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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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August Updates (2024)

Greetings

Welcome to the Books That Burn Fortnightly Roundup! Releasing every two weeks (one week early for Patrons).

You may ask, if I haven’t been reviewing for the last month or so, what have I been up to?

I’ve been re-reading the Inheritance series by A.K. Faulkner and the October Daye series by Seanan McGuire in order to draft a five-part essay series on various aspects of long book series.

The first of those essays is now available to everyone, and the second is available for Patrons.

I’m also helping to judge an indie writing contest, which has meant reading a lot of things I’m not yet allowed to talk about, all of which made it harder to actually review anything. I’m working on getting back up to speed, but reviews may be sparse for a bit.

News and Events

I track upcoming book releases by authors we've previously covered on a shareable google calendar.

I don’t have any releases of note for August, so here’s a head start on next month!

Notable SEPTEMBER Releases:

  • Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White (September 3rd)

  • A Dark and Drowning Tide by Allison Saft

Recent Reviews

SIGILS OF SPRING by A.K. Faulkner, book 7 of Inheritance is Fantasy/Romance, with queer character(s), marketed as Adult. Quentin has a stalker, a "ghost hunter" who is determined to discover Quentin's secret at any cost. Apparently, not even kidnapping is off the table. Told in Third Person with Dual POVs.

Current Reads

I’m currently re-reading PAGE OF TRICKS in order to get the timeline for a playlist.

Songs and Playlists

Sometimes I make book playlists, either chronological or character-vibes. You can find all of those here.

This fortnight’s featured playlist is: A chronological, chapter-by-chapter playlist for HELL FOLLOWED WITH US by Andrew Joseph White.

In Case You Missed It

This time last year I read the first of the Demon King’s Gardener books, “In Which a Demon King Does Not Have a Romantic Interest in his Human Gardener” by Aurora Lee Thornton.

Pluggables and Podcast News

As for the podcast, hopefully you're enjoying our most recent episode. If you'd like to receive episodes early, as well as bonus content, please consider supporting us on Patreon. Patrons receive this newsletter one week early, as well as a list of upcoming podcast episodes and even more planned reviews.

Patrons at any level receive the booklist with our planned episodes for up to three months at a time.

Thanks for reading, the next roundup will be in two weeks!

-Robin

Co-host of Books That Burn

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