#The Foundling

[azertyrobaz]

The color red. A door closing. Behind it your worst nightmare.

[the-dust-jacket]

Heyer but gayer!

In honor of KJ Charles' new books The Duke At Hazard, a twist on one of Georgette Heyer's most delightfully ridiculous novels, The Foundling, we present to the tonne a selection of queer romance sorted by a few favorites from the queen of Regency Romance.

(Mostly Regency, a few earlier, and occasionally creeping all the way up to Victorian, and please note that most of these are steamy enough to make a Heyer heroine collapse on the fainting couch clutching her vinagraitte!)

Sylvester, or the Wicked Uncle:

Band Sinister

Wanted, a Gentleman

Something Fabulous

Infamous

The Masqueraders:

The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting

The Perks of Loving a Wallflower

Frederica:

It Takes Two to Tumble

Unmasked by the Marquess

Her Lady to Love

Cotillion:

Infamous

Venetia

Band Sinister

The Ruin of a Rake

Faro's Daughter

The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting

The Hellion's Waltz

The Society of Gentlemen series

Beauvallet:

Valiant Ladies

Brethren

These Old Shades

The Society of Gentlemen series

Unmasked by the Marquess

Devil's Cub:

The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue

Her Morning Star

The Corinthian:

The Perks of Loving a Wallflower

Wanted, a Gentleman

A Civil Contract

A Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics

The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows

The Society of Gentlemen series

Friday's Child

Band Sinister

The Talisman Ring:

The Queer Principles of Kit Webb

A Thief In the Night

Something Fabulous

The Reluctant Widow:

Trouble

The Lawrence Browne Affair

The Nobleman's Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel

Arabella:

Unmasked by the Marquess

An Island Princess Starts a Scandal

Her Lady to Love

The Unknown Ajax:

The Secret Lives of Country Gentleman and The Nobleman's Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel

What are your favorites?

[aidoneira]

The Foundling has updated with chapter 3: The First Song!

Tensions are high in the newly formed band Dethklok with members often at odds with one another as well as with themselves. As they struggle to get a demo tape recorded that will make or break them, the unexpected addition of a 6th member shakes everything up in ways none of them could have ever predicted.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/54233617/chapters/161383414

Also, did you know The Foundling has a playlist? Carefully curated with songs that reflect the story and the feelings within. Check it out!

[spockvarietyhour]

The Regime S01E02 "Foundling"

[laughhardrunfastbekindsblog]

My favorite piece of Mandalorian concept art. By a mile. Hands down. No contest.

[disjointedaria]

Finally finished up art of the PCs in an Avatar Legends tabletop game I'm running for some local friends. :3

[starsaroundsaturn]

listen my favorite heyer novel I've ever read is still The Foundling because it is a story about a people pleaser learning to have boundaries and Gilly is such a sweetie pie and I love him.

[gcballet]

Ughhh The Foundling by Stacey Halls has a Madama Butterfly plot the RAAAAGE

[cirr0stratus]

Bo-katan and Tao

reposting this bc the initial image i posted was SO dark oops

[qulrikkek]

Summary: The rescue of Ragnar goes South.

Notes: There is a major change in the manner they rescue Ragnar. Also, added some more tension to the action, because I felt it was lacking in the Episode. The attraction is also steadily growing between our pair.

[bnw-axbold]

Broken

[echofive7567]

how the hell does everyone fit in bo-katan's absolute clown car of a ship? for e7 i can understand, they were sitting in that drop area but in the earlier episode with the birds where were the birds??? cause i doubt they'd fit in the drop area with all the other mandalorians!!

[kylosroboarm]

I get really sad when I think of the fact that Grogu will probably be HALF of Din’s life…but Din will only be about 50 years (maybe 5%) of Grogu’s life

[wanderingjedi77]

I have some new stories coming out this week, so please keep an eye out for those. I'll post a list and the days I expect them to be up.

