J.S. Fields

Author & Scientist

Review: The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows by Olivia Waite

Genre: romance: historical

Pairings: f/f

Queer Representation: cis lesbian, cis bisexual

Warnings: none

Review

Owner of a printing business and mother of a political activist son, Agatha Griffin is going about her day, minding her own business, when she finds a colony of bees in her warehouse. This cannot stand, so she calls in a beekeeper.

Penelope Flood is a beekeeper. She is also married to a gay man with his own lover. Penelope is entirely dedicated to her bee hives, which reside on land formerly owned by a rich lady who has recently died. The land has been given to others but Penelope inherits the bees, and she is determined to keep them alive. Various other parts of the estate have been given to warring factions and there’s some drama around valuables and inheritance and lewd statues.

Things progress, as they do in romance. Penelope helps Agatha with her bee problem. Both are consumed with interest in the other but don’t feel comfortable talking about it. There is endless internal monologue interspersed with plot (the Queen is coming! Rich people are doing shenanigans! There’s some nude statues that keep popping up in weird places and Penelope’s husband randomly enters the scene and is delightfully hilarious. There’s one reasonable sex scene that takes forever to get to, and several hundred pages of pining. There’s a walnut dildo, but we’ll get to that in a bit.

If you’re into standard lesbian fare movies, where both women feel the urge for the love that dare not speak its name (even though literally everyone around them is totally cool), long, measured eye glances, and basically this plot, then this book is your jam. The bees and estate management and nude statues are entertaining, but the romance aspect just meanders and takes far too long to get anywhere. The characters aren’t nearly as engaging as the ones in THE LADY’S GUIDE TO CELESTIAL MECHANICS, and seem to be bashed around by the plot instead of interacting with it. Both are reasonably strong women, but I never really connected with either of them. What I did connect with was the cover, which has two women clearly just checking out each other’s cleavage. Hilarious. Fantastic. On-brand.

It’s the same time period and world as CELESTIAL MECHANICS (early 1800s), so readers looking for a tie-in will be pleased (this is the printer that prints the guide from book one):

“Not as full as I like to keep it, to be honest. We’ve got ten or so more pages in the new edition of Celestial Mechanics and then we’re clear,” Downes replied. “I’d planned on getting started on some of the next issue’s embroidery plates, but there’s room if you want to add something.”

Waite plays around with language in the book, which is entertaining and something to look forward to it you’re skimming to get away from the deluge of internal monologue:

Agatha shivered, as if the sun had ducked behind a cloud. You’re wearing her husband’s clothes, Agatha reminded herself, and felt extremely queer about it.

As well as some stellar one liners:

It was an entirely frustrating thing to attempt to supervise two young people resentful of your intrusive presence, while trying not to make obvious calf’s-eyes at the woman who’d fucked you senseless the night before.

Aside from the pacing, my main gripe in the book is the walnut dildo the two women use towards the end of the book:

“Anything?” Agatha breathed. But she was still surprised when Penelope pulled a small box from her bedside table and opened it up to reveal…well, a respectably sized dildo made from sleek walnut.

To which I say ABSOLUTELY NOT! Well oiled or not, we do not need to be sticking problematic and semi-toxic woods up our vaginas. Heat, pressure, and moisture pull extractives out of wood like you would not believe and THOSE THINGS DON’T GO IN VAGINAS! Yes yes, it’s a period piece but I beg you to ask why not maple!? Beech? Poplar? WHY WALNUT!?!?

Ahem.

If you’re a lover of a traditional romance and don’t mind a lot of ‘is she thinking this, what will people think, what do I think’ back and forth, and/or really like bees, this is your book. It’s not a strong follow up to CELESTIAL MECHANICS but it’s still worth your time. You can invest in your own beehive and try to snag a cross-dressing beekeeper by buying the book here.

Review: The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite

Genre: romance: historical

Pairings: f/f

Queer Representation: cis lesbian, cis bisexual

Warnings: none

Review

Lucy is the daughter of a renowned astronomer who has recently passed. He’d been secretly senile for a while, with Lucy doing most if not all of his calculations. The two had been in communication with numerous astronomers and others in high society and hence, when Catherine St. Day finds herself in need of a translator for an astronomic text (her late husband’s final work that he never completed, and maddeningly, in French), she writes to Lucy’s father.

Alas, Lucy’s father has recently passed, and her brother isn’t quite sure what to do with his potential spinster of a sister, who cares more for her telescope than men. Lucy decides to take fate by the stars and travels to meet Catherine, and proposes that she, Lucy, do the translation.

It’s a romance, so that’s basically the plot. Catherine eventually agrees, and Lucy begins an arduous French translation that brings her afoul of the local gentleman’s astronomy society, but also closer to Catherine. There are scientific shenanigans, men being jerks and men being awesome and men getting their just desserts, and some hot sex scenes (helloooo light role play!).

The characters are three dimensional and have believable and well-fleshed backstories. Lucky’s ex-lover is more comical than irritating, and Catherine’s memories of her dead husband are delightfully bittersweet. There’s a fun twist at the end, and enough of a plot that even non-romance readers (ahem) will be swept up in the narrative. It also has a great cover. 12/10 will keep on my shelf instead of giving away. Hell, I loved this book enough I bought my girlfriend her own copy because I didn’t want to share mine. It’s got fancy dresses and smart scientists and wealthy older women and more than one sex scene. Damned near perfection.

Skip town on your jerk of a brother and find yourself a hot, wealthy widow by buying the book here. 

 

Also, this is a fun little passage I thought I’d share, as Catherine thinks back on her dead husband, marriage, and almost getting remarried to another man:

She’d believed she could bear a widow’s loneliness more peacefully than the misery of a bad marriage. But that was like choosing whether hemlock or belladonna was the better poison. In the end, they both sapped the life from you.

With thoughts like that, Catherine, you definitely needed to try the ladies.

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.

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