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A "completist" entry in this series, but as my summary points out, not of particular interest to the Project. Which aligns fairly well with my current mood. Let me tell you about the last 12 hours. I was supposed to fly out of SFO this morning at 08:30 (going to Chicago for Worldcon), which meant setting my alarm to get up at 05:00 to get BART to the airport. My attempt to get my full complement of sleep by going to bed early failed (general anxiety about travel schedules does that), so I'm not sure I had actually slept yet when the text arrived around midnight saying our plane was not leaving its origin, due to the crew timing out, and the flight was being rescheduled for 13:30.

In theory, this meant that I could turn off my early-morning alarms, sleep in to a reasonable hour, and then make a leisurely trip to the airport at a rational hour. In reality, I still didn't sleep well. And since I'd deliberately used the trip as an excuse to use up my perishables and I'd left the kitchen spotless for the house-sitter, I'd have to leave the house to get breakfast and coffee anyway, so I just headed for the airport as soon as I was up. Had a nice leisurely brunch (complimentary, courtesy of the Airline food vouchers). But I'm now at that state where I'm pre-exhausted and looking at not getting into Chicago until dinner time (Pacific Stomach Time) and then have to take the train into the city and find the hotel before I can have dinner.

But all in all, my strategy of allowing an extra day before the convention (I'm volunteering at Reg tomorrow, but it wouldn't be a disaster if I'd had to cancel that), and scheduling an early flight (so the back-up plan still has me flying on the same day) means this is all just par for the course for Travel These Days. I am confirmed in my rule of thumb to always leave an extra day leeway when I have to be somewhere on a specific date.

None of this has anything to do with singlehood in classical Rome, but I'm not planning on posting the links to this entry anyway so no one is likely to read this and I can just grouse and be grumpy in peace. So...grump.

Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 237 – Our F/Favorite Tropes Part 2: Spinsters - transcript

(Originally aired 2022/08/20  - listen here)

Introduction

The spinster, the wallflower, the woman who is considered “on the shelf” and faces a future as an old maid. And then she meets…well, that’s going to be a surprise.

Historic romance is full of beloved tropes—scenarios that evoke a certain dynamic or conflict or anxiety that gets us right in the feels. Whether you have your favorites or enjoy them all, have you ever stopped to think about how those tropes might play out differently in a historic context when your romantic couple involves two women?

I’m continuing my series of interpreting favorite historic romance tropes in the same-sex context with a look at the spinster. While the series will also sometimes look at how the trope works with a male couple, I think we can agree that the social context for unmarried men versus unmarried women is different enough that there really isn’t a parallel in this case.

Originally, I was thinking about doing a combined show about spinsters and widows, but as I began putting my notes together, it felt like the two character types didn’t really make a natural set, other than for the fact of not being currently in a heterosexual marriage. So I’ll save the widows for later (although pairing spinsters with widows has a lot of potential).

What Is a Trope?

To briefly review what we mean by “trope” in this context, the word is used to mean a recurring literary device or motif—a conventional story element that is used regularly enough that it carries a whole context of meaning, and connects the story to other works that employ the same trope. The trope could be a character type, or a situation, or even a plot-sequence or mini-script. In the context of historic romance novels, popular tropes include ones that describe attributes of the romantic couple, the context in which they meet, the barriers keeping them apart, or the mechanism by which they connect romantically.

As usual, my examples and discussion are going to lean heavily on western culture. If you’re brainstorming a historic romance in some other cultural context, be careful about assuming that motifs from western culture are universal.

The Spinster Trope

So what is a spinster? A spinster is not simply a woman who has never married, but specifically a woman who has remained unmarried well past the typical age of marriage for her culture. (The word “spinster” itself has a highly specific cultural context, both in its literal sense and as a general pejorative term. But that’s a digression that we can save for another time.)

The concept of the spinster assumes a certain normative lifecycle in which all women are expected to marry—and to marry on an accepted schedule—and where never-married women are considered to be of low social value. They have marginal economic status, either taking low-paying jobs or jobs with low social status, or must live as appendages to someone else’s household, often acting as unpaid domestic labor. There is an implication that a woman becomes a spinster because she is insufficiently attractive, skilled, or endowed to attract an acceptable husband. A possible sub-reason might be that she was deprived of the opportunity to marry due to the death or other unavailability of a preferred suitor. Alternately, family circumstances — whether of finance, or social or political scandal — may have made her unmarriageable.

