J.S. Fields

Author & Scientist

Review: Uncharted by Alli Temple

Genre: fantasy: pirates / lesbians on boats

Pairings: f/f

Queer Representation: cis lesbian, nonbinary

Warnings: none

Review

Once upon a time Georgina (George), a minor noble, had a BFF in the form of a lower class little girl who liked to get up to all kinds of adventures. Then George’s father goes and dies and George is sent off to school. No longer bringing in money as a companion, her BFF is dressed up as a boy and sent out to sea to make money for her family.

Fast forward. The kingdom is in distress from taxation and other noble issues. Women are deeply repressed. George tries to help by acting as a low-level spy which everyone seems to know about and no one much cares. There are fancy dresses involved. Anyway. Her brother is kind of an ass and engages her to the eeeeevil prince because Money, and George must of course, say yes because, again, Money.

But lo! Danger is afoot! For the dreaded pirate Cinder roams the oceans and seems to really like attacking this little kingdom. On an outing with the prince, Cinder attacks near the dock and George is taken prisoner on her pirate ship, away from all her fancy dresses and parties and horrible marriage prospects.

Cinder is, of course, the old BFF (if you didn’t get that from the prologue, you don’t read enough lesbian pirate adventures) but is really bitter. And George is really naive. And the prince is really angry. He wants George back so he can publicly murder her and get a lot of sympathy from the people. Cinder wants George to realize how privileged she is. George just wants off the damn boat. Hijinks happen, cannons are fired, dresses are made and destroyed, and Cinder is everyone’s favorite saucy pirate captain trope. HEA and yes, the prince gets what he deserves.

 

This book was… you know when you go to the fair and you just really want funnel cake? It won’t keep you full but damn it you want it and it’s so damn delicious. This book is funnel cake. Will it stick with you long? Probably not. But it’s a known commodity of tropes and archetypes and it is indeed so damn good. George is a bit irritating at first but she has a reasonable character arc, and Cinder is everything I’d want from a lesbian pirate love interest. The prince is perfectly mustache-twirling evil, the side characters are diverse, and there’s a reasonable amount of backstabbing and criminal overlords. +10 for rollicking adventures on the high seas!

It does have a few drawbacks, like the setting. The Kingdom of Redmere is deeply patriarchal and homophobic, which I don’t generally like in my books since I have to live that every day. It kind of takes away from the ‘escapism’ of fiction. But it’s well done and it does make the ending that much more enjoyable. For a taste:

“It’s not true!” the man shouted from the back of the wagon. “I’ve done nothing wrong!”

“That’s what they all say,” a man near my right shoulder muttered to no one in particular. “I heard they actually found him in bed with another man, No shame. No deniability. Disgusting.” He spat on the ground.

~~

It wasn’t always like this. At least, that was what the old women who sat on stoops and old men who hunched over cups of strong tea would tell you. They’d say that, in their youth, Redmere had still been poor, but people had been free to dress as they pleased and earn a living any way they could, even if women had usually raised the children while men had made most of the money.

Then the king had come. He was a younger son, and he’d poisoned his brother to take the throne. He said the country needed change, a return to something he called “societal order.” Under his rule, laws were passed to define classes and the appropriate roles of men and women, and for a while, it worked. People felt they had a purpose. But the king over-reached, declaring war on neighboring kingdoms, costing Redmere in both gold and lives before he finally retreated to his palace.

But it’s also filled with Deep Lesbian Melodrama, such as lines like:

She put a hand on the wall as she reached the door that led to her bedchamber. Her whole body sagged.

“Sleep well, princess.”

Didn’t she know I hadn’t slept well since the day she’d left me?

And there is dress seduction which is one of my favorite fantasy tropes. If you can seduce a woman while you dress her, you get the A+ gold unicorn badge

Lou helped me dress. The neck and shoulders of the dress were covered in heavy gold embroidery and bright beads and stones that trailed down flowering sleeves. I lifted it, and the front floated away from the back. A line of ribbons dangled from the separate halves on each side.

“Let me do it for you,” she said.

I would be the first to admit I wasn’t very wordy. I’d spent the better part of my life trying not to be noticed in a very small country with little access to what lay beyond its borders.

But even I could tell I was being seduced while being dressed at the same time.

