Once again, late to post - this time it’s because I was on a writing roll and didn’t want to disrupt that. Going with the flow: it’s a thing. Highlights indicate links - go check out these authors, and buy direct if you can!
1. [re-read] ‘The Road to Montepulciano’ by Garrick Jones, 1950-set MM+ suspenser starring an Australian ex-soldier who buys a decrepit Italian villa and is instantly plunged into intrigue. There’s mayhem, plus *a lot* of sex, and some period-credible cringey anti-German and anti-Japanese language.
2. ‘The Road to Pienza’ by Garrick Jones, 1960-set MM+ with the same main character, even more sex, even more mayhem, and – alas, because I respect this author – not much fun.
3. [re-read] my slow-burn MMMF novella ‘Falling,’ the one about a movie star recovering from a helicopter crash and the people he loves.
4. ‘Wedding Manner’ by C.G. Macington, which winds up his St. Jude Medical trilogy and is all about the lead-up and execution of the wedding of the MCs from book 1. MCs of book 2 are very present, the rich mother is a monster, the rich father comes out and runs off with a much-younger Mexican billionaire, and there is some nice bonding between the brothers & others. Not recommended as a standalone, but if you read the other two, you’d probably find this farce pretty amusing; I did.
5. ‘Grounding the Baker’ by Oliver Takely. Small-town English MM. MC1 is a landscape designer/installer who’s moved back to small town with his young daughter following death of his wife. MC2 is a 12-yrs-younger finance bro who’s back home from London, temporarily everyone thinks, to run his recently-deceased mother’s beloved bakery while his father is incapacitated by grief. All conflicts are right there in the setup. An inoffensive book with a cumbersome 10-yrs-later epilogue in which we get an explication of everyone in the friend group’s happy endings.
6. ‘Demon Overlord’s Retirement Plan’ by M. H. Foster. Alt-hist hopepunk fantasy, “A Gentle Apocalypse Book 1,” and the book does end with “and then THIS happens’ so it’s not exactly a conclusion. Not exactly a cliffhanger, either. The MC Demon is a great character, the village he ends up in is another great character, and the changes he precipitates for certain reasons end up having completely unforeseen effects. Through vegetable-based resistance and transmutation of demonic magic by pure intent, villains are foiled. Enjoyed this.
7. [re-read] my Edwardian queer poly 3-in-1, ‘Sextette.’
8. ‘Blackmailer’s Delight’ by David Lawrence. 1795-set MM feat. the presumptive heir to a village’s richest man and the second son of the village’s most successful merchant. This near-farce, extremely true to late Georgian style but in a very readable way, hinges on confusion about two letters. One is written by the merchant’s son on behalf of his father, who wants to pair one of his daughters with the heir; the other is written by the heir’s previous lover, son of a lord & lady who are on the scene trying to help (in terrible though funny & ultimately fruitless ways) their son get his male lover back.
Succeeded in making me care, right from the off, by opening with the MC heir leaving his unfaithful lover, having a crisis at his valet, and then opening the letter telling him his much-loved uncle is desperately ill. The younger MC is then introduced being completely misunderstood by his upwardly-mobile family and trying to cope, without support of any kind, with his recent realization of his nature.
Resolution of the love story hinges on marriage between the heir and the daughter, who is in love with the rich man’s niece/cousin/something, who has come to assist as a caretaker and is invited to stay by the heir, who now also gets to stay forever and be the beloved of the son. Complicated? Yes. A lot of shenanigans, miscommunications, outright lies, and nefarious scheming, but in the end most people mean mostly well and the solution gets everybody (including the ex-lover) almost everything they want/need in a period-appropriate way. This was a five-star read for me.
Interestingly, I bounced hard off Lawrence’s book “Hugh: A Hero without a Novel,” which both KJ Charles and Alexis Hall raved about. I have his other Georgian novel “Blue Billy’s Rogue Lexicon” which they also liked, and I acquired mostly to support an author working in this uncommon time setting, but don’t remember reading. Someday I’ll return to both and see how they work with my brain in its current state.