Shakespeare, Fae, and Orisha: That Self-Same Metal by Brittany N. Williams

the cover of That Self-Same Metal by Brittany N. Williams

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At the age of sixteen, Joan Sands possesses exceptional craftsmanship skills that she employs to create and maintain the stage blades for The King’s Men, a theatrical troupe led by William Shakespeare. Joan’s remarkable blade-crafting ability is rooted in her magical power to manipulate metal, bestowed upon her by her guiding deity, the head Orisha, Ogun. Hailing from a family blessed by Orishas, the Sands have always been attuned to the presence of Fae in London.

Normally, this awareness entails little more than observing the subtle luminance enveloping the Fae as they attempt to assimilate into London’s social fabric. However, recently, there has been a noticeable rise in violent Fae assaults. When Joan injures a formidable Fae assailant and rescues a nobleman’s son in the process, she becomes entangled in the intricate web of political machinations spanning both the human and Fae realms.

This is a captivating story! Joan’s journey is portrayed with such depth and authenticity that she feels like a genuine person, navigating the complexities of being forced to grow up too soon while still grappling with relatable teenage experiences. Joan’s confidence in her bisexuality, coupled with her witty humor about her romantic encounters, adds a layer of realism that’s both endearing and relatable. In avoiding making Joan’s sexuality a central point of conflict, the author’s depiction of her as a casually queer person is remarkably refreshing. The near absence of queerphobia is a commendable aspect of the book. Rather than being related to her sexuality as a whole, Joan’s central romantic conflict involving her strong feelings for two people at once, which brings a rich complexity to her character, as she grapples with matters of the heart.

Similarly, while Joan’s Blackness is not used as a central conflict point, this book deftly addresses complex issues of race and class. Joan and her family are accepted within their immediate circle, but the author skillfully exposes the insidious racism perpetuated by the upper classes. The narrative masterfully highlights the disturbing tendency toward fetishization, as well as the harmful notion of there being a “correct” mold for a Black person. By shedding light on these often-overlooked aspects, the book invites readers to confront uncomfortable truths.

Finally, the portrayal of the Fae lore is a standout feature of this novel. Rather than the typical romanticized depiction, the Fae are presented as gritty, malevolent creatures, much more in keeping with their mythological depictions. The exploration of their darker aspects adds an intriguing layer of tension and suspense to the narrative. Similarly, the incorporation of Orisha into the story is a brilliant addition that sets this book apart. It’s refreshing to see the inclusion of elements from a lesser-explored mythology, and I’m eager to learn more about Orisha in the upcoming sequel.

All in all, this novel successfully weaves together multifaceted characters, captivating Fae lore, and unique mythological influences, creating an immersive and unforgettable reading experience. I am greatly looking forward to what the author has in store for us in the sequel!

Content warnings: racism, sexism, murder, dismemberment, blood, some gore.

8 of the Best Sapphic Shakespeare Retellings

a graphic with a painting of two women reading together and the text 8 Sapphic Shakespeare Retellings

Queering Shakespeare is a popular academic subject—and why not? Shakespeare was bisexual himself, and his plays are packed full of cross-dressing and other queer shenanigans. Personally, I love a good retelling, especially one that features queer women, so I had to see if I could find enough to put together a list. Sadly, there are a lot fewer LGBTQ retellings of Shakespeare than I expected, especially Romeo and Juliet. Is retelling a forbidden love story as a queer romance too obvious?

Worse, I could find hardly any examples of queer Shakespeare retellings by authors of colour. It’s been a while since Ash, Malinda Lo! Maybe a historical fiction F/F Romeo and Juliet retelling? I’m just spit-balling here.

Although I’d like there to be more, we do have some excellent bi and lesbian Shakespeare retellings out there, so without any more preamble, let’s get into it!

the cover of Tragic

Tragic by Dana Mele & Valentina Pinti (Hamlet)

This is a queer graphic novel retelling of Hamlet! When Harper’s father dies mysteriously, she begins trying to find the culprit. Her mother has been having an affair with Harper’s uncle, making him the #1 suspect.

To help her get to the bottom of this, she enlists the help of her ex-girlfriend and her best friend (who she also has some complicated feelings for). Then her father’s business partner dies, and she realizes this is much bigger than she originally thought.

Her obsession leads to recurring dreams about her father’s death, and she begins hallucinating the ghost of a teenage Hamlet. She’ll have to bright to light a few more skeletons in her family’s closet if she wants to close this chapter.

