DW knows all

[oyceter]

Lately the only thing I seem to be able to read is romantic comedy. So... rec me stuff!

I have just gone on a terrible binge through nearly all of Julia Quinn (rilina, this is all your fault!), whom I have been enjoying because her heroes tend to be less alpha, her couples genuinely seem to like each other, and she's funny. Also, it helps that her later books have been overcoming her tendency to put 100 pages too much at the end.

I am mostly looking for something rather like 1930s romantic comedies, with a lot of banter and extremely likable heroines. Non-alpha heroes are a HUGE plus. It doesn't have to be in the romance genre, although I only want recs for textual things; my brain just cannot concentrate on TV or movies lately. Sadly, this goes for manga too and basically anything visual.

I also enjoy Loretta Chase, Laura Kinsale's comedies, Connie Brockway's comedies, and Jennifer Crusie.

I have kind of bounced off Eloisa James (is she considered funny?). I don't read as many contemporaries because a lot of the romance genre rules work better for me in historicals, but if it is screwball and feminist, I am all for it. I tend to bounce off of adult chick lit because I frequently don't actually find it funny or enjoyable.

... Maybe I should finally start reading Heyer?

Comments

[coffeeandink]

So, random non-romance stuff that fits the bill for me when I am in the screwball comedy kind of mood, but which may not work for you:

* Demon's Covenant! I found an early copy and am very excited about starting it as soon as I've finished the current book. Also, there is a new Diana Wynne Jones. I haven't loved DWJ's most recent stuff as much as her earlier stuff, but she is still in my literary pantheon

* Joan Aiken, especially stuff like the early Wolves Chronicles and The Serial Garden collection ("Monday was the day on which unusual things were allowed, and even expected to happen at the Armitage house.")

* Sarah Caudwell ("Scholarship asks, thank God, no recompense but Truth. It is not for the sake of material reward that she (Scholarship) pursues her (Truth) through the undergrowth of ignorance, shining on Obscurity the bright torch of Reason and clearing aside the tangled thorns of Error with the keen secateurs of Intellect. Nor is it for the sake of public glory and the applause of the multitude: the scholar is indifferent to vulgar acclaim. Nor is it even in the hope that those few intimate friends who have observed first hand the labour of the chase will mark with a rod or two of discerning congratulation its eventual achievement. Which is very fortunate, because they don't.")

* Helen Cresswell, Bagthorpes books ("The whole thing started when Uncle Parker won a cruise in the Caribbean for two after filling in a leaflet he had idly picked up in the village shop. The minute the news was known in the Bagthorpe househould disbelief, annoyance and downright jealousy began to degenerate into what became, inevitably, an All Out Furore.")

* Jane Emerson, City of Diamond - Epic space opera with witty dialogue, alas ends on cliffhanger that seems unlikely to be resolved

* Eleanor Farjeon, The Little Bookroom or The Glass Slipper

* P.C. Hodgell ("Apprehensively [Jame] recited the charm. It usually took Cleppetty half an hour to ready her bread for the oven; Jame's rose in five minutes. When the widow sliced into the baked loaf, however, they discovered that its sudden expansion had been due to the growth of rudimentary internal organs.

("That was the end of Jame's apprenticeship in the kitchen.") Also, there is significant knitting and embroidery in later books!

Naomi Mitchison, Travel Light (a fairy tale about a princess who becomes a Valkyrie) or, if you can find it, To the Chapel Perilous (minor figures from Arthurian legend are local newspaper reporters trying to chase the stories of the Grail legend through conflicting observers)

* Alis A. Rasmussen, The Labyrinth Gate - a young married couple from our world cross over into an alternate Regency where magic is accepted and bold young women can become rakes. Early Regency fantasy, much neglected. Author now writes as Kate Elliott.



