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jackiehorne's review
4.0
I thought for sure I had already written a review of this, but it seems to have disappeared?
lezreadalot's review
3.0
I loved everything about this cute romance except the fact that the author used the phrase "the soft furry catness" to describe a snatch. I'm still laughing and boggling.
The romance didn't go the way I expected, and in a lot of ways it was more of a coming of age story. But I liked it very much. Maybe Ann's family's implicit acceptance isn't realistic or whatever, but I find that it's just what I needed at this moment in my life.
A cute read. 3.5 stars.
The romance didn't go the way I expected, and in a lot of ways it was more of a coming of age story. But I liked it very much. Maybe Ann's family's implicit acceptance isn't realistic or whatever, but I find that it's just what I needed at this moment in my life.
A cute read. 3.5 stars.
hrjones's review
4.0
Spring Flowering by Farah Mendlesohn is a gentle, domestic Regency romance, more in the vein of Jane Austen with its parson’s daughters and the family dynamics of middle class families “in trade”, than in the vein of Georgette Heyer’s dashing aristocrats and gothic perils. Ann Gray’s life is disrupted by the death of her father, the village parson, and she joins the bustling household of her cousins in Birmingham where the family business manufacturing buttons, jewelry, and other small metal accessories becomes the framework of her new social life. Until her father’s illness and death, Ann’s life had been taken up by the responsibilities of ministering to the needs of her father’s parish. Her future is open and unsettled now, with only the formalities of mourning to give her a breathing space to consider the options. Her loved ones--both the Birmingham family and her beloved special friend Jane, who has recently married--expect her to jump at the impending offer of marriage from the young curate who has taken her father’s place. But Ann thinks she doesn’t feel as she ought toward a man with whom she would spend the rest of her life, and an offer of a very different nature has arisen from the handsome widow, Mrs. King, soon to be a business partner of her uncle.
Mendlesohn’s novel is a refreshingly different sort of lesbian romance, depicting the attitudes and mores of the times with a social historian’s eye. The characters are neither anachronistically modern in their self-awareness of sexuality, nor anachronistically tormented and angsty about it. The physicality of Ann’s romantic friendship with her friend Jane is portrayed as completely ordinary for her times, but just as ordinary is Jane’s expectation that Ann will share her joy in her marriage. Through Ann’s explorations of new ties in Birmingham, we see how women who longed for same-sex friendships to be primary in their lives communicated and negotiated those feelings without needing to challenge social rules, as well as how families all too aware of the gender imbalance in the wake of the Napoleonic wars could encourage and approve of “surplus women” creating their own domestic arrangements. There are several very tasteful but explicit sex scenes that are well integrated into the overall emotional and self-realization arcs.
Although romance (with a few surprises) is the culmination of this novel, it is not the dominant theme throughout. Spring Flowering is a quiet tale of families and everyday life in Regency England, sweeping the reader into a world both familiar and intriguingly different in its details. There are a very few places where those details seemed to bog down the already leisurely pacing with a touch of “researcher’s syndrome,” but never in a way that derailed the story, as long as you approach the book as the story of a life rather than as a genre romance.
If you’ve longed to read stories of women loving women in history with happy endings that ground their love and their happiness in the spirit of the times, then Spring Flowering will be a breath of fresh air and a hope for a new wave of lesbian historical fiction.
Mendlesohn’s novel is a refreshingly different sort of lesbian romance, depicting the attitudes and mores of the times with a social historian’s eye. The characters are neither anachronistically modern in their self-awareness of sexuality, nor anachronistically tormented and angsty about it. The physicality of Ann’s romantic friendship with her friend Jane is portrayed as completely ordinary for her times, but just as ordinary is Jane’s expectation that Ann will share her joy in her marriage. Through Ann’s explorations of new ties in Birmingham, we see how women who longed for same-sex friendships to be primary in their lives communicated and negotiated those feelings without needing to challenge social rules, as well as how families all too aware of the gender imbalance in the wake of the Napoleonic wars could encourage and approve of “surplus women” creating their own domestic arrangements. There are several very tasteful but explicit sex scenes that are well integrated into the overall emotional and self-realization arcs.
Although romance (with a few surprises) is the culmination of this novel, it is not the dominant theme throughout. Spring Flowering is a quiet tale of families and everyday life in Regency England, sweeping the reader into a world both familiar and intriguingly different in its details. There are a very few places where those details seemed to bog down the already leisurely pacing with a touch of “researcher’s syndrome,” but never in a way that derailed the story, as long as you approach the book as the story of a life rather than as a genre romance.
