Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 297 - On the Shelf for October 2024

Saturday, October 5, 2024 - 07:00

lhmpodcast.jpg

Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 297 - On the Shelf for October 2024 - Transcript

(Originally aired 2024/10/05 - listen here)

Welcome to On the Shelf for October 2024.

It’s supposed to be fall, but here in California we’re having some of the hottest days of the year. And of course that’s nothing to what folks in hurricane country are dealing with at the moment. Climate is getting more extreme, but there are historic novels as well that deal with climate disasters, like the Galveston hurricane of 1900, or the “year without a summer” in 1816 when volcanic ash caused temporary cooling all around the globe and crop failures across Europe. And, of course, there’s an entire sub-genre of romances set around the great quake of San Francisco in 1906. When they’re safely fictional, a disaster can be an inspiring setting for historic fiction.

Wherever you look for inspiration, its time to get those juices flowing for next year’s fiction series on the podcast. I’ll get the new Call for Submissions up shortly, but the rules are essentially the same as in past years. Short stories of up to 5000 words, set in a historic time and place before 1900, centered around a character or characters who fall within the broad definition of lesbian. And historic fantasy is welcome as long as it’s anchored in an actual time and place. As usual, submissions will be open during the month of January. This will be the 8th year of the fiction series and the 9th year of the podcast. And we’re coming up soon on the 300th episode, which I hope to do something special for. Usually I do some sort of bonus fiction episode for these milestones, unless I get a brilliant idea for something new and different.

News of the Field

While putting together the "new sapphic historicals" book list this month, I turned up two phenomena I hadn't encountered before (but which I know are common in other genres). Both got me thinking about how I want to handle such things with respect to what books I mention on the podcast.

The first one was two translations of an (English-language) book I'd included in a previous podcast. The translations were explicitly marked "translated using Deep-L," which is a well-respected machine translation service that has an open license for people to use its output with appropriate credit. (I used Deep-L for much of the grunt-work of translating the trial records of Anne/Jean-Baptiste Grandjean for my blog.) This is a separate issue from the spate of translation-plagiarism that has shown up in discussions lately. The books are published by the original author and, as I say, explicitly note that they are machine translated.

There are still ethical considerations as well as considerations of writing quality. Machine translation eliminates the (valuable and highly skilled) job of human translators, in much the same way that Audible's "virtual voice" function eliminates human narrators. As a creative professional myself, I want to make mindful choices about how I support or undermine fellow creatives. So I thought a lot about whether I wanted to promote machine-translated fiction.

And then, as with machine narration, there's the question of whether machine translation creates a work that meets the reader's esthetic standards. For non-fiction translation (such as my use with historic records, or when people use Deep-L for business correspondence) the primary consideration is "does this accurately render the meaning of the original?" But when translating literature, there's also the question "Does this produce a result that aligns with the literary quality of the original?"

The second issue that I tripped over in putting together book lists this month is a clear case of books generated from large-language-model software. A book turned up in my search that had all the right keywords and a cover blurb that sounded interesting, but I got an "off vibe" from it, in part because the author's background seemed completely unrelated to sapphic historical fiction. So I did some more digging. The author appears to have released about 120 books in the last two months across a wide variety of genres. And while review numbers aren't a reliable sign of quality, they're a good metric for how seriously the market takes the book. Only 5% of those 120 books had any reviews on either Amazon or Goodreads. So I pulled up a few "look inside" views and found the text to be repetitive and simplistic. All the hallmarks of large-language-model text.

It was much easier to decide how to handle the second case in the context of this podcast -- the books don't get included and I put a note in my file not to bother with any books from that author in the future. The translation case took bit more thought. I like to include non-English titles when I'm able to identify them. But while I offer no judgment on an author using machine translation on their own work, I'm not sure I want to promote it actively.

The field of publishing never stands still. There are always new questions, new challenges, and new considerations. Ignoring them only means we’re leaving the future of the field in the hands of quick-buck artists, scammers, and monopolists. Every choice each of us makes in what we write, what we publish, what we buy, and what we promote contributes to shaping the future of the literature we love.

Book Shopping!

I’ve once more gone a month without blogging any new publications, but I’m working on another essay that will require additional reading and hope to remedy that soon. You might get a clue as to the topic from the book I just bought: Caroline Derry’s Lesbianism and the Criminal Law: Three Centuries of Legal Regulation in England and Wales. Only the first couple of chapters cover the pre-1900 period, but the author tackles the general question “can something be legally suppressed even if there are no laws against it?”

Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction

But nothing can suppress new lesbian and sapphic historical fiction! So let’s look at new and recent releases.

A July release that I somehow missed the first couple of times is the somewhat generically titled A Victorian tale of Life and Love by Nicole Kotoman.

In Victorian London, a tale of unlikely love unfolds between Andrea Sutton and Madeline Pearce. At twenty-one, Andrea inherits a vast fortune and the grief of losing her parents and twin brother. She adopts his identity, dressing as a man to navigate society's constraints. Madeline, at thirty-nine, is a twice-divorced mother of ten-year-old twin girls, facing eviction due to her second husband's gambling debts. Desperation leads her to hastily strike a marriage deal with Andrea. What begins as a practical arrangement blossoms into profound love. Andrea matures from a spoiled heiress to a compassionate spouse and parent. Madeline, once burdened by life's hardships, finds solace and partnership in Andrea's love. Their daughters discover the joy and passion of music, adding another layer to their family's story.

August gave us a Viking fantasy, My Beloved Viking by Victoria Valberg. There isn’t really cover copy for this book, just a series of breathless publicity statements. But evidently we get a “dark” romance between two women turned into a love triangle by a man, plus some supernatural creatures within a frozen northern landscape.

If you’re the sort of reader who prefers to wait for an entire series to be available before starting to read, you may feel vindicated with regard to Rachel Dax’s trilogy The Legend of Pope Joan, as the final volume Rome was just released in September, more than a decade after the first two books in the trilogy. Pope Joan was the subject of an actual medieval legend (though unlikely to have been historic truth) about a woman who lived as a man in order to become a scholar, who then rose through the ranks of the church and was elected pope, only to be discovered due to an unintended pregnancy. Rachel Dax spins this legend into a detailed story set in the early medieval period, tracing the protagonist from France to Athens to Rome. Dax’s Pope Joan is pansexual, and evidently the second book has the most focus on a same-sex romance. The cover copy for book 3 reads:

After five years of living in Rome as a scholar, Joan is called to serve as the Archdeacon and Special Advisor to Pope Leo IV. Although she longs for her lost love Thea and the simplicity of her life back in Athens, Joan is increasingly drawn to the epicentre of the Papal Court. When her private fantasy of becoming Pope is presented to her as a genuine possibility, she is soon faced with stark competition from two shadowy figures – her arch enemy Cardinal Benedict and the oleaginous Cardinal Anastasius who both want the Papal Throne for themselves. Ultimately, however, it is love that proves to be the most dangerous force in Joan’s life.

Her Fair Lady by Catherine Stein from Steam Cat Press is described as a mashup of Shakespearean comedy and Regency romance. There is a parallel, but independent, novella Boy Meets Earl that follows a different storyline of the same adventure.

Helena Wright has a single goal: retrieve her mother’s heirloom pearls from the Earl of Fenwick. When her brother decides to crash the earl’s house party disguised as a Bavarian lord, Helena has no choice but to play along. But the ruse throws her into the path of the beautiful and intriguing Amabel, Duchess of Mirweald. Amabel’s suspicions are quickly roused, drawing the two women into a game of lies and flirtation. Soon they’re spending more time together, peeling away more layers, and growing more intimate. As more truths are revealed, Helena and Amabel will need to confront their own buried desires in order to unearth the secret of true love.

Remember what I said about San Francisco earthquake romances being a subgenre all their own in lesbian historicals? The newest addition is All Bets Off by Jaime Clevenger.

Bette Lawrence is about to find out how hard life can be for someone of low society standing in the 1900’s. Helping take care of her family is expected and Bette steps right into the challenge. When Bette meets Sarah Douglas, the daughter of a wealthy importer and a past employer of her father, Bette is snubbed. Then a chance meeting at a masquerade party allows them to explore a friendship without Sarah knowing Bette’s identity.

When an earthquake sets San Francisco on fire for three days, Bette is forced to take care of not only her own family but Sarah’s as well. Will Bette be able to rebuild her family’s lifestyle and still develop a relationship with Sarah.

I really must get back to running statistics on settings and eras, because I want to see the actual numbers behind the current fashion for jazz-age novels like Hearts in the Shadows by Zara Voss.

Follow Maggie Sinclair, a spirited journalist, as she navigates the electrifying jazz clubs and suffragist rallies, where passion and purpose collide. In a whirlwind of friendship and desire, Maggie finds herself torn between her childhood confidante, Evelyn, and the fierce suffragist, Clara. As the Women's March for Equality approaches, Maggie's heart battles societal expectations and her longing for authentic love.