(it’s a great scene so I won’t spoil it for you)

UNCHARTED offers trope-filled lesfic pirate adventure along with fancy dresses and solid nonbinary rep. Whether you’re more of a swashbuckling pirate or a femme princess, you’ll find much to love. See if you can get yourself kidnapped by The Dread Pirate Cinder by buying the book here.

Review: The Unspoken Name by A.K. Larkwood

Genre: fantasy: high / sword and sorcery

Pairings: f/f

Queer Representation: cis lesbian, cis gay man

Warnings: none

Review

Csorwe was raised from infancy to be a teenaged sacrifice to a living god. She never fought it, never thought much about it, until the day of her death. Waiting in a cave for her god to devour her, an unexpected mage shows up and offers her a new future – one filled with magic, and spying, and killing. In this new future, Csorwe wouldn’t be the one who dies.

She accepts and is thrust into a wide world of politics, magic, and intrigue that, as a sheltered sacrifice, she finds overwhelming. The mage trains her and pays her a reasonable wage, but it is not long before Csorwe begins to wish for her own future, not one, once again, dictated by an adult. Her missions become more dangerous, old mentors return to haunt her, and love strikes in the most unlikely of places. By the end of the book Csorwe must choose love over the life she’s worked so hard to build, and learns that she will never truly be rid of the god she left behind.

Also, there’s a whole to do about a reliquary and eternal life and mentors battling mentors and you know how it goes.

“I have been seeking the Reliquary for the better part of my life, and training you for the better part of yours,” he said, turning to face Csorwe. “And now it is in the hands of an enemy. You must know how deeply I regret this.”

If you’re a lover of high fantasy, this is your book. It has a epic reach reminiscent of THE TIGER’S DAUGHTER, with more straightforward prose and less romance focus. Csorwe makes a complete evolution from naive teen to capable woman during its course. Her friendships are brutal, honest, and messy. Her romance is messy. Like, lesbian messy. She fights her mentors, her mentors fight her, she seeks a place in the world that is wholly her own, etc. UNSPOKEN is very much a coming of age book, taking our modern pitfalls and embedding them in fantastic settings.

Magic? Yes.

Battles? Yes.

Kissing? Yes.

Betrayal? Oh god. So much. Betrayal and hard choices. Like, should she chose to get the reliquary her master wants, or save the girl?

Bad news and bad luck swam around the Reliquary of Pentravesse like flies around a carcass. This could have been bad news, bad luck, or something else.

Csorwe leapt away from the falling rock and saw Shuthmili. She lay motionless, unconscious, her bare hand uncurling beside the toe of Csorwe’s boot.

And once again, everything was very clear. Csorwe picked Shuthmili up, hoisting her over her shoulder. She let Oranna and the Reliquary go, and she ran for her life.

I mean, come on. We’d all pick the girl, too.

Also there’s just a ton of queer rep in this book. Our other POV character is a gay man…a snarky gay man:

Tal had never been any good at trigonometry or rhetoric or any of the things you were supposed to be good at. He didn’t have magic, as his mother had hoped he might. But he was pretty good at creeping, lying, and stealing, and Sethennai seemed to value him for it.

~~

“Looking for you, obviously,” said Tal. “The only reason they didn’t put me on trial in Qarsazh instead of bringing me back is because I took their side at the Lignite Spire. They think Sethennai sent you on purpose to suborn their Adept. And, well, let’s be honest, I saw how you looked at her. You would’ve suborned her like that.”

~~

“Yes,” he said, the words willing up all at once. “No. It’s fine. It’s all I’m going to get, so. It doesn’t matter if it’s not enough, and I’m happy with it, so it’s none of your business, and anyway–” Tap realized with distant, wondering horror that he couldn’t stop himself saying it. “And anyway, I love him and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

 

And of course, there is classic lesbian banter (classic anyone banter, really)

“Are we just going to take it?” said Shuthmili, though she didn’t hesitate to climb into the barge.

“Didn’t they teach you how to steal a ship at wizard school?” said Csorwe.

~~

Csorwe realized, now–and in fact she must have been pretty dense not to see it before–that Shuthmili was unspeakably beautiful. That everything about her was perfect and that it would be worth doing almost anything to coax a genuine smile out of her. Csorwe lay still where she had fallen, lightly stunned.

“Is something wrong?” said Suthmili. She brushed her hair back out of her eyes in a way that made Csorwe want to take her face in both hands and kiss her.

