Quick review: _Patience & Esther_

I just finished the graphic novel Patience & Esther, by S.W. Searle, recently published by Smut Peddler. It's delightful, and I'm pretty sure a lot of my friends would love it. The story is subtitled An Edwardian Romance; it is set between 1910 and 1915.

Patience is a poor girl from the north of England; at the beginning of the story, she arrives at the Honeycutt Estate to begin service. It's nothing like Downton grandeur, just a small estate with a handful of staff. There, she meets Esther, the elegant ladies' maid from India, come to England to make her way and send money home. They are from radically different backgrounds (not least, Esther is much better educated, from a relatively high-caste family), but before terribly long they fall in love.

The book is a very sweet romance, light on melodrama and strife, much more interested in how these two women come together in a world that isn't exactly supportive. The romance is accentuated by the need to keep their heads down -- this is not a story about them being punished for their feelings, but neither does it pretend that it's easy for them in this environment.

(The latter point is underlined by the epilogue, a short story looking at an alternate-world version of the two of them celebrating their tenth anniversary in the modern day, where the tension is their relationship has nothing to do with secrecy, and everything to do with them trying to find work/life balance.)

The story follows them over the next five years, as they move together to London, encounter the suffragist movement and a somewhat more sexually open world, and eventually begin to figure out how to take more ownership of their lives.

It's quite explicit -- not porn, but not shying away from the fact that sex is an important part of their relationship. I suspect that that's a plus for most of my friends, but keep it in mind.

Besides being obviously both queer-positive and exploring an inter-racial romance in a time where that was its own problem, it's also a body-positive story, with Patience getting past her body-image issues with her own plumpness.

So it's a feel-good story, while still being a well-told exploration of the time, with lots of little well-researched detail. It isn't trying to be world-shaking, but it gives a sense of life. So it's a bit like the below-stairs side of Downton, without the melodrama and with a lot more sex.

Good stuff, well worth a read. Check it out...