Eight Arms Reading Room

In the Queer Romance Book Club, my take on chapters 15 and 16 of KJ Charles's A Case of Possession is posted. We're near the end! What are your thoughts on this book?

Reading: queer dragon books

Okay, I read the Empyrean series. I wasn’t going to but I was vacationing with friends and they talked me into it. This is a family of mom, dad, 15 year old boy, and 11 year old girl and every one of them had read Fourth Wing and Iron Flame and were impatiently awaiting Onyx Storm in January before it came out. (Actually, it’s likely that dad quit after Fourth Wing but I know the other three read both books—I got a bit of spoilery detail from each of them.)

I couldn’t put Fourth Wing down. I didn’t love Iron Flame but I chalked it up to the all-too-frequent second book syndrome and waited something like six months for Onyx Flame to come available at my library (obviously I didn’t like Fourth Wing so much that I was willing to pony up the $ to buy the others).

I generally don’t want to use this space to shit on other authors’ books. Suffice to say that when I finished Onyx Storm, I went straight to Goodreads to read a bunch of 1 star reviews so I could feel less alone in my feels about the book. Imagine my surprise when I learned that Onyx Storm is not, in fact, the third book in what I’d understood to be a trilogy, but book 3 of an eventual 5. I’m out, though.

So, I asked my friends for some (better) queer dragon-fucking romance recs. And got this hilarious, but fair, question in return:

“Are the riders fucking the dragons? Are they shifters? Or like we are talking an equestrian equivalent?”

Followed by: “And I need to know who to turn to if I can’t help - like do we need to consult a dragon shifter book fan? beastiality connoisseur? Paranormal racing sport writer? I don’t know. 🤷🏻”

My answers:

“Dragon riders for sure and I’d love a bond between rider and dragon. If the riders fuck the dragons or vice versa, even better! (But I’m not asking for miracles here and I think we can probably hold off on consulting bestiality connoisseurs (do you know bestiality connoisseurs to consult??).)

I think we’re talking equestrian equivalents but yeah, now that you mention it, dragon shifters could work too. 

And fuck, if you’ve got a paranormal racing sport writer in mind…that might be something I didn’t know I needed.”

I got a bunch of recs! And I’m starting with

Skydive by Roe Horvat.

Heavens to Betsy, Roe Horvat knows how to write deliciously filthy books!

(And the answer to my question of whether my friend has a bestiality consult they can tap?

“I’ve got a person for everything. And I mean *everything* 😬👀😬”

😳😳😳)

Do you have any dragon fucking book recs for me?

In the Queer Romance Book Club, my take on chapters 13 and 14 of KJ Charles's A Case of Possession is posted. What are your thoughts on Stephen and Crane's adventures?

Reading: Rory Maxwell

I first met Rory Maxwell at Gay Rom Lit before she’d published anything yet. She’s a delight, I tell you. In a quiet, still waters run deep, wicked sense of humor way (all my favorite things!).

So, it’s sort of…unfathomable that it took me so long to start reading her Split Rock Ranch books. I did binge three books in a row, though.

I love Split Rock Ranch and I like these characters. They’re all M/M, except that book 2 adds a third M to the established couple from book 1. I don’t mind that. 😘

Something Undeniable has a good-sized age gap (one of my fave tropes).

Something Unexpected is your classic small town romance, complete with the big city boy coming to sell the ranch out from under the ones who live there and love it (well, it’s his dad who’s planning to sell it but you can hardly blame him for assuming they’ll shoot the messenger).

Something Unforgettable has a Daddy/boy dynamic (another fave) and I think two of the other ones I haven’t read are also Daddy romances.

The latest is enemies-to-lovers, which is not my go-to but I’m betting it’ll be at least as satisfying as the ones I’ve read.

Gotta get on books 3, 5 and 6 now.

To his wife said the whaling ship's master

(To avoid certain marital disaster)

"When you're lonely for me

While I'm out at sea

Please enjoy this dildo made of plaster."