Within heterosexual historic romances, the attraction of the spinster heroine (for the reader!) is multifold. She may be depicted as strong-willed and independent-minded, having never encountered a potential suitor she felt was worth compromising her standards and goals for. Or she may be depicted as someone whose light has been hid under a bushel — a woman who is disastrously shy, or whose attractions are different enough from the conventional expectations that she hasn’t encountered someone who properly appreciated them. The spinster heroine may be a type of damsel in distress where — through no fault of her own — she has been deemed unmarriageable despite her conventional attractions. By definition, a spinster is older than the typical heroine for her context, which can appeal to readers who want to see wider age representation while still depicting historic norms.

The suitor who wins her over may be the thoughtful, insightful man who recognizes her hidden value, or the bold, unconventional man who breaks through the comfort of her independence to spark her desire, or the one so assured in his own position that her social defects can be safely ignored.

The Historic Spinster

Historically, in Western culture, there has been a lot of variation in the age at which one is considered a spinster, in social attitudes toward never-married women, in the proportion of never-married women present in the culture, and in the reasons why a woman might remain unmarried. There has also been a lot of variation in a woman’s ability to remain unmarried by choice, and the resulting options for her.

Demographers identify two contrasting life patterns:  the southern or Mediterranean pattern in which women are expected to marry relatively young to a somewhat older husband, and to live within the parental household until marriage rather than being employed, and often for the married couple to then live with the husband’s family. Marriage prospects rely primarily on family position, available dowry, and on the moral reputation of the woman. In Catholic cultures, women who remained unmarried past the usual age might be encouraged to enter religious life. I should note that this pattern wasn’t fixed and unchanging — as we move into the early modern period and later, the expected age of marriage drifted later to align more closely with that of the “northern pattern.”

The northern European lifecycle pattern involved relatively equal age of marriage partners, relatively later age at first marriage (typically in the mid-20s), an expectation that the married couple would set up an independent household, and an expectation that both partners would have contributed the money necessary to set up that household, either from family contributions or by working outside the home or both. For a more wealthy or upper class family, and especially in more recent centuries, the period before marriage for young women might involve schooling rather than employment, or in earlier eras it might involve being sent to live in another household to strengthen social connections and learn essential skills.

Within these patterns, the proportion of never-married women might fluctuate anywhere between 10% and 50% depending on factors such as the availability of suitable partners due to warfare or migration patterns (or social constraints on who was considered suitable), the general economic circumstances that made it easier or harder for either the individuals or the family to supply the starter funds for the marriage, or shifts in social attitudes toward women remaining unmarried.

Extreme social hostility to the unmarried spinster or “old maid” seems to have been a peculiarly English phenomenon, beginning around the 18th century and tangled up with the rise of feminist movements. Feminist sentiments were seen both as a cause and a result of spinsterhood. Many feminists criticized traditional marriage as functionally equivalent to slavery and argued both for changes in marriage and for more viable options for unmarried women. But satirists depicted feminists as embittered and lonely due to their inability to attract a husband, and attracted to feminism to make up for that lack.

Never-married women were viewed askance in other eras and contexts as well. As a woman who wasn’t under a husband’s control, she might be seen as something of a loose cannon socially. In other circumstances, the systematic lower pay women received, even for equivalent work to men, meant they were viewed as economically disruptive in much the same way that immigrant or overseas labor is viewed in today’s first world economies. At various times, singlewomen were deliberately edged out of more economically lucrative work in favor of men. And while employment factors were less relevant to the upper class characters who are the traditional focus of historic romance, the impact on overall social attitudes affected all women. In eras when fertility was viewed as a social crisis, unmarried women might be considered self-centered and unpatriotic. And in eras when womanhood and motherhood were considered synonymous, unmarried women might be viewed as essentially unfeminine.

In all eras, as previously noted, there was always some proportion of the population of women who never married. But their cultural circumstances speak to why that might be the case and how people would treat them because of it.

What’s Different for Spinsters in a F/F Romance?

So how does the spinster historic romance trope change when the context is a sapphic story?

