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A while ago I started working my way through reviews of things I’ve read in the last year or two. Ha, ha, yes, my up-to-datedness is that bad. And then in the last month or so, I finally seem to have broken through my “reading block”. So let’s spend some time getting reviews done, though they’re going to be briefer than I sometimes write. I’m scheduling 18 reviews (following my usual one-blog-per-day maximum) which gets me caught up with everything in my spreadsheet, though I need to comb through iBooks and other files to see if I’ve overlooked something.

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The premise for this kickstarter-based anthology was so solidly in my sweet spot that I not only backed the kickstarter immediately, but I was inspired to write a story to submit for it. (Alas, they didn’t take my story, but perhaps it will see the light of day at some point.) The basic premise, inspired by a piece of art, was “two women, one with weapon skills, one with more social/courtly skills, plunge into adventure and romance.” The settings range from classical fantasy worlds to space pirates, with a wide range of character types, story flavors, and interpretations of that premise. The variety is such that I’d predict  if the basic concept attracts you, there will be at least one story that’s perfectly on target for you, and more that are thoroughly enjoyable. Some of my favorites were: Freya Marske’s “Elinor Jones vs. the Ruritanian Multiverse” for its delightful self-conscious poking fun at tropes and the process of storytelling; the delightfully bittersweet worldbuilding of Cara Patterson’s “Little Birds”; the comic romp that is Elizabeth Davis’s “The Epic Fifth Wedding Anniversary of Zayne the Barbarian and Tikka the Accountant”; and the twisty emotional tightrope of Aliette de Bodard’s “The Scholar of the Bamboo Flute.” The only story that didn’t really work for me and felt ill-suited to the theme was Elaine McIonyn’s “The Commander and the Mirage Master’s Mate” whose characters simply felt incompetent in their setting and which spent far too much attention to the technical details of the martial magic and not enough developing the plot.

Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 205 - On the Shelf for July 2021 - Transcript

(Originally aired 2021/07/03 - listen here)

Welcome to On the Shelf for July 2021.

Pride month is over but the pride lives on year-round! Though “pride” isn’t necessarily the goal to aim for. “Pride” is an interesting concept to represent a social movement. The word has two contexts. One meaning is sense of satisfaction in accomplishment. One can be proud of having finished that first draft of your novel. Or proud of successfully training for a marathon. One can be proud of accomplishments at all levels: riding a bicycle for the first time or winning the Tour de France. Pulling off a perfect dinner party or establishing a successful catering business. But that’s an odd definition in the context of identity. If I say, “I’m proud to be an American” what the heck does that even mean? It’s not something I accomplished or worked at. It’s an accident of birth. If I say, “I’m a proud lesbian,” does that mean I worked hard to become one and might have failed along the way?

Social movements that use the idea of “pride” generally use the word in a different sense: as the opposite of shame. The slogan “gay pride” had a resonance in the ‘60s and ‘70s because for the entirety of the 20th century we’d been told we should be ashamed of being gay. It was modeled on movements like Black Pride, where people stood up, took to the streets, and say, “No, I will not be ashamed of who and what I am. I will not accept that my very existence makes me a lesser human being.”

There are some who argue that “identity politics” – focusing your awareness and activism around inherent characteristics – is a bad thing. But identity has always been at the heart of social politics. What was new in the 20th century, across very many groups, was the idea that you could reject the political and social oppression turned on you because of your identity, whether that identity was race or ethnicity, religion or social class, gender or sexuality.

Identity is a continuing theme in studying queer history, revolving around the Foucaultian debate between queer being something you do versus being something you are. The rise of identity-awareness in the 20th century confuses the issue of studying the past. Today we are so focused on identities, intersecting identities, micro-identities, that we can find it difficult to imagine queer people in the past not sharing that same sense of identity – or hard to connect with them emotionally if we don’t share that.

Identity has its limits as an organizing principle. One failure mode is difficulty identifying with people who don’t share our same openly-defined identities. Another failure mode is found in experiencing pride as the flip side of shame, it should be clear that the goal of pride movements of all types should be the elimination of even the suggestion of shame. When there is no longer shame, there will be no need to counter it with pride. Then we can focus on the other sense of the word: pride in accomplishment, when artificial barriers and restrictions no longer stand in our way.

News of the Field

If you’ve already signed up to attend the online Golden Crown Literary Society conference, or you’ve been thinking about it and need a little push, I’ll be participating in a panel I suggested on why authors write historical fiction—what the telling of stories set in the past means to us both as writers and as readers. The conference is spread out over multiple weekends in July, which makes participation easier for those who can’t or don’t want to take time off work for it. The history panel “Yesterday Once More: The Uses of Historical Fiction” is on Sunday July 25 at noon Eastern Time. Check out the other programming and think about taking this opportunity to attend. Online conferences are really changing access to events, although there are some parts that don’t translate to the virtual experience. There’s a link to the conference schedule in the show notes.

Publications on the Blog

So, the blog. Ah yes, the blog. Can I retroactively declare that the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Blog is taking a little summer vacation? Because that seems to be what’s happening. What’s really happening is that my day job has been all-consuming for the past month or so, with a lot of late evenings and even weekends getting swallowed up. So expect more updates on the blog when I have time to do the readings. I do seem to have broken though my fiction reading block, though. More on that a little later.

Recent Lesbian Historical Fiction

And now it’s new books time! I have four June books and five July books for your consideration this month. A lot of series stories, for those who love to follow characters across multiple books.  And rather delightfully, a slight majority of this month’s books are set prior to the 19th century. I love seeing stories from earlier eras. As far as settings go, these books follow typical patterns: mostly England and the US, but then one each from mythic early Greece, mythic Viking-era Scandinavia, and an alternate medieval China – if you will forgive the cultural anachronism of using the word medieval about a non-European setting.

That’s actually a topic of serious academic debate, by the way. Is there a concept of the Middle Ages that makes sense to apply world-wide? Or are the Middle Ages something that only exist with respect to Western culture, given that the “middle” in question is the era between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance? And then there’s the question of how the word “medieval” gets used in an ahistorical way to indicate certain myths about violence, social hierarchies, and anti-intellectualism that derive far more from pop culture than from the actual middle ages. In certain ways, applying the word medieval to non-Western cultures, simply because an event is contemporary with that period, is a form of cultural imperialism. But in other ways, worldwide cultures are connected in interdependent ways that mean the historic eras defined for one culture describe conditions that affect their interactions with other cultures.

Defining the “end of the middle ages” in terms of Europe’s cultural and intellectual Renaissance may have little meaning with respect to Asian cultures. But the changes that drove the Renaissance also affected trade, travel, and contact between cultures. And on a more questionable side, marked the start of Western colonial expansion. So – getting back to the start of this digression – while describing a story as set in “medieval” China may not be useful in describing what was going on in Chinese culture itself, it does situate the setting of the story with respect to waves of contact, trade, and influence that are relevant to that setting.