Lady Hotspur cover

Lady Hotspur by Tessa Gratton (Henry IV)

While The Queens of Innis Lear implied a lot of characters were either bi or pansexual, Lady Hotspur centres its queer main characters. It also takes its time in establishing the world, so be prepared for hundreds of pages of epic fantasy. This loose retelling of Henry IV—a sequel to her take on King Lear—is an ambitious book that is quite divisive: it’s the kind of story people seem to love or hate. If a gender-swapped fantasy version of Henry IV with a complex sapphic romance sounds up your alley (and why would you be reading this post if it wasn’t?), give this one a try and decide for yourself.

As I Descended by Robin Talley cover

As I Descended by Robin Talley (Macbeth)

I believe this is the most well-known example of a sapphic Shakespeare retelling. As I Descended is Macbeth as a queer southern gothic YA set at a boarding school. This doesn’t follow every plot point of Macbeth, but it firmly establishes a broody atmosphere and is filled with revenge plots.

This story starts off spooky (with a Ouija board), and steadily gets darker as it progresses, ending up in seriously unsettling territory. Keep in mind the source material and don’t expect a cheerful ending, but because there are so many queer characters (including a Latina main character and a main character with a disability), there is no token queer character to kill off. This is perfect for a fall evening while listening to the wind howl outside your window.

Star-Crossed by Barbara Dee cover

Star-Crossed by Barbara Dee (Romeo and Juliet)

Of course, I have to recommend this adorable middle grade book about a girl who finds herself playing Romeo in the school play—and falling for her Juliet. But she’s had a crush on a boy before! What does it mean? This has some parallels to the play, but mostly it’s about putting on the production itself, including some discussion of the themes and ideas embedded in it. This was one of the first middle grade books to feature a bisexual main character (the paperback edition even uses the word “bisexual” on the page!) It is sweet and well done, and I’m so grateful we have middle grade books like this being published now.

the cover of Miranda in Milan by Katharine Duckett

Miranda in Milan by Katharine Duckett (The Tempest)

This one isn’t actually a retelling as much as a sequel!

Miranda and Ferdinand are in Milan to be married, ready to start their Happily Ever After, but Miranda does not get the welcome she expected. Instead, she finds herself isolated. The only person willing to keep her company is her maid, Dorothea, a queer Black Moroccan Muslim woman with her own magic powers.

Part fluffy F/F story, part creepy magic, this novella has Miranda reexamining all of the events of The Tempest, and what her father is responsible for.

Among Other Things, I've Taken Up Smoking by Aoibheann Sweeney cover

Among Other Things, I’ve Taken Up Smoking by Aoibheann Sweeney (The Tempest)

If you asked me to predict which Shakespeare play would be the most popular to adapt into a sapphic story, I wouldn’t have chosen The Tempest, but here we are. This one is also part Ovid’s Metamorphosis, and takes place between two islands: Crab, the tiny island in Maine that Miranda grows up on, and Manhattan, where she ends up. This is a story about loneliness, even when transplanted to the big city. Miranda has to decide which path she should choose (including how to resolve a bisexual love triangle). The strength of the book is Sweeney’s restrained, poetic style.

The Last True Poets of the Sea by Julia Drake cover

The Last True Poets of the Sea by Julia Drake (Twelfth Night)

This is an atmospheric, absorbing story of Violet’s attempts to understand her complicated family by searching for a lost shipwreck that changed the direction of their lives. It turned their family into survivors—at least, that’s what they tell themselves. But siblings Violent and Sam are on a downward spiral, and when Sam attempts to take his life, partier Violet is sent away. 

The Last True Poets of the Sea includes family secrets, a bisexual love triangle, a failing aquarium, and an F/F romance with a fellow wreck hunter. Perfect for fans of Ashley Herring Blake or Summer of Salt.

the cover of That Way Madness Lies edited by Dahlia Adler

That Way Madness Lies: 15 of Shakespeare’s Most Notable Works Reimagined edited by Dahlia Adler (Multiple)

And finally, this is a YA anthology with 15 retellings of Shakespeare, including many queer stories. I know at least one story is sapphic: “Dreaming of the Dark” (Julius Caesar) by Lindsay Smith, which has dark academia and witches! When a group of friends find themselves in possession of dark magic, it begins to consume them.

There are also some big name authors in queer YA included here, like Anna-Marie McLemore, Melissa Bashardoust, A. R. Capetta, Mark Oshiro, and of course Dahlia Adler herself.

This isn’t a complete list, but hopefully this gives you an idea of some of the sapphic directions that authors have taken Shakespeare in. In the meantime, keep on keeping Shakespeare queer!

An earlier version of this post ran on Book Riot.

Support the Lesbrary on Patreon at $2 or more a month and be entered to win a sapphic book every month! $10 and up patrons get guaranteed books throughout the year on top of the giveaways!

