This Rec League is from PamG, who is looking for some competence porn in academic settings:
I don’t know if this is appropriate for a Rec League, but I have a rather persnickety request. I really like books set in academia, but I have problems with student/professor match-ups. The issue isn’t necessarily the relationship if it’s consensual and the author addresses the power (or age) imbalance between student and teacher in a serious way. However, I really have an issue with the following things:
1) Grown assed adults who cannot keep their pants on for a lousy semester when the wellbeing of their career and/or lover is at stake,
2) Draconian HR or fraternization policies used to threaten “true love” and imply that protecting students is somehow unfair or unnecessary,
3) Protagonists who lie primarily to protect their own interests,
4) Academic environments that seem unrelated to reality.
To sum up, I like protagonists with some self-control, common sense, and a modicum of integrity. I like fictional higher education that feels authentic and has reasonable and realistic policies and procedures regarding student/teacher relationships.
Maybe there are no books with this trope that will ever satisfy me, but also, maybe there are readers who have found some decent books with this trope. I would really love to find something where the professor in this situation is a woman.
Sarah: Celia Lake, 10000% I can hear Catherine hollering from the great library in the sky. She LOVED Celia Lake’s books and they’re full of grown ass adults who are thoughtful and mature, and Eclipse is set at Schola, one of the institutions of magic in that world. There are several series, too.
The Academy of the Dead by Vermilion H. Baine ( A ) might also fit – they’re necromancers trying to decipher a page from a dangerous book.
Amanda: Regardless of the request, The Academy of the Dead sounds fun, so I bought it. Whoops!
What books would you recommend? Drop them in the comments!
Would An Academic Affair by Jodi McAlister be of interest? It’s two new professors who get married to take advantage of the partner hire clause in the contract.
https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/reviews/an-academic-affair-by-jodi-mcalister/
I don’t gravitate towards books set in academia, in part because of how much I can’t with the professor/student thing.
An Academic Affair by Jodi McAlister is contemporary, m/f romance, set in academia, and enemy (rivals) to lovers – all 4 of which descriptors are things that usually break me but this was really good.
Tommy Cabot Was Here by Cat Sebastian might also work, m/m historical (1960s is historical, gulp) romance but it’s a private boarding school not a college, dunno if that still counts. Delightful but so short.
Dionysus in Wisconsin series by EH Lupton is one I cannot recommend enough, it is a m/m romance set at the magic department of University of Wisconsin Madison (oh good the 70s is also historical now). It has all the things.
Emily Tesh’s The Incandescent is not so much a romance although there are elements in both timelines, but it’s about one of the teachers at a magic school although as with Tommy Cabot Was here, she had been a student. Very nice to read about the grownups not the kids.
Death in the Spires by KJ Charles should work also (I couldn’t not rec a KJ Charles!) although it’s a historical mystery more than it is a m/m romance. It’s like a gothic if instead of a big ol house it’s Oxford.
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness has great academic setting vibes, but it is a paranormal so its relationship to reality is flexible.
https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/reviews/keeper-shelf-a-discovery-of-witches-by-deborah-harkness/