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Book Announcement - Hidden Gems: Margaret Getchell LaForge by Stephanie Forshee

Monday, July 17, 2023 - 10:15

Not my usual sort of book post! Those who have followed this blog for a very long time may recall that I've been posted edited versions of the Civil War diaries of Abiel Teeple LaForge, my great-great-grandfather. Hidden Gems: Margaret Getchell LaForge by Stephaie Forshee is about the amazing and talented woman who later married him: Margaret Getchell (LaForge), who was a top executive of Macy's Department Store.

Stephanie Forshee is creating a series of books aimed at young readers that focus on American business women who deserve to be more widely known. My family has supported her book about Margaret with documents, images, and leads on further information and we're delighted to see the final result. I wrote a foreword for the book, which is how my name comes to appear in a book review published in The Business Journals.

Later books in the series will cover Anna Sutherland Bissell (of carpet cleaner fame) and Maggie Lena Walker (the first African American woman to charter a bank and to become a bank president). If you know of a library or school that would appreciate books on pioneering American business women, point them at this series.

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Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 263 – Lesbians as a “Third Sex”

Saturday, July 15, 2023 - 14:14

Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 263 – Lesbians as a “Third Sex” - transcript

(Originally aired 2023-07-15 - listen here)

I always enjoy getting inspiration for an episode topic from questions that people present to me. This show was inspired by someone on social media noting that they identified as lesbian but considered themselves to belong to a “third sex” – not male, not female, but if I understand correctly, not non-binary in the usual sense. (I’m referring to the person using “they” due to uncertainty—I can’t find the thread again to check preferences.) They asked if this was “a thing” historically, and my response was, “Well, it's complicated, but that would make a great podcast topic!” So here we are.

Definitions

It’s also important to note that we’re concerned only with third-sex concepts that are defined in relation to sexual orientation, and not those that are concerned with social gender roles, such as the hijra of India or Native American third or fourth gender categories.

Given that, we can distinguish three spheres in which a third sex concept might come up.

One possibility is that an individual—like the person who raised the question—understands themself to be neither male nor female, but as belonging to a third (or at least a different) gender category, and describes their identity in terms equivalent to that. This doesn’t necessarily mean using the specific phrase “third sex” or “third gender” – and I’ll note that, historically, someone would be far more likely to use the word “sex” rather than “gender” in this context. It’s relatively recent for us to distinguish the two in any systematic way. But in the context of this conversation, I think the idea of being a third sex can be distinguished from considering oneself a mix of male and female, or as being intermediate within a male-female sliding scale, although these framings might be used at the same time. Within this context we can contrast a third-sex concept to the gender-performative concept of hermaphroditism—and here I want to emphasize that I’m not speaking of being physiologically intersex (for which the word is deprecated), but of the idea that certain mental, emotional, and behavioral characteristics are inherently gendered masculine or feminine, and that partaking of characteristics from both categories places a person outside of either category or perhaps situates them at an overlap of male and female. As we discuss the topic, it will be interesting to see if this distinction is articulated, and if so, when and by whom. For the sake of clarity, I’m going to invent the term “performative-hermaphrodite” for this concept, to make it clear that I’m not referring to intersex persons.

The second possibility is that people within a particular historic culture viewed people with same-sex desire as belonging to a “third sex” and expressed that category assignment by using language indicating some version of the concept. In many—indeed, most—historic eras, we are far more likely to have data available on this sort of outsider labeling, than we are to have evidence of how people viewed and described their own identities. Someone living within such a culture might reasonably adopt the concept and language for themselves, even if we have no direct evidence of them doing so. But it’s also possible that someone living in such a culture might reject the framing and the label and view themselves in a different way.

The third possibility is that modern scholars writing about theories of sex and gender may identify a historic culture as having a concept of homosexuals as a “third sex”, perhaps using the current differing definitions of sex and gender, regardless of whether people in that culture described their understanding in those terms. For example, Randolph Trumbach in his article “London's Sapphists : From Three Sexes to Four Genders in the Making of Modern Culture” and expanded in his book Sex and the Gender Revolution: Heterosexuality and the Third Gender in Enlightenment London, applies a modern lens to understanding ideas about sex, gender, and sexual orientation around the 18th century and makes some idiosyncratic definitions and distinctions in order to present his theories, without these definitions necessarily having been part of 18th century discourse itself.

Another thing to consider in addressing the question of whether we can find a concept of “homosexuals as a third sex” in the past is that in some cultures, questions of the object of one’s desire intersected with ideas about “active” and “passive” partners in sex. The culture might have identifiable categories for what types of partners an “active” person desired, while not considering it relevant whether a “passive” partner had preferences. So one type of “third sex” concept that we might encounter would be one where an assigned-female person who desires women might be considered to belong to a third sex, but the object of their desire was not.

I’m going to mostly side-step the question of whether—under a “third sex” concept—female and male homosexuals are viewed as belonging to the same category, or whether we’re really talking about four sexes. Just don’t worry about that detail for now.

So, you see, even setting out the ground rules for the present discussion involves a lot of complexity!

That said, how did I do the research for this episode? Honestly, I’m cutting corners a bit due to time constraints. I ran a search in the blog for the phrase “third sex” or “third gender” working on the assumption that if an article used those phrases, either from an academic point of view, or quoting original sources, it was likely to appear in my summary of the work’s content. So don’t take this as an exhaustive deep dive into the topic. I’m really only skimming the surface.

Continuums versus Boundaries

One of the studies that provides an overview timeline of concepts of sex categories in Western culture is Thomas Laqueur’s Making Sex, in which he posits that there was a progression from a “one sex” model, in which sex operates on a continuum between male and female, with women often being considered “imperfect men”, shifting later to a “two sex” model in which men and women were viewed as being the equivalent of separate discrete species. Laqueur considered this shift to have happened around the 18th century—a reference point that we’ll come back to when we discuss Trumbach’s theories--but other scholars offer evidence that “continuum” and “discrete categories” models operated in parallel for a much longer period, often being deployed for specific purposes, depending on what suited the goals of the rhetoric. (I note that the index to Laqueur’s book doesn’t include any references to a third category.)

Within the context of today’s topic, it would appear that a pre-requisite for identifying a “third sex” would be a clear premise that there are at least two other sexes to contrast with. The idea of a third sex wouldn’t necessarily make sense within a one-sex continuum model. But another way to approach the question is to look for evidence that women who desire women were treated as belonging to a separate category from women who desire men.

Here, we might be tempted to harken back to the “divided being” myth offered up in Plato’s Symposium (setting aside the question of whether this oratorical exercise was intended to represent an actual belief). If heterosexual women derive from the division of double-bodied beings whose other half was male, while homosexual women derive from double-bodied beings where both were female, then these two orientations could be considered to represent distinctly separate types of beings. This is a somewhat simplistic interpretation of what is a rather complex philosophical model. Sandra Boehringer does a detailed dissection of the whole scenario and its implications. But we can certainly see the story as envisioning an interpretation of homoerotic and heteroerotic desire in women reflecting different categories of being. Interestingly, to the extent that the three categories of humans in the “divided being” myth represent gender categories, those categories are “heterosexual people,” “homosexual men,” and “homosexual women.”

Physical Category versus Behavioral Category?

In the article “The Third Sex: The Idea of the Hermaphrodite in Twelfth-Century Europe,” Nederman and True argue that there is evidence for professional writings indicating an acceptance of a third sexual category, but this particular study is concerned with physiological ambiguity and so is not pertinent to our discussion. The 12th century discourse was primarily concerned with correctly assigning individuals to binary legal categories, even when recognizing a third physical category.

Authors in the later middle ages and Renaissance who touched directly on sex between women tended to frame it as an individual taste that could be experienced by any woman rather than arising out of a separate gender category.

When fascination with, and anxiety around, gender categories comes to the fore again around the 17th century, it is more focused on a performative-hermaphroditism that is viewed—though not necessarily labelled—as a “third sex,” based on personality, social behavior, and mixing clothing styles assigned to both male and female categories. Figures such as Moll Cutpurse in the 17th century (whether we are considering the historic figure or the fictionalization of her in contemporary literature) represented an “other category” that it was hinted might include bisexual leanings, but the fictional Moll suggests she is instead set apart from sexual desire of any type, in the same way that she is set apart from binary gender.

One context in which ideas about a “third sex” were recorded in the early modern period and later were cases of “female husbands” where people might speculate that a person assigned female, who had been inhabiting a male social role even to the point of marrying a woman, might have been driven by “possibly belonging to a third sex” but by this they generally meant some type of intersex condition, that is, that classification as female was a category error and explained any desire for women. By the 19th century, this idea was going out of fashion as an explanation or signifier of cross-gender behavior (including apparent female homoeroticism)

Randolph Trumbach’s Elaborate Chronology

Randolph Trumbach extensively uses the concept of a “third sex” or “third gender” in discussing his theory about a seismic shift in how European society understood the relationships between sex, gender, and orientation around the beginning of the 18th century. In this case, Trumbach is the one applying the label to what he sees as commonly-understood classifications of people. While I feel his model is weak when applied to women, the essence is that he considers that before the 18th century, people understood there to be two biological sexes (man and woman) and two genders (male and female). A new sex category emerged, understood as being driven by biological indeterminacy, but where members were expected to behave according to male or female gender roles. (Note that this indeterminate sex category is actually seen much earlier, as in the article about 12th century examples.)

In this framework, same-sex acts were understood to exist within a hierarchy of power in which high-status men were the active participants in sex regardless of partner, while women and low-status men had those relations imposed on them without regard to personal preference.

Early in the 18th century, goes Trumbach’s chronology, the categorization of men shifted from a 2 gender/3 sex system (with the third sex being biologically intermediate), to a 3 gender/2 sex system, with the 3rd gender being “adult passive transvestite effeminate male” who had an exclusive sexual orientation towards men.

An equivalent 4th gender role for women emerged later in the 18th century, represented by the mannish woman who had a sexual orientation toward women. This role emerged out of the remnants of the “third sex” category defined by biology.

All this was followed in the late 19th century by the collapse of these additional gender categories into the concept of homosexual orientation, in which we return to a “two sex” model that intersects with orientation options, such that one’s gender was no longer viewed as being defined by the object of one’s desire.

I will repeat that I have issues with his evidence regarding women and how he interprets it, particularly in terms of chronology. But one of his ideas is that the “third sex” role was a transitional state, intended to imply a biological basis for certain types of homoerotic desire, that were later subsumed into the concept of sexual orientation. This transitional “third sex” category originally included people assigned either male or female, but men were extracted from it earlier, leaving the category as “sort-of but not-quite women.” I have a fairly extensive discussion of Trumbach’s ideas in the blog, including a lot of critical comments, so if this all sounds a bit confusing, that discussion might help.

A Vain Search for Contemporary Citations

Usually, when we look for the rare instances of self-description around queer sexuality, Anne Lister comes to our rescue with her private diary entries, but although Lister does discuss feeling that she had both masculine and feminine qualities, I haven’t been able to identify any passages where she expresses identification with a “third sex” category. This doesn’t mean that she didn’t use it, because the available publications aren’t indexed on that level.

I also searched around in several of the 18th century novels that seemed most likely to have characters describe mannish women with homoerotic interests as belonging to a “third sex” but I haven’t found any citations yet. So we’re largely left with modern academics interpreting various ideas as representing a “third sex” in the context of homoerotic desire, but no solid evidence that people in earlier eras were using that phrase, much less of individuals describing themselves using that phrase.

The Third Sex of the Sexologists

It was around the turn of the 20th century, amid the combination of sexological theories and the rise of a more self-conscious community of women with homoerotic desires that we find clear examples of the concept of lesbians as a “third sex.” This is articulated in works like the 1901 German novel Are These Women? A Novel about the Third Sex by Aimée Duc, which explores lesbian identities sympathetically and has the characters identify as a “third sex.”

The novel contrasts with the more usual approach of sexological theories of the late 19th and early 20th century which framed third-sex concepts as something more like what we would consider transgender identity today. That is, a third-sex person was someone whose personality and desires aligned with a different gender than the one assigned to their body, and that misalignment included sexual desire. Thus, within this reasoning, a “third-sex” woman was one who was assigned female but had a male personality and desires, including sexual desire for women. In contrast, her female partner was not (necessarily) considered to belong to the third sex. (Remember that this is Trumbach’s “fourth gender” concept.)

Given this framing, a third-sex woman wasn’t necessarily defined by homoerotic desire, but could be defined solely by anything considered transmasculine performance, including an interest in male-coded professional and intellectual activities.

While psychologists who applied concepts such as “gender inversion” and “third sex” to people with homoerotic desires were, to some extent, concerned with being able to categorize people as “normal” or “abnormal,” thus the interest in defining femme partners as “normal women” and not part of the third sex category, individual women might adopt the terminology and ideas to understand and communicate their own identities, as author Radclyffe Hall did.

The novel Are These Women? was not typical in its sympathetic portrayal. More common are fictional depictions such as that seen in Eliza Lynn Linton’s 1895 novel The New Woman in Haste and At Leisure in which the lesbian-coded feminist character is specifically identified as belonging to a “third sex” of “manly women and effeminate men” for whom the author-insert character expresses horror.

Conclusions

As a commonly accepted social model, the notion of homosexuality as representing a “third sex”—whether applied to both partners or only one—appears to have had a limited run in the later 19th century and early 20th. As a universal explanatory mechanism for same-sex desire, it has a number of problems and erases the more fluid and amorphous experiences of many people—not only modern people, but also people in some past ages when same-sex desire was considered within the potential experience of all people. But that doesn’t mean that it can’t be a useful and explanatory identity for some who feel that their orientation does set them apart from the simple categories of male and female.

In some ways, the cyclicity of history has brought us around again to the idea that sexuality is an amorphous, undefined continuum and that everyone is free to set up their own circles to say, “These are the people whose experiences are similar enough to mine that I feel we represent an identifiable category.” Or not.

One of these days I’ll return to my favorite topic of cognitive category theory and how it helps me to integrate gender and sexuality data from the past. But until then …

Show Notes

In this episode we talk about:

  • Historic contexts in which people conceived as lesbians as belonging to a “third sex”
  • Academic studies that use the concept of a “third sex” as a way of understanding historic models of gender and sexuality

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

Links to Heather Online

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Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 262 - On the Shelf for July 2023

Saturday, July 1, 2023 - 07:00

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Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 262 - On the Shelf for July 2023 - Transcript

(Originally aired 2023/07/01 - listen here)

Welcome to On the Shelf for July 2023.

Not much in the way of an introduction this month—I hope everyone had a chance to celebrate pride month in a satisfying way. I’ve been rather buried under the day-job, but did make the time to get in two author interviews for this show. The garden has also been demanding my attention, with the cherry crop to get in, all the various berries turning ripe, and the beginnings of a massive crop of plums of several varieties. As predicted, the fruit trees are making good use of all the rain we got over the winter, though the unusually cool weather currently means that the tomatoes are very late to start ripening. This year it feels like California has flipped normal on its head, especially compared to the rest of the continent.

July is going to see me at two more SFF conventions: I’ll be sharing a table selling books at BayCon the weekend this episode comes out. Then later in the month I’m off to Winnipeg Canada for Pemmicon, the North American Science Fiction Convention that may be held in years when Worldcon is on a different continent. I won’t be going to Worldcon this year, breaking a several year streak. I just wasn’t feeling up to traveling to China, especially given some uncertainty over the convention logistics. So Pemmicon will wrap up my convention schedule for the year. As usual, if you’re at one of these events, I’d love for you to reach out and say hi. A fan of the show got up the courage to do that at WisCon in May and it meant the world to me.

Speaking of things that mean the world to me, I received a note from one of our fiction series authors who said the boost of confidence she got from selling a story to the podcast inspired her to set to work on a full novel, which she’s currently shopping around to agents. I’m delighted to have contributed in some small way to helping an author get started, and I hope that in the future I’ll be able to announce that novel in the forthcoming books listings.