The most obvious consequence is that there is no looming male love interest to compete with the second heroine. Perhaps our spinster regrets never having found a male partner. Perhaps she’s simply anxious about how to support herself outside of marriage. Perhaps she’s deliberately embraced singlehood in support of a personal cause or preoccupation. Perhaps she’s actively disinterested in having a husband, whether or not she’s aware of being attracted to women. One of the themes that regularly comes up in historic feminist literature or literature about female friendship is how the everyday realities of marriage interfere with women’s commitments to each other (even when considering only non-romantic bonds).  Though keep in mind that even women who had a romantic preference for women didn’t necessarily consider that a reason for remaining single. Love and marriage were often considered separate considerations. So if you want to set your heroine up to be a spinster, it can help to have additional reasons besides preferring women.

Has your spinster character already dealt with the fact that she isn’t married and doesn’t appear likely to be, and has settled into a modus vivendi? Or is she still coming to grips with her position and casting about for direction? Is she still living with her family or does she have sufficient resources (and sufficient reason) to live independently? What’s her financial situation? Lack of finances was the most common reason for a woman to remain single, but it’s not impossible for even a woman with comfortable prospects to remain unmarried. And in the rare but plausible circumstance where she has both financial resources and personal control over them, then she may be in a position to consider marriage a bad bargain, if she doesn’t need a husband’s support.

For that matter, are we dealing with one spinster or two? Are both of our heroines in a similar position and stage of life when they meet each other? Or are they coming from different positions? If we want to recreate some of the favorite character types from the heterosexual spinster trope, what parallels can we find?

The thoughtful suitor who sees the spinster’s true worth despite her retiring personality or unconventional attributes could be almost anyone, but perhaps a slightly older mentor figure, someone the spinster will believe when told she is worthy of love. Someone who helps her find her feet only to end up finding her heart.

The rescuer who is secure enough in her own position that the spinster’s social flaws can be overlooked might be a well-off widow. Widows get a lot of latitude for eccentricity and they frequently have an established independent household that the spinster could join. In some ways, widows are the closest parallel in economic and social terms to the position of the male suitor.

The devil-may-care rake who tempts the spinster to let go of her last attachments to respectability might be a glamorous courtesan, a successful actress, or a woman on the wrong side of the law. Some of these options are more precarious than others, but isn’t that always the case?

How does the character’s spinsterhood interact with her attraction to women? Perhaps she has always felt a romantic attraction to women and is relieved when she ages out of the expectation to fall in love with a man instead. Perhaps she and an intimate friend have spent their marriageable years terrified that the other will receive an offer she can’t refuse, ending their hopes of finding a life together. Perhaps she takes a position expecting genteel poverty as a governess or a lady’s companion, only to find love waiting in her new home. Perhaps she finds herself gradually drifting into the company of other spinsters and realizes that many of them have far more in common that just their marital status. Regardless of romantic interests, one option for unmarried women across the centuries was to form a household with other women in a similar situation, pooling their resources. In 18th and 19th century England, such households were a recognized phenomenon, often set up in less expensive locales than London, such as Bath.

The examples I’ve been giving have tended to center around the 18th and 19th centuries — those favorites of the historic romance genre. But there are plenty of contexts for spinsters in earlier eras. In 16th and 17th century England, an unmarried woman of the middle or upper middle class might turn inherited real estate or a share in a business into an independent living. Medieval daughters of aristocratic families who were not needed for marital alliances were far more likely to end up in convents than to remain unmarried within the family, so the spinster character is somewhat less plausible in this context.

For those enamored of aristocratic characters, the convent life was no longer an option for upper class spinsters in Protestant cultures (after the Reformation), and the restrictions on who was considered an acceptable marriage partner meant that, for example, in 18th and 19th century England, perhaps a quarter of women born to the aristocracy never married. A much more fertile ground for spinster romances, though fraught with anxieties about acceptable means of finding a living. But for earlier eras, it’s much more plausible to focus on middle class and gentry than the titled aristocracy.

There is, of course, another angle on interpreting the spinster trope in a sapphic historic romance, and that is to view it within the context of intimate female friendships. That is, rather than considering the case of a woman who hasn’t married within the expected timespan, what about looking at social contexts where close female bonding was a normative phenomenon, and then considering the woman who hasn’t succeeded in forming a “special friendship” within the age range where that is expected?

The 18th or 19th century woman who has never engaged in a romantic friendship with a woman. The late 19th century girl at a boarding school who develops no same-sex crushes. The woman in any society where gender-segregated socializing is the norm, but who has no particular friends within that context.