Stuff I think you've probably already read, but I can't remember for sure:

* Susanna Clarke
* Pamela Dean
* Hope Mirlees
* Elizabeth Marie Pope
* Patricia Wrede & Caroline Stevermer, Sorcery and Cecelia

[kate_nepveu]

Sarah Caudwell Sarah Caudwell Sarah Caudwell!

Will come back later with more, maybe.

[shewhohashope]

* Helen Cresswell, Bagthorpes books ("The whole thing started when Uncle Parker won a cruise in the Caribbean for two after filling in a leaflet he had idly picked up in the village shop. The minute the news was known in the Bagthorpe househould disbelief, annoyance and downright jealousy began to degenerate into what became, inevitably, an All Out Furore.")

I LOVED THESE BOOKS. But I forgot what they were called, and who wrote them so I haven't reread in about ten years.

[coffeeandink]

Now I have learned they are hugely popular in the UK, but when I was a little American child, NO ONE I KNEW had ever heard of them and they were all my very own secret special books. Like Diana Wynne Jones, only Diana Wynne Jones did not then have an entire BBC TV adaptation of which I knew nothing.

[shewhohashope]

only Diana Wynne Jones did not then have an entire BBC TV adaptation of which I knew nothing

There was this when I was a child?

ETA: My sister wants me to buy her the entire series now I just mentioned it.

[coffeeandink]

That is because you are a babe in arms! (It came out the year after I graduated from college.)

[rachelmanija]

chomiji has an "all the bees are ded" icon.

[estara]

Oh right, City of Diamond!

In which case buy the Gate of Ivory omnibus from DAW, as this is the same author writing as Doris Egan (she now is one of the writers for HOUSE, so not likely to return to literature). While the hero is definitely alpha, the heroine basically deals with his culture and family and his personal turmoil with utmost competence, coming from a scholarly viewpoint not connected to magic. It's fantasy sf you could say. Excellent and it's a finished trilogy... although I could have read loads more.

[estara]

And a shout-out for P.C. Hodgell, yay - but no romance in that.

By the way Alis Rasmussen's sf trilogy ( A Passage of Stars (Highroad Trilogy, Vol 1))also has a heck of a heroine, saving the world and her hero with her competence and it's a finished one.

If you like her writing, you can buy more of her books written as Kate Elliot (Jaran, for example, another scholar from an advanced society falling in love with basically the equivalent of Genghis Khan and having to deal with that and her knowledge about how the world really works).

[estara]

Oh and while we're on Patricia Wrede: Mairelon the Magician.

[oyceter]

Yay thank you!!

Btw, which of these are more on the romance and less on the plot side? Brain is not doing plot and worldbuilding so well (romances! Good because I can do characters and it doesn't usually matter if I fudge the plot!).

Ha, I forgot I was telling Rilina the other day I needed to catch up on DWJ's new stuff... I've been behind for a while.

Ones I've read: Jane Emerson (didn't have as big of an impression as other people, probably because I read it when brain was not doing worldbuilding well), Pamela Dean (sometimes need to be in the mood for the literary references), Elizabeth Marie Pope (LOVE), Sorcery and Cecelia (LOVE), Hodgell (but as I think I told you, I don't remember much except the bread bit).

Got the first Caudwell from the library, must now hunt for Mitchison and Rasmussen!

[coffeeandink]

I like City of Diamond a lot better than her books as Doris Egan, so if CoD didn't impress, those might not do better. They are more romance-y but the hero annoyed me.

The most romancey are probably Farjeon (The Glass Slipper is Cinderella and The Little Bookroom has lots of romancey fairy tales) and Rasmussen/Elliott. You probably don't want any of the stuff pub'd as Elliott right now, though, as it is too expansive and full of world-building stuff (which I love, but it's a different mood). Naturally the ones I have recommended are OOP and hard to find.

Apparently I can provide recs for romance or banter but you have read everything I rec'd already that does *both*.

[(Anonymous)]

"Sorcery and Cecelia" has two sequels now.