1. This is the Way Part 2 (May 5/6th)

2. Mon Mothma x Fem!Reader (Spies) (May 6th)

3. The Foundling Chapters 4 & 5 (May 7th)

4. The Reckoning Chapter 3 (May 8th)

5. Hera Syndulla x Reader (I Have Loved the Stars Too Fondly) (May 8th)

[spockvarietyhour]

Dune Pt 2 (2024) directed by Denis Villeneuve

[semper-legens]

106. The Foundling, by Stacey Halls

Owned: No, library Page count: 370 My summary: Bess Bright left her illegitimate daughter at a foundling hospital, which promises to take in and raise unwanted babies. She leaves a token of half a whalebone heart with the baby, swearing she will one day return. Six years later, she’s finally saved up enough money to take her child back...only to find that she already had, one day after she dropped her off. But who was the woman that gave her name and took her child? And will Bess ever be reunited with her baby? My rating: 3/5 My commentary:

Stacey Halls is the kind of author whose books should be exactly my kind of thing. This one as much as the last one I read, The Familiars - it’s set in Georgian London! I love this time period! And it’s about women’s lives! But in reality, like The Familiars, I just wasn’t that connected to it. I wound up having a better time with the book than I did The Familiars, possibly because this novel is not based on a true story and as such there were far fewer inaccurate or (to my mind) misinterpreted events. But still. It was not all that it should be, and that’s so frustrating.

The story is told between two POV characters. One is Bess, the child’s natural mother who is trying to find her and bring her home. The other is Alexandra, the child’s adoptive mother who wants to keep her as close and safe as possible. I will admit, both of them were interesting enough in their way. Bess was a very earnest, very wholesome protagonist, and Alexandra’s mental health issues and trauma seen through the lens of the Georgian attitude to health is engaging enough. Alexandra is ambiguously autistic, and traumatised by her parents having been killed in front of her when she was a child. So she keeps Charlotte (the child) close, and doesn’t let her go outside most of the time. Healthy? Hell no, but that’s the best way she can keep control of her situation. I’ll give Halls this, she managed to write this character without imposing too much of a 21st century attitude over her. People obviously think she’s ‘mad’, but she’s wealthy enough and independent enough that she manages to get away with it. Bess, meanwhile, is just ignored by society at large. She’s an unmarried working woman, they’re a dime a dozen. I also have to give Halls kudos for showing some of the diversity of Georgian London - Bess’ best friend is a free black woman, and she and her family are a natural part of London’s scene. She lives in an area highly populated by Jewish people, black people, immigrants of all stripes. It’s not something you always see in historical fiction, so it’s nice to see here!

My biggest problem with the narrative here is that everything seems to happen when the plot needs it to happen. We get all this setup with Bess being mystified as to who took her child out of the foundling hospital, and then a few scenes later she’s bumping into her at a chapel, entirely coincidentally. Alexandra is supposedly this paranoid agoraphobic wreck, but she lets Bess into her house anyway on a vague justification, and later doesn’t fire her despite wanting to deeply. As soon as Alexandra is introduced as Charlotte’s father’s widow, most of the mystery is gone. Obviously, she was the one who took Charlotte back. How she knew Bess’ name and what token was left for her isn’t so much of a mystery, and is neatly explained in a kind of handwavey way at the end. The story then becomes a push and pull between Bess’ poverty but deep affection for Charlotte, versus Alexandra’s wealth and luxury but more hands-off and protective approach to motherhood. Which isn’t quite as interesting, mostly because Charlotte herself isn’t much of a character. She just kind of reacts to things, and her opinion doesn’t really matter much to the story, which I thought was kind of a letdown. Both Bess and Alexandra had the potential to be much more interesting than this narrative made them, with Bess’ poverty and working-class lifestyle and Alexandra’s trauma at a time when that wasn’t a recognised condition. All of that is just...background to the fight over Charlotte, never really developed so much. I get it, I get what Halls was going for. But I’m not sure she managed to pull it off, sad to say.

Next up, a young girl finds herself far, far away from home.