But this is a digression. I’m not really here to teach world history. My goal when describing books is much more simple. I want to let readers know what to expect. I want to let you know whether you’re getting ordinary history or a mythic history that might include demi-gods and supernatural creatures. I want to give a sense of how closely the story sticks to cultural settings and attitudes that we have solid evidence for, and which ones use a historic setting as a jumping off point for “what if” stories, even if there are no overt fantastical elements. Some stories are set in a solidly-envisioned past set with people, events, and locations that aren’t in the history books. Others invoke real events and people while telling stories about them that—as far as we know—never happened. And everything in between.

That’s one of the reasons it’s hard to define which books I include under the Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast, and which I decide don’t fall under our scope. My approach to the borders of historical fiction is in many ways a feeling—a flavor—rather than a set of rules. It results in some inconsistencies. In general, I don’t include books set in secondary worlds, but I do include books set in a fictional analogue of a real historic culture. The core focus is on purely historical settings, but I’ll generally include stories with settings that historic people told stories in. Several of the books this month fall in that category, telling stories about mythic amazons of ancient Greece or adventures out of Arthurian legend.

Just as the “historic” part of this podcast’s scope is rather fuzzy around the edges, the “lesbian” part can get equally fuzzy. And I don’t mean just because I use that word to stand in for all types of sapphic characters. This month’s books include several where a person-assigned-female is being read as male by the other characters on a long-term basis. There’s a long-standing tradition in lesbian historic fiction to use gender disguise as a trope for drawing on the wealth of heterosexual plot-types. But not all such books intend to tell sapphic stories, and not all such characters understand themselves to be women in disguise. The tricky part is that it isn’t always easy to determine the author’s intentions from the available publicity materials about the book. And—quite frankly—you can’t always rely on how the book is tagged in Goodreads or Amazon.

I lean toward being inclusive—not because I’m discounting transgender aspects of the stories and characters—but in part because I can’t always tell how the character identifies, and in part to honor the deep intertwined histories of lesbian and transmasculine experiences. So, for example, among this month’s books we have a character who is read universally as a man, who is referred to in their own point of view scenes with male pronouns, but where the author has tagged the book as having a lesbian relationship, and included hints about the character being “not who he says he is.”

In another book, the protagonist’s backstory includes taking on her dead brother’s identity and thereafter being read as male. But in the book’s publicity materials—including the title—the character is referred to with female pronouns. In another story, a woman takes on a male identity specifically for economic reasons in the American frontier. I have no interest in trying to draw sharp dividing lines around gender presentation to determine which books get included in this podcast and which don’t, but you may have noticed that I generally point out my uncertainty and try to avoid applying labels that the author might not have intended.

So what are this month’s new books?

June brought us four books set across a wide swath of time, all set within Europe.

The Women of Apasas (Amazzi Warriors and Queens #1), self-published by Elizabeth Reign, features an Amazon warrior and a refugee priestess from Crete who are drawn together by fate and desire. Love, duty, and distrust set a difficult challenge for them.

Viking Quest, self-published by Edale Lane, unsurprisingly takes on a Viking-era setting. Sea voyages, battles, and treachery all feature in this romantic adventure between a princess bent on revenge and a damsel in distress seeking her freedom.

Lie With Me, self-published by Patricia Spencer, is one of the gender-blurring stories I mentioned earlier. To all appearances, Julien D’Avenant is an exiled French nobleman fleeing the terrors of the Revolution, but D’Avenant is also a contradiction. A dandy who adopts the fashions of the sans-culottes; an anarchist bent on acquiring the property of the widowed Countess Wyndham; a recluse who invites the young countess into his home. And within those contradictions, D’Avenant is definitely not what he seems. I’m going to confess I get frustrated with books that combine tags for “lesbian romance” with a superficially heterosexual plot description. I’m going to trust the author’s description, that D’Avenant is in gender disguise but not male-identifying, and I’m going to trust that the story handles gender-crossing motifs with awareness and sensitivity. I wish it was available somewhere other than Amazon so I’d be inclined to find out for myself.

The Dawn of the Rose (Love and Thorns #2), self-published by Sarah Swan, is a loosely independent sequel to her 18th century Scottish romance Like the Down of a Thistle, but set almost a century later. In this book, a descendent of the previous book’s protagonist takes ship for America and crosses paths with a stowaway running from the law. In the claustrophobic confines of the ship, they must negotiate trust and secrets. But someone else knows about the stowaway and their danger will only increase.

July brings us a couple of mainstream publications as well as continuations of three lesfic series.

For those who enjoy sweeping epic fantasies, check out Shelley Parker-Chan’s She Who Became the Sun from Tor. In the 14th century, in Mongol-ruled China, a young girl claims her dead brother’s identity and the great destiny that was foretold for him. Zhu has a will to survive, and the fortunes of war turn survival into much more. There are sapphic themes in the book, though it certainly isn’t a romance. And Zhu’s gender-crossing doesn’t align closely with modern concepts of identity. But if you’re in the mood for a chunky epic this may be your lucky day.

Another gender-bender is the anthology Sword Stone Table: Old Legends, New Voices, edited by Swapna Krishna & Jenn Northington from Vintage. A collection of gender-bent and race-bent stories of the Arthurian mythos from names such as Roshani Chokshi, Maria Dahvana Headley, Ken Liu, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and Nisi Shawl—just to mention the authors I’ve enjoyed fiction from in the past. The original Arthurian stories were far more diverse than you might think, but this collection celebrates that diversity in new forms. I have to confess quite honestly that I don’t know for certain whether any of the stories is specifically sapphic, but I think it’s a good enough bet to include in this list.

Kim Pritekel’s Wynter series from Sapphire Books gets a third volume, Justice Won, following two chance-met allies on a train heading for California. But their journey, and perhaps their lives, hit a snag in the town of Wynter, Colorado, and the lives that had begun to be braided together may be torn apart.

Renee Dahlia’s self-published Great War series also gets a third volume, Her Lady's Fortune. In the aftermath of WWI, wealthy philanthropist Priya Howick can only realize her project to assist war widows by accepting a partnership with Rosalie Sanderson, the determined head of a banking dynasty. But Priya and Rosalie have met before—for one glorious and disastrous night in the time before the war. The ache of that wound may derail their project before it even starts.

The two previous series books look like they stand alone fairly well, but Murder and Gold (Cantor Gold #5) by Ann Aptaker from Bywater Books may appeal most to continuing fans of the series. For quite some time, Cantor Gold has been navigating the hazards of a criminal career in mid-20th century New York. Dead bodies aren’t exactly a surprise for her—even if one of them is one of her recent one-night stands. Nor is she any stranger to becoming a target of the police investigating the murders. But new currents are stirring in the ‘50s. Homosexual organizations are becoming visible and vocal. And that complicates Cantor’s understanding of her own identity at a time when she can’t afford to be distracted.

What Am I Reading?

And what am I reading? I hinted earlier that I seem to have broken through my reading block at last. And about time, after well over a year of having a hard time turning the pages. In the past month, I’ve actually managed to finish four books, though only half of them have sapphic themes.