For those of you who—like me—enjoy audiobooks, you might want to check out a collection of early LGBTQ+ short fiction complied by the public domain, crowd-sourced audiobook site LibriVox. Because Librivox only works with public domain material, these are all stories from no later than 1927. The collection includes stories of same-sex desire and transgender experience, though the queer themes are often implicit rather than explicit. But many of the authors represented here participated in same-sex relationships and wrote from their own experience. The collection is titled “Out of the Closet” and includes stories by familiar queer authors such as Walt Whitman and Sarah Orne Jewett, but also has many less well-known authors. The items that I can determine to have sapphic themes include Kate Chopin’s “The Falling in Love of Fedora”, Constance Fenimore Woolson’s “Felipa”, Rose Terry’s “My Visitation”, Alice Brown’s “There and Now”, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman’s “Two Friends”, Sarah Orne Jewett’s “Martha’s Lady”, Octave Thanet’s “My Lorelei: A Heidelberg Romance”, and Sui Sin Far’s “The Heart’s Desire.” There’s a link to the collection in the show notes. I’m a major fan of Librivox for audiobooks of classic works, though the volunteer nature of the narrator pool means that the quality can be variable.

Publications on the Blog

The blog is still on vacation with regard to reviewing new publications. And no non-fiction shopping this month either. So we’ll go right on in to the new and recent fiction releases, of which there is an abundance.

Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction

I turned up some previously unnoticed books as far back as March—which is a bit odd, because I set my search parameters to only show me things released in May or later. Amazon’s search feature is badly broken at the moment and is paying little attention either to limits on pub date or to sorting titles by date order. I am very very annoyed.

Up first is what looks like a rather spicy sapphic mash-up of The Hunchback of Notre Dame with The Phantom of the Opera. R.L. Davennor gives us The Hells of Notre Dame (The Phantom of Notre Dame #1) from Night Muse Press. The author notes that as the series continues, the central characters from this book expand to a broader and more diverse polyamorous circle of lovers, but the first book focuses on a sapphic romance.

One night was all it took.

I should have stayed away. I should have thrown away her scarf, banished Esmeralda from my mind, body, and soul, and never thought or spoke of her again. That would have been the best thing, the right thing.

But our Lord works in mysterious ways, and before I know it, the walls of Notre Dame become her prison as much as they are my sanctuary. And with temptation front and center, neither of us have the strength to resist. Our days become longing glances and coded whispers, our nights stolen kisses and caresses on borrowed time, because we both know the inescapable truth.

Our love can only end as it began—in fire. But as each day passes, and the more I fall under her spell, eternal damnation seems a small price to pay.

If Esmeralda is hell, I’ll go willingly.

Next we have a Victorian gothic horror story with what the author describes as a softly sweet conclusion—just in case you were worried where it was going. The book is Catmint's Moth by Laura Jean Mason. The cover copy seems to be following a new fashion for descriptive language that doesn’t entirely target the usual meanings of the words that are used. But here’s what it says.

When grieved prima ballerina, Catmint, is presumed drowned, but is rescued while drifting in the drowning boughs overlooked by the cliffside convalescent home by the practitioner, Moth, a handsome young lady of similar years who dresses in masculine clothing to present male for her profession—who is surgically skilled with delusions of blossoming cadavers—both of their curses interlace. During Catmint’s recovery, Moth is watchful of her practicing under the marred cottonwood. Catmint confidently initiates devotion to blossom into physical intimacy, sharing in a softly secretive courtship until the opera house comes to collect. The bargain is struck for Moth to come with as Catmint’s personal practitioner, while pursuing surgical internship in the city, but is soon blackmailed into participating in the production as well. Moth is tormented by a ghastly imitation of Catmint, which troubles the underground tunnels of the operating rooms, while the prima ballerina performs in deathly rehearsals of the bloody ballet. In the grips of vengeance or utter madness, Moth is consumed. Catmint worthy of coveting despite ruin. Until ultimately, she uncurls what waits under the opera house.

There has been an explosion of interest in Sherlock Holmes re-framings in the last decade, perhaps in part spurred on by the entire Holmes canon moving into the public domain. Meredith Rose takes that canon in an intriguing new direction in A Study in Garnet (The Ladies of Baker Street #1) from Coedwig Books. If all goes as planned, look for an interview with Meredith Rose sometime in the next couple months.

January 29, 1881: Afghanistan ruined her body, but London has broken her heart.

Dr. Siân Watson longs to shed the male disguise she used to join the British Army, but when you look like a bloke, it’s easier to amputate a man’s leg on a battlefield than buy a dress in London. Undaunted, she heads to the Criterion Hotel to find help. But when a chance encounter with an old friend leads to meeting the mesmerizing Sherlyn Holmes, Dr. Watson’s plans are upended—faster than you can say “the game is afoot.”

Now, instead of going home to Wales, she’s moving into 221B Baker Street with Miss Holmes, whose piercing deductions are as thrilling as they are unsettling. Life with the world’s only consulting detective is powerful medicine, but as they hunt for whoever is murdering cab drivers across London, Watson fears her growing affection for Holmes might injure her more deeply than any bullet. As Holmes’s obsession with the case pushes Watson into risks she swore never to take again, she must choose: whatever respectability a woman doctor can earn—or Sherlyn Holmes. Both is not an option.

When their quest for justice lands them in trouble with the law, Watson fears she has survived one war only to fall in a different kind of battle—one that may destroy what’s left of her heart.

Our next offering is a historic fantasy with a somewhat vaguely medieval setting: A Field of Foxglove (Lavender and Foxglove #1) by Hilary Rose Berwick.

Prioress Emmelot des Étoiles loves her world of service and sung prayers, of community and opus Dei – and of secrets, both magical and intimate.

When a bedraggled woman stumbles into Emmelot’s church and is accused of murdering her master, Emmelot vows to save her. The accused, Ysabeau, is a dedicated Diplomat, stolen as a child and forced to serve the local lord with her magical ability to persuade others.

Aware she is falling in love, yet unsure if she trusts her new friend, Emmelot must discover who really killed Ysabeau's master... before the new lord reclaims 'his' Diplomat and Emmelot loses her chance for love.

The sapphic content of Boadicea: Bowed not Broken by Jana Williams is vaguely hinted at in the cover copy, but the subject tags suggest it more clearly.

Boadicea... warrior, mother and fully-trained Druid who readily admits her greatest teacher was the young slave woman she rescues when they were only eighteen. Tasked with a covert mission from her Druid master. Boadicea sets out on her first mission and immediately encounters trouble in the guise of a hapless slave girl about to be beaten. Boadicea grudgingly intervenes never suspecting the far reaching implications for her mission or her life.

I’m not quite sure about including this next title because it claims that it’s “part two” and I can’t find hide or hair of a “part one.” Furthermore, we seem to be very much coming in at this middle of a story. But for what it’s worth, here’s Northwoman: Part Two by M. Jeffrey.

Saxon woman, Wulfrun finds herself mixed into a new love triangle when Erik's ex wife, Loucia, and Revna's ex lover, Astrid, return from a long voyage. Finding ways to cope with the new romantic entanglements to her life, and preparing for the battle with her ex husband, Harold, in Saxon England, she befriends Juçe, a Spanish man who was brought to Lysbotn a slave and was now a free man struggling to find his own place in the world. Before her return to England, she must face one last enemy and prove to herself that she can withstand the upcoming battle.

Upon her return to England, she learns Harold has grown more sadistic and cruel and fears that the Gods have placed too much of a burden on her. Finding her old friend Tate, she gathers the courage to see her demons fall.

If the idea of a Regency romance crossed with a candy-store rom-com, with a gender-crossing love interest and a fake dating plot tickles your fancy, Sweet Nothings and Other Confections by Sula Sullivan may have been written exactly with you in mind.

Lucille Waters, a spunky but anxious aspiring artist, finds herself caught in a conundrum. Her parents want her to marry or become a governess. In order to avoid either fate, she needs a solution— and quickly. On a whim, she lies and tells her parents she is engaged to the reclusive Lord Fondant. When her mother calls her bluff, Lucille is forced to create an elaborate scheme that will hold up against the scrutiny of her parents. The only problem? It involves convincing Lord Fondant to pretend to be her fiance.

Unbeknownst to Lucille and the rest of the Ton, Lord Fondant isn’t Lord Fondant at all. She’s the newly minted Lady Fiona Fondant; Fiona is a renowned confectioner whose delectable creations have captured the hearts of the Ton. Despite Fiona’s success and wealth, she’s struggling to navigate her new role at the helm of the family business. It’s a lonely, physically demanding job that only exacerbates the chronic illness she must manage day in and day out.

Together, they agree to go through with Lucille’s charade that challenges both their hearts and expectations. As their friendship deepens, Lucille and Fiona find themselves entangled in a world of make-believe; the line between fantasy and reality begins to blur, and an undeniably sweet chemistry simmers beneath the surface. But is their newfound friendship a recipe for disaster?

Ann's Angel (School of Enlightenment short story) by Maggie Sims is the newest installment in the growing body of “short sapphic romance spun off of a primarily heterosexual historic romance novel series.” I can’t tell whether you need to have read the main series to follow the action in this short story.

December 1812—London

Two courtesans looking to get out of the game…

Ann Dockree wants this Christmas to be her last as a courtesan, but learning that her latest investment did not return the expected funds crushes her. Especially since her dearest friend Mary Hale has enough saved to quit the life and leave London.

But when, only days before Christmas, Mary is hurt at the hands of her so-called benefactor, Ann must care for her. Touching Mary is its own sweet agony, torturing Ann with fantasies of what might be. If only Ann can summon the courage to confess she wants more than friendship with Mary before it is too late.

A warm bath, a compassionate touch, and an unexpected yet longed for taste of pleasure might inspire the Christmas gift that offers happiness to both.

If this next title hadn’t specifically indicated a sapphic romance in the publicity, I’d likely have put it in the “other books of interest” section along with several other titles that have only hints and coy suggestions in the cover copy.

Bunny by Annie Moon looks like it may also need some content warnings for experiences that the cover copy is equally coy about spelling out.

In the enchanting world of Edwardian England, where innocence and secrets intertwine, young Mary embarks on a poignant journey that will shape her understanding of love, devotion. "Bunny" is a deeply moving YA novel that unfolds through the bittersweet words of a dying woman, lovingly crafted for her daughter's eyes to discover.

Set against the backdrop of a bygone era, "Bunny" transports readers to a time of lavish gardens, grand estates, and hidden desires. Mary's idyllic youth is forever transformed when Bunny, a mysterious and troubled young woman, enters her life one fateful summer. Placed under the care of Mary's father's best friend, Rudy, Bunny's fragile state hints at a harrowing past, one marred by abuse and suffering— and something tells Mary that the present is not much better.

Driven by a blossoming affection and compassion for Bunny, Mary becomes her unwavering guardian. As their bond deepens amidst the turmoil of Edwardian country society, tragedy strikes when Bunny is coerced into taking a step with Rudy that she never thought possible. United by their shared experiences, Bunny and Mary find solace in a humble garden cottage, forging a sanctuary away from the cruelties of the world.

However, fate has more challenges in store for the young women. Rudy whisks Bunny away on a journey abroad, leaving Mary behind. When Bunny returns, a changed and haunted figure, the outbreak of World War I casts an ominous shadow over their lives. Working together in a convalescence home within the grand house, they face the harsh realities of war, only to uncover Bunny's hidden secret— one which will change their lives forever.

Ann Aptaker is starting a new mystery series with A Crime of Secrets (Donner & Longstreet Mystery #1) from Bywater Books

New York City, 1899—a city on the cusp of a new century. A city growing taller, faster, a city of new inventions, new ideas—and old dangers on its shadowy streets where crime, misery, and murder lurk. When Pauline Godfrey, a young woman embodying the coming modern age, is viciously murdered, her throat cut, private inquiry agents Finola “Fin” Donner and Devorah Longstreet must navigate a world of violence and passion, lust and betrayal, where duty is twisted into bitter obedience and love is soiled. Fin, a tough survivor of the dockside slums, and her beloved companion, the elegant, intellectual socialite Devorah, probe deep into the festering secrets of a family, the rot and corruption of the police department, and the sinister world of the city’s thieves, whores, and thugs to find the killer.

Another new series (based on the inclusion of a series name and number) is Devil's Slide (Speakeasy #1) by Stacy Lynn Miller from Bella Books.

High school best friends Rose and Dax each have a secret—they like the other in a way they shouldn’t in 1920s Prohibition Era California. After sharing a first kiss, they’re forced apart—each sent to a different city to account for their sin. Rose lands in the coastal tourist city of Half Moon Bay in virtual servitude, working for a distant cousin for pennies. Dax has an idyllic existence in San Francisco, living with her married sister. Then the fates change. Rose escapes her miserable circumstance and lives a full life after landing a job as a lounge singer at an underground speakeasy. Dax wears out her welcome with her brother-in-law, and she and her sister end up tending to inherited property—a restaurant in Half Moon Bay. After nine years, Dax and Rose cross paths again but is it too late for them? Lovers and past loves, greedy businessmen, whiskey, and the quest for a quick buck make it nearly impossible to pick things up where they left off. Will the lives they’ve led keep them apart? Or will Dax and Rose defy the odds and find a way to be together?

Her Forgotten Promise by Corin Burnside from HQ Digital is a cross-time story, uncovering a past romance through contemporary research.

A wartime secret. A journey to uncover the truth. After an accident leaves Claire’s aunt Margaret feeling frail, Claire is more concerned for her than ever: Margaret has started getting mixed up between the past and present and keeps asking after someone called Agnes. When Claire asks her aunt about Agnes, she learns that the two lived together during the war whilst working as WAAFs. They were best friends until Agnes started acting strangely, suddenly becoming secretive and distant. Then one morning, Agnes had gone and never returned home, leaving Margaret distraught. Keen to reconnect with her aunt, Claire promises to help discover what happened to Agnes. But apart from an old photograph of the two girls, Agnes seems to have disappeared into thin air. With Margaret’s memory rapidly fading, can Claire uncover Agnes’ story before it’s too late?

Other Books of Interest

The titles I’ve classified as “other books of interest” this month are all due to significant uncertainty whether the keyword search that implies sapphic content is accurate. In each of these, although the titles turned up in my search, the listing categories aren’t helpful and the cover copy only hints at things like “more in common than they knew” or “the girl she has come to love” or “romance and self-discovery”.

First up is The Dawn of Eternal Winter by Veronika Sizova from Life Rattle Press.

Saint Petersburg, 1905. Amid civil unrest, Margarita boards the train to Paris, escaping the claws of the Russian Empire's ruthless regime. At war with its neighbours, her homeland collapses, leaving millions of broken lives in its wake. Recounting her past to the woman who saved her, Rita takes the readers to the icy gates of Siberia, the colonnade of St. Isaac's Cathedral, and the stage of the Mariinsky Theatre. A daring psychological thriller with romance, fantasy, and suspense, this text synthesizes past and present, beauty and terror, insurgence and war. Set in a fictionalized version of pre-revolutionary Saint Petersburg, this tale of loss, grief, and betrayal becomes a window into the cold authoritarian world where love and freedom are against the law, but the fire of hope burns.

This next is a very short story with a somewhat idiosyncratic prose style (based on a look at the preview): Not Just Another to Bury by Cyan Vidales Nicoletti.

What would you do if a perfect stranger leaves you with everything?

A person you knew- saw- for a split second bequeaths all mortal possessions?

The year is 1349 and volunteer plague doctor, Lucrecia Mordor, has been thrown just about anything. Usually the mind-numbing task of detailing the information of any and all of the new fallen to the great sickness.

Till that day- where a woman named Mary Payne reaches out to Missus Mordor in her last moments of life, not letting go til her last breath. Minutes later Lucrecia is informed-

Miss Mary left her with everything...

Not Just Another to Bury is a story of self discovery, devotion, and of two women- who have more in common than either could have ever thought.

The Madwomen of Paris by Jennifer Cody Epstein from Ballantine Books looks like it may be fairly dark, and as it’s literary fiction rather than a romance, I wouldn’t make assumptions about how things turn out.