“No,” said Csorwe, pleased with herself for how impressively normal her voice still sounded. “I was just thinking.”

“Oh, do tell me how that goes,” said Shuthmili. “I’ve heard it’s not as good as people make it out to be.”

 

THE UNSPOKEN NAME is a delight of epic fantasy–a bit long in the tusk in some places but otherwise perfectly rendered. The cover is gorgeous, the characters deeply three dimensional, the dialogue almost an art. There’s moral grayness and coming of age and romance and betrayal and angry, vengeful gods. There’s training montages (you have to supply your own music) and creepy, lurking scenes, and Deeply Unsettling Looks and unrequited love (the m/m line).

Buy this book. You need this book. It’ll look pretty on your bookshelf and you can defeat some old gods and maybe get a chance at eternal life.

Review: Isle of Broken Years by Jane Fletcher

Genre: science fiction – time travel / fantasy – lesbians on boats (pirates)

Pairings: f/f

Queer Representation: cis lesbian

Warnings: rape taunts (it IS a pirate book after all)

Review

Like all of Jane Flecther’s books, please pay ABSOLUTELY NO ATTENTION TO THE COVER. This book is GOLD and so help me I will pay for the next cover myself can we please get this woman covers that properly showcase her work!?!

Ahem.

Catalina de Valasco is on a galleon, headed for the Americas to meet her rich husband (whom she has never met). Pirates attack! The cabin boy of said pirate ship is Sam, our dashing tomboy lesbian love interest, cleverly disguised (or so she thinks). Anyway. The crew is slaughtered but finding a lady in a fancy dress, they realize hey, ransom! Sweet! So they change course and head for the Bermuda Triangle (stay with me).

So it’s hard, right, being a pirate that likes ladies? I mean, you’ve got one ON YOUR SHIP but your captain won’t let you rape her because they she isn’t worth as much money. Not all the crew agree with this financial plan, and several attempts are made, which Sam cleverly foils with chickens. We are not yet to the major plot twist. Hang in there. They sail through the triangle as they try to go somewhere that will pay ransom for an annoying, high-bred Spanish lady. There is weird weather and there is a mutiny etc. Sam, Catalina, Catalina’s (very gay) manservant Alonzo, and some of the would-be-rapists are stranded on an island where robots try to kill them. Yes. Robots. Strap in.

Welcome to ISLAND IN THE SEA OF TIME without the BS colonial narrative and obvert racism. The few that survive the first robot attack are found by other island survivors and taken to a safer location, where they learn that the island is (wait for it) a Greek/alien invention (Catalina reads Greek, conveniently!) and moves through time. The current refugees come from different cultures, times, and places, and make for a fantastic back up crew. The goal – to get off the island without being killed by robots, or minotaurs, or weather. Secondary goal – can Sam get together with Catalina, or will Catalina’s crushing upper class eighteenth centuries Spanish morals get in the way? And why is Alonzo trying to kill Sam? How would you expect a meeting of modern day lesbian millennial to go with said eighteenth century closeted lesbian?

WELL YOU GET TO FIND OUT.

Catalina is….kind of over the top and it’s kind of perfect:

Catalina tightened her jaw and drew her shoulders back. The blood of kinds ran in her veins. She was a true daughter of Spain, who could trace her ancestors to El Cid, and beyond. Whatever else, she would not let this rabble see fear on her face. They deserved nothing by contempt, and that she would grant them, in abundance.

Sam is the standard ‘my dad didn’t know what else to do with me so he dressed me as a boy and took me to sea’ trope–pirate with a heart of gold, loves the ladies, etc. The ‘pirate’ part makes this difficult, of course, noting Catalina’s attitude towards pirates, per above. As a fun twist, the pirate crew all think Sam is a ‘backdoor man’ because he doesn’t visit the whorehouses with them. In a +10000 for Fletcher, Sam’s gender reveal does not come from her shirt being torn open. Instead, the more modern people on the island have no trouble seeing she’s a woman dressed as a man and just flat out ask her. Sam has no issue adopting this very upfront attitude:

She turned to Sam. “And you are?”

“Sam. Sam Helyer, I was cabin boy on the Golden Goose. The ship has sunk, and I’m the last survivor.” Sam hesitated, as if making a decision. “So I’ve missed my change to tell my cremates I’m not a boy. Probably just as well. I don’t think they’d have been happy about a cabin girl.”

