themed rec list: bird bisexuals

I thought it might be fun to put together some lists of recommendations, drawn from book reviews in my archives, and in honor of this excellent tumblr post

I am starting with what I’m going to call “bird bisexuals.”

First, I must mention Anna Cowan’s historical romance Untamed (2013), which is out of print, but if it ever comes back into print, it fits perfectly into this micro-genre. Until then, here are some other possibilities:

A Widow’s Charm (bi m/het f, both cis, fantasy) by Caitlyn Paxson. I asked for “fantasy romance like T. Kingfisher’s” on Bluesky and this was one of the answers. It’s delightful. Hilde finds herself unexpectedly widowed, with her husband having failed to fulfill his promise to bequeath his lands to their tenants. Now his horrible brother is going to make the whole village homeless, unless, perhaps, Hilde can seduce the man next door who’s rumored to be able to bring back the dead with a touch. The man next door, an extremely traumatized bisexual facing down the consequences of all his bad decisions, would very much like to be seduced, but he’s not keen on the resurrection part of Hilde’s plan. There’s a truly heinous villain, a dog who is literally lord of the manor, a very clever lawyer, and an autistic butch lesbian who is, of course, the only one with any sense. (Excited for her to be the heroine of the next book.) Also, a very theatrical sequence where everyone’s trapped in the same house and all night they go in and out of each other’s rooms having dramatic encounters, which I loved. (original newsletter)

Fan Service (het? m/bi f, both cis, contemporary, fantasy) by Rosie Danan. If you are in the demographic of queer weirdos who grew up in online fandom spaces, obsessing over niche CW shows like Supernatural, you may be entitled to compensation—in the form of this romance novel, which sees you and loves you. Alexandra Lawson’s small Florida hometown describes her in four words (gay, goth, vegan, bitch), which is why she spent her formative years staying the hell away from them and moderating a internet fan archive for The Arcane Files, a show about a werewolf detective. Devin Ashwood, the actor who plays said werewolf detective once insulted her at a convention, breaking her heart. Years later, when Devin’s a washed-up has-been who starts actually turning into a werewolf, mimicking the show’s lore, he turns to her for help. He doesn’t remember her, and neither of them can really believe what’s happening, but she needs his money badly enough to investigate. Naturally this involves all kinds of deliciously trope-y forced proximity—he simply must take an ice bath and risk hypothermia!—and of course, for some reason, Alex smells really, really good to Devin’s werewolf senses. This is endearingly silly but still hot. An excellent combination. (original newsletter)

Isn’t It Obvious? (m/f, both cis and bi, contemporary) by Rachel Runya Katz. What a gorgeous book. I’m always going to be an easy sell for “these two people dislike each other in real life without realizing that they love each other online,” but a good premise doesn’t make a good book, you know? What makes a good book is vivid, memorable characters, big feelings, and great writing, and this one has all three. It delivers so much delicious dramatic irony and angst, but it’s also sweet and sexy and funny. Yael is a high school librarian in Portland who has a podcast—for which she doesn’t use her real name—that critiques classic high school reading like Catcher in the Rye and The Great Gatsby. She needs an audio editor and a graphic designer, so her friend in NYC recommends a colleague who just went freelance. He and Yael instantly connect over email, and then text, and they share a lot more than editing notes on the podcast. He’s kind and considerate and has absolutely nothing in common with Ravi, the guy Yael caught sneaking out through her bedroom window after he had a one-night stand with her roommate Charlie. Ravi is awful, obviously—except he volunteers to help Yael run her after-school queer book club, for which she’s legally required to have another adult present. I loved the book-club kids and Ravi’s four-year-old niece, which is notable because I have a lot of real-life experience of four year olds right now, so I would find it grating if this book did it wrong—but it doesn’t! His niece is a cute and believable preschooler. A lot of care went into crafting this book, from the supporting-character kids to the Portland setting to Yael and Ravi sharing little bits of their cultures with each other (she’s Black and Jewish, he’s Indo-Trinidadian). That sounds pat, maybe, or tokenizing. But since I recently tossed aside a romance novel that had a supposedly French character saying “la curiosité a tué le chat” (literally “curiosity killed the cat”), as if French speakers and English speakers use identical expressions instead of each language having its own treasury of idioms that vary across geography and generations, it was refreshing to read Ravi joking with Yael that “yuh cyah make love on a hungry belly,” which this book taught me is a Trinidadian expression meaning that love doesn’t put food on the table / poverty can cause relationship problems. It felt right that these two characters, who are both bookish and whose relationship was largely epistolary, would care about words and language. Now I feel like I’ve made this book sound like homework, which is no good, because what I should be telling you is that it’s an up-past-my-bedtime, fun-as-hell, captivating read. (original newsletter)

The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes (m/f, both cis and bi, historical) by Cat Sebastian. Two chaotic bisexuals falling in love via blackmail letters, going on the run for murder, then roaming the country doing Robin Hood crimes together—this book was made for me. And Marian had a life-threatening pregnancy and can’t risk another one and the hero respects and understands that, so they have sex that isn’t PIV sex, which is the obvious solution and one that I have rarely seen in historical romance. So as a person who had life-threatening pregnancies who flinches every time a histrom heroine who almost died from intercourse blithely gets dicked down because ~True Love~, I am here to say: thank God for Cat Sebastian. In addition to that tailored-just-for-me content, this also has lovely prose and a sweet, cheerful man who is head over heels for a prickly, ill-tempered woman, which, well, that also feels tailored just for me. I want to read this again just thinking about it. (original newsletter)

So there we have it. If you have further suggestions, please do tell me. There are, of course, many other excellent, queer m/f dynamics, and a much longer list of books is forthcoming.

I considered that some polyamorous romances might include this dynamic—I myself might have written a flamboyant bisexual show-off, and I certainly thought of Kandar in Juniper Butterworth’s Priest-Queen (previously reviewed)—but since many birds are famously monogamous, I thought I wouldn’t complicate things. A list of polyamorous romances is also in my plans.

This themed rec list is drawn from reviews I've written for Word Suitcase, a free newsletter about words and books. If you enjoyed this one, subscribe by email or RSS for the next one. If you know somebody who'd like reading these, please pass it along!

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