#Solomons crown

[noahhawthorneauthor]

these are some of my favorites ✨🏳️‍🌈📚

[that-bl-bitch]

9 fandom friends to get to know better

I was tagged by @clowncroccharms thanks!

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3 ships I love

Obviously my favorite ships are forever rotating and I’m only gonna stick to bl land if that’s cool so this is who I’m liking currently 

1- kor and namsom (city of stars) second lead syndrome always and forever😘✌🏽 (I just love how much he loves her he will do anything to be with her again)

2- miyata and iwanaga (koi wo suru nara) need I elaborate 

3- Achi and Ji (to be continued)

First ship ever

Gun to my head I couldn’t tell you who my first ever ship was but since we’re sticking to bl land anyways I’ll do the first ship that got me into BLs in the first place which is tin and can from love by chance, like I said forever and always a second lead syndrome having bitch and I meant it when I said it like forreal I didnt even know that Pete and Ae were the main characters going in, anyways i saw them on tumblr and said who and what is that and started watching lbc a couple weeks later 

Last song I listened to

-Overdrive by Conan gray 

Favorite childhood book

-I would have to say Diary of wimpy kid probably 

Currently reading

Nothing right now but I am about to start "Solomon’s Crown" By Natasha Siegel a gay period book which is not my vibe usually, I don’t like non modern set books usually but then I read Breeze Spells and Bridegrooms By Sarah Wallace & S.O Callahan and fell in love, This book is really good if you like fairy’s, magic, gay romance, and (I believe) regency  era this is the book for you this is not my usual genre very far from it and I truly loved it enough to read it again and don’t really reread books it’s also set in a queer normative world which is like why I don’t read period cause I don’t want to read and about period specific homophobia and secret sneak around relationships so without that I was really super optimistic going in and truly 10/10 I’m not gonna go into to details but it did make me cry and feel so much love in my heart but go read the blurb and if you are even slightly interested in it from that I think you should give it go, so after finishing that now I’m trying to chase that high so I hope Solomon’s Crown is also really good, I have a bunch lined up in similar worlds so wish me luck

Currently watching

Next level chef UK cause I love next level chef and I’ve already ran through the American seasons and now I’m working on the UK

edit: I rough draft this last night when I was watching NLC: UK but right right now I'm watching station 19

Currently consuming

Nada, I’m in bed chilling I did just have brekkie, cherrios

Currently craving

I could really go for some cotten candy ice cream

I'm tagging: @monroeurfnboat @hautegirl07 @good-night-space-kid

Yall have been in my notifs lately so do it if you wanna :)

[journey-to-the-attic]

funny picture allsort :^) (reference photos below)

[jhsjykwpdw]

its rotten work / not to me, not if its you

[patroclusdefencesquad]

not kidding when i say that the line "and went to war with a man whose hips were still inscribed with the shadow of my fingertips" is bouncing around my head like the windows screensaver

[evenaturtleduck]

Solomon's Crown, p. 67

[shop5]

I tried to recommend a book to someone and they said 'I don't like reading rpf' and fair yeah, but the real people in question have been both mythologized in their own right and also dead for 800 years

[aurorawest]

Reading update

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers - 3.75/5 stars

I hate myself a little bit for using this word to describe this book, but it's a meditation on modern (western) culture, the drumbeat of living a purposeful life, and, imo, the millennial condition.

It also, separately from that, made me think of the song 'New Constellations' by Ryn Weaver: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13EX7qGdUGI

The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen by KJ Charles - 5/5 stars

This book features Gareth Inglis, a member of the gentry whose father shipped him off to his uncle when his mother died. Gareth never saw or heard from his father (who remarried and had another child) again, and no one knew he existed because his father was a piece of human garbage. Which meant I couldn't stop thinking about my former father-in-law, who had two sons from his first marriage whom he, as far as I could tell, never had any contact with after remarrying and having another child. Life imitates art?

