skygiants | (no subject)

I am sadly no longer in a small lakeside cottage, nor devouring a paperback a day, but it seems a good transition back into my long tail of overdue booklogs might be talking about K.J. Charles' Will Darling Adventures trilogy (Slippery Creatures, The Sugared Game, Subtle Blood), which I read on my last-to-this vacation and enjoyed very much as vacation reads precisely because they hearken back to and do in fact have a lot of the salient characteristics of yellowing vacation paperback thrillers.

The trilogy focuses on the partnership between working-class WWI vet Will Darling and angsty upper-class conscientious-objector-turned-secret-agent Kim Secretan as they attempt to identify and thwart the various members of a mysterious criminal organization known as the Zodiac, often while attending a 1920s house party or flapper club. It's very much an homage to 1920s/30s pulp fiction, in much the same way that Charles' Sins of the Cities novel is an homage to Victorian sensational fiction, and it's probably not a coincidence that I like these two trilogy-sets about the best of any of her stuff that I've read -- the combination of affectionately high-octane plotting with multi-book arcs allows her the opportunity and space to explore unusual character dynamics while still keeping the books moving along in a way that is fast and tropey and fun.

While the Sins of the Cities trilogy did stick to the standard formula of focusing on one romantic pairing per book, the Will Darling trilogy focuses on the development of Will and Kim's romance all through -- each book leaves them by the end in a relatively good place for where they're at and introduces new complications in the next one as they get to know each other better and get more entangled in each other's lives. I really enjoyed this structure; it's so nice to get a chance to get past the "I just met you and this is crazy" phase and dig into some storytelling about semi-established relationships, and romance novels just by standard convention do not get to do this very much!

As is often the case with Charles, there are B-plot lesbians, and they are delightful and charming and More Sensible Emotionally And Practically Than The Men and do not get any of the meaty interpersonal conflicts with each other that the male leads do. Someday perhaps Charles will finally getting around to writing a lesbian romance with teeth but this is not that day. (I certainly enjoyed reading Proper English but one couldn't really say it has teeth.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

aurumcalendula

These were so much fun!

Someday perhaps Charles will finally getting around to writing a lesbian romance with teeth but this is not that day. (I certainly enjoyed reading Proper English but one couldn't really say it has teeth.)

I'm hoping Last Couple in Hell might be that if/when it materializes.

From:

rymenhild

I'm hearing from the KJ Charles Facebook community that it isn't likely to materialize. Apparently Charles wrote herself into a corner in Spectred Isle. The magical weapons of WWI were so destructive already as she wrote them that she couldn't figure out how to up the ante enough to set up a parallel to nuclear bombs without destroying the planet. She froze on several drafts, gave up, and moved on to Will and Kim.

Edited Date: 2021-08-19 02:06 am (UTC)

From:

loligo

Oh, boo! I have been longing for that book.

From:

skygiants

I also was hoping for that -- the premise had such energy to it! I love lesbians AND ghosts! Alas that it seems not to be :((

From:

chestnut_pod

These were so rollicking :)

Seriously, though, narrative justice for Maisie!

From:

skygiants

I'm sure Maisie and Phoebe also had prickly class issues to sort out in interesting ways, if we ever got to see them!!

From:

evewithanapple

I kept hoping Phoebe and Maisie would get a bigger role in the plot! But it never happened. :(

Toothless lesbian romances are a curse of the genre, I'm afraid - I can't name a single histrom where the lesbian characters are allowed to do more than mildly disagree about what to order for dinner. (YES I'm still annoyed about The Hellion's Waltz.)

From:

rymenhild

Yes! I am so tired of toothless lesbian romances. But I am presently reading The Wife in the Attic by Rose Lerner, and while at my current 33% mark the governess narrator has only barely met the titular attic wife, I can say for certain that this book definitely has teeth.

From:

evewithanapple

I wanna read that one so bad! But it's still only on Audible. :(

From:

aurumcalendula

I think it's available in ebook form as of a couple days ago? (in the US, at least)

From:

selkie

Hello! Complete stranger here to say it dropped in print/Kindle on Friday the 13th! I don't stick well at audio so I had been waiting.

From:

soosifroosh

I missed an entire Lerner, I must go at once.

From:

selkie

It's GHAAAAAAAYYYYY!

From:

rymenhild

Nope! Print release date was August 13. I'm very glad, because the audiobook was too slow for me.