When Josephine arrives at the Salpêtrière she is covered in blood and badly bruised. Suffering from near-complete amnesia, she is diagnosed with what the Paris papers are calling “the epidemic of the age”: hysteria. It is a disease so baffling and widespread that Doctor Jean-Martine Charcot, the asylum’s famous director, devotes many of his popular public lectures to the malady. To Charcot’s delight, Josephine also proves extraordinarily susceptible to hypnosis, the tool he uses to unlock hysteria’s myriad (and often sensational) symptoms. Soon Charcot is regularly featuring Josephine on his stage, entrancing the young woman into fantastical acts and hallucinatory fits before enraptured audiences and eager newsmen—many of whom feature her on their paper’s front pages.

For Laure, a lonely asylum attendant assigned to Josephine’s care, Charcot’s diagnosis seems a godsend. A former hysteric herself, she knows better than most that life in the Salpêtrière’s Hysteria Ward is far easier than in its dreaded Lunacy division, from which few inmates ever return. But as Josephine’s fame as Charcot’s “star hysteric” grows, her memory starts to return—and with it, images of a horrific crime she believes she’s committed.

Haunted by these visions, and helplessly trapped in Charcot’s hypnotic web, she starts spiraling into actual insanity. Desperate to save the girl she has grown to love, Laure plots their escape from the Salpêtrière and its doctors. First, though, she must confirm whether Joséphine is actually a madwoman, soon to be consigned to the Salpêtrière’s brutal Lunacy Ward—or a murderer, destined for the guillotine. Both are dark possibilities—but not nearly as dark as what Laure will unearth when she sets out to discover the truth.

We finish with another novel based on actual historic events and situations: Women of the Post by Joshunda Sanders from Park Row.

This story concerns the all-Black battalion of the Women's Army Corps who found purpose, solidarity and lifelong friendship in their mission of sorting over one million pieces of mail for the US Army.

1944, New York City.

Judy Washington is tired of working from dawn til dusk in the Bronx Slave Market, cleaning white women’s houses and barely making a dime. Her husband is fighting overseas, so it's up to Judy and her mother to make enough money for rent and food. When the chance arises for Judy to join the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) and the ability to bring home a steady paycheck, she jumps at the opportunity. Immediately upon arrival, Judy undergoes grueling military drills and inspections led by Second Officer Charity Adams, one of the only Black officers in the WAC. Judy becomes fast friends with the other women in her unit—Stacy, Bernadette and Mary Alyce—who only discovered she was Black after joining the army.

Under Charity Adams’s direction, they are transferred to Birmingham, England, as part of the 6888th Central Postal Battalion—the only unit of Black women to serve overseas in WWII. Here, they must sort a backlog of over one million pieces of mail. The women work tirelessly, knowing that they're reuniting soldiers to their loved ones through the letters they write. However, their work becomes personal when Mary Alyce discovers a backlogged letter addressed to Judy that will upend her personal life.

Told through the alternating perspectives of Judy, Charity and Mary Alyce, Women of the Post is an unforgettable story of perseverance, female friendship, romance and self-discovery.

I also want to add an update here. A book that was included in the April show as an April release under the title Her Female Husband evidently got changed at some point to a May release under the title The Poisoned Pen Pal and has a different buy link. I’ve included the new data in the show notes. I don’t usually bother with corrections—and it’s pretty common for me to discover that I missed a change of publication date. But in this case I was trying to figure out if this was a different book in the same series, confusingly also identified as “book 1” and figured it was worth a note, just in case someone tried to track it down.

What Am I Reading?

And what am I reading? After the abundance of May, I only finished two items in June. I found Elizabeth Norton’s non-fiction work The Hidden Lives of Tudor Women as an Audible free book and figured it would make good casual listening and deep-background research on women’s lives. I was a little disappointed that it implied it was focused on ordinary women’s lives but ended up centering largely around royalty and a few celebrities, with much less content on everyday lives sprinkled throughout.

It took me a while to read through Sixpenny Octavo by Annick Trent, but it was worth it. This is a sweet, slow-paced romance set in the late 18th century featuring working-class young women in London who get caught up in the political turmoil around “dangerous publications.” The historical grounding is excellent and the interior lives of the central characters are very believable and true to the setting.

Author Guest

This month we have two—count them, two!—author guests on the show. First we talk to Dee Holloway, whose novella Little Nothing comes out from Queen of Swords Press this month.

(Transcript of interview with Dee Holloway will be included when available.)

This month we also talked to Lianyu Tan whose gothic horror novel The Wicked and the Willing just won a Lambda Literary Award!

(Transcript of interview with Lianyu Tan will be included when available.)

Show Notes

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

In this episode we talk about:

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

Links to Heather Online

Links to Dee Holloway Online

Links to Lianyu Tan Online

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LHMP
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Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 261 – Our F/Favorite Tropes Part 7: Aristocrats and Billionaires

Saturday, June 17, 2023 - 07:00

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Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 261 – Our F/Favorite Tropes Part 7: Aristocrats and Billionaires - transcript

(Originally aired 2023/06/17 - listen here)

This installment in the Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast’s series on “Our F/Favorite Tropes” once again pairs two tropes that make an interesting “compare and contrast” set: titled aristocrats and billionaires. These two character-based tropes revolve around the premise that power and privilege is sexy, whether that power derives from a fixed social hierarchy or from extreme wealth. But these tropes intersect with gender issues in historic settings in very different ways, as we shall see.

What Is a Trope?

Let’s begin by reviewing what we mean by “trope.” In the context of romance novels, it means a conventional story element that is used regularly enough to have acquired a whole context of meaning that connects the story to others using the same trope. The trope may be a type of character—as in the current instance—or it may be a situation, or a sort of “mini-script” that the characters engage in.

In this series, we begin by examining the structure and assumptions around a trope as it typically plays out in male-female romance plots, and then reviewing how that structure or those assumptions change when a female couple is involved. The changes may depend on the specific historic and cultural context of the story. In general, I’ll be looking primarily at Western culture, and especially stories set in the British Isles, due not only to the way my research skews, but also because of the popularity of those settings.

The Aristocrat

Let’s put some cards on the table right off and note that when we’re talking about aristocrat romances, we’re talking about the fantasy of hot, young, wealthy, single aristocrats. Or at least three out of four. Within a male-female romance, the aristocrat is almost always the man (and we’ll get back to that topic in just a moment), while the female love interest is very often (though not always) not of the same class. A large part of the appeal comes from the “Cinderella” framework—a deserving woman of lower social status is given access to the world of aristocratic wealth and privilege via marriage to a duke…or whatever. Often, the plot tension comes from her rejection of the attraction of that privilege, such that the aristocrat needs to woo her on the basis of personality, rather than being able to leverage his wealth and social power to get what he wants.

In contrast to the billionaire (which we’ll get to later), there will be considerations of family status and lineage: he needs to think about producing heirs, he needs to maintain the honor and dignity of his name. These factors may either drive the plot directly, or may be explicitly violated. Or perhaps the aristocrat has taken advantage of his social privilege to get away with bad behavior and the love interest is either put off by this or is the one woman who sees through to the heart of gold within.

The romantic resolution in a marriage plot provides the love interest with two things that, in a male-female romance, come bundled together. She gets access to the social power and privilege that accompany her partner’s aristocratic title, and she gets elevated to his social rank and given her own aristocratic title.

How it Works (or Not)

But when we apply the aristocrat trope to a romance between two women, we need to separate out those two benefits because we run into two major obstacles: one merely inconvenient and one insurmountable.

The insurmountable problem is that, until very very recently, there is no social context for same-sex marriage to be a conduit for gaining aristocratic status. Now there’s a delightful emerging genre of queer “royal romance” novels that take advantage of the massive social changes in the last couple of decades. (And I’d be curious to know if there are any real-world same-sex marriages where one partner held an inherited aristocratic title, and how that was handled.)

But within the field of historic romance, it just isn’t possible. If you want to do that, you’re going to need to write a secondary-world historic fantasy, or introduce a gender-disguise element—which is a bit tricky for a character whose life will have been under the type of scrutiny that an aristocrat usually gets. I’ve been holding off on discussing how gender-crossing characters interact with tropes because I plan to cover that issue in its own episode. So forgive me for treating this as an absolute at this time.

For a same-sex aristocrat romance, the closest you can get to a marriage plot is the equivalent of an official mistress or favorite. And—mind you—some mistresses of aristocrats were de facto spouses, with a lot of power and privilege rubbing off on them. Royal mistresses might even be granted an aristocratic title for “service to the crown” though since the creation of new titles tended to reside at the top, this option wouldn’t be available for dukes and earls and whatnot. But what you can’t have is the romantic partner of a woman who holds an aristocratic title in her own right automatically being granted an equivalent title by virtue of that relationship.

The second obstacle, which is more nuanced, is the existence of your titled protagonist in the first place. The possibilities here will vary greatly by country and, to a lesser extent, by era. An aristocrat may acquire a title by inheritance, by marriage, or by grant.

Due to the sexist nature of Western history, it’s a fairly solid trend that only women acquire titles by marriage—an untitled man who marries a titled woman does not automatically acquire her title. (There are exceptions—evidently in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the husband of a titled heiress was given a courtesy title.) And, as we’ve noted, a same-sex partner can’t acquire a title by marriage in any case. If a romance heroine has a title by marriage, then either she has a living husband, which complicates the structure of the romance plot. (It’s perfectly historic for her to engage in a romantic liaison with a woman on the side, but that isn’t a classic romance novel plot.) Or she’s a widow. And if she’s a widow, then she will hold a dowager title by courtesy, but she will not be the primary holder of the power and status of that title. So again, we’re straying from the central prototype of the aristocrat trope.

The possibility of a woman inheriting a title depends strongly on country. For example, the custom in the German states excluded women entirely from inheriting titles. In France, it was hypothetically possible if there were no male heirs available, but whether this would be carried out in practice varied from region to region and from era to era. (I found a delightfully detailed study of this question in an article that I’ll link to in the show notes.) A woman inheriting a French title would likely have no siblings of either gender, and might be best served by having no uncles. Often it would also require a specific royal grant. And legal theories began pushing back even more strongly against these exceptions in the 17th century, upholding the principle that only men should inherit titles. I’ve found references to instances of women inheriting titles in some regions of Italy.

In the United Kingdom, which is statistically prominent in historic romance aristocracy, the question of whether a woman may inherit a title in the absence of male heirs depends on the specific title in question or on the process by which the title was originally created. The largest category that allowed this was “baronies created by writ, rather than by letters patent,” which is getting far too technical for this podcast, but be aware that it was extremely rare for the higher titles such as duchies and counties to have this allowance. For technical reasons involving female inheritance, a woman can only inherit the title (as opposed to the status) if she has no sisters. So if you’re setting up your heroine for this situation, she needs to be the only surviving child of her family.

Now the third way for a woman to gain an aristocratic title is for it to be granted to her directly, either as a title for life only, or as a permanent title that could be passed on to her heirs. These creations included titles of all ranks: duchesses, countesses, baronesses, marquesses. Some monarchs seemed to hand these out like candy, other created none at all. The reasons why a woman might be granted such a title don’t always work well for a same-sex aristocratic romance plot. Being the favored mistress of a king was a popular path to a title, either for life or as a permanent title (as in Barbara Duchess of Cleveland, one of Charles II’s mistresses). Another motivation for granting a woman a title, especially in more recent centuries, would be to honor her deceased husband who had inconveniently died before being ennobled. Or, in an interesting dodge, to honor a husband who was a prominent politician in the House of Commons and would have lost that office if given a peerage directly. By granting the title to a widow or wife, she could then pass on to the man’s heirs. But there are occasional examples of women being granted a personal title, usually only for life, due to their own personal merit and service. Examples include being the mother of the king’s best friend, being governess to the princess royal, being a loyal courtier of the future Charles II during his exile, being the mother to prime ministers, or being a courtier and artist. I found no examples of grants of this type to a never-married woman, although often to widows. (Of course, in the 20th century and after, the creation of female “life peers” has become commonplace, especially as women have entered the highest levels of the government.)

So, as you can see, in order to end up with an unmarried woman holding a title in her own right, you need to do some social engineering, but it can be done. Now that you have her, what are the parallels and contrasts with a man in the same position? A common feature of aristocrat romances is the mandate to marry and produce heirs for the title. In a male-female romance, this mandate is aligned with the romance plot. But in a same-sex romance, the two are in conflict. Your titled heroine will be under perhaps more than that usual pressures to marry and produce children, but her romantic entanglement with a woman will be viewed as a distraction, even if the intensity of that relationship is not generally known. This provides useful plot developments. Rather than the marriage imperative being treated as the driver of a marriage of convenience, or as off-putting to a heroine who doesn’t want to be viewed as just a baby-maker, it becomes the obstacle course that our titled heroine needs to maneuver while trying to win the heart of her beloved. Or being won over against her wishes and perhaps even her better judgment. (And there are certainly historic cases of women who inherited titles and never married, thus leaving the legacy to a collateral line.)

So the elements of the traditional aristocratic romance that can be retained (within a suitable cultural context) are: one character with status and presumably wealth, a second character that lacks those features, the whole gamut of personality clashes that have to do with each of their assumptions and attitudes about that disparity, the usefulness of social status when flouting convention, and a resolution in which the less privileged character gains stability and protection from being associated with the titled character. It is hypothetically possible that your second heroine might be granted a personal title for her services to the state, thus elevating her to the same rank as her partner, but this approach requires a bit more suspension of disbelief unless she’s an ex-mistress of the king.

The Billionaire

When I talk about a “billionaire” trope, I’m not limiting it to a specific amount of wealth, but rather using “billionaire” to stand in for whatever resources represent complete freedom from economic constraints.

The typical heterosexual billionaire romance plot involves a character—most often the man—with extreme wealth, but who has discovered that (in the words of the Beatles song) “money can’t buy you love.” They may have a well-founded suspicion that potential partners are gold-diggers. They may have been so focused on managing their financial life that they have neglected to build personal relationships. They may simply represent a fantasy of luxurious living.

Most typically, the romantic partner contrasts greatly in financial status. They are poor—perhaps in dire need whether on a personal basis or for the sake of a family or organization. Or perhaps they aren’t desperately poor but simply of typical income, meaning that their financial life operates on an entirely different level. The billionaire represents either the answer to desperation, or access to a fantasy lifestyle. But at the same time there is a structural power imbalance that can contribute barriers to the romance.

There are variations within this structure. Does the poorer partner know about the other’s wealth? Is there a dynamic to the relationship above and beyond money that makes it difficult for the poorer partner to walk away, or for the richer partner to trust their sincerity? Do they begin with something resembling an employer/employee relationship that develops into romance? Or do they fall in love first only to find that the financial contrast causes problems? Is the billionaire’s money based on an inheritance or have they accumulated wealth on their own? (And in our current, culturally-sensitive age, we should ask how that wealth was accumulated. Are there factors that a reader might consider problematic or are we going to sweep those questions under the carpet?)

But because this is a romance, we know they work out their problems and achieve a personal merger, bringing the love interest into the world of wealth and the privileges it offers, while perhaps inciting the billionaire to achieve a better work/life balance.

My perception is that billionaire romances more typically have a contemporary setting, rather than a historic one. In historic settings, the wealthy protagonist is more often merged with the aristocratic one, unless set in a country with no aristocracy, such as the American Gilded Age or the like. But in a plot where the privileged character is female, the dynamics of wealth versus aristocracy become more relevant.

How it Works (or Not)

So using the aristocratic role as a contrast, how does a wealthy woman fit into a same-sex romance plot? A key difference is that wealth is less restricted than titles in how it is acquired and how it may be shared or transferred. If two women enter into a long-term romantic partnership, there are a variety of ways in which the wealthier woman can ensure her partner will enjoy financial benefits. While marriage may be the prototypical outcome of a heterosexual billionaire romance, it isn’t essential for the structure and function of the trope in the way that it is when a title is involved. Furthermore, while inherited wealth is universally the most common way for any protagonist to become wealthy—and while women tend to be disadvantaged under many systems of inheritance law—it’s still easier for a woman to inherit a fortune than to inherit a title, and it’s much easier for a woman to acquire a fortune through her own efforts than to be granted a noble title. So, to the extent that the aristocracy trope and the billionaire trope have strong thematic parallels for male-female romances, it’s easier for female couples to inhabit the one based on wealth.