While people around her laughed, Catalina needed long seconds to be sure she understood what Sam had just said. But there could be no doubt. She was dimly aware of Alonzo at her side giving a low growl. Mostly, Catalina just felt her jaw drop open.

Per usual, I have quibbles with how the binder is addressed:

Babe picked at the band Sam had wrapped around her breasts. The binding had been necessary when she was passing as a boy, and she had kept it for comfort when running and jumping.

If every author could just come and sit next to me for a quick second – IF A BINDER IS TIGHT ENOUGH TO PROPERLY CONCEAL BREASTS, IT IS NOT COMFORTABLE. Maybe for a few hours. DEFINITELY not for running. Those shits constrict the HELL out of your lungs. Running in a binder that tight is a good way to pass out. ASK ME HOW I KNOW.

Okay, binder grump aside, you should buy this book because, at the very end when they’re trying to battle a robot minotaur, they have to use lightsabers.

Yes. You heard me.

“The only thin we have that stands a chance of hurting the Minotaur are these plasma blades.”

Uh huh. Call them ‘plasma blades.’ We all know what’s going on. Time Island has alien tech and LIGHTSABERS. LESBIANS WITH LIGHTSABERS WHO WERE PREVIOUSLY ON BOATS.

you are welcome. It has a happy ending and no lesbians are eaten by fish robots.

Get your own lightsaber and try to find Atlantis by buying the book here. Don’t feel bad if you have to rip the cover off to keep it on your bookshelf. Still very much worth it.

Review: Thorn by Anna Burke

Genre: fantasy – fairy tell retelling

Pairings: f/f

Queer Representation: cis lesbian

Warnings: none

Review

Rowan, eldest of three daughters to a widower father, has not had a good few years. Her mother had died (fairy tale trope! Take a drink!), her father’s merchant ships have sunk to the bottom of the ocean, and now she and her sisters have been stripped of their affluent city life and are being forced to make do in a remote countryside filled with bears, wolves, and a crap ton of snow.

Trying to make ends meet and get enough, well, meat, for his family, Rowan’s father joins a hunting party heading far into the snowy woods. Rowan, recently betrothed to a bland guy she doesn’t really care for, asks her father for a single rose upon his return. He does so only by stealing it from a snow-covered castle the party finds while hunting giant wolves.

Of his hunting party, it is only Rowan’s father who returns alive.

The rose is not the only thing he brings back, however. Enraged by the death of her beloved wolves and seeking her rose, the Huntress leaves her winter castle and chases Rowan’s father. She takes back her rose, but not before it pricks Rowan, leaving an icy magic deep within her. As punishment for the father’s transgressions, the Huntress also takes Rowan back with her, to live an isolated life in a perpetual winter castle.

Rowan, having now lost her entire family, must find the will to live and perhaps even thrive in her new home. The Huntress has a fabulous temper but really, Rowan has nothing worth going home to. She decides to stay and make the best of things (maybe even make out, since those hot springs are the perfect place to catch someone bathing…), even as the situation complicates itself with magical roses, evil fairies, and an ex-fianćes out for blood vengeance.

THORN is so much more than I hoped for in a short novella fairy tale retelling. Burke, known best for her lesfic debut COMPASS ROSE, writes a beautiful, breathtaking version of Beauty and the Beast. It carries all the best fairy tale tropes, sometimes borrowing from old iterations, relying heavily on the Disney version, but giving us a ‘beast’ Ice Queen whom we cannot help but love.

Rowan is driven, idealistic, strong, and heartbreakingly naive. The cursing fairy is delightfully vindictive and morally grey. The sisters are predictably divided, the fiancé channels only the best in Disney Gaston comedic evil. The narrative takes the fairy tale moral a step further than usual, and actually hangs a hat on the most obvious lessons:

I thought of my sisters and my father and the little house, a warm light set deep in the mouth of a trap I would spring no matter where I stepped. I belonged to Avery now, and if not Avery, some other man. I looked down at my body, hidden beneath my furs, and hated it. My body was the real prison, something to be bartered or sold or carried away on the back of a great white bear. This was the truth that Sara had tried to tell me, the truth I had not wanted to see, the truth that now was as clear to me as the biting cold.

