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Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 341 - On the Shelf for May 2026

Saturday, May 2, 2026 - 07:00

Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 341 - On the Shelf for May 2026 - Transcript

(Originally aired 2026/05/02)

Welcome to On the Shelf for May 2026.

Well, it’s now been an entire year since my retirement. You know that feeling after some significant life change where it seems like it only happened yesterday even though it’s been a while? I feel like that about the last time I moved—it was back in 2011 but continues to feel very recent. But retirement—it feels like I’ve been retired forever and it’s hard to remember life with day-job. I mean, I sometimes have flashes of memory: “Oh right, commuting in to Berkeley, stopping at the bakery for a pastry, meetings, doing walk-throughs of production equipment, diving deep into writing reports” but it’s sort of like a dream now. I meant to keep more in touch with my former co-workers, but time slips away and my focus is on all my projects, my bicycling, and my garden.

A chat recently with one of my authors for the fiction series reminded me that it’s time to set up the call for submissions page for this year. The call for submissions from last year is still linked in the web site menus, and nothing significant will change, so there’s no reason to put off writing. As I’ve mentioned previously, 2027 will be the last year I run the fiction series, finishing off a 10 year run. The podcast itself will keep running as long as I can keep coming up with things to say.

News of the Field

It probably isn’t too early to mention that I’ll be attending the Golden Crown Literary Society conference this year. If you’ll be there too, please do hunt me down to say hi. I don’t yet know if I’ll be on any programming, but I hope to take the opportunity to record some interviews, if the stars align.

Publications on the Blog

On the blog, although I got distracted from posting articles for a while by a non-lesbian project, I binged a bit in the last week to get caught up with the ones I had written up. Valerie Traub’s “The Perversion of ‘Lesbian’ Desire” is a precursor for a chapter in her book The Renaissance of Lesbianism, but it was worth revisiting the material in a little more detail. Because of the semi-random way I encounter publications, this is hardly the first time that I’ve blogged two different versions of an author’s work. That was also the case for Tim Hitchcock’s “Redefining Sex in Eighteenth-Century England” which, I confess, I had as many criticisms of this time as the previous read. Dawn M. Goode’s “Dueling Discourses: The Erotics of Female Friendship in Mary Pix’s ‘Queen Catharine’” was a bit tangential to sapphic themes, exploring the relationship between two female characters in a late 17th century play. Much more pertinent, from the same era, was Molly McClain’s “Love, Friendship, and Power: Queen Mary II's Letters to Frances Apsley” which reviews the very passionate sentiments in the correspondence and the social and literary context that helps us understand them. And finally, Christine Roulston’s “Separating the Inseparables: Female Friendship and Its Discontents in Eighteenth-Century France,” while mostly about gender politics in Revolution-era France, makes an unintentional point about the coded language available to talk about lesbianism that was perfectly clear to those who used it, even when sexual vocabulary wasn’t used.

When I do a library run to the University of California at Berkeley and download a hundred or so journal articles, I like to group them into thematic sets, just to make the blog a smidge less random. In the current set, I’ve already done clusters on global topics, general articles on sexuality, pornography, and finishing up this month with a set generally on early modern friendship. The other sets I have lined up, in no particular order, are: 19th century biography, classical topics, 19th century France, literature of the 17-19th centuries, medieval topics, poetry, theater-related topics, and trans-related topics. I haven’t decided which to tackle next—if you’d love me to prioritize any of these, give it a shout-out in social media.

Book Shopping!

No new book shopping for the blog—maybe. On a whim, when I was in a bookstore that didn’t have the title I was looking for, I picked up Jane Austen’s Bookshelf by Rebecca Romney, about the women novelists who influenced Austen’s writing. At least four of the relevant authors have been discussed in articles I’ve blogged, so although I’m not planning to blog this book, it’s not entirely unconnected to the Project.

Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction

So what are the new and recent lesbian and sapphic historicals? As usual, I’ll be condensing the cover copy a little—a few of the book blurbs were really long. I think some authors need refreshing on the concept of “elevator pitch.”

Circling  back to March we have a somewhat bonkers take on Tudor royal politics in The Beheading Game by Rebecca Lehmann from Crown.

In the hours after Anne Boleyn’s beheading, she wakes to find herself unceremoniously laid to rest in a makeshift coffin, her head wrapped in linen at her knees. Anne escapes the Tower of London, sews her head back on, then sets out on a quest to kill Henry VIII before he can marry her own lady-in-waiting Jane Seymour. The stakes are high—if Jane gives birth to a rival heir, Anne’s daughter, Elizabeth, will lose her claim to the throne. Traveling the streets of London in the guise of a commoner, with the help of a prostitute who becomes a trusted friend (and perhaps something more), Anne soon realizes how little she knew about life in the real world.