Anyway, it's KJ Charles, so you pretty much can't go wrong. I saw someone refer to this as enemies-to-lovers and realized my toxic trait is railing against people who want to apply enemies-to-lovers to everything. Spoiler alert, this is not enemies-to-lovers. But it is lovely, and includes Gareth and Joss Doomsday (a smuggler) bonding over beetles.

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by SA Chakraborty - 4.5/5 stars

It was no Daevabad Trilogy, but then again, I remember finishing City of Brass and being like, yeah, it was fine, I'll probably pick up the sequel at some point. It wasn't until Kingdom of Copper that I grew to really love the series, so I'm hoping the same happens with this. This book was a lot of fun, and the fact that all the characters were middle-aged was pretty delightful. I'm definitely excited to see where this series goes.

The Long Run by James Acker - 5/5 stars

Excellent YA book about two lonely jocks in New Jersey.

Feel the Fire by Annabeth Albert - 3.75/5 stars

His Accidental Cowboy by AM Arthur - 4/5 stars

Brida by Paul Coelho - 1/5 stars

One of the reviews for this book on Storygraph says it 'aged like milk' and I can't put it better than that. This is a soul mate AU where souls undergo cell division, essentially, and your soul mate is from your same base soul from before the soul split in half. Okay, great. Oh but wait, the soul always divides into male and female. And your soul mate is always someone of the opposite sex, even though that doesn't make sense because as souls divide again and again, that means there are a lot of people out there who came from the same original soul as you. Also, witchcraft? Also also, even though the book is called Brida and is ostensibly about the title character, her whole journey was really just to serve the unnamed male character, the Magus. This isn't implicit either, it's completely explicit. At the end it's like, 'sometimes young women come along to show men the way' (I'm paraphrasing but...not much).

This went straight to my give away pile, and I hated it so much that the rest of my Coelho books joined it (except The Alchemist).

Enlightened by Joanna Chambers - 5/5 stars

Or, For The Love Of God Please Give David Lauriston And Murdo Balfour A Break, And Preferably A Happy Ending.

They got one, btw.

Song of Silver, Flame Like Night by Amélie Wen Zhao - DNF

Honestly, the Mad Libs YA title should have warned me off of this one, but I always give my Illumicrate books a try. Cartoonish villains and protagonists I find myself liking less the more we get to know them. The prose is quite good but not enough to make up for the character deficiencies.

Solomon's Crown by Natasha Siegel - 5/5 stars

Blurbed by no less than Tamora Pierce (Song of the Lioness supremacy!), Rainbow Rowell, Freya Marske, and CS Pacat. Did I go into this book with insanely high expectations? Yes. Did it mostly meet them? Yes! If you're a Captive Prince fan, this one's for you.

Siegel tells us up front, before the book even starts, that it's a romance and not historically accurate. So don't go into this expecting a historically accurate love story between King Richard of England and King Philip of France. It is, however, a gorgeous romance. The world-building is top notch. Even if it's not totally accurate to the High Middle Ages, it feels accurate, if that makes sense? Siegel really captures the feeling of being in a different world. Lush writing, amazing sexual/romantic tension, lovely sad boys. Highly, highly recommend.

Daniel Cabot Puts Down Roots by Cat Sebastian - 4.75/5 stars

I docked .25 stars because it bugged me that they didn't move in together at the end. Idk, just felt too 'look, I'm subverting romance conventions!' Still good, obviously.

Like Real People Do by EL Massey - 4/5 stars

A very wholesome and low stakes hockey romance. I found myself often thinking that the interactions of the men on the hockey teams seemed unrealistic, but it was charming and sweet enough that I didn't care.

The book reads like fanfiction, which is because it was fanfiction—but it's in a mostly good way, not a bad way (*cough* All The Way Happy *cough*). Apparently the original version was Check, Please! fanfiction, which I am vaguely familiar with as a thing that exists. Apparently it's a web comic? Anyway, I enjoyed the book enough to pick up the sequel.

