After spending several days complaining about the lack of books to choose from, I decided to work on getting my library reserve list back up to speed. I started with my Amazon wish list – it’s not really a wish list, it’s a holding place for books we’re interested in reading but can’t add to the library reserve list because our list is already really long. Then, I looked over the books I’ve read this year and looked for sequels or prequels that I’d like to read and reserved those. Then I looked at the Amazon “best of 2010” lists because I was really hoping to add some quality adult books – or maybe just adult books – or maybe just quality books. I don’t know – something that’s not too chick lit-y and something that’s not to YA-y. Then, I decided to look for some good lesbian literature and that’s where my frustration really began.
I sorted the Amazon lists by bestsellers, lesbian fiction, hardcover (because I was getting too many small publishers/self puplishers in the list and my library won’t have any of those) – only to find… my library has none of the 2010 lesbian fiction hardcover bestsellers… or worse yet, the bestsellers are all old… or lesbian detective mysteries. I like Jane Lawless but please, enough is enough. I wanted something else… something better.
It was late. I gave up for the night and decided I’d approach it from the women’s/lesbian bookstore direction and assumed I’d have more luck. I went to bed, without a book, and complained to TW about the problem. She said, “that book I just read is a library book – and it’s lesbian fiction.” Huh. Who knew?
Mirabilis is lesbian fiction, though it doesn’t really flaunt it and that’s the problem – there are a lot of great lesbian novels out there but for some reason publishers, authors, booksellers don’t want to label a book as lesbian fiction. (I wonder why… hahahaha)
Mirabilis is a story of a 14th century wet nurse who saves a town during a time of famine by feeding them all via her breasts, (well not all of them, she doesn’t allow the truly evil to nurse.) She’s able to do this because a rich pregnant widow is feeding her real, good food to make sure her milk is good enough for the soon to be born heir. A relationship develops between the wet nurse and the rich widow… gasp, a lesbian relationship!
Funny what you stumble upon when you don’t expect it.
Yeah, sometimes it’s hard to find lesbian fiction because it often is so hidden. That’s why I made my blog and why I appreciate the resources there are online, because you really seem to have to do detective work in order to find these boos.