A Sapphic Sequel to Shakespeare’s The Tempest: Miranda in Milan by Katharine Duckett

the cover of Miranda in Milan by Katharine Duckett

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Out of all of Shakespeare’s comedies, The Tempest has always stuck out to me as particularly odd. The play’s initial premise hardly seems like it belongs in a comedy at all—an ousted duke raises his daughter alone on a magical isle, binding spirits to his will and planning his vengeance for a dozen years before wrecking the king of Italy’s flagship with a sorcerous storm. And Prospero’s plan indeed unfolds, Monte Cristo-like, exactly as he wills it. But while we see the magician conjure ghosts and minor deities to serve him, enchant people with magical sleep and paralysis, and master the very elements of the isle, the play wraps up with the same brotherly reunions, marriage engagements, and heartfelt speeches as any of the Bard’s other comedic productions.

Author Katharine Duckett must have been just as intrigued by this curious juxtaposition as I am, because her debut novella Miranda in Milan explores precisely what happens after Prospero and his daughter Miranda return to Italy. Miranda in Milan is a direct sequel to The Tempest, staying faithful to the events in Shakespeare’s play but assuming that (written and staged as it is, largely from Prospero’s perspective) it may be the account of a somewhat unreliable narrator. Instead, Duckett gives us Miranda’s point of view. Miranda is a fascinating and compelling character for how little time she actually spends on stage—John William Waterhouse’s classic painting Miranda–The Tempest showcasing how much space she occupies in our collective imagination of the play. In Miranda in Milan, Duckett asks the very pertinent question, “what does a sorcerer’s daughter, who has lived practically alone on an island for almost all her life, do when suddenly brought to one of the largest cities in sixteenth-century Italy?”

The answer, delightfully, is that she falls in love with a Moorish witch working as a chambermaid in the Milanese castle. Together, the two of them are forced to solve the mystery surrounding Prospero’s exile. Was it truly ambition that led Antonio to betray his brother? And what ever happened to Miranda’s mother, who in all of The Tempest is mentioned only once? Miranda in Milan does a good job fleshing out the shadow that The Tempest casts, the context that either rings insincere or is brushed away in the original play. This includes some of the more problematic aspects of Shakespeare’s writing, gendered and racialized alike. The character of Caliban looms arguably larger out of Shakespeare’s pages than even Miranda does. Considering the amount of academic ink that has been spilled over Caliban in the past, I could see the argument that Duckett leaves him rather too conveniently out of sight. Personally, I found her portrayal of Caliban to be deeply sympathetic, with a clear influence on the story that ran throughout the novella. Duckett clearly set out to write a book about Miranda, but Miranda’s relationship to Caliban is an unavoidable aspect of her character, and I enjoyed how that informed the story.

Which brings me finally to Ferdinand, and possibly what I enjoyed most about Miranda in Milan. Like I mentioned earlier, Duckett doesn’t directly contradict anything in The Tempest; she merely expands and recontextualizes the events of the play. By all accounts, Ferdinand isn’t a bad man in either book—which is what makes Miranda’s journey such a compelling metaphor for the forces of compulsory heterosexuality. Miranda is raised never knowing another mortal woman. Her father, the civilized patriarch who “tamed” the feminine wilderness of Sycorax and the island, is her only source of information about the world and its workings. The same father regularly enchants her into slumber when it suits his purpose, and spends a great deal of the play manipulating her into falling in love with a man of his choosing—who, again, is literally the first person Miranda has ever seen outside the men she grew up around. Is that love? Would true love require such Herculean effort, the spells and stories and years of isolation, to produce? Or is it simply a role in a play, in which Miranda’s lines were written for her long ago? Even after Miranda becomes aware of the possibility of women loving each other, deviating from that script would cost Miranda the security, protection, and power of becoming queen of Naples by Ferdinand’s side—and earn Prospero’s tempestuous wrath. This choice will feel familiar to many lesbians in our society, and it is the choice that Miranda has to make in Milan.

I have a lot to say about Miranda in Milan for how slim a volume it is. Personally, I would have loved for the novella to engage with The Tempest on a metatextual level, not just a literal one (though there is a great line about how Prospero “always spoke as if he were performing,” which tickled me pink). I realize, however, that would probably turn the book into more of a deconstruction of The Tempest rather than a sequel, which Miranda in Milan excels at being. It’s fun, it’s cute, and it doesn’t take much longer to read than the original play. In my mind, this is just how The Tempest ends for me now.

Samantha Lavender is a lesbian library assistant on the west coast, making ends meet with a creative writing degree and her wonderful butch partner. She spends her spare time playing and designing tabletop roleplaying games. You can follow her @LavenderSam on tumblr.