Alyssa Cole’s contemporary “Runaway Royals” series features How to Find a Princess, in which two women with difficult personalities clash over the possibility that one of them just might be descended from the mysteriously disappeared queen of a small Mediterranean kingdom. I loved the way Cole handled the two women’s quirks and damages, and how they gradually came together. I was a bit less enamored of the surprise twist at the end, but you may enjoy it more than I did.

One of the things that’s helped me get back into reading fiction is picking up physical books, rather than trying to read everything on a screen. I stare at screens entirely too much as it is, and for the last year most of my socializing has involved staring at pixels as well. So maybe I should have tried physical books a bit earlier. Goodness knows I have an entire bookcase of untouched volumes that I’ve been accumulating over the last couple decades. But since I mostly buy ebooks these days, that means my hard-copy reading has been older publications.

I’ve finally read Emma Donoghue’s collection of re-fashioned fairy tales, Kissing the Witch. “Collection” isn’t quite the right word, since it’s actually a set of chained stories (sort of like the stories in the 1001 Nights), in which each story ends with the protagonist asking a secondary character what her story is. All the stories are very very queer, and given that this is Emma Donoghue, they’re excellently written. It was actually hard to put the book down and not finish it in a single gulp, they were just that addictive.

My other paper read is from a Jane Austen themed murder mystery series by Carrie Bebris, with Mr. and Mrs. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice playing the roles of amateur detectives. Many other recognizable Austen characters wander through the plot. The specific book I read was The Deception at Lyme, which I think is maybe the fourth in the series? It’s exactly the sort of fluffy, light comfort read that got me through grad school back in the ‘90s. The prose isn’t brilliant – not even a particularly close imitation of Austen – and there are some plot holes you could drive a four-in-hand through, but perfectly enjoyable.

And speaking of comfort reads, I finished the month by reading A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher (who is also Ursula Vernon). Vernon is an amazing writer of hard-to-categorize fantasies. In this book, a teenage baker-wizard saves the city with the help of an animated gingerbread man and her magical familiar. A sourdough culture named Bob. It’s…well, let’s just say it’s hard to describe other than that. You might think that a fantasy adventure in which sourdough culture plays a key role would be a shameless ploy for the book-dollars of the quarantine Sourdough Tribe, but the book was actually written a decade ago and gathered a bunch of publisher’s rejections until the time became perfect for its publication.

Let’s hope my newfound reading momentum keeps up. I have a lot of books waiting for me.

Show Notes

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

In this episode we talk about:

• ”Pride” and identity
• Golden Crown Literary Society Conference Schedule
• New and forthcoming fiction
  • The Women of Apasas (Amazzi Warriors and Queens #1) by Elizabeth Reign
  • Viking Quest by Edale Lane
  • Lie With Me by Patricia Spencer
  • The Dawn of the Rose (Love and Thorns #2) by Sarah Swan
  • She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan
  • Justice Won (Wynter #3) by Kim Pritekel
  • Her Lady's Fortune (Great War 3) by Renee Dahlia
  • Murder and Gold (Cantor Gold #5) by Ann Aptaker
  • Sword Stone Table: Old Legends, New Voices by edited by Swapna Krishna & Jenn Northington

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
• Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
• RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
• Twitter: @LesbianMotif
• Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
• The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon

Links to Heather Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com
• Email: Heather Rose Jones
• Twitter: @heatherosejones
• Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 203 - On the Shelf for June 2021  - Transcript

(Originally aired 2021/06/05 - listen here)

Welcome to On the Shelf for June 2021. Happy Pride Month!

This month rather snuck up on me, what with one thing and another. I dropped the ball a bit and didn’t manage to get an author interview for this month. Fortunately, that’s not as fatal as it was back when I was doing interviews as separate shows!

But speaking of interview shows, one thing I’ve accomplished in the past month is to get nearly caught up on commissioning transcripts of all the past interview shows. I still have a bunch of them to proofread and post to the blog, but I’m very close to having full transcripts for every podcast I’ve done. And going forward, I hope to have the interviews transcribed in “real time” so they post with the rest of the transcript when the show is released. I’ve been working with several very talented transcribers, so if any of you need to hire someone for that type of work, I can make recommendations.

News of the Field & Book Shopping

This time last year, all sorts of conferences were scrambling to figure out how to pivot to online programming. This year it feels like organizations are starting to get the hang of things, and we can hope that some of the advantages of virtual conferences will be retained going forward, even as we eventually enjoy a return to face-to-face events. One of the things that ate up my time in May was virtually attending the annual Medieval Congress, normally held in Kalamazoo. If you follow my blog, you can read my notes of some of the sessions that touched on queer history. The conference book sales also accounted for my book shopping for the Lesbian Historic Motif Project in the last month. I picked up books on a lot of topics, of course, but the relevant ones are two new releases On the Queerness of Early English Drama: Sex in the Subjunctive by Tison Pugh, and  The Shape of Sex: Nonbinary Gender from Genesis to the Renaissance by Leah DeVun. They’re both a bit peripheral to the core focus of the Project, but look fascinating nonetheless. The third book is a slightly older book: Heterosyncrasies: Female Sexuality when Normal Wasn’t by Karma Lochrie which challenges some of the assumptions about normative female sexuality in the premodern period.

Another online conference that’s coming up is the Golden Crown Literary Society, held over multiple weekends in July. I took advantage of the virtual nature of the event to propose a panel on historical fiction, which was accepted. So on Sunday July 25, at 12pm Eastern Time, I’ll be part of a panel of authors talking about why historical fiction is important and why we choose to tell those stories. So if you have a membership to GCLS, I hope you’ll join Lynn Ames, Catherine Lundoff, Penny Mickelbury, Bonnie Morris, and me.

Publications on the Blog

So, I’ve mentioned a couple times that the month of May kind of landed on me like a ton of bricks, and there’s no more solid evidence of that than the fact that I didn’t post any Lesbian Historic Motif Project blog entries. I started Jen Manion’s book Female Husbands at the end of April and then…got busy. So what had been on the May schedule—that is, finishing up Manion’s book—is now rolled over into June. I’ll spare you the details of the ton of bricks that was May. Let’s just say that sometimes I have to remember that the blog and podcast are only my second job, and sometimes they have to give way. I wish I could say that they were my third job with the second one being my fiction writing, but it’s an unfortunate fact that the more immediate deadlines of the blog and podcast tend to push the writing aside and at some point I’m going to need to make a reckoning of that.

Recent Lesbian Historical Fiction

But at least other people are putting out new books, so let’s talk about them!

There’s one April book to catch up on. I’d waited to include this until I could get more information on whether it has actual sapphic content, since the cover copy is all just hints and suggestions. Katy Turton is a historian specializing in Russian history, and her novel Blackbird's Song: A story of the Russian Revolution, from Stairwell Books, takes that depth of knowledge in fictional form. It tells a story from the waning days of Tsarist Russia, when Anna forms a university friendship with two siblings—and evidently especially with the sister, Rosa—and is drawn into revolutionary action. Love, struggle, and tragedy are intertwined. It isn’t clear to me whether the story has a conventional happy ending.