Once we have a female billionaire (or at least, fabulously wealthy person), the dynamics of the trope can proceed in parallel as for a male-female romance. How they meet, whether the potential partner knows about the wealth from the start, what part it plays in the enticements and hurdles of the relationship, how they each feel about the disparity in their situations. The differences in the dynamics will be those present for any historic same-sex courtship as compared to a different-sex one: the lack of social expectations for marriage between them, but potential external pressures on them to marry elsewhere; the greater ease in social access to each other during the courtship; the question of how others view the nature of their relationship and whether the couple feel the need to mask it under a more acceptable non-romantic arrangement.

But we should return to the question of how our female billionaire acquired her wealth and how she maintains it, because these are issues that will be greatly affected by the specific culture and era of the setting. If she has inherited wealth, what sort of family background would be necessary for her to be a significant beneficiary? Has she inherited it from the direct line (in which case must she be an only child?) or is it a bequest from someone outside the immediate family (if so, who and why?). Or has she inherited it from a late husband? (See the episode talking about widows for this scenario.)

Presumably we want her to have personal control over her wealth, so what is necessary for this to be possible rather than having executors who have control of it. (A male heir might also have executors, especially if fairly young, but women were more likely to have only conditional access to their inheritances.) Keep in mind that when we’re dealing with an unmarried woman with significant fortune, she will probably need to deal regularly with men who see her as an ideal wife. But in many historic contexts, a married woman’s property goes under her husband’s control, so this trope doesn’t work well if you try to mix it with a husband on the side, regardless of how open-minded he may be. And for that matter, any relatives of hers who might expect to inherit from her will have a personal interest (though not necessarily a legal claim) in how she ties up her fortune to benefit a partner whom they see as a stranger.

This is yet one more situation where we can see many of the complexities play out in the relationship between Ann Lister and Anne Walker, in the specific context of England in the early 19th century.

If our heroine has earned the wealth through her own actions, what fields were open to women for this purpose? It was often much harder for a woman to establish herself in trade than for a man to do so, and often they were more restricted in what trades were available. Alternately, a business might (again) be inherited from a late husband and then managed directly by the widow. In many contexts, smart management of real estate was a path to wealth. When banking and lending became more acceptable as a practice, women could turn a small nest egg into a significant income through micro-lending among her community, thus gaining the capital to expand into other fields. Investments were always a hazardous field, with great chance of gain being balanced by risk of loss. Whether it’s investment in shipping cargos or building projects or—as previously noted—real estate, we can make allowance for our heroine to rise by a combination of luck and shrewdness.

All of these questions will be affected by the specific context of the story, or perhaps the context of the story must be tailored to make possible the particular backstory we want to give our heroine. The scope is too broad to offer more than vague outlines.

Conclusions

In sum, both the aristocrat trope and the billionaire trope can be adapted for female couples in historic romances, but the effects and constraints are different—more so than for male-female couples. The titled aristocrat trope suffers from the dual problems that it is far less plausible (though not impossible) for a woman to hold a title in her own right, and that it is impossible for her partner to acquire a matching title via their relationship. The billionaire trope is much more flexible and adaptable, if sufficient care is taken in setting up the source of her wealth. Both offer the opportunity to explore the romantic dynamics between a couple who have significant disparities of social status or income, while providing a wide variety of roads to that happily ever after. Even if it’s a slightly different ever after than a heterosexual couple could look for.

Show Notes

In this episode we talk about:

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

Links to Heather Online

Major category: 
LHMP
View comments (0)
Tags: 
LHMP, podcast

Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 260 - On the Shelf for June 2023

Sunday, June 4, 2023 - 15:32

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Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 260 - On the Shelf for June 2023 - Transcript

(Originally aired 2023/06/03 - listen here)

Welcome to On the Shelf for June 2023.

It’s Pride Month

Pride month rolls around again and it’s always curious to see whether we get higher numbers of queer books released in June. I’ve had a vague impression that this is the case, but when I looked at the actual numbers for the last several years, it doesn’t necessarily prove true. June was among the most prolific months in 2021 and 2022, but not in 2020. I don’t have the full numbers yet for this year, because it’ll be a couple months before I can pick up all the June books that didn’t have pre-release listings, but the June numbers look somewhat skimpy this year.

It occurred to me this month to leverage NetGalley as another source of information about upcoming books, but the advance review site has no way to do the complex search intersections I need. You can look at lists of LGBTQ+ books but there’s no way to filter that by genre—not even by fiction versus non-fiction—or by character representation. Or I can look at lists of historical fiction but can’t filter for character representation. And there’s only a single category for all romance, so I can’t even filter for historic romance.

I’m not sure why I keep bringing up the difficulties of book discoverability, except to emphasize both to authors and readers how important this aspect is to getting books in front of the eyeballs that most want to read them. This is particularly the case for a small, marginal category like the one this podcast covers. If you’re an author of sapphic historical fiction, it’s absolutely key to use your toolbox to communicate your book’s market position. And if you’re an avid reader of sapphic historical fiction, the best thing you can do to ensure a continuing supply is to help get the word out—not only about the small handful of books that already get the buzz, but about the more obscure titles, especially from indies and small presses.

Every year when pride month rolls around, we see listicles and promotions for queer fiction, but with the tardy expansion of the major publishers into the field, more and more often those lists focus exclusively on the “Big 5” publishers and ignore the authors and presses that created the viability of the field in the first place. So this is just to say that a good way for a bibliophile to celebrate pride is to buy, read, and publicly endorse indie and small press books.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

I had quite the vacation from my day-job in May, taking off three entire weeks. (And—believe me—my co-workers were overjoyed to have me back this past week.) I didn’t quite have enough leisure time to get a preliminary glimpse of what retirement will be like, though I was able to get some advance work done on the podcast. The cornerstones of my time off were two science fiction and fantasy conventions: the Nebulas conference, which is the annual professional conference of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, and WisCon which is a general convention focused on feminism and marginalized identities.

In addition to hanging out with my book peeps and participating in panel discussions, I had several delightful encounters relating to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project. At the Nebulas, I was sitting around a lunch table with maybe 10 other people, discussing current projects and trading business cards (as you do), and it came out that fully half of the people at the table were already aware of the Project. And one author noted that they were hoping to submit a story to the fiction series at some point. (So I guess I should go ahead and commit to doing the fiction series again in 2024!) At WisCon there were a couple of times when someone came up to me out of the blue and told me how much they enjoyed the podcast, and in one case, how important the new book listings segment was for them. It’s hard for me to express how much it means to me when people tell me these things. I can keep going for quite some time on one unsolicited moment of appreciation.

So (ahem) take this as the official confirmation that there will be a fiction series in 2024. I’ll try to get the Call for Submissions post updated and posted on the website and update the various places where I can publicize it. It’s never too soon to start writing!

Publications on the Blog

With regard to the blog, I’m still in a bit of a slump with respect to posting publication summaries. I have the notes for several articles, but have gotten out of the rhythm of getting things written up and posted. Maybe this month!

Book Shopping!

But the book shopping is proceeding apace, boosted by my usual May shopping spree when all the academic presses run their sales in conjunction with the International Medieval Congress. (I skipped the Congress this year due to conflicts, but I never skip the book shopping.)

On the light-hearted side, I picked up a pop history book Mad & Bad: Real Heroines of the Regency by Bea Koch. A look at women of the English Regency era who were far from the proper and respectable ideal. Of course I bought Jill Liddington’s new book, As Good as a Marriage: The Anne Lister Diaries 1836-38, that she came on the show to talk about last month. Somewhat less clearly pertinent, is Lucy M. Allen-Goss’s Female Desire in Chaucer's Legend of Good Women and Middle English Romance. The summary of this book indicates that it touches on same-sex desire, though my experience with Chaucerian scholarship is that studies often stretch a very little data into somewhat tenuous interpretations in that area. So we’ll see.

On the side of general women’s history that I expect to find useful, but without a specific homoerotic aspect, I picked up Sandra Ballif Straubhaar’s Old Norse Women's Poetry: The Voices of Female Skalds. This collects up the sadly small corpus of Old Norse poetry that is attributed to female authors, either directly or embedded within sagas. I haven’t had a chance to do more than glance at it, but it sounds intriguing. And finally, I came across an older book, Western Representations of the Muslim Woman: From Termagant to Odalisque, by Mohja Kahf which covers a wide timespan beginning in the middle ages. When an author with a western cultural background (like me) is writing characters that have been traditionally viewed as outsiders, it can be very useful to know about the relevant stereotypes and myths, in order to avoid perpetuating them. Books like this are part of my eternal project to try to decolonize my historical imagination.

I think there are a couple more books that I’ve ordered that haven’t arrived yet. If they seem relevant, I’ll include them when they show up.

Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction

I’ve decided to try something a little different with the new and recent book releases. More and more often, I find myself dithering over whether a book can reasonably be classified as lesbian or sapphic if the gender identity of one or more characters doesn’t clearly align as a woman. I don’t want to misrepresent characters that can be perceived as female but are presented as non-binary or as falling more on the transmasculine side. And similarly, when dealing with historic settings that did not necessarily have social categories for trans men, there can be a fair amount of ambiguity between a woman choosing to pass as a man for pragmatic reasons and a trans man.

So in order to respect these ambiguities and uncertainties, I’m going to be presenting books in two categories: titles where the characters are clearly presented as women with lesbian or sapphic identities, and titles that I feel would be of interest to people looking for lesbian or sapphic books but where I feel less certain about applying that label. So in addition to the list of lesbian and sapphic historicals, I may have a second list of “books of interest.”

This is also where I’ll put books that aren’t technically historical but that may be of significant interest to readers who enjoy historicals, such as one of this month’s titles involving love in a historic re-enactment setting.

So let’s start with the lesbian and sapphic historicals!

I came across two books, which appear to begin an ongoing series, inspired by Shakespeare’s gender-bending comedy Twelfth Night. The author is Hannah Miyamoto, but the conceit of the books is that Miyamoto is editing a lost manuscript by a fictional early 20th century author “Lady Vanessa S.-G.” This was a bit confusing until I found a blog post in which the author discusses the series! The series title is The New Countess: A Story of Sexy 16th Century Sapphists of Shakespeare and book 1 is titled Twelve Nights with Viola & Olivia. I’ve edited the cover copy to skip the bits about the fictional author.

Young, rich, and beautiful, Contessa Olivia di Castellamare has just announced that she will not marry for the next seven years. Why then, does she fall in love with the first boy she meets? Does she know that the boy she loves is really a girl? Twelve Nights with Viola & Olivia retells the story of Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night from the perspective of the three young women that the play leaves silent: Viola, the girl passing as a boy, Countess Olivia, and Olivia's faithful lady of the bed-chamber Maria. Transferring Shakespeare’s mythical Illyria to a real kingdom during the Italian Wars (1494-1559), this story conveys the fears, anger, lusts and loves of Countess Olivia, as she wields her kiss and her sword with equal ability.

The second book in this series is If I Should Tell my History .

Beautiful young Countess Olivia has just married Sebastiano by accident: She thought he was Viola, his twin sister, when Viola was pretending to be a boy. Meanwhile, Viola loves a man in love with Olivia, and Sebastiano’s friend is in love with him. The course of love has never run less smooth.

I don’t usually comment on the writing style of the cover copy that I include in this segment, but I have to confess that I’m confused by some of the word choices for this next item. I’m going to read the copy as-written, but it doesn’t always make sense. The book is Sicili and the Penniless Lad by Rachel C. Neale from Spectrum Books and it appears to be set in the English Regency.

Ivy Ferthing has been out of society for five years due to famous, engorged rumors that destroyed her reputation. Now, just shy of nineteen, she has promised to play the part of propriety for her mother’s sake, but Ivy is an outlandish force to be reckoned with, and her true nature knows no shame––especially when it comes to an answerless beauty like Sicili Windihill.

Sicili Windihill is answerless, and never more than in the presence of Grace, the defiant half-naked painting that haunted her childhood. Now, having returned to the gossiping county of Wiltshire after six years of living in London, she is once again at the mercy of her father’s scheming ways. No sooner is she reunited with Grace and the tumultuous feelings it brings up then she discovers her father is harboring a grand, obnoxious plan––one that involves a devastating ultimatum.

They meet at a ball. A tantalizing tryst of wit, courage, fear, and unspoken admiration are quick to follow.

Geonn Cannon has a new book that looks like it’s independent from any previous series: Do Unto Others from Supposed Crimes.

Professional grifter Tinker and her apprentice, Penny Chaplin, have been conning their way across America for the past five years. They rob from the rich and corrupt and give to the deserving: themselves. There aren't many rules to being a grifter. Don't get greedy. Always trust your partner. Never fall for a mark. In the summer of 1945, killing time between jobs in Albuquerque, they're going to break all three.

Books that blend the English Regency with magic are common enough to practically form their own sub-genre. Alexis Hall has an entry into the field with Mortal Follies from Del Rey.

It is the year 1814, and life for a young lady of good breeding has many difficulties. There are balls to attend, fashions to follow, marriages to consider, and, of course, the tiny complication of existing in a world swarming with fairy spirits, interfering deities, and actual straight-up sorcerers. Miss Maelys Mitchelmore finds her entry into high society hindered by an irritating curse. It begins innocuously enough with her dress slowly unmaking itself over the course of an evening at a high-profile ball, a scandal she narrowly manages to escape. However, as the curse progresses to more fatal proportions, Miss Mitchelmore must seek out aid, even if that means mixing with undesirable company. And there are few less desirable than Lady Georgianna Landrake—a brooding, alluring young woman sardonically nicknamed “the Duke of Annadale”—who may or may not have murdered her own father and brothers to inherit their fortune. If one is to believe the gossip, she might be some kind of malign enchantress. Then again, a malign enchantress might be exactly what Miss Mitchelmore needs. With the Duke’s help, Miss Mitchelmore delves into a world of angry gods and vindictive magic, keen to unmask the perpetrator of these otherworldly attacks. But Miss Mitchelmore’s reputation is not the only thing at risk in spending time with her new ally. For the reputed witch has her own secrets that may prove dangerous to Miss Mitchelmore’s heart—not to mention her life.

Lucky Red by Claudia Cravens from The Dial Press looks like it’s packed with all your favorite Wild West tropes, as long as you don’t mind a protagonist who takes up sex work.

It's the spring of 1877 and sixteen-year-old Bridget is already disillusioned. She's exhausted from caring for her ne'er-do-well alcoholic father, but when he's killed by a snakebite as they cross the Kansas prairie, she knows she has only her wits to keep her alive. She arrives penniless in Dodge City, and, thanks to the allure of her bright red hair and country-girl beauty, is soon recruited to work at the Buffalo Queen, the only brothel in town run by women. Bridget takes to brothel life, appreciating the good food, good pay, and good friendships she forms with her fellow “sporting women."  Then Spartan Lee, the most legendary (and only) female gunfighter in the region, rides into town, and Bridget falls in love. Hard. Before long, though, a series of shocking double-crosses shatter the Buffalo Queen's tenuous peace and safety. Crushed by the devastating consequences of her actions and desperate for vengeance and autonomy, Bridget resolves to claim her own destiny.

There are some historic persons and events that attract fictional interpretations over and over again. Killingly by Katharine Beutner from Soho Crime is not the first treatment of its subject. Reviews and tags indicate that there is sapphic content, but it isn’t prominent. You may want to review content warnings on this one, too.

Based on the unsolved real-life disappearance of a Mount Holyoke student in 1897. Bertha Mellish, “the most peculiar, quiet, reserved girl” at Mount Holyoke College, is missing. One cold November morning the junior is spotted walking through the Massachusetts woods; then, she vanishes. As a search team dredges the pond where she might have drowned, Bertha’s panicked father and sister arrive at the campus desperate to find some clue as to her fate or state of mind. Bertha’s best friend, Agnes, a scholarly loner studying medicine, might know the truth, but she is being unhelpfully tightlipped, inciting the suspicions of Bertha’s family, her classmates, and the private investigator hired by the Mellish family doctor. As secrets from Agnes and Bertha’s lives come to light, so do the competing agendas driving each person who is searching for Bertha. Where did Bertha go? Who would want to hurt her? And could she still be alive?