Consider This My Witness by Madeline Klein sounds a bit dark—not in the horror sense, but in the tragic sense. I hope I’m not putting anyone off by that, because, by the writing in the cover copy, it looks like a very solid story.

In the fenland of 1645, Maren keeps a quiet life. She tends the fire. She mends the cloth. She says yes when yes is required. Her husband is a good man and she has always known this. It is only the distance between who she is and who she is required to be that she cannot name.

Then Alice comes. She comes with the smell of the fen on her and herbs she has been drying and a knowledge passed down through the women of this land for three generations. She comes and does not leave again. Not really. Not from the place in Maren's chest where she takes up residence in September and never moves.

The mechanism arrives that same autumn. Men with the right authority and the right questions and all the patience in the world. The witch-finder's committees are forming. The drainage engineers are cutting new channels through the mere. Everything is being remade into something it has not decided to be.

Maren watches. She stays quiet. She says yes. She will spend forty-three years learning what that cost.

The two-book series Beneath the Quiet Valley by Eleanor Foster starts out with a similar feel but sounds like it moves to a more hopeful place. I can’t tell from the cover copy exactly when and where the setting is, but it could be so many times and places.

In a quiet mining valley where lives follow the same path year after year, change is not welcomed. It is endured. Clara has spent her life doing what is expected of her. She keeps the house warm, the meals ready, and the silence gentle while her husband works the mines. It is a life built on duty, steadiness, and compromise. Until the day Betty arrives.

New to the village and trapped in a difficult marriage, Betty brings with her a restless energy the valley has never known. What begins as friendship soon becomes something deeper—something neither woman has the language to explain, but neither can deny.

The second book, Two Lives, hints at the direction that story took.

Betty believed she had already found her place in the quiet valley beside Clara — a life built on tenderness, loyalty, and a love that had grown stronger in the shadows of a watchful world. But when a journey to the coast brings an unexpected reunion with someone from Clara’s past, the fragile balance between them begins to shift. Olive is confident, independent, and carries a freedom Betty has never known. As Clara’s health slowly fades, Betty finds herself caught between devotion and desire, loyalty and possibility.

I saved one April book over to this month to coordinate with an author interview. You’ll hear more about The Mystery of the Bitten Peach by Cecilia Tan from Neon Hemlock later in this show.

Meet Mei, a young Chinese American who has discovered she has the mystical ability to transport herself anywhere that is spiritually “China”—including Chinatowns around the world and different eras of Chinese history. As an adoptive child of the diaspora, Mei was raised in America with no knowledge of Chinese folklore or fairy tales, but when an antiques dealer friend needs help retrieving a mythic artifact—a jade carving of a peach that represented same-sex love in ancient China—she’s game to give it a try.  Her quest sends Mei not only into the past, but on a journey of self-discovery.

The next set of three books is being released across April and May. The cover copy is extremely long and has a lot of overlap across the three books, so I’m going to combine them into a single description. The publisher seems to specialize in “theological historical fiction” so I’m not entirely certain how the implied sapphic relationship is handled. The series title is The Woman at the Well, and the three books are The Water that Remembers, The Weight of Staying, and The Courage to Remain. The historical inspiration for the story is the tale of the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well in the Bible.

She went to the well at midday — when no other woman would be there. That was not recklessness. That was strategy. Leah has learned how to disappear. After five marriages and five funerals, after years of whispers that followed her through the village like a second shadow, she has perfected the art of taking up as little space as possible. She goes to Jacob's Well at the wrong hour so she won't have to feel the eyes of women who have decided what her life means. She has stopped arguing with their conclusions. She has stopped wanting much of anything.

But she has not stopped thinking about Miriam. Her connection with Miriam is tender, dangerous, and deeply human: two women finding each other in the narrow margins of a world that had no place for what they were to each other. Their love does not announce itself. It builds in stolen moments, in hands that linger a beat too long, in a kind of knowing that exists beneath language. It is the truest thing in Leah's life — and the most impossible.

Then a Jewish stranger asks her for water.

The encounter at Jacob's Well does not fix Leah. It does not save her in any simple sense. What it does is crack open something she had sealed shut — the possibility that her story is not yet over. That the woman who has survived everything might, against all probability, deserve more than survival. Because Miriam's letters are still arriving.

The encounter at the well has named the distinction between surviving and living, and Leah cannot un-hear it. Slowly, against every instinct that grief has carved into her, she begins the terrifying work of returning to herself. A choice to feel something. A letter written and sent. A decision that cannot be undone.

The May books begin with Bone of my Bone by Johanna van Veen from Poisoned Pen Press.