I found three more May books. Kalikoi looks like a brand new publisher, specializing in books about women who love women. They have a historical title An Intimate Study by Margaret K. Mac set in Victorian England, in which Dr. Alana Brighton is looking for an artist’s model to do some anatomical studies. But the woman who signs on has some rather different interests in the doctor’s anatomy. It looks like this is a rather steamy romance.

We dip back into the medieval fantasy of Arthurian England for The Black Knight and the Lady by J M Dragon from Affinity. This is another book where the cover copy is a bit too coy about the characters, and if it weren’t that the publisher is solidly focused on sapphic fiction I might have overlooked it. After King Arthur’s last battle, a knight is entrusted with the protection of a lady returning home from Camelot. The knight conceals a perilous secret and from context I’m guessing that the secret has to do with why this book is coming out from a queer press.

Born of the Sea by Kate Castle from Dark Horse Publishing is subtitled “The Untold Story of Anne Bonny and Mary Read.” Given their popularity as characters in pirate adventure novels, I’m not sure that any story about Anne Bonny and Mary Read is left untold at this point, but if you’re the sort who can’t get enough of these real-life pirate women, then here’s another title to add to your collection.

Someone was commenting on twitter that everyone seems to want their queer novel to come out during Pride month. I haven’t necessarily seen that as a pattern for sapphic historicals in past years, but I can’t deny that this June is busting out all over with books. Ten titles! I’m going to organize them roughly in chronological order, starting out with a couple of mythic settings where I’m not familiar enough with the cultural cues to guess at a more specific inspiration.

Fynn Chen’s self-published Scarlet Dandelions: The Zither and the Sword looks like it might appeal to fans of historical C-dramas on tv. A coming of age story of two princesses that blends politics, peril, and what looks like a deliciously slow-burn romance.

Another historical fantasy with a rather different flavor is the anxiously awaited The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri from Orbit Books. A bitter exiled princess and a powerful priestess hiding in the role of her servant find their destinies—and their hearts—colliding. This story of empire and resistance is the first in a series set in a mythic history inspired by India.

Also set in a fantastic version of history, Kat Dunn’s Monstrous Design, from Zephyr, continues the story and characters from Dangerous Remedy, with a band of friends, allies, and lovers braving the dangers of the French Revolution and new enemies in England in a struggle that may tear them apart.

Olivia Waite gives us the third book in her semi-connected Regency romance series with The Hellion's Waltz from Avon Impulse. If you’ve loved either of her two previous books in the series: A Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics and The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows, then you won’t need any extra urging on this one. Piano teachers and silk weavers and con artists and union organizing feature in another of Waite’s romances throwing women in unexpected professions into each other’s paths.

Later in the 19th century, C.F. Frizzell gives us an American Civil War romance in Measure of Devotion from Bold Strokes Books. One woman disguises herself as a man to join the Union army. Another woman is inexplicably drawn to the soldier, having set her heart on finding a woman to love. (Both seem to have a rather modern understanding of their sexual orientations.) The battle of Gettysburg becomes the catalyst for revelations and new understandings.

We now have another story set in Tsarist Russia, and once again it seems to be more of a drama than a conventional romance. In Yvonne Zipter’s Infraction from Rattling Good Yarns Press, a sweeping cast of characters revolves around Marya Zhukova in St. Petersburg, drawn from intellectuals and litterati, spinsters and debutantes. There is at least one female same-sex romance involved but I can’t tell how prominent it is in the story.

Here’s another book where I’m having to trust the invisible Amazon keywords that there’s lesbian content—though if there is, we can read between the lines of the otherwise vague references in the cover copy. Annabel Fielding’s self-published Lying With Lions is set in Edwardian England and has a semi-gothic feel. Agnes takes a position as archivist for the ruthless, ambitious, and glamorous head of the Bryant family, Lady Helen. She finds herself thrust into a world of secrets—her own, and those she discovers in the Bryant records. I’m guessing there may be some romantic tension between Agnes and Helen. If I’ve guessed wrong, then I have no idea why this is tagged as lesbian fiction.

I love a good old-fashioned historical mystery. In Sarah Bell’s self-published The Murder Next Door, two women—discrete “companions”—become inadvertent witnesses to the circumstances of their neighbor’s murder and insatiable curiosity draws them deeper in. Set in 1912 in Leeds, England this is not only a who-dunnit but a why-dunnit, that questions the conflict between law and justice.

We finish with two books with American settings in the Roaring Twenties. Nghi Vo has previously had books in these listings with a mythic Chinese-inspired setting: The Empress of Salt and Fortune and When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain. Moving to the glittering world of the social elite, The Chosen and the Beautiful, from Tor-dot-com, is a reimagining of The Great Gatsby seen through the eyes of minor character and pro golfer Jordan Baker, written as a Vietnamese adoptee and a lesbian. Oh, and there’s magic.

The final June book is Nekesa Afia’s Dead Dead Girls from Berkley Books. In 1920s Harlem, Louise is trying not to worry that young Black girls like her are turning up dead, until an altercation with the police leaves her with an ultimatum: help solve the murders or land in jail. Although the cover copy makes no mention of it, the main character is a lesbian. It’s unclear whether there’s a romantic subplot.

And that’s it for the new and recent books – something for everyone this month!

What Am I Reading?

And what about me? In the past month I’ve read two books. Both happen to be published through Kickstarter campaigns that I supported. Patience and Esther by S.W. Searle is a graphic novel telling the delightful and relatively angst-free romance of two servants in Edwardian England, a Scottish country girl struggling to help support her family, and an Anglo-Indian woman, lonely and far from anything she considers home. The supporting cast includes a freespirited, if self-centered socialite and a group of working women and feminists in which our heroines find community and support. I was caught a bit unawares by the amount of explicit sex depicted in the pages, though I guess if I’d been familiar with the author’s work I wouldn’t have been surprised. It’s a case where the cover art and description don’t quite reflect that aspect of the content.

The other book I finished is the anthology Silk and Steel, which sprang from the premise “romantic adventure with swordswomen and princesses – or their analogues in other settings.” The content of the collection is exceedingly varied, not only in genre but in tone. I’d venture to say that if the basic premise of the book grabs you, there will be at least one story in this collection that hits smack-dab in the middle of your sweet spot and at least another handful that you’ll find very enjoyable. There was only one that was a bit of a clunker for me. The rest were just what the label promised. And the excitement around this collection gave me a thrill at what it says for the market for sapphic stories outside of lesfic circles.