It’s hard to see this as closely parallel to the traditional spinster trope, because even when intimate female friendships were considered normal and typical, they were rarely considered obligatory in the way that marriage was expected to be. It’s an interesting motif to play with, but the dynamics are different. And except for the case of schoolgirls, the characters will also be dealing with the default expectations around marriage.

Conclusion

So let’s return to our more typical spinster heroine. She has achieved that age when she’s on the shelf. Perhaps she’s disappointed. Perhaps she’s frightened. Perhaps she’s relieved. Perhaps she feels as if she’s just opened the door to an entirely new world of possibilities. And perhaps there is someone special waiting on the other side of that door.

In a heterosexual spinster romance, the outcome is a reversal of the initial state. Rather than remaining unmarried, the original barriers to marriage are overcome. But in the sapphic spinster romance, those original barriers enable a different type of resolution. They free the heroine from conventional expectations for her life path and make the choice of a female partner acceptable as what is perceived as a fall-back option. The personality features or personal circumstances that discouraged male suitors may be irrelevant to a potential female partner. Intelligent, strong-willed, and independent? Sign me up! Not conventionally beautiful or charming? Men are so superficial. Inadequate dowry or scandalous past? Well, we’ve already stepped outside the expected bounds of polite society, so we’ll just make do as best we can. As spinsters we’ve become invisible, and in invisibility is power.

Show Notes

In this episode we talk about:

• Overview of the trope series
• The social contexts of the spinster trope
• Singlewomen and spinsters in history
• Remaking the spinster trope for f/f romances
• This topic is discussed in one or more entries of the Lesbian Historic Motif Project here: singlewomen

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
• Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
• RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
• Twitter: @LesbianMotif
• Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
• The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon

Links to Heather Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com
• Email: Heather Rose Jones
• Twitter: @heatherosejones
• Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

Demographics -- and especially demographic studies that include individual illustrative examples -- are fertile ground for thinking about character backstories. As I read this article, I took a lot of mental notes for my long-trunked-for-massive-revisions 1st century historic romance. I’d already decided to give one of my protagonists an Egyptian background to make use of some of the evidence and hints regarding f/f relations in Roman Egypt. The demongraphic and inheritance data discussed here are giving me some new ideas for fleshing out her backstory (including just how she ends up in Britain on the eve of the Boudiccan rebellion).

Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 236 - On the Shelf for August 2022 - Transcript

(Originally aired 2022/08/06 - listen here)

Welcome to On the Shelf for August 2022.

It’s getting to be that time of year to start beating the drum for next year’s fiction series! Each year I usually have a moment when I think, “Do I want to do this again? Is the fiction series doing well enough to keep going? Are people interested enough that it makes sense?” But this year I’d already committed myself back at the beginning of the year when I agreed to commission a story for next year’s series. It’ll be the sixth year for the series, which feels like we’ve been doing it forever. Let all your author friends know that we’re doing this again! Check out the show notes for a link to the Call for Submissions, which will have more details than you ever wanted to know about what we’re looking for and how and when to submit it.

And speaking of audio fiction, I’m really excited about the release of the audiobook of my first novel, Daughter of Mystery this week. It should be available from all the usual audiobook sites. I’m looking forward to hearing what the narrator did with it. And if sales are good, we should get the other Alpennia books out in audio eventually. I know that I’ve been getting much more into audiobooks lately and I hear a lot of people saying something similar. So here’s hoping that this will open up a new audience for the Alpennia books.

News of the Field

If you’re a fan of queer podcasts in general, I’d like to direct your attention to a website that I recently learned about. QueerPodcasts.net is an aggregator of information about … well, what it says on the label. You can use it to search for new shows to check out, and filter by topic or representation. And if you don’t have a preferred podcast delivery system, you can use it as a place to subscribe to your chosen feeds. It’s a relatively new site and is looking into adding more features, so if you have suggestions about features you’d find useful (or shows they haven’t included yet) I’m sure they’d love to hear from you.

And speaking of shows I hadn’t heard about, QueerPodcasts.net tipped me off to the existence of another lesbian history show that I’d somehow missed previously. It’s called Vintage Lesbians and mostly focuses on biographies of historic figures. Alas, the show appears to be on hiatus currently. I had no luck trying to contact them to see if there was an update. But all the previous episodes are still available through your favorite podcatcher. Check out the show notes for links to both these resources.

