Jan Hits The Fan

Look, I like alliterations and there's no days starting with R, alas.

One of the reasons I'm somewhat behind on writing is that I've been reading a lot lately, on top of all the stuff I've been watching. Most of it was really good though, so I definitely don't have any regrets. 

Thanks to isis , I started Course Of Honour a couple of weeks ago. Arranged Marriage in Space?? With slow-burn pining and lots of politics?Count me in. It finished last week, and I'm honestly sad it's over. I enjoyed it so much, both Kiem and Jainan were such great characters, with varying strengths and weakness, and I loved the world and all the politics. The slow-burn was delicious, and while I wished the author would have spent a little more time on the emotional resolution, I'm still absolutely in love with these two. And kind of hoping there'll be fanfic and/or missing scenes.

While I didn't participate in fandom5k I did read and commented on quite a bit of fic. Overall I thought the exchange was really good quality wise. I'm definitely thinking about participating next year, if they lower the offering fandoms a little. I wrote an embarrassingly long comment (nearly hit the character limit) for i have named you queen (listen) by damkianna. It's a truly amazing F/F Original Work story, about a princess who gets herself out of a dire situation by proposing to another princess. It's filled with cultural conflicts and misunderstandings, is set in a super interesting desert world, with great political intrigue, and the main character has such an amazing voice, and such a layered personality. One of the best things I read so far this year. I even got out of bed after finishing it because I just had so much emotions about it, I couldn't share them by typing on my phone. It was so good.

I also really enjoyed Thorough-bass and human nature by MildredMost, which is a Pride and Prejudice story about Mary Bennet finding love and piano lessons. I never cared much for Mary, but this fic really brought home to me how much we only see her trough Lizzy's eyes, and how Mary really got the short end in her upbringing. I honestly got emotional when she got actual piano lessons and improved so marvellously, her crowning moment of awesome was so great and rewarding. I also really loved her love-interest, and truly, this is the kind of future I wish for her.

Next week the second book in the Hidden Legacy series by Ilona Andrews comes out, so I've started my reread of Burn For Me. I'm really enjoying it, the Andrews' writing and characterisation is as ever top-notch, but I'd forgotten how much of a psychopath Mad Rogan is. Which I enjoy for plot reasons, but I'm kind of wary of him turning into a romantic lead. Basically, the Andrews' sold me on the fact that's mad so well, I'm not sure he can recover from that?
I always loved Kate and Curran's relationship from the Kate Daniels series, because they're so evenly matched, both somewhat homicidal maniacs who reach for violence as a response way too soon. They match well together because of that. Rogan and Nevada seem too fundamentally different at this point to really work as a couple, the power-imbalance seems to vast to me.
Don't get me wrong, I'm very willing to go wherever the Andrews' take me, and I have a lot of faith in their ability to truly have characters develop and grow. I'm just not sure they're getting the book space to really make it work.
In any case, I'm looking forward to the next instalment immensely.