queeromance – Page 3 – A. L. Lester

British Accents now and then

One of the things I love about working with Callum Hale on my audiobooks is his ability to throw himself into pretty much any British accent and bring the character to life. To my British ear each of the people I’ve created sound exactly as I’ve envisaged them as he brings them off the page.

I asked him to make Rob, from Inheritance of Shadows ‘less ooh-arr’ and he toned the accent down so to me at least, Rob doesn’t sound so much like a heavy-handed son of the Somerset soil. And I wanted Will Grant in the 1920s London Trilogy to sound more like Lord Peter Wimsey. Callum obliged, perfectly. (These are my two favourite of all my characters, ever, incidentally).

The question I’m always asking myself about my writing though, is how right can I get it? I want the history in my books to be accurate, unless I’m deliberately twisting the universe out of true with magic. I think this is the same question historians have to ask themselves about looking at anything in the past. We are both looking at things through our own rose-tinted spectacles, coloured with our own experiences and social expectations. My characters in these books grew up in Victorian England. What did they really think about the Empire? What did they talk about in the pub? What did they really sound like? How did they really smell? We’re fudging it, the whole lot. Historians and archaeologists because of lack of data. And writers because of lack of data and because we don’t want our main characters to be unsympathetic to modern audiences.

Anyway…during one or other of my late-night sessions randomly browsing the web, I came across this programme about Edwardian accents. A regional English language specialist in Germany during the First World War, a real-life Professor Higgins, suddenly realised he had a huge pool of untapped research material in the German army’s British prisoners of war. In this documentary you can actually listen to their voices.

I was very interested in how the modern specialists in the programme say the regional accents of the past are broader in the recordings than they are now. It’s as if the rising tide of London-speak has swept the broad vowels of the regional accents back from the centre of the country, into the more remote west of England. So although to me, Rob sounds about right, a farm labourer from Somerset who’s self-educated and likes to read, to his contemporaries he’d probably have sounded out of place. You can listen to Callum’s reading of him here, in the first chapter of Inheritance of Shadows.

I think, listening to those long-ago voices in the programme, it’s important to remember these men were prisoners. That’s one of the filters we mustn’t discard. Were they doing this work in the language lab out of the kindness of their hearts? Because they were bored and wanted an occupation? Because they were threatened in to it? Because they were offered extra rations or privileges? Are these their actual accents? Or are they performative, a joke on the professor? They’re immensely touching, whatever their origin and I hope you enjoy it.

You can buy the 1920s London audiobooks at Authors Direct.

Lost in Time, Shadows on the Border, The Hunted and the Hind by A. L. Lester. Narrated by Callum Hale.

Interview: Chace Verity

Chace Verity joins us this morning to tell us a bit about themselves and their upcoming sexy Snow White retelling, Illusive Wishes! Welcome, Chace!

First questions… why are you doing this interview?

Hello! I’m Chace Verity (they/them), author of romances across multiple subgenres and gender pairings/more-ings. I have a nonbinary/nonbinary dark, sexy Snow White retelling releasing soon called Illusive Wishes. Discover a new kind of Prince Charming on October 15!

What started you writing?

I’ve been writing freely ever since I was a very small child, always looking to discover new worlds. I’ve taken writing more seriously in the last six or seven years. More recently than that, I discovered why I was looking for new worlds. As a very queer person, the vast majority of media around me didn’t resemble my own lived experiences and feelings. Since joining the online writing community, I’ve approached my own writing with more purpose, and I’ve had the extreme joy of discovering new worlds written by other queer authors.

What do you like to read?

These days, I read mostly adult romances spread out through many subgenres. Contemporary, fantasy, paranormal, sci-fi, historical, etc. Some of my favorite authors write in multiple subgenres as well, so I get excited following their publishing journey and seeing what’s new from Alyssa Cole, Katrina Jackson, Skye Kilaen, J. Emery, etc. I also have gotten back into reading graphic novels and manga since the pandemic started, and those can be in wildly varying genres. The recent paperback shortage has made it difficult to read those in my preferred format, but I was gifted Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker and Wendy Xu recently, and I bought a big beautiful volume of Codename: Sailor V by Naoko Takeuchi for my birthday and have enjoyed rereading the manga that compelled me so much as a teenager.

