JajaLala

What can I say, I'm loving romance recently!


D'Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding by Chencia C. Higgins
( Cute, wish it was messier! )


Once a Soldier by Mary Jo Putney
( Main woman is a goddess, fun worldbuilding, intensely heterosexual )



The Romance Recipe by Ruby Barrett
( Sounds like a bad work environment! And don't call her 'the fire sign' during sex! )



The Duchess Deal by Tessa Dare
( Rollicking good time )

Upon reflection, I see that even though the heterosexuality of the classic M/F romances turns me off a bit, I find the composition and executions of them still so good that I always have a good time. Meanwhile the F/F romances sometimes hit, but when they don't they slog with low-stakes, odd writing quirks, and tension-reducing therapy speak. Not saying this as universal of course, but definitely noting it with this set of romance books, and I feel like it's a larger pattern I've been noting as I get back into reading and have been paging through various romances.

( Potential reasons )

So I've been slowly plucking away at the classic Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë for awhile, and awhile back I finished it! Overall I really enjoyed it, loved the evocative and moody writing style, how twisty it was and how easy it was to get invested in Jane, I definitely see why it has endured as a classic, though there were a handful of little pieces that I was like "HMM this has not aged well or shows a certain unpleasant bias!"

( Details on Jane Eyre )

Soon after finishing it, I picked up Escaping Mr. Rochester by L. L. McKinney, an adaptation published in 2024! And had a fun time. It was a sapphic reimagining that focused on a certain section and addressed the biggest issue I had with the original.


( The details )

So yes: Jane Eyre is brilliant (newsflash!), but there's certainly room for adaptations to try new things with it. Escaping Mr. Rochester is on the simpler side, but it's doing something that makes me and probably many other people happy to see in a way that's accessible to many readers.

Back when I went to Readercon, there was a particular author on a panel about sex scenes, and I wrote down the book they mentioned writing which involved sex as an integral part of the plot, and now probably a full year later or so I have finally read the book: Docile by K.M. Szpara.



( My initial impression )

( Kinky reflections )

ANYWAY I read it, was like "I liked it overall!" then I went to goodreads/thestorygraph, wrote my own review, and then read others on the site. I like to write my own review BEFORE reading others (tho I usually will wait to post the review until I read others) so that my review isn't too affected by what others said. Usually I don't get too much new from the reviews, but in this case... HOO BOY

( Review that made me reflect: Oh! This is slavefic! )

Anyways, since then I've read several romance novels that I think I'll bundle into one post at some point. Much lighter reading!

I found a fun lil sci-fi book while trawling Libby called The Salvation Gambit, by Emily Skrutskie. It hit some good notes for me.



( summary+details )

( I LOVE ROBOT/ANDROID/AI CHARACTERS )

Anyways, back to the book overall. I'll say this: I've never watched Ocean's 8, but I have a feeling people who liked that and are interested in a lil sci-fi would have a great time with this. It also is entirely self-contained, just one book that's not super long, so if you like sci-fi but are tired of multi-book epics then this might refresh you.

On paper, I wanted to love Mortal Follies by Alexis Hall. A F/F regency romance with curses and fairies and magic, oh my! It sounded like it could be epic, or romantic, or scandalous... but mostly it was just silly.


( Concise complaints )

I still overall enjoyed the book, mostly for the fun writing style and silliness, but like... I can't lie and say it was a GREAT book, which sucks because I'd like to lift up F/F romances etc, but... I can't ignore/pretend I loved something where the romance was mediocre. It felt like it was trying to be several things, comedy, romance, but also OCCASIONALLY serious, and so it was hard to pin it into any straightforward expectation and I ended up disappointed on all counts (except maybe comedy).

I feel somewhat similarly to when I try searching up F/F fics on AO3, and so much of what I find is somehow missing that SPARK that makes me excited and invested and giggly the way so many M/M fics do. Like I'll see a fic that has all the things I want on the tin, but then when I go to read it I'm disappointed.

Oftentimes it's a certain toothlessness... a lack of willingness to grapple with true tension, to push the women to the same extremes men are pushed. In Mortal Follies, there were scenes where I couldn't help but be like "Oh she's SUPPOSED to be a rake, but all she does is SAY she's fucked a lot of women before, and once or twice she says scandalous things to the main character, but she's mostly perfectly respectful." I never felt my heart pound or felt like the main character was really chasing after someone DANGEROUS... The love interest never really lost control or really hurt the main character in any significant way, she was just... a sexy woman with a bad reputation. Which writing it out like that, it sounds like it should be hot! But aside from a fun BDSM sex scene, it was really just people SAYING she was dangerous without any meat to it.

