telophase | (no subject)

Apparently my comfort reading has been WWI and post-WWI romances. I've read the first two books and started on the third in Jennifer Robson's The Great War series, and am most of the way through Celia Lake's paranormal romances.*

Robson is a lot more serious about WWI and its effects on soldiers and civilians, while Lake is lighter and more frothy (in a good way!). There is a bit of whiplash in going from Robson on audiobook while sewing and book-cover-making to Lake on the Kindle when I Just Cannot Anymore, but I'm fine with that.

Anyone have any recs for romances/cozy mysteries/other fiction during WWI and the aftermath? Take it as read that I've done Miss Fisher and Lord Peter. :) I haven't done Maisie Dobbs--do those books fit? Obviously I know a bit more about the cozy mystery genre than the romance one.

[Anyone waiting for a sourdough update: I've declared those two starters Dead, and will be starting two more, hopefully today.]

*Yes, I did the covers, which is how I know they exist. :)

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I liked the first two books in Anna Lee Huber's Verity Kent Mysteries. They are set in the aftermath of WW1, focused on a young widow who did some spying on Belgium. I think there's a third book out now.

Thanks! Looks like I read the first couple of her Lady Darby mysteries back in 2013. I remember liking the first one, but have no memory of the second. XD

Hee! (and thanks!)

Maisie Dobbs fits - mysteries, with a solid dash of dealing with the aftermath of the War in all its difficulty. I haven't read all of them, and should catch up, but I've read the first.. six? Something like that.

The Laurie King Mary Russell books are somewhat in the same mode, if you can deal with the Holmes aspect. (I take them as I take them, and enjoy them, but I get that they are not everyone's thing.) There's one glorious unlabelled Lord Peter cameo, and a lot of interesting places visited as the series goes on, and basically I am totally a sucker for smart women in an interesting setting. Some bits are pre-War, but most of them are 20s into 30s.

On the fluffier side, the Rhys Bowen Lady Georgiana books are 1930s, and are very pleasant froth with a side of aristocratic genteel poverty and shenanigans.

If you haven't read Elizabeth Peters (specifically the Amelia Peabody books), starts in the mid-1880s, but goes past the War. Strong series romance, some other subsidiary ones as you go along. Peters really really knew her Egyptology (she had a PhD in it) and so they're fun on that count.

And K.J. Charles has Spectred Isle (post-War), and some others in the Edwardian era, as well as earlier, and is fabulous for historical romance with a good solid historical anchoring.

XD (BTW, how do you pronounce 'Carillon'? My brain keeps defaulting French or sticking an extra i in there so it's 'carillion'.)

I read the first of King's books years ago, but bounced hard off the May-December romance, alas. I have read the Lady Georgiana series and enjoyed them (although it's getting a bit ridiculous how every single character has to show up for a cameo!).

I recently read Charles' Charm of Magpies series, and was far more interested in Merritt than the two leads until...May/December romance, alas. (It's a Thing. I don't know why. I'm practically in one, being 7 years older than

myrialux...) But I'll poke around others!

Like the bells - cahr-ill-on. (Google gives me a pronunciation for it here that might help.)

(Hilariously, I was contemplating the additional i originally, and decided to go for the more English spelling not least because I knew I'd be typing it a lot.)

I suspect I have a higher tolerance for May-December romances than a lot of people, which definitely helps with the King.

On Charles - I'd suggest the Proper English/Think of England duology, and see what you think (Proper English is F/F, Think of England is M/M, the couple from Proper English show up in the latter, though it was written second.) Nice strong isolated country house murder mystery plots, beside the romances. I will cheerfully admit to having written Proper English fic for Yuletide this past year so I got to roll around in rereading both while doing that.

You might also like the Lilywhite Boys (mix of romance types, strong heist and mystery plots in the two books, though less in the novella.)

Thanks! :D MOAR SAMPLES TO DOWNLOAD.

And of course Amazon is helpfully recommending that someone with my interests might like Outcrossing YES THANK YOU AMAZON POINTS FOR ACCURACY BUT MINUS SEVERAL MILLION BECAUSE I BOUGHT IT FROM YOU

1919 by Margeaux Otis aka

oracne.

It's on AO3 - https://archiveofourown.org/works/7399975/chapters/16809250

Thank you! XD

Thanks!

Maisie Dobbs fits. They're not quite cozy but cozy-adjacent, IIRC.

Cool, that works, thanks! Robson's books fit around that area--there's too much recognition of collective and individual trauma from WWI and too many dead or missing loved ones for them to be properly cozy.

Maisie Dobbs is exactly that.

I checked with the Muse:

The Dorothy Sayers books with Harriet Vane - Strong Poison, Have His Carcase, Gaudy Night, Busman's Honeymoon
Alexis Harrington author, 3 books, Home By Morning, Home By Nightfall, The Fire of Home
Possibly A Woman of Independent Means, by Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey, although it extends well past that period and is a life story more than a romance.

Thank you!

I was not particularly impressed by the two Simone St. James books I read, but they are perfectly functional post-WWI romances with ghosts and might scratch the itch!

When I went to Amazon, it turns out I bought The Haunting of Maddy Clare and An Inquiry into Love and Death back in 2013. I vaguely remember Maddy Clare from reading the description, but not the other. Either I naver read it, or it failed to make any sort of impression on me. Hm.

While not exactly what you asked for as it is nonfiction video about a slightly earlier period, I just finished watching Edwardian Farm on youtube and highly recommend it. If you're not familiar with the BBC farm series, this is two archaeologists and a historian spend a year farming in Devon using Edwardian tech. They also try their hands a lot of other trades - cleaning a country house, blacksmithing, fishing (including trying a trout hatchery) and mining. Cozy and low stakes (though there's farm animals which have a variety of fates). I'm fond of the various experts they bring in, including: the football historian who dress Edwardian but does not change his very not period hairstyle, the farmer (Mr. Mudge) who is straight out of central casting), the American horse whisperer and the costume designer.

Cool, thanks! :D

I feel like there must be something I'm just not thinking of offhand, but all the books I'm coming up with right now are basically the later parts of beloved children's book series...

The 8th Anne of Green Gables book, Rilla of Ingleside, focuses on Anne's daughter and could perhaps be characterized as a moody romance(/coming of age story) set during WWI -- I would recommend reading the previous book, Rainbow Valley, beforehand, as that is when the series starts to focus on her kids rather than Anne herself, and it's helpful context for the events of the 8th book to get to know Rilla's siblings and friends starting from their childhoods in the 7th book. Though I guess if you're not in the mood for reading about children, it's probably fine to just go directly to Rilla.

Interestingly, the last two Betsy-Tacy books (the one about her year-long trip to Europe after graduating from high school, and the one about the early days of her marriage) are also set during the lead-up to WWI, but are much less intensely about the wartime experience than Rilla of Ingleside is. Enjoyable, though, especially the one about her European trip (Betsy and the Great World), which could probably be read as a standalone. But it probably wouldn't quite hit what you're looking for, as I think the Deep Valley books (the whole series is lovely, though at this point I mostly only re-read the high school and later ones) only cover the years leading up to the war rather than the war years themselves or the aftermath.

... Actually, I think the last All-of-a-Kind Family book may also be set sometime around WWI? It's been too long since I've last gotten to read that one, though, so I can't be sure.