100 days of enemy recs: 78. Benjamin January Mysteries

[melannen]

The Benjamin January Mysteries are set in the free colored community in New Orleans in the 1840s. It's not, like, an obvious entry for this list, because the primary antagonist for the main characters in the series is racism, and there's no shipping that.

But Benjamin January's sister Dominique is a placee - the colored mistress of a white man. And that sort of arrangement is meant to be carefully not noticed by the man's white wife, as the whole structure is set up to
pit them against each other. Henri Viellard's wife, however, has no interest in buying into this system, and promptly sets herself up as Dominique's ally. Dominique is cautious about this - blankittes are never, ever safe - but she's not entirely immune to Chloe's lack of charm.

The other main enemyship in this fandom is Hannibal Sefton/Himself, so have a Hannibal fic as a bonus, even if it's mostly about him being taught he doesn't always have to sacrifice himself for others' happiness. (Did I add this fandom in just to get another Hannibal on my characters listing? You can't prove anything.)

• The Affair of the Necklace (6298 words) by ryfkah
  Fandom: Benjamin January Mysteries - Barbara Hambly
  Rating: Not Rated
  Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
  Characters: Dominique Viellard, Chloe Viellard, Olympe Corbier, Rose Vitrac January
  Additional Tags: casefic, Mystery, Crossdressing
  Summary:

  Chloe Viellard had often proved herself impervious to awkwardness. When she arrived, she did not even glance towards the stairs; simply sat down in the armchair that Dominique showed her to and said, without preamble, “I have been thinking of how it might be proven who stole the Garneau jewels."




• Nothing Better or More Delightful (14016 words) by Brigdh
  Fandom: Benjamin January Mysteries - Barbara Hambly
  Rating: Explicit
  Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
  Relationships: Benjamin January/Rose Vitrac January/Hannibal Sefton
  Additional Tags: Threesome - F/M/M, First Time, Polyamory Negotiations, Community: polybigbang, Friends to Lovers, Pining
  Series: Part 1 of Nothing Better or More Delightful
  Summary:

  Ben and Rose have rescued Hannibal from unjust accusations and an untimely death, but they're not sure what to do next. The trip back from Mexico is a chance to figure out where everyone belongs.

  (Set in the aftermath of Days of the Dead.)

Comments

[princessofgeeks]

I have GOT to get back to reading this series. Thanks for the reminder.

[melannen]

I am also a few books behind at this point, I think!

[waywren]

*reads the tvtropes pages for this series* oh man this looks compelling as hell but also like there would be a lot of Sad and Dark. I'm not sure how well i can handle the Sad and Dark rn, even with the promise of gallows humour. But it's wonderful to see how much of this series is in my local library's ebook collection! I am divided. Arg.

ETA: I checked out A Free Man of Color as much so that the library knew it had circulation interest as anything. I can make up my mind from there. XD

[melannen]

It goes into some really dark historical stuff that the characters have to live through and within, not going to lie. But every book does come out to a happy-for-now ending. Nobody's in a really dark place for longer than the length of about half of one book. And the main relationships are heartwarming and great; it deals with a lot of the worst that humanity can offer, on every scale, while still being fundamentally kind in its outlook. (Also, often the really dark ones take a turn into OTT batshit pulpy ridiculousness toward the end of the book, if that's a selling point for you.)

The second one was probably the hardest one for me to get through; if you can make it through that one it doesn't get worse?

[waywren]

pulpy ridiculousness IS a draw, it's true...

[skygiants]

Thank you for the rec! :D