amreading – Page 7 – A. L. Lester

Am Reading

This week we’ve got a contemporary romance set on the US Carolina cost, a paranormal historical urban fantasy with talking familiars and a space opera romance with fantastic normative gender expression.

The First Step (Coastal Carolina #1) by Shira Anthony

This is a slow burn romance set against a background of the sea. One of the MCs is a pilot–a boat pilot–a skilled, dangerous job whether the sea is calm or rough. He’s part of a team who jump from little boats to the big vessels he brings safely into harbour from the open sea. The second MC is a disgraced reporter on a forced sabbatical from his sexy New York news position. He’s supposed to be writing an article about the seafood industry, but he becomes fascinated with the river pilots and their job. Justin, the pilot, isn’t out at work and their relationship grows against the background of each of the men’s past and insecurities.

I don’t usually get grabbed by stories where the romance is the main driver, but this had me from the start with its description of coastal life and the push and pull between the two MC’s personalities. The coastal setting is a personality in its own right, creating danger and tension that defines their relationship. I really enjoyed it.

Winter’s Orbit by Everina Maxwell

This began as an original work posted on AO3, which is where I first came across it. I loved it then. However, now, it’s even better. A beautifully crafted high-tech universe, normalised queerness, a diplomatic marriage to cement a difficult political situation, two people who think they are doing the best for each other but aren’t communicating very well, a murder to solve with the murderers still after them, and spaceships. What’s not to like? There’s also an ‘ooops, only one tent and it’s freezing’ incident, for which we should all give thanks. It’s a story about a relationship entwined with a complex political/diplomatic high-stakes plot and it is so, so good.

I particularly liked the gender expression, which IIRC is a new addition from when I read the AO3 version.

Honestly, this is brilliant. You should read it.

Marked by Death (Necromancer #1) by Kaje Harper

This ticks all my boxes…historical, paranormal, queer. It’s the first in a new series and it sets the scene for a complicated, magic-is-normal-but-whoah-dangerous universe. One of the MCs is a necromancer–clue in the title there–and the other is a childhood friend who is pretty much having a magic-induced breakdown and goes to him for help. Shenanigans ensue. Their relationship develops against a background of threatening dark things, a threatening magical council and a not quite 1950s USA where the gay is still illegal. There was a distinct whiff of Renaissance Italy in the politics of the magical council that I really loved.

Oh, and there are familiars. Talking familiars.

That’s it for this week!

Am Reading

This time I have some queer sci-fi and a non-fiction book about the First World War.

A Memory Called Empire and A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine, Sub Zero by Angel Martinez and Elsie and Mairi Go to War by Diane Atkinson.

A Memory Called Empire & A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine

Cover, A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine

Cover, A Memory Called Empire, Arkady Martine

So, I’m late to the party with this duology. I have read both in the last week and been blown away by them. The world-building is amazing, the character development is fascinating and the way everything pulls against each other…the different cultures, the different expectations…is perfect.

In the first book there is the tension between the Stationer culture and the ever-expanding Teixcalaan empire, which have radically different values and ways of being. They are both human, but the Teixcalaan’s don’t really see non-Teixcallaanim as being real people. In book two, the human cultures are thrown against aliens who are so completely <i>other</i> that the Sationers and the Teixcallaani need to put aside their differences to learn to communicate with them and survive as a species.

Interwoven with the big, space-opera story of both books is a delicate, touching, personal story of the tentative relationship growing between the Stationer ambassador to Teixcalaan and her Teixcallaan translator. They struggle with their feelings and cultural differences against a background of violence, attempted rebellion and political maneuvering.

I found the whole thing completely absorbing and I’ll be going back to them in a few months, as I’m sure there’s stuff I’ve missed. It’s rich, textured and absorbing. Read them. They’re good.

Elsie and Mairi Go to War by Diane Atkinson

I read this as part of research into women doctors and nurses in the First World War for a story I’m writing. It started off a bit of a mad dash though the pages, extracting information to use as background colour. However, I soon got sucked into the story for its own sake…they were amazing women who saw a job that needed doing and did it. They spent a great deal of time running a first aid post very close to the Belgian lines in the cellar of a bombed out building and went out every night looking for wounded who had been overlooked on the battlefield. Their story is told through letters and photos and recollections and is a very easy read.

Elsie was quite a bit older than Mairi and I took an instant dislike to her…she was clearly an adventuress who thrived on adrenaline. She lied about being a divorcee and having a child to the Belgian nobleman she went on to marry during the war. Afterwards when he found out and they parted, she flitted from one thing to another…for example setting up a first aid post in the East End of London during the General Strike and actually causing more problems than she solved.

Mairi on the other hand settled back to post-war life with comparative ease. She, a close friend and a couple of other women opened a chicken-breeding farm in Scotland, temporarily moved the whole shebang to Guernsey and from thence back to Scotland again.

I found it a really interesting, colourful book that brought the protaganists to life. I also came away with a distinct feeling that Mairi had a crush on Elsie. She never married although she and her close friend lived together for decades after the war. Although that isn’t surprising for women of that generation, I guess, because of the swathes of men lost in the trenches.

Sub Zero (The ESTO Universe) by Angel Martinez

I loved this queer SFF story. It has a really well defined sense of place–a planet colonized by humans not once, but twice. The first colonizers abandoned their genetically engineered slaves who then became indigenous and more and more undervalued in the eyes of the second wave of humans when they arrive.

The main protagonists are a human and a not-quite-human, one sent to solve a murder, one accused of it. They fall in love, they solve the mystery, they bring a better sense of balance to the world. It sounds so simple.

