I've been a fan of Donoghue's academic works on the history of same-sex relations between women, but although I've collected up a number of her novels, I've only recently decided to prioritize them on my reading list. One essential thing to know, going in, is that a Donoghue novel about romantic and/or sexual relationships between women in history is not a "lesbian historical romance." These aren't formulaic books with happily-ever-after endings, they're fictionalizations of the lives of real historic women.
Reviews: Books
Blog entry
There are two approaches to fairy tale retellings: ones that re-map the original story as a whole into a new setting that shifts the reader’s vision to a different angle, and ones that take the original premise as a jumping-off point then map entirely new territory thereafter. Walking on Knives by Maya Chhabra is definitely of the second type.
When reading a contemporary werewolf story, generally one’s first thought isn’t “I love the multi-layered allegorical resonances,” but that’s what I came away with from Lundoff’s Silver Moon (originally published 2012 by Lethe Press but now reissued as one of the initial offerings of Queen of Swords Press).
I picked up this collection after seeing mention of the author’s novel Mask of the Highwaywoman, and seeing that it had the original shorter version of the same story (since the novel isn’t yet available for iBooks). I’m always looking for lesbian historical fiction that reaches farther back than the 20th century. Magic and Romance doesn’t have a focused theme (other than lesbian protagonists) and only four of the eight stories fall in my historical/fantasy target interest.
I ran across this book during my “book release re-boot” promoting titles released in November 2016 and was rather startled to realize I hadn’t taken note of it when it originally came out. But that was what the re-boot was about, after all. A Certain Persuasion (very clever title, by the way) is an anthology of queer stories inspired in some way by the fiction of Jane Austen. It includes new looks at Austen’s protagonists, imagined back-stories for minor characters, and stories about modern characters that interact with the Austen canon in some way.
I don't usually highlight reviews in my blog (I have separate pages for that), but I woke up to a really lovely Goodreads review of The Mystic Marriage from fellow Storybundle author K.J. Charles. If you have ever wanted to try some incredibly well-writen historical fantasy featuring gay male protagonists, K.J.
This is it, the inventory of the book haul! The final count is either 20 or 22. (I also bought two of Candace Robb's backlist as e-books while chatting with her, but I'm not sure if that counts.) As usual, the books fall in certain themes, based not only on longstanding interests, but on current research topics.
For the Lesbian Historic Motif Project
“Passing Strange” by Ellen Klages is a lightly fantastic tale of life in San Francisco’s lesbian culture in the 1940s. A wistful romance, in part. A mystery as well. Framed by modern bookends steeped in the culture of geeky collectables. It’s a quick and engrossing read and is an excellent example of how the same world-building techniques essential to SFF are put to good use in period settings.
I actually meant to get this review up a week ago, and then a project at work fell on me like a ton of bricks. And then I figured I'd have all week to write it up to make this week's customary Friday review slot, and then...well, let's just say that I could have gone yet another seven years without a burglary and not missed the lack. But here it is, still Friday, and I'll get the review in. I have a mental block against starting a new book until the last one is reviewed.
Someone (and apologies for not having taken note of who) about a year ago posted a list of early utopian fiction by female authors and I went of and hunted down several of the titles listed. one of those was Mizora: A Mss. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch (1890), which purports itself to be a memoir "written by herself" but is copyrighted by Mary E. Bradley. (And despite the fiction that it was written by a Russian, the social and political concerns and assumptions are unmistakably American.)
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