The ”magical circus” is another theme that has its own micro-genre, and we get an entry with casual sapphic content in The First Bright Thing by J.R. Dawson from Tor Books.

Welcome to the Circus of the Fantasticals. Ringmaster – Rin, to those who know her best – can jump to different moments in time as easily as her wife, Odette, soars from bar to bar on the trapeze. With the scars of World War I feeling more distant as the years pass, Rin is focusing on the brighter things in life. Like the circus she’s built and the magical misfits and outcasts -- known as Sparks – who’ve made it their home. Every night, Rin and the Fantasticals enchant a Big Top packed full with audiences who need to see the impossible. But while the present is bright, threats come at Rin from the past and the future. The future holds an impending war that the Sparks can see barrelling toward their Big Top and everyone in it. And Rin's past creeps closer every day, a malevolent shadow Rin can’t fully escape. It takes the form of another Spark circus, with tents as black as midnight and a ringmaster who rules over his troupe with a dangerous power. Rin's circus has something he wants, and he won't stop until it's his.

Moving to more recent history, we have what sounds like a mystery with a gothic flavor in The Gulf by Rachel Cochran from Harper.

In Parson, Texas, a small town ravaged by a devastating hurricane and the Vietnam War, twenty-nine-year-old Lou is diligently renovating a decaying old mansion for Miss Kate, the elderly neighbor who has always been like a mother to her. Mourning her brother’s death in Vietnam, Lou dreams of enjoying a more peaceful future in Parson. But those hopes are crushed when Miss Kate is murdered, and no one but Lou seems to care about finding the killer. The situation becomes complicated when Joanna, Miss Kate’s long-estranged daughter and Lou’s first love, arrives in Parson—not to learn more about her mother’s death but for the house. Her arrival unearths sinister secrets involving the history of the town and its residents . . . revelations that may be the key to helping Lou discover the truth about Miss Kate’s death and her killer.

Other Books of Interest

As it happens, after setting up the category of “other books of interest,” I don’t have any this month that fall in the category for gender identity reasons. But I thought people might be interested in a new book from Jenny Frame that plays with the idea of love in a historical style: Just One Dance (The Regency Romance Club #1) from Bold Strokes Books.

Taylor Sparks is sick of swiping left or right. Online dating, where a casual glance at a profile forms your opinion of a person, has no sparkle. She has a business idea to make dating special—the Regency Romance Club. Guests fall in love in the regency style, with grand balls and regency pursuits, while enjoying some of Britain’s most magnificent stately homes. Jaq Bailey is mourning the death of her best friend. She wants to feel every inch of the pain and guilt she deserves for their death. A professor of early modern history, Bailey has sequestered herself in her study writing books and articles. Life is lonely and unchanging, until her publishers ask her to meet with Taylor, who is looking for a historian to help with her new business. As they start working together, Taylor’s bubbly personality and Bailey’s guilty angst clash, but as Bailey gets dragged into the magical, regency romance world, Taylor’s sparkle brings hope back into her life. They’re working to help others find their true loves, but they just might find it for themselves too.

What Am I Reading?

And what have I been reading? When I checked my spreadsheet, I was surprised to see that I’ve finished eight books since the last podcast, all but one of them audiobooks. This is a bit less startling when you consider that my vacation travels included a road trip from the SF Bay Area down to LA and back, plus a plane and bus trip to Madison, Wisconsin. That’s a lot of time to fill.

I finally consumed The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin, which is every bit as amazing as the series’ 3 Hugo awards indicate. I’d been putting this book off due to reviews indicating that it was dark and traumatic. Those reviews weren’t wrong, but the flavor of the darkness wasn’t the sort that booted me out of the story. The premise involves a world of massive seismic activity, whose inhabitants include people who can psychically control or manipulate that seismic activity and who thus become pawns or scapegoats in the politics of how to maintain civilization during the periodic ecological collapses resulting from quake and eruptions.

On a somewhat lighter side—if one can call murder mysteries “light”—a friend’s mention in their blog set me on the track of a new historic mystery series by Claudia Gray, with the premise that all of Jane Austen’s characters exist in the same story universe. The two titles so far are: The Murder of Mr Wickham and The Late Mrs Willoughby. Some very unlikeable canonical characters are murdered and two original characters—the son of Pride and Prejudice’s Darcy and Elizabeth, and the daughter of Northanger Abbey’s Catherine and Henry—team up to investigate. The mysteries are fun, though the writing is repetitive at times. The two central characters are engaging, leading one to root for their eventual romance. Young Jonathan Darcy is clearly—if sometimes clumsily—depicted as on the autism spectrum and Juliet Tilney’s cheerful acceptance of his “oddities” is refreshing. It’s not for me to say if an autistic reader would consider it good representation, but it’s an interesting example of how to do such representation in a historic context. (For what it’s worth, I’ve always considered Austen’s depiction of Mr. Woodhouse in Emma to be someone recognizably on the autism spectrum, though of course Austen had no diagnostic manual as guidance.)

My drive to LA was perfect for taking in a novella on each leg, which brought me Zen Cho’s The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water, an homage to Chinese martial arts movies, with a fantasy twist, and T. Kingfisher’s The Seventh Bride, a re-making of the Bluebeard story with a lot of fantasy and fierce feminism, and Kingfisher’s usual application of no-nonsense young women to knotty problems. Both books have background sapphic elements.

While I was at the Nebulas conference, I picked up Tempest Bradford’s middle-grade sci fi story Ruby Finley vs the Interstellar Invasion, which went on to win the Nebula award in its category that weekend. I don’t often buy middle grade books for my own reading, but I do buy them sometimes to put in my Little Free Library, which means I take the opportunity to read them first. This is the story about how a young girl with a scientific bent and a fascination with insects investigates a peculiar bug that turns out to be an interstellar visitor. Highly recommended for the young scientists in your social circle.

(Hmm, this reminds me of another middle-grade title I picked up for the same purpose, Ursula Vernon’s Harriet the Invincible (Hamster Princess #1) which is an utterly delightful and feminist fairy tale. Ursula Vernon is the same author as T. Kingfisher, but the Kingfisher name is for her adult fiction.)

I’ll finish this roundup with two lesbian historic romances. The Bluestocking Beds Her Bride by Fenna Edgewood was a bit hard to sort out. If I had to describe it, I’d say an allegedly Regency setting, tackling more Victorian-flavored social issues, with a modern thriller/caper plot and a side order of “here are some fun facts I learned from books about lesbian history.” There’s significant explicit sexual content, although in general the romance takes a back seat to the action. It didn’t quite hit my sweet spot, although mostly in being all over the map historically.

I was very impressed by An Island Princess Starts a Scandal by Adriana Herrera. This is part of the Las Léonas romance series, focusing on a group of young women, all Caribbean heiresses, attending the 1889 Paris Exposition together to further their individual personal goals and, incidentally, to find love. This is the second book and the only one with a sapphic romance, but I’ve enjoyed it so much I just might pick up the rest of the series too. The heroine has come to Paris for one last sapphic fling before the marriage that will repair her family’s fortunes and reputation. The central couple are the perfect mismatched-but-actually-perfectly-matched pair, and each came complete with a posse of fiercely loyal and non-nonsense friends. There’s some fairly steamy content starting around the mid-point, but I’ll note that while I’m usually fairly “meh” about sex scenes, the language was so lovely that I thoroughly enjoyed them.

This Month’s Essay

Thanks to my vacation time, I actually already have this month’s essay show completed. I’ve gotten out of the habit of announcing the essay shows in advance since I’m often scrambling at the last minute. The June show will be another episode in the “F/Favorite Tropes” series looking at romances involving aristocrats and billionaires. I’m having so much fun with the trope series and I hope you are too!

Show Notes

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

In this episode we talk about:

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

Links to Heather Online

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Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 259 – Interview with Jill Liddington

Saturday, May 20, 2023 - 07:00

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Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 259 – Interview with Jill Liddington - transcript

(Originally aired 2023/05/20 - listen here)

This episode is an interview with historian Jill Liddington, whose book Female Fortune inspired Sally Wainwright to create the Gentleman Jack tv series about Anne Lister.

A transcript will be posted when available.

Show Notes

In this episode we talk about:

A transcript of this podcast will be available here when transcribed.

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

Links to Heather Online

Links to Jill Liddington Online

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Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 258 - On the Shelf for May 2023

Saturday, May 6, 2023 - 07:00

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Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 258 - On the Shelf for May 2023 - Transcript

(Originally aired 2023/05/06 - listen here)

Welcome to On the Shelf for May 2023.

As I’m writing this, a couple weeks in advance of air time, my part of California has very abruptly decided it’s summer now. A week ago it was cold and rainy, now it’s time to turn off the thermostat and start up the irrigation system. Looking out my office window, the bees are buzzing around the apple blossoms, the lemons are hanging heavy on the tree, and the apothecary roses are starting to bloom.

This May is going to be a bit of a landmark month for me, given that I’ll be turning 65. I think at this point I officially get classified as “an old.” You never really know how you’re going to feel about such things. I’ll be celebrating the event with a spa weekend in Napa with my best friend and a three week vacation that also includes two SFF conventions. So I guess you can conclude that I won’t be slowing down.

And if you’ve ever wondered, “What would the host of my favorite podcast appreciate getting as a birthday present?” The answer is always and ever: leave us a review on your favorite podcast site, or talk us up to your friends on social media, or tell people about how the Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast has changed your life. Well, ok, don’t go overboard. But be assured that spreading the word about the podcast does make a difference. I can always tell from the listener numbers when people have been talking us up.

Speaking of spreading the word, I have a lead on a very exciting interview prospect that I can’t wait to share with you all. I won’t jinx it by mentioning names before we have the details nailed down, but let’s just say that my response to the query fell somewhat short of being cool, calm, and collected.. There’s nothing quite like being taken seriously as a venue by people you admire in the field!

Book Shopping!

The blog still doesn’t have any new publications up, alas, but I happened to be in Berkeley doing some shopping yesterday and decided to drop by Moe’s Books to browse through the gender and sexuality section and see what I could turn up. I found two new-to-me books on historic cross-dressing, one older and one recent.

Vern L. Bullough and Bonnie Bullough have a number of publications on cross-dressing in history and this book Crossdressing, Sex, and Gender includes a rather extensive historic survey through western culture. The articles I’ve read by the Bulloughs tend to feel very outdated, particularly when they address social interpretations of cross-dressing, though that’s not at all surprising given that the publications I’ve covered were written 30 to 50 years ago.

Much more up-to-date is Re-Dressing America’s Frontier Past by Peter Boag, which looks at cross-dressing of all types within the later part of 19th century America, and the ways in which that aspect of the American West was deliberately erased from popular history with shifting understandings of sexuality at the turn of the century. Within the last decade, there have been a number of excellent studies around this topic that I’d consider essential reading for anyone contemplating writing a cross-dressed woman in a “Wild West” setting.

Recent Lesbian Historical Fiction

New and recent book listings are a bit more sparse this month than they’ve been lately, but there’s a lot of variety. And—you know that thing I was complaining about Amazon a few months ago, the thing where my “lesbian historical fiction” keyword searches were turning up hundreds of re-issued classic novels with identical generic covers? It looks like just maybe Amazon is doing something about that, because this time the search only included one of those. Though when I posted about it on social media, someone else mentioned that they’d run a search for lesbian romance just a couple days ago and were inundated with “classics spam” as usual. So the jury is still out on whether they’ve found a way to address the problem.

Serendipitously, when I was checking out that person’s search using “lesbian romance” as the keywords rather than “lesbian historical” I turned up an April book that I would have missed. Folks: here’s the importance of proper keywords in your book listings! I can only boost the books that I can find.

That April book is the historic fantasy A Wound Like Lapis Lazuli by Melody Wiklund. The cover copy mentions the baroque era, but not a specific year, and the setting seems to be an invented Italian kingdom.

Ricardo Montero is a painter of great repute, favored by the king of Salandra and chosen by him to paint the ceiling of a temple dedicated to a sea goddess. When he mysteriously goes missing, his friend Beatriz enters a competition to paint the temple in his stead. But when the sea goddess herself gets involved in Beatriz's painting, and in her life, Beatriz finds herself in over her head. Hopefully the woman she's falling in love with can help keep her afloat. Meanwhile, Ricardo has been kidnapped by one of the king's enemies, a woman who claims the kidnapping is purely to spite the king but who seems obsessed with Ricardo himself. Under pressure and learning secrets he never wanted to know, Ricardo fights to maintain his loyalty to the king and control over his feelings and his life.

The May books start off with a story in one of my favorite centuries: The Disenchantment by Celia Bell from Pantheon. I’ve picked up the audiobook for this and it’ll probably get moved to next in line to listen to.

In 17th century Paris, everyone has something to hide. The noblemen and women and writers consort with fortune tellers in the dark confines of their salons, servants practice witchcraft and black magic, and the titled poison family members to obtain inheritance. But for the Baroness Marie Catherine, the only thing she wishes to hide is how unhappy she is in her marriage, and the pleasures she seeks outside of it. When her husband is present, the Baroness spends her days tending to her children and telling them elaborate fairy tales, but when he’s gone, Marie Catherine indulges in a more liberated existence, one of salons in grand houses, forward-thinking discussions with female scholars, and at the center of her freedom: Victoire Rose de Bourbon, Mademoiselle de Conti, the androgynous, self-assured countess who steals Marie Catherine’s heart and becomes her lover. Victoire possesses everything Marie Catherine does not—confidence in her love, and a brazen fearlessness in all that she’s willing to do for it. But when Victoire’s passion results in a shocking act of murder, she and Marie Catherine must escape from the tight clutches of Paris’ eager chief of police. As they attempt to outwit him, they are led to the darkest corners of Paris and Versailles. What they discover is a city full of lies, mysticism, and people who have secrets they would also kill to keep.

Jane Walsh is starting a new Regency-era series at Bold Strokes Books with The Accidental Bride (The Spinsters of Inverley #1).

Miss Grace Linfield has resigned herself to life as a lady’s companion as the only path to respectable security. At least it allows her to visit the beautiful seaside town of Inverley with her charge, Lady Edith. Passions flare when botanist Miss Thea Martin whirls into town —and into Grace’s bed for a scandalous night of passion. Disaster looms when Lady Edith elopes with Thea’s brother. Prim-and-proper Grace and wildly outrageous Thea each wish it was anyone else by their side as they race after them to Gretna Green. In the midst of attempting to stop a wedding that will incur the wrath of both their families, they discover their passion for each other is too strong to resist. A chance at a real relationship was the last thing either of them expected. When Grace and Thea return from Scotland, will the honeymoon be over? Or will love finally be in full bloom?

I have a bit of an idiosyncratic prejudice against treating vampire stories as “historical” if the primary story is set in the present day and the historical element comes in only via the vampire’s immortality. But A Long Time Dead by Samara Breger from Bywater Books is set entirely in the early 19th century, so it fits this podcast’s remit more closely.

Somewhere foggy, 1830 . . . Poppy had always loved the night, which is why it wasn’t too much of a bother to wake one evening in an unfamiliar home far from London, weak and confused and plagued with a terrible thirst for blood, to learn that she could no longer step out into the day. And while vampirism presented several disadvantages, it more than made up for those in its benefits: immortality, a body that could run at speed for hours without tiring, the thrill of becoming a predator, the thing that pulls rabbits from bushes and tears through their fur and flesh with the sharp point of a white fang. And, of course, Roisin. The mysterious woman who has lived for centuries, who held Poppy through her painful transformation, and who, for some reason, is now teaching her how to adjust to her new, endless life. A tight, lonely, buttoned-up woman, with kindness and care pressed up behind her teeth. The time they spend together is as transformative to Poppy as the changes in her body, and soon, she finds herself hopelessly, overwhelmingly attached. But Roisin has secrets of her own, and can’t make any promises; not when vengeance must be served. Soon, their little world explodes. Together and apart, they encounter scores of vampires, shifty pirates, conniving opera singers, ancient nobles, glamorous French women, and a found family that throws a very particular sort of party. But overhead, threat looms—one woman who is capable of destroying everything Poppy and Roisin hold dear.

