Romance Novel Recommendations

I read any and all genres, but I am maybe a little pickier than most when it comes to romance novels. I don’t believe this is unique to me: while all writing is subjective, romance speaks more to our emotions than intellect, and perhaps this makes it more subjective than most.

So, have a list of some of my favorite romance novels of all time, in case there is something in here that you might not have read that you might enjoy.

I realize that some of these books won’t necessarily be shelved as romances, but I think of them as romances. I tried to sort them by theme (so that I had some sense of organization instead of just a lengthy list), but there is a lot of intersectionality, so the sorting is somewhat subjective.

Historical Romance

A Countess Below Stairs by Eva Ibbotson (later also published as A Secret Countess)

This is the first romance novel I ever read that I loved, and it disabused me of a lot of assumptions I had about romance novels before I read it.

This is a feel-good historical romance about Anna, a Russian countess living penniless in England after fleeing Russia with her mother and brother, and Rupert, the second son of an earl who never expected to become his father’s successor. In the wake of World War I, Anna needs work, and Rupert’s estate is in desperate need of help as they rush to prepare the estate for his return following the war—desperate enough to hire an untrained noblewoman.

The biggest appeals of this book are the sublime prose, and the delightful cast of characters. I say this is the story of Anna and Rupert, but it is about so many other people: it’s about Rupert’s family, Anna’s family, the staff of Rupert’s household, the surrounding community…

What struck me more than anything was the way this book did not use the word “love” or any stereotypical romance narration. The romance is central, and yet much of the emotionality is communicated subtly, without ever directly articulating the emotions in words. It is wonderful and continues to this day to be one of my favorite romance novels of all time.

Other novels by this author:

• The Morning Gift – a romance novel set during WWII, where an English biology professor marries the daughter of a colleague in Vienna to help her evacuate amidst rapidly changing border laws. Once back in England, however, fate conspires to make a simple annulment very complicated to obtain.
• Journey to the River Sea – a children’s book set in Manaus, with echoes of Cinderella. Maya is living in a boarding school in England when she is orphaned, and told that she is to move to Brazil to live with relatives she has never met. She overcomes the initial fear of the unknown Amazon and all the terrors that are said to live there, and discovers wonderful people and adventures. There is a romance storyline or two, though these are not central plotlines.
• Madensky Square – a novel of romantic nostalgia for Vienna of times lost. The main character is a dressmaker who encounters and offers her help in the plights of various members of her community.

Blackthorn and Grim Trilogy by Juliet Marillier

I list this as a trilogy simply because while each of the books is a romance, the reason I recommend this is because of the love story between the main characters; and this does not reach fruition until the third book. Yet, it would not be the same if you jumped into book 3 without reading the build-up. So consider this a slow burn romance recommendation, especially for those who love historical romantic fantasies and fairy tale retellings.

Blackthorn is a healer who is in prison following her attempt to challenge a corrupt nobleman, who slaughtered her husband and infant son in revenge. When a fae appears to her and offers her a way out with the condition that she not pursue revenge and offer help to anyone who asks, she has no choice but to accept. It is through this promise to help anyone who asks that she ends up with Grim, a quiet, compassionate man whom she met in prison, as her companion. Though she would prefer to live in solitude, she finds herself often wrapped up in the troubles of the community around her…

Each book is a sort of a mystery, based on a fairy tale. Blackthorn and Grim are outsiders, who get involved as puzzle solvers and wisdom bestowers to the characters in the fairy tale. Yet their stories and relationship are the most compelling to watch.

I read the first book when it first came out, and loved it; when the second book came out, I found this one rather lackluster. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the Blackthorn and Grim parts, but the overarching plot wasn’t quite as rereadable as book 1, being more of the “what’s going on? How will this unfold?” variety. So it took me a long time to get to book 3, and once I did…. Oh my goodness, it was wonderful. I loved it. I love it so much, in fact, that I struggle to put words to it.

Other series by Juliet Marillier:

• The Warrior Bards trilogy – This is the sequel to Blackthorn and Grim, featuring their children’s stories. I was especially excited to see some queer representation in this one. These books are the lightest I have listed by Marillier.
• Heart’s Blood – This retelling of beauty and the beast, featuring a scribe main character recovering from abuse, was my favorite Marillier novel until I encountered Dreamer’s Pool, the first Blackthorn and Grim book.
• Saga of the Light Isles & The Bridei Chronicles – While these are 2 completely unrelated series in very different settings, I am lumping them together because I liked them for similar reasons, which is that they feel like a very old-fashioned type of romance that we see less and less nowadays, with chapters and chapters outlining the backstories of one or both main characters. They are angsty and dramatic and about the community around these characters as much as about the central romance. I wouldn’t say they are light reads by today’s standards, but I love them.
• The Bridei Chronicles –
• The Sevenwaters series – This has to be mentioned as the most famous of Juliet Marillier’s works, and probably the most traditional historical romance novels.

Valiant Ladies by Melissa Grey

Kiki and Ana enjoy their lives in Peru, playing proper young ladies by day, and going out drinking and getting up to wild swashbuckling shenanigans by night. But when Kiki’s betrothal is announced and her brother is murdered, everything changes.

This was just a really fun read, and I might have chosen this book partly to round off the gentle, kind prose of Ibbotson and the angsty, fantastical prose of Marillier. Have some swashbuckling Peruvian lesbians as well. 😛

Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte

I am assuming if you are reading this, you are a bibliophile like myself, so you have probably already read works by the other two Bronte sisters, such as Jane Eyre, and Wuthering Heights. Probably you have also read some Jane Austen (my favorite book by her is Persuasion, for the record). But have you read Agnes Grey? Because I hadn’t until this year. And now this is my favorite book by a Bronte.

Contemporary Romance

Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q Sutanto

I cannot summarize this better than the tagline on Goodreads:

What happens when you mix 1 (accidental) murder with 2 thousand wedding guests, and then toss in a possible curse on 3 generations of an immigrant Chinese-Indonesian family?

You get 4 meddling Asian aunties coming to the rescue!

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53310061-dial-a-for-aunties

This is a wacky family comedy with an exes-to-lovers storyline.