Pride Storybundle

I’d like to finish up this show by taking a little advantage of my platform and telling you about a great project that I’m part of. Every year the Storybundle organization puts out a Pride Storybundle in June, with a collection of queer genre fiction at a great price. The works in the bundle are offered in all the standard formats and you have the option of directing part of your purchase price to the queer charity selected by the organizers. This year the works included in the full bundle are:

• No Man's Land by A.J. Fitzwater – which was included in our new book listing when it came out.
• Silver Moon by Catherine Lundoff – the first book in the Wolves of Wolf’s Point series about a pack of menopausal werewolves fighting crime and sometimes falling in love with each other. And this year Catherine has picked up the reins of organizing the Storybundle from Melissa Scott.
• Dropnauts by J. Scott Coatsworth – Scott has been an online friend since I first bumped into him at Rainbowcon in Florida several years ago. He mostly writes gay science fiction.
• Burning Bright by Melissa Scott –Melissa was a pioneer in writing queer science fiction all the way back in the ‘90s. This is one of her classic stories, blending science fiction and video games.
• Highfeil Grimoires by Langley Hyde – A fantasy of magic and aristocracy featuring a gay protagonist.
• The Four Profound Weaves by R. B. Lemberg is a Nebula and Locus award finalist set in the author’s Birdverse and explores issues of gender and identity.
• Succulents and Spells by Andi C. Buchanan looks like a cozy little magical mystery with an herbalist witch and the more scientifically-minded woman who comes to her for help.
• City of a Thousand Feelings by Anya Johanna DeNiro is an epic fantasy featuring two trans women as protagonists.
• Mother of Souls by Heather Rose Jones – that’s me, of course – is from my regency-era Alpennia series, focusing on the magical power of music and the struggles of a woman who can see, but not perform, magic.
• Blood Moon by Catherine Lundoff is the brand new second book in her werewolf series.
• Spellbinding by Cecilia Tan features a collection of erotic short stories from her magic university series.
• Glitter + Ashes edited by Dave Ring is an anthology of hopeful queer post-apocalyptic stories.
• Queens of Noise by Leigh Harlen is a madcap romp of punk music and shapeshifters in a queer found-family.
• Stone and Steel by Eboni Dunbar is an intense and dramatic conflict between a returning general and her queen, who is also her lover.
• Skythane by J. Scott Coatsworth – A quest across planets with a gay romance threaded through it.
• Stories to Sing in the Dark by Matthew Bright – An anthology of speculative stories with a variety of queer representation.

There you have it, a book bundle with something for every queer reader, and new authors to discover. Check out the link in the show notes for details on how to take advantage of this offer.

Show Notes

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

In this episode we talk about:

• Clearing up the backlog of show transcripts
• GCLS conference history panel
• 2021 Pride Storybundle
• Recent and upcoming publications covered on the blog
  • Female Husbands: A Trans History by Jen Manion
• New and forthcoming fiction
  • Blackbird's Song: A story of the Russian Revolution by Katy Turton
  • An Intimate Study by Margaret K. Mac
  • The Black Knight and the Lady by J M Dragon
  • Born of the Sea: The Untold Story of Anne Bonny and Mary Read by Kate Castle
  • Scarlet Dandelions: The Zither and the Sword by Fynn Chen
  • The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri
  • Monstrous Design by Kat Dunn
  • The Hellion's Waltz by Olivia Waite
  • Measure of Devotion by C.F. Frizzell
  • Infraction by Yvonne Zipter
  • Lying With Lions by Annabel Fielding
  • The Murder Next Door by Sarah Bell
  • The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo
  • Dead Dead Girls by Nekesa Afia

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
• Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
• RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
• Twitter: @LesbianMotif
• Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
• The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon

Links to Heather Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com
• Email: Heather Rose Jones
• Twitter: @heatherosejones
• Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 202 – The Adventuress by Catherine Lundoff - transcript

(Originally aired 2021/05/29 - listen here)

This quarter’s original story is by Catherine Lundoff. Catherine has a long writing career covering fantasy and science fiction, historical, horror, and (under the pen name Emily L. Byrne) erotica. In addition to writing her own fiction, she teaches workshops on both the practice and business of writing and publishing. This year she’s also the coordinator of the Pride Storybundle, which both she and I will have books in. I’ll have more details about that next week in the On The Shelf episode.

Catherine’s latest novel is Blood Moon, the second book in the Wolves of Wolf’s Point series, featuring a pack of menopausal werewolves who protect their community and solve crimes. The series is published by Queen of Swords Press, yet another one of Catherine’s projects – a publishing house devoted to 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.

“Swashbuckling tales of derring-do” is an apt description of the story Catherine has for us today. Set in the Carribbean of the 17th century, this adventure features the pirate Jacquotte Delahaye and the courtesan and spy Celeste Girard as they encounter a rival adventuress, known by the code-name “Astrea”. This is the third of the Jacquotte and Celeste stories that the Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast has been delighted to host. I love the blend of peril, intrigue, flirtation, clever escapes, and solid historical settings. So set your imagination for blue seas, dark alleyways, and secret messages in “The Adventuress.”

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 Adventuress

By Catherine Lundoff

“William Byam is the most fawning fair-tongu’d fellow in the world…” Celeste paused to look up at Jacquotte Delahaye over the stolen letter that she was reading from to see if the pirate captain was paying any attention to what she was reading aloud. “She has a barbed tongue, this English lady. But, listen, there is more: this Byam, he seeks to make an alliance with the Spanish king to make himself lord over this English Willoughbyland.” She stumbled slightly over the unfamiliar syllables of the colony’s name.

“Of course he does,” Jacquotte muttered. She was poring over a list of loot that her crew had taken from the English merchantman that they had captured only yesterday, but she looked up with a sigh. So far the only thing of any real value had been the bundle of letters that she had taken from their captain. For a brief moment, she wondered if anyone would pay for this information, at least until she saw the gleam in her companion’s eye.

“If I read her code aright, she says she is in danger, that this Byam may imprison her or worse soon. She must have proof of this connection to Spain—I must go and learn more. King Louis will want to know of this. Do you have pirate business in Cartagena or nearby, perhaps? If not, I can go alone. Perhaps Marie would like to accompany me.”

Celeste tapped her lovely pink lower lip thoughtfully with her finger. She was sprawled on the bed wearing a delightful lace and satin confection that made Jacquotte long to take it off as swiftly as possible. She rose and crossed the wooden floor with three strides that effortlessly adapted to the motion of the waves beneath the ship. “’Pirate business,’ as you so charmingly call it, can be done on the shipping routes that lead from Cartagena as well as those that venture near Port Royal or even Saint Martin. And we can even dabble in respectability. Bosun Miguel is eager to see how well a cargo of tobacco will sell in the markets of Paramaribo and here I can give him the chance to find out.” The pirate captain leaned down and gave her lover a rough, passionate kiss.

“Don’t you need to tell them to change course?” Celeste murmured some time later.

Jacquotte rose with a sigh and began getting dressed. “I sometimes wonder, chéri, who the actual captain of this ship is.”

Celeste watched her leave the cabin with a laugh before she rose and got dressed. Then she went to the desk to begin her own examination of the papers that Jacquotte had been studying so intently.

***

It was fortunate that it was a relatively short journey from Jacquotte’s hidden island base on St. Germaine to the waters of Surinam, at least from Celeste’s perspective. She wanted to find this English lady before the woman was imprisoned or found a way off the colony and back to England or wherever she planned to go next.