From:

skygiants

I cannot WAIT to read The Wife in the Attic. I'm saving it for next time I have to travel because I know it will be an ideal stress relief book for me!

From:

soosifroosh

OH MY GOD The Hellion's Waltz would have been so good if it could have the plot intensity, tension, and crosses of K.J. Charles' Any Old Diamonds. But instead they both agree to be sensible and hold hands immediately and get rid of that silly tension.

From:

evewithanapple

There's this strain of benevolent sexism that runs through f/f histroms where the assumption is that of COURSE women are sensible and levelheaded and handle their emotions maturely and never do or say anything seriously wrong - and if they do, they immediately resolve it without any prolonged tension. I think this mixes with the tendency of some histrom authors to write extremely didactic fiction (I blame later-career Courtney Milan) so the lesbians stop being lesbians with complex inner lives and become cardboard cutouts with little speech bubble slogans attached. This Goodreads review really summed up a lot of my frustrations with it:

Maddie and Sophie aren’t three-dimensional characters with recognizable human flaws because they’re not meant to be. Instead, they’re instructive models for how to live. As aspirational progressives with unattainably virtuous lives, their relationship can’t contain conflict because it would interrupt their exemplary status. But, in the world of this book, where everyone says exactly the right thing at the exactly the right time to the exact right person and the only person who doesn’t is the moustache-twirling evil capitalist, the pedagogy has completely drowned out the pleasure. Reading this book felt a little like being told I’m looking fat and then being presented with a plate full of disastrously overcooked vegetables. As an imperfectly progressive/emotionally messy person with messy relationships, I didn’t appreciate the implicit message or its prescription.

From:

soosifroosh

What a thoughtful review, I read it in its entirety (unlike the book - like the reviewer I'm determined to support Waite's bid to get f/f into mainstream publishing, but that doesn't mean I can't quit reading it at 2/3rds).

Has anyone read her m/f? I'm curious if this is a skills thing, or that weird gingerness with which even many queer women write f/f. I'm not even sure I agree that it's pedagogical in intent as it seemed like weak writing even in the context of Waite's other low-conflict, sunny f/f.

From:

lokifan

yeppppp

From:

skygiants

On the one hand I was glad about the weight and tension that the Phoebe-Kim friendship in addition to all the other relationship stuff, and on the other hand, man, what if an iota of that tension was allowed to enter into the dynamic between Phoebe and Maisie! what IF

From:

selkie

I think I must be a Historical Lesbians outlier. Maybe that's something to put on a back cover or something... I wonder if there is a specific set of tropes yet assigned to nonbinary fictional historical folks, too.

From:

sovay

Maybe that's something to put on a back cover or something...

You did say "#disasterlesbian" in your Twitter profile!

(It's like you have a publicist.)

Edited Date: 2021-08-19 02:46 am (UTC)

From:

aurumcalendula

That's part of why I love The Covert Captain so much. (Also, I'm super excited for A Remarkable Rake!)

From:

selkie

Thank you so much! I am turning it in to my editor by the 23rd, which is... uh... heh.

From:

skygiants

AND I'M VERY GRATEFUL FOR IT

From:

selkie

Part of why the book took so long (aside from... *handwavey* Have you LOOKED out there) is because I realized people were being bland and needed to be bitier. I think I put in all the biting! <3

From:

bloodygranuaile

not being at a small lakeside cottage reading a book a day is a travesty and should be illegal, imo

From:

skygiants

agreed! this should be my job, actually, I think

From:

littledust

Now I am resolved to write a novel entitled Toothy Lesbians. (One is a vampire, the other is a dentist.)

From:

lokifan

ahahaha perfection

From:

skygiants

Can't wait to beta read it!!!

From:

dimestore_romeo

Yes! I was so frustrated with Proper English. It was so mellow and domestic and boiled rice. I was wondering - where's the snap, the fire, the teeth of her other books? This sort of issue eternally frustrates me.

From:

skygiants

Proper English felt to me very much like a cozy mystery novel with a romance as a side plot, which would have been fine with me if it was a.) billed as such and b.) not so much part of a broader pattern! Mellow domesticity very much has its place, but all the time??

From:

happydork

YES PROPER ENGLISH DOES NOT HAVE TEETH AND YOU ARE RIGHT TO SAY IT

From:

skygiants

It's just a murder mystery in which two nice characters also happen to hook up along the way! The tension between characters does not drive the plot in any way, because there isn't any!