Humor is perhaps even more difficult to pinpoint than romance, so read a few paragraphs to see if it is to your taste, but I adored this book, and its sequel. Whenever I think of happy books I want in my life, this is near if not at the top of the list.

The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang

Anna is a violinist who finds life exhausting. She cannot play since achieving a viral YouTube performance that she cannot replicate; she is in a relationship where she doesn’t have a voice; she is in a family where she is labeled and commanded and unable to say no. When her boyfriend announces he wants an open relationship before making a final commitment, Anna resolves to have some one-night-stands of her own…and she meets Quan. Through Quan, she learns that there are people who communicate differently than she is used to, who listen to her…and that perhaps her life could look very different if she took a step outside the box.

This book is heavy; for a lighter, happier read, I recommend either of the other books in this series (listed below), but when faced with listing the one that I liked best, it has to be this one. While Helen Hoang’s series each portray a main character on the autistic spectrum, this character and her desire to please those around her, her sheer inability to say no, shot straight to my heart. I cried a lot, and I still think about this book a lot.

Other books in this series (both of these are light, fun romances):

• The Kiss Quotient
• The Bride Test

Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers

Grace, a woman in her late twenties who has obtained her PhD and now finds herself caught between the expectations of her professor, her father, and her own uncertain heart, goes on a girl’s trip to Las Vegas, gets drunk, and wakes up married to a woman she’s never met. She decides to take a chance on this relationship, and discovers a world of kindness and acceptance and healing.

The premise sounds like two dozen movies and fanfics I’ve seen before, and yet the execution was not at all what I had come to accept. There is no drama around the drunken marriage. The main story is in Grace’s relationship with the people around her, and how she relates to herself; and how an impulsive drunken marriage introduces her to a woman who teaches her a different way to relate to herself, to love others and herself.

It was a beautiful, healing book to read, and I especially recommend it to anyone who feels burnt out after going through academia.

The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak

Ella is an unhappy, cynical housewife in North Hampton. Just when she finds herself arguing against love to talk her daughter out of what seems to her an impulsive engagement, she is assigned to read a manuscript of a mystical historical novel about Rumi for a publisher. She googles and strikes up an email correspondence with the author, and her life will never be the same.

This book is about religion as much as it is about love. While Ella’s love story is a romantic one, much of the other loves shown throughout the book are not. It is a beautiful, profound book about love and religion and acceptance of what lays beneath the surface.

Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World by Ashley Herring Blake

This middle-grade novel is about a girl whose family is displaced by a hurricane, who then feels displaced in her own family. It is a heartfelt story about friendship and family and love of all kinds, and when I read it the first time, it made me cry. It is a warm, compassionate hug of a book.

Various books by Adiba Jaigirdar and Jennifer Dugan

Amongst dozens of contemporary high school romances I have read, these two authors are my favorites. Jaigirdar’s books deal with issues of cultural identity and assimilation versus being yourself, as well as issues of expressing your true self versus connecting with others. Dugan’s books tend to explore what lies beyond the labels we use to identify ourselves, and how we perhaps miss important details. My favorite book of Dugan’s is, hands down, Some Girls Do, because of the discussion around one person wanting to publicize a relationship that the other does not want to. I wish I could combine Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating, The Henna Wars, and Some Girls Do for the ultimate f/f high school romance.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz

This story about two teenage boys connecting as friends and eventually admitting to falling in love is just an exquisite wave of emotions and flowing, beautiful prose. Summaries cannot do justice to the power of this book, so I can only ask that if you haven’t heard of this, you try reading a few pages and see if it speaks to you.

Openly Straight duology by Bill Konigsberg

An out and proud teen boy who decides, upon transferring to a boarding school, to remain in the closet at his new school…which becomes a problem when he falls in love with his best friend.

I debated whether or not to put this on this list. If it had been in any of the happy romance novels/happy LGBTQIA+ reads lists I have explored, I probably would not have listed this. But, it was not. I only found it by chance, and I am so glad I did. It is a great romance, also containing within it a great discussion around why being “out and proud” is perhaps not the only way a gay teen might want to live.

Fantasy (or Sci-Fi) Romance

In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan

I found this book on a list of happy LGBT+ reads that a friend pointed me at, when I was somehow regularly and accidentally subjecting myself to deeply depressing books. Though this book was top of the list, it took me a long time to get to it.

And once I started reading, I could barely put it down.

In a magical school, our sassy main character navigates friendships and relationships as he grows up over five or so years.

But no summary could do this book justice, because it is written wittily and cleverly, with amazing dialogue and characters.

Basically, please read this. It’s a wonderful book.

Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune

This is the last book I read by TJ Klune, and also my favorite. I love the Goodreads summary, so here:

When a reaper comes to collect Wallace from his own funeral, Wallace begins to suspect he might be dead.

And when Hugo, the owner of a peculiar tea shop, promises to help him cross over, Wallace decides he’s definitely dead.

But even in death he’s not ready to abandon the life he barely lived, so when Wallace is given one week to cross over, he sets about living a lifetime in seven days.

Hilarious, haunting, and kind, Under the Whispering Door is an uplifting story about a life spent at the office and a death spent building a home.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53205888-under-the-whispering-door

It is a kind, heartfelt book that warmed my heart.

Other books by TJ Klune:

• The House in the Cerulean Sea
• The Extraordinaries

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

When Yadriel tries to prove to his community that he is a brujo, he accidentally summons the wrong ghost that he now can’t get rid of. Julian has a mind of his own, and will not go quietly into death until they figure out what happened to him.

The premise of this book made me very worried I was going into a tragic story, but it is in fact a happy book! Mystery, family, friendship, paranormal romance, everything is here.

Sweet and Bitter Magic by Adrienne Tooley

Tamsin is a powerful witch who can never love. Wren is a source who never revealed her power…until now, to save her father, she must approach Tamsin and propose an exchange.

This is a great enemies to lovers fantasy romance, featuring lots of family feels and drama, and a great story. Another book that is dear to me partly because I stumbled upon it by accident.

The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer

Two boys from enemy nations are on a space ship on a rescue mission. At first, it seems their biggest antagonists will be each other…until they realize not all is as it seems.

