![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Briarley, by Aster Glenn Gray
Jun. 14th, 2018 03:32 pmBriarley is not so much a Beauty and the Beast re-telling as a fix-it fic. It's a short but lovely M/M romance with no sex, no Stockholm syndrome, and a father who refuses to trade his daughter for his freedom.
One of the protagonists is a bisexual Christian parson in WW II England, and the story treats his faith and his vocation seriously, which I particularly loved. With the parson's stance being "I don't believe homosexuality is sinful and here is my reasoning, but I am a flawed human like everyone else and I could be wrong." It felt authentic and respectful.
The dragon (ie, the Beast) protagonist wasn't as well-developed as the parson, which would've made the romance more endearing. But this was still a quick, fun read, with lots of good detail relevant to the setting. And not the standard "Nazis bad" stuff: bits about wartime rationing and German bombings of England and not using lights at night so the bombers wouldn't be inadvertently guided by them.
It's a good story. Check it out!
One of the protagonists is a bisexual Christian parson in WW II England, and the story treats his faith and his vocation seriously, which I particularly loved. With the parson's stance being "I don't believe homosexuality is sinful and here is my reasoning, but I am a flawed human like everyone else and I could be wrong." It felt authentic and respectful.
The dragon (ie, the Beast) protagonist wasn't as well-developed as the parson, which would've made the romance more endearing. But this was still a quick, fun read, with lots of good detail relevant to the setting. And not the standard "Nazis bad" stuff: bits about wartime rationing and German bombings of England and not using lights at night so the bombers wouldn't be inadvertently guided by them.
It's a good story. Check it out!