Publications on the Blog

In July, the Lesbian Historic Motif Project blog read through Terry Castle’s The Apparitional Lesbian. This work written in 1993—and especially the title essay—still gets cited regularly when discussing how lesbian identity gets “disappeared” or displaced into the realm of unreality in popular culture. It’s an interesting theme that appears in various forms across the centuries. Castle asserts that lesbians always exist in some other place, at some other time, or in some entirely fictional space, never right here and now. Does that conclusion stand the test of evidence? Check it out and decide for yourself.

For August, I’m lining up some articles from the collection The Single Life in the Roman and Later Roman World edited by Sabine R. Huebner and Christian Laes. Some of the material in this collection helped inspire Ursula Whitcher’s story “The Spirits of Cabassus” which we aired back in April. In fact, it was her reference to the book that led me to pick it up, and it joins the other books and articles on the theme of singlewomen and how their lives can provide inspiration for sapphic stories.

Book Shopping!

I haven’t done any recent book shopping for the blog, alas. I mean, not that it’s an enormous tragedy, given how many titles are on my to-do list! But it’s always fun to talk about new discoveries.

Recent Lesbian Historical Fiction

Fortunately, there’s never a lack of new fiction to talk about every month! Let’s start with a couple of July books.

The Valkyrie's Daughter by Tiana Warner from Entangled: Teen follows the usual trend for stories with an early Norse setting in having strong fantasy elements. It’s probably a bit questionable to consider it a historic story, but the dearth of more historic Norse settings makes it hard to know where to draw the line.

For as long as Sigrid could remember, she’s wanted to become a mighty, fearless valkyrie. But without a winged mare, she’s a mere stable hand, left wondering who her parents were and why she’s so different. So when the Eye shows her a vision where she’s leading a valkyrie charge on the legendary eight-legged horse Sleipnir, she grabs the possibility of this greater destiny with both hands, refusing to let go. Too bad that the only one who can help her get there is Mariam, an enemy valkyrie who begrudgingly agrees to lead her to Helheim but who certainly can’t be trusted―even if she does make Sigrid more than a little flustered. As they cross the nine worlds, battling night elves, riding sea serpents, and hurtling into fire to learn the truth about Sigrid’s birthright, an unexpected but powerful bond forms. As her feelings for Mariam deepen into something fiery and undeniable, Fate has other plans for Sigrid. What happens when the one thing you think you were meant to do might end the nine worlds?

Lex Croucher’s Infamous from Zaffre Books looks like it follows the path of her previous novel Reputation in blending modern rom-com sensibilities with a Regency setting.

22-year-old aspiring writer Edith 'Eddie' Miller and her best friend Rose have always done everything together-climbing trees, throwing grapes at boys, sneaking bottles of wine, practicing kissing . . . But following their debutante ball Rose is suddenly talking about marriage, and Eddie is horrified. When Eddie meets charming, renowned poet Nash Nicholson, he invites her to his crumbling Gothic estate in the countryside. The entourage of eccentric artists indulging in pure hedonism is exactly what Eddie needs in order to forget Rose and finish her novel. But Eddie might discover the world of famous literary icons isn't all poems and pleasure . . .

When I was mining the forthcoming book listings at the Reads Rainbow website for August books – and, by the way, I highly recommend Reads Rainbow for hearing about queer books – I ran across a new-to-me author writing solidly-grounded medieval stories. Reads Rainbow indicates that Coirle Mooney’s My Lady's Shadow from Sapere Books has a sapphic main character, but as is often the case, there’s no clue to that in the cover copy.

1198, France. Lady Maria of Turenne has long been engaged in a flirtation with Count Hugh La Marche. It is a match which her father has strongly encouraged. However, Maria is her own woman and she is determined to choose for herself. Maria is unaware that her clever, scheming maid, Maryse, is secretly in love with the count. Soon after, the young troubadour, Gui d’Ussel, arrives at the castle and Maria is instantly captivated by him. He shares her distaste of convention and her love of the arts and they soon become inseparable. Meanwhile, Maryse develops a strong dislike for Gui and her resentment for Maria grows. Angered by her treatment of the Count of La Marche, Maria’s father has arranged a new wedding match. This time, Maria will not be allowed to decline. Forced into marrying a wealthy viscount against her will, Maria and Gui are torn apart from each other. However, Maria is determined to find a way to use the power she has gained through marriage to raise Gui in society. Will Maria and Gui find a way to be together? Can Maria escape her marriage? Or will they be fated to remain apart?