Writing is an intrinsically solo occupation. Do you belong to any groups or associations, either online or in the ‘real’ world? How does that work for you?

I used to belong to many different dedicated writing groups, but I’ve had to step away from all of them for one reason or the other in the last couple of years. Not because I think groups are inherently bad, but just because I had personal stuff going on. I’m slowly stepping back into joining groups with people I don’t know, but I’m trying to keep it low pressure. Large groups, in general, may not be for me.

Right now, I want to focus on building friendships one-on-one with mutuals I admire on social media like Twitter, and I am dedicated to protecting my friendships with the writing partners I’ve had for several years. Writing is very solitary, but I value my writing friendships tremendously. It’s nice to have a safe space where I can cry because a book release flopped or because I’m stuck mid-draft. And it’s equally nice to be able to offer an ear when a friend is going through similar troubles.

When I look at my books on my shelf, I don’t see word counts or sales or rankings. I see the friends who were with me on those journeys. Sometimes it’s a bittersweet reflection because some friendships change and dissolve. But overall, I don’t regret any of it.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

I play a lot of video games and listen to K-pop while playing with my cats. I don’t talk a whole lot about my hobbies because I grew up with people gatekeeping everything I liked, but I’ve realized during this pandemic that people are going to shit on everything I do, no matter how much I try to present myself as worthy. So since the pandemic has started, I have found myself enjoying my hobbies with much more enthusiasm and not caring at all about what others think. When I tweet that I’m playing through the Yakuza series or that I’m excited for BTS’s upcoming online concert, I don’t give one flying fuck who might come into my mentions to fight me or what “friend” decides they don’t want to associate with me anymore. Hobbies refuel my creative vehicle, allowing me to write all the weird books I want. Speaking of weird…

Tell me a little bit about your most recent release. What gave you the idea for it? How long did it take to write? What did you enjoy about writing it? What did you hate?

Illusive Wishes is my favorite book I’ve written thus far, and I think it’s because it’s the first one where I wrote without worrying about making it appeal to a broad audience. This queer Snow White retelling is very niche. Even in contemporary genres, books with trans/nonbinary protagonists still aren’t hitting best-seller lists to the same degree as cisgender leads. So add in fantasy + romance + a hefty list of content notes…

Yeah, I probably spent two years writing a book that maybe thirty people will read. But it’s what I wanted to write. I have a note on my whiteboard from an interview with Alyssa Cole that says, “If it makes me happy, it can make others happy.” Next to it is another note from the famed violinist Stuart Canin. I had asked him during an online event what advice he could give for struggling creatives, and he simply said, “If you don’t love it, don’t do it.”

I love writing. And I very much loved writing Illusive Wishes. It probably won’t pay the bills, but it filled my heart with a lot of excitement and happiness.

Illusive Wishes

Ever since becoming disowned by his family, the person who matters most to Isaac is his best friend. Unfortunately, said best friend is trapped inside a mirror. For two years, Isaac has traveled various kingdoms with Penn at his side, searching for clues to break the curse and earning money however he can. When offered a job as an escort for a lavish party at the Embedded Palace—a place teeming with wealth and potential magic—Isaac is quick to accept. For the friend he’s fallen in love with, he’ll do anything.

Being stuck in a mirror is one thing, but for Penn, it’s even more humiliating because they’re a fairy who should have been able to avoid the curse. Whatever the curse is. They can’t quite remember. If only they had been a storybook Prince Charming instead of a useless fairy, life would have been better. But with a sweet, kind, and alluring friend like Isaac helping them, they refuse to give up.

As soon as the pair arrive at the Embedded Palace, buried memories start surfacing, darker than either of them ever imagined. With a misanthropic knight who has ties to fairies, cursed apples, a queen seeking an enchanted mirror, and a hunter obsessed with Isaac, the inseparable best friends find themselves being pulled apart. Maybe not even a Prince Charming can save the day, but Penn and Isaac will do anything to make their deepest wish come true—to be with each other.

