Transplanting a Seattleite

I walked with M. and A. M. and I had a porch visit.

A. and R. went to the Beede center. Apparently, A. has a decent butterfly stroke. Good for her! I sure never did.

We watched the first two episodes of Ms. Marvel. It is very enjoyable. A. really likes it.

I read, okay, skimmed, K. J. Jackson’s _Oath_. Amazon tells me I bought it January 29, 2017 and I honestly have no idea why. It is available via kindleunlimited if you want to read it that way without paying any more money than your subscription.

SPOILERS

This is the third in a series and I have not read nor do I intend to read the first two. It works sort of as a standalone. There is some odd stuff going on in this book. The heroine is wandering around cleaning out people’s fortunes at the gambling table and getting caught being pawed by another woman’s husband and having sex outdoors in the ruins of a Roman bath in winter time and generally behaving somewhat implausibly. She met the hero when she was 16, and they got to know each other better after that but he went off to participate in the Peninsular campaign and came back somewhat wrecked. Meanwhile, back home, she was apparently kidnapped and, once determined to be a virgin, sold in a brothel. But she was rescued, so her virginity remained intact, but she there was that missing half of a month so she was married off to an old guy whose heir was trying to off him. She kept the old guy alive; he preserved her reputation. But when the hero returned, she was married, so he got married, too. Then the wife died in childbirth. Meanwhile, our heroine has a list of people who participated in the kidnapping virgins and selling their virginity in the brothel thing and that’s why she is behaving implausibly.

Anyway. He wants her to knock it off. The friend who has the list of people involved in the brothel is getting crazier by the day. The hero and heroine have sex, and he learns that is her first time NOT by her using her words AND she backs it up with I never want to get married again. I mean, everything about this book is just odd. Inevitably, suspicion that he, too, was involved in the brothel thing happens and the chaos winds up to 11.

No, the hero is not a bad guy. He’s a rescuer. Duh.

Anyway.

Maybe I just don’t like historicals anymore? I had pretty extensive issues with word choices and awkward dialogue. I did actually want to know what happened in this nutty plot, so the book has that going for it. If this sounds like the kind of crazy sauce that does it for you, give it a whirl. I’ve read worse. I don’t think I’ll read more of this, unless I can figure out why I thought it would be worth trying in the first place.

ETA: I apparently bought that the same day that I bought a couple Marie Harte books, and I am _reasonably_ certain that I bought one of those based on a recommendation from K. It took a while to get around to reading those, but they were okay. Not great, but probably I enjoyed them more than this book. I am starting to wonder if maybe I just really don’t like historicals any more.

I haven't been blogging the dozens of JAK/Quick/etc. books I've been (re)reading over the last few months. But this one is new, so I figured I'll mention it.

SPOILERS! RUN AWAY or Hubbard will stab stab stab you

Ursula Kern (don't you just love these names) used to be someone else, but after being the co-respondent/attempted rape victim of the husband in a high profile divorce case -- she was working as a paid companion to the wife, who was more or less setting her up for this role -- she changed her name and started a secretarial/typewriting agency for women (historical romance novel, Victorian London). Now one of her friends and employees has supposedly suicided, but left behind odd things for Ursula to find that lead her to believe it may have been murder. Ursula attempts to take a break from her own current assignment cataloging artifacts found by a gentleman-archaeologist, Slater Roxton and asks for advice from him on the way out the door. Roxton decides to help her out on the case since he cannot dissuade her from investigating despite the risk (so, basically the usual plot). Roxton's backstory has some mystery martial arts and time stuck on an island after nearly being killed as an ancient temple self-destructed around him. He has put together a tile labyrinth in his basement. His father is dead. His mother (dad's mistress) is alive, as are his father's second wife and his step-siblings. Roxton is managing the money for the heirs, so he's got a lot of attention from the press.

Unsurprisingly, Ursula's identity is uncovered by none other than Gilbert Otford, late and later again of the Flying Intelligencer, so he actually gets some on page time (his articles appear in other Quick novels set in the same time and place). Obvs, the friend _was_ murdered and there's a complex, trans-atlantic drug, blackmailing and prostitution scheme that has to be dismantled. If you read JAK/Quick, a lot of this is familiar material (right down to the unemployed theater people working as domestics in Roxton's household, just like Desdemona's theater family in a JAK novel). If this is the kind of thing you like, well, here it is. If you find this all somewhat confusing, just move along.

I went over to Smart Bitches to find some fun fiction. And I am so glad! This is the first entry in a Regency series set in Spindle Cover/Spinster Cove. In a small English coastal town, as the war with Napoleon continues in Spain, a young woman has set out to attract other girls and women who Don't Fit In, and to create a pleasant environment for them to Be Themselves. Her father is an eccentric inventor of weapons. The love interest arrives with a cousin and aide-de-camp (?) in town, with the goal to convince someone to let him go back to the war, despite significant ongoing problems from being shot in the leg.