Experience a tale of forbidden romance, where every secret kiss and stolen glance ignites a revolution within her soul. Will Maggie choose the safety of her past or the exhilarating unknown with Clara?

Peril in Provence (The Mary Grey Mysteries #4) by Winnie Frolik from NineStar Press adds another adventure to this series set between the world wars, featuring a nurse, her girlfriend, and a friendly detective.

When Mary Grey hears that Harriet West has been arrested for murder in the beautiful and quaint French town of Munier they take the next train out. To their shock, Harriet confesses to the killing but swears it was self-defense. As they try to piece together the truth, more than one skeleton is unearthed in this seemingly sleepy community.

There are a lot of October releases, perhaps to make up for how scanty September’s list was. We start off with a dark romance from mythic Greece, Gentlest of Wild Things by Sarah Underwood from Harper Collins.

Desire binds them. Hunger compels them. Love will set them free…

On the island of Zakynthos, nothing is more powerful than Desire—love itself, bottled and sold to the highest bidder by Leandros, a power-hungry descendant of the god Eros.

Eirene and her beloved twin sister, Phoebe, have always managed to escape Desire’s thrall—until Leandros’s wife dies mysteriously and he sets his sights on Phoebe. Determined to keep her sister safe, Eirene strikes a bargain with Leandros: If she can complete the four elaborate tasks he sets her, he will find another bride. But it soon becomes clear that the tasks are part of something bigger; something related to Desire and Lamia, the strange, neglected daughter Leandros keeps locked away.

Lamia knows her father hides her for her own protection, though as she and Eirene grow closer, she finds herself longing for the outside world. But the price of freedom is high, and with something deadly—something hungry—stalking the night, that price must be paid in blood.

I think one of my favorite sub-genres of historical fiction are stories that take real-world biographies that hint at sapphic possibilities and fill them out with imagination. Stories like Sor Juana, My Beloved: The Poetry, The Passion That Is Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz by MaryAnn Shank from Dippity Press.

This astonishingly brilliant 17th century poet and dramatist, this nun, flew through Mexico City on wings of inspiration. Having no dowry, she chose the life of a nun so that she might learn, so that she might write, so that she might meet the most fascinating people of the western world. She accomplished all of that.

Then one day a woman with violet eyes, eyes the color of passion flowers, entered her life. It was the new Vicereine, Maria Luisa. As the two most powerful women in Mexico City, the bond between them crossed politics and wound them in pure ecstasy, a romance that neither had anticipated. When Maria Luisa returned to Spain, she took some of Sor Juana's writings with her, and had them published. Mexico City fell at Sor Juana's feet in adoration; the demonic Archbishop wanted her head, forcing her to answer for her crimes in front of the Inquisition.

There is a great deal that we do not know about this historical poet/dramatist. There is also a lot that whispers to us over the centuries. She lived through a colonial period of Mexican history bursting with creativity, followed by a period of mass massacres and desolation. Through it all is a woman who is certain of herself and her destiny, one not afraid to challenge authority, one who will go to any lengths to protect those she loves.

This gothic short story packs a lot of suspense into a small package – The Greymere Cliffs by Anne Knight from ARKA Publishing.

Mary Phelps wants, more than anything, to freely and openly love her bosom friend, Camilla. But she settles for second best: visiting Camilla at her new home in remote northern England during the final weeks of Camilla's pregnancy. But when she arrives, things are not as they seem. Camilla's nightmares bleed into the day. Servants scheme in dark passageways. Camilla's husband is distant and mysterious. And every time a wave hits the seacliffs, the very foundations of Greymere Castle quake.

One night the remnants of a terrible curse emerge from Greymere's tragic history--a curse that threatens to take Camilla and her unborn child as vengeance. Mary will do anything to protect her friend and love of her life, even if it means sacrificing herself to do so.

Mash-ups of Victorian adventure fiction are always popular, like this one that draws on Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, and possibly more: Strange Beasts by Susan J. Morris from The Inky Phoenix.

At the dawn of the twentieth century in Paris, Samantha Harker, daughter of Dracula’s killer, works as a researcher for the Royal Society for the Study of Abnormal Phenomena. But no one realizes how abnormal she is. Sam is a channel into the minds of monsters: a power that could help her solve the gruesome deaths plaguing turn-of-the-century Paris—or have her thrown into an asylum.