She spent some hours considering the writer’s likely identity, in hopes that it would help her find the other woman more quickly. The signature on the letters had been in code, like many of the references; “Astrea” was unlikely to be her true name. From her writing style, Celeste deduced that she was educated, but probably not a noble. A high-ranking servant like a governess or a companion, perhaps? Or an unmarried lady sent to the colony by her relations to find a husband in the circle of exiled nobles and men of means who had fled Cromwell’s Commonwealth?

They called such women “adventuresses,” among other things, and it amused Celeste to think that she was seeking a kindred spirit. Perhaps they might find some ground for exchanging information that benefitted them both. A shout from the deck interrupted her thoughts and she rose to exit the captain’s cabin in a flutter of long skirts.

Land was clearly visible on the horizon, complete with palm trees and a snug harbor near a beach that beckoned through the glass when she borrowed it from Jacquotte. The captain had her crew strike their privateer colors and replace them with a Dutch flag before they sailed into the shipping lanes where other vessels were likely to identify them. The visible parts of the deck and the pirates themselves had undergone a transformation into a well-armed merchant ship: unusual, but far from rare in these waters.

Celeste had transformed herself into a young colonial lady from Saint Martin and Jacquotte, more reluctantly, was turned into a respectable-looking young man who could be introduced as her brother. Marie and a few of the other pirates who had been servants in their previous lives were dressed for their parts as well and the whole party climbed into one of the small boats and disembarked in the port at Willoughbyland without incident after they anchored in the harbor.

“How much did you bribe the harbormaster?” Jacquotte asked her bosun, just loud enough for Celeste to hear her and flutter her fan up to hide her smile. The pirate captain threw her hands up in a brief gesture of disgust when Miguel answered her question in quiet, courteous tones, as befit a senior crew member on a rich merchant vessel. Having seen Miguel covered in blood with a dagger clenched in his teeth while swinging a cutlass on more than one occasion, Celeste turned away to study the crowd on the wharf to observe what she could of the locals as much to stop herself from laughing out loud at the incongruity.

The wharves were full of sailors, merchants and laborers, like any other merchant shipping port on the sea, but for the fact that so many of them were plainly English. A woman in a plain brown gown walking along the dockside in front of their ship caught her eye just then, despite the fact that the other woman was a drab bird in the sea of color and movement around her.

Their eyes met and the other woman quickly dropped her gaze and hurried away toward a side street, heading away from the wharf. “Marie, “ Celeste said thoughtfully, “ did you see that lady? The one in the plain brown gown who seemed to be in a hurry not to be noticed?”

“Oui, Mademoiselle. She became nervous when she saw you looking at her.” Marie tilted the parasol that she held over Celeste’s blonde curls. “Would you like me to see where she goes? I will meet you at the inn after that.”

Celeste nodded and took the parasol, watching as Marie vanished into the patchwork of crowds that swarmed around them. Jacquotte moved up to stand beside her, “Anything amiss?”

“Curiosity, for the most part. I am hoping that I may have caught a glimpse of our English lady, but it will depend on what Marie sees.”

“You must thank me later for insisting on bringing Marie with us when we left Saint Martin.” Jacquotte gave a throaty laugh as Celeste wrinkled her nose but nodded her agreement. “She will never make a pirate, but you will make a spy of her yet.” The captain turned and ordered their small troop of disguised pirates to pick up the baggage and follow her and they made a small parade of it toward their lodgings.

***

“What I don’t understand,” Jacquotte said, her voice almost plaintive, “is how, despite only being in port a few hours, you have already obtained so many invitations?” She was sprawled on Celeste’s bed, booted feet dangling off the edge, and looked as relaxed as a pirate captain in disguise could look under the circumstances.

“His Majesty’s loyal subjects are ever vigilant and eager to assist each other.” Celeste gave her a wry grin before she went back to carefully arranging the lace around her décolletage. She had not dressed to appear younger than her actual years in some time and it was proving more challenging than she had remembered. The trick was to look innocent and fresh while still appearing intelligent and witty, thus keeping the invitations rolling in.

“Indeed. And the Cardinal?”

“Is no doubt too preoccupied with his own plots to concern himself with us.” Celeste looked up triumphantly and checked the mirror. “Dinner should almost be ready, Marie is ingratiating herself with the salonnier’s servants, you have already readied several escape plans and Miguel and your crew are representing your business interests in the taverns along the wharf. We can relax and enjoy ourselves while we watch for this Englishwoman to reveal herself.”

Jacquotte stood with a sigh and put her jacket back on. She tidied her clothing and held out her arm. “My sister, shall we go down to dine?” Celeste rose with a light laugh and they exited, arm in arm.

Several hours and some social events later, Celeste found herself wishing that they had not eaten such a full meal at the inn before they left. Her stays creaked a little as their host urged ever more food and drink on them and she stifled an unrefined burp as she looked around the house. At least this one was a Frenchmen’s home and furnished with far more style than the English employed here in this strange little colony.

Jacquotte discussed trade with their host and his merchant friends as Celeste considered what they had learned so far. “Astrea” should be easier to find than she had feared; the merchant’s wives had provided her with a short list of possible suspects. The other spy’s fears were well-founded: Governor Byam was imprisoning and exiling his more vocal critics and his advisors had been making overtures to Spain.

In and of itself, Willoughbyland was too small to arouse concern in Paris, but if Spain controlled it, the impact might be far larger than the physical size of the colony: the wealth of the exiled nobles, coupled with its position on shipping lanes and access to good harbors could help seal off this part of the Caribbean to French ships. And that was not a risk to be ignored.

Jacquotte nudged her foot and Celeste started out of her thoughts and back into the conversation with a quiet apology. Pleading exhaustion from their journey, they left soon thereafter for the inn. “What, if anything, did we learn from that tedious evening? Apart form how charmingly distracted you can become during a conversation with merchant’s wives?” Jacquotte inquired in dangerously conversational tones once they were back in their rented coach.

Celeste tilted her head with an amused, coquettish grin. “Do you long for a night in the wharf taverns, my love? Brawling and drinking and dueling and perhaps being taken up by the Watch? You are better at this than you pretend. I have an idea of where to find our English lady and a much shorter list of possibilities as to her identity. What did you learn from your compatriots?”

“They had some difficulty believing that we were Dutch so I passed us off as being French, but from the Sint Maarten side of the island. Apart from that, I believe I may have found several buyers for Miguel’s beloved tobacco cargo.” Jacquotte reached out and coiled a finger in one of Celeste’s blonde curls. “And I learned that this Byam has declared himself governor for life.”

Celeste raised one eyebrow. “Why not king? Why stop at governor?”

Jacquotte shrugged. “Perhaps because it is already taken? Or because they have too many of Cromwell’s former followers in residence now to accept such a thing? They have been tolerant of religious differences and were governed through an assembly, one that elected the governor, at least until last month. Imagine Catholics, Jews, Protestants, Cavaliers and Roundheads, all living peacefully side by side like the proverbial lion and the lamb.” Jacquotte gazed into space for a moment, then added, “Why, they might be pirates!” She laughed cheerfully at the thought.

