance is a lot more fraught, in the ways you'd expect from a spy thriller, if that's more your speed.

(My thoughts on these books as a whole)

(Bonus: Naomi Kritzer also wrote an f/f fantasy duology, Fires of the Faithful and Turning the Storm, which I particularly enjoyed for its portrayal of agnosticism in a world where believers command actual magical powers, among other things.)

rachelmanija

I reviewed The Wilder Girls by Rory Power, an Annihilation-esque YA horror/sf novel about a girls' boarding school infected by a bizarre disease that mutates them. It's got lots of vivid imagery (much of it so nauseating that I had to skim) and an excellently hothouse atmosphere of desperately intense emotion, until YA dystopian plot tropes dissolve it all into a barrage of nonsensical plot twists.

F/F content: central F/F romantic relationship, equally or more important female relationship that may be platonic or may be romantic but not sexual.

The Wilder Girls.