Compiled by the Espresso Addict

Espresso Recommendations

Innovative and stylish fanfiction, showcasing the very best across multiple sf, fantasy & literature fandoms. Good writing in all its forms can be found here, including gen, het, slash, OCs, AUs, crossovers, future fics, humour & pastiche

Contents: 1010 recs in 235 fandoms; 65 links

Blood Feud

Born in the Purple by Bunn

'Anna's mother, the Empress Theophano, had screamed, at the end. Anna remembered it vividly. Sometimes it came back to her in dreams. Mother had screamed and ranted and sworn, like the tavern-keeper's daughter she was, at Patriarch Polyeuktos, at the Patriarchs solemn, ugly nuns, at the new Emperor, John Tzimiskes.' Rich world-building and a wonderful voice for Anna, tough, clever, yet ultimately realistic about the choices for a princess make this short story a real treat

[Added 26/08/2014; Drama; 2500-6000; Rosemary Sutcliff – Blood Feud]

By Blood Undone by Carmarthen

'...Thormod's words had bitten, when Anders still remembered the sharp hot feel of the knife and the press of Thormod's wrist against his, and the way the scatter of blood had looked bright in the snow under the bare birches.' I don't know Blood Feud, but this powerful tale of love rejected, and birth brothers pitted against blood brothers, stands on its own merits

[Added 29/08/2013; Drama; 1000-2500; Rosemary Sutcliff – Blood Feud]

Once Given by Carmarthen

'I did not expect Thormod to blow into the sleeping-lodge, bringing with him the sharp bite of the wind off the frozen Dnieper and a gust of snow that melted at once in the warm woodsmoke dimness.' Beautifully characterised first-time vignette with a wonderful sense of place & time

[Added 04/10/2013; Romance/Erotica; 1000-2500; Rosemary Sutcliff – Blood Feud]

Pilgrim by Jay Tryfanstone

'Constantinople's the stink of piss and dead fish down on the Kontoskalion on a winter evening, when the sleet comes rolling in off the plains and the gold ran out with the tide. Wine watered down to the rot-gut skins and whores too poor for the baths, dung-heap cockerels and mangy dogs and beggars that might have been soldiers, once.' Jay creates a believable OC and gives him a fantastic narrative voice, far from Sutcliff's yet somehow wholly in keeping with her world. There's a beautiful sense of place, too. Simply enthralling!

[Added 09/01/2014; Drama; 2500-6000; Rosemary Sutcliff – Blood Feud]