As I mentioned earlier, there have been a number of relatively recent historical studies that look at cross-dressing and transing gender in the American West that can inspire new angles on queer historical stories. Another relatively recent shift has been in how characters who previously would have been characterized as “passing women” are treated in fiction, given contemporary understandings of gender performance. They Ain't Proper by M.B. Guel from Bella Books signals that we shouldn’t jump to conclusions about the gender of one of the protagonists.

1880s, The Wild West. An easy, solitary life on the outskirts of Ghosthallow is all Lou Ramirez wants. They want to buy their house plans and live their quiet life far from townsfolk’s prying eyes. That plan, however, hits a bump when instead of house plans, a house wife is delivered to their door instead. Florence Castellanos desperately needs a way out from under her family debt, and it seems as though selling her services as a wife is the only way to do it. Expecting a rough, harsh man to be her new husband, Florence is pleasantly surprised to instead be dropped off at the ranch of an equally surprised Lou. Lou would rather Florence leave them to their lonely existence, but Florence is too charmed by the quiet and mysterious rancher to give up. She may have come into Lou’s life easily, but she certainly isn’t planning to leave that way. Undeterred by Lou’s prickly demeanor, Florence is determined to get her reluctant spouse to open up to her. When the past comes back to haunt the pair, the fight for their independence—and their love—may become more deadly than either of them ever expected.

When the first book in the Las Leonas historic romance series came out, I kept trying to figure out why it showed up with a tag for “lesbian,” because the cover copy sure sounded like a male-female romance. So I dropped it from my spreadsheet and chalked it up to over-zealous keywording. But now that the second book in the series is out, I guess they’re just tagging the entire series as lesbian because one of the component books is. I guess? Anyway, Las Leonas book 2, An Island Princess Starts a Scandal by Adriana Herrera from Canary Street Press looks absolutely delicious. It, too, has gone into my audiobook queue.

One last summer. For Manuela del Carmen Caceres Galvan, the invitation to show her paintings at the 1889 Exposition Universelle came at the perfect time. Soon to be trapped in a loveless marriage, Manuela has given herself one last summer of freedom—in Paris, with her two best friends. One scandalous encounter. Cora Kempf Bristol, Duchess of Sundridge, is known for her ruthlessness in business. It's not money she chases, but power. When she sees the opportunity to secure her position among her rivals, she does not hesitate. How difficult could it be to convince the mercurial Miss Caceres Galvan to part with a parcel of land she’s sworn never to sell? One life-changing bargain. Tempted by Cora’s offer, Manuela proposes a trade: her beloved land for a summer with the duchess in her corner of Paris. A taste of the wild, carefree world that will soon be out of her reach. What follows thrills and terrifies Cora, igniting desires the duchess long thought dead. As they fill their days indulging in a shared passion for the arts and their nights with dark and delicious deeds, the happiness that seemed impossible moves within reach…though claiming it would cause the greatest scandal Paris has seen in decades.

Considering the thriving community of lesbian romance authors in Australia, there are surprisingly few historic romances set there, but this month we get one more addition to that short list: House of Longing by Tara Calaby from Text Publishing.

Charlotte has always known she is different. Where other young women see their destiny in marriage and motherhood, the reclusive Charlotte wants only to work with her father in his stationery business; perhaps even run it herself one day. Then Flora Dalton bursts through the shop door and into Charlotte’s life—and a new world of baffling desires and possibilities seems to open up to her. But Melbourne society of the 1890s is not built to embrace unorthodoxy. When tragedy strikes and Charlotte is unmoored by grief, she finds herself admitted to Kew Lunatic Asylum ‘for her own safety’. There she learns that women enter the big white house on the hill for many reasons, not all of them to do with lunacy. That her capacity for love, loyalty and friendship is greater than she had ever understood. And that it will take all of these things—along with an unexpected talent for guile—to extract herself from the care of men and make her way back to her heart’s desires.

Kim Pritekel’s Wynter series, from Sapphire Books, includes both contemporary and historic stories, all revolving around the town of Wynter, Colorado. The fifth book in the series, Showing Mercy is only the second book with a historic setting.

Fifteen-year-old Mercy Faulkner is hit with the hardest blow of her young life when her beloved father is killed in an accident. Now, she must leave all she knows to move with her mother, a hard woman that she feels like she barely knows, to the small mountain town of Wynter, Colorado. Her mother has been offered a job there and a place to live and start over for the two. Bethany Wynter, seventeen, gorgeous and the granddaughter of the founder of Wynter and early residents, Justice and Thea Kilkoyne, she has everything going for her. She and her twin brother, Billy are at the top of their game - popular, well-loved in the community and dominate in academics and athletics. But, when the beautiful and shy Mercy shows up in town, a sibling rivalry will begin that will split the twins for the first time in their life. When World War II hits the shores of the United States, everything changes for everyone. Who will go off to war, who will come back, and will any of them ever be the same?

As usual, the new releases this month include a reminder that I can only include the books I know about, and knowing about books either means that they get talked up in the social media I follow, or someone lets me know about forthcoming releases directly, or they have the right keywords to turn up in my searches on Amazon (which, alas, is still the most efficient place to run such searches) and have cover copy that make the sapphic content clear. If you have a book coming out—or know of one—that you think might fall within the scope of the Lesbian Historic Motif Project, please drop me a note. I’m sure there are books I miss unintentionally.

What Am I Reading?

So what have I been reading lately? It’s been a thin month, in part because I’m writing the show a bit earlier than usual, but in part because life has been hectic. Although I have several books in process, I only completed listening to two audiobooks.

The latest installment in Sherry Thomas’s “Lady Sherlock” series, A Tempest at Sea, follows the pattern set previously with a lot of non-linear storytelling, unreliable narrators, and revisiting key scenes from different points of view to gradually unlock the story. This particular method of building a mystery story may not be to everyone’s taste, but it’s absolute catnip for me. This volume is a sort of locked room mystery on board a ship, with Charlotte Holmes spending the entire story arc in disguise. The various twists are satisfying as identities and motives are sorted out. And, as in previous books in the series, the casual inclusion of historically-appropriate queer characters makes me feel much at home even without any central queer romance.

The second audiobook I completed is more overtly sapphic but comes with a warning for character death. The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue is set in Ireland during the Spanish Flu pandemic in the early 20th century. Reading it while still in the midst of Covid is unsettling in the parallels. (The novel was written prior to Covid but was expedited to release once the pandemic started.) The story spans only a few days in the life of a nurse in a combination flu/maternity ward and packs a lot of drama into that short period. One of the many sub-themes is harsh criticism of the treatment of unwed mothers and their children. This was a hard and painful book to read, but pandemics aren’t exactly a bed of roses to live through—or die in.

Fiction

Last week, we aired Catherine Lundoff’s story “The Pirate in the Mirror” and today we have her on the show to talk about that and her other projects.

[Interview transcript will be available at a later date.]

Show Notes

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

In this episode we talk about:

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

Links to Heather Online

Links to Catherine Lundoff Online

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Another Index for the Podcast

Sunday, April 30, 2023 - 11:08

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In the interests of continuing to add value to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project, I've put together an index of all the author interviews from the podcast. Have I interviewed your favorite sapphic historical author? Check them out!

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Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Index of Interviews

This is an index of all the people who have been interviewed on the Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast. This includes both interview episodes and shorter interview segments as part of the On the Shelf episodes. This index is manually updated.

Aten, K. (9/8/18)

Bakkalian, Nyri (9/12/20)

Bear, Elizabeth (3/10/18)

Burgis, Stephanie (2/8/20)

Charles, KJ (1/1/04)

Cho, Zen (4/20/19)

Clutterbuck-Cook, Anna

Cole, Alyssa (4/14/18)

de Bodard, Aliette (3/6/21)

Dreamer, L. (7/11/20)

Duckett, Katharine (3/9/19)

Ferreira, Jeannelle M. (5/12/18)

Fortin, Genevieve (9/9/17)

Fraimow, Rebecca (8/6/2022)

Friedman, Erica (6/18/22)

Grant, Rhiannon (9/2/23)

Heartfield, Kate (1/11/20)

Hoff, Amy (6/13/20)

Holloway, Dee (07/01/23)

Jones, Heather Rose (11/9/19)

KD, Annemarie (8/5/2023)

Klages, Ellen (2/10/18)

Knowles, Kathleen (1/13/18)

Lane, Edale (4/11/20)

Lerner, Rose (4/3/21)

Liddington, Jill (5/20/23)

Lo, Malinda (1/2/21)

Lundoff, Catherine

MacTague, Lise (6/9/18)

Mendlesohn, Farah (11/11/17)

Mickelbury, Penny (8/10/19)

Ness, Mari (3/6/21)

Nestojko, Jannifer (1/7/23)

Pack, Carrie (12/8/18)

Pinckard, Miyuki (11/5/22)

Pinguicha, Diana (12/12/20)

Quarmby, Katharine (9/2/23)

Rajaram, Samantha (10/10/20)

Ratcliffe, Marianne (12/3/22)

Rose, Meredith (8/5/2023)

Saracen, Justine (7/14/18)

Shade, Anne (2/6/21)

Swanson, Lee (8/5/2023)

Tammi, Elizabeth (11/10/18)

Tan, Lianyu (07/01/23)

Tanzer, Molly (5/11/19)

Thomas, T.T. (12/9/17)

Todd, Janet (5/9/20)

Vanda (8/11/18)

Waite, Olivia (9/14/19)

Walsh, Jane (11/14/20)

Werlinger, Caren (10/14/17)

Whitcher, Ursula (5/7/2022)

 

 

Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 257 - The Pirate in the Mirror by Catherine Lundoff

Saturday, April 29, 2023 - 18:12

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Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 257 - The Pirate in the Mirror by Catherine Lundoff - transcript

(Originally aired 2023/04/29 - listen here)

Our fiction episode for this quarter features returning guests—not only a returning author, Catherine Lundoff, but the return of her 17th century spy and pirate duo, Celeste Girard and Jacquotte Delahaye. This is the fourth story of Celeste and Jacquotte that we’ve hosted on the Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast, which is a reminder of just how long this fiction series has been running.

Catherine Lundoff has worked her way through many roles: archaeologist, bookstore owner, author, publisher, and IT professional. As the founder and head of Queen of Swords Press, she publishes—as the website describes it—"swashbuckling tales of derring-do, bold new adventures in time and space, mysterious stories of the occult and arcane, and fantastical tales of people and lands far and near.” Or, as she sometimes puts it, “Stories that feel like Queen of Swords books.”

Her own fiction covers a whole gamut from historicals to fantasy to science fiction to erotica to horror, including a series of soon-to-be-three novels about menopausal werewolves: Silver Moon, Blood Moon, and a forthcoming title yet to be announced.

Catherine lives in Minnesota with her wife who is a bookbinder and artist, as well as with the cats that own them. The best one-stop-shop to find Catherine online is probably queenofswordspress.com, which gives you the opportunity to pick up some books while you’re at it. (I should add the truth-in-advertising disclaimer that this includes my own novella “The Language of Roses” which Queen of Swords published.)

The narrator for today’s story is yours truly. I love the chance to do some of the story narration for our fiction series, especially for stories falling in one of my favorite historical periods.

This recording is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License. You may share it in the full original form but you may not sell it, you may not transcribe it, and you may not adapt it.

“The Pirate in the Mirror”

by Catherine Lundoff

 

            Celeste Adele Girard glanced up from the letter she was reading, her gaze moving automatically past the slow-moving waves that rocked The Lioness on a leisurely path through the Caribbean to the small huddle of pirates at the rail. Jacquotte Delahaye, their captain, was peering at something on the water through her spyglass and swearing loudly. That alone was not enough to distract Celeste. Jacquotte swore often and heartily and her men often gathered around her when they thought a fat merchant, or that greatest of gifts from the gods of the sea, a lightly guarded Spanish galleon, might be in sight.

            It was not so much that the crew looked worried that captured Celeste’s attention at that moment. No, it was the flash of sunlight on Jacquotte’s red tresses, one that followed a thread of bright silver, that caught Celeste’s eye. It trapped her feelings in a net to realize that this life they led could not last forever and her heart ached at thought of giving up this wild freedom. And even more at the thought of trying again to convince the pirate captain that they must plan for a retirement that might come sooner than later.

            But that was not the stuff of either her letter or of the crew’s concerns and she shook her worries about the future off with an effort. She walked across the swaying deck to the group around Jacquotte. The letter had taken two months to arrive, it could take a bit longer to address. She tucked it away in the pouch at her belt.  “What is it?”

            Jacquotte did not lower the spyglass, but Harcourt, the first mate, gave Celeste a worried look. “There is a ship pursuing us, Mademoiselle. The Captain believes that it may be one of Captain De Graaf’s fleet. Tigress is the one that his lover Anne Dieu le Veut, late of Tortuga, usually commands.”

            Celeste’s blonde eyebrows rose. “Are we not all ‘late of Tortuga’? I thought all the pirates had been driven out. Is there something to fear from this Anne ‘God-Wills-It’ that we should be peering at her ship and swearing about it? I have never heard you speak of her before.”

            Jacquotte’s thin lips twisted up in something like a smile, but wasn’t, not quite and her gaze suggested her thoughts were elsewhere. “If she is here, she has no great love for me. And De Graaf is likely to be not far behind. He would never let her ship sail so far out unescorted.” She handed the spyglass off to Harcourt and took Celeste’s arm. “Walk with me, my dear.”

            Celeste simpered like a court lady and fluttered an imaginary fan in a futile effort to make Jacquotte laugh, but she dropped all pretense at joking once they were out of earshot of the crew. “What are we to do? Is she truly that dangerous?” She murmured the question softly, brushing some dirt off Jacquotte’s jacket collar as if they spoke of nothing significant.

            “Alone, we should be able to outrun her. But it would be a near thing with so little wind. Our best hope,” Jacquotte frowned at the horizon, “is that this is pure chance and she does not recognize the ship.” She glanced down and gave Celeste a long thoughtful look, ice-blue eyes glinting in the later afternoon sun. “I could put you in a boat with a couple of strong men, send you off to Maracaibo. I’m told there is a representative from the King in port; you could ask for sanctuary.”

            Celeste blinked in shock. Jacquotte had never proposed sending her off ship to safety before and she herself had never asked, always supposing the pirate’s strong arm and sword enough to protect both of them at sea.

And then there were her own wits to serve in any situation that didn’t involve an actual battle. Well, where are those wits now? She schooled her features into a blank expression. Her brain whirled, contemplating, then rejecting several schemes in quick succession. A rope snapped in the wind and she glanced upward.

            Jacquotte followed her gaze to the Dutch flag flapping gently in the breeze, hung in lieu of her own fiercer flag to lure in merchant prey. “I’m not sure that being taken as a merchantman is an improvement. We’ll be just as dead if her crew decides to capture us.” She glanced back down. “So perhaps you are thinking of something else? What plot is spinning in your pretty head, my little spy?”

            Celeste narrowed her eyes against the glare of the setting sun, wrinkles for once, far from her mind. “I think there is no moon tonight?”

            The pirate gave the horizon and the ship that followed them a considering glance. “We might be able to pile on enough sail to outrun them until nightfall. If we went quiet and dark and avoided the reefs, we might be able to evade them until I can find a good harbor to hide in.” Jacquotte’s eyes went cold and storm-gray. “Or run them aground in the dark.”

            Her lover tilted her blonde head back and gave her a narrow-eyed stare. “You know her well. What is this about?”

            Jacquotte grimaced. “Later. I swear it,” she added, watching Celeste’s expression shift. “Escape first.”