If you’ve longed to read stories of women loving women in history with happy endings that ground their love and their happiness in the spirit of the times, then Spring Flowering will be a breath of fresh air and a hope for a new wave of lesbian historical fiction.
taegibee's review
I'm looking into queer regency romances for one of my essays, if you have any recommendations, please share them!
lucyhargrave's review
4.0
I stumbled across Spring Flowering as part of my research into queer regency romances for my PhD. In particular I was looking for regency romances published by queer publishers or coming from a queer perspective, let me tell you there aren't many!
That being said I really enjoyed Spring Flowering. It falls very much into the Jane Austen or Georgette Heyer style of regencies, with a lot of focus on defining the society and following the main heroine's journey as she establishes her place in the world.
The historical details in Spring Flowering are clearly well researched and I did get a kick out of reading about Birmingham in a regency romance while being in Birmingham. Digbeth in particular is an area I know fairly well so it was fun to see it thrown back in time, so to speak!
Like other readers I would agree that it is only really at the 80% mark that the romance element of Spring Flowering gets started. Before that it is very much a novel about Ann Gray transitioning into a new life after the death of her father and moving in with her relatives. You can see hints of the romance but nothing is really acted upon until the 80% mark.
The romance between Ann and Louisa (her cousin) does happen quickly but it felt well-paced and considering all the build-up it also felt believable. I liked that Mendlesohn didn't show Ann and Louisa as being in an isolated bubble due to their sexuality, instead they both have previous same-sex experience and are even aware of other women in Birmingham who like other women. It made the society feel richer.
Overall I enjoyed Spring Flowering, but would have preferred a greater focus on the romance between Louisa and Ann. So for that reason I've given it 4*.
That being said I really enjoyed Spring Flowering. It falls very much into the Jane Austen or Georgette Heyer style of regencies, with a lot of focus on defining the society and following the main heroine's journey as she establishes her place in the world.
The historical details in Spring Flowering are clearly well researched and I did get a kick out of reading about Birmingham in a regency romance while being in Birmingham. Digbeth in particular is an area I know fairly well so it was fun to see it thrown back in time, so to speak!
Like other readers I would agree that it is only really at the 80% mark that the romance element of Spring Flowering gets started. Before that it is very much a novel about Ann Gray transitioning into a new life after the death of her father and moving in with her relatives. You can see hints of the romance but nothing is really acted upon until the 80% mark.
The romance between Ann and Louisa (her cousin) does happen quickly but it felt well-paced and considering all the build-up it also felt believable. I liked that Mendlesohn didn't show Ann and Louisa as being in an isolated bubble due to their sexuality, instead they both have previous same-sex experience and are even aware of other women in Birmingham who like other women. It made the society feel richer.
Overall I enjoyed Spring Flowering, but would have preferred a greater focus on the romance between Louisa and Ann. So for that reason I've given it 4*.
morgandhu's review
4.0
Farah Mendlesohn is best known for her literary criticism, much of it in the areas of fantasy, science fiction, and children’s literature. To these scholarly credits she must now add the accolade of a writer of delightful queer historical romance.
Spring Flowering is the story of Ann Gray, a 27-year-old parson’s daughter who finds herself on the brink of a life of her own following the death of her father. Leaving the parsonage where she grew up for the new world of Birmingham, where her uncle owns and operates a fancy metalwork business, Ann is surrounded by new people, new sights, and new ideas.
But welcome though she is in her uncle’s lively establishment, Ann is not fully content. Accustomed to managing her father’s household after her mother’s death, Ann is now a supernumerary in her aunt’s home. Her cousin Louisa, with whom she has the most in common, has begun to work in the family business - something that Ann had encouraged her uncle to consider, for it was clearly something Louisa longed to do, yet it has left her without a companion. She finds no interest in the courtship offered by Mr. Morden, the young curate who took over her father’s parish. And Jane, the bosom friend of her youth, with whom she had shared a passionate friendship, is now married.
Thus, Ann finds herself both intrigued and somewhat distracted by by the stylish, somewhat older Mrs. King, a widow who has entered into a business partnership with her uncle - especially when Mrs. King offers her the position of governess to her two sons, who are to be educated along with her own cousin, her uncle’s young son and heir, as they will be the next generation of partners in the family business. The offer is exciting, and yet, when Ann goes to visit Jane for a few weeks, it is Louisa whom she finds herself missing most.
The story unfolds slowly and gently, with a keen eye fir the rhythms of family, business and social life that is both entertaining and rewarding.
Behind the story of Ann’s slow flowering, Mendlesohn presents a detailed picture of merchant class life in the early 19th century. I find myself reading about Uncle James and his factory and trade outlet, and thinking that this is what I didn’t see in Jane Austen’s stories - this is something like the life, for instance, that Elizabeth Bennett’s beloved Aunt and Uncle would have lived in London, at a time when family and business were still interwoven. We see hints of the coming industrial age, as successful family-centred trades slowly increase in scope becoming concentrated capital projects. Craftsmen are on the verge of being replaced by labourers at machine lines, even while social changes are bringing about such progressive trends as greater freedom for women and abolition of the slave trade.