I read this book and really liked it, and recommended it to a friend, who immediately started commenting on how horny the two main characters were, an element of the story which I had already forgotten. I realized as my friend was reading this book, part of the appeal is the plot; and part of the appeal is the ways in which a same-sex relationship is treated as totally normal and a non-issue in sci-fi.

Simon Snow trilogy by Rainbow Rowell

If you are in fandom and like the dynamic of Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter fanfics, then this is for you. While the first book follows the storyline of a hero at magic school and his vampire roommate whom he is sure is his enemy, this series truly shines in its later books, as it explores what it means to have your identity tied to a label that does not last.

Aromantic Romances

As an aro/ace person, I feel this is an area of books that belong here: books that give me the feelings of a romance, but are not about romance.

Radio Silence by Alice Oseman

While there is a romance in this book, the central relationship is between two people whose relationship is friendship. It was the first book I ever read like this, where friendship between two people is portrayed as more central than romances, with all the ups and downs and feelings you would typically expect to see associated with the romantic relationship. I would love to see more novels like this in the future.

(Though it doesn’t give me as many feels, this author also wrote the book Loveless, which is about an aro ace teenager figuring out her identity.)

The Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire

This series of children’s books for adults often features romantic connections, but those are rarely if ever the central relationship. Central are the friendships and the family relationships, and the strange people who can offer understanding in a world full of those who do not, cannot understand.

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

This fantasy novel about the emperor’s outcast goblin son who ends up unexpectedly emperor is perhaps unexpected on this list. It is about a reluctant emperor who has always been isolated by his race, and now his position holds him respected but still isolated. It is a beautiful, kind book, as are the sequel spinoffs, The Witness for the Dead and The Grief of Stones.

Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

This series of novellas is about a security robot–who secretly refers to itself as Murderbot–coming to terms with its personhood. It was recommended to me as an ace-representation read, but I have read the whole series more than three times through since it was introduced to me a year ago. It is a delightful read about Murderbot and the humans and bots it comes to care for.

The Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers

In this sci-fi series about humanity and relationships in a universe full of AI and alien lifeforms, it is the kindness and the way we relate to each other that takes front and center. These books are good for a thoughtful, feel-good read.

Some romance comics…

• Heartstopper by Alice Oseman
• The Tea Dragon Society by Kay O’Neill
• Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker
• The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang
• Kimi ni Todoke by Karuho Shiina

Bamboo Shoots: A Simple Primer

This is the third year in a row that I am digging bamboo shoots in the spring, and I realized that for many reasons, the information that I have come to possess on bamboo shoots might be useful or interesting! (Like if you’re writing MDZS fanfics, for example.) I apologize in advance for the inadequate photos. I am using whatever is on my phone—I did not specifically photograph anything for this.

Bamboo shoots (“takenoko” in Japanese) are a common food in places where bamboo naturally grows. Every spring, new bamboo spring up, and you must cut those shoots down in order to prevent the bamboo grove from overtaking all the areas around. (Or you can leave them to grow, if you want, but generally, in a tended bamboo grove, you need to get rid of some.) You can simply chop them down, but if you catch them early enough, they are edible, and delicious! So this is a primer about those bamboo shoots, which you dig up in order to both care for the bamboo grove, and also to eat.

A bamboo shoot, ripe for the digging. (If it’s much bigger than this, then it might be too hard to eat.)

The tricky thing about digging bamboo shoots is that all the section you see, which is above ground, is inedible. The edible part is the deepest part, and you have to catch it while it’s still small. When I say “small”, I mean not that far aboveground. Bamboo shoots come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, just as bamboo does! Some bamboo shoots are thinner, some are thicker. Thicker ones are the best to eat, but also you have to catch them earliest, because once they start to harden, they will be very difficult to deal with. The thinnest ones can be as thin as your finger, and waiting on these will not make them thicken. They will simply grow upward. Best to just chop these when you see them, if they’re too thin to be edible at all.

The other tricky thing is that bamboo shoots will grow wherever they please. I once found a bamboo shoot growing in a space about 20cm high under a section of the building, when it was contorting itself sideways to find some direction to grow in—in other words, I met this bamboo shoot when it was sticking out from under a building at a 90 degree angle, just asking for someone to trip over it. (It was too tall to dig, even if it was growing sideways. I had to chop it down.)

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Here are some examples of bamboo shoots that popped out in inconvenient and unexpected places. The taller ones are already far too big to dig, and are at the stage where you just have to chop them down. The one by the wall needs to be cut, because if it is allowed to grow, it might damage the wall. I actually managed to dig that one out properly, surprisingly.

When I go to dig bamboo, I take with me 4 tools: the digging tool, which is sharp on the end, a very large, very sharp knife, a chopping board, and a large pot to put the bamboo shoots in when I have finished prepping them.

The thing on the left is the digging tool. Very large knife is inside the pot. As a side note, this bamboo shoot is growing in moss. The moss is precious, and takes a long time to regrow, so I pull up the moss from the area by hand first, then dig, and then when I have finished digging and reburying the bits I don’t need, I replace the moss as best I can.

There is a correct side from which to dig. Bamboo shoots have roots that grow in from the side, so you want to be digging on the side where the roots are. If you dig from the wrong side, you will necessarily have to sacrifice some—possibly a lot—of the edible bits. The bamboo shoot is usually slightly bent—the correct side will be the side that is slightly concave. (Though in the instance that the bamboo shoot has hit an obstacle, it might be harder to tell.) As mentioned before, bamboo shoots grow wherever they please, and sometimes—as with the bamboo shoot growing by the wall—you cannot choose from which side to dig. Of course, the ground in these areas where the bamboo shoots pop up are also full of bamboo roots, which are very hard as well. Sometimes it takes a bit of puzzle solving to figure out how you can get at the bamboo shoot despite all the obstacles surrounding it.

A freshly dug bamboo shoot. You can see that the left side is concave. You can also see that I have not succeeded at getting all the way to the bottom, because you cannot see any of the purplish-white roots in the bottom of the bamboo shoot.