Celeste frowned at her in wonderment, trying to imagine how such a society had come to be. “Do they keep slaves for their sugarcane fields then? Or are they too at liberty?”

Jacquotte sobered. “They are not so enlightened as that. For that, they would indeed need to be pirates. Perhaps we should declare St. Germaine to be a queendom and welcome all comers?”

The sound of pistol shots and a woman’s scream outside, together with the carriage rattling to a sudden halt had the pirate on her feet in a moment. Celeste pulled the small pistol that she kept in her reticule free as Jacquotte tugged her small sword out of its scabbard. Celeste leaned forward and looked cautiously out the coach window. “Ah!” She exclaimed and unlocked the carriage door so Jacquotte could leap out.

She followed on the latter’s heels to find a woman in a cloak struggling with two men who were trying to take her off the street. One held her arm while she struck at the other, trying to break free, her breath harsh and heavy in the still night air. Celeste looked at Jacquotte and the other nodded, baring her teeth.

“I do not think that the mademoiselle wants to go with you,” Celeste said very firmly. She pointed her pistol at the man holding the woman’s arm while Jacquotte advanced on the other.

Jacquotte’s opponent muttered an oath in Spanish and drew his sword, while the one facing Celeste merely laughed. “What a charming toy, Mademoiselle! But this is not a game for foolish young ladies. Give that to me before you hurt yourself.” He smirked, the expression devilish on his long thin face. He towered over Celeste and the woman that he still held tightly by the arm and while he wore no coat of arms, his stance suggested that he was a Spanish soldier.

Blades clashed as Jacquotte and her opponent began to circle each other and a shot rang out. The Spaniard gave Celeste an incredulous stare, releasing the woman as his hands rose reflexively to his now bleeding chest. A string of oaths poured from his lips and he yanked his own pistol free of his belt. His hand trembled, but not enough, not enough, Celeste thought as she watched him wide-eyed.

The other woman struck at him, something shining in her hand. He gave a gurgling shout and swung his arm out, narrowly missing her face as she twisted his arm and struck him again. Celeste pulled her own knife out just as the woman yanked her arm free and threw him off balance. The man lurched, staggering and bleeding, toward Celeste, his arms stretched wide to seize her.

Celeste braced herself just as a motion caught her eye. Jacquotte’s blood-covered small sword flew straight as an arrow into the man’s chest and he fell with a final gurgle. Celeste whipped around to see the pirate’s foe on the cobblestones bleeding at her feet. Behind her, the inn’s coach could be heard galloping off into the night. Jacquotte uttered an oath and strode over to free her sword.

At that moment, the woman in the cloak turned and fled, her dress streaming behind her as she dashed up the alley and vanished around a corner. “Chase her!” Celeste demanded. “That’s her! It has to be!”

Jacquotte gave her a look of incredulity, but wiped her sword clean with a swift motion and ran after the fleeing woman. Celeste followed them, moving as swiftly as she could in her more elaborate dress and tight embroidered jacket. When she reached the end of the alley, Jacquotte and their quarry were out of sight and a piratical oath slipped past her lips. She looked around, wondering if she should hide here and hope Jacquotte came back or try to make her own way back to the inn.

After a long few moments, she thought she saw a landmark that she recognized and gave a cautious glance around. She could hear the Watch’s shouts growing nearer so she turned and faded into the shadows, moving in the same direction that the coach had gone.

***

Jacquotte found herself in what appeared to be a blind alley, her quarry nowhere in sight. She spun around, sword in hand, her gaze darting to each shadow in turn. After a moment, she walked to the end of the alleyway and paused, motionless in the deeper shadows, to wait. After what felt like an eternity, another shadow detached itself from a nearby doorway and slipped away toward the next street.

The pirate followed, sword held carefully against her leg to conceal it from the glow of the moon. There came some distant shouting from behind them: the Watch must have found the bodies. Hopefully Celeste had gotten away and returned to the inn. That dress was not made for speedy pursuits. Jacquotte bit back a smile at the thought of returning in time to help her paramour disrobe.

With an effort, she focused again on her quarry. Celeste thought that this was the woman that they sought, but was she right? Jacquotte did not fancy chasing a random streetwalker through the alleys of a strange town in the middle of the night unless there was a payoff at the end of it. She could, she realized a moment later, simply go back to the inn and say that she had lost the trail. They could look again tomorrow. Or perhaps she could get Celeste to forget this foolishness and they could enjoy themselves here for a bit, then leave for Paramaribo with the rest of the tobacco. The ships were rich in this part of the sea; they could take a merchantman or two while sailing back home.

Just a few more steps and she would go back to the inn…the woman who charged out of the darkness hit her sharply on the head with a stick and Jacquotte reeled back, nearly skewering her with her unsheathed sword. She swore vigorously and caught the woman’s arm as she tried to run away. “You fool! What are you doing? We stopped to defend you!”

“And now you are following me! How do I know that you’re not—”

“A Spanish soldier sent to assassinate or kidnap you? You don’t.” Jacquotte pulled her out into the moonlight. “Are you Astrea?”

Even in the dim light, she could see the other woman’s face pale. Then saw her expression shift. “You’re a woman!”

“Why don’t you yell loud enough for the Watch to show up and find me with bloodstains on my sword, mademoiselle?”

Astrea clapped a hand over her mouth, then dropped it with a sigh. “Very well. Let us suppose that I do use that name. Who are you and why are you following me?”

“Let us say that I am here at the request of a friend. As to who I am, I don’t believe that information would make you feel any better right now. Where are you going? If you mean to return to your lodgings, I suspect that they will be waiting for you there as well. Do you have anything there that you must have?”

“My clothes, some letters…” her voice trailed off and she reached out her hand to rest it against the bricks beside them. For a moment, it looked as if she might faint.

Jacquotte sighed heavily and impatiently. She was a pirate, not a nursemaid or a spy, but she knew that she could not just leave this woman here and return to lie to Celeste. For one thing, Celeste would know, somehow, and for another, well, that was best left unexamined. “Come with me. I will take you to meet the friend who helped rescue you. She can explain everything.”

“Everything?” Astrea arched a dark eyebrow. “She must be most unusual.”

“That she is.”

***

Celeste was sitting in a chair by the fire waiting for them impatiently when they got back to the inn. She leapt up to greet Jacquotte, then froze when she saw that she was not alone. “Wait, why did you bring her here? Are her rooms watched?”

“We had no reason to assume otherwise,” Jacquotte replied with a shrug. “I assured her that you could explain who we are and what our role is.” She walked over to the chair and dropped down into it, helping herself to a large swig from Celeste’s wine jug.

“You…of course, you did. Very well.” Celeste gave her a quick glare, then switched to English. “Astrea, please sit down.” She gestured toward the other chair. The woman favored her with an intense dark-eyed stare that combined exhaustion and distrust. Celeste walked over and grabbed the wine from Jacquotte’s hands. She handed the jug to Astrea, who took it cautiously and sat down slowly and reluctantly.