The year is 1635. Sister Ursula, a young nun fleeing the ruins of her convent, and Elsebeth, a sharp-witted peasant, escape a band of marauding soldiers and disappear into the Bavarian forest. War scorches the land, and no one survives it alone. Amid the devastation, they find something in the arms of a dying man: the gilded skull of a saint.

It is said that if you reunite the saint's skull with her body, a wish will be granted. Desperate for salvation, and each with secret desires of their own, Ursula and Elsebeth follow a ragged map across the blighted countryside. But darkness follows them. A necromancer, drawn to the relic's power. The saint herself, whispering at night. And as the lines between blessing and curse blur, the women must face a harrowing truth: the magic they seek comes at a cost.

At the journey's end, they'll face an impossible choice—one that could tear apart everything they know… or bind them to each other forever.

The library of Jane Austen inspired novels increases this month with Miss Woodhouse & Miss Fairfax by Maisie Jardelle. It’s described as “a steamy, sapphic retelling of Jane Austen's Emma” and it’s hard to tell whether this is “romance-novel steamy” or “basically just erotica steamy.”

Despite them being of similar age and moving in the same circles, Emma Woodhouse could never bring herself to like the cold and reserved Jane Fairfax whose accomplishments in art and music are a painful reminder of what Emma might have achieved if she applied herself instead of playing cupid for those around her.

When Emma is guilted into doing a favour for Jane, she is surprised by the warmth of Jane’s gratitude and comes to understand that what she thought was icy reserve was only painful shyness.

With Jane destined to be a governess unless she can marry well, Emma is determined to put her matchmaking skills to use. But as the search begins, Emma realises her heart isn’t in it. Instead of finding the perfect husband for Jane, she begins to harbour secret hopes of her own.

Gothic novels make up a surprising percentage of sapphic historicals and The Wives of Herrick Hall by Julie Lew from Quill & Crow Publishing House follows that trend.

After a dalliance with another woman leaves her reputation in shambles, Josephine Carter is banished to the isolated manor to serve as lady’s companion to Herrick’s mistress. Lady Nora Blake is a headstrong, capricious woman, who spends her days convalescing from a mysterious illness—and her nights witnessing her imminent death over and over. Shackled to her side, Josephine is certain life could not get worse. But then she meets the Herrick wives. Ghosts veiled in shadow stalk the halls and trespass into Josephine’s dreams, trapped forever in the fury of their last dying wish: to destroy Herrick and everyone beneath its roof. Josephine determines to escape by any means necessary.

Until she and Nora fall in love.

Together, Josephine and Nora must confront Herrick’s curse to battle their way to freedom. But Herrick has already claimed them as its next ghostly brides, and neither the house nor its vengeful wives will relinquish them without bloodshed…

Her Runaway Lady by B.J. Sikes sounds like a “poor little rich girl” fantasy that takes a realistic look at what comes of escaping a privileged life in Belle Epoque Paris. The description also mentions steampunk elements, so expect a touch of fantasy.

An ambitious young milliner. A shy noblewoman fleeing an arranged marriage. Love is a risk neither can afford.

Solange doesn't have time for love. She's too busy working her way up in the Parisian millinery trade. Her goal: to become rich and lift her family out of poverty. So when a beautiful aristo whirls into the millinery fascinated by hat making, Solange isn't interested. Or so she tells herself.

Louise-Marie hates the fancy parties she's dragged to at Versailles and never wanted to marry. She just wanted to be left alone, making hats. Running away from home to become a milliner seemed like a good idea but the life of a working-class shop girl is harder than she imagined. And her new coworker doesn't seem to like her much.

Thrown together in the cramped backroom of a millinery shop and a shared garret room, their tensions fray, tangle, then bind. But ambition doesn't leave room for longing. And love was never part of Solange's plan.

It feels like this month’s theme is “high-concept plots.” For the Love of the Quest by Alexandra Ammon Parthun from Alcove Press tosses together some unexpected elements.

Lady Edith Darling is supposed to live a quiet life in her family’s manor. She is not supposed to go unchaperoned on a quest to find Excalibur. But Edith won’t let that stand in her way, especially not when she's on this mission to honor her beloved grandmother’s dying wish. Determined to prove her grandmother right, Edith packs her satchel with Arthurian legends, pastries, and her grandmother’s ashes, and runs off to hire a mercenary.

Thomasin Shaw leads the most feared gang in London. For years, she had the constabulary safely in her pocket, until a scandal involving the chief inspector’s wife was brought to light. Now he’s demanding an enormous sum of money–without which Thomasin will lose the protection of the police along with her criminal empire. But when the rich Lady Edith waltzes into her life seeking an escort for a treasure hunt, Thomasin sees a willing kidnapping victim and a massive ransom.