Content notes : Buy on Amazon : Buy on Gumroad

About Chace

Chace Verity (they/them) is publishing queer as heck stories with a strong romantic focus, although queer friendships and found families are important too. Chace prefers to write fantasy but dabbles in contemporary and historical fiction as well. An American citizen & Canadian permanent resident, Chace will probably never be able to call a gallon of milk a “four-litre.”

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Ellie Thomas: A Marriage for Three

Today Ellie Thomas visits to talk about some of the history behind her new eighteenth century release A Marriage for Three! Welcome, Ellie.

Thank you so much, Ally, for having me as your guest today! I’m Ellie Thomas, and I write Historical Gay Romance. In this blog, I’ll be chatting about my latest story with JMS Books, released on September 4th. It’s a novella entitled A Marriage for Three.

A Marriage for Three, New Post by Ellie Thomas

I first got the idea for this story from a submissions call about ‘moresomes’ or relationships between more than two people. As I write historical romance, what sprang to my mind was a trio, at the heart of which is a settled gay relationship complicated by an arranged marriage.

The setting is rural southwest England in the final years of the eighteenth century. As this is familiar territory for me, I didn’t need to consult my bookshelves too much for reminders of geographical locations. However, I did get the chance to peruse one of my books on historical costume for my female character. I couldn’t quite remember when waistlines rose from natural level to the under the bust silhouette of the Empire Line and checked Costume in Detail by Nancy Bradfield. This wonderful book doesn’t contain the usual sketches from contemporary fashion plates but illustrations of real garments worn by real people (now very fragile and carefully guarded in private collections).

I found a detailed picture of a cotton dress from the last decade of the eighteenth century, where the waistline was carefully unpicked and altered to emulate the new high-waisted fashion. Throughout writing this story, I had the book open at that page, thinking of my character sewing a similar dress.

My plot evolved from several questions. What would cause a gay man with a loving partner to offer a woman marriage? Why would she be obliged to accept such an offer? In what ways might that affect the central relationship? How would my trio resolve that dilemma and still have a happy ever after?

The character who causes the relationship upheaval is Anthony Wallace, a wealthy, independent young man and landowner. He’s a gentleman scholar, more comfortable with books than people. I picture him as an absent-minded professor who thinks he can arrange other people’s lives as neatly as the books in his study. For Anthony, proposing to Charlotte, the Grenvilles’ eldest daughter, is a practical solution for financial hardship in a family he regards as almost his own.

Warm-hearted Simon, his Anglo-Indian estate manager and life partner, more than makes up for Anthony’s lack of sensitivity. Simon knows Anthony’s intentions are genuine, but also that it would not occur to his partner to consider the emotional consequences of his edicts.

For the romantic plot to evolve, Charlotte must be aware that Anthony and Simon are a couple. However, the late eighteenth century was a different world in terms of sexual awareness. In wanting to make Charlotte a woman of her own time, rather than jarringly modern, I had to devise reasons for her understanding. Her tactless loud-mouthed older brother, Anthony’s closest friend from childhood, is a partial solution to her worldly knowledge. Also, Charlotte’s own recent life experience, working as a superior domestic servant and ladies’ companion since her family’s loss of fortune, would inevitably broaden her outlook.

At first, Charlotte rejects Anthony’s proposal out of hand. It is only when her family’s circumstances worsen that she reconsiders his offer.

What engaged me about this storyline was that my three characters, although very different, are all decent people who respect and care deeply about each other. It was enjoyable to put my mismatched trio under the same roof; autocratic Anthony, kindly Simon and selfless Charlotte, and observe how they work things through together.

A Marriage for Three

At twenty-three years old, Charlotte Grenville has resigned herself to spinsterhood. With no dowry, she works as a lady’s companion to support her widowed mother and younger siblings who live in the country town of Marlborough in Wiltshire. When, out of the blue, she receives a proposal from a family friend, Anthony Wallace, she is perplexed.

Not only does Anthony have the habit of ordering everyone around, convinced it is in their best interests, but he is also devoted to his Anglo-Indian partner and estate manager, Simon Walker.

Lottie is aware that this prospective marriage is purely a business arrangement to rescue her and her family from financial hardship. But should she accept? And will her growing attraction to Simon destroy the delicate balance between the trio?