(The dildo hidden in the chimney described in that article about the he's-at-homes was apparently made of plaster. Another student in the writing course agreed with me that plaster is not, in our opinion, prime material for dildos. We feel sorry for her.)

In the Queer Romance Book Club, my take on chapters 11 and 12 of KJ Charles's A Case of Possession is posted. What are your thoughts on Stephen and Crane's adventures?

A sea captain set out to shop

At a specialty store on the dock

A gift for his wife

To prevent marital strife

A replica he had made of his cock.

(More liberties with the rhyming--writing limericks is hard!)

If you haven’t at least skimmed the article I posted yesterday, this limerick may not make a ton of sense. (Okay, most limericks aren’t entirely sensible, tbh.) Anyway, here’s another one:

A Nantucket woman set out grimly

To hide some things in her chimney

Drafts of letters to a president

A dildo with a slight bend to it

From a husband some might consider unseemly.

(I'm taking some liberties with the rhyming. And also making her husband sound like a reprobate and her a bit of a shrew. In tomorrow's limerick, they're more on the same page.)

I've just finished a three-day writing course about writing historical fiction (yes, I'm working on something contemporary right now but I also have something historical that's been in the works for a little while). The instructor was Ben Shattuck, whose short story collection The History of Sound includes a story set in the little coastal Maine village where I live in the summer.

During one of the sessions, we talked a bit about historical accuracy and how you can't believe everything you read about history, because he'd read about dildos in some history books about the Yankee whaling industry. These were called "he's-at-homes" and were purportedly gifted by whaling captains and crewmen to their wives who they'd leave for months at a time while they were at sea. To...um...ensure a wife's fidelity so she didn't have to turn to a local man for...um...satisfaction.

Ben did some research on these devices and found one (and only one, actually--hence the 'don't believe everything you read in history books' bit) that had been hidden in the chimney in an old home in Nantucket in a box along with a few other things, like some old letters to President Grover Cleveland. He interviewed the current homeowner and did a fair bit of research on the home's former owners to track down the history of the dildo (and the letters to President Cleveland).

The article is interesting, the topic fascinating and hilarious, and when I went home from class and told my wife about it, we spent the rest of the evening cooking a big pot of rather Yankee-like beans and greens and writing dirty limericks. As you do when you hear about a dildo in Nantucket...

And without further ado, here's the first limerick we wrote:

There once was a lady from Nantucket

Who found something tumescent in the coal bucket

Her husband said, "That's not me,

For I've been away at sea."

She'll lay back and think of Cleveland while she fucks it.

I'll post more over the next few days.

Finished: The Girl Who Wrote In Silk by Kelli Estes

(Terrible title, obviously the publisher’s pick, to capitalize on all the other Girl Who… titles out there.)

My friend, Carrie, who I go to Port Townsend with regularly, suggested this book to me. It’s nominally a romance, though I think it fits more in the women’s fiction genre than true romance, and it’s M/F, which is not my go-to pairing much these days. But it’s set mostly on Orcas Island, one of the islands in the San Juan archipelago in Washington and a chapter or two takes place in Port Townsend and it’s about Washington history, so she thought of me.

I liked it. It alternates the point of view between Inara, who just inherited her aunt’s big house on Orcas Island and is trying to turn it into a luxury hotel, and Mei Lien, a Chinese-American girl who lived in Seattle in 1886. In the novel, the Chinese population is run out of Seattle, forced onto a ship, and told they’re being resettled in San Francisco. They’re not, though—the captain of the boat tosses everyone overboard and Mei Lien is the only survivor.

She’s rescued by a white man on Orcas, and they fall in love and marry (in Port Townsend) and Mei Lien embroiders the tragic story of what happened to her, her family, and the other Chinese on a silk robe. She hides the sleeve of the robe under a step in the house Inara inherits and the book alternates between Mei Lien’s life and Inara’s efforts to figure out the sleeve’s origins and how it relates to her family history.

The romance is a little predictable (especially the third act breakup you can see coming a mile away) and it’s fade-to-black, but I liked the characters and the story and I’m always up for Washington state history and historical fiction.