FEND, v. Recently I told my beloved that our dinner plan was “Fend For Yourself Friday” and, because we’ve lived together so long that by now we’re almost the same person, he asked me where “fend” comes from. I said it was probably Romance in origin, from defend (French défendre, Latin dēfendere) and even though that’s not very exciting etymologically, you’re receiving this newsletter because, while sometimes it’s fun to be wrong, I love to be right.
It’s medieval English speakers who clipped off “de” and said “fend” instead. You know how it is—gotta save time.
We can guess that Latin probably had “fendere” meaning “to hit,” but we don’t have attestations, and French has “fendre,” but it means “to separate” and comes from Latin “findere” (meaning the same). So “fend” in the sense of defend, or ward off, and later “provide for,” is an English invention. And from there we invented “fender” (an object that keeps something away). Then, much later (1958, chiefly US), “fender-bender” for a minor car accident.
It can be tiresome to fend for oneself all the time, though. Luckily we have a whole literary genre about the fantasy of what if you fell in love with someone and they did it for you. Here’s what I’ve read lately in small-r romance.
Here for the Right Reasons (m/f, both cis and het, contemporary) by Jodi McAlister. This Bachelor-inspired romance is just delightful from start to finish. I read it almost in a single sitting, a rare pleasure. Romance has a form, and reading one that executes its form so perfectly is like watching an Olympic gymnast do their floor routine. I should have said Olympic sailor, as that’s what the hero of this book is, but I am sorry to say I have not watched any sailing, though apparently there is an event called “laser,” which sounds exciting. Anyway. It’s 2020 and Cece is broke and has just lost her job due to the pandemic, so when her vodka-and-best-friend-fueled application to the reality show Marry Me, Juliet is accepted, she says yes for the money. Now she just has to get a very beautiful and accomplished man to like her enough to keep her around for a few episodes—except she’s an anxious disaster on camera. The pandemic means everyone in the reality-show bubble has to stick around the filming site for weeks, which makes for an interesting twist. Cece and her potential Romeo are written with such warmth and kindness and I loved spending time with them. The supporting role played by the show’s clever villain made me very interested in her book. I love a scheming bitch. Also: this book is diverse and inclusive and part of a series that contains both m/f and f/f romances, and I love that and want to see more of it in the world.
The Blighted Stars (bi trans m/het cis f, sci-fi) by Megan E. O’Keefe. Just like last time, here I am in the small-r romance section reviewing a book that, as the first of a series, does not have a Happily Ever After. But listen: I am always thrilled to find more sci-fi romance that suits my particular taste, and this book feels like it was written specifically for me. To wit, the main characters are (1) a handsome and adorable trans geologist who is also the nepo baby failson of an evil corporate oligarch, and he kind of sucks but is trying his best and I loved him immediately, and (2) a furious vengeful lying revolutionary ecoterrorist spy, mean but righteous, loyal to her people and always ready to answer a distress call, forced into a life of killing when really what she wants is to save people, and if she punched me in the face I would feel honored. She is pretending to be the geologist’s bodyguard, and they are trapped on a horrible creepy planet (like, so creepy) and must survive the wilderness together. Also, she can and does scoop said adorable geologist over her shoulder in a firefighter carry and run through the woods with him, even though he’s bigger than her. All 161 previous issues of this newsletter are insufficient to express just how exactly this book is my personal catnip. It has some intensely gross body horror stuff in it and I breezed right past that because the action and the romance were so gripping. The pacing is a miracle. There’s some fun body/consciousness/memory/identity sci-fi stuff in here—people can download their consciousnesses into new 3D-printed bodies, but because this is a dystopian corporate setting, the future is unevenly distributed and access to revival/health/gender-affirming care is prohibitively expensive—but I don’t have time to tell you about that because the bodyguard spy flirts with the geologist by letting him infodump to her about minerals, and it was so cute my face ached from smiling. I immediately begged the Boston Public Library to buy book two (they did).
A note here that I have read some fabulous romance-adjacent writing on Substack, but I can’t bring myself to link it. I hesitated to even read it. So I think not linking anything on Substack is now my policy.
A lot of great writers are still there, and I do understand it’s hard to leave. I contemplated it for months (January 2021) and finally did it in March 2021 when Substack warmly welcomed a bunch of transphobes. Leaving was a lot of work. But as of 2024, Substack is a Nazi bar. It sucks. This stuff is appallingly pervasive on the internet and hard to avoid entirely.
Still, I wanted to make the case here that Substack’s service isn’t unique. If you have a newsletter there, you could switch to Ghost, or Buttondown, or Wordpress with email updates, or a number of other platforms* that haven’t said “yes, we love to profit from transphobes and Nazis.” I can’t promise you that switching won’t be tedious labor, or that you won’t lose money or subscribers, but if you knew you were in a Nazi bar, you’d leave, right?
*Word Suitcase currently runs on a combination of Squarespace and Mailchimp, but it’s expensive and unnecessarily complicated, so don’t do as I have done, lol.
In things that are neither Romance nor romance, I also read another of Mick Herron’s Slough House novels (Spook Street) and I am in awe of Herron’s commitment to excising all glamor from espionage. Everyone in Intelligence is either a disgusting offensive fuckup in stinky wrinkled clothes or a smarmy grasping backstabber. They all have blood on their hands (and drinking problems and PTSD). London is forty traffic jams stacked on top of a sludgy puddle of half-rotted cigarette ends, unbearable in every season. You would never want to go there or hang out with any of these people—except that I do. Even though they are relentlessly heterosexual. (Explicit textual confirmation of queerness or it doesn’t fucking count, Mick Herron.) This book somehow managed to keep me on the edge of my seat, break my heart, and make me shake with laughter. When is the next one coming from the library!!!!!!
Also, if I write a novel in third-person omniscient, it is Mick Herron’s fault.
Lastly, here’s Asher Elbein writing a fantastic essay on the history of Magneto, X-Men, Jews, mutants, Israel, violence, and repentance, which pairs nicely with Naomi Klein’s speech at the Seder in the Streets protest in New York City, about Zionism as a false idol. Happy Passover. Next year in peace and justice.
That’s all for this time. I don’t always say this, but I always feel it: thanks for reading Word Suitcase! This newsletter is a wonderful part of my life. I love writing about words and books and hearing back from you all. I’ll be back in your inbox on May 12.