interracial romance - Felicia Davin

Felicia Davin

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interracial romance

A collection of 14 posts

Book covers for Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, Sherry Thomas's Ravishing the Heiress, and Darcy Liao's Make Room for Love

sci fi or fantasy

Answerable

on The Left Hand of Darkness, Ravishing the Heiress, and Make Room for Love

$graphic showing fractions of the covers of the romance novels reviewed$

historical romance

Absolute skulduggery

sneaking around and romance novels

I do cock a snook, but not at thee

rude gestures, death, and romance novels

Big-eared rabbit-eared

Big-eared rabbit-eared

a small Australian marsupial, language names, and romance novels

contemporary romance

Shedding some light

TORCH, n., FLASHLIGHT, n. I recently had to look up, for novel research, when handheld battery-powered lights were invented (1899). Wikipedia revealed why US and Canadian English speakers call these things “flashlights” while the rest of the English-speaking world calls them “(electric) torches”: Early flashlights ran on zinc–carbon batteries,

contemporary romance

Downfalls and inheritances

DEMISE, n. This word showed up in one of the romance novels below (A Caribbean Heiress in Paris) in the sentence “If the duke only knew that his sons had been plotting his demise for weeks […]” In context, the duke’s sons are not plotting his death, but his downfall;

English literature

Every beating heart a secret

SONDER, n. This is a new word (we could say “neologism,” sure), coined by the writer John Koenig in 2012 for his project The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. He invented it based on French “sonder” (to probe, to measure the depths of), and German “sonder-,” a prefix that indicates something

Octidi 18 Nivôse

Octidi 18 Nivôse

CALENDAR, n. Timely, right? I looked this word up for reasons that will become clear below, but I figured the first newsletter of January was a great moment to tell you about it. We get “calendar,” meaning the way we organize our months and years (as in “the Gregorian calendar”

historical romance

Undercrofts

UNDERCROFT, n. Two of the romance novels that I wrote about below prominently feature an undercroft, that is to say, the cavernous space under a castle, filled with stone columns. So naturally I had to look it up. Undercrofts tend to be a feature of Norman architecture, so we’re

a word to the poem

contemporary romance

a word to the poem

LEOPARD, n. This is the common name in English for Panthera pardus, a spotted, golden-furred big cat that lives in various habitats across Africa and Asia. The etymology of “leopard” is fairly straightforward: most likely, it’s “leo” for lion and “pard” from pardos, meaning “spotted.” “Like a lion, but

Following nature

SECOND NATURE, expr. I was listening to a song of this title recently and it occurred to me that I didn’t really know what this phrase meant. Sure, sure, something that “is/comes as/feels like second nature” is instinctive or effortless, but shouldn’t that be first nature?

Gerfaunts and orafles

GIRAFFE, n. This word, referring to the long-necked, spotted African mammal, comes to English through French, where it used to be spelled “giraffe” but is now spelled “girafe,” and in either case its origin is Arabic zarāfa. Before English settled on “giraffe,” we used to call these animals camelopards, gerfaunts,

Coneys

RABBIT, n. My baby learned to say this word. Actually, he learned to say “babbit,” which is even better. Did you know that children simplify words they can’t pronounce in consistent, predictable ways? As in, not all kids employ the same rules, but each individual kid settles on their

"the obscenest picture the world possesses"

"the obscenest picture the world possesses"

PUDENDUM, n. I recently finished reading Ross King’s The Judgment of Paris, a nonfiction book about Impressionism and French history, in particular the artists Édouard Manet and Henri Meissonier. I loved it, not just because there were several etymologies mentioned, most memorably the one in this long excerpt (page