SKULDUGGERY, n. Appropriately for a word that means trickery and underhanded dealings, this is shrouded in mystery, but a little bit dirty. It’s a variation on Scottish “sculduddery,” unknown origin, of which the OED says:
‘A term, now used in a ludicrous manner, to denote those causes that come under the judgment of an ecclesiastical court, which respect some breach of chastity’ (Jamieson).
Jamieson's words imply that the word was originally in serious use, but of this there seems to be no evidence.
So “sculduddery” is basically “fornication” or “adultery.” The kind of sex you need to sneak around to do. Skulduggery, on the other hand, has come to mean any kind of “roguish intrigue,” not necessarily sexual. (But it could be, if you wanted to put it in your romance novel. For me.)
I’ve started mentioning where I get my books in the reviews below, which I’m doing for a few reasons: celebrating libraries, shouting out my fellow indie authors, and feeling good when I read something I already own. Like many people who use the internet to talk about books all day every day, I own a giant pile of unread books, both print and digital.
In this grim climate of book censorship in the US, I’m doing what I can to support libraries, indie authors, and indie bookstores—while still taking care with my money and available shelf space, of course. I’m just trying to be thoughtful about where and how I get my books.
You won’t see indie bookstores mentioned in this newsletter very often because I mostly read adult fiction in ebook form, but trust me, I am buying truck-themed kids’ books from my beloved local bookshops Book Moon and High Five Books. Transit- or environmentalism-themed ones when my kid permits it.
As for public libraries, don’t worry, I’m not only checking out ebooks; I also regularly go to my library in person to use their physical resources (toy trucks, mostly), attend events, and tell my librarians how great they are. And I donate monthly because I can afford to. I’ve thought about attending board meetings, but evenings are hard with a small kid. Maybe one of these days I’ll get there. I encourage you to love your library in whatever ways are available to you. Kelly Jensen’s Literary Activism articles and newsletter at Book Riot are a good resource.
Anyway, let’s talk about some small-r romance!
Time and Tide (bi f/lesbian f, both cis, fantasy, historical) by J. M. Frey. A modern bisexual woman time-travels back to 1805 and falls in love with a lesbian author. I read this in one gulp because it moves so quickly. I had a lot of fun, but afterward I found myself wondering about how fast forgiveness was granted to some supporting characters for their trespasses (“selling someone into an abusive marriage” is a hell of a trespass). Anyway, Napoleonic-era naval life, Jane Austen galore, really compelling pacing. Reader beware: there are a couple of scenes of attempted rape in this—and that “attempted” is doing too much work, really, I should just say “rape”—which you might not be expecting from what is otherwise packaged as a fun frothy time-travel romance. Library ebook.
The Potion Gardener (cis lesbian f/bi nonbinary, fantasy, historical, novella) by Arden Powell. This is a lovely, heartwarming story about what if you ran away from all your problems to experience magical gender euphoria in a country cottage with a hot butch gardener, and then along the way you learned to face your problems, and also the hot butch gardener loved you enough to let you stay. Ideal. This one’s indie published; ebook purchased from Amazon in a previous year.
Let Me Free You (m/f, both cis and het, contemporary) by Alexandria House. I picked this up because I was reading Carole V. Bell’s essay about it in the anthology Black Love Matters (more on this anthology next time). It was delicious—big feelings, soapy drama, and hot sex. This book was written during the first Trump administration, so it deals with deportation, which might not be a problem you’re willing to read about in a romance novel while the US is going through a fascist coup. 2018 was a bad time, but 2025 is a worse one. Anyway, Sage Moniba, a Liberian makeup artist who’s always lived in the US, is about to lose the life she’s always known. She feels so utterly hopeless she even contemplates suicide. To save her and help her stay in her community, her best friends connect her with Neil McClain, the odd one out in his extremely successful family (one brother is a famous rapper, another plays in the NBA), who’s just getting his life together after a stint in rehab for both alcoholism and a gambling addiction. Sage and Neil hit it off instantly, and the journey of the book is mostly Sage realizing that good things can happen to her, and Neil does love her for exactly who she is. This one’s indie published; library audiobook.