[bangbangwhoa]

books I’ve read in 2023 📖 no. 096

Solomon’s Crown by Natasha Siegel

“I had been naive to ever assume I could keep us at peace. Kisses do not a kingdom make, nor love a conquest end. I loved him, but that was not enough.”

[noahhawthorneauthor]

I loved the audiobooks so much, I acquired trophies. 🎧📚🌈

Or vice versa in the case of The Last Sun (and series), and A Strange and Stubborn Endurance. I borrowed A Strange and Stubborn Endurance from the library, loved it, then listened on audiobook and later acquired a hard copy. I bought The Last Sun and series, and later listened to the audiobooks at least five times each.

Yes, really.

There's a method to my madness, I swear. In case you haven't noticed, I'm big on rereading, and relistening. I love to annotate, and I love the emotion that narrators put into the stories I love. It's a hand in hand experience for me. I've recently listened to Silver Under Nightfall and The Scottish Boy, so the next time I experience them will be in pages and pencil.

The second slide are audiobooks that I love, but haven't collected the print editions yet.

[ladygodgiven]

this is what solomon's crown felt like ngl

[angevinyaoiz]

bruh this book got wild. I expected it to be very fluffy romance etc whatever not historically accurate but WOW even by those standards there were some unintentional fucked up behavior going on in it??? Geoffrey wasn't even homophobic he literally did not do a single thing wrong the entire story wtf he was getting strung along by Philip (who made treaty with him and then decided to DITCH him for his Situationship) and bullied by Richard the whole time and when Geoff comes to them with VERY REASONABLE CRITICISMS OF HOW RICH IS HANDLING THINGS Richard just is like "nyehhh you don't understand....our Special connection" then he fucking died with CONSTANCE WATCHING and then Philip and Rich are like hm....oh well...sad.....anyways. let's make out some more....Philip refuses to take responsibility for literally anything the entire book he's just like "I may be the most highest ranking man in this part of Europe. :( but my hands are tied....I'm FORCED to make these problematic decisions .....I couldn't help but break my promises to Geoffrey you know how it is......I was having my baby gay awakening....sorry for being a bad friend :/ but u know how true love is"

Like even without thinking about historical accuracy and whatever (and I could have LOTS to say) it's like everyone behaves SO shittily and the story kind of takes that "soft' approach to them in which no one ever makes a Bad Decision no one ever behaves truly selfishly, it's always like "I had no choice..." which. Don't get me wrong I LOVE characters being shitty but it's wild when the story itself just kind of shrugs it off like "Geoffrey??? He had bad vibes. Sucks to be him. Anyways ...here's the power of enduring love or whatever (living in a delusional world where ur decisions don't affect the world around you even if it literally the most powerful people on the continent) it's like supposed to be soft and a more positive story but somehow that framing of it being a Romance(tm) makes all the stuff look worse jfodfijf

[bibliophileiz]

"To think, I had feared you might be dull." His eyes trailed languidly over my face, from my hairline to my jaw; a cataloguing, exploratory sort of gaze, one that felt almost violating. "I thought you might be tedious, as your father was. But you are not." "What am I, then? If not dull?" "I do not know," he replied. "A contradiction. An enemy, an ally. A question and an answer."

Richard the Lionheart to King Philip, Solomon's Crown by Natasha Siegel, pg. 47

look, I don't care for Siegel's portrayal of Eleanor in this book, but she grasps the inherent homoeroticism of feuding kings.

[jhsjykwpdw]

its a summer day and i want to be wanted more than anything in the world

[cordofcommunion]

i've just started reading a gay "retelling" of richard i and phillip ii's relationship that should be doing numbers on the lion in winter side of tumblr

[kazz-brekker]

i regret to inform you all that my curiosity has gotten the better of me and i am now reading the richard the lionheart/philip ii of france book that came out in march. so far it is committing the cardinal sin of being somewhat boring and skipping over the fun bits of history like richard’s literal teenaged rebellion against his dad but i feel obligated to stick with it at least until it gets gay to see what it does with that.