It's hard to articulate what's missing, but it seems like F/F is more averse to risks/excitement. It's not always literal risks--I've read M/M fics about accidentally sending a nude to the wrong person that feel like higher and more exciting stakes than this F/F couple literally fighting curses that are intended to kill them. It's about the WAY it's written that the tension is provided, that the internality of the characters is given depth and the reader is given something to connect with in a real, authentic way.

I'm trying to parse if this is truly an issue where so many people are writing F/F in toothless ways, or if it's just/also me having higher expectations for them? Am I holding F/F to higher standards than M/M or M/F? Is there any F/F that could satisfy me? Well to that, I will say The Locked Tomb series absolutely blows it out of the water in terms of the F/F romance department, even though it's not really a romance series, the way the women are written and the depths/angst/drama they all get makes it finally fill that niche in my heart that tortured male characters easily waltz into. So I know it's possible to read a story where I am absolutely entranced by the women... So is it truly that most the F/F I've read is just "failing" in the way I want it to be?

To be fair, I've only gotten back into reading original books somewhat recently, so it may be a matter of not being well-rounded yet, and having my perceptions warped by my disappointment with F/F fics in male-centric fandoms. Still, I worry that in the romantic comedy department, I get more fraught and judgey of F/F than M/M or M/F. Like did I accept the toothlessness of the Love, Theoretically couple more blindly than Mortal Follies because I have more investment/expectations/standards in my F/F romance? Romantic comedies ARE meant to be somewhat lighthearted, but I will say the overall TENSION of Love, Theoretically felt much tighter and exciting (at least in the first half) than Mortal Follies, and I can't pretend I didn't feel that difference. I don't know. I don't know if there's a perfect way to parse out what the "truth" is when it comes to somewhat subjective opinions.

All of this makes me want to start writing my lesbian regency story... similar to when I read fic like "None of this is doing things the way I want to read! I gotta start a fic..." Until I find a regency F/F romance that satisfies my tastes, I may have to resort to making it myself.

Read Dykette by Jenny Fran Davis. My littlest sibling told me they were reading it, and since I want to connect with them more I decided to pick it up. The story surrounds six women (three more or less F/F partnerships) who have a 10 day trip together at the oldest couple's cabin. Most of the story is about the sometimes strange shenanigans they get up to while there, but it's interspersed with flashbacks and rife with interpersonal conflicts and personal issues. By the end of the book, the word that came to my mind was visceral


( More details )

The ending was very open/unfinished. Perhaps the intention was to emphasize how issues and bad relationships don't resolve neatly in the span of a book, but I ended up just feeling disappointed that there was no resolution. There was also not really a particularly clear central message. At the end it felt like I had just watched a weird tableau of scenes, and each scene might have had relatable/interesting/poignant messages, but they didn't add up to anything grand. There's some frequent themes about butches/femmes, toxic relationship dynamics, performance, and perhaps some pointed notes on the strange dynamic between the older/younger lesbians, but I didn't leave the book feeling particularly like there was an intended point beyond "Damn, these people are fucked up."

I am glad I read the book, just in that it gave me food for thought, and because I got to talk to my littlest sibling afterwards like "UH WHAT WAS *THAT* SCENE???" Still, it definitely wasn't a pleasant read, it was visceral and uncomfortable. Not a good book to relax to, but if you enjoy drama, messiness, and people going way over the line, it might be worth checking this out.

After that I really want something light-hearted. I started Jane Eyre, and will probably pick at it over time, but to lighten my mood I just searched up available romances on Libby and selected the first somewhat intriguing one: The Gentleman's Gambit by Evie Dunmore. I've only just started, but have been having fun so far. Many smouldering glances. I hope the mood/tone will stay light, as I need a break from the heavy and disturbing. If anyone has some tension-filled but low-stakes romance recs (esp F/F), feel free to share. I'd like to have a couple on the backburner. I think intense/depressing/shocking books have value and can be compelling and make me think (I mean look at how much I wrote and thought about Dykette!) but I would like to have like, a chill book to detox after the more intense ones.

Finished The Bear and the Nightingale, book one of the Winternight Trilogy by Katherine Alden! Overall cool and atmospheric, with nice complex characters and worldbuilding.