Elinor Zimmerman reviews Set the Stage by Karis Walsh

When I picked up this book, I wasn’t sure if a romance set in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival would really be my thing because I’m not a theater person. But Walsh’s vivid descriptions of Ashland, Oregon, of the festival, and of her lead’s clashing career paths were so charming that I was transported. If you want a nice little romance to escape into, this might be the novel for you.

Emilie is an actor with more than a few career regrets who sees her season with the festival as a chance to finally get back on track professionally. She suffers from stage fright and once abandoned her theater dreams and initial acclaim for her work in order to follow her girlfriend, a fellow actor, on tour. She’s determined not to let anything stand in the way of her ambition again.

Arden is a lifelong Ashland resident, daughter of an actor and a director who left her to be raised by her grandparents while they pursued theater careers all over the world. She works in the local park, just like her late grandfather did. She dates actress who come for the festival and regularly gets her heart broken in the process.

Arden and Emilie are drawn to each other from the moment they meet in the park but agree that they should just be friends. Emilie doesn’t want a distraction and Arden doesn’t need another relationship with an expiration date. Over many months of rehearsals and performances, the two grow closer and closer, cheering each other on in their careers even as those ambitions threaten their bond.

The romance in this burns slow but I appreciated that. A lot of the focus is on their connection as dear friends, Emilie’s struggles to perform when her confidence is low, and Arden reconsidering the life she planned for herself and what her professional aims actually are. It’s engaging and fun.

The only thing I didn’t really like was Emilie’s roommate, a graduate student in psychology, who wants to use Emilie for her studies. While I’d buy an undergrad new to the field blurring personal and professional boundaries, by grad school a psych student should know better than to pressure a new roommate into quasi-therapy sessions for her research. Maybe this sort of thing would happen but it sounded unethical. It also seemed to be a way to reveal some of Emilie’s backstory and have her come to realizations. Luckily this roommate basically disappears from the book once she’s served that purpose.

Overall, it’s a fun romance. It made me want to go this festival, which I’d never had any interest in before. Set the Stage is worth a read for fans of romance or theater.

Elinor Zimmerman is the author of Certain Requirements, which will be released by Bold Strokes Books in Spring 2018 and is a contributor to the anthology Unspeakably Erotic, edited by D.L. King, and out now. Her website is ElinorZimmerman.com

Danika reviews As I Descended by Robin Talley

As I Descended robin talley

When I heard a YA book was coming out that was a lesbian boarding school Macbeth retelling, I was already on board before I had even heard that it was by Robin Talley, the author of one of my favourite lesbian YA books.

This isn’t a direct retelling of Macbeth, but it does cover most of the main plot points, and it delivered exactly the kind of broody atmosphere full of revenge plots that I was hoping for. There are some great nods to the original story, including the chapter titles all being lines from the play, but it also works if you haven’t read or seen the play–or if, like me, you read it years ago and have to Wikipedia the plot details. The haunted boarding school (built on a former plantation) adds to the creepy factor, pulling in a strong Southern Gothic vibe.

As I Descended immediately drops us into this atmosphere, with the main characters summoning spirits with a Ouija board. I really enjoyed this brooding story, but I was surprised when the genre started to slip slightly into horror territory. I would definitely warn anyone planning on reading it that there are triggers common to horror, including blood and violence, as well as a blurring of reality.

It’s probably silly to mention in a review of a Macbeth retelling, but this gets very dark. If you only read LGBTQ books with a happily ever after, this isn’t the book for you. These are deeply flawed people, and the relationship at the heart of Descended is an unhealthy one. Maria (read: Macbeth) and Lily (read: Lady Macbeth) obviously are devoted to each other, but Lily knows how to manipulate Maria and uses that information. Maria initially seems to be an ideal student and friend, but as soon as she begins to lose that moral high ground she can’t seem to stop slipping.

It’s enough to have a lesbian YA Macbeth retelling, but there are other elements going on in this narrative as well. Maria is Latina, and her understanding of what’s happening to her and the spirit(s?) in the school comes from her relationship with Altagracia, her childhood nanny, who taught her how to communicate with spirits. Mateo is also Latino, but he has a different understanding of the spirits at the school. Lily is desperate to overcome being seen as just “the girl with the crutches”, and is terrified of adding “lesbian” to that.

Mateo, Brandon, Lily, and Maria are all queer, so no one character has to represent all of queerkind. That way, although a Macbeth retelling has a low survival rate, this doesn’t feel like a “Bury Your Gays” situation, because a) it’s a genre that demands a high death rate and b) no one character is The Gay.

I did feel like I couldn’t quite understand why Maria changed so drastically over the course of the book, and I was surprised at the tone change from “delightfully broody” to “I’m legitimately horrified”, but those are small complaints.

I would definitely recommend this one, especially on a blustery fall evening.