Arctic Light

That subject line has a lot of F's in it ...

I recently read a couple of sci-fi books with F/F pairings, so I figured I'd collect the reviews in one post. In both cases the pairing is a relatively minor part of a larger story, but in both cases it's also the protagonist's main and endgame pairing.

Ammonite by Nicola Griffith - Yes, the "Hild" Nicola Griffith! This is her first book from back in the early 90s, and I really enjoyed it; it has a classic SF feel with an all-female cast, which means that all of the traditionally male stock roles in that kind of story are filled by women - it's great. The book takes place on a planet where a virus has killed all the men, leaving an all-female population. The protagonist is an anthropologist investigating how their society works and how they reproduce, but quickly gets sucked into the complicated local political scene, while on the outside, military decisions are being made that will determine the planet's future. I enjoyed the first, oh, 2/3 of the book more than the last third - it ended up being a little "woo" for my tastes and also dangles unsolved mysteries for a presumably planned sequel that never materialized. But it's a good, solid, old-school sci-fi read with lots of fascinating worldbuilding detail, and I liked it a lot.

Provenance by Ann Leckie - So I kinda feel like I'm the last person in my reading circles to get around to this one, but I loved it once I did; it was riveting from start to finish. I very much approve of Leckie's commitment to throwing a new completely batshit complication at her poor protagonist whenever things started to slow down. I enjoyed Ingray, the narrator, particularly her tendency to burst into tears when upset, panic and throw up in space suits, and otherwise basically have -1000 points to badassery at all times while also managing to be level-headed and resourceful under pressure. (At one point one of the other characters accurately sums up Ingray as a person who panics for the first 10 minutes and then comes up with a brilliant and crazy plan to save the day.) I had a couple of nitpicks with the ending, specifically with some of the plot threads feeling unresolved and some characters' motivations that weren't clear to me, but I think this comes down at least partly to Ingray being a somewhat obtuse narrator and just failing to pick up on things that the reader is supposed to pick up on - actually I think I'll expand on those (highly spoilerishly) under a cut. Definitely enjoyed the book, though.

( Spoilers for the end of Provenance )

Second Chance by HL Logan
https://www.amazon.com/Second-Chance-H-L-Logan-ebook/dp/B07CM2X7Q5/

This book is charming, sweet, well written, and fundamentally not for me, but it might be someone else's delightful comfort read.

Basically this book had everything I would want in a cute small-town romance except for the one missing element that I'll get to in a minute. Second Chance is about two single moms who went to high school together, a shy nerd and a cheerleader queen bee, who meet when their kids become friends and then kindle a romance. The characters are really charming, the kids are cute and believable as kids, and the writing is both technically skilled and funny. The narrative voice is great and in fact is what kept me reading as far into the book as I did.

What's missing is anything at all happening. There is absolutely no plot or tension whatsoever beyond "the two moms meet and talk and visit each other and fall in love." At least in the first third of the book, which is how far I read before my interest flagged, there is no tension, no mystery, no other characters aside from the kids (who are only seen interacting cutely with their moms), no backstory aside from occasional mentions of going to high school together, and generally a complete and total lack of ANYTHING AT ALL beyond repeated scenes of the two women going over to each other's houses and flirting cutely and charmingly with each other. Even their jobs are not interesting and are merely name-checked (one is an IT professional and the other is a fashion journalist). Nothing goes wrong, no one gets upset, and no complications ever intrude.

This is what I mean when I say that this could be someone else's delightful comfort read. There is nothing wrong with this book. It's very well written and sweet, and the narrative voice is great. I don't expect a romance to have a great deal to do with anything outside the romance. However, I'm not sure if I've ever read a romance that had this level of plot vacuum. It started getting to the point where I was turning pages wishing desperately for anything to happen other than repeated scenes of house-visiting and lightly charming flirting. A car crash! A secret from someone's past! Someone's mom showing up for an unexpected visit! A problem at work! A problem with the plumbing! A burnt pot roast!

... which means I am obviously not the audience for this book. However, if you would like to spend a pleasant couple of hours in a charming medium-sized town enjoying a low-drama romance between two likable characters who like each other, this is just the thing. It looks like that's basically the formula for most of this author's other books as well, and the quality of the writing is great (charming, funny, with good descriptions and a nicely developed sense of setting) so I can see why she's doing well -- this was #1 in lesbian romance on Amazon back when I went through and bought a bunch of books in early May. If you enjoy this book, there is lots more to enjoy.

Just Like a Dream by Nina Justice

I grabbed some cheap F/F from LessThanThree Press recently and this was one of them, a modern-day lesbian version of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The protagonist inadvertently summons a fairy fixer to fix her love life, but falls in love with the fixer instead, while magical Cupid-related shenanigans engulf her family and friends.

Unfortunately it ended up being not really my thing; it's too farcical and lightweight to really engage me with either the characters or the worldbuilding. If you're looking for a fast read that's light and fun and PG-rated, this might work better for you than it did for me, though!

F/F Friday is a project recently started by rachelmanija, described thusly: "Every Friday, review, recommend, or discuss an FF book, short story, or other work." There is also a community on Dreamwidth, fffriday.

So I'm going to rec a really delightful lesbian werewolf novelette that is available for free online: The Cage by A.M. Dellamonica! 

(This review is also cross-posted over on my Mar Delaney blog, to give me something to put there.)

Jude, the narrator, is a contractor (in the carpentry sense) with a broken-woman problem and a string of fix-upper ex-girlfriends. So of course she falls for another one, Paige, a single mom who is raising an adorable baby. A perfectly normal baby. Nothing weird about this baby, no-ma'am. Oh, by the way, she needs to hire Jude to help her soundproof her basement and put cage bars on the windows. For ... a band. That is recording in her basement. And trashed the place last full moon. Yep, that's totally it.

So basically this is a story about how the Vancouver lesbian community comes together to help raise a baby werewolf, and two slightly broken people start to fix each other up. It's cute and sweet and funny, with a great sense of place and interesting worldbuilding -- the story is set shortly after werewolves were revealed to humanity for the first time, and the antagonist is a self-proclaimed Buffy-type werewolf hunter who is a serial killer from the point of view of the werewolves. The characters were a lot of fun (Paige is a bit flatter, but I absolutely loved Jude's narrative voice) and I loved the sense of community in the story. Sometimes it takes a village (of lesbians and other social misfits in the queer community) to raise a baby werewolf!