( More detailed thoughts )

That was just the first book, which kind of felt like a really long prologue introducing the main character's whole childhood and growing up and how she learns of her own abilities/power and gets a super cool horse. It ends with her saying she plans to leave the town and explore the world, so I'm curious to see if the second/third book will be faster paced since now a ton of stuff has been setup and established. I think I'll read the second and third at some point, but it was somewhat heavy so I think I'll read some other books in between.

So next up on the list are some recs y'all on DreamWidth passed along. I just downloaded Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik, have not started it yet though. After that I may take a peek at Jane Eyre, though depending on how heavy Spinning Silver ends up being I might stuff a random fluffy romantic comedy in there to lighten things up.

Awhile back I finally downloaded Libby (the library app) and, impatient, ended up checking out the first book I thought of that was in the public domain--Pride & Prejudice, by Jane Austen. I like to have physical books, but I think I've hacked my brain into liking ebooks... specifically, I deleted the TikTok app, which I used to watch basically any time I was bored and would unfortunately sometimes get sucked into. After deleting it, I put the Libby app in the location where TikTok used to be, so now when my body automatically goes like "uhghh i'm bored I wanna watch a bunch of low-commitment videos--" I discover Libby there instead and end up reading. I would say it's increased my e-reading quite a bit XD.

( Thoughts on the stories )

Anyways they are supremely satisfying, but now I'm kind of thinking like... "oooh wouldn't a lesbian regency romance novel be hot??" especially with either some sort of butch noble or a cross-dressing woman, idk... If anyone happens to know something along those lines, I'd be intrigued. Unfortunately my specific tastes are so strong that I've already made a little document outlining a potential Femme Scheming Duke's Daughter (sadist/dom) X Scandalous Butch Marquis's Daughter (masochist/sub) kind of story... but I know so little about regency era politics that I think I may not be the best person to write it XD.

( I also read a quick novella )

Despite my love for the Austen novels, I'm taking a little break so that I don't start talking like I'm from the 1800's. When my older sister told me about the Libby app, she specifically recommended I read Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood. I've been wary of Ali Hazelwood since I saw the very visibly Reylo cover of The Love Hypothesis (the last time I tried repackaged AU fanfic that I'm aware of was 50 Shades of Grey which... yeah I wasn't a fan), but since my sister recommended it and it happened to be available when I checked just now, I'm going to give it a chance. Although I've always loved romance-focused fics, I feel like I haven't given original romance novels a big chance, so I'm excited to dive in.

What a treat to have short books to read! The last two books I've read (including this one) have been in the range of ~200 pages, which is kind of refreshing bc it means I can fly through them. So I started Sex Bunker Apocalypse sometime this weekend, I finished reading it just last night, because what a ride!


( The detailed review )

So anyways this was a gem. I feel like sometimes I read a story and can kind of see the strings and tropes and intentions of the author, or I can see the narrow genre track it's trying to fit into, and it ends up boring me. Or sometimes I read a story and feel like I can predict every plot beat, not in a satisfying way but in a "well if there's this cue/trope then the character is supposed to do X in response or whatever, I guess that's what's going to happen because That's The Way It Is" instead of "That's the way that makes sense!" or "That's the way that's most fun!" Like when they introduce a love interest guy and there's not anything actually that hot or interesting about him but the main character just starts waxing poetic about his eyes and hair apropos of nothing and the reader is supposed to be like "Okay I guess that's the love interest so I'm supposed to cheer for him" instead of like, introducing an interesting character that meshes well and makes the reader think "Oh that guy's hot, I want to cheer for him to be the love interest!" AKA some stories I've read have given me a very toothless impression, where they are kind of just filling in the numbers and are afraid to do anything weird or challenging, they just try to replicate or prescribe what makes a story "good" without committing to any uniqueness of the story itself.

In contrast, this story felt like someone just being like "You know what would be really fun?" and running with it, creating an engaging read that embraces what makes it unique without trying to dampen any of it for palatibility. Ultimately I think the audience may be niche, I don't think everyone likes a story where genitals end up mentioned every other chapter but I AM THAT NICHE AUDIENCE THAT LOVES HEART, ACTION, AND RAUNCHINESS ALL MIXED TOGETHER so it hit the spot.

If you're interested, it turns out if you have kindle unlimited it's free on amazon! Otherwise, the ebook is $3 and the paperback is only $10.

TL;DR: I just had fun reading it!!!

( Where am I gonna get the next books? )

( What's next? )