In addition, the writing is gorgeous. Let’s take a minute to admire this scene, in which the Huntress is in the process of kidnapping Rowan:

“Then it is done.”

My father picked up his discarded sword and charged. She knocked him to the ground with predatory ease, plucking the sword from his limp hands.

“Come with me,” she said, and her words slid into my bloodstream with the scent of roses.

“Rowan, no!” Aspen grabbed my arm, and Juniper clung to my other side, sobbing.

“I spared your father’s life once. I will not spare it a second time,” the woman said. She raised the sword, and I pushed past my sisters to stand before her, placing my hands on the sharp edge of the blade.

“Please,” I said.

Green eyes bored into mine. “From you,” she said, lowering the sword, “That word sounds much sweeter.”

YES! Give me chilly power femme ice queens ANY DAY. Also from there they ride into the forest on the back of a giant bear. Come on. This is lesbian fairy tale gold.

Get on the back of a gigantic white bear and hunt your own ice queen by buying the book here.

P.S. This book deserved a much better cover.

Review: The Fletcher by K. Aten

Genre: fantasy – sword and sorcery

Pairings: f/f

Queer Representation: cis lesbian

Warnings: implied rape threats

Review

Kyri is a journey(wo)man fletcher, trained by her master father in the ways of making and using archery equipment. Her skill is unmatched, not that anyone in the kingdom cares, since Kyri is just a woman. When her father falls ill, Kyri sets out to gain her own mastership, since she legally cannot inherit her father’s holdings.

The start of her journey ends badly. She stumbles upon a lone woman being attacked by the king’s men.

“I told you, my name is Shana. I’m a member of the Telequire Amazon tribe, and I’m traveling to visit another tribe in order to pass news of our new queen.”

The patrol leader laughed, joined by his comrades. “Amazon, huh? There are no such things as Amazons! All I see is a woman alone, carrying a sword. Women are not allowed to carry weapons of war in our kingdom.”

She is outmatched, so Kyri helps defend her. In doing so she marks herself as an outcast from her kingdom, but is welcomed with open arms to the Amazons. (trope! take a drink!)

The rest of the book follows Kyri as she learns about her uncanny skills and rises through the ranks of the Amazons, finding love, and a bit of magic, along the way.

If you’re in the mood for a straightforward trope fantasy ala Xena Warrior Princess, THE FLETCHER will satisfy your craving. The cover is gorgeous (thank god, as lesfic is known for its terrible covers), the prose straightforward, and the story, stock. Kyri is a likably naive protagonist, with the standard Chosen One trope and the ‘too good to be true’ skill set (archery). Her journey is worn but comforting, her love interest apparent, good-natured, and the romance pacing appropriate for the length of the book. The secondary characters are surprisingly round and engaging, and while Kyri’s journey felt a bit wandery to me, her time with the Amazons more than made up for it with the various hot tub scenes(!).

It’s a trope-filled, comfortable book. I had very few quibbles, the main one being the description of the bow with the multicolored wood grain, but I realize my background in woodworking makes me far more nitpicking about this than most.

“The only thing to it is patience. You have to paint each grain with a different dye and keep repeating until enough soaks in to make it bright. Then I have to go over the entire thing with olive oil, and lastly, a layer of wax.”

For the record, this would not make a colorfast bow. A bit later a bow is mentioned to be ‘springy’ and made from Madagascar rosewood, which a good wood choice and well explained, so I’m willing to let the wood dye thing go. Though I really hope the cedar chip joke was done deliberately, because it is ~chef’s kiss~

(in this scene, they’re talking about a small animal having fallen asleep on a bed of cedar shavings. The smell of cedar is a toxic aromatic extractive that causes sleepiness and, in some small mammals, death)

I smiled. “No, those are chips of cedars wood. My man always used it on our bedding to keep pests away. I sprinkle some all around my hut and on my bedding. It seems to be working so far.”

So, come for the cover and the tropes, stay for the hot tub romance and mostly accurate wood portrayals. THE FLETCHER is an easy, quick read that will give you that Xena flavor, without all the maddening subtext that never goes anywhere. Also, hot springs.

Grab your bow and arrow and try to beat Kyri in a duel by purchasing the book here.

 

Keep In Touch

Other J.S. Fields Sites

Good Reads
Patreon

Other Links