            “Indeed. Then we must begin at once. I know so little of your past, I would not wish to miss an offered morsel.” Celeste smiled slightly and went aft to talk to the other pirates to persuade them to do as she asked with a pretty word or two.

            Jacquotte watched them gather a pile of expendable items to throw overboard to lighten the ship. She turned to the sails and the helm, barking orders to put on more of the latter and shift the former into the starboard to pick up more of the wind. Pirates tumbled on to the deck from all directions, tossing things overboard, clearing the decks, climbing the rigging.

 It made Jacquotte’s heart sing a little to see it. Her crew. Her ship. And she would yield neither to Anne or De Graaf. She went to consult with her helmsman.

            The Tigress was getting closer. Celeste didn’t need a spyglass of her own to see that. Not within cannon range, fortunately, but gaining in a way that suggested that a pirate captain had noticed prey and was giving chase. Celeste swore softly under her breath and glanced at the quarter deck and watched Jacquotte for a moment.

The captain was tense, angry in a way that Celeste had not seen her before other battles, other pursuits. She thought this chase was personal. Celeste felt a tiny flash of jealousy that made her grimace. For the first time, another woman was the focus of Jacquotte’s attention when she was only steps away. But more than anything, her spy’s brain whirled with questions about what had happened, what had pulled these two together and then, even further apart?

She could think of only a few things that spoke to the hearts of the pirates that she knew: love, revenge, or profit. Celeste tapped her chin thoughtfully. More importantly, what would dissuade an ardent pursuer motivated by all or some of those passions?

In a moment, she was moving swiftly across the deck toward Jacquotte where she stood talking to several members of the crew on the quarterdeck. Celeste asked softly, “May I borrow the captain for a brief conference?”

They looked for a moment as if they might object, but with a certain amount of grumbling, returned to other duties and left them to talk. “Why would Anne Dieu-Le-Veut pursue you at all? No, I don’t want to hear that you will tell me later. I want to know what drives her. We will need other plans if outrunning them in the dark fails.” Celeste crossed her arms and watched Jacquotte’s gaze shift down to her bosom. She bit back a small smile; going corsetless in a lad’s garb had its uses.

But this was hardly the time to be provoking that reaction in her pirate. “You do want me to help, correct? Not just hop in a row boat and go off to safety with crew that you will need if this ship is boarded?” She raised an eyebrow and dropped her arms, stepping up so that her golden-brown eyes met Jacquotte’s.

The pirate gave a wry grin. “For the shortest part: treasure and betrayal. I sailed with De Graaf for a time, years before I met you. I found Anne in Port Royal trying to figure out how to turn whore when she ran out of money after her fiancé turned out to be less appealing than his letters. I liked her spirit so I brought her aboard. We were wild and young and blood-thirsty and even then, Anne stood out. She was beautiful, fierce…and treacherous. We shared ships, crews, captured spoils, and more. I thought of her as the new family I had found here in this strange new world.”

Jacquotte paused and looked away. The sails strained in a newfound breeze and they could all feel The Lioness leap up over the waves with a will. The hands gave a small cheer while Jacquotte turned back to Celeste. “For a time, I fancied myself in love with her.” Here her face tightened. “Until we took the Santa Teresa. So much Spanish gold, chérie, you can scarcely imagine…”

Celeste shifted impatiently. “I can imagine quite a lot of gold. I take it they betrayed you?”

Jacquotte nodded. “They murdered most of my crew and would have done for me as well, but they thought I had drowned and De Graaf and Anne sailed away with the gold. By the time I floated to land and recovered enough to get a new ship of my own, they had a whole fleet and there was little I could do to avenge myself or the others.”

Celeste frowned. “Until now. You don’t want to run. You want to fight. But why does she follow you?”

“She’s hated me for surviving, for being respected in a way that she is not. Also, perhaps, a small issue with me seizing her former ship and marooning her and her crew some four years back. I imagine that she plans to finish what they failed to do before.” Jacquotte grimaced. “Yes, I want to fight. But this is not the ship to take on the Tigress. For that we need all my ships, especially if he comes to save her.”

Celeste glanced toward the cage where the messenger doves were kept. One was missing. The ship rocked starboard, clearly changing course. “You’ve already sent the bird. Is there another plan that you’re not sharing with me?” Celeste frowned.

Jacquotte bit back a smile, knowing how much she hated to be left in the dark. They could not run forever, even if they lost Anne and her crew tonight. De Graaf might be anywhere nearby with more ships. And they were not the only foes Jacquotte had in these waters.

“I need to plan for something that will bring this pursuit to an end, once and for all, leaving us alive at the end of it.”

“And, perhaps, achieve some level of revenge?” Celeste gave her an

appraising look.

 Jacquotte gave a rare, sudden grin. “Perhaps.”

            Celeste tumbled into bed next to Jacquotte well after sunset, hands raw from the ropes. The sliver of new moon was on its up and the wind with it and The Lioness was still making good speed, at least for the moment. The closer they got to the reefs near Hispaniola, the slower they would need to move and the greater the chance that the Tigress would finally catch them.

            Or they would get where they were going, wherever that was. Jacquotte was keeping mum about their specific destination but Celeste had her suspicions. In any case, she was too tired to ask, so she wrapped her arms and one leg around her pirate and sank into a deep slumber.

            In the end, it wasn’t the sound of guns or the scrape of rocks against the hull that woke her. It was still dark and The Lioness was motionless, barely creaking in the waves. Noises from elsewhere in the room told her that Jacquotte was already getting dressed so she rolled over and lit the candle. “What is happening?” she murmured as she rubbed sleep from her eyes. “Where are we?”

            Jacquotte gave her a cheerful, bloodthirsty grin. “We’re in a defensible spot in familiar waters and closer to my ships than we were. So now we wait. If they are foolish enough to chase us into the harbor, the rocks will tear the bottom from them while we rake them with all the shot we have. If they wait outside thinking to trap us, there will be four to one odds some hours hence.”

            “And what of De Graaf’s ships? What if they come too?” Celeste rolled out of bed and began to put her lad’s clothes on again. They were much better for fighting than skirts, if fighting there was to be. She sincerely hoped it didn’t come to that. Spywork had its own perils, but getting skewered on a cutlass or smashed to pieces by grapeshot were not usually among them. She shuddered as she dressed and tucked her weapons into her belt.

            Jacquotte was already out the door bellowing orders. The bosun handed her a cup of ale and some salt fish as she emerged on the deck, not sure what she was going to see. Behind the ship was a wall of greenery that stretched up the tall hill behind them. Celeste could hear creatures moving in the jungle that seemed so close that she could reach and touch the vines. She gnawed on her fish and sighed. Perhaps Jacquotte could be persuaded to visit Paris again after this.

            The seaward view was not prepossessing. The waves dashed hard against sharp rocks lining the edge of the harbor and for a moment, Celeste could not imagine how they had sailed into it unscathed. But beyond that thin shield, was a ship twice the size of theirs, based on what the crew had to say, so she was grateful for what protection it provided.

            “Of course, that’s not the only reason that we’re here.” Jacquotte had a faraway gleam in her eye. “The Santa Teresa’s gold is supposed to be buried on this island.”

            Celeste took a startled breath. “And you know where?”

            “An old man sold me a tale in Tortuga before we left. He may have been too far gone in drink to be reliable, but we’ll see what we can find.”

            “What if Anne simply blockades us in and fires on us from there?” Celeste gestured at the rocky harbor opening.

            “You worry too much, my love. We will fire back. Now, would you like to help me go look for a shiny golden distraction?” Jacquotte’s grin gleamed in the fading light. “We’ll have to go ashore in the dark since we don’t, as you point out, have much time before we’ll be in a battle of one kind or another. She’s bound to send her men ashore too.” She snapped her fingers at a pirate who started to light a torch and he blew out the flame with a muttered curse.

            Celeste realized that the pirates didn’t want to make themselves an easy target. Which meant that she was about to clamber into a longboat and go ashore in the dark to stumble around the jungle with Jacquotte and her crew. She closed her eyes and thought of piles of gold. And Jacquotte’s joy when she triumphed over her enemies. She gave a hearty sigh, tucked her hair up under her hat and made ready.

            In the end, it was just Jacquotte, Celeste and twelve of the more trustworthy pirates who went ashore. Harcourt and the others stayed aboard to watch for Anne, ready to fire the moment a boat was spotted in range. In the meantime, even the metal that gleamed in the moonlight was covered so as not to be a target and not a candle shone where it could be seen from harbor’s mouth.

            Jacquotte closed her eyes, shutting out the boat and the rapidly approaching shore for a moment. It was just as well that none of her companions could see her face right now. She wasn’t bluffing about what the old man had told her, at least not entirely. But even if they found De Graaf’s hidden cache in the dark after fighting their way through the jungle and whoever Anne might send ashore, there might be nothing left.

            The old pirate who had told her about it was far gone with drink and the pox. He had wanted his own revenge on De Graaf and his crew for their past sins and saw Jacquotte as a means to that end. Well, she’d do the old lad proud if she could. Avenging herself and the others on De Graaf and Anne had been long delayed and it dizzied her to see it within reach.

            An idea half-formed, then blew away as the wind picked up and the boat scraped against the shore. She jumped out and walked the last couple yards to the shore, leaving her crew to haul the boat up and secure it. The dark mass of trees ahead of them was relatively quiet, apart from the occasional bird call. The day’s heat was fading, but it was still warm and there was a whiff of rain in the air.

            Jacquotte looked around and oriented herself, letting her memories of what the old pirate had told her tumble into place before she beckoned to Celeste and the others. “That rock, the one up there between the two larger ones. That’s where we’re headed. Ready, my love? Good. Stay close.” She led them along the edge of the trees, hunting for the traces of an old trail that might still be there.

            But if it was, they couldn’t find it. Two of the pirates stepped forward with long knives and began to hack a path through the lush forest growth. Ducking and weaving under vines and around trees, they made their way upwards in the dark. It felt like hours before they stopped to catch their breath and rest just below the top.

            Something caught Jacquotte’s eye and quickly resolved into the gleam of moonlight on metal from behind a rock above them. Celeste must have seen it at the same time and threw herself at her back, knocking her over and rolling her into some prickly short trees and the shelter of darkness. The pirates scattered as a shot split the quiet of the night. More followed and Jacquotte drew her own pistol, trying to see a target in the dark.

            She shoved Celeste away and pointed to a clump of rocks downhill, trying to get her to a safer spot. A woman’s voice rang out from above them, “Red! Come out before I hunt you and your boys down. If you surrender now, I might not kill you all.” Her voice was cold, distant and familiar. There was nothing in her tone that suggested that she wasn’t serious.

            Jacquotte heard Celeste hiss softly between her teeth and utter a soft oath. She grimaced to herself in the dark. Of course, having one plan fail didn’t mean her next one would. Celeste was going to be very angry when she learned that there was a plan that she didn’t know about. Jacquotte looked forward to the argument almost as much as its aftermath.

Putting her fingers to her lips, she gave a sharp, shrill whistle that echoed through the woods around them as the guns of Anne’s men fell silent. It was an eerie sound, like a banshee’s call in the night and Jacquotte gasped a little when she finally stopped.

Then she jumped to her feet, running toward the sound of crashing branches and shouting men. Through it all, one woman’s voice could be heard yelling orders and cursing. Jacquotte followed that sound, pulling her pistol from her belt with one hand and her long knife from its sheath with the other. There would be bloody work tonight.

            Celeste stared after her lover for a few seconds, her mouth dropping open. She’d suspected a trap and had a plan for that all along. But didn’t tell her. Celeste’s eyes narrowed as she, too, scrambled to her feet. If they survived the night, she was going to have a few words with a certain pirate captain.

            She darted behind a tree as a huge pirate came crashing through the dark clearing where they’d been hiding. Was he one of Jacquotte’s men or one of Anne’s? It was hard to tell in the dark and now that the shooting had begun in earnest, the air was filling with smoke.

            Someone charged into the clearing and there was a clash of blades, followed by a whispered, “What found we at Arnold’s Knoll?”

            “Gold and blood,” the other answered and laughed softly. “Come on. The Captain said she’d pay a sack of gold for whoever brought her that redhaired bitch’s head. Let’s go find her and claim our prize.” They lumbered back out into the trees and rocks.

            Celeste bit her lip and looked around. She could follow them, but barring ill-luck, Jacquotte could avoid or kill oafs as clumsy as those. But how many of them did Anne have? And how had a simple tale of betrayal and gold lust turned into a quest for Jacquotte’s head? There was much that she hadn’t been told about tonight’s doings, but there would be time enough to deal with that later.

            She moved in the direction that Jacquotte had gone, listening for the sound of her voice. Or her blade, which seemed more likely. Smoke filled the trees and men ran to and fro, the sound of steel clashing amid the crack of bullets. This was a veritable pitched battle and for a long moment, Celeste thought about fleeing back to the shore and the boat. She was an adequate shot and a decent swordswoman, but neither would be enough to protect her in this chaos.

            A huge hand shot out of the mist and grabbed her shoulder with a bellow. She kicked out hard, aiming for his knees, then slammed her elbow up into his jaw, just like Jacquotte had taught her. He howled in pain, but didn’t let her go until she kicked him again. Heart racing, she twisted, striking out and pulling the knife from her belt in one motion. With a yell, she slashed out, only to have her opponent drop like a stone.

            Celeste squinted at her blade in astonishment. There wasn’t that much blood on it, was there? A motion caught her eye and she dropped into a defensive stance for the attack that was sure to come. A long-jawed, pale face topped with black hair bound in a scarf above burning dark brown eyes stared at her across the pirate’s body. “Come with me if you want to see the dawn.” The woman’s voice was raspy, commanding…familiar. Celeste hesitated and a bullet blew past her, embedding itself in a nearby tree. Her rescuer turned and vanished into the smoky darkness and Celeste followed a moment later.

            The path ahead was a blur of men running and blades clashing right up to the moment that her escort came to an abrupt halt. “Here now, pretty. Where would you be taking my lady?” Jacquotte’s voice had a dangerous singsong croon to it that Celeste had only heard before when she was far gone in the heat of battle and she shivered.

            Anne hissed softly, Jacquotte’s blade at her throat—she’d gotten a cutlass from somewhere, Celeste noted dispassionately—and Jacquotte’s pistol at her head. “I can call them off,” she began, her voice barely audible where Celeste stood.

            Jacquotte laughed. “There’s my Annie! Always one to think you could stop the wind, once it started blowing. I couldn’t stop my own men now. They’ll fight until there’s a winner or there’s gold. Speaking of which, it’s time you told me where the treasure is.”

            Celeste stepped closer and gasped at the sight of the two of them standing face to face in the moonlight. She blinked and the resemblance that had suggested they could be sisters settled into two hard-faced women, glaring at each other over drawn weapons while a battle raged around them. Celeste took the pistol from Anne’s hand and checked to make sure that was ready to fire. 

             “And don’t think to lead me on a merry chase in hopes that De Graaf will turn up. He’s as likely to be drinking and whoring in Maracaibo as he is to remember your grudges and where you’ve taken one of his ships. Tell me what I want to know or I’ll put you in our hold and leave you there until he sobers up enough to ransom you. Do you care to wager on that?”

            “You could just shoot her.” Celeste murmured, suiting her actions to her words and firing at a pirate who was running toward them with a fearsome grimace. When she looked back at the women, they were both watching her, Jacquotte amused and Anne calculating.

            “Yes, Red, you could just do that. But you want that gold more than you want my blood.” Anne gave Jacquotte a feral grin. “Come on then. Up the hill and I’ll show you where we buried it.” They turned and began walking.

            So easy…Celeste bit back the thought before it crossed her lips. There was a game being played here, one that began on the sea and that might not end here. She knew that she could wait where she was to see what transpired. But her curiosity would never allow it. With a sigh, she scrambled after them.

            Jacquotte stifled a flash of murderous rage. Betrayal, murder, theft and yet, somehow, the only person not to blame for that was Anne herself. Her litany of blamelessness was a low hum that got louder as they got further from the battle behind them.