Buy A Marriage for Three

Read an extract!

Simon knocked on the door and as he entered, Anthony was muffled in a clean shirt. Simon had a tantalising glimpse of his lover’s taut pale belly, that tempting arrow of dark hair leading down to his breeches before it was covered with the linen garment and Anthony’s head emerged.

Simon leaned against the bedpost as Anthony reached for a fresh neckcloth.

“How are the Grenvilles?” He asked.

Anthony frowned. “Well enough, but the cottage is in a poor state. There’s still damp in the parlour and Mrs. Grenville says the roof is leaking again.”

Simon made soothing noises. “We don’t have to rush away, do we? Even if I have to return to the manor, you can always stay for a while longer to organise repairs.”

Anthony grunted something that might have been assent as he concentrated on his reflection in the mirror. While tying the knot in his cravat he said, “Lottie’s home again.”

Simon smiled, “How lovely. It will be good to see her.”

Anthony finished the straightforward arrangement of his neckcloth and frowned. “She’s looking hagged,” he said. “That succession of awful women she’s been attending has dragged her down. I’m surprised she hasn’t been foundered under it all.”

Simon opened his mouth to voice his concern when Anthony blithely continued, “So I’ve asked her to marry me. It seemed the best solution.”

Simon was initially stunned. Then, as so often following his beloved’s more outrageous statements, he closed his eyes and counted to ten. When he opened them, Anthony was grappling with the buttons of his waistcoat.

“The best solution for what?” he asked with deceptive calm.

Anthony turned to look at him with that direct blue gaze. “For the whole family,” he replied impatiently. “Lottie won’t have to exist in servitude any longer. She’ll only be twenty miles away from Marlborough so she can visit her mother whenever she wants. Finally, no one can object if I move Mrs G. and the children away from that poky cottage and into a suitable house. There’s one available just off the High Street that I have in mind.”

Simon resisted rubbing his hand wearily over his eyes. “So where are you going to put Lottie once you’ve married her?”

Anthony looked perplexed. “What do you mean? She’ll be in the manor house with us, of course.”

“Doing what?” Simon persisted.

Anthony looked uncertain for a moment and then his expression brightened. “She can reorganise the family library. Father left it in an awful state and it requires someone with a good mind like Lottie to sort it out.” He looked extremely pleased with himself at that suggestion.

“Marvellous,” Simon said flatly. “That will keep her busy for a year. And what is she expected to do for the following fifty-nine?”

Anthony looked blank as Simon inexorably continued, “And naturally, Lottie will want children.”

With a horrified countenance, Anthony exclaimed, “Oh no! There won’t be any of that!”

“Have you informed Lottie?” Simon asked sharply before carrying on in the same tone, “Then, of course, I will have to hand in my notice and look for a new situation as it would be unfair on Lottie for me to crowd your new marriage.”

For the first time, the consequences of his rash proposal seemed to permeate and Anthony appeared almost scared. “You can’t leave me, Simon,” he said. “I can’t manage without you,” he almost pleaded.

Simon relented and sighed. “My dear Tony,” he said more mildly. “You can’t move people about like they are collections of statuary or pieces on a chessboard. We do have our own opinions, you know.”

Anthony said nothing, gazing anxiously as Simon continued, “I can see that, in theory, your marrying Lottie would be a way out of the Grenvilles’ problems. No one could doubt your good intentions. But you haven’t considered what this would mean for Lottie. She might be more comfortable and secure than in her current situation, but would she be happy in the kind of marriage you are suggesting?”

Anthony frowned before saying, “Well, she refused me anyway.”

“I always knew she was a sensible woman,” Simon said with a wry smile.

Anthony blinked at him uncomprehendingly then was saved by St. Mary’s Church clock striking two.

Snagging his coat and making his escape from the uncomfortable conversation, he said, “We’d better be going. They’re expecting us.”

“This is not finished. We will speak about it later,” warned Simon at Anthony’s back as he reached the door.

Buy A Marriage for Three

Meet Ellie

Ellie Thomas lives by the sea. She comes from a teaching background and goes for long seaside walks where she daydreams about history. She is a voracious reader especially about anything historical. She mainly writes historical gay romance. Ellie also writes historical erotic romance as L. E. Thomas.