As I say, no clue what the sapphic content might be. I might have skipped including this book on the principle that if the publisher is that determined to hide any hint of queerness, who am I to argue? But researching the question turned up a duology by the same author published earlier this year where a sapphic relationship is more clearly indicated. Since I didn’t find these two when they were originally released, but it wasn’t too long ago, I’ll go ahead and include them now. The first in the two-book series is The Lady’s Keeper.

1168, France. At Eleanor of Aquitaine’s palace in Poitiers, fourteen-year-old Lady Joanna of Agen is coming of age. Her aunt and guardian, Alice, rescued Joanna from her brutal father by bringing her to court. But now  Alice fears Joanna could once again be at risk from the men around her. When Queen Eleanor’s son, Henry, arrives at court, Joanna quickly catches his eye. But Alice overhears the lewd conversations of the male courtiers and worries that Joanna’s honour is at stake. And as the relationship between Queen Eleanor and King Henry II of England becomes fractious, a dark mood settles over court. Drawn into a world of intrigue, danger and adventure, Alice must fight to keep her and Joanna safe. Will Joanna find a love match? Can Alice secure her place at court? Or will they fall victim to the dangers of court life?

 The sapphic reference shows up for the second book, The Cloistered Lady. Both of these are also from Sapere Books.

1173, France. Eleanor of Aquitaine has been arrested for rebelling against her husband, King Henry II of England. Her loyal ladies-in-waiting, Alice and Joanna of Agen have fled to the nunnery at Fontrevault, where they are anxiously awaiting news of their queen. Alice and Joanna struggle to adapt to their cramped new home at the Abbey. Each is secretly nursing a broken heart – and harbouring unholy desires. Joanna left behind a lover, Jean, at Eleanor’s court in Poitiers, and Alice has long been in love with the queen’s daughter, Marie. And as the days stretch on with no news, they both begin to fear the worst. What has happened to Eleanor? Will Alice and Joanna be forced to remain at the Abbey indefinitely? And will they ever be reunited with the ones they love?

We have an unusually large proportion of books with medieval settings this month. The next item is Set in Stone by Stela Brinzeanu from Legend Press.

In medieval Moldova, two women from opposing backgrounds fall in love. But this is a world where a woman’s role is defined by religion and class. To make a life together means defying their families, the law, and the Church. The closer they become, and the more they refuse the roles assigned to them, the more sacrifices they have to make. While Mira’s rebellion puts her life in the gravest danger, Elina must fight to change her legal status to ‘son’ so she can inherit her father’s land and change their destiny. Set in Stone delves into the past to uncover a story which is just as relevant today: the desire to forge your own path while constantly having to resist a patriarchal fear of women’s strength – and how ultimately love can help you choose your own truth.

If you’re a reader who prefers your sapphic romance free of complications involving male characters, you may want to be aware that Mademoiselle Revolution by Zoe Sivak from Berkley Books involves a romantic threesome that includes a man. But the setting and central character sound intriguing enough to potentially balance that.

Sylvie de Rosiers, as the daughter of a rich planter and an enslaved woman, enjoys the comforts of a lady in 1791 Saint-Domingue society. But while she was born to privilege, she was never fully accepted by island elites. After a violent rebellion begins the Haitian Revolution, Sylvie and her brother leave their family and old lives behind to flee unwittingly into another uprising--in austere and radical Paris. Sylvie quickly becomes enamored with the aims of the Revolution, as well as with the revolutionaries themselves--most notably Maximilien Robespierre and his mistress, Cornelie Duplay. As a rising leader and abolitionist, Robespierre sees an opportunity to exploit Sylvie's race and abandonment of her aristocratic roots as an example of his ideals, while the strong-willed Cornelie offers Sylvie safe harbor and guidance in free thought. Sylvie battles with her past complicity in a slave society and her future within this new world order as she finds herself increasingly torn between Robespierre's ideology and Cornelie's love. When the Reign of Terror descends, Sylvie must decide whether to become an accomplice while a new empire rises on the bones of innocents...or risk losing her head.