I usually tell people you will have to dig 20-30cm deep to get to the bottom, but the truth is, it depends on the bamboo shoot. It’s rare to get a bamboo in a patch of soil soft enough that you have any visual cue, and also easy access to the root side, so it’s rarely a “textbook” case. I will say, however, that one should dig as deep as possible, because honestly, if you chop off the top part too early, you will have nothing edible, and once you have lost the top, it is probably impossible to access the bottom part.

When you’re starting out, there’s a lot of strength involved, but as you get used to it, you learn a sense of how and where to apply pressure, so it’s more a question of angle and leverage. The most strength I need tends to be in getting the digging tool deep enough in cases when I cannot access the roots, so that I can make a clean break in the bamboo shoot. But even then, I tend to slam in the digging tool once, then kick it the rest of the way. (Shhhh…. Don’t tell anybody!)

Once you’ve dug out the bamboo shoot, you might be tempted to fill in the hole…but wait! Most of this bamboo shoot you’ve just dug is not actually edible!

Chopping off the inedible parts of the bamboo shoot

So you take that chopping block and your knife, and you chop off the top part at an angle. You peel the outer layers of the skin, just until you stop seeing those purplish bumps, and then you draw your knife through the rest of the skin, half way, so that later, after the bamboo shoots are boiled, the skins will be easy to peel off. You can’t eat these skins, but the boiling goes better if you don’t peel them all right away.

The peels and the top part you can put back into the hole you dug, to feed the soil, and then fill the dirt back in.

A potful of bamboo shoots, prepped and ready to go to the kitchen! Can you see that only 1-2 were dug all the way from the root? The rest I had to chop off part way. Alas.

Now you take your pot (and your chopping block and knife, don’t leave those lying around) back into the kitchen, where you do a quick wash of the bamboo shoots to get all the dirt off.

We’ll have to simmer the bamboo shoots for 2-3 hours, depending on how thick they are and counting from when the water reaches a boil, with rice bran (we don’t really measure it, just fill the pot with water and toss rice bran on until everything’s covered. We also throw in a few dried chilis—the bamboo shoots won’t become spicy, but apparently this helps with some of the bitterness. It helps if you throw a piece of wood or something over the top, to keep the bamboo shoots submerged.

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Bamboo shoots boiling in rice bran with a few chili peppers. I removed the wood droplid for the purposes of this photo.

Once this is done, you leave the bamboo shoots in the pot as they are overnight. The next day, you can prep them!

When you peel away all the reddish/brownish skin, you will find that inside, there is a bamboo shoot in white that is the same shape as the bamboo shoot you saw in the bamboo grove! This is the edible part. But there will be bits of the skin near the center at the top that are soft and white—don’t throw these away either, because these are the parts that are best for aroma.

Simplified, the bamboo shoot can be split into 3 parts: the top part, with the soft skin, the bottom part, where the roots were, and the middle part. If you’re making a clear soup or bamboo rice, then the top parts are best, because you want mostly aroma. (If you want a bit of the texture too, then throw in some slices from the middle, but still use some of the top section.) The bottom part will be very hard—this part is perfect for grating, mixing with some potato starch after you have squeezed the liquid out, and then shaping into dumplings that you can deep fry, and then flavor in a sauce! Typically, if you have eaten bamboo shoot casually, then you are probably most familiar with the middle part. This is the part that is crunchy but not tough. One of my favorite ways to prepare this part is to slice this section up and flavor it with soy sauce, cooking sake, and maybe a tiny bit of salt. It’s delicious just like this, but my boss will also then turn this into tempura—the batter just being water and flour, with a tiny dash of salt. These tempura are so delicious, you can just eat them by themselves, no need for any sauce. Another dish we do with this middle section is to slice up some white konjak into ribbons, grind up some sansho (also known as Japanese pepper) leaves, which are in season around the same time as the bamboo shoots, and create a paste out of white miso boiled down with some sugar and cooking sake. Everything is mixed together, the bamboo slices and the konjak and the ground up sansho and the miso paste, and this is delicious too.

In summary, bamboo shoots are fun. But you must dig them regularly, or else they will take over. We do let some grow in and become new bamboo, but there are so many that typically I am instructed to wait until later in the season, when they aren’t popping up so much anymore. Early in the season, we just try to dig them all.

Thank you for visiting! I hope this was interesting!

Vegan Cinnamon Roll Recipe

I don’t actually know if people usually use non-vegan ingredients in cinnamon rolls. This wasn’t a baking challenge I ever seriously took on before I became vegan (I used to suck at working with anything yeasted, so I reflexively avoided such recipes). But this is, easily, the best cinnamon roll recipe I’ve tried.

I say “pumpkin puree” in the recipe, but actually, I use leftover boiled pumpkin. It’s just normal sliced pumpkin, which is boiled in water with a tiny bit of salt and a slightly more tiny bit of sugar. We use Japanese pumpkin, kabocha, so the skin is edible too. Because we always end up with so much pumpkin, this being something that gets made almost daily, I had to try to figure out a way to get rid of the remaining pumpkin. So, you can do this with the skins, if you grind it through a sieve with a wooden pestle. It becomes a tad green, but it’s still nice. I end up being too lazy for that, most days, so I pull off the skins and munch on them like snackies while I measure out the ingredients. I don’t even bother grinding the pumpkin, because it’ll get mashed up anyway during the kneading. What is different from pumpkin puree is that I’m also using the liquid the pumpkin was boiled in. But because I think it tastes better with a higher proportion of plant milk, I boil off a lot of the liquid, so it’s dark and concentrated by the time I use it.

Again, posting because of a different version of the same MDZS fanfic as before. The recipe contains references to the characters (Lan Xichen, or LXC, is the elder brother of one of the main characters and I have emotionally latched onto him like a leech).

Vegan Cinnamon Rolls

• 650g bread flour
• 2tsp dry yeast
• 50g sugar
• 480mL unsweetened soy or almond milk (or, 200mL pumpkin puree + 290mL soy or almond milk)
• 115g soft vegan butter (I use a variety that is quite light and soft)

Combine the butter and vegan milk (and pumpkin puree, if using), and heat to just warm to the touch. Add yeast to activate. Combine ingredients, mixing until just combined. Cover and leave in a warm place until doubled in size, or in the fridge overnight. I prefer overnight in the fridge because it’s a quick thing to do, throwing the ingredients together, and it isn’t worth the extra trip out of bed in the morning.

