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Fiction The Highwayman

Daring and Decorum Has a Publisher

Photo of pens and contract with Supposed Crimes

I’m so pleased to announce that Daring and Decorum will be published later this year by Supposed Crimes, a small publisher focusing on LGBTQ genre fiction. Among their stable of writers is Geonn Cannon, the award-winning author of the Riley Parra series and more.

I haven’t made a big deal about the central relationship in Daring and Decorum, mainly to avoid ruining the potential surprise for readers when the novel is finally available (that’s a crappy marketing plan, I know). But if you’ve been following along on posts like this one, or this one, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the novel focuses on a relationship between women.

I chose Supposed Crimes for two reasons: they wouldn’t have a problem with a historical romance featuring two women falling in love with each other, and they wouldn’t have a problem with a man writing it. As their About Us page says:

‘Supposed crimes’ refers to the idea that homosexuality was once outlawed. Thus, our authors are being subversive by writing. As times change this becomes more tongue-in-cheek. Yet, Christians writing lesbians and men writing lesbians are still subversive ideas in this industry.

I’m glad to have found a welcoming publishing home here.

Why do I write about women falling in love with each other? Many, many reasons. But mainly, I just want to make readers as happy as these Legend of Korra fans when they saw Korra and Asami getting together at the end of the series.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_I4UZuALp4]

That’s how happy I feel for my characters — and it’s how happy I feel to know that their story will be released to the world.

Categories
Reviews Books

Tremontaine at the Midpoint

(Spoiler warning: The following review gives away a couple of events in the first quarter of the series in order to establish character conflicts. Beyond that, you won’t find any big plot revelations.) 

Tremontaine cover by Kathleen Jennings
Tremontaine cover by Kathleen Jennings

Tremontaine, Serial Box Publishing’s prequel to Ellen Kushner’s Riverside series of novels, will certainly feel familiar to Kushner fans, yet it also serves as a playful introduction for readers new to this world. Appearing in weekly installments, it features the gleefully varied sexualities and gender expressions of Kushner’s universe, along with its cross-dressing swordswomen, its arrogant scholars, its political intrigue, and its focus on manners, where much more is going on beneath the surface than the reader first expects.

The world of Riverside exists in an alternate Europe, sometime between the Renaissance and early modern periods, with a bit of 1980s New York thrown in. Firearms have yet to be invented, so conflicts are settled at the point of a sword, usually wielded by a hired duelist. Though the genre is fantasy, there are no wizards and no magic, because these have long since been purged from society, along with the corrupt kings. The city and the country go unnamed, leaving us with neighborhoods: the lumpenproletarian Riverside and the aristocratic Hill, with the University existing in a social space somewhere between the two.

And so the novels featured characters from a variety of social classes, creating a rich bed of conflict and social disdain. They also brought a welcome diversity of sexualities and gender to fantasy (beginning with Swordspoint, way back in 1987). Now Tremontaine adds racial diversity to that mix in the form of traders from far-off Kinwiinik, who supply the aristocrats on the Hill with that all-important commodity, chocolate.

Categories
Reviews

Tremontaine: Go Read It

Tremontaine Arrivals CoverWhat the title says!

If you saw my preview of Tremontaine, you know how much I love Ellen Kushner’s Riverside universe. Nearly halfway through, this prequel series is everything I wanted it to be. You can sample the first episode or subscribe to the whole thing here.

(Or you can listen to it with the wonderfully performed audio versions, which are included with the text versions.)

Insightful, charming, spoilery, episode-by-episode reviews over on OvertheEffingRainbow.

Mid-point review of the series here at the end of the week.

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