I'm not sure. I remember getting the book as soon as I could. Now that you mention it though, I have a feeling like it was listed on the site several months before it was actually available, and I think it may have been the first book available from them, so perhaps they simply didn't have any shipping information up originally.
From what I remember, the prose itself is acceptable but slow-paced. It reminded me of the lower tier of romance novels (as did the physical book itself with its not-so-great quality paper).
My real issue is that I liked the sound of gay gothic horror romance in a British manor, but she felt the need to bring in a lot of Japanese stuff in the middle. Those elements completely clashed with the setting and ruined the whole thing for me. The sadistic cousin was interesting; the Japanese ghost (who calls himself "yurei"--oy vey!) was not. To make it worse, the ghost can't remember his real name or much about himself, which freed the author from having to do any research and made the fact of his Japaneseness extra obviously only there for fetish value. If there had been lots of historical details or a point to his sudden introduction, fine. As it was, he seemed more like a deus ex machina to give the consumptive protagonist a syrupy happy ending instead of the creepy, kinky relationship she seemed to be setting up with the cousin. If she'd fleshed things out and made it twice as long or left the plot alone but tightened it up to half of that length, it could have been great. As it is, *snore*
I only read a few pages of the second novella. The prose wasn't terribly gripping in that one either.
However, all that said, if you do love her fanfic and you like collecting fandom-related materials, it's certainly a good conversation piece, and it's not terribly expensive for a weird specialist press book.
If you just want professional m/m work, there's plenty to choose from. I personally loved the cheesy but wonderfully fast paced Fortunes of War by Mel Keegan (known universally among my friends as "Ass Pirates of the Caribbean"). The rest of Keegan's work is old slash zine stories with the serial numbers filed off, and I imagine this one is no exception. It looks like it's even back in print! (For some astronomical price, but still. You can find it on Amazon.) The first time I read it, I absolutely could not put it down. Rereadings revealed that the prose is really not that great, but I never noticed the first time around. The sex is hot, even the hilariously heterosexual-sounding virginity losing scene. Best of all, to my extreme surprise, it actually did have a swashbuckling plot and not just pretty guys in historical clothing screwing.
I suspect that Lavender would point out that her interest was in yaoi and Keegan's is obviously in slash, but I'm afraid that from my perspective, the difference is that Keegan can handle plot flow and tension in a long story and Lavender really kind of fell down on the job.
I did buy some e-book thing of another story of Lavender's that was about a Japanese cop and an English artist in Meiji Japan. I think that one would probably have been more appealing to fans of her fanfic, but I couldn't get into it. (Uh, if it's not obvious, I was never that excited about her writing though. I got her original work because we were friendly at the time. So YMMV.) Sadly, I can't remember the title or where she was distributing it. The unnecessary English guy in that one gave me the same feeling as the unnecessary Japanese ghost in her gothic novel. Yes, there were some foreigners hanging around Japan in the Meiji period, but in both that original story and some of her fanfic, Lavender introduced foreign characters who I felt were just an excuse to insert white people into a setting they had no place in. Again, I got the sense that she wanted her books to be very historical, but she didn't want to actually put in the time doing research or to make tough editorial decisions.
no subject
From what I remember, the prose itself is acceptable but slow-paced. It reminded me of the lower tier of romance novels (as did the physical book itself with its not-so-great quality paper).
My real issue is that I liked the sound of gay gothic horror romance in a British manor, but she felt the need to bring in a lot of Japanese stuff in the middle. Those elements completely clashed with the setting and ruined the whole thing for me. The sadistic cousin was interesting; the Japanese ghost (who calls himself "yurei"--oy vey!) was not. To make it worse, the ghost can't remember his real name or much about himself, which freed the author from having to do any research and made the fact of his Japaneseness extra obviously only there for fetish value. If there had been lots of historical details or a point to his sudden introduction, fine. As it was, he seemed more like a deus ex machina to give the consumptive protagonist a syrupy happy ending instead of the creepy, kinky relationship she seemed to be setting up with the cousin. If she'd fleshed things out and made it twice as long or left the plot alone but tightened it up to half of that length, it could have been great. As it is, *snore*
I only read a few pages of the second novella. The prose wasn't terribly gripping in that one either.
However, all that said, if you do love her fanfic and you like collecting fandom-related materials, it's certainly a good conversation piece, and it's not terribly expensive for a weird specialist press book.
If you just want professional m/m work, there's plenty to choose from. I personally loved the cheesy but wonderfully fast paced Fortunes of War by Mel Keegan (known universally among my friends as "Ass Pirates of the Caribbean"). The rest of Keegan's work is old slash zine stories with the serial numbers filed off, and I imagine this one is no exception. It looks like it's even back in print! (For some astronomical price, but still. You can find it on Amazon.) The first time I read it, I absolutely could not put it down. Rereadings revealed that the prose is really not that great, but I never noticed the first time around. The sex is hot, even the hilariously heterosexual-sounding virginity losing scene. Best of all, to my extreme surprise, it actually did have a swashbuckling plot and not just pretty guys in historical clothing screwing.
I suspect that Lavender would point out that her interest was in yaoi and Keegan's is obviously in slash, but I'm afraid that from my perspective, the difference is that Keegan can handle plot flow and tension in a long story and Lavender really kind of fell down on the job.
I did buy some e-book thing of another story of Lavender's that was about a Japanese cop and an English artist in Meiji Japan. I think that one would probably have been more appealing to fans of her fanfic, but I couldn't get into it. (Uh, if it's not obvious, I was never that excited about her writing though. I got her original work because we were friendly at the time. So YMMV.) Sadly, I can't remember the title or where she was distributing it. The unnecessary English guy in that one gave me the same feeling as the unnecessary Japanese ghost in her gothic novel. Yes, there were some foreigners hanging around Japan in the Meiji period, but in both that original story and some of her fanfic, Lavender introduced foreign characters who I felt were just an excuse to insert white people into a setting they had no place in. Again, I got the sense that she wanted her books to be very historical, but she didn't want to actually put in the time doing research or to make tough editorial decisions.