(This is how LXC did it so quickly in the morning!) (Ok it still took him an hour and a half but that’s fast for a yeasted dish!)

Add:

• 40g bread flour
• 1tsp salt

And knead until smooth.

Roll out the dough into a rectangle, cover with vegan butter, sugar and cinnamon (a thin coating of each is fine, too much and it’ll get everywhere and burn), and then shape. There are half a dozen ways to shape cinnamon rolls. I usually do it the regular way, just make a rectangle maybe 0.5-1cm thick, cover in the fillings, roll lengthwise, and slice. LXC here is doing the way where you initially roll the dough very thin, then coat half of the rectangle you rolled out with the fillings, and fold over the other half. You then slice this into strips, which you twist, and then curl into a bun. I figured that method is kind of close to a danish, right? 😛

Lay out in a buttered pan (vegan butter, again), leaving some space between to give them space to rise. Leave in a warm space for 20-30 minutes–it’s ok if they’re not as risen as you want, they’ll rise more in the oven. Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 35mins (variable depending on your oven, adjust accordingly—I have to cut a few minutes out if there’s more pumpkin in the dough, add a few minutes if it’s all just plant milk, no pumpkin). And voila!

For the icing, I just pour some icing sugar into a small bowl, drip in some vanilla essence, then pour in soy or almond milk a bit at a time until it’s able to combine into an icing. Drip this over the top and eat while it’s still hot, it’s glorious.

Vegan Bao Recipe

This is not a cooking blog, and yet I have lately been inserting food in my fanfiction of MDZS because apparently when I write Lan Xichen, food becomes his love language. So I then want to offer particular recipes to anyone interested, because yes, you could google them, but I do actually make most of the things vegan, and it took a bit of time to figure out what does and doesn’t work for me, so why not share?

Could I have just made a cooking blog? Yes, but I can’t be bothered, I already have too many blogs. Couldn’t I have just posted it on my website? Yes, but I’ve been ignoring that thing because it gives me anxiety to act like an author. Thus, we are here.

Vegan (amateur) Bao

• 250g cake flour or maida + 250g bread flour or atta (or you can do 500g all-purpose flour, it depends on what’s available where you live)
• 300mL soy milk (depending on the flour type you’re using and the climate, you may need a little more or less)
• 8-10g dry yeast
• 15-30g sugar

Warm the soy milk until it’s warm to the touch (you’re aiming for body temperature, or low-grade fever temperature), and add the yeast to a small amount of the soy milk separated from the rest to activate. When it begins to froth, mix in with the rest of the dough ingredients, adding the warm soy milk gradually until you get the right consistency (it should be a hard-ish dough that gets softer and pliable with kneading). Knead until smooth and stick in a warm place covered with a damp cloth until it doubles in volume.

Meanwhile, dice shiitake mushrooms and any other veggies you want to use into tiny tiny pieces. (It’s all preference, but I recommend having the highest proportion of mushrooms, with plenty of shiitake mushrooms, because this is mainly where the flavor comes from.) Tofu is an option too, regular or deep fried. Typically I use less tofu than mushrooms, with a bit of bok choy or Chinese cabbage. Tofu you can just crush, instead of cutting. Fry the mushrooms in sesame oil, adding the water from reconstituting the dried shiitake, if you didn’t use fresh mushrooms. Let it cook down, and then add all the other veggies, plus whatever flavorings you like. I usually use some combination of soy sauce, doubanjiang (a kind of chili paste), and mirin (sugar and cooking alcohol also works instead of mirin). Sometimes I just use doubanjiang. I always try to make it stronger than I want, because the dough will soften the flavor. Cook it until the fluid is completely gone, or add some potato starch when the fluid is almost gone.

Punch down the dough and roll it out into a long piece that you can cut into 12-20 even-sized pieces (I usually do 16, but it depends on how big you want your bao to be). Press, roll or pull the dough flat, so that it is thickest in the middle and thinnest around the edges, and put a spoonful of filling at the center. (At this stage, the filling should hold together pretty well, and there should not be any excess fluid.) Pull the dough together over the top of the filling, and press to seal. Line up with space between the bao in a steamer warmed to dough-rising temperatures, and leave to rise for 30 minutes or until sufficiently risen.

Steam for 15 minutes, and enjoy!

Additional note: if you end up with more filling than dough, I like to eat the leftover filling with rice. If you have more dough than filling, you can turn the extra dough into huajuan: basically, roll out the dough to a rectangle of thickness 0.5 or less (I usually do thicker because my stomach is not good with a lot of oil, but thinner works too), give it a thin coating of sesame oil, and roll. Cut into lengths of 2cm, and press HARD with a chopstick through the middle crosswise, pinching the middle two corners that come up so that you get the flower shape. Alternatively, google huajuan (花巻) in order to figure out a way to shape them that works for you. 😂 Then put them in the steamer to rise, same as the bao. Only thing is, huajuan tend to need less time to steam than bao, maybe 7-8 minutes. You can do them separately, or take them out early (but this will release the steam, so lengthen the steaming time for the bao accordingly, or just let them steam longer. I think that last option makes them a little harder, but if you eat them warm, the difference isn’t that noticeable.

Book Review: The Alpha and His Ace by Ana J Phoenix

An Uncomfortable Preface…

Often LGBTQ books that contain some traumatic or triggering element will contain some warnings in reviews. This should be no surprise—if you are unused to seeing yourself on the pages of a book, the triggering elements of a story that echoes your pain can be that much stronger.

This book was my first experience dealing with this first-hand, and it surprised me because of how tiny these “triggers” were, compared to how much anxiety and pain it raised in me. (I had an anxiety attack reading this tiny, 60-page book where very little happens.)

Off the bat–this is the first #ownvoices review I’m placing on this blog as pertains to asexuality, but this is not the first book I’ve read featuring a central ace character.

