Amy. Have you read Tasha Alexander's Lady Emily mystery series? The first is called And Only to Deceive. It took a bit for me to really get into, but they are richly researched, set in a variety of places (and quite vividly so), and feature an intelligent female protagonist. They're set in the late 19th century.
Damn it! You know what? I'm sick of this crap. I'm sick of being the guy who eats insects and gets the funny syphilis. As of this moment, it's over. I'm finished being everybody's butt monkey!
Xander ,'Lessons'
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
Pix - Jan 08, 2014 7:31:48 pm PST #21825 of 28706
The status is NOT quo.
Connie Neil - Jan 08, 2014 7:34:14 pm PST #21826 of 28706
brillig
More books to make note of!
Amy - Jan 08, 2014 7:50:12 pm PST #21827 of 28706
Because books.
Oh! I HAVE that book, Pix! I forgot I had gotten it on my Kindle a while back.
Amy - Jan 08, 2014 7:56:53 pm PST #21828 of 28706
Because books.
Cinnamon and Gunpowder looks great! It's got sort of a Big Fish vibe.
megan walker - Jan 08, 2014 9:04:19 pm PST #21829 of 28706
"What kind of magical sunshine and lollipop world do you live in? Because you need to be medicated."-SFist
Why are you people giving such good recs when I'm doing the TBR Triple Dog Dare and can't read anything new until April Fools? It's a conspiracy!
Calli - Jan 09, 2014 12:49:15 am PST #21830 of 28706
I must obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul—Calvin and Hobbs
Consuela, thanks for the link! I love Vernon's gardening essays and Digger comic. It's great to read another kind of work by her.
smonster - Jan 09, 2014 5:48:16 am PST #21831 of 28706
We won’t stop until everyone is gay.
I got Hild for Christmas and am L O V I N G it. Nicola Griffith is such an evocative writer.
Toddson - Jan 09, 2014 6:15:37 am PST #21832 of 28706
Friends don't let friends read "Atlas Shrugged"
I've been enjoying the Sebastian St. Cyr mysteries too! And I liked the Kate Ross ones, just wish there'd been more.
juliana - Jan 09, 2014 6:17:57 am PST #21833 of 28706
I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I miss them all tonight…
Oooh, Hild. That's on my wishlist, after I get through at least 3 of the books I purchased in December. And the book JZ gave me. And both Richard II and Richard III. Actually, I just finished RII, but now I want to go back through and read the Arden annotations.
Speaking of getting through books - I bought the first Lymond, and I bounced off of it hard (to the point where I've not made it through the first chapter). I'm going to try again - maybe when I have time to read fiction that's not right before bed - but, yeah. I'm disappointed, because it seems that almost everyone here loves the Lymond Chronicles.
However, I will again rec Cold Magic by Kate Elliot. Quite delightful.
Consuela - Jan 09, 2014 6:25:42 am PST #21834 of 28706
We are Buffistas. This isn't our first apocalypse. -- Pix
juliana, there's a reason my Lymond icon on DW says "my fandom's first 150 pages are really fucking confusing." To wit: the first 200 or so pages of Game of Kings are really fucking confusing.
If you're still intrigued, I suggest a couple of things. First, you could pick up Queen's Play or Disorderly Knights: both of them have less confusing starts (GoK was Dunnett's first novel, and it shows), and GoK and QP are both basically free-standing from a plot point of view. DK kicks off the overarching plot of the series.
Another option is to try Niccolo Rising instead. That's volume 1 of the other series, set in the 1400s in Belgium. The writing is rather less baroque, and much easier to follow. I find the characters a bit less endearing, but that may in part be because I read the Lymond books when I was a teenager and imprinted on them hard. The Niccolo series is about trade, banking and politics, more than about war, has several interesting women characters, and covers a huge swath of geography (from Iceland to Timbuktu, and everything in between). In my opinion, the Niccolo books are less classically romantic and id-tastic than the Lymond books, but probably better written from a technical standpoint.