2x romance

[psocoptera]

The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics, Olivia Waite. Widely recced and justifiably so, this was truly lovely (and hot). Science and art and being part of a larger world of women and I loved the progression of their relationship. The science is not as good as the science in Countess Conspiracy but it had some good moments.

The Ruin of a Rake, Cat Sebastian. Interestingly enough, another lady scientist, this time in a secondary het couple, although she didn't get to science very much. Maybe suffered from reading it back to back with the previous - I didn't love either dude the way I loved both ladies in Lady's Guide, and their relationship seemed to jump really fast from getting to know each other into love - but still a very enjoyable historical.

(I was intrigued that Ruin didn't do the work-partnership queer historical HEA thing, which got me thinking again about other possible patterns for queer historicals. I'd be fascinated if anyone has any recs that center around co-parenting as the final partnership - I've read some bad baby-centric het, but the occasional one I like (I used to read a lot of LaVyrle Spencer back in the day, ahem), and while I'd guess the queer-romance market has less enthusiasm for parenting plots than the het market, less doesn't necessarily mean zero, and heck knows plenty of real-life queer parents exist.)

Comments

[psocoptera]

Ok, apparently Cat Sebastian herself has in fact written a co-parenting m/m historical, so hey.

[katherine]

I'm just going to sidle in to ask if you have a recommendation for LaVyrle Spencer books with babies or kids in. I enjoyed The Fulfillment and The Gamble but if there are more of hers...

[psocoptera]

Oh, man. I was mostly reading these back in the mid-90s, so my memory is fuzzy (and I have no idea how anything would stand up if I read it now...). But, let's see, Morning Glory is about a widow with kids and a guy who's gotten out of prison, WWII era, and I think it was pretty good. November of the Heart is a rich girl-poor boy scenario with an accidental pregnancy and a long, sad forced separation from her baby, until they eventually all reunite, but I remember it being hard to read even back then before I had kids. But good. Early 1900s I think? Uh, Bitter Sweet is very much about babies and kids, but as I recall was gross about women who *don't* want kids (there's a plot with a secret abortion... gosh this sounds like a soap opera, it's a contemporary where a widow has an affair with her married childhood sweetheart, whose wife doesn't want kids but he does... and I think the widow has teenagers already who aren't real thrilled about any of this...). And I don't remember much about how the kid figures into Twice Loved - whaling era, a pregnant woman's husband is lost at sea, she marries his best friend, dude turns back up later, angst ensues. Honestly most of what I remember about that one was that sex was hot. (Hot for "I wouldn't discover fanfic for another couple of years" values of hot at least... no idea how it would read now...)

[katherine]

Thanks so much!

Twice Loved is the one I have sitting unread, so I may move that up the list, and there will be library holds on at least one other from your descriptions!