Dear Reader, Try a Historical Romance

With the latest season of Bridgerton premiering on May 16, I’m all-in on historical romance, including the Regency era that Julia Quinn and Shonda Rhimes brought to the screen. For historical romances that flip the script on race, gender, sexuality, or feminism in the vein of Bridgerton, check out these options, sure to be the talk of the ton!

J.J. McAvoy’s Aphrodite and the Duke is clearly inspired by the Bridgerton world. Set in an alternate Regency England where racism doesn’t exist and color doesn’t determine class, this second-chance romance features the titular Aphrodite, a Black woman clearly embodying the goddess of beauty for which she is named, jilted by the Duke years ago in her first season in society. Reunited after years apart, the two must decide if they can move through past hurt to find greater love.

Publishers Weekly describes Cat Sebastian’s Unmasked by the Marquess as “a bisexual marquess and a genderqueer con artist fall in love,” and if you need to hear anything more than that to place a hold, then we are different kind of readers! The exploration of gender and attraction is characteristic of Sebastian’s romances, and if you enjoy this one, you’ll have a whole catalog of books to continue with.

Set a bit later than the Regency era, in the 1890s, The Duke Who Didn’t by Courtney Milan offers an exciting backdrop for those who love the racially integrated ton of the Bridgerton TV series. Milan has created the town of Wedgeford, which is primarily inhabited by Chinese British folks and other descendants of Asian countries under British imperial rule. It’s a sweet mix of second chance and friends-to-lovers, as Chloe Fong is reunited with Posh Jim, her friend and crush who used to visit every year and who just so happens to be a secret Duke.

For a sweet and tender Victorian sapphic romance, look no further than Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend by Emma Alban. Beth and Gwen are both eligible on the marriage market but find more sparks with each other than any of the young bachelors they meet. And what to do with their widowed parents, who clearly have a past…will they have a future?

Also try The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics, The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen, and A Lady for a Duke.

~posted by Jane S.

Seattle Reads: Read Deeper

Whether the 2024 Seattle Reads selection of Parable of the Sower was your introduction to the work of Octavia Butler or you’re a long time fan of the author, I hope you’re enjoying diving into Butler’s world of speculative fiction. Her creative and sometimes terrifying visions of the future, centering of Black experience, dreams of anti-hierarchical structures, embracing of change, and so much more have influenced countless writers in the years since she began writing. For works that inspired or were inspired by Butler’s books, check out these titles to dive deeper.

adrienne maree brown is one of Octavia Butler’s most vocal disciples. She co-edited and contributed to Octavia’s Brood and used the Earthseed teachings from Parable to ground her theories of change and strategic organizing in Emergent Strategy. Butler’s influence is obvious, too, in brown’s first novel, Grievers, which follows a young woman, Dune, living in Detroit as a strange epidemic hits the city. Dune’s mother is one of the first victims of Syndrome H-8, which puts otherwise healthy people into unending comas. As the virus spreads throughout Detroit, mass migration out of the city begins, reminiscent of the migration Lauren Olamina and others undergo in Parable of the Sower. Publishers Weekly praised this short novel for “its deep, moving exploration of loss, family, community, gentrification, and rapidly changing urban landscapes.”

Messy Women in Fiction

At the risk of “treating complex women in literature as a ‘trope,'” I must admit there are few archetypes I love more than a messy woman. Getting to witness female characters act badly, make wild decisions, and generally buck expectations can be a liberatory reading experience. Check out some of my favorite examples of messy women in recent fiction!

The book that inspired this whole post was Jen Beagin’s Big Swiss. Greta works as a transcriptionist for a sex therapist in Hudson Valley, New York, where she lives in a dilapidated Dutch farmhouse with her friend and a swarm of bees. She develops a fascination with the voice of one of the clients of the therapist, whom she nicknames “Big Swiss.” When Greta recognizes that voice in the wild, she embarks on a series of terrible choices, all designed to get closer to the woman. Most of the other characters on this list are in their twenties, so it’s nice to see Greta, a forty-something, portrayed with such weird nuance. Impossible to put down, both grotesque and laugh-out-loud funny, Big Swiss is a refutation of the standard trauma narrative and a perfect vehicle for unethical, bizarre voyeurism.