Mendlesohn handles the queer aspects of the romance with a deft touch, and it is pleasant to read a lesbian historical romance in which no one seems distressed that Ann does not warm to men, that she has had one ‘particular friendship’ already in her life, and that she is being delicately courted by a woman known to have had such ‘particular friendships’ herself.
To quote the final line in the book, “It all felt very satisfying indeed!”
Spring Flowering is the story of Ann Gray, a 27-year-old parson’s daughter who finds herself on the brink of a life of her own following the death of her father. Leaving the parsonage where she grew up for the new world of Birmingham, where her uncle owns and operates a fancy metalwork business, Ann is surrounded by new people, new sights, and new ideas.
But welcome though she is in her uncle’s lively establishment, Ann is not fully content. Accustomed to managing her father’s household after her mother’s death, Ann is now a supernumerary in her aunt’s home. Her cousin Louisa, with whom she has the most in common, has begun to work in the family business - something that Ann had encouraged her uncle to consider, for it was clearly something Louisa longed to do, yet it has left her without a companion. She finds no interest in the courtship offered by Mr. Morden, the young curate who took over her father’s parish. And Jane, the bosom friend of her youth, with whom she had shared a passionate friendship, is now married.
Thus, Ann finds herself both intrigued and somewhat distracted by by the stylish, somewhat older Mrs. King, a widow who has entered into a business partnership with her uncle - especially when Mrs. King offers her the position of governess to her two sons, who are to be educated along with her own cousin, her uncle’s young son and heir, as they will be the next generation of partners in the family business. The offer is exciting, and yet, when Ann goes to visit Jane for a few weeks, it is Louisa whom she finds herself missing most.
The story unfolds slowly and gently, with a keen eye fir the rhythms of family, business and social life that is both entertaining and rewarding.
Behind the story of Ann’s slow flowering, Mendlesohn presents a detailed picture of merchant class life in the early 19th century. I find myself reading about Uncle James and his factory and trade outlet, and thinking that this is what I didn’t see in Jane Austen’s stories - this is something like the life, for instance, that Elizabeth Bennett’s beloved Aunt and Uncle would have lived in London, at a time when family and business were still interwoven. We see hints of the coming industrial age, as successful family-centred trades slowly increase in scope becoming concentrated capital projects. Craftsmen are on the verge of being replaced by labourers at machine lines, even while social changes are bringing about such progressive trends as greater freedom for women and abolition of the slave trade.
Mendlesohn handles the queer aspects of the romance with a deft touch, and it is pleasant to read a lesbian historical romance in which no one seems distressed that Ann does not warm to men, that she has had one ‘particular friendship’ already in her life, and that she is being delicately courted by a woman known to have had such ‘particular friendships’ herself.
To quote the final line in the book, “It all felt very satisfying indeed!”
corrie's review
4.0
Spring Flowering by Farah Mendlesohn.
Wow, ok… so it was really in the last 20% of the book when we started to get to the meat of the story. Before that it was as someone aptly described “this-is-a-story-of-what-Ann-did-next”. After what you may ask?
Well for that we better start at the beginning.
Ann Gray is the bookish daughter of parson William Gray and we enter the story as Ann is sitting at her father’s death-bed reminiscing about the people she lost in her life - her brother John died at Waterloo when Ann was 16 and her mother died 4 years ago of fever. After her father’s death this life in the small village will come to an end as she is going to relinquish her independence to live with her Uncle and Aunt James in Birmingham. Ann is also saying goodbye to her closest childhood friend Jane who is about to marry.
The story is all about how Ann works through her grief, the loss of her home, her life in Birmingham, coming to terms with her sexuality (eventhough there was no real acknowledgement for that back then), to find out what she wants to do with her life and who she wants to share it with.
It’s well written and historically informative, you can tell the author is an academic in that field. But the pacing is not really what you expect in a romance novel. There are gorgeous historical details about how people ran a household, their customs, how they occupied themselves, what they ate and how frugal they were. At the 60% mark of the book there is still plenty of exposition about the city of Birmingham (where the author grew up) and its new building development. And all I wanted at that point was to spend more time with Mrs. King (sigh).
Spring Flowering reminds me of Jane Austin and the whole situation with the new parson Mr. Morton made me think of Pride and Prejudice’s Mr. Collins (although maybe less bumbly). I like Ann Gray. She is kind, sensible and has a good head on her shoulders. She reads Euclid and solves mathematical problems. A good heroine for this story.