Sam finds herself assigned to a case with Dr. Helena Moriarty, daughter of the criminal mastermind and famed nemesis of Sherlock Holmes and a notorious detective whom no one wants to work with on account of her previous partners’ mysterious murders. Ranging from the elite clubs of Paris to the dark underbelly of the catacombs, their investigation sweeps them into a race to stop a Beast from its killing rampage, as Hel and Sam are pitted against men, monsters, and even each other. But beneath their tenuous trust, an unmistakable attraction brews. Is trusting Hel the key to solving the murder, or is Sam yet another pawn in Hel’s game?

The title of Moonshine by Olivia Hampton tells us everything we need to know about the setting.

In the heart of Prohibition-era America, the lives of rough-and-tumble big-city girl Mae and small-town girl Jilly collide after Jilly accidentally stumbles into a clandestine meeting between Mae and her violent moonshine connection. To keep Jilly alive, Mae pretends that she and Jilly are secret lovers, going so far as to give Jilly a kiss. A kiss that was supposed to hold no heat. To mean nothing. But Mae feels instant sparks that threaten to thaw the freeze she keeps over her heart, and she can’t seem to stay away from the gorgeous blonde with the sweet smile and the habit of making Mae wish that things were different. That she was different.

Jilly is stunned when she stumbles into that meeting and finds herself first on the business end of a gun and then on the receiving end of a fiery kiss that leaves her weak in the knees. Jilly knows that the way that kiss made her feel is dangerous. But she can’t. stop thinking about it, or Mae, even though Mae is even more dangerous than that kiss. Mae, with her big city ways and her hazardous profession, has a bad habit of making Jilly wonder if the life she's always lived is the one she wants to keep living. Jilly also can’t seem to stop herself from helping Mae even though she knows what Mae is doing is dangerous, and illegal. That Mae will likely get them both arrested—or killed.

Mae knows she should just find another supplier. Stop heading off to that small town filled with dangerous men with dark secrets and a woman who has a perilously tight grip on Mae's heart. Mae knows, maybe better than anyone, that love leaves scars, and people can't always be trusted to be who they say they are.

Then a brutal act sets off a chain of events that reveals secrets, tests loyalties, and forces them to choose between love and survival. As moonshine flows and danger looms, can Mae and Jilly escape their pasts and find a fresh start together?

The jazz age returns to center stage in Her Last Secret by Renee Bess from Flashpoint Publications. While the cover copy isn’t very specific, subject tags identify this story as sapphic.

In 1930’s Paris the music is jazz, the art is experimental, and American ex-patriots of color are welcomed. Aspiring journalist Vera Clay packs her suitcase and travels from Philadelphia to France, where her Aunt Evangeline set new roots a decade earlier. While the language, culture, and self-acceptance feel foreign to Vera, the possibility of love is familiar. It is Paris during the 1930’s. Cigarette smoke curled above the heads of café, book store, and jazz club habitués carry rumors of an approaching firestorm. Some Parisians prepare to defend their lives and country. Others join the tidal wave of hatred threatening to immolate most of Europe.

I love it when authors drop me a note to let me know about their upcoming book—but it’s equally fun when I get to tell them that I already have it on the list! That’s what happened with Islands of Mice by Lucy Jacobs from Alma & Albany.

Norway. 1942.

The islands of Smøla are darkened not just by the long nights, but by blackout and Occupation. Solveig Eik dreams of being a hero. She’s bored of her everyday life, of tearing propaganda posters off walls, listening to hidden radios, and arguing with Liv Sunde – the islands’ glamourous schoolteacher and the girlfriend of the German colonel.

Opportunity steps out of the shadows when she finds a man, hiding from the Germans in a cave. As Solveig navigates treacherous waters and her plans spiral out of control, she finds that all too often the line between patriot, hero and traitor is razor thin.

I wasn’t entirely clear on the representation in The People Next Door by Anna Woiwood which has tags indicating polyamory. But the author has been a Golden Crown finalist so I’m inclined to trust the tags that say it has sapphic content. No clue what date the setting is but the cover art looks mid-20th century.

Having taught the history of art for more than four decades, Madelyn finds she is a voyeur of life. She watches as a new, young couple moves into the house next door once inhabited by her dear friend, Carole. The new neighbors ignite something new within Madelyn, a curiosity that she finds she cannot shy away from.

Other Books of Interest

I have a couple of books in the “other books of interest” category this month.

