Put this one on my tbr on cover alone. In Anna North's Bog Queen, 26 year old anthropologist Agnes is fresh out of her doctorate and away from home for the first time. When she gets called in to examine a body exhumed from the local peat mine, she knows immediately: it's not a woman who went missing in 1962—it's far, far older. Told in dual narrative between our awkward, intense scientist (Agnes can tell a woman has carpal tunnel by the way she holds her coffee mug—but doesn't know enough to not say that out loud) and the body she found (a druid girl eager to step into her authority and learn the latest in science & divination from the Roman outpost in the south), Agnes is suddenly under enormous pressure to discover the secrets of the bog body she has found, before either the environmentalists or developers close in. (I am extremely doubtful Britain would let an untested American have this much responsibility, but, hey, it's fiction.)
Oh, and the moss the girl was buried in gets a voice too—which was brief enough it didn't strike me as twee. The ancient narrative doesn't quite have the vivid detail & character work of our modern setting, but nonetheless this was a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon.
Currently Watching : I need to finish watching the latest episodes of "9-1-1", "The Rookie", "NCIS", and "The Pitt". And then I'd like to start watching "The Other Bennet Sister" and "Half Man".
Currently reading : "Bog Queen", by Anna North. And fanfics, obviously!
Current Obsession : Sal Deluca, MY MAN !!
Currently Working on : Apart from my job in a bookstore, nothing special!
Last Search : After reading articles on Wikipedia, I looked for the marks left by whips on the skin (especially for runaway slaves who were caught)...
Current Desktop picture : A photo of a bird that I took a few years ago in Normandy.
Endorsement from submitter: "sapphic characters, significant trans character (nb iirc)"
In the year of our Lord 1894, I became an outlaw.
The day of her wedding, 17 year old Ada's life looks good; she loves her husband, and she loves working as an apprentice to her mother, a respected midwife. But after a year of marriage and no pregnancy, in a town where barren women are routinely hanged as witches, her survival depends on leaving behind everything she knows.
She joins up with the notorious Hole in the Wall Gang, a band of outlaws led by a preacher-turned-robber known to all as the Kid. Charismatic, grandiose, and mercurial, the Kid is determined to create a safe haven for outcast women. But to make this dream a reality, the Gang hatches a treacherous plan that may get them all killed. And Ada must decide whether she's willing to risk her life for the possibility of a new kind of future for them all.
Featuring an irresistibly no-nonsense, courageous, and determined heroine, Outlawed dusts off the myth of the old West and reignites the glimmering promise of the frontier with an entirely new set of feminist stakes. Anna North has crafted a pulse-racing, page-turning saga about the search for hope in the wake of death, and for truth in a climate of small-mindedness and fear.
Endorsement from submitter #1: "A sapphic western where women help women (bury the body of your abusive husband.)"
Endorsement from submitter #2: "This is a story about women who age, gossip, drink, love, and help you hide the body of your dead husband."
1865, United States— It took thirty years and a dislocated arm for Victoria to leave her abusive husband. Heartbroken, she has to choose her own life over the hope of ever seeing her son again. She escapes the manor in the dead of night, only bringing with her a white wedding dress.
She ends up in Swainsburg, a minuscule town in Wyoming, where she’s adopted by the local prostitutes. To save them from expulsion, she buys the building and learns that in these parts, entertainment is worth more than gold. It’s almost easy, even fun, to organize piano recitals and cancan shows for the cowboys of the area, but being a Madam comes with responsibilities and dangers she isn’t ready to face. Her husband, after all, has contacts everywhere.
It’s hard to navigate the delicate tensions between respectable ladies and whores, between white society and the ‘others.’ Her new friends are women who carved their place in this merciless life; people who, like her, ended up in Swainsburg when they got tired of running.
Victoria falls in love. She doesn’t notice, she can’t even imagine the possibility. The townfolk say the widow Díaz is strange. Natane is actually incredibly awkward, kind, and very lonely. Victoria has no name for this burning friendship, but the feeling grows and demands to be acknowledged.
This is a story about women who age, gossip, drink, love, and help you hide the body of your dead husband.
This June, good things come in sets of six as I spotlight some of my favorite rainbow reads.
✨ Category is: Be Gay, Do Crime✨
Learn more about these titles under the cut!
A Million to One by Adiba Jaigirdar (a YA historical sapphic thriller as a girl gang sets out to pull off a heist on the high seas. But the mission turns into a deadly race against the clock when the Titanic strike an iceberg… Rep: F/F, BIPOC characters)
Outlawed by Anna North (Historical fiction, in a world where AFAB people are reduced to their reproductive value, an outlaw band seeks to create a paradise for the forgotten queer children who dare to defy the norm. Rep: trans/nonbinary mc, sapphic characters)
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters (Dark Historical Romance, In Victorian England, a thief poses as a lady’s maid to con her employer. But what happens when she falls for the mark? Rep: F/F)
Aces Wild by Amanda Dewitt (YA, a group of online friends meets IRL to plan a casino heist to save one of their own. Ever thought Ocean’s 11 would be better without the distraction of sex and romance? Rep: NB/M, trans/nonbinary mc, asexual mcs, asexual scs, aromantic scs, BIPOC characters)
The Queer Principles of Kit Webb by Cat Sebastian (Historical Romance, a young lordling hires an ex highway man to teach him how to stand and deliver. The two find their partnership becomes more than they bargained for. Rep: M/M, gay mc, bisexual characters)
Lavender House by Lev AC Rosen (Historical Mystery, an ex policeman newly outed and ostracized is given a new job: investigate the death of a mysterious soap magnate. But behind the doors of Lavender House hides more than one secret…could someone among this queer found family have murdered one of their own? Rep: M/M, F/F, gay characters, lesbian scs)
