Book 32: Queens' Play by Dorothy Dunnett

This is the second book in the Lymond Chronicles and is part of the "Read my favorite books!" exchange I'm doing with Harriet. It is very much a second book in a series, as it transitions from establishing who these characters are and why should we care about them into the longer arc of the series. And apparently if you're Dunnett and writing a book like this, that means a whole lot of SHENANIGANS. Shenanigans involving shipwrecks and men in disguise and elephants and rooftop chases and a cheetah in a hare hunt and also a nefarious plot to kill little Mary, Queen of Scots (one of the many titular queens). It is bonkers and even during the first half when the reader already knows there is a would-be royal assassin out there, in many ways the book still feels much lighter than Game of Kings. And then suddenly, at the end of part two, everything gets SUPER REAL.

Structurally and thematically the book reminded me a lot of Henry IV, with Francis Crawford as the book's Prince Hal. But while Prince Hal has a very clear role to play as the King's heir that he is consciously rejecting, the choices Francis makes are inspired by a lack of clarity. Due to the birth of his nephew, he is no longer his brother's heir, and what he does next with his life is up in the air. So he attempts to ignore and deny that he's extraordinary, and handles situations via subterfuge rather than publicly acknowledging how remarkable he is. Part of this is out of necessity, given how complicated both the French Court and the relationships between and among France, Ireland, Scotland and England are, but part of it is because Francis wants to be able to treat it all like a game. At the end of Henry IV, Prince Hal has thrown off his disguise in order to step into his position of power, but Francis has it ripped away, as he realizes (and is lovingly but forcefully told) that he needs to grow up, and take ownership of his life, and the influence he has on others. It's a gut punch, but one that is necessary for him.

I don't think Queens' Play is as good a single volume read as Game of Kings is, but the distance Francis travels over the course of the book is hugely important, and is clearly setting up the rest of the series. Plus some of the set pieces in this book are truly astonishing, and there are many moments of sheer perfection. And the ending makes me incredibly excited to see how Francis takes on the mantle he has finally picked up.

Grade: A

Book 31: The Siren and the Sword by Cecilia Tan

The setup for this book is basically a Hogwarts-esque secret university hidden within the structure of Harvard. Kyle is a mundane and has no idea when he goes for a scholarship interview at Harvard that he's actually been accepted at Veritas. Suddenly he's in a whole world he didn't know existed and stop me if you've heard this before.

The main problem I had with this book isn't that this concept has been done before (and not just by Harry Potter), it's that the entire thing is basically written in shorthand. We are told that conversations occur in which Kyle learns about various aspects of the university or the particular magical world this book inhabits, but the reader is never actually informed of those facts. As a result the worldbuilding feels painfully thin and superficial; there's plenty of detail about Harvard and Cambridge, but that's not actually what the reader needs. This superficiality extends to Kyle's relationships with other students, which is a major problem since from about the first chapter on we're told that he wants to magically bond with his girlfriend Jess, whom he starts dating immediately. The source of their attraction and interest in each other is never clearly shown.

There's some interesting stuff in here about how Kyle's magic works via poetry, and in general the variation on how people's magical power manifests is intriguing. And I imagine that part of the appeal of writing about college students is including sex magic. But the characters and relationships are weak enough that it's hard to know why I should care, even about that.

Grade: C

Book 30: The Salisbury Key by Harper Fox

I finished reading this yesterday and I still don't really know how to grapple with it.

The book starts out with Daniel Logan, a 25 year old grad student, on an archaeological field trip with his advisor, 55 year old Jason Ross, whom Daniel is in love with. Within the space of the prologue the two of them have had sex and gotten together as a couple. The first chapter is three years later to the day, on their anniversary, and Jason is behaving a bit oddly, asking Daniel to leave their home and university jobs and run off together. The following morning, Daniel finds Jason's body after Jason has committed suicide, leaving no note.

The rest of the book is a cross between a mystery and a more typical romance, except that most romances don't start with the traumatic death of the main character's partner. Daniel finds both the answer behind Jason's suicide and love again with the aid of Lt. Rayne, who helps Daniel at an excavation site that contains the key. And then things get really wacky.

This book is baffling and I have no idea how it worked, but on the other hand it kept me reading and invested all the way until the end. The answers and resolutions and plot twists are totally absurd, and it's another book in which the two main characters are so isolated in their lives it defies belief, but I still really enjoyed reading it. I don't know if I'd call it a good book, but I also couldn't stop reading it. I don't know. It's a mystery.

