FF Friday book review poll

[rachelmanija]

I am launching FF Fridays! See previous post for details.

I seem to have accumulated a whole lot of FF novels and samples of FF novels over the years. From that somewhat random assortment...

Poll #19942 FF Fridays Upcoming Book Reviews

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 72

View Respondents

What FF novel would be interested in seeing me review?

View Answers

Criminal Gold by Ann Aptaker. 1949 noir about Cantor Gold, dapper dyke and art smuggler.
35 (48.6%)

Broken Wings by L. J. Baker. A blue collar fairy meets a celebrity dryad.
21 (29.2%)

High Impact by Kim Baldwin. A woman has a near death experience and goes to Alaska, where she meets an adventure outfitter and looks like they get stranded together.
13 (18.1%)

I am a Woman by Ann Bannon. Classic lesbian pulp, written in 1950s, about "immortal butch bar-dyke Beebo Brinker." (Literary immortality, not vampiric. I think.)
27 (37.5%)

Grave Silence by Rose Beecham. The super-cute cover made me think this was a cozy mystery, but reviews suggest it's quite dark and involves abuse and cults.
6 (8.3%)

Pegasi and Prefects by Eleanor Beresford. Magical girls' boarding school!
32 (44.4%)

Labyrinth Lost (Brooklyn Brujas # 1) by Zoraida Cordova. Bisexual teenage bruja must rescue her family from the Underworld.
31 (43.1%)

Uptown Thief by Aya de Leon. "One smart, sizzling mami robs the rich and protects the exploited--until one heist too many puts everything at stake. . . "
15 (20.8%)

A Knight to Remember by Bridget Essex. "A librarian, a warrior woman, and a love story that's out of this world..."
30 (41.7%)

The Covert Captain: Or, A Marriage of Equals by Jeannelle M. Ferreira. Napoleonic cross-dressing.
35 (48.6%)

Desolation Point by Cari Hunter. Two women are stranded hiking in the Cascades with a killer on the loose.
9 (12.5%)

Snowbound by Cari Hunter. During a robbery in a snowstorm, one cop is wounded and taken hostage while another tries to rescue her.
14 (19.4%)

Heart Trouble by Jae. A waitress and an ER doctor get soul bonded.
13 (18.1%)

Second Nature by Jae. A romance novelist meets a werewolf!
9 (12.5%)

Deep Deception by Cathy Pegau. SF cop/criminal on a mining planet.
20 (27.8%)

Rulebreaker by Cathy Pegau. SF criminal/mob boss, on the same mining planet.
12 (16.7%)

Firestorm by Radclyffe. Smokejumpers in love.
14 (19.4%)

Trauma Alert by Radclyffe. ER doctors in love.
9 (12.5%)

The Devil Inside by Ali Vali. New Orleans mob boss/Wisconsin farm girl.
10 (13.9%)

Something else which you will suggest in comments.
2 (2.8%)

If you're familiar with any of these, please tell me what you think!

Comments

[kore]

You might like some of the early ff mysteries if you haven't read them already -- the Cassandra Reilly series by Barbara Wilson (co-founder of Seal Press) might be to your taste, lots of twists and travel. Ditto Lynn Ames’ Kate and Jay series, with two female reporters exposing politics, spies, secret organizations, with lots of outside settings. Val McDermid apparently has a series with a lesbian profiler but her treatment of gender issues was so bad in her male profiler series I am very wary of it. I think I have some other books from the 80s/90s, I'll have to look for them (right now am Indisposed). I don't think I've read any Katherine V. Forrest or JM Redmann. I did read Laurie King's Kate Martinelli series but was ehhh about it.

And then there's Megan Abbott of course although she seems to be moving away from noir, SIGH.

[rachelmanija]

Thanks! I will definitely check out Barbara Wilson and Lynn Ames. And Megan Abbott! She's been on my to-read list for forever.

[kore]

Dare Me is my very favourite Abbott book. She writes about suburban cheerleaders and makes it dark and noir and the result is totally beautiful and convincing. I think you'd also love Die a Little, The Song Is You, Queenpin and Bury Me Deep which IIRC are all period noir. I'm not as crazy about her non-noir modern books, other than Dare Me, but I have friends who love them.

[coffeeandink]

I love Megan Abbott beyond words, but I think most of her work is too far on the subtext/barely mentioned text side to fit the requirements. There's clearly a lot of barely subliminated unexpressed desire, but there isn't any FF romance. The only explicit FF relationship I can recall is in Bury Me Deep, and that's with minor characters.

[kore]

I disagree about Queenpin, Bury Me Deep, Dare Me and Die a Little at least. You are of course right that there is no explicit FF romance but I don't think "a lot of barely subliminated unexpressed desire" really covers the relationships in these books.

The original definition was "FF = 'romantic relationship between female-identified people.' The book does not have to be genre romance. It can be any genre that includes a significant and romantic relationship between women. It does not have to include sex, but should be clearly romantic rather than platonic friendship." The cheerleaders in Dare Me frex aren't in a romantic relationship but I definitely wouldn't call it platonic either personally. But if I do write anything about Abbott (not that likely anyway) I won't make it part of this per your correction.

[coffeeandink]

I'm not the arbiter. If you think they fit, of course you should include them.

[kore]

I probably won't anyway, I typically wash out of this kind of thing. If you objected to their inclusion probably other people wouldn't want them in an FF-specific project either, I am guessing.

[coffeeandink]

You could just include a disclaimer. As long as people know the definition you're using, they'll understand where it differs from theirs.

[kore]

Maybe Christa Faust might be a better fit but I don't like her books nearly as much. It doesn't really matter anyway.

[shark_hat]

Val McDermid's lesbian detective is a private detective, not a profiler- I like them much better than the profiler ones. I can't remember any gender issues annoying me in them, but I haven't reread any for a few years.

Katherine Forrest's Daughters of a Coral Dawn is... interesting and of its time. It does have good bits and a happy ending.

[kore]

I don't know what happened there -- I was reading an interview with her and took 'lesbian profiler' from it but of course now I can't find it. I might have mixed up Trick of the Dark (the one-shot about a psychiatrist) with either the Inspector Karen Pirie series, the Lindsay Gordon journalist series or the PI Kate Brannigan series. My apologies, I've had chronic depression for decades and my short-term memory is pretty bad.

The book I specifically had a big problem with was Mermaids Singing (1995) which I found terribly transphobic. I read a couple of other books in the 'Wire in the Blood' series and didn't like them that much. I didn't know until these comments she had any lesbian mystery series, let alone several!