Jane Walsh continues her focus on Regency romances with the start of a new series: The Inconvenient Heiress (The Spinsters of Inverley #1) from Bold Strokes Books.

In the quiet seaside town of Inverley, nothing exciting ever happens to gently bred spinsters like Miss Arabella Seton. Content with her watercolor paintings and her cats, she is confident that no one suspects her forbidden and unrequited passion for her best friend, Caroline. The eldest in a family of six children, Miss Caroline Reeve has the unenviable task of shepherding her siblings into adulthood with little coin and even less patience. The only benefit to being an eternal chaperone is that no one ever expects her to marry. When the Reeve family inherits an unexpected fortune, Caroline must take her rightful place in high society. Fortune hunters abound, and it is up to Arabella to save her from their snares and convince her that love has been in front of her all along. Can the heiress and the spinster discover an unconventional love outside of the Marriage Mart?

Ashthorne by April Yates from Ghost Orchid Press feels like it has a bit of a gothic horror vibe with a romance overlay.

In the aftermath of World War One, Adelaide Frost is on the run from a family who do not understand her. Hoping to do some good, she signs up to become a nurse at Ashthorne, a manor house newly designated as a convalescence home for injured soldiers. She quickly falls in love with the owner's daughter, Evelyn, who hides a warm heart beneath a chilly exterior. But Evelyn has her suspicions about what's really happening at the hospital, and as Adelaide helps her investigate, it soon becomes apparent that there are more inhabitants residing at Ashthorne than first thought.

The Lady Adventurers Club by Karen Frost from Bella Books sounds like it’s aimed at fans of properties like Indiana Jones, or The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

A barnstormer. A Wild West trick shooter. A mathematician. When archaeologist Anna Baring announces the founding of the Lady Adventurers Club in May 1923, none of the other three members expect to ever meet again. After all, they live halfway around the world from each other. What could possibly bring them together once more? Then they each receive an unexpected letter. Anna has found a tomb that promises to be even grander than that of King Tutankhamun, and she wants them to come to Egypt for the opening. It’s the find of the century. The tomb will make old Tut look like a pauper. But will the women of the Lady Adventurers Club get to see it? Egypt is a political powder keg. Unscrupulous criminals keep shooting at them. And weird, unnerving things seem to happen wherever they go. As the women race across Egypt, their friendship will be tested as they fall deeper into danger. They’re not the only ones after a pharaoh’s treasure.

As long-term followers of this podcast may know, I have a special place in my heart for stories set in medieval Wales. So it may come as no surprise that I’ve already pre-ordered The Drowned Woods by Emily Lloyd-Jones from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.

Once upon a time, the kingdoms of Wales were rife with magic and conflict, and eighteen-year-old Mererid “Mer” is well-acquainted with both. She is the last living water diviner and has spent years running from the prince who bound her into his service. Under the prince’s orders, she located the wells of his enemies, and he poisoned them without her knowledge, causing hundreds of deaths. After discovering what he had done, Mer went to great lengths to disappear from his reach. Then Mer’s old handler returns with a proposition: use her powers to bring down the very prince that abused them both. The best way to do that is to destroy the magical well that keeps the prince’s lands safe. With a motley crew of allies, including a fae-cursed young man, the lady of thieves, and a corgi that may or may not be a spy, Mer may finally be able to steal precious freedom and peace for herself. After all, a person with a knife is one thing…but a person with a cause can topple kingdoms.

The Oleander Sword – the second book in Tasha Suri’s alternate-India Burning Kingdoms historic fantasy series from Orbit Books – continues the story of two women whose lives and hearts are entwined even as their fates pull them apart. I loved, loved, loved the first book in this series, which I strongly recommend reading first.

The prophecy of the nameless god—the words that declared Malini the rightful empress of Parijatdvipa—has proven a blessing and curse. She is determined to claim the throne that fate offered her. But even with the strength of the rage in her heart and the army of loyal men by her side, deposing her brother is going to be a brutal and bloody fight. The power of the deathless waters flows through Priya’s blood. Thrice born priestess, Elder of Ahiranya, Priya’s dream is to see her country rid of the rot that plagues it: both Parijatdvipa's poisonous rule, and the blooming sickness that is slowly spreading through all living things. But she doesn’t yet understand the truth of the magic she carries. Their chosen paths once pulled them apart. But Malini and Priya's souls remain as entwined as their destinies. And they soon realize that coming together is the only way to save their kingdom from those who would rather see it burn—even if it will cost them.