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Skye Kilaen: Queer M/F Romance

Today, Skye Kilaen is visiting to talk about queer m/f romances! Please give her a warm welcome!

I’m so excited to be here today talking about one of my favorite topics, queer M/F romances!

As a queer reader, LGBTQIA+ romances have a special place in my heart. When I first started reading romance by checking out books from my local library, I could easily find books that paired two allo cis men, and somewhat less easily books that paired two allo cis women. I was delighted when I started to discover romances beyond those two categories. Trans characters! Ace and aro characters! And also books that reflected my own experience being a bi/pan woman who has often dated men: M/F romances where one or both characters are queer.

(I’ve tried hard to start mixing it up by sometimes calling this category queer F/M. After all, why should the M be first all the time? But unfortunately my brain sees “F/M” and immediately thinks “radio.”)

Without further ado, here are four of my favorite queer M/F romances, and four that are on my radar.

Something Like Love is a contemporary by Black romance powerhouse Christina C. Jones, who is one of the funniest romance writers around in my opinion. Both leads are bi and I love them so much.

“Eddie is arrogant, quite vain and slick at the mouth – or simply confident, discerning, and unafraid to speak his mind, if you ask him. Astrid is annoyingly perky, unpolished, and a little delusional about Eddie’s attraction to her – or, according to her, energetic, authentic, and absolutely spot on about the driving factor of a certain local tattoo artist’s ‘hatred’ of her.

Undeniable attraction.

They may think they’re opposite, but have more in common than they think.”

Jules Kelley’s Edge of the Woods is a contemporary paranormal with a strong romance subplot that this romance reader found extremely satisfying. Haley, the female MC, is bi.

“Haley Fern has been the alpha of her local werewolf pack for less than a year when their law enforcement liaison retires, and Leland Sommers, a man who knows nothing about werewolves or their world, is hired in his place. What could be an awkward situation turns complicated when the man shows up his first day on the job with an injured teenage boy he found on the road–a boy Haley knows has just been bitten.”

Disclosure: Kelley is an online friend, who became a friend because I loved their writing so much that I reached out to say hi.

Caroline’s Heart by Austin Chant is a historical paranormal/fantasy romance that pairs a grieving witch and a gentle cowboy. Both are trans and bi. The blurb for this book centers Cecily, but Roy’s the emotional heart (no pun intended) of the story, the one who coaxes Cecily alive and holds her up when she needs it. Love this book.

“Cecily lost her soulmate years ago, leaving her with nothing but the clockwork heart that once beat in Caroline’s chest. They say it’s impossible to bring back the dead, yet Cecily’s resurrection spell is nearly complete and grows more powerful by the day.

But when a cowboy she barely knows is fatally injured, the only way to save him is by sacrificing an essential piece of the resurrection spell—and all possibility of seeing her lover again.”

Help Wanted by J. Emery is a gender and sexuality questioning F/M romance. I love this little novella about students at a magical college.

“Em is confused about a lot of things: who she is, what she wants, how she’s going to pass Alchemy when she’s awful at it. The one thing she’s not confused about is how much she wants to buy her best friend (and college roommate) the best birthday present ever. Luckily the local magic supply shop is hiring.

Her plan to get a job there would be working perfectly if not for her coworker Phineas who is in turns aggravating and endearingly awkward. She’s not sure if she wants to date him or wants to be him. The more time they spend together the more she thinks it may be both.”

Disclosure: Emery is an online friend, who became a friend after I volunteered to beta read for them because I enjoyed their published work so much.

Erin Kinsella’s Heart and Seoul stars a demisexual, panromantic heroine paired with a bisexual hero. Tessa’s an author who flies to Seoul, South Korea where her book is being adapted to film. Eun Gi, a K-pop superstar, has been cast as the lead actor. So of course they end up in a marriage of convenience. What else could possibly happen? 🙂

I was lucky enough to beta read the second book in this series, which isn’t out yet, and I fell in love with the entire cast. So I’m excited to go back to this first book and find out more about how Tessa and Eun Gi got together.

