fellow adventurers

Chencia C. Higgins, A Little Kissing Between Friends (2024)

Black Sapphic romance between a music producer and an erotic dancer, best friends for three years, until the day they suddenly developed the hots for each other. I really enjoyed this, largely because the conflict felt like it had organic depth to it. Jucee, the dancer, isn't interested in dating around, but is in it for something serious or nothing at all; meanwhile, Cyndi, the musician, only does casual relationships, and goes into a tailspin over having gone to bed with someone that she decidedly can't be casual about. But even more than that: they feel like a new couple who are still learning how to constructively fight. (Does that make any sense? It's possible to be friends for years on the mutual agreement that you don't fight. But when the stakes are raised to romantic, you suddenly discover you don't know how to constructively work through disagreements with this specific person, that each of your reflexive habits during arguments are non-constructive (either in general, or are specifically incompatible with what the other person does in a fight), and you urgently need to figure out some way to productively work through arguments together if you're going to make this work.) So, yes, there's a lot of miscommunication missteps along the way, things that each of them should have handled better, but it felt realistic and organic, like a couple who is only just now figuring out how to work through problems together. The love and respect and will are there! The how-to is not—or not at first, anyway.

I also just really liked the characters and the supporting cast: the opening scene is when Cyndi came out to her father as a child, and it 100% sold me on why she loves her dad so much. Also loved the stud representation—I found this book on a rec list for Black butch and Black stud characters, and Cyndi did not disappoint.


Laban Carrick Hill (illus. Bryan Collier), Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave (2010)

Children's picture book about an enslaved South Carolina potter, known for most of his life only as Dave (later known as David Drake, after several of his owners). Dave is remembered today for his skill—he was one of the few who could make jars that held twenty gallons and more—and for his poems, which he sometimes inscribed on his pots.

a better thing, I never saw
when I shot off, the lions Jaw
—November 9, 1836

Dave belongs to Mr. Miles /
wher the oven bakes & the pot biles ///
—July 31, 1840

another trick is worst than this +
Dearest miss: spare me a Kiss +
—August 26, 1840

I wonder where is all my relation
friendship to all—and, every nation
—August 16, 1857

the sun moon and—stars=
in the west are a plenty of—bears '''
—July 29, 1858

I, made this Jar, all of cross
If, you dont repent, you will be, lost=
—May 3, 1862

The text of Dave the Potter is a poem about the making of a single pot, from digging and grinding the earth to writing the inscription (not shown: glazing and firing). I was a little surprised at the inclusion of technical language without a glossary to define terms. An afterword gives a mini-biography of what is known about Dave's life, punctuated with a selection of his poems.

The illustrations are lovely and rich—the fold-out page of shaping a pot was especially beautiful. The illustrations are worth a second look, too: the backgrounds often show other enslaved characters, depicting the context in which Dave lived his life. I especially appreciated the burnt-umber ancestral tree, with the faces of Dave's ancestors and relations barely visible in its bark.


Compton Mackenzie, The Monarch of the Glen (1941)

I seem to have missed blogging about this, back when I read it?

Comic novel set just before WWII detailing the showdown between a Highland laird and the hikers that inadvertently ruined his hunting—the hikers are variously Scottish Nationalists and Londoners, and the one kind is quite as infuriating to Ben Nevis as the other. The dramatis personae also includes a rich New Yorker (who discovers a fondness for shockingly bold kilts) and his Canadian wife (who has had romantic feelings about the Highlands since she was a young girl). I had a particular fondness for the laird's two "hefty" daughters, who can pick up an errant hiker and carry them around over their shoulders. (Justice for Ben Nevis's daughters!)

Characterizations and incidents are exaggerated and over-the-top, a la Wodehouse, but the characters were fun, the narrator amusing, and the prose masterful. (Quite a few passages I read aloud to grrlpup, sometimes because the observation was on-point, but more often because the phrasing was so much fun.) I had to read with my phone in hand to look up all the references and allusions (some of which were NOT straightforward), but I usually found that rewarding, as well. (I... usually do not struggle this much with a vintage novel? But comedy/satire can be very of-the-moment, and I guess the popular culture of Interwar Britain is not my strong suit.)

Gutenburg.ca has a selection of some the author's earlier novels, but nothing that appears to be from this series.