Reading Record 32

     So, this morning I finished reading The Wings Upon Her Back by Samantha Mills, the next book for book club.

    I kind of have no words, really.  This is very much not the kind of thing I normally read, and I don't even know what I think.

    Also, I sprained my wrist the day before yesterday, and it turns out to be really, really hard to type wearing this immobilizing brace that I need to keep from making it worse before it can heal.  (I'm on the internet computer today because I thought I had the new version of book two of the Atalanta and Ariadne books ready to go up, only to realize that nope I had missed something!  So now I have to go back and fix it again and it is driving me nuts and also this brace is a wee bit painful...😭)

    Anyway, yeah.  Typing hard.  Stopping.

Original language:  English

Reading Record 31

 I chose this book off my shelf next--wait, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Just finished reading A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians by H. G. Parry.  And, um, wow.

Okay, so now, back where I started:  I picked this particular book to read next for two reasons.  First, it was long, so I thought it would get me all the way to Saturday, when I planned to start reading the next book club book, since the meeting is the following Saturday.  (It's, what, Wednesday?  😅)  And the second reason is that it, too, is a work of historical fiction...although as the title makes clear, it's a (slightly) different time period, and it's also a work of fantasy.

As the title makes obvious (if you've studied your history), it takes place during the French Revolution.  Or rather, in-and-before said revolution.  What's sort of surprising to me is that rather than the approach many authors would take--inventing purely fictional characters who witness or take part in the historic events--the characters are almost all historical people.  Like, the characters we follow the most are William Pitt the Younger (Prime Minister of Britain for most of the book) and Robespierre!  There is one major POV character, Fina, who I think is probably fictional...but the other major characters she interacts with after she reaches Saint-Domingue are decidedly historical people.  I'm not going to research whether or not Fina is based on a real person until I've read the next book in the series (which has been on my to-read shelf longer than this one, since I didn't notice the "Book Two" bit on the cover until I was sitting down to start reading it 😅) or possibly more books if there are more than two in the series.

Anyway, the particularly remarkable thing to me is how closely it follows the history of what really happened, while simultaneously weaving in a new (or maybe "an additional" would be a better way to put it) about the oppressions that common-born mages suffered from throughout Europe, the threats of magic in warfare, and the even worse crimes magic let plantation owners commit.  Thankfully, the book does not go heavily into describing the bloody deaths and the battles; they're certainly present (particularly the former), but not in gruesome detail...just in horrifying "this really happened" levels of detail.  (Uh, aside from the dark magic parts, anyway.)

Honestly, I'm super-bummed that I can't just dive right on into book two, but I worry that if I do I won't be able to finish the book club book on time.  😭

Original language:  English

Reading Record 30

 (Ugh.  Typing on my phone is a nightmare due to my big fat fingers:  first attempt at that post title said "Reafong Tecord 40".  😭)  Not sure if 30 seems like a big number or a really small one in this context...

Anyway, the book I just finished was A Nobleman's Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel by KJ Charles.  And like the previous of her books I read, the title itself, while a good title, doesn't entirely seem to fit the book.  Which is sorta...I dunno, as someone who can't title her works 9 times out of 10, I suppose I have no right to comment on the titles of others.  (Though at least a lot of what I write are fanfics, and can thus be titled with song lyrics if I want.)

As to the book itself, turned out it was a sequel of sorts to a book I haven't read, but a "thirteen years later and centering on a different couple, one of whom was a minor (in both senses of the word, lol) character in the first book" kind of way, so...🤷🏻‍♀️  I should probably order the first book online sometime (since I cannot figure where, in store, these books would be located, as they weren't in regular fiction, and I even held my breath and checked the romance section, but they weren't there, either) but who knows if I actually will.

Like the last one I read by this author, it did feel a bit like a "guilty pleasure" kind of read, but I'm not sure why that is.  I mean, yes, a gay romance by a(n apparently straight) female author is a bit sketchy, but I don't have that same feeling when I read danmei, much of which is also written by women (though at least one of the danmei authors I read is male, and several have gender-neutral pronouns in the "about the author" blurbs from the publisher, so I have no idea about them) so it's something of a curious feeling.  I don't recall feeling that way about the Magpie series, so maybe it's the lack of a fantastic over-narrative that's got me uncomfortable?  Like, these two have been much more focused on the romance than most of the danmei novels, so...?  I don't know. It's an odd reaction on my part, ultimately.