            “If you don’t stop whining, I’ll take your ear off,” she growled as Anne stumbled to a halt on a flat rock ledge. “Now, unless you chiseled into the stone itself, I don’t think this is the place.”

            Jacquotte watched as Celeste walked cautiously past them to examine the stone wall in front of them. It appeared to be solid rock until she pulled back some of the shrubs and revealed a dark hole in the stone. A cave entrance, it had to be. Her heart raced and she reined in her imagination from picturing what that much gold could buy them. Far too soon for that.

            “I think I found something.” Celeste leaned over, then slipped down into the dark space with a cry. Jacquotte winced but she looked back at them from the cave mouth a moment later as Anne laughed mockingly. Celeste’s eyes widened, visible even in the dim light. “Get down, Jacquotte!’

            Jacquotte didn’t hesitate, throwing Anne to the ground and landing on top of her. The other pirate twisted hard and broke free just as a cannonball smashed into the rocks above their heads. Anne laughed again, the sound wild and echoing, as she scrambled to her feet, kicking away Jacquotte’s grasping hands as she ran to the edge of the cliff and the trail down.

            Jacquotte cursed loudly and crawled over to the dark hole where Celeste had vanished. From below, she could hear a soft murmur of: “No snakes, please God. No snakes.” wafting up from below despite the noise and chaos around her.

            “Can you reach my hand, chérie? Reach up and I will pull you out.”

            “I think I’m better off down here.” Another cannonball whistling by overhead drowned out her next words. Celeste shouted up a moment later, “Come down here! It’s safer and likely to be more profitable.”

            At the word “profitable,” Jacquotte slid into the opening, bracing herself for a sharp drop into the darkness below. “I’m coming down!” To her surprise, it was only a few feet.

            She blinked until she could see Celeste outlined in the moonlight. “What have you found?’

            “Not what you hoped, but enough to be useful, I think.” She guided Jacquotte to a couple of small chests tucked against a rock wall, well out of sight if one was looking down into the cave. As the noise escalated outside, she shot at the lock with the spare pistol that she pulled from Jacquotte’s belt.

            The chest fell apart with a clang, spilling a few bags of coins, some jewelry and other valuables. Jacquotte grinned. “Not the full treasure by any means, but enough to buy us all a few comforts for our old age.” She glanced up. “Those of us who last that long.”

            “I have an idea.” Celeste grabbed a bag of coins and scrambled back to the cave entrance. Jacquotte gave her a leg up and she stood up on the ledge with a mighty yell, “This bag of gold to the man who captures Captain Anne Dieu le Veut alive before Captain De Graaf blows us to bits! She is our ticket off this island if you stop her!”

            The men on the mountain below bayed like a hunting pack. Celeste grabbed Jacquotte’s arm and tugged her up and out of the cave, and they ran off the ledge together. They darted down the slope in a wild rush, tumbling out into a sea of men and smoke and the occasional body, all yelling over the cannon fire, many of them still fighting each other, others looking wildly for Anne. Jacquotte grabbed a few of them and led them down the slope, heading towards the harbor, Celeste at her side.

            Three days later, The Lioness sailed out of the harbor and they watched the Tigress make for the open sea. Celeste and Jacquotte watched her sail off, the latter with a distant thoughtful look on her face. “She’s not half the pirate that you are.” Celeste said finally, giving her a nudge with her shoulder as they leaned on the rail.

            “I’m not half the pirate captain I was,” Jacquotte grimaced. “We’re fifteen men down, between the dead and wounded, and the rest barely fit to sail. If it wasn’t for my other ships, we’d be in irons in Anne’s hold. To have two plans fail is hardly a thing to be proud of.” She sighed heavily. “I don’t think there’s enough of the gold left to buy me a governorship like Sir Henry, but perhaps a small estate? We could settle down, raise sheep and chickens.”

            Celeste laughed. “What did we know about sheep and chickens? An inn on the coast, gossip and news, smuggling on the side, some spywork when we feel like it—that’s the life for us. But not before we’re done with this one. She’ll be back, especially since we have the treasure now, and we’ll need a plan to deal with her then.”

            Jacquotte squinted at the horizon, then glanced at her. “For now, let’s go home. I want to hear more about this inn of yours.” She leaned down to kiss Celeste and something crackled. The spy gave an odd frown and reached into the pouch in her shirt.

            She held out a letter with a sigh. “I’m afraid I’ll have to tell you about it when I return from Paris. It’s a summons from the Cardinal. He says that the King’s life is in danger and I need to honor my oath to protect him.”

            The pirate groaned and handed the letter back. “And I still have your letter of marque and sail under the French flag. Upon occasion. To Paris, then, with a stop at Saint Martin to refuel and bring on more hands. We may hope that your cunning fox of a Cardinal has more plans up his sleeve for saving the King than recalling you.”

            Celeste nodded and kissed her. “I’ve been wanting to show you Paris. We had to leave so quickly last time. For now, let’s go talk about inns and smuggling.” They both laughed as Jacquotte gestured at the pilot to sail eastward.

Show Notes

This quarter’s fiction episode presents “The Pirate in the Mirror” by Catherine Lundoff, narrated by Heather Rose Jones.

A transcript of this podcast is available here.

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

Links to Heather Online

Links to Catherine Lundoff Online

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Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 256 – Our F/Favorite Tropes Part 7: Second Chances and Older Women

Sunday, April 16, 2023 - 18:06

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Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 256 – Our F/Favorite Tropes Part 7: Second Chances and Older Women - transcript

(Originally aired 2023/04/15 - listen here)

Introduction

It’s never too late and you’re never too old. Well, at least in fictional romances.

This month we’re doing another installment in the favorite tropes series, looking at second-chance romances and older protagonists. The two don’t automatically go together. Second chances can happen at any age. But the two themes felt like they’d pair well together, sort of like caramel and salt.

 A trope, in fiction, is 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, a specific situation, or a plot element. This series is looking at how many popular tropes in historic romance work differently for female couples than for other types of couples, as well as looking at how specific historic contexts affect the trope, or how they play out differently than in contemporary romance.

The Tropes

To some extent second chances and older protagonists aren’t affected as much by era, setting, and gender as some other tropes. They don’t necessarily have to awkwardly work around finding analogies for heteronormative structures, the way that marriage-based tropes do. But there are still nuances where gender is relevant.

The “second chance” trope typically has the following structure. The protagonists have had some sort of close personal relationship at an earlier point in their lives. It might have been romantic, but it might have been platonic friendship, or a once-sided romantic interest. In any event, it did not at that time develop into an acknowledged, mutual, romantic relationship. Or if it did, something happened and the relationship was broken. Now the characters have been brought together again and a romantic spark develops that successfully produces a long-term romantic relationship.

Within that general framework, there can be a lot of variation. Perhaps they were lovers but something prevented them from establishing a permanent relationship or broke up the one they had. Perhaps there was romantic interest on one or both sides, but circumstances either got in the way of expressing that interest, or got in the way of converting interest into a relationship. Generally “second chance” isn’t used as a label for something that fits better into “friends to lovers” even if there is a hiatus in the friendship, so let’s stick to situations in which at least one participant experienced romantic feelings the first time around.

The trope of older protagonists exists mostly in contrast to the default expectation that romance is a young person’s game. Numerically, the majority of romance novels focus on younger protagonists and the throes of first love. So the older protagonist isn’t quite so much a trope as it is a demographic. Stories using this theme will include considerations of the past experience of the characters – or the reasons why they have no past experience of romance. Stories may be shaped by the different expectations that people have going into a relationship later in life, such as less expectation that the relationship will produce children (and perhaps the existence of adult children as secondary characters in the story).

But these are considerations that exist regardless of the gender of the couple. So what additional factors come into play for female couples?

Second Chances for Sapphic Romances

I have to say that second-chance romances are a really great fit for sapphic historicals. One of the regular themes in exploring how sapphic romances can play out in historic settings is the question of resisting social and economic pressures to buy into the standard heterosexual marriage plot. Those pressures were significant, even if they weren’t as overwhelming as people sometimes believe them to be. When a woman has passed through the period of her life when those pressures are at their greatest, there can be more opportunity to explore and embrace other options, such as a same-gender romance.

The pressure to follow a normative life path can come in many forms. Perhaps the most insidious is simply not presenting same-gender romance as a possible option. Some cultures had established concepts for establishing a long-term same-gender romantic partnership but far from all of them. So young women who fell in love with each other may not have had a model for what such a relationship could look like. Or they may have been taught to view all same-gender feelings as platonic rather than romantic. It can take more life experience and time to develop emotionally before one is willing to challenge those attitudes, either in oneself or in society. There’s great potential for missed chances if one or both of the characters is hesitant to express what they’re feeling, either from general shyness or lack of confidence, or because they aren’t sure how those feelings would be received or understood. Or, conversely, one character may express an interest in a permanent romantic relationship, but the other character doesn’t understand because they have no framework for it.

Even cultures that recognized and accepted same-gender emotional bonds often treated them as a separate sphere from the relationships that shaped one’s life path. The romantic feelings that two young women experienced might not be considered a reason to avoid heterosexual marriage. Alternately, economic pressures of employment or family needs might be the barrier to establishing a permanent bond between two women, just as it could be a barrier for other types of couples. One of the features of second-chance romances is that the specific reasons why the “first chance” didn’t work out don’t need to be gender-based.

We can see examples of opportunities for second-chance romance play out in the lives of both historic and fictional women, regardless of whether the specific pairs were romantically involved.

In the 4th century Greek novel The Acts of Xanthippe and Polyxena, there is something of a “Perils of Pauline” plot in which Xanthippe’s beloved young protégé Polyxena is abducted and goes through many adventures before being finally reunited with (and brought back to life by) her beloved.

Although Xanthippe and Polyxena are presented in the context of a Christian martyrdom story, the plot full of perils that separates a romantic couple is common in early Greek novels, such as the Babyloniaka in which one woman gets tangled up in the main story due to her resemblance to the primary heroine, and therefore is abducted from her girlfriend, Berenice, queen of Egypt, with whom she is eventually reunited.

There’s a 16th century example I found – I think 16th century, I’m having trouble finding the source article – that traced a pair of working class single women in London who set up a business together, but then were separated when they fell on hard times and needed charitable assistance, and later were back in business together. Even when women are economically independent of marriage, there may still be forces that become barriers when there’s no formal structure like marriage to bind their lives together. Migration to find work could split up a couple (or put a damper on a developing relationship).

A rare first-person account from a 17th century Iranian widow describes how, during her travels after the death of her husband, she is reunited with the woman she established a “sworn sisterhood” with in their youth, but from whom she had been parted for unspecified reasons (though marriage may have been reason enough).

The 18th century trial record of a cross-dressing woman details her relationship with anther woman, whose marriage (when passing as a man) was disrupted by a wide variety of factors: family objections, poverty, travel for employment, and personal conflicts. Theirs was not a particularly happy love story, but the dynamics of meeting, couplehood, separation, and reunion could be adapted for one.

The biographies of romantic friends in the 18th and 19th centuries are full of stories of family circumstance where the couple desires to live together, but one (or both) is responsible to care for a parent or family member and so the desired outcome is postponed. But often it was these very family duties that kept the women unmarried. One typical example is the life of Anna Seward whose known romantic relationships were all with women, and who escaped marriage (but also perhaps was hindered in how she expressed her romantic feelings) by being responsible for caring for her disabled father. One of her loves was for Honora Sneyd who joined their household when both were children, but Honora broke her heart by marrying. By the time Anna’s father died, leaving her a comfortable income, Honora had also passed, leaving the possibility of an eventual second chance to the realm of fiction.

Family duties were also the nominal hindrance to a romantic partnership between Anne Lister and Isabella Norcliffe, though by the time that was no longer an issue, Lister was no longer interested. The life of Anne Lister in the late 18th and early 19th century offers several models for second-chance stories, although she didn’t tend to let barriers to a dedicated relationship get in the way of an ongoing sexual relationship. Lister’s long-term devotion to Marianne Belcombe was blocked by Marianne’s decision to marry. They talked repeatedly about being able to live together some day if her husband died. That potential second chance never occurred and Lister had moved on.

19th century actress Charlotte Cushman had the right scenario for a second-chance story with her first girlfriend Rosalie Sully, who was left behind in New York when Cushman went to expand her theatrical career in England. But, alas, Rosalie died before Cushman returned from her extended tour.

Marriage could be a common reason for women who were devoted to each other to need to delay setting up as a couple. One late 19th century second-chance biography is that of Rose Cleveland (sister of President Grover Cleveland) who developed a passionate relationship with the widowed Evangeline Simpson. They exchanged love letters and traveled together, but Evangeline succumbed to social pressures and married again, which caused a break between the two. Only after the death of Evangeline’s second husband did she and Rose make arrangements to combine their households and share the rest of their lives.

These historic examples probably focus a bit too much on the situations that are unique to female couples. But almost any reason for needing a second chance that apples to other types of couples will work for female couples. Simple misunderstandings. Relocation for family reasons or due to work. Schoolgirl romances can be a good starting point. Drifting apart due to different goals and priorities. Pursuing a different relationship that didn’t work out. Or simply not having been ready for a serious romantic relationship at the time you were originally together. The beauty of this trope is that it doesn’t have to be about being queer.

Older Protagonists

If you notice a pattern in some of the historic examples above where the reunion (or potential reunion) between the women happens later in life when their responsibilities to parents, husbands, and/or children are left behind, then maybe you understand why I paired second chances with older protagonists for this episode.

Many of the social barriers to women sharing their lives together fall away with age, whether it’s a matter of no longer being responsible for other people, or no longer being subject to expectations regarding reproduction, or simply accumulating a sufficient supply of don’t-give-a-fuck. I’ve already discussed these factors in greater detail in the trope episodes about spinsters and widows, so I won’t rehash them all now.

Not all widows are older. And in the ages when becoming a spinster was a relevant concept, the age at which one was considered on the shelf could be anywhere between 20 to 30-ish, depending on the normative age of marriage. So a consideration of older protagonists isn’t simply a question of being free of other expectations, but of other aspects that come with age.

Non-married older women come in all economic flavors, each with its own considerations. As I discussed in the episode on widows, if you want to give your heroine substantial financial resources that she has control over, making her a widow is your best bet. But for those older women less comfortably situated, they will likely either be living with family, or will be looking for opportunities to stabilize their finances, perhaps by sharing living quarters with others, perhaps by leveraging any property they own by letting rooms, or at last resort by taking on employment that includes room and board. All of these have considerations for potential romantic possibilities and arrangements. (Keep in mind that, in pre-modern times, literally living all by yourself was not practical, and generally went along with extreme poverty.)

Regardless of the details, your older protagonist may be thinking about security. Or she may be thinking about doing things she didn’t have the time and freedom for previously. Or she may be having religious concerns about the end of life. Does she have a large network of friends and relations, built up over decades of adulthood? Or does she find herself alone and abandoned, looking for security? Has she already been everywhere and seen everything and is ready to settle into retirement? Or does she get a wild hair to go on pilgrimage or become a world traveler? What is her health situation like? Has life broken her down or made her a tough old bird? If your character has gone through menopause, do the hormonal changes affect her attitude toward the place of sex within a relationship? What experiences has she accumulated across her life that inform her attitude toward love and sex between women? Has her attitude changed from what it would have been when she was younger. This, too, can be part of the “second chance” dynamics. For that matter, has society changed during her lifetime in ways that affect her seizing a second chance?

In many ways, the differences in romantic possibilities for older women are very different depending on the gender of the potential partner. In historic records you often find women who are past childbearing age viewing male suitors as primarily looking for a housekeeper, nurse, or governess for their existing children. Outside of romance novels, the attractions of marriage for the older woman can be a bit thin on the ground.

And when it comes down to it, is there anything quite as attractive as a woman who has seen it all, been there and done that, has no more fucks to give, and is ready to embrace her own desires fully?  Build your older romance heroine around that. And just maybe there’s someone from her past waiting in the wings to be given a second chance.

Show Notes

In this episode we talk about:

  • The structure of the “second chance romance” trope
  • Features of second-chance romances with female couples
  • Considerations for older heroines

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

Links to Heather Online

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