Amanuensis's Journal

Avengers recs list part two. 44 recs.

(Part one back here.)



( Team / Avengers-style Slice of Life )

( Mythic )

( Romance )

( Angst/Dark that doesn't quite fit elsewhere )

( Hurt/Comfort / Whump!Kink )

( Character bonding )

( My very specific 'Loki totally did Clint while he had him' list )

Enjoy! Leave the authors feedback!

Actually getting my recs list into shape, here, and I had a wondering come up on me. Posing it here to everyone because, curious.

[Poll #1849991]

Discussion is invited!

The "First sentence on page 45 of nearest book describes your sex life in the next year" meme:

From A Drowned Maiden's Hair by Laura Amy Schlitz:

The woman continued to limp toward the table.

Ooh, if that means there will be table bondage and beatings, yay!

I have an ulterior motive in doing the meme, because I want to recommend the book (which is why it's the book sitting next to me). A Drowned Maiden's Hair is subtitled "A Melodrama," and it does fit well into that category, featuring orphanages and mysterious benefactors and crumbling old houses and lies. It's actually quite fun and optimistic, for all that. And I couldn't put it down. The heroine is plucky but earnest, in a way I enjoy. Eva Ibbotson has an endorsement on the book's back cover and the author actually includes her in the dedication for pushing her to write the book.

And speaking of Ibbotson, a few days later I read another "orphans and mysterious benefactors and crumbling old houses and lies" book by Eva Ibbotson, which nevertheless couldn't have been a more different story from the previous book. But still completely delightful and with that same upbeat direction. This heroine is more sweet than plucky, and quite lovable. It's called The Star of Kazan, and while I think Eva Ibbotson hardly needs the endorsement, this really was one of my favorites of hers I've read. (Though nothing can top Which Witch?.)

Both are available as ebooks on Amazon and I found them in the juvenile section of my public library.

I picked up another YA book a couple of weeks ago; The End of the Line, by Angela Cerrito. This was supposed to be one of those "I'll read a few chapters of this and then go do other things" books; then the sonuvabitch locked me in its sights and had me in two pages, and I couldn't put it down until it was done. What was going on? Was it a reform school? A dystopian future? A dreamstate? The psychology of it is so thick that I found myself gasping after every chapter, setting the book down and having a heart-thudding few moments of what would I do, what would I have done if I this were happening to me. It's like an unintentional Choose Your Own Adventure, every chapter. Highly, highly recommended.

There will be no headlines in newspapers, but it's the end of an era all the same. epicyclical posted the last chapter of Draco Veritas today, third and last book of The Draco Trilogy.

I think a lot of HP fandom types can remember their first discovery of Cassandra Claire's stories in the same way that people remember where they were when they heard that man first walked on the moon, or when famous people died. Me, I found Cassie's A Season In Hell first off, early on in my discovery of HP fanfiction, back in late 2002. I remember I was on vacation and in a hotel, and read the thing cross-legged on my hotel bed, using dial-up and a hotel bible for a mouse wrist rest. I was writing my first HP fanfiction at the time--Other Chambers, Darker Secrets--and was poleaxed. Literally (as in, well, literally fell over, not literally hit with a poleaxe. Heh). Lay there across the garish hotel bedspread, breathing shallowly, wondering why on earth anyone should bother trying to write anything else after that. And I read Draco Dormiens the next day, and had to stop writing OC, DS for three days because I had to write fanfiction for her fanfiction before I could go on (that was Because of Who You Are--total fluff, but I was in LOVE, man). I'll never forget how sweet and gracious she was when I sent that story to her, asking her if she'd mind if I tried to archive it on restrictedsection.org.

Draco Dormiens, Draco Sinister, and Draco Veritas are, someone's calculated, almost one million words of fanfiction. The stories and characters within them mean almost as much to me as Rowling's series itself.

There's a big fat ache in the center of my chest for the end of this one. I'm sure I'll be having a cry soon.

*epicyclical is letting us know that at some future date her fanfiction may/will be removed from web archives, so those of you who want to read it should save copies now. Pdf files of the three parts of the Draco Trilogy (with pictures!) are available at the bottom of the DV epilogues page here.

This? Best title ever.

Gets It From His Father, by the_con_cept. Meant as parody, but still sexy as hell. Come on, guys, there's got to be more Snarry Severitus out there for me to feel ever-so-wrong about. At least one of you started some but it went the way of (nearly) all WIPs. Anybody? Bueller?