But the universe is deeply textured, the details are painted with a bright, engaging brush and the relationship between the MCs grows at a steady, tender pace. It’s lovely and you should read it.

That’s it for this time!

What happens when it’s over?

This week I’m back in the saddle with Sylvia Marks. This has meant a lot of reading about early women doctors and the ways women served in the First World War and generally immersing myself in the world of 1920. I’m not quite talking in the slang of the era, but it’s a near thing.

Cover, Elsie and Mairi Go to War by Diane Atkinson

One of the things I’ve been reading is Elsie and Mairi go to War, the story of Mairi Chisholm and Elsie Knocker, who met at a motorcycling club in 1912 and when the war began joined a private ambulance service and shipped out to Belgium. They spent four years so close to the front that they could hear the men in the trenches talking, running a first aid post in the basement of a ruined house in a destroyed village.

It made me think about a conversation I had with a friend when I first began to kick this story around. My grandmother had memories of Dr Fox, a lady doctor from Wellington in Somerset in the years before the First World War. She used to come round and visit my Great-Grandmother and sit on the kitchen table with her skirts hitched up, smoking and swinging her legs as they chatted. My friend is part of the Fox family and says that her husband can remember Dr Fox from when he was a child, probably the 1950s/60s? A tough old bird and smoked like a chimney are the two things that most stood out to him then. My friend also has a vague memory of another woman who was a doctor in France between 1914 and 1918 and then came home, got married and left medicine. I am hoping she’ll be able to find her name so I can do some more research about her.

I knew when I began writing about Sylvia…at the urging of Loukie*, who fell in love with her bit-part in Inheritance of Shadows…that whatever I was going to be writing would have elements of lesbian romance. But it’s also turning out to be a story…three different stories, because it’s a trilogy…about what you do when the thing that defined you really strongly for a long time suddenly stops.

That’s the thing I’ve taken away from Elsie and Mairi go to War—the way some people can throw dreadful, traumatic things off to an extent and settle back into what passes for ‘normal’. And other people, like Elsie Knocker, simply can’t.

*Editor Extraordinaire

#AmReading

I’m so behind on these, I’m very sorry! This time I have queer sci-fi!

A Matter of Oaths by Helen S. Wright

I loved this. It’s a brilliant plotty space-opera with additional gay romance. The characters are beautifully realised, there’s a middle-aged female space-ship captain with a trick hip as a main character and the world-building is drip-drip-dripped in rather than delivered in a big ‘here is my universe’ clump. Identity-wipe, political machinations, mysterious enemies and big guns. What’s not to like?

Nophek Gloss by Essa Hansen

So this was weird and complicated. I really liked it. It follows someone who is initially a child and then has their growth accelerated to make them an adult for /complicated plot reasons/. It’s got a racing story and some extremely gruesome bits which I found heart-wrenching, so be warned. However it also has brane-like universe bubbles that have different rules of physics and-or existence, an extremely cool selection of aliens and different technologies and a plot that twisted my tiny mind n the best way. I should add…it has genderfluid and enby characters and the main character is ace.

Taji from Beyond the Rings by R. Cooper

This is my first R. Cooper book and I am now wondering why I waited so long to start. It’s a ‘queer human in a world of genderfluid aliens’ story and the dislocation and loneliness of the main character really resonated with me in this dislocated and lonely covid-time.

Taji, the human embassy translator, is an academic who’s been subbed in to cover for the murdered previous incumbent. He’s in love with one of the Shavian embassy guards. There’s a mismatch of cultural knowledge and expectations and failed communication between them that interweaves with a fantastic, exciting political-machinations plot that I loved. A lot of the plot is based around a minority of the Shavian’s tendency to ‘go shehzha’ for their lover…to become mindlessly desirous of them during the first phase of a relationship. It was interesting and I thought done really well–it had a cultural and political impact on the story and the relationship between Taji and his lover.

That’s it for this time!

Am Reading

This week I have a mmf poly romance and two gay romances for you.

This is Not the End by Sidney Bell

A mmf poly romance (not a reverse harem). I’m not usually that into stories about very rich people these days; but the rich-people-ness was a bit of a side-issue in this. There’s a settled m/f couple and a third male ‘best friend’ who has wanted more for years and is trying to do the right thing. It’s a sensitive and engaging exploration of each of them. The main couple are in an open relationship in that they have fun with other people on the side, but they aren’t looking for a third. The friend isn’t into casual sex. It’s beautifully done.

I love Sidney Bell’s writing and her previous books made this a must-buy for me. I’m glad I did.

A Friend in the Dark by Gregory Ashe and C. S. Poe

I am a fan of both Gregory Ashe and C. S. Poe’s work, so this was an auto-buy. Together the two of them have made a gripping world where a police informant and an ex-army drifter combine forces to solve the murder of their NYC-detective friend. I loved the wounded characters and the gritty New Yorkiness of it. Obviously it’s filled with snarky goodness. You get bits of each man’s personality, their motivations, what makes them tick and it left me wanting more. It has a deep murder-mystery plot that’s clearly a set-up for the series. It ends on a cliff hanger and the next in series is out soon. Recommend.

Black Moon by Elle Keaton

Elle Keaton is another auto-buy for me since I discovered Accidental Roots. She has a way of setting her law enforcement stories very firmly in the landscape of the Pacific North-West that resonates with me. This is the third and final book in the Hamarasson and Dempsey trilogy. The series is set in the islands off the US Pacific North-West. I really like both the setting and the characters. In this book, Niall Hamarsson and Matt Dempsey are set to get married…but first, there’s a murder to solve. And Niall is a suspect. Reliably entertaining, I love these!

That’s it for this week!