“I could tell you that we are a brother and sister from Saint Martin, newly arrived with a cargo of tobacco, but you already suspect that to be false. Instead, I will tell you that we have these and that we know what you are doing here.” She walked over to her trunk and pulled out a battered stack of letters, turning them so the other woman could see the broken wax seal.

Astrea blanched and stared at them in horror. Celeste could see her gaze dart around the room, looking for weapons. She must think they worked for the Spanish or for Byam himself. Celeste held up a hand. “I am Mademoiselle Celeste Adele Girard and I am here in the service of France. This is my br—” She paused as Jacquotte shook her head.

The pirate continued where she left off. “I am Captain Jacquotte Delahaye and I am—”

“A pirate!” Their guest gasped. “But how…why…” She trailed off, looking from Celeste to Jacquotte and back again, clearly seeking answers. After a moment of silence, she raised her hands in a puzzled gesture, then shrugged. “All right, you’re a pirate and a French spy, if I’m understanding this correctly. And you have my letters so I assume that you want information that you think I have. I want to make a trade.” Astrea drew in a trembling breath and crossed her arms.

“Indeed,” Celeste tilted her head and sat on the bed across from her. “One might argue, mademoiselle, that you are in no position to bargain, what with the governor being your enemy and Spanish soldiers chasing you.”

Astrea drew in a sharp breath and glared at her, “My letters were in code! You don’t know everything that I found out!”

Celeste gave her a superior smile, but Jacquotte chose that moment to interrupt them with a heavy sigh and a restless movement. “I would like to go to sleep before dawn so I will simply ask what it is you want in return for the information you think you have.”

The other woman eyed them both warily before finally fixing on Jacquotte. “I want passage to Jamaica. I have…acquaintances there that can help me get back to England. I don’t have the funds to take ship from here and, as you have pointed out, I do not believe that Byam or the Spanish would let me leave so easily. I know you have a ship in port: hide me on it and help me get to Port Royal.”

“So simple and yet so much risk for us. Is your information worth that?” Celeste practically purred her words, but one could hear the touch of menace behind them.

It was the beginning of a short negotiation, longer than Jacquotte liked, but shorter than any of them feared. Astrea provided them with additional information and some of the documents that she had obtained. “But not all of them and not my code, not until you get me to Port Royal. Then I’ll give you copies of what I have; I do need something to give my employers when I reach London.”

Celeste glanced at Jacquotte and got a sleepy nod. “Very well. You may sleep on the floor here tonight and we’ll make other arrangements in the morning.”

Astrea’s lips parted in what was clearly going to be a protest, but she stayed silent at Jacquotte’s frown. She accepted a blanket with ill grace and stayed sitting in the chair with the blanket wrapped around her. “I’ll sleep here rather than have you undo my stays, thank you.”

Jacquotte sighed and stripped out of her outer garments before climbing into the bed behind Celeste. She blew out her candle and while the two spies stared at each other by firelight, closed her eyes and was soon quietly snoring.

***

Getting the English spy to the ship involved some inventive planning. Marie and one of the men went to her rooms and gathered her meager possessions and spun her landlady a tale about her staying with newly arrived friends from England. Once a few shillings lined her pocket, she helped them pack Astrea’s things.

Then, there was the matter of the tobacco cargo. Miguel managed to sell most of it, though at a lower price than he had hoped. Still, it was enough to make this a profitable voyage and Jacquotte was loath to alienate the local merchants by fighting their way out, as her crew suggested. Their departure would, she thought with a heavy sigh directed at the women across the room from her, have to be done Celeste’s way.

“A pity we cannot easily disguise you as a man,” Celeste said wistfully, eyeing Astrea’s curves. She tilted her head to one side and Astrea rolled her eyes.

The Englishwoman plucked a pillow from the bed and a sash from Celeste’s clothes and proceeded to lash the former to her stomach. “There. A change of clothes, a hat, some dirt rubbed on my face to look like a sparse beard and I am a man, for the nonce. Long enough to get to your ship and even enough to pass inspection as long as no one looks too closely.” She bowed awkwardly over her newly padded middle.

“Convincing enough for me. I’m off to the ship to prepare, but I’ll be back in two hours with a cart to fetch you. Be ready.” Jacquotte nodded in a way that made it clear that this was not a request and swept out the door.

“I begin to feel as if I am in a comic opera,” Celeste said, throwing her hands up. “Very well. We will try what you suggest.”

When the cart arrived, Celeste was accompanied by Marie and a plump, pale man whose head was being eaten by an overly large hat. They were nearing the wharf when soldiers marched in from a nearby street and surrounded them. Jacquotte’s hand went to her sword, but Celeste caught her arm. “Gentleman, why do you stop us? We are simply returning to our ship.”

“And these, Mademoiselle, are part of your crew?” The biggest of the soldiers smirked, his expression suggesting such a thing to be impossible.

Celeste laughed musically. “Oh, you jest sir! No, of course not. This is my brother, my maid and my brother’s servant. We are bound for the Lynx and returning to Saint Martin and home.”

“Indeed.” The soldier swaggered closer to take a hard look at Astrea, who slouched and looked bored. She tugged her forelock under the hat and gave an awkward sitting bow, then spread her legs on the bench and scratched her inner thigh, just below the padding she had inserted in her breeches. The soldiers guffawed. “Got French fleas, do you? Well, take them away. You’re not the one we’re looking for.”

They parted and let the cart through, but the party was silent until they reached the Lynx and unloaded. As they prepared to set sail, Celeste eyed their companion. “You could almost be an actor with such an ability to disguise yourself.”

Astrea laughed. “My thanks, Mademoiselle. I have quite enough trouble being taken for a whore already.” Her face grew thoughtful. “Though perhaps I might claim the anonymity of my pen and write some of my adventures down for the stage. Mercí, Mademoiselle. You have given me an idea.” She turned and began to walk away, her steps leading her toward the Captain’s cabin where she would stay until they reached Port Royal.

“Wait,” Celeste called after her, intrigued by her shift in expression. “What is your name, your real one?”

The other woman turned and doffed her oversized hat. “Aphra Behn. Mrs. Aphra Behn, at your service. Look for it if you find yourself in London in a couple of years.”

Celeste shifted her parasol and gave her an amused sidelong glance. “Oh, I will, Mrs. Behn. I will.” She watched the other woman walk away and tried to imagine a female Shakespeare. Jacquotte caught her eye and she laughed quietly at the direction her thoughts had taken. “Why not?” She murmured to herself and climbed the stairs to the foredeck to join the captain.

---

Show Notes

This quarter’s fiction episode presents “The Adventuress” by Catherine Lundoff, narrated by Heather Rose Jones.

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
• Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
• RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
• Twitter: @LesbianMotif
• Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
• The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon

Links to Heather Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com
• Email: Heather Rose Jones
• Twitter: @heatherosejones
• Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

Links to Catherine Lundoff Online

• Website: Catherine Lundoff
• Website: Queen of Swords Press
• Twitter: @clundoff
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