I Shall Never Fall in Love by Hari Conner from Harper Collins is a graphic novel featuring a loose retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma with a transmasculine character who could be read in various ways.

George has major problems: They’ve just inherited the failing family estate, and the feelings for their best friend, Eleanor, have become more complicated than ever. Not to mention, if anyone found out they were secretly dressing in men’s clothes, George is sure it would be ruination for the family name.

Eleanor has always wanted to do everything "right," including falling in love—but she’s never met a boy she was interested in. She’d much rather spend time with her best friend, George, and beloved cousin Charlotte. However, when a new suitor comes to town, she finds her closest friendships threatened, forcing her to rethink what "right" means and confront feelings she never knew she had.

The website Reads Rainbow categorizes this next book as sapphic, though you couldn’t tell it at all from the cover copy. The book is Women's Hotel by Daniel M. Lavery from Harper Via.

The Beidermeier might be several rungs lower on the ladder than the real-life Barbizon, but its residents manage to occupy one another nonetheless. There’s Katherine, the first-floor manager, lightly cynical and more than lightly suggestible. There’s Lucianne, a workshy party girl caught between the love of comfort and an instinctive bridling at convention, Kitty the sponger, Ruth the failed hairdresser, and Pauline the typesetter. And there’s Stephen, the daytime elevator operator and part-time Cooper Union student.

The residents give up breakfast, juggle competing jobs at rival presses, abandon their children, get laid off from the telephone company, attempt to retrain as stenographers, all with the shared awareness that their days as an institution are numbered, and they’d better make the most of it while it lasts.

What Am I Reading?

And what have I been reading in the last month? Just like the new releases, I’m making up for my pitiful September list with a vengeance. Unfortunately the numbers are inflated somewhat by several titles that I gave up on, something I’m reluctant to do.

I loved Joanna Lowell’s A Shore Thing, a cute Edwardian romance between a widowed naturalist and a transmasculine artist-turned-bicycle mechanic. The writing was beautiful and it has a much more complicated plot than a simple romance. The tensions and uncertainties between the main characters felt realistic, though I sometimes felt like the book was trying to touch base on entirely too many progressive issues at the same time.

Another great read was Lotte R. James’s A Liaison with Her Leading Lady, which turned out to be far more promising than the title suggested. Set among a late 18th century English rural theater company, the plot has something of a “hey kids, let’s put on a show!” vibe as the daughter of a late theater owner tries to save the company she considers family by luring a famous female playwright out of early retirement. I liked the writing even when it verged a bit over-the-top and the story and characters were well grounded in history, though sometimes the concrete everyday details felt a bit thin, and some of the theater culture aspects felt like they’d been transplanted from the current day.

Natania Barron’s magical Regencyesque fantasy Netherford Hall (featured recently in an interview) has some intriguing worldbuilding and a very cute slow-burn romance.

Two D&D-flavored fantasy novels with sapphic relationships simply failed me in terms of catching my interest. Django Wexler’s How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying and Rebecca Thorne’s Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea. In both cases, the main characters just never managed to make me care about them.

I had picked up M.C. Beaton’s Victorian romance The First Rebellion as part of a three-for-one deal in a new audiobook app I was trying out, but I found the characters by turns childish, obnoxious, and annoying. Neither the male nor female leads seemed to deserve the happy ending they would no doubt get eventually.

I’ve embarked on a program of filling in some of the gaps in my K.J. Charles reading and read the related novels Any Old Diamonds and Gilded Cage, revolving around a pair of jewel thieves with intriguing backstories and hazardous romances, one gay and one straight. There were a number of casual cross-over characters with the Sins of the City trilogy, which had me wanting to make character relationships diagrams to sort them all out.

Also from K.J. Charles was Rag and Bone, a lovely sweet romance set in the midst of deadly peril (in her Charm of Magpies universe) in which people keep doing questionable things for good reasons and it all turns out for the best in the end. (I should note that I don’t mean “sweet” in the “no sex” sense, but rather in that the two characters genuinely cared about each other and were willing to sacrifice for each other, which isn’t always the case with Charles’s couples.)

Finally, I listened to Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton which can be described—though not at all adequately—as “Regency romance, but dragons.” There’s a lot of fascinating worldbuilding stuffed into this fantasy-of-manners in which 19th century aristocratic mores get mapped onto creatures who gain power and status by literally eating each other. I felt the conflicts in the plot were all wrapped up a bit too neatly in the end, but as I said, Regency romance. And only a few central characters got eaten along the way.