Lina Rather: Season of Monstrous Conceptions (2023, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom)
English language
Published June 8, 2023 by Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom.
An interesting mix of victorian(?) midwifery and eldritch mysticism. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't as groundbreaking as Our Lady of Endless Worlds.
This was a fun novella about 17th century London midwifery where there's a spate of babies being born with monstrous appearances and magical abilities. This is the September 2025 #SFFBookClub pick.
There's a fun angle of respectability politics, of not wanting to be publicly seen as queer so that Sarah can get better midwife clientele (and survive as a widowed woman), but also taking the angle of her having to cover the parts of herself that are uncanny. (Sure, sure, I am a sucker for the metaphor of queer as monstrous.) There's also a strong gendered metaphor of Sir Christopher Wren, creepily representing science and men cataloguing the world (and thinking they truly know it) versus the midwives having their own knowledge of other worlds and of magic.
Overall, this book met my expectations for exactly what I thought it was going to be in a good way. I love …
This was a fun novella about 17th century London midwifery where there's a spate of babies being born with monstrous appearances and magical abilities. This is the September 2025 #SFFBookClub pick.
There's a fun angle of respectability politics, of not wanting to be publicly seen as queer so that Sarah can get better midwife clientele (and survive as a widowed woman), but also taking the angle of her having to cover the parts of herself that are uncanny. (Sure, sure, I am a sucker for the metaphor of queer as monstrous.) There's also a strong gendered metaphor of Sir Christopher Wren, creepily representing science and men cataloguing the world (and thinking they truly know it) versus the midwives having their own knowledge of other worlds and of magic.
Overall, this book met my expectations for exactly what I thought it was going to be in a good way. I love a solid novella that can fit in good worldbuilding and plot and some character development without leaving me feeling like there's elements missing or it's rushed. It feels like the kind of story that would make a good movie. (This is all especially in comparison to previous novellas we have read for #SFFBookClub, like Countess.)
I have some thoughts about the ending, which I will put in a separate spoilered post.
Childbirth is stressful and unpredictable in real life but, in Lina Rather’s brisk novel, A Season of Monstrous Conceptions, a touch of magic makes things even more so for the mothers who birth children who bear the marks of another world. Sarah Davis is an apprentice midwife, learning to help both mother and child survive the often traumatic labor. She also has a touch of the other world, herself, allowing her to manipulate the force that’s seeping into England in the wake of the Great Fire of London...
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.
