Thursday Recs

[soc_puppet]

Welcome once again to Thursday Recs!

This week, I'm recommending The Shivadh Romances by Sam Starbuck, AKA copperbadge/copperbadge. Three books are currently available: Fete for a King (m/m), Infinite Jes (m/nb), and The Lady and the Tiger (bi f/het m).

Fete For A King introduces Crown Prince Gregory, who needs both a husband (sooner rather than later) and a caterer for his coronation. His assistant and friend Alanna won’t help with the husband hunt but has hired Eddie Rambler, an American celebrity chef with a penchant for kitsch, to cater the coronation. He’s not who Gregory would have chosen, but he’s a surprisingly good chef, and it doesn’t hurt that he’s both handsome and obviously into the king-to-be. Gregory was looking for a much more proper chef and a more appropriate husband as King Consort, but Eddie just won’t stay out of his mind, or his kitchen.

Infinite Jes follows Gregory’s widowed father Michaelis into retirement, a difficult transition he isn’t making easier by moving out of the palace and avoiding appointments to dictate his royal memoirs. When nonbinary broadcast journalist Jes Deimos and Jes’s teenage son Noah happen into his life, he isn’t expecting anything more from them than a little help making a podcast. Still, Jes — surprising, different, challenging Jes — is starting to inspire emotions he didn’t think he was capable of anymore. Now if only Noah would stay out of life-threatening trouble for more than a month at a time, Michaelis might be able to figure out exactly what those feelings are.

The Lady And The Tiger finds Gregory’s assistant, Lady Alanna Daskaz, transported across the border to Galia, a nearby micronation that claims she’s the heir to their throne. Bringing her best friend Gerald, Duke of Shivadlakia, along with her, Alanna sets to work figuring out how to escape becoming Duchess of Galia without destroying Galia in the process. Jerry, who has a complicated life at the best of times, is trying to solve a few problems of his own along with helping Alanna solve hers. None of this is made easier by the fact that Alanna’s had a secret crush on Jerry since they were at school together, and Jerry’s just starting to believe he might be someone worthy of the Lady Alanna.

These stories are available for purchase at the link above as both hard copy and epub, as free PDFs here, and as less polished, pre-final-edits versions on AO3.

Upcoming in the series is Twelve Points, starring a trans man from Askazer-Shivadlakia competing in Eurovision!


Do you have a rec for this week? Just reply to this post with something queer or queer-adjacent (such as, soap made by a queer person that isn't necessarily queer themed) that you'd, well, recommend. Self-recs are welcome, as are recs for fandom-related content!

Or have you tried something that's been recced here? Do you have your own report to share about it? I'd love to hear about it!

Comments

[bluapapilio]

Thanks for the rec, got the PDFs!