The first book was Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire, which I really liked, so much so that I didn’t want to taint it with my words. Maybe I’ll review it here someday.

But the Book! What’s the Book About?

This is a story about an alpha wolf shifter, searching for his mate.

(If you frequent the fan fiction community as often as I do, this premise requires no explaining. But just in case it does not: shifters have a destined mate that they can instinctively recognize upon meeting.)

When Bran, our protagonist, does chance across his mate Aidan, he is shocked to be told that Aidan is asexual. Having always assumed that he could use sex to convince his mate that they were meant to be, Bran is at a loss for what to do. Aidan sends him to the AVEN website, where Bran learns that aces often differentiate romantic and sexual attraction. This convinces him that in order to woo Aidan, he must attempt the romantic approach, to which he is entirely new.

It would be fair to say, this sounds like a fairly tame premise.

The Frustrating (and Anxiety-Inducing) Elements

Spoilers commence!

The thing is, as with any sexuality, “I am asexual” does not give a potential dating partner enough information about what one’s boundaries are, and what approaches work and do not work. It also does not mean that the dating partner’s sexual needs must be ignored.

Personally, reading this, I felt intensely frustrated with Bran. He reads the AVEN website, formulates an idea in his head about what Aidan wants from him, and then tries to become this person that he imagines will make Aidan want him. At no point does he ask what exactly Aidan wants, nor does he attempt to communicate what he might actually want from this relationship. Bran being the one pursuing Aidan, it seemed to me that if he wanted things to work out, this was the most idiotic course to take.

But upon posting my initial thoughts to Goodreads and scrolling through some other comments, I found another reviewer whose frustration was directed at Aidan, who did not give Bran any guidance beyond that initial direction to the website.

A comment later, we ended up in agreement that objectively, it was a massive communication failure on both sides.

This was intensely frustrating—(seriously, if you want to date an ace, communicating about their boundaries is key, because identifying as ace does not mean sex is entirely off the table)—but not the anxiety-inducing part by itself.

Then there was the climactic conflict in this novelette: that moment where a six-year-old (wtf) asks if Bran and Aidan are having sex, and their awkward responses prompt a member of Bran’s pack to mock and jeer at them for this.

Oh. My. God. What even is this? It’s not that I don’t believe that people like this exist, or even that you can’t remain on good terms with a family member who behaves like this but… That guy was such an asshole, and I was absolutely with Aidan that Bran’s eventual punch was not nearly enough.

In real life, attempts to mock me or belittle me for whatever I’m supposedly lacking rarely cut deep, but they are also not all that common. From casual acquaintances, I simply immediately disregard and forget their opinions. From family and friends, I’ve learned to view such reactions as a reflection of their own insecurities and nothing to do with me.

So, well. It was shocking to me that a scenario that I am confident that I could handle in real life could set me off coming from a book directed at a character.

Conclusion

Believe it or not, I don’t dislike this book. I don’t think I would recommend it to anyone, but that’s more to do with the alpha/mate premise. If someone told me they liked these sorts of stories, I can imagine leaping to recommend this in the right circumstances.

In the end, I’m counting this book as more interesting for what it taught me about myself than anything to do with the story itself.

So yeah! Interesting.

Book Review: The Duke is Mine by Eloisa James

This review will contain spoilers of specifics of the first third of the book, and for the general plot structure of the rest of the book.

This was a complete flop for me. I finished it, but it was a mess—from the portrayal of a mentally handicapped character to the numerous deus ex machinae used to resolve all the conflict cleanly…it didn’t work for me.

I try not to make a habit of reviewing books I didn’t like on this blog, but since I’m apparently working my way through the series, I figured I might as well.

As with the previous two installments, this is a pseudo-historical pseudo-retelling of the Princess and the Pea…though to be honest, even that is stretching the notion of a “retelling” a lot.

This is the story of Olivia and Georgiana, twins who have been trained from a young age in the art of being a duchess, being that Olivia is betrothed to the son of a duke who is a good friend of their father. Georgiana, who has received the lessons with Olivia, appears to have taken to the rules of ducal behavior far better than Olivia, who is outspoken, outgoing, and plump.

When Rupert, Olivia’s betrothed, comes of age, he refuses to be wedded until he has attained his family glory in the war with the French. His father, concerned about the potential loss of his only heir, comes up with a scheme in which Rupert will compromise Olivia, with the assurance that with their betrothal paperwork, any resulting child will be legitimate. (They don’t and say they did.) In the meantime, he decides to send Olivia into the care of a duke and his dowager mother—both to train Olivia further, and in the hope that Georgiana, who will accompany her sister, might find a match in the widowed duke.

Of course, it’s Olivia that the duke finds himself attracted to, and Olivia, who has never expected to have any say in her romantic life, finds herself at war between her desires and her duties to her sister and fiancé.

So first of all, I only found out after reading the book that there is a lot of concern over Rupert’s portrayal (Olivia’s fiancé), being that he has a mental condition outside of his control. That wasn’t really a big issue for me. The only time we hear Olivia make fun of Rupert is in privacy with her sister, and they don’t make fun of him for his mental handicap—it’s more that there is already an age difference, he being five years junior to them, which seems further widened by his condition. It doesn’t feel like they’re mocking Rupert, and more the situation.

In fact, throughout the story, Olivia shows Rupert nothing but kindness. She keeps her promises with him regardless of whether or not he might know she did so, and she is the first to leap to his defense when anyone else speaks ill of him. The love she shows for him could be likened to sisterly love, perhaps.

Going into this, I was concerned. As I always have and still do maintain, intersecting love triangles are the worst kind of love triangle. And I already do not like love triangles.

This book taught me that there’s something I despise just as much: deus ex machinaing your way out of not one, but two love triangles so that the characters never have to make difficult decisions.

Dear god. This didn’t need to be handled this way. Once the chessboard had been laid out and check seemed impossible, much less checkmate, the rules of the game began to change, removing one obstacle after another by sheer happenstance.

Well, one flop so far after three books in the series isn’t that bad. I’ll still be reading the next one, eventually.

Book Review: Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel

This is a story about Ayla, a Cro-Magnon human, who is adopted into a clan of Neanderthals at the age of five.