I don’t want to spoil the romance in this book because there are some nice twists when we finally come to it. Most of all it’s a well written novel about family life in Regency England. If you love the period and women loving women in a historical setting I can really recommend this book.
f/f explicit
Themes: keeping it in the family, the girls did more than braid each other’s hair, we are not in Warwickshire anymore, Oohh… Mrs. King has a roving eye, why are we talking about state of the soil around Birmingham when we can explore what Mrs. King wants to do with Ann?, I love historical exposition as much as the next girl… but…, Mrs. King only seems to want a pillow princess, kissing cousins, those crafty Georgian women were so handy with needle and thread, I mean… making a ring out of a lock of hair.
4 stars
Wow, ok… so it was really in the last 20% of the book when we started to get to the meat of the story. Before that it was as someone aptly described “this-is-a-story-of-what-Ann-did-next”. After what you may ask?
Well for that we better start at the beginning.
Ann Gray is the bookish daughter of parson William Gray and we enter the story as Ann is sitting at her father’s death-bed reminiscing about the people she lost in her life - her brother John died at Waterloo when Ann was 16 and her mother died 4 years ago of fever. After her father’s death this life in the small village will come to an end as she is going to relinquish her independence to live with her Uncle and Aunt James in Birmingham. Ann is also saying goodbye to her closest childhood friend Jane who is about to marry.
The story is all about how Ann works through her grief, the loss of her home, her life in Birmingham, coming to terms with her sexuality (eventhough there was no real acknowledgement for that back then), to find out what she wants to do with her life and who she wants to share it with.
It’s well written and historically informative, you can tell the author is an academic in that field. But the pacing is not really what you expect in a romance novel. There are gorgeous historical details about how people ran a household, their customs, how they occupied themselves, what they ate and how frugal they were. At the 60% mark of the book there is still plenty of exposition about the city of Birmingham (where the author grew up) and its new building development. And all I wanted at that point was to spend more time with Mrs. King (sigh).
Spring Flowering reminds me of Jane Austin and the whole situation with the new parson Mr. Morton made me think of Pride and Prejudice’s Mr. Collins (although maybe less bumbly). I like Ann Gray. She is kind, sensible and has a good head on her shoulders. She reads Euclid and solves mathematical problems. A good heroine for this story.
I don’t want to spoil the romance in this book because there are some nice twists when we finally come to it. Most of all it’s a well written novel about family life in Regency England. If you love the period and women loving women in a historical setting I can really recommend this book.
f/f explicit
Themes: keeping it in the family, the girls did more than braid each other’s hair, we are not in Warwickshire anymore, Oohh… Mrs. King has a roving eye, why are we talking about state of the soil around Birmingham when we can explore what Mrs. King wants to do with Ann?, I love historical exposition as much as the next girl… but…, Mrs. King only seems to want a pillow princess, kissing cousins, those crafty Georgian women were so handy with needle and thread, I mean… making a ring out of a lock of hair.
4 stars
kates's review
2.0
Not really a romance novel, more of a coming-into-one's-own novel. Odd, in that the details are clearly meticulously researched, but the tone of the whole doesn't feel plausible. And quite dull, but in a plodding, comfortable way.
If you're looking for f/f Georgette Heyer - this ain't it.
If you're looking for f/f Georgette Heyer - this ain't it.
kjcharles's review
A f/f historical at a non-eyewatering price is still a rare and precious thing, plus I heard the author speak at a conference and she was amazing, so I was on this like a rat up a drainpipe.
The historical grounding is amazing. This is the most vivid, immersive daily life depiction, and of relatively normal middle class people too. I was fascinated by the manufactories in particular, and the way women's position in work was changing, but all the details of life and work were gloriously real. What a joy.
The pacing is definitely not conventional for a romance, and I think it's probably more of a What Ann Did Next novel: her life going through grief and the loss of her home, building a new life, coming to terms with her sexuality in a world that doesn't give her any useful terms to use (but is not unwelcoming, which is lovely), and finally working her way to understand who she is and what she wants, and with whom. I would have liked the ending 20% to have more space to breathe myself, but then I like a good wallow.
Fabulous female friendships and family-building too. I really enjoyed this.
The historical grounding is amazing. This is the most vivid, immersive daily life depiction, and of relatively normal middle class people too. I was fascinated by the manufactories in particular, and the way women's position in work was changing, but all the details of life and work were gloriously real. What a joy.
The pacing is definitely not conventional for a romance, and I think it's probably more of a What Ann Did Next novel: her life going through grief and the loss of her home, building a new life, coming to terms with her sexuality in a world that doesn't give her any useful terms to use (but is not unwelcoming, which is lovely), and finally working her way to understand who she is and what she wants, and with whom. I would have liked the ending 20% to have more space to breathe myself, but then I like a good wallow.
Fabulous female friendships and family-building too. I really enjoyed this.
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