But getting back to the book itself!  It seemed very well-researched on both the location (Romney Marsh in Kent) and the era (1823), even down to various regional and period terms, without being bogged down by an excess of them.  And it was a delight to read, like all the author's other books I've read.  Which is, ultimately, the most important part, right?

Original language:  English

Reading Record 29

     So, I have to start this post with a statement of the most extreme stupidity.  I finished reading this book about midday on Tuesday, but my brain immediately said "ah, rats, I'll have to wait and post tomorrow morning, because otherwise it'll muddle up the IWSG post."  Because for some reason I thought it was Wednesday.  And then the next morning, as I was getting up, I thought about the post I had put off and realized "oh no, today is Wednesday!"  Meaning that I could have posted straight away, and because I had waited I had to wait another full day.

    Because I am a total freaking moron, apparently.  :<

    Anyway.

    What is not stupid is the book I finished reading on Tuesday.  The book in question is The Once and Future Sex:  Going Medieval on Women's Roles in Society by Eleanor Janega.  It caught my eye when I was passing by the History section in the bookstore, and I picked it up especially because I'm thinking of writing a game for the Queer Medieval Jam on itch.io that runs from September 1st to December 1st.  (Assuming I can ever finish my current project of getting the revamped text of The Golden God of Aiolia released.  Which is constantly becoming a longer and longer process because every time I look at the text I find more problems I missed the previous times...)

    Uh.  But setting my own stuff aside and getting back to the book I read.

    This book is an intensive study into the actual facts of how women lived in the Middle Ages, setting aside the myths that have been repeated so often in virtually everything.

    Probably the part that comes across most strongly is the fact that women have always worked.  Not just domestically (a particularly hard work that cannot be denied in pretty much any era), but also out of the house.  It's just that people of the Middle Ages didn't talk much about women working.  Partially because they didn't entirely think of women as being people, and partially because they didn't think anything of it, because things had always been that way.

    Anyway.  Incredible book (although some of it was naturally infuriating, because Medieval 'philosophy' was horrifically misogynistic), one which everyone should read.

    Original language:  English

IWSG - um title goes here?

 

    Pre-writing this one so last month's problem won't recur!

    Anyway...

    September 2 question - Do you have a favorite character archetype you tend to gravitate toward in your writing?

    Hmm.

    Not sure if I'd say there's any archetype, as such.  I do tend towards characters that are either filled with doubt in themselves or who are convinced they are absolutely always right about everything...or who vacillate between those two positions.

    I fear that's less an archetype and more just a reflection of myself.  😰

    I've noticed I also have trouble writing people who are unapologetic.  (Like to the extent that in my extensive amount of MDZS fanfic, I frequently find myself writing the hero, Wei Wuxian, as apologizing for things, even though it's a literal plot point in the original novel that he never apologizes for anything (until a certain time when the problem with his behavior is hammered into his skull, but even after that he almost never apologizes).  As long as I notice before I post a fic, I can always change it to get rid of the inappropriate apologies, but...ugh, it's a problem.)

    Atalanta, the heroine of my Greek mythology novels, apologizes a lot, and also has huge doubts in herself.  Well, no, actually it's more like she has a negative character arc over the series:  she goes from being all "ha ha, I'm the daughter of Achilles, and I'm gonna kick your butt!" to "I'm just a worthless runaway slave, how could I dare think of myself as the daughter of a demigod?" despite that by the end she's been acknowledged as Achilles' daughter by her grandmother and an assortment of Olympian gods, and she's battled defeated various supernatural forces, some of them divine-adjacent.  (She also fights against an actual Babylonian god in book four, but she's not the one who defeats him, so...)

    Tch.  As usual, I find I have nothing much to say.

    Oh well.

    Anyway, I got the email about posting links to any books we have on sale, but I make it a point not to sell my writing because my writing is not worth anyone else's money, so there's nothing I can do about that.  I'll try to remember next week (ie the day this post goes up) to buy the books of some of the other people in the group, though!