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Two Essays on The Count of Monte Cristo

I love The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. I have read the unabridged version more than once, and my most recent reread was in 2023. At that time, I wrote a couple of brief essays which I posted on Tumblr, one of which was about a canonically queer character and the other discussed a character who is often left out of the various adaptations. I present for you these essays with expansion and alteration, because I keep returning to them as pieces of writing and because I don't want them to be limited to those original posts. I'd like to thank longtime Patron Case Aiken, who receives a monthly shoutout, as well as new patrons DivineJasper and Sasha Khan. (Quotes are from Robin Buss’ English translation of Alexandre Dumas’ work.) Link to Audio Version. ----- Canonical Queerness in The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas You’d need to change surprisingly little of The Count of Monte Cristo to confirm Eugénie Danglars as a trans man (or a masc-leaning nonbinary person...
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The Drowned Woods by Emily Lloyd-Jones

Once upon a time, the kingdoms of Wales were rife with magic and conflict, and eighteen-year-old Mererid “Mer” is well-acquainted with both. She is the last living water diviner and has spent years running from the prince who bound her into his service. Under the prince’s orders, she located the wells of his enemies, and he poisoned them without her knowledge, causing hundreds of deaths. After discovering what he had done, Mer went to great lengths to disappear from his reach. Then Mer’s old handler returns with a proposition: use her powers to bring down the very prince that abused them both.

The best way to do that is to destroy the magical well that keeps the prince’s lands safe. With a motley crew of allies, including a fae-cursed young man, the lady of thieves, and a corgi that may or may not be a spy, Mer may finally be able to steal precious freedom and peace for herself. After all, a person with a knife is one thing…but a person with a cause can topple kingdoms.

The Drowned Woods — set in the same world as The Bone Houses but with a whole new, unforgettable cast of characters — is part heist novel, part dark fairy tale.

TITLE: The Drowned Woods
AUTHOR: Emily Lloyd-Jones with Moira Quirk (narrator)
PUBLISHER: Hachette Audio
YEAR: 2022
LENGTH: 352 pages (10 hours 15 minutes)
AGE: Young Adult
GENRE: Fantasy
RECOMMENDED: N/A

Queer Rep Summary: Lesbian/Sapphic Main Character(s), Bi/Pan Main Character(s).

DNF 6 hours 2 minutes in (59%).

This feels similar to THE BONE HOUSES in many of the ways that made it just okay for me. In particular I find myself disliking the animal companion, this time it’s a Corgi. I want the guy to be broody instead of just quiet, I have very little sense of what anyone thinks, and I’m just not having a good time, so I’m stopping.

No Graphic/Explicit CWs.

Moderate CW for blood, violence, injury detail, torture, murder, death.

Minor CW for fire/fire injury, vomit, animal cruelty, animal death, child death, parental death.

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A golden tree with exposed roots on the edge of a hill at night


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