Several things happen. Rycliff starts a militia. Dad prototypes another cannon. The women attempt to protect their Way of Life from the Men. The Men try to Have Some Fun. Antics ensue. There is a significant Medical Care of the Regency Era Was Awful theme. Oh, and they shoot on Thursdays. I did not believe the having sex in the sea scene. I've done things like this. Between the cold, the salt, and the lack of lube, yeah, no. Fortunately, Tessa Dare is not one of those authors who attempts to produce believable period dialogue. Even more fortunately, she _is_ an author who embeds consent deeply into all the sex scenes. Yay!

The tale takes a Dark Turn towards the end, but there is, obvs, an HEA and it is emotionally satisfying. I intend to read more in this series and probably other series by this author.

Subtitled a Bisexual Regency Romance. Anne Herendeen

That subtitle should prevent anyone from complaining about surprise about what they were getting into. Just in case they missed that subtitle, the opening scene is of a hungover Andrew waking up in bed next to Kit, whose name he has forgotten, and who he realizes he should never have brought home.

After my extensive post about _Coulters' Woman_ (yes, Coulter brothers sharing one woman), a friend sent me a pointer to a review she'd read of this book, thinking I might be interested.

Let me just say, Thank You. Both to the friend, and to the reviewer, and to the author, and to everyone else involved in this book existing. That was amazingly fun. The author did a certain amount of research, which was really cool, and then made some reasonable decisions about using that research (choosing to not limit herself to period slang terms for private parts, for example). The author appears to have read. A Lot. I mean, like, a whole lot. She managed to pack into this admittedly long novel nearly every possible Regency novel convention. We've got the low-class family from which virginal heroine springs, complete with dead military dad. City kids with gutteral English are welcomed into the household and taught to read. (Wait -- she missed one: no dogs! Dang! And the horses are only mentioned in passing.) Society folk who present themselves as respectable but who are sleeping around on each other. The trip to the modiste which is amazingly efficient. It includes the sophisticate helping the country girl. The slut overriding the chaste woman's taste. The new husband finding out and getting all up in an uproar. A bet at White's.

I could go on. There's even a younger brother with pockets to let because he keeps losing his allowance betting. But I'll just stop and say that every convention of regency romance makes an appearance here (except dogs. No dogs.).

Andrew (rich, will be a peer) decides to get married and reproduce, despite his definite preference for men. He elicits the help of the brotherhood of the title, which are other men who feel similarly. Not the best way to find a wife in some ways, but in others, quite reasonable. Phyllida, the bride, has published one gothic romance and has another in proof sheets. In the wake of her first sexual experiences with her new husband (his preference isn't _that_ definite), she does a little rewriting. A subplot involving a would-be spy and blackmailer introduces a substantial amount of Misunderstanding. Andrew is Dear John'ed by his three years in the military young man and meets a new beau, Matthew. Phyllida's younger sister arrives to have her Season. Phyllida gets knocked up. Antics ensue.

The triangle is a V. Unlike the star configuration of _Coulters' Woman_, Phyllida getting knocked up does not mean that no one gets laid. Very unlike _Coulters' Woman_ in that there is man-on-man action and no action involving all three at once in the titular relationship. (In fact, no three ways occur on page in the book, altho John Church does wander off with Monkton and Verney near the end.) Well, unless you count Phyllida watching Matthew and Andrew, and her lap-surfing at the wedding.

More typical romances often involve subplots in which other, established relationships are shown developing, and othe relationships develop. Similarly, the established three-way (a complete triangle, in every way, but not shown on page) between Lord and Lady Isham and Archbold; the new three-way (I think it's a three-way) between Kit, Nan and Philip. You'll notice a theme. Just as in typical romances everything is one-man/one-woman, in this atypical romance, it's all two-men/one woman, and the vertex is one of the men. Unless you count the Church/Verney/Monkton three-way, which looks like a one-night stand.

Regular readers of this page will not be surprised at my reaction to the post-pregnancy depiction of Phyllida. She chooses to nurse Sophia herself and when her sister-in-law gives her crap about it, she tosses it right back at her. And when George's portrait of her winds up being her wearing only the rubies, reclining, feeding Sophia. Heh. Gotta love that.

Given the content of this book, it's not nearly as graphic as _Coulters' Woman_. It really is mostly about the relationship developing. While there's a fair amount of sexual activity not involving the main players, that, too, is clearly in service of the plot.

RHI a regular publisher has picked this up and will be bringing it out this year. We'll see if that proves to be true.