Fiction:
Bring On the Dusk by M. L. Buchman – I’d read and enjoyed a previous book in this series, but this one ended up being a DNF, despite having a female military helicopter pilot as protagonist. I liked the neepery about flying and about climbing giant redwoods, but the romance bored me because it was too easy, and both characters were just too awesome, and they had too many awesome friends around from previous books in the series. I think you have to be in the mood for that sort of thing, and I wasn’t. I still recommend the author because female military pilots! The Night Is Mine was the one I liked – it had cooking neepery as well as the military setting.
Nonfiction:
Hidden Anxieties: Male Sexuality, 1900 – 1950 by Lesley A. Hall was right up my alley so far as research material goes. Social history! Sex! The turn of the century! It made me think about how weird it is that for such a long time, and even today, information about sex is so censored and obfuscated and fraught with tension. No wonder our society is such a mess. Aside from that, the book gave me many, many ideas for historical erotica plots. A lot of men were worried about impotence or premature ejaculation, and what to do about it…clearly, they were in the wrong genre of story at the time. *ahem*
Fanfiction:
Fair Winds and Homeward Sail by Ione is a story about the Crofts, beginning long before Persuasion but incorporating some of it from their point of view. Highly recommended, even if you don’t usually read fanfiction; the author beautifully captures the feel of the period and of Austen’s prose.
If you like exploring the universe of Captain America and Bucky Barnes in the 1940s, hansbekhart’s Kings County series includes two stories so far, one about Pearl Harbor and its fallout in Brooklyn, and the second all about the Barnes family on the home front.
