Hello and welcome to the June edition of the Queer Lit Review! This month, we have two rival hockey players falling for each other, a gender queer prince finding friendship with his dressmaker, and a betrayed wolf in need of rescue from his king.
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Title/Author: Clinching the Play by W.A. Grace
Reviewer: Laura B.
Summary: When Taylor’s best friend is traded and her least favorite player in the league joins her hockey team, she’s forced to make nice. But the more time she spends with Eloise, the more she questions her initial impression...and her own sexuality.
Series/Standalone: Series
Genre/Sub-Genre: Sports Romance
Book Format: Physical Book
Length: 319 pages
LGBTQ+ Orientation: Lesbian & bisexual
HEA/HFN: HEA
Content Warnings: N/A
Ratio of Sex/Plot: 5% sex, 95% plot
Well-Written/Editor Needed: Editor needed
Would I Recommend it?: No
Personal Thoughts: Unfortunately, my quest to find a really good woman-loving-woman (WLW) hockey romance continues. There are great straight hockey romances! There are great man-loving-man (MLM) hockey romances! But I have yet to read a WLW hockey romance that was better than just okay, and I found Clinching the Play to be worse than just okay.
This book starts out with Taylor’s defense partner and supposed best friend, Rosie, getting traded and never speaking to Taylor again. Throughout the book we’re told that Rosie and Taylor had a deeply codependent, homoerotic friendship, but we never actually see them interacting. I think it would have helped make Taylor’s reaction to Rosie leaving more understandable if we had seen their bond. Perhaps seeing them together also might have helped explain why Rosie would just completely ghost Taylor.
Then Eloise joins Taylor’s team. We’re told that they are rivals, but don’t see any of that pre-teammate rivalry even though they have been playing against each other since college. It is mentioned as an aside that Eloise accidentally hurt Taylor during a game once, but again since we don’t see it happen in real time or through a memory, that doesn’t do enough to explain the absolute vitriol Taylor treats Eloise with. She is so mean to Eloise at the start that it makes her an unlikable character and makes their relationship difficult to root for, especially since Eloise never actually dislikes her. Taylor, a veteran player, is telling rookies to stay away from Eloise, trying to spread rumors about her, and being extremely cruel to Eloise to her face. This isn’t rivals to lovers, it’s just a bully falling for the woman she’s being a nightmare to. Eventually Taylor is diagnosed with ADHD and that is used to explain why she reacts badly to change, but neurodivergence doesn’t make it okay to be an extremely cruel person, and it is infantilizing to imply that it does!
Then, once Taylor and Eloise realize they like each other, they immediately go from zero to relationship. One minute they’re kissing for the first time, the next they’re deciding that they’re in a committed relationship and talking to team management and reworking their contracts. Yet they don’t have sex until the epilogue! This is a 320-page romance novel and the characters don’t hook up until the final 5 pages of the book! Overall, as evidenced by these complaints, I thought everything about this was underdeveloped (their relationships to each other, to their families, to their friends, to hockey...) and it really suffered from telling instead of showing.
On the plus side, it was a quick read! It was also clear that despite a few terminology and team logistics choices that weren’t particularly accurate, the author does have a love for the Professional Women's Hockey League. Hopefully, Book 2 in the series goes through a few more drafts and tells a better developed story, but honestly, I don’t think I’ll be checking it out.
Title/Author/Artist: The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang
Reviewer: Lo
Summary: Paris, at the dawn of the modern age: Prince Sebastian is looking for a bride—or rather, his parents are looking for one for him. Sebastian is too busy hiding his secret life from everyone. At night, he puts on daring dresses and takes Paris by storm as the fabulous Lady Crystallia—the hottest fashion icon in the world capital of fashion!
Series/Standalone: Standalone
Genre/Sub-Genre: YA Historical Graphic Novel
Book Format: Print
Length: 277
LGBTQ+ Orientation: Genderfluid/Genderqueer
Content Warnings: Not in any extreme ways, however, there is a moment of male harassment as well as forced outing.
Well-Written/Editor Needed: I think it was well-written especially since everything was done in very simple, approachable language.
Art/Illustrations: Beautifully illustrated. I greatly appreciate that Sebastian’s facial features do not suddenly change/disappear when he becomes Lady Crystallia (I’m looking at you Disney—Mulan and Ping’s entire face shape changes).
Would I Recommend?: Very much so. The story is so sweet and deals with heavy issues in a non-oppressive manner that just warms your heart at the end.
Personal thoughts: The Prince and the Dressmaker is all about embracing your true self, advocating for your wants and needs, and the beauty and confidence that comes from being supported for who you are. The little dash of romance is sweet and can also be read as a queer platonic relationship and to me, that makes the love in this story even sweeter.
Title/Author: The Wolf and His King by Finn Longman
Reviewer: Jordan
Summary: A noble knight hiding the beast inside. A lonely king isolated by his courtiers. Between them, an impossible gulf surmountable only by the twists and turns of relentless destiny in this spellbinding retelling of Marie de France’s classic 12th-century tale of romance and adventure.
Series/Standalone: Standalone
Genre/Sub-Genre: Chivalric Romance (A type of prose and verse narrative popular in medieval and early modern Europe)
Book Format: Print
Length: 368 pages
LGBTQ+ Orientation: Bisexual & gay
HEA/HFN: Yes
Content Warnings: Depression; hunting animals; humans get mauled.
Ratio of Sex/Plot: There are only a few fade-to-black sex scenes (M/M & M/F)
Well-Written/Editor Needed: Well-written
Would I Recommend it?: YES, though it won’t be for everyone
Personal Thoughts: I fell into this book and didn’t want to climb back out again. This is a retelling of a 12th Century lai (a medieval epic poem) written by Marie de France entitled Bisclavret. It is a quiet, slow, and introspective love story told with three different points of view: Bisclavret in 3rd person, the King in 2nd person, and the Wolf’s sections are written in verse. I was hesitant at first to read this with a 2nd person point-of-view as it can be awkward for the reader because it might feel like you have to put yourself into the story. Once I got into it, the king’s voice came out and I did not have that feeling. The second thing to note is that Bisclavret is the only character with a name, and somehow, this works too. The third, is that the story is set in 12th century Brittany, though the author includes a note in the beginning about how it is not historically accurate.
In chivalric romance, the romance aspect is more about fealty than what we would think of as a traditional romance today. Here, Bisclavret and the king also don’t come together for quite some time due to another relationship coming between them. You might think of this as something of a slow burn love story.
Bisclavret is a garwolf, which means he transforms into a wolf, not by choice or by the timing of the moon, but by the will of the wolf within him. For him, this is a sickness he can’t tell anyone about. Even so, he allows his cousin to convince him to attend court to get his inherited lands back, long after his father’s death, knowing full well how dangerous this idea is. His wolf can use the extra land and forests to hide in, but what if his wolf resurfaces while he’s at court? As soon as Bisclavret does tell someone about the wolf under his skin, betrayal hits hard.
The king has freshly been pulled from his childhood exile to take over the kingdom when his father dies. He’s more studious and quiet than most of his court expects and suffers from long bouts of depression that pull him away from his kingly duties. One might even say his depression mirrors Bisclavret’s garwolf transformations that can take over him for several days or a week at a time, pulling him away from those he loves, giving them an understanding of each other that no one else has. To that end, both of them returning to court to take up their inheritances after their fathers have passed away is another thing they have in common.
I can’t say too much more, for fear of giving too much away, but I really enjoyed this quiet, slow, and introspective love story with a wolf in the mix. It was very well done. If you think this could be for you, I highly recommend it, though I do recognize that it won’t be for everyone.
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