erastes

By that, I mean the reading of other people’s work. I’m so buoyed up with what’s happening in the historical fiction world right this minute that I can hardly speak, and utterly utterly privileged to be “behind the scenes” to see it happening.

Right now, I’m reading “Rainbow Plantation” by Robert Sheeley. I don’t know Robert from a bar of soap, so he hasn’t gained “minion” status! It’s a good story (so far) of white slave owner and black slave and so far isn’t as clichéd as that set up would hint at. It’s not perfectly written and the editing is a bit rough but it is self-published. However I am enjoying it – the main character is nicely conflicted, and not in the way you’d imagine.. It’s a shame it’s self published, and I hope that one of the small publishers – perhaps one of the People Of Colour (isn’t that a horrible phrase?) ones might pick it up.

Also I’ve just had the pleasure of reading chapter one of Joanne Soper-Cooke’s newest Devlin mystery. It’s stunning. I just told her that if she maintains that standard it will sell by the bucketload, and any publisher would be daft not to bite her arm off for it.

Then I’ve got a friend writing a regency ghost m/m story, and I know, with her meticulous research it will be GREAT, Chris Smith is editing her 15th century Florentine “Bonfire of the Vanities” era one, which is going to be good history as well as a good story, not to mention Lee’s Tangled Web and Don’s Lover’s Knot coming out in the Autumn with Running Press!! And there’s other stuff I can’t even TALK about yet. ARGH! So much goodness!

Talking of Joanne Soper-Cooke – she’s done a brilliant, and very funny post on The Macaronis about how her character tend to possess her and live with her every minute of the day. In this post, she takes her 1930s taxi-dancer character, George, shopping, which is just hilarious, so don’t miss it.

In other news, I’m also reading Little Dorrit. Quite the dullest Dickens I’ve read to date. I’d like to hope Little Dorrit dies of something really painful, but I know that she doesn’t. Damn it. What possessed Dickens to think that anyone would like the horrid milk-sop? *stabs her*