I first discovered this book in 2013, in a 2-for-a-euro box at my local British library. I had recently moved, and as often happens after a move, I was beginning to make myself comfortable by acquiring books for my home.

I liked the description more than the book when I tried reading it. Somehow, it was difficult to get into the story, and I don’t think I ever made it that far before I ended up giving the book away. I wanted to like it, but just wasn’t able to immerse myself in the text.

I ended up re-acquiring it in March of this year, this time on Audible during a 2-for-1 sale.

I don’t know if it’s the time or the medium that made the difference, but this time, I cruised through the story.

The closest I’ve ever come to a story like this is Daughter of the Sun, and that was only similar in that it was from a time before written records, about a culture that is gone.

I’ve never read a story like this, so sprawling in its ambitions, and I’m glad I decided to try again, because it was absolutely worth it.

There was something quintessentially ’80s about the way this was written—you know, because it was written then—and while I understand a lot of the negative criticism lobbed at this book, I also don’t think it holds much water. There’s so much that we have discovered after this book came out, so much that we still don’t know—and that we’ll never know—about the time period in question, that the ambition alone, the ability to weave such a compelling story while attempting to be as accurate as possible is in itself a marvel to me.

Ayla’s idiosyncrasies didn’t bother me all that much, because I viewed her very much as a vehicle for the readers to ride into the time.

I loved the ideas the author came up with about the differences in Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon language and brain function; I loved the idea of the hereditary memory the Neanderthals have.

Yes, it was a bit New Age-y, and there were certain elements with which I understand why people take issue.

But to me, this was an entirely new time period for a story, and the level of detail about everything from biology to lifestyle was so rich that I couldn’t help but bask in the pictures it painted in my mind.

I’m not sure I’ll go after the sequels, but time will tell.

Book Review: The Forest of Enchantments by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

This story is a retelling of the Indian mythological epic the Ramayana, told from the perspective of the titular Rama’s wife Sita.

This is less a review of the book itself, and more about my history with the Ramayana and why this book meant so much to me.

I was a child visiting family when the 1992 riots broke out over the demolition of the mosque that was said to have been built over the ruins of a temple in Ram’s birthplace. Various translations of Valmiki’s Ramayana has been a staple diet in my upbringing, and I have been reminded time and again that my father was once able to recite Tusidas’s Ramcharitmanas from beginning to end.

I’ve grown up with this story. As a child, I took for granted that Ravana was the evil villain, and Ram simply the hero bound to rescue his princess. It was romantic, no different from any other fairy tale about a prince rescuing his princess. I was far more interested in Hanuman, whose story was far more fun, with the flying, his mountain father, and the amnesia they gave him to make him think he was an ordinary monkey after he tried to steal the sun.

I was a little older, though not yet even a pre-teen, when I first learned about Luv and Kush, and how Sita’s story ends. It struck a crack through something in me, because—what? How does the same man who travels all the way down India and across an ocean to save his wife just abandon her like that? Shove her aside until she can’t bear to live another day?

It’s been years since I read the Amar Chitra Katha about Luv and Kush, but the picture of Sita begging the earth to swallow her up, and of the earth splitting to take her away while Luv and Kush cry out in horror, is one I still remember.

I turned to my dad and asked him for an explanation, because it shook me.

“It’s about duty,” he explained to me. “Ram didn’t want to leave Sita, but he was a king, so he needed to put his people’s needs first. It’s supposed to show how he’s able to put his duty over his personal desires.”

It made sense—and yet it didn’t. I stopped thinking about Ram and Sita as much because it wasn’t pleasant, and my epic couple of choice became Shiva and Parvati instead.

We lived in India for a time, in Hyderabad, where one often hears how Ravana is revered as a learned man. We visited a vertical mountain in Maharashtra that gave my mother terrible vertigo, atop which Sita was supposed to have lived with Luv and Kush during their exile.

I thought of Sita, sometimes.

Was she happy, in the wilderness with her sons? Was she simply going through the motions? Was it Ram’s final rejection that drove her to despair? Or was it that he was taking her sons away too, after having already taken everything else from her? She was so hopeful, even after he’d left her in the forest all those years. Did that final rejection cut so deep, or had she been on the edge of despair all along?

I thought of Ram, too.

Was that really dutiful? Sure, it fulfills a duty to his subjects, but what of his duty to his wife? He doesn’t even take her out into the forest himself. He sends Lakshman instead. If a king’s duty to hold his subjects’ respect supersedes his duty to keep his wife safe, then is there anything he couldn’t do to Sita?

As I started reading more detailed translations of The Ramayana as I grew older, I saw a much different dynamic than I was younger.

The first thing Ram does on reuniting with Sita is make her walk through the fire.

Sita was doomed from the moment she sent Ram after the golden deer. Why? Because she shouldn’t have coveted the deer? Because she shouldn’t have disobeyed her husband to help what she thought was an elderly sage?

One misstep cost Sita years and years of hardship—because, I realized as I grew older, her feelings are irrelevant.

In Ram’s story, Sita’s plight is Ram’s to contend with. Whether or not Ravana touched her, whether or not his subjects believe Ravana touched her—all of this affects Ram’s reputation, and that’s all that mattered.

And so I came to accept as an absolute truth that Ram may have been a good king, but he was not a good husband. I often thought of Sita’s despair at the end, and to this day, my heart aches for her.

Last year, I visited India for the first time after many years. At the first airport I arrived in, in Delhi, I of course gravitated towards a bookstore, and immediately caught sight of this book.

I gravitated towards this book in every single bookstore I visited.

And at last, I did buy it.

Even though I knew the story, even though I knew how it would end, this story drove me to tears.

Because this is not the Sita I always imagined, driven to despair at the end.

This was a much braver, stronger, more loving Sita, who understood Ram’s duties better than anyone. This Sita was not hurt by Ram sending her away—she was hurt that he never simply explained to her, and asked her to go.

This Sita love Ram to the end of the world, but also recognizes that, if Ram must be a role model to the men of his kingdom, then so too must she be to the women. This Sita has agency in her own life, and when choices are put into her hands, she acknowledges her own feelings, but, like the queen that she is, she does not let them rule her.

