rocky41_7: (Default)
[personal profile] rocky41_7
On Monday's outbound commute I finished the audiobook for Even Though I Knew the End by C.L. Polk. This is a supernatural/fantasy noir romance and it does pack a lot of all three of those things into its brief 4-hour runtime. 
 
This book relies heavily on stock film noir tropes—the veteran down-and-out private (paranormal) investigator (here a lesbian, Helen, our protagonist) who drinks too much and is haunted by past mistakes, a mysterious and sexy female client with a unique case, and "just one last" job before the PI plans to quit and retire with a beloved romantic partner. I didn't find them overused—and seeing them reworked to queer and female characters was fun—but other readers may find them too worn out even here.
 
Because the book is so short, it moves along at a very rapid pace. The whole thing takes place over the course of two days—the final two days before Helen's soul debt is called due and she finally has to pay the price of her warlock bargain. In this way, any rush felt appropriate, since it fit both the size of the novel and the context of Helen's urgency to get this last job done before she has to pay up.
 
The characters weren't super developed, but again—4-hour runtime. They're a little stock character-y, but not total cardboard cut-outs. It was disappointing for me to see Helen make the same mistake at the end of the book that she did prior to the start, as if she hadn't really learned anything, but since the novel ends promptly after that, the story never has to reckon much with it. 
 
I was relieved that Edith, Helen's girlfriend, wasn't just the damsel in distress/goal object for Helen, which I was a bit worried about in the beginning. Edith has secrets and goals of her own. 
 
Overall, the book was fine, and it entertained me well enough for a few days. Nothing extraordinary here, but nothing objectionable either. I will say I think keeping it short worked best for this book—I think drawing it out might have only weakened it. A fun little twist on a typical noir novel.

Crossposted to [community profile] books and my main

rocky41_7: (Default)
[personal profile] rocky41_7
Latest commute audiobook: Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield. This novel is about a woman, Miri, whose wife is a marine biologist, and goes on a submarine expedition for work meant to last three weeks. Six months later, Leah's sub finally resurfaces, but she isn't the same person Miri remembers.
 
This is another WIN for online queer recs - I thoroughly enjoyed it. I may even buy a copy for myself. There is a horror element to this story—for Miri, our primary narrator, the horror of watching someone you love become something you don't recognize or understand—but mostly Our Wives Under the Sea is a meditation on grief and loss. It is so easy to transform this story into a metaphor for anyone with a loved one who is terminally ill, or missing, or otherwise there, but not there.
 

rocky41_7: (Default)
[personal profile] rocky41_7
My latest commute audiobook was A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson, a vampire novel that strides along at a brisk 5 hours run time. I have to admit upfront I did not have high hopes for this book. I somewhat warily added it to my TBR list, but I feared tired romantasy tropes that don't hit for me, and that the queerness which had landed it on my radar would turn out to be little more than additional titillation for a straight audience looking for a tale of decadence and indecency. I'm quite pleased to report neither of those concerns came to fruition!
 
As the title might suggest, there's a level of melodrama in this book you have to accept to enjoy the story. It reminded me in some ways of AMC's Interview with the Vampire in its shameless embrace of all those usual vampiric tropes and in the extravagances of its characters and its prose. Throughout the introduction, I was trying to decide if this was fun, or overwrought. I came down on the side of fun.
 
 
Read more... )

hebethen: (ship)
[personal profile] 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 [personal profile] 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 )
rachelmanija: (Books: old)
[personal profile] rachelmanija
Manhattan Moon, by Jae. Here, have my third review of a lesbian werewolf novelette! It's in Jae's Wrasa series and set after the novel I reviewed here, Second Nature.
rachelmanija: (Books: old)
[personal profile] rachelmanija
Second Nature, by Jae. A really fun urban fantasy/paranormal romance between a liger shifter assassin and the human writer of a suspiciously accurate novel about lesbian shapeshifters.
sholio: sun on winter trees (Default)
[personal profile] sholio
A Tor novelette (available online for free) in which it takes a village (of lesbians) to raise a baby werewolf.

The Cage on Tor.com

My review on DW | My review on Wordpress

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