Books
I've read a couple recently that I thought I'd mention because they might be of interest to some of you.
Hither, Page by Cat Sebastian: I'm a fan of Sebastian's works, which tends to be historical m/m, but this one moves up to immediately after WWII. I know most will say WWII is historical, since we're now ~75 years past it, but in the romance genre "historical" generally means pre-1900. Though I've been seeing stories set in the 1920s quite a bit, and I'm betting shows like Downton Abbey helped that trend.
This particular book features a burned out spy and a shell shocked doctor, trying to figure out a murder in a small English village where everybody knows everybody. So think just about any cozy English mystery, but much gayer. It's a different style and tone from Sebastian's other works, but I also note that it's tagged as "Page & Sommers Book 1", so I'm thinking she's going to lean into the cozy English mystery (but much gayer) in series form. It's not as much a romance, though I'm thinking that may be because of it because the first of a series that's going to focus on this couple instead of following other characters off on side stories. I like the idea of seeing a doctor and a spy trying to recover from the war, among other things, ending up going about solving mysteries.
Proper English by K.J. Charles: Another fave m/m author, this time writing a f/f story. It's actually a prequel to Think of England (which is m/m), and shows how Patricia Merton and Miss Fenella Carruth met. You can read it as a standalone, but I liked reading it to get more about these two who just about stole the show in the first book. I've also got the sneaking suspicion the author has set up another m/m romance in this one. It's in the book, but not detailed due to the POV, so she could easily expand their story into another book.
Pat is a women's shooting champion, off to a friend's house party to go on a hunt (and not for a man) after her oldest brother marries. She's been running the house, and feels she needs to find her own place in the world now, so this is the perfect excuse to have some time to think about what she wants to do. Enter Fen, who is her friend's fiancée and very femme versus Pat's more butch style. Well, not butch like we might think of it today, but it's more about her growing up with her father and brothers, so she never got into the girly stuff. Fen most definitely did, and uses it to her advantage when people often mistake her for a bit of fluff.
The house party is not exactly a fun one, with affairs, secrets, betrayals, and blackmail revealed. Then there's a massive storm that keeps everyone inside, and then there's someone murdered. Everyone's a suspect, and Pat and Fen start investigating because they don't know how long it will take for police to arrive at the remote estate after the storm damage, and they'd really rather not have a murderer take a crack at anyone else, nor have secrets revealed that could destroy lives.
Hither, Page by Cat Sebastian: I'm a fan of Sebastian's works, which tends to be historical m/m, but this one moves up to immediately after WWII. I know most will say WWII is historical, since we're now ~75 years past it, but in the romance genre "historical" generally means pre-1900. Though I've been seeing stories set in the 1920s quite a bit, and I'm betting shows like Downton Abbey helped that trend.
This particular book features a burned out spy and a shell shocked doctor, trying to figure out a murder in a small English village where everybody knows everybody. So think just about any cozy English mystery, but much gayer. It's a different style and tone from Sebastian's other works, but I also note that it's tagged as "Page & Sommers Book 1", so I'm thinking she's going to lean into the cozy English mystery (but much gayer) in series form. It's not as much a romance, though I'm thinking that may be because of it because the first of a series that's going to focus on this couple instead of following other characters off on side stories. I like the idea of seeing a doctor and a spy trying to recover from the war, among other things, ending up going about solving mysteries.
Proper English by K.J. Charles: Another fave m/m author, this time writing a f/f story. It's actually a prequel to Think of England (which is m/m), and shows how Patricia Merton and Miss Fenella Carruth met. You can read it as a standalone, but I liked reading it to get more about these two who just about stole the show in the first book. I've also got the sneaking suspicion the author has set up another m/m romance in this one. It's in the book, but not detailed due to the POV, so she could easily expand their story into another book.
Pat is a women's shooting champion, off to a friend's house party to go on a hunt (and not for a man) after her oldest brother marries. She's been running the house, and feels she needs to find her own place in the world now, so this is the perfect excuse to have some time to think about what she wants to do. Enter Fen, who is her friend's fiancée and very femme versus Pat's more butch style. Well, not butch like we might think of it today, but it's more about her growing up with her father and brothers, so she never got into the girly stuff. Fen most definitely did, and uses it to her advantage when people often mistake her for a bit of fluff.
The house party is not exactly a fun one, with affairs, secrets, betrayals, and blackmail revealed. Then there's a massive storm that keeps everyone inside, and then there's someone murdered. Everyone's a suspect, and Pat and Fen start investigating because they don't know how long it will take for police to arrive at the remote estate after the storm damage, and they'd really rather not have a murderer take a crack at anyone else, nor have secrets revealed that could destroy lives.