Disclosure: Kinsella is an online friend, who became a friend because I had such a great time beta reading her work.

Penny Aimes has just released For The Love of April French, a contemporary BDSM romance. The title character is a trans woman. This is waiting for me on my e-reader once I get out from under this pile of library books, and I’m so excited!

“April French doesn’t do relationships and she never asks for more. A long-standing regular at kink club Frankie’s, she’s kind of seen it all. As a trans woman, she’s used to being the scenic rest stop for others on their way to a happily-ever-after. She knows how desire works, and she keeps hers carefully boxed up to take out on weekends only. After all, you can’t be let down if you never ask.

Then Dennis Martin walks into Frankie’s.”

May Peterson’s The Calyx Charm is the third in her series The Sacred Dark. From the sample I’ve read, I suspect it works as a standalone if you’re okay with jumping right in to the lush magical worldbuilding (which is her signature!) and hanging on for the ride.

“Violetta Benedetti knows how to hide things. She spent years concealing herself behind the persona her father expected of her. Now she hides in the dark corners of Vermagna’s underworld, lying low to keep her father from using her magic in his unending quest for power.

But her biggest secret is her love for her best friend, who only knew her as Mercurio Benedetti, not the woman she is today. Now he’s dead, and she’ll never be able to tell him the truth.”

Except that her best friend Tibario DID die… and then got better. So that creates some possibilities. 🙂

The cover for Rosalie Jardin’s Prescription for a Lonely Heart cracks me up in such a good way. His expression is “Heyyyyy!” and hers is so very “I’m not so sure about all this…” That’s because in high school, nerdy Kay and athlete Adrian made a pact that if they were both still single at thirty, they’d get married. Kay, who is demisexual, thought it was a joke.

But now they’re both twenty-eight and still single, and Adrian doesn’t see why they should wait.

Tell me Anything by Skye Kilaen

Content warnings

Isabel meets Derek at exactly the wrong time… or is it exactly right?

Can Isabel return this year for a refund? Because it sucks. Her editing business would be paying her bills just fine… if her ex-boyfriend wasn’t blackmailing her. Of course, if her conservative family wouldn’t disown her for being bisexual, her ex couldn’t blackmail her in the first place. Sadly, she hasn’t invented time travel to un-make the mistake that created this mess.

Derek has a good life. Mostly. He’s an out bisexual man with a successful business and a loving queer found family. But he’s almost forty, living alone is getting stale, and yet dating seems pointless since nobody’s ever found him exciting enough to build a life with. Given he’s now doing zero-creativity craft kits to pass the time, he suspects they’re right. Maybe he should get a dog.

Isabel isn’t holding auditions for a rescuer, and she wouldn’t have expected Derek, a gorgeous, gentle man with his own history of family rejection, to fill the role. But Derek’s “boring” life is the calm harbor Isabel needs, and her affection helps Derek see himself in a new light. Their tentative connection might become the happily ever after they both deserve—if they can hold onto it through the fallout from Isabel’s recent romantic disaster.

Meet Skye

Skye Kilaen writes queer romance, both contemporary and science fiction, that’s sometimes about polyamorous relationships. Even her contemporaries are usually at least a bit geeky. After all, she does some of her writing in her local comic book shop.

Skye started writing fiction in elementary school on a Smith Corona electric typewriter because that’s all people had back in the early 1980s. She didn’t realize she wanted to read and write romance until much later, when it finally dawned on her that she adored X-Men comics for the soap opera aspect as much as for the superpowers.

She’s bi/pan and she currently lives in Austin, Texas because of all the libraries and breakfast tacos.

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The Flowers of Time: Jones and Gender

Let’s talk about gender with regard to Jones in The Flowers of Time today, just because, including a deleted scene.

It got to the point as I was writing where I felt there was altogether too much pondering and self-examination by Jones in the early part of the book. Although she’s doing a lot of self-examination, there’s another part of her that just wants to get on with things. And I began to feel as if I was making her an info-dump type of character and the book was becoming a bit more of an examination of how she felt about herself than a road-trip with botany and monsters who melt people.

