Book 16: The Bohemian and the Banker by Summer Devon and Bonnie Dee

So there's this bohemian, you see, and he meets--you'll never believe this--a banker!

This is a pretty classic fish-out-of-water, two-worlds-colliding sort of romance. It's set in Paris and then London (and then Paris again) in 1901, and it's about a staid, by-the-rules banker who meets and falls in love with a bohemian performer at a gay version of Moulin Rouge. You know exactly what the attraction (and the conflict) at the center of this story will be just from the title, but I really liked the time and attention the book gave to how their feelings progressed. There was an immediate chemistry between them, but I could also see why their feelings for each other deepened into something beyond a single encounter.

That said, the book had a bit of trouble when it came to the major conflict between their two lives--in order for the two of them to live together happily, one of them had to dramatically overhaul his life. The final resolution worked for me, but it came together so easily in the end that it made the conflict leading up to that point seem needlessly overwrought. I ran into the problem that I do with a lot of gay historical romances, which is that I either wanted it to be more of a fantasy or more grounded in what it would actually take to make a relationship like theirs work. This book tries to split the difference, which is fine for a momentary diversion but means it's not a book that is likely to linger in my mind.

The other issue I had with the book is that in some of the sex scenes, the language choices felt odd to me. It can be very challenging to find the right balance between explicit anatomical descriptions and vague euphemisms or slang, and for me this book definitely did not always succeed at this.

Grade: B

Book 15: Serpentine by Cindy Pon

This book was given to me for Christmas by one of my brothers. The reason he heard about the book is because it was blurbed by Kristin Cashore, who is one of his (and my) favorite authors. I'm really glad that it was brought to his and then my attention, because I enjoyed it a lot.

Serpentine is YA fantasy/horror that takes place in a universe inspired by the Xia Dynasty. The main character is Skybright, who is a handmaiden to Zhen Ni. The two girls are very close friends, but there is also a fundamental inequality to their friendship. Skybright was left on the doorstep of Zhen Ni's family's home when she was a baby, and they took her in as a servant. The focus of the book quickly expands beyond the domestic when Skybright discovers that she is a serpent demon, an awakening that takes place just as a battle between the unborn and the monks erupts.

I loved this universe. It was so nice to read a fantasy world written by a Chinese-American author that explored Ancient China rather than the standard pseudo-European setting that's so common in fantasy. The friendship between Skybright and Zhen Ni is central to the book, as are blossoming romances for each of them. One of the main subplots of the book focuses on a romantic relationship between two women, which was a lovely surprise. Skybright's POV and character voice is very strong, and the writing is precise and has a beautiful flow.

The only drawback to this book was that I didn't realize when I started it that it was the first in a series; there will be at least two sequels, and possibly more. This made the end of this book feel incredibly abrupt and much more negative than I was expecting. The cliffhanger isn't too terrible, but it left me feeling frustrated, which is a shame since I enjoyed the rest of the narrative so much. I am definitely looking forward to reading the next book in the series, but I do wish it had been a standalone (or that I had known going into that it was the start of a series). I am not going to let that momentary disappointment affect the grade I'm assigning it, however, because I do think it lived up to its potential overall.

Grade: A

Book 14: Save the Cat! by Blake Synder

The subtitle of this book is "The Last Book On Screenwriting That You'll Ever Need." Given that I've never had any real interest in writing a screenplay, one might think I didn't need any book on screenwriting at all. But a number of friends of mine who write novels are big fans of this book, because what it's really about is how to structure the beats of a story so that your narrative builds and lands the way you want it to. And after the last novel I read lost the plot entirely in my view, it was very nice to read something which helped me identify why and how that happened.

The best part of this book, and the thing that my friends primarily recommended it for, is the author's beat sheet, which divides every screenplay up into a three act structure with set beats within each of the acts. Because the second (or middle) act also has a midpoint break by which point the narrative should have reached a certain moment within the story, I actually think of this structure as having four acts rather than three, but that's just how it breaks down mentally for me. The beat sheet and the storyboard visualization based on that beat sheet are the main methods he explores; there are a couple of other tips for creating characters and building tension that he mentions, but I found most of those to be either very basic or not particularly helpful for how I think about writing.

The style of the author's writing can be a bit grating, and in his view if a movie makes money it's automatically successful, and if it doesn't it's because the screenplay doesn't adhere to his laws. I don't actually think that how much money a movie (or a book) makes directly corresponds to how successful the story is narratively, but I do think his narrative structures are worth thinking about while writing. Not all of his tips can be applied to fiction writing, but enough of them can be that I think it was a useful book on writing for me to have read.

Grade: B

Book 13: The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater

Man, what a mess of a book.

(Spoilers under the cut.)