What Am I Reading?

So what I have I been reading or otherwise consuming? I do my best to keep a log as I go, which definitely helps to jog my memory both for this podcast segment and when I go back to do reviews (which I am very seriously behind on). But sometimes I’m startled when I look at the log and wonder if I’ve been forgetting to enter things…and then realize that I’ve had a month go by without finishing much of anything. The only titles in the “completed” list this month include the third book in Katherine Addison’s Goblin Emperor series, titled The Grief of Stones. The series is evolving into something like a fantasy police procedural. There’s solid queer representation though it's not sapphic. But if “fantasy police procedural involving a main character who listens to the dead” sounds intriguing, you might want to check out this series. The first book, The Goblin Emperor centers on an entirely different character and plot, but provides the setup and background for the later books.

The other item I finished this month was the audiobook of Alyssa Cole’s An Extraordinary Union, the first in a historic romance series set during the American Civil War and featuring Black protagonists. I’m developing the realization that Cole is rather hit or miss for me. Too often, her romances seem to depend too strongly on an immediate, non-rational, sexual chemistry between the characters. And that just doesn’t work very well for me. I love the topics and characters she tackles, but I’m not the right reader for the ones that depend so strongly on insta-lust.

Author Guest

And to finish up, this month, we have an interview with author Rebecca Fraimow about her story “A Farce to Suit the New Girl” which we aired in the last episode.

[Interview transcript is pending.]

Show Notes

Your monthly roundup of history, news, and the field of sapphic historical fiction.

In this episode we talk about:

• Call for submissions for the 2023 LHMP audio short story series. See here for details.
• Daughter of Mystery is out in audiobook
• QueerPodcasts.net
• Vintage Lesbians (podcast)
• Recent and upcoming publications covered on the blog
  • Castle, Terry. 1993. The Apparitional Lesbian. Columbia University Press, New York. iSBN 0-231-07653-3
  • Huebner, Sabine R. & Christian Laes (eds). 2019. The Single Life in the Roman and Later Roman World. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 978-1-108-47017-9
• New and forthcoming fiction
  • The Valkyrie's Daughter by Tiana Warner
  • Infamous by Lex Croucher
  • My Lady's Shadow: Power and intrigue in Medieval France by Coirle Mooney
  • The Lady's Keeper by Coirle Mooney
  • The Cloistered Lady by Coirle Mooney
  • Set in Stone by Stela Brinzeanu
  • Mademoiselle Revolution by Zoe Sivak
  • The Inconvenient Heiress (The Spinsters of Inverley #1) by Jane Walsh
  • Ashthorne by April Yates
  • The Lady Adventurers Club by Karen Frost
  • The Drowned Woods by Emily Lloyd-Jones
  • The Oleander Sword (Burning Kingdoms 2) by Tasha Suri
• What I’ve Consumed
  • The Grief of Stones by Katherine Addison
  • An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole
• This month we interview Rebecca Fraimow and talk about:
  • The Yiddish theatre in late 19th c Russia and after
  • Rebecca’s series of queer Jewish historic fantasy stories
  • Sienna, Noam (ed). 2019. A Rainbow Thread: An Anthology of Queer Jewish Texts from the First Century to 1969. Print-O-Craft, Philadelphia. ISBN 978-0-9905155-6-2 (link is to LHMP blog entry)
  • “Further Arguments In Support of Yudah Cohen’s Proposal to Bluma Zilberman” by Rebecca Fraimow (Podcastle)
  • “Shaina Rubin Keeps Her Head Under Circumstances Nobody Could Have Expected” by Rebecca Fraimow (Podcastle)
  • “Gitl Schneiderman Learns to Live With Her In-Laws” by Rebecca Fraimow (Podcastle)
  • “God of Vengeance” by Sholem Asch (Wikipedia link for Sholem Asch)
  • Indecent xx (link to IMDb.com)
  • ”Fearfully and Wonderfully Made” by Rebecca Fraimow (in Kaleidotrope)

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
• Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
• RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
• Twitter: @LesbianMotif
• Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
• The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon

Links to Heather Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com
• Email: Heather Rose Jones
• Twitter: @heatherosejones
• Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

Links to Rebecca Fraimow Online

• Website: https://rebeccafraimow.com/
• Twitter: @ryfkah