Recent reading + some RL stuff
Aug. 1st, 2021 10:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luzulaAww, how lovely to see new people being interested in Broster's books! ♥
A Seditious Affair by K J Charles (2015)
I haven't read much of modern romance authors, but this was excellent! I'd read the first in this series before and thought it was okay, but it didn't really leave me wanting more. But a rec fromgaronne convinced me to give the author another try. This is historical m/m romance set in Britain in 1819, with a sort-of enemies to lovers set-up--the characters have been meeting anonymously for kinky sex and don't actually know the other's identity as a seditious democratic agitator, respectively an official at the Home Office who works to suppress that sort of thing. Until they find out. I know, that sounds a bit contrived, and I suppose it is, but it's very well written! I think it's hard to succeed in opening an original story with a sex scene, without first making me care about the characters and their connection, but here it works very well to set up their situation. And the story gives great conflicting loyalties and a plot to go with it, which I love.
I do have one quibble. Well, two. The first is that I found one of the sex scenes a bit undernegotiated. The second is that what we see of Silas' community of agitators is a group of people who end up doing a pretty foolish (if historically accurate) thing, which Silas doesn't agree with. Why doesn't Silas also associate with other more sensible dissidents like himself? I suppose one could counter that we don't see Dominic's more sensible co-workers, either, but just the bloodhound who is on Silas' trail. I guess these things are to make it easier for them both to be separated from their respective environments...even if I do feel that Silas is separated more from his. But these are quibbles! I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
In other news, this week I spent three days in the midst of a family quarrel, wishing the two parties involved (my mom and my brother-in-law) would just behave like sensible adults. /o\ They finally did talk before my sister's family left, but I'm not convinced it solved the problem. There was an apology given and accepted, but from my perspective the, uh, rhetorically more skilled person took charge of the conversation too much and said some hurtful things which will probably fester. And then I've had to be understanding and help my mom talk through this--it's exhausting emotional labor. /o\
It's ironic that in fiction I can really enjoy interpersonal tension. But that's fiction--please keep it out of my RL!
A Seditious Affair by K J Charles (2015)
I haven't read much of modern romance authors, but this was excellent! I'd read the first in this series before and thought it was okay, but it didn't really leave me wanting more. But a rec from
garonne convinced me to give the author another try. This is historical m/m romance set in Britain in 1819, with a sort-of enemies to lovers set-up--the characters have been meeting anonymously for kinky sex and don't actually know the other's identity as a seditious democratic agitator, respectively an official at the Home Office who works to suppress that sort of thing. Until they find out. I know, that sounds a bit contrived, and I suppose it is, but it's very well written! I think it's hard to succeed in opening an original story with a sex scene, without first making me care about the characters and their connection, but here it works very well to set up their situation. And the story gives great conflicting loyalties and a plot to go with it, which I love. I do have one quibble. Well, two. The first is that I found one of the sex scenes a bit undernegotiated. The second is that what we see of Silas' community of agitators is a group of people who end up doing a pretty foolish (if historically accurate) thing, which Silas doesn't agree with. Why doesn't Silas also associate with other more sensible dissidents like himself? I suppose one could counter that we don't see Dominic's more sensible co-workers, either, but just the bloodhound who is on Silas' trail. I guess these things are to make it easier for them both to be separated from their respective environments...even if I do feel that Silas is separated more from his. But these are quibbles! I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
In other news, this week I spent three days in the midst of a family quarrel, wishing the two parties involved (my mom and my brother-in-law) would just behave like sensible adults. /o\ They finally did talk before my sister's family left, but I'm not convinced it solved the problem. There was an apology given and accepted, but from my perspective the, uh, rhetorically more skilled person took charge of the conversation too much and said some hurtful things which will probably fester. And then I've had to be understanding and help my mom talk through this--it's exhausting emotional labor. /o\
It's ironic that in fiction I can really enjoy interpersonal tension. But that's fiction--please keep it out of my RL!