So… generally speaking, Jones is pretty grumpy at having to make any sort of choice about gender. She never really had to think about it before she went to London. She was extremely reluctant to carry out the death-bed promise to her father to travel to England and try out being a lady of good family. Coming home to the mountains was a huge relief and she now has mixed feelings about her budding friendship with the Mertons if it means she has to behave in a particular way to meet their social expectations.

She’s a bit confused all round, really, and she resents having to put thought in to these messy, human relationships rather than concentrate on her work. She’s definitely a person who sees her mind as important rather than her body. I love her dearly and it hurt a lot to have to delete this scene about her deliberations–it had to go because it was slowing down the pace of the story. It was part of her growth as a person and it still definitely happened in my Jones-head-cannon!

Deleted Scene: Jones’ Preparations

So by the time the Mertons arrived, she was ready. They took a week to make their own preparations for the mountain trails, but Carruthers and Merton seemed to be competent and she left them to it, mostly spending her time with Miss Merton. Initially she felt that it might be a chore, but her initial impression of Edith as a correct English Miss had become modified as the days progressed and she showed her around the lakes and rivers of the city. Jones had always liked Srinagar. It was one of the places she and her father crossed through fairly regularly, both to send communications south to Bombay and several times to take a house there for a few months. Miss Merton’s excitement and pleasure in the scenery and her interest in talking to the residents and attempting to learn their language as she spoke with them meant the time went much more quickly than Jones had anticipated.

Likewise, the party seemed perfectly content with her natural choice to dress as she pleased. Carruthers’ young assistants simply accepted her as a male. She didn’t have much to do with them regardless, but it was pleasant not to be looked at with askance as she had feared when she had seen Miss Merton’s face on the road outside Srinagar. Edith had quickly schooled her expression, and her treatment of Jones had not changed. She had invited her to call her by her first name that evening and that seemed a mark of confidence in their budding friendship. Neither had Carruthers and Merton spoken to her with any caution or disapproval and their example had led to the rest of their party treating her as she wished, which was to essentially ignore her sex and rather pay attention to her thoughts and wishes.

It was very nice to feel that she might have made a friend in Miss Merton. They had been few and far between in her travels with her father, particularly with women, simply because they had been almost constantly in motion and when not in motion, absorbed in the work. She had never had the opportunity before simply to have a friendship that was not also complicated with the bonds of family- as with Dechen, Sonam, Amit and Kishor- or overshadowed by her discomfort at being forced in to female apparel as she had been on her long round trip to England.

Thinking about it now, she had a led a lonely sort of existence based entirely around her father’s obsession with the cause of her mother’s death. And it seemed that Jones might be taking up his mantle. Did she want that? She wasn’t sure. But she was sure that she needed to know what had been driving his obsession. He had been such a rational man. It seemed ridiculous that he had died believing in magic. That he had believed in it all this time and not said a word to her.

Her whole life has changed. Not only did she lose her father; but when he sent her to England ‘to find her roots’ he actually cut her off from her life in the mountains…her source of independence and strength.

She had to re-evaluate her sense of self and the way other people saw her whilst she was in England. And now she’s home, but because the Mertons are following her she may not be able to settle back in to her comfortable old way of doing things where she just toddles along thinking about history and people and plants. She’s gaining friends and a social network. But she may have to give up some of her independence of thought and self-definition as part of that social contract.

I do want to revisit this part of the universe at some point in the future because I do love the characters; but in the meantime there’s also a short story called A Small, Secret Smile that is almost stand-alone if you’re feeling brave, but probably makes more sense if you’ve already read the book.

The Flowers of Time is available in ebook, audio and paperback

"Jones was written perfectly. As a non-binary person I felt seen, and may have shed a tear once or twice"

"I loved Flowers. It's sweet and sexy, but also fascinating and creepy!"

Now in audible.

A determined lady botanist and a non-binary explorer make the long journey over the high Himalayan mountain passes from Kashmir to Little Tibet, collecting flowers and exploring ruins on the way. Will Jones discover the root of the mysterious deaths of her parents? Will she confide in Edie and allow her to help in the quest?

It’s a trip fraught with perils for both of them, not least those of the heart.

A stand-alone f/enby romance set in the Lost in Time universe, in the Himalayas in 1780. About 50,000 words.

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