The book doesn’t deviate from the story at all that I could see (bearing in mind that I’ve only ever read translations). But all the same, it made me see this story in a whole new light, and I loved it for that.

For those who are at least familiar with the gist of The Ramayana, I highly recommend this book. For those who are not…well, I feel that not being familiar with the original story, one might be inclined to critique the extent to which the action happens offscreen, but with that in mind, I still would suggest you read it, if it sounds interesting to you.

This goes down in the books as one of my favorite retellings of anything of all time.

Book Review: Padmavati by Sutapa Basu

This is a retelling of the epic poem Padmavat, told as a framed story as a modern-day reporter seeks to ascertain the truth of the poem.

The following section recaps the legend, which will essentially spoil the story if you don’t already know it. For a spoiler-free review, please jump to conclusions.

The Legend

For background, the Padmavat tells the story of a beautiful young woman named Padmavati, who was friends with a talking parrot. Padmavati’s father attempts to kill the parrot, who escapes but ends up unable to return, eventually becoming pet to the raj of Chittor. The raj becomes obsessed with the beauty of the woman from the parrot’s tales, and travels to see her, eventually marrying her and bringing her back to Chittor.

In Chittor, Padmavati competes with the raj’s first wife for his affections. Meanwhile, a banished courtier travels to the sultan’s seat in Delhi, where regales the sultan with tales of Padmavati’s beauty.

The sultan comes to Chittor, and lays siege on the city. He demands Padmavati; the raj declines, offering money instead. In the subsequent negotiations, the sultan is invited into the city for negotiations, but he sneaks a view of Padmavati and abducts the raj. The raj is rescued by his soldiers, who disguise themselves as Padmavati and her companions, but in his absence, yet another king has proposed marriage to Padmavati. On learning of this, the raj of Chittor challenges this king to a duel, and they both die.

The sultan’s army reaches Chittor, still intent on possessing Padmavati.

The men of Chittor fight to the death; meanwhile, in the city, the women, led by the two ranis, commit jauhar, throwing themselves into flames.

The sultan wins the battle, but the fortress he captures is empty. There is nothing to possess.

When I was growing up, I had a picture book about the parrot, which ended with Padmavati’s marriage to the raj of Chittor. I also had an Amar Chitra Katha comic about a war with a Muslim sultan in which the men fought to the death and the queen led the women in jauhar, but it may not have been Padmavati. I only learned the full story recently; I was surprised to learn that the primary source of this story is a Sufi poem, in which the sultan’s obsession with Padmavati is treated as an allegory.

The Retelling

The story follows the legend, for the most part, although it is a lot more modern in its female empowerment and romanticism.

The story highlights Padmavati’s education in everything from matters of state to martial arts and strategy. She is clever and beautiful and wise, with many of the strategy decisions made by men in the legend being attributed to Padmavati’s orders or counsel. Her relationship with her husband follows the modern ideal, with the two of them perceiving themselves as equals, though in Chittor Padmavati must behave as if she is inferior, as is the local custom.

The dynamic after their return is portrayed with the raj being willing to fight tooth and nail, come hell or high water, for Padmavati’s right to have a voice, and power. Padmavati is the one who counsels him against such rash action, pointing out to him that change will take time.

The character who suffers the most under this adaptation is surprisingly not the sultan or the exiled courtier, but the raj’s first wife.

She is portrayed as unreasonably jealous, even willing to cause Padmavati bodily harm, and utterly malicious in all things. Even her son’s actions, when they threaten Padmavati, are attributed to the jealousy of his mother. In the face of all these insults and attempts on her life, Padmavati is lucky and forgiving.

If you’re looking for a fair and balanced story, this is not that. It is made utterly clear from the start, who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. The good guys are utterly good, and the bad guys are near irredeemable.

The Frame

The opening chapter, and every two chapters thereafter, detailed the modern journalist Mrinali on a journey through Chittor, seeking the truth of the Padmavat. She quickly meets a girl called Uma, who is narrating to Mrinali the story that we are reading.

It leads up to a “twist” of sorts that didn’t seem necessary or to have a point. Actually, I recommend not dwelling on the logic of this framing device, and just enjoy the story.

Conclusion

I actually find myself recommending this most to friends who aren’t familiar with Indian mythology.

For all the books that exist out there about Indian mythology, and retellings thereof, so many of them are aimed at an Indian audience, predicated on the idea that the audience knows the stories that lie beneath the story being told.

This, though it does contain a fair bit of Indian terminology, did not feel like a story that required background knowledge.

I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone who likes gritty historical fiction, because this is definitely not that. But people who like romantic stories in historical settings, or want to know a few more Indian stories? I think they’d like this.

Book Review: Rotten Rapunzel by Anita Valle

The following review contains minimal spoilers for Rotten Rapunzel, but will spoil the previous installments in the series.

This is the culmination of the Dark Fairy Tale Queen series—so far, at least.

As a fairy tale fanatic, this installment is the highlight of the series. This is not a series where one after another fairy tales get slapped onto a pile one after the other. Instead, the fairy tales that have been slowly unfolding in this retelling are at last woven together in a beautiful tapestry.

Except where the previous installments pretty straightforwardly followed a single fairy tale, with elements of The Snow Queen sneaking in only at the very end of Sneaky Snow White, this book plunges into the fairy tale mishmash category a la Alethea Kontis.

Anita Valle showcases her creativity and storytelling craft while paying homage to every fairy tale that she borrows from. Just as she united the mirrors from Snow White and The Snow Queen in Sneaky Snow White, she unites pieces of different fairy tales to weave them more cohesively together.

Because this story is longer than those that preceded it, it had the time to give us the catharsis that helped to digest some events of previous installments, and develop the consequences of others as well as proceeding with the main plot.

As always, it is dark and tragic, but I found that because this had more time that it could take with the characters, there was a softer quality to this book.

I can’t say I was entirely satisfied at the end of the story, because, as always, it ends with the beginning of the next story.

All I can say is, I look forward to seeing where the next book will take us through this fairy tale stew.