Tempting the Bride (m/f, both cis and het, historical) + “The Bride of Larkspear” (bonus erotic novella) by Sherry Thomas. This is an amnesia book, but more than that it’s a “he’s been desperately in love with her for years and he conceals it by being a total dick all the time” book, which… for Sherry Thomas, I’ll read it. And I was begrudgingly persuaded in the end. But grow up and get a real problem, man. Like “I’m desperately in love with her but we’re spies for opposing powers” (see below). Library ebook.
The Hidden Blade and My Beautiful Enemy (m/f, both cis and het, historical, fantasy) by Sherry Thomas. So I already dedicated a whole newsletter to my love of Sherry Thomas and I hadn’t even read this duology, which might be my favorite of hers. I say “might” because holy shit there is a lot of suffering in this—suicide, attempted rape, and an on-page infanticide, which was so profoundly upsetting I had to stop reading for a while. But it is also sweeping and romantic and such an adventure.
There’s also such a consciousness of the force of empire in Sherry Thomas, even when she’s writing about white British characters in Britain; in His At Night, for example, the villain “made his fortune” in South Africa, and it’s clear how exploitative and evil a thing that is. The characters don’t foment revolution or anything, but even this subtle commentary stands out in historical romance. Here, the settings allow Thomas to consider the British Empire and the Qing dynasty. Both are presented as deeply flawed systems—and because this is a romance, as obstacles to our heroes finding happiness together.
The Hidden Blade follows the two main characters, Ying-ying and Leighton, through their parallel childhoods on opposite sides of the world. They both lose most of the adults who care about them early in life and then persevere through hardship, buoyed by the extraordinary skills they’re learning in secret. Leighton’s evil uncle (never trust an uncle in a Sherry Thomas novel) will only permit him to read the Bible, but he makes the mistake of providing copies of the Bible in Farsi and Arabic and other languages, all of which Leighton learns. Ying-ying’s stern but beloved amah teaches her lethal, magical martial arts that rely on controlling her chi. I spent all of The Hidden Blade waiting for Leighton and Ying-ying to meet, but the book ends in catastrophe.
They don’t speak to each other until My Beautiful Enemy, which has a more traditional romance-novel format and perhaps could be read alone, but I think it was greatly enhanced by knowing these two people so well. My Beautiful Enemy is spectacular, especially if you are enthusiastic about unusual historical romance settings (I am!) and two characters surviving the wilderness together (is this my nec plus ultra of tropes? perhaps).
Ying-ying and Leighton have all their initial conversations in a language that they (and speakers and linguists of the 19th-century) call “Turkic,” which we call Uyghur. Much of the action takes place around the Taklamakan desert in Xinjiang (map from Wikipedia). Leighton, a spy for the British Raj, is disguised as a Persian gem seller. Ying-ying, a spy for her stepfather who happens to be the governor of the province, is disguised as a Kazakh and also a man. Now, this book does pull that kind of gross gender-essentialist romance novel thing where of course her disguise is fooling everyone else, but he knows instantly that she’s a woman, and I don’t care for that. It would be way more fun if he didn’t know or care—or even if he did care, and had to start asking himself “Am I queer?” (Yes.) As for Ying-ying, she’s very at ease posing as a man, and she does kiss and caress some women in a brothel. You could argue that it’s a performance to further her manly disguise, but (1) booooooooooo (2) she didn’t have to. I notated this book above as if she’s cishet, but please know that in my fanfiction-writing heart, I believe what I want.
Anyway, Ying-ying pulls a knife on Leighton so many times. He loves it. They ride through the mountains bantering and lying to each other, yet also learning each other’s deepest yearnings. It’s the best. This is exactly what I want out of a romance. I would have read so much more of them riding all over central Asia, but of course their early happiness is doomed by the secrets they’re keeping. They betray each other and break their own hearts.
They meet again years later in London and finally learn each other’s names. By day they must act like polite acquaintances, but by night they’re following each other around doing absolute skulduggery. Furious pining. Perfection.
Library ebook. But I’m probably gonna buy a paperback copy, shelf space be damned.
That’s all for this time! I’ll be back in your inbox on February 23.