A standalone F/F historical romanceClockmender Hannah Croft's friend Molly has been arrested for her connections to a Jacobin club. In the tumultuous political climate of 1790s Britain, being in the wrong place at the wrong time is enough to land Molly in gaol. Hannah's one hope to free her lies in the testimony of housemaid Lucy Boone.Lucy has spent her entire life moving from one household to another, never forming a true connection with her fellow servants--nor with her occasional lovers. She prefers it that way. When you can rely on yourself, why would you need anyone else? But when Hannah Croft asks for help, she cannot say no.Working together to free Molly, the two women don't try to ignore their growing attraction. For Hannah, Lucy is a beacon of hope at a difficult time.…
"Well, it’s a sapphic Regency romance, so it’s about two women, but more importantly, it’s two lower-class women. There is an increasing number of authors that are doing non-titled characters in historical romances, expanding the history that way. Sixpenny Octavo is the story of a clock mender and a housemaid-turned-dancing master’s assistant. They meet in the context of helping to get a mutual friend out of prison because she’s been charged with sedition on the account of the reading club that she and the clock mender is in. The housemaid will in turn testify to get the clock mender’s friend released from prison. In the course of dealing with the prison system, reading club stuff, and the housemaid finding a new job, the housemaid and the clock mender fall in love. However, there might be an informant in the reading club, so they have a traitor in the midst. The thing that I love about this book is that yes, there are the sedition charges, and the prison element, and it’s frightening and real, in a way that we don’t often see in historical romance novels, but at the same time, this book is so cozy and warm. It’s about friends who get together in a pub and read aloud to one another. It’s so interesting and fascinating and richly detailed. There’s so much history in the Regency that we don’t usually get to see. With Bridgerton, even when they’re doing the big social scenes, it still keeps it socially focused. It’s very domestic, and while that’s great, there’s so much more happening in this time period. Getting out of this aristocratic mode really opens up the possibilities of the world. It reminds me of Spring Flowering by Farah Mendlesohn, another working-class lesbian Regency romance."