As Edith’s clues lead them to underground chambers booby-trapped with arrows, doors locked with arcane puzzles, and even Arthur’s fabled round table, Thomasin finds herself swept up in the quest, and in Edith herself. Edith is also drawn to Thomasin, despite the ruthless mask she wears. But the chief inspector won’t let Thomasin forget her crimes, and Edith’s father is intent on bringing her home. Every legendary quest has an ending, but finding Excalibur might not be enough to make this a happy one.

After all that, The Summer I Met June by Mozie S from Dreamscape Studio brings us back to grounded reality.

Evelyn Abernathy is finally ready to tell the truth. She never married because her heart belonged to someone she met long ago, in a small Georgia town. Someone named June.

In the summer of 1956, June Davis walked into Evelyn's world with sun-warmed grapes, shy smiles, and the kind of kindness that made Evelyn want to be brave. What bloomed between them was gentle, forbidden, and unforgettable... until a single kiss changed everything.

Now, through memory and reflection, Evelyn returns to the season that shaped her and to the girl she never stopped loving.

What Am I Reading?

I’ve been in a bit of a slump for fiction reading lately, and I swear I haven’t gone off sapphic books as much as it seems from my reports. Lately I’ve been loving some non-fiction that touches on my special interests. The Lingthusiasm podcast (hi Gretchen and Lauren!) made me aware of Kory Stamper’s books inspired by her time working in the dictionary industry. Word by Word is a general love letter to the process of creating, revising, and maintaining dictionaries. A more specialized topic is covered in True Color: The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color--from Azure to Zinc Pink. One of the things that most delighted me about these books—though it shouldn’t be a surprise—is the obvious love for the richness of language that Stamper has, not just in her subject material, but in the lovely prose she uses to talk about it. I have such a nerd-crush on her at the moment!

In an attempt to break my fiction slump, I’ve been haunting the sale listings of various audiobook sites, looking for things that catch my eye. In the past, this has resulted in sometimes buying a boxed set of audiobooks that I dropped after the first volume. (But hey, it was on sale—oh wait, maybe that’s why it was on sale.) I’ve read the first two books in Clara Benson’s Angela Marchmont mystery series: The Murder at Sissingham Hall and The Mystery at Underwood House. These are British country-house mysteries set in the era between the two world wars. I was a bit confused by the first one because, despite the series label, the protagonist was a man and the titlular Angela Marchmont was a background character—albeit one who always seemed to be two steps ahead of the supposed amateur detective. The second book switched over to Angela as viewpoint character and was more satisfactory on that point. The mysteries do have some flaws. Like: I’d figured out whodunnit very early on before the characters had any clue. And Angela has a frustrating habit of refusing to share her information and discoveries with others—including her friend the Scotland Yard detective—as she puts it “until she’s had a chance to think about it some more.” It’s a technique to keep the reader in the dark, but surely that could have been done by leaving their conversation off the page. Anyway, I’m enjoying the atmosphere and the writing otherwise and have several more to go.

But in the mean time I need to finish the copy of Tasha Suri’s The Isle in the Silver Sea that I have out from the library (which I’ll report on after I’ve finished it), and then there’s a new K.J. Charles that just dropped, so that has me set for the next while.

I used to complain a little about the number of different ebook apps I need to use to keep track of books from different sources, but now I think they’re outnumbered by the number of audiobook apps I rotate through. Since I dropped my Audible subscription, I mostly use it for sleep-listening of familiar books, though I still have a few titles there that I haven’t opened yet. I have a lot of favorites through Apple Books, and that’s my go-to for when I want to pre-order something I desperately want to own. For older public domain titles I rely on LibriVox despite the variable quality of the volunteer narrators. I use Libby for my library borrows, especially recent releases, which adds a random quality to the scheduling since I never know when a hold is going to come in, and then I feel a moral obligation to turn it around quickly so the next person can get the book. And recently I’ve added Libro.fm along with Chirp for their regular sale listings.

Libro.fm has a deal similar to that for Bookshop.org where you can designate a brick-and-mortar bookstore to get a share of the purchase price. These days Bookshop.org is my first choice for hard-copy books except in the rare case when I find myself in an actual store, and now they also have ebooks. So, folks, there are lots of alternatives to the Amazon monopoly and I will always encourage people to try them out. Those “free” (quote-unquote) reads you get from Kindle Unlimited are the honey that traps you into a system that not only gouges authors but has a very checkered track record when it comes to treating queer books fairly. This is a hill I will die on. Ahem. Moving on…

Author Guest

This month we’re happy to welcome Cecilia Tan to the show.

(Interview transcript will be added when available.)

Show Notes

Your monthly roundup of history, news, and the field of sapphic historical fiction.

In this episode we talk about:

A transcript of this podcast is available here. (Interview transcripts added when available.)

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

Links to Heather Online

Links to Cecilia Tan Online

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