vaznetti | Yuletide! and some other things

I had a good yuletide experience -- I read many good stories, but never managed to pull together a proper list of recommendations. I also received a really wonderful story for one of the most difficult of the difficult women I wanted stories about:

Secrets (1503 words) by Orockthro
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Aubrey-Maturin Series - Patrick O'Brian
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Stephen Maturin/Diana Villiers
Characters: Stephen Maturin, Diana Villiers
Additional Tags: Spies and intrigue, Alternate Universe, Diana Villers POV
Summary: Diana goes through Maturin’s things out of habit. She has done so for years, long before they wed; it is in her unchangeable nature to be suspicious of everyone, especially those she loves. (Or, Diana finds more than she expected in Stephens's belongings. She finds an understanding, and a new aspect of her husband...)

I have always found it very frustrating that Stephen was never honest with Diana about his life as a spy, so this was a very welcome AU for me.

I also wrote one story this year, although there is a prompt I am thinking about writing an NYR story for, because apparently the requester and I have precisely the same opinion about the requested character.

...for wage or yet for wed (4031 words) by Vaznetti
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Lymond Chronicles - Dorothy Dunnett
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Francis Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny/Christian Stewart
Characters: Francis Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny, Christian Stewart, Gideon Somerville, Kate Somerville
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Summary: Two meetings between Francis Crawford and Christian Stewart, in the music room at Flaw Valleys.

The recipient seemed to like it, as did a few other people. It was interesting to write the AU pairing; I like Christian a great deal but by the time I finished the series was 100% committed to Philippa. But just revisiting book 1, which I probably reread twice in the course of writing this story, I really warmed to Christian and her relationship with Francis.

In other news, it is Wednesday! And I have read some things, most recently the new Rivers of London book, which I liked very much; I thought it handled the Faceless Man plotline extremely well, and it was very good to see Nightingale taking a more active role in the story again. I might someday write a more specific review of it but would love to discuss it in comments as well -- but we have allowed Spartacus to have the Kindle recently because he is running through the Magnus Chase books at a very quick pace. So in the moments I have access to it, I am a little way into the first and second of those books.

For life-schedule-related reasons doing a January talking meme is a bad idea for me, but I am thinking of a February one. The thing is that I have got out of the habit of talking about myself and it is a very difficult habit to get back into, but obviously it cannot be healthy to assume that there is absolutely nothing interesting about your life or anything about your interests that would appeal to other people. I just need to get back into the habit of talking (or writing) about myself and things that interest me.