Get Me Out of Here!

I must admit, I’m not typically a mystery reader. I’m impatient and I scare easily, which makes a genre that often features violent deaths and long solving processes difficult for me. I’ve found solace, though, in locked room mysteries, where the why and the how of the crime is often more interesting than the who. Book Riot defines locked door (also called locked room) mysteries as “a crime is committed with no possible way for a murderer to get in or out of an area, or a locked room. But the beauty of the genre is in the details, and the writer provides the reader all the clues they need to solve the case at the very beginning, layering in evidence and red herrings in expertly plotted mysteries that keep readers guessing.” If you loved Knives Out or even the classic Clue, take this as your push to pick up a locked door mystery book and get solving!

As a former Teen Services Librarian, the best way for me to start a genre is with a YA title. I’ll admit that this one is more of a “mystery where there are a lot of locked rooms” than a locked room mystery per the definition, but I’ve been obsessed with The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Barnes since it first came out and the three (and counting!) more in the series have been just as good. It’s pitched as a YA Knives Out, set in a mansion filled with more twists and puzzles than you can possibly take in on the first read. Avery Kylie Grambs is living a difficult life as a high schooler when Texas billionaire Tobias Hawthorne dies and Avery is left his massive fortune—never mind that she’s never met the man. The catch? To collect her inheritance, she must live in his mansion with his disinherited family, including four very attractive, very smart, and very competitive grandsons, for a full year. Is Avery the final piece of the eccentric man’s last puzzle? Read it and find out!

Kate Racculia’s Bellweather Rhapsody was described as “part ghost story, part mystery, part coming-of-age tale, and part love sonnet to music” by Library Journal. If that doesn’t draw you in, I don’t know what will! Minnie Graves was the witness to a murder/suicide in room 712 at the Bellweather Hotel on the couple’s doomed wedding night. 15 years later, Minnie returns to face her demons, but the disappearance of a high school music prodigy from the very same hotel room sets off a new mystery.

Take Flight with Dragon Reads

Between the Year of the Dragon, the popularity of Fourth Wing, and the release of a new book in the legendary YA series The Inheritance Cycle, I’ve got dragon books on my mind. Try one of these titles to get into the spirit, with options for all ages!

Dragon fantasy romance doesn’t always have to be serious and scary. You can tell from the title that That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon by Kimberly Lemming will be a fun ride, perfect for when you want your scaly dragon demon story to come with a good dose of banter, fluff, and spice. When spice farmer Cinnamon imbibes a little too much mead one night, she stumbles into an injured dragon demon named Fallon. Sparks fly as they embark on a quest to save their world from a monster Cin believed to be a goddess.

Also try Consort of Fire by Kit Rocha, To Shape a Dragon’s Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose, and When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill.

Teen fiction has plenty of dragon tales to offer too; check out the brand-new So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole. 17-year-old Faron was chosen to lead the fight against the dragon-riding colonizers of her country, the Langlish, successfully driving them out. But when her sister becomes permanently bonded to an enemy dragon and Faron is told the dragons—and those connected to them—must be killed, Faron must decide where her loyalties lie.

Also check out Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim, Seraphina by Rachel Hartman, and Fireborne by Rosaria Munda.

Let’s not forget dragon books for kids and families! Perhaps the most popular is the Wings of Fire series, starting with The Dragonet Prophecy, but my personal favorite is The Tea Dragon Society by K. O’Neill, the coziest graphic novel I’ve ever read. It features a blacksmith apprentice Greta who finds a lost tea dragon in the marketplace and becomes immersed in the world of dragons. Great for readers of any age!

You may also enjoy Dragons in a Bag by Zetta Elliott, City of Thieves by Alex London, and Dragons Love Tacos by Adam Rubin.

~ posted by Jane S.