Grade: B

Book 29: Scrap Metal by Harper Fox

This book is basically everything I could have wanted from a contemporary m/m romance about a lonely Scottish sheep farmer recovering from loss and finding love again in the form of a mysterious late night trespasser.

Years after Nichol Seacliff escaped his family's sheep farm on the Isle of Arran for university and a career as a translator, he returns to help his grandfather run the farm after the death of his mother and brother in a bus crash. Still numb from grief, it takes a young man breaking into the barn one night to breathe some life back into him. Cameron stays on the farm to help Nichol and his grandfather through the lambing season, but he has secrets in his own past, of course.

This is the second book by this author I've read, and I find her style to be so incredibly readable. This story does basically exactly what you would think a book with this premise would do, but there's a depth to her writing that doesn't always go along with these stories. I can get frustrated with romance novels that focus on two people who seem to exist totally independent of any other real people in their lives except for each other, but in this case it works exactly the way I want it to. It's  not revolutionary, and some of the plot twists and revelations go pretty hard on the melodrama, but it delivers just the way a book like this should. I mean it's gay sheep farmers finding love. I am in.

Grade: A 

Book 28: Briar Rose by Jane Yolen

I've owned this book for so long I have no memory of when I bought this. When I finally read it this week, I was amazed that I hadn't read it when it came out in 1992, because I was both the right age for it and exactly the sort of 12-year-old who would have read it. But I know I didn't, because this story would have stayed with me if I had.

Briar Rose is a retelling of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale through the horrors of the Holocaust and the hope, however faint, found through survival. The main character is Becca, whose beloved grandmother dies and leaves behind the mystery of her past for her granddaughter to solve.

The writing and pacing and overall structure of this book is masterful. There is not a word or a moment out of place, the entire story rolling out with the sort of inevitability that reflects its meticulous crafting. The ending is beautiful and contains just the right amount of joy before the Author's Note smashes your heart in a way I can't recall any Author's Note ever having done before. It is a beautiful, haunting book. One I will not forget.

Grade: A

Book 27: Almost Like Being in Love by Steve Kluger

This is a gay novel that basically felt like it was written for me. It's a story about two guys who fall in love at their East Coast boarding school in 1978 and then have one perfect summer together in New York City before they go to colleges on opposite coasts and lose track of each other. Fast forward to 1998 and Travis, the West Coast neurotic history professor, suddenly realizes that he's been searching fruitlessly for another Craig his entire adult life, and maybe it's time to go find him. But can he find Brigadoon again?

The novel is an epistolary for the late twentieth century, which means journal entries and class notes and school assignments in 1978 and then law firm memos and emails and formal letters in 1998. It's also full of baseball and musical theater and even Alexander Hamilton references and plot lines, which also made me feel like there was a secret code running through the book that only I (and people like me) could decipher. That feeling went beyond the topical references, though. It's also a book that feels incredibly grounded in American gay culture over those twenty years, and there's a richness and authenticity to it that is often lacking in a lot of the m/m romance novels I read. I'm not even sure I would characterize it as a romance novel, even though it has the required happily ever after (although not in exactly the way I was expecting). It's about finding your first love again, but it's also about being some of the survivors of the AIDS epidemic, and living with that, and figuring out what matters most in your life after that.

My only real criticism of the book is that Craig ends up feeling a bit more fleshed out and real than Travis does, and there are a few moments when the conceit behind the format of the novel almost breaks. But on the whole I loved finding Brigadoon again with both of them.

Grade: B

Book 26: Nothing Like Paris by Amy Jo Cousins

This is the second book in the series that begins with Off Campus, and as with that book, I liked the idea of this story more than the execution of it. It’s the story of a college kid named Jack who has to return to his small hometown in disgrace after his college experience doesn’t go quite as he expected it to. Once home again, he has to confront the high school boyfriend who he left behind three years earlier.

This story felt like it either needed to be significantly shorter and less complicated, or a legitimate slow burn as they rediscovered who they were and fell in love again while finally dealing with their respective family problems that had been impossible during high school. Instead, the fights they had didn’t quite seem to match up with their history, and as a result the resolution also feels a bit flat. 

I did really like Jack's high school boyfriend Miguel, and the depiction of his family. But on the whole this was the sort of book that I ended up rewriting it in my head as I read it in order to make it land emotionally the way I wanted it to. So much potential, but not quite a winner for me. 

Grade: C