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Gaslight #1
Black by Gaslight
August 1888 - On a foggy night in London's notorious Whitechapel, Rhiannon Moore, a woman reduced to prostitution in order to survive, meets two people who will change her life. The first is Lady Evangeline St. Claire - brilliant, unconventional, wealthy, and battling her own demons. The second is Jack the Ripper. Evangeline and Rhiannon are plunged head-long into danger and romance as the two women struggle to solve a deadly mystery, while at the same time understand their growing attraction to one another. Will love come in time to save both lives and sorely tested hearts? Or will the women learn - because Saucy Jack already knows - that blood is always...BLACK BY GASLIGHT.
316 pages, Paperback
First published January 21, 2005
2 people are currently reading
256 people want to read
About the author
Nene Adams
16 books26 followersThe author of the classics The Sunne in Golde and Black by Gaslight and the critically acclaimed Flowers of Edo: A Ghost Story, Nene Adams left behind eleven years working in the newspaper and marketing industries in the U.S., to live and work in a small village in the Netherlands with her partner, Dutch artist Corrie Kuipers. Through her fascination with the nineteenth century and earlier times, she found inspiration in the modern world as well.
Nene Adams is the author of many published and online novels and stories. Her novels Barking at the Moon and The Consequence of Murder are Golden Crown Literary Society Award Winners. She is the Royal Academy of Bards 2006 Hall of Fame Author and the winner of 2012 Hall of Fame Lifetime Achievement Award.
Nene Adams passed away from a heart attack on October 3, 2015, after a long illness. Her work brought, and will continue to bring, much pleasure to readers of lesbian fiction.
Remembering Nene Adams, 1966-2015 by KG MacGregor
Nene Adams is the author of many published and online novels and stories. Her novels Barking at the Moon and The Consequence of Murder are Golden Crown Literary Society Award Winners. She is the Royal Academy of Bards 2006 Hall of Fame Author and the winner of 2012 Hall of Fame Lifetime Achievement Award.
Nene Adams passed away from a heart attack on October 3, 2015, after a long illness. Her work brought, and will continue to bring, much pleasure to readers of lesbian fiction.
Remembering Nene Adams, 1966-2015 by KG MacGregor
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
April 28, 2026
There’s a lot to say about this novel—both good and bad. In fact, it starts out like a house on fire but finishes in smoldering ruins. Here are some of the good things. First, there is the setting: 1888 London, smoggy, dark, and smelly. Lady Evangeline (Lina, or “the dark-haired lady”) St. Claire is an independently wealthy consulting detective. She is tall and strong and versed in the martial arts, like Xena, who, along with Sherlock Holmes, is her inspiration. The Gaby/Watson character is called Rhiannon Moore, who Lina rescues from a life on the streets after falling in love with her at first sight.
In an odd twist, there is another Sherlock Holmes character that plays a big role in the novel. He is called Sherrinford Pike, who lives with his lover, Dr. Ormond Sacker. Lina’s love/hate relationship with Pike is charming and often hilarious. When she accuses him of shooting at her through a dressmaker’s window, he denies it, “even if I did once introduce a cobra into your sitting room. . . . Besides, I thought that you’d sworn not to mention that unfortunate incident with the air rifle again, St. Claire. . . . [and] the arsenic-filled bonbons were an honest mistake committed only once.”
And if that sounds a bit over the top, well, so is everything else in Black by Gaslight. Lina’s language is the language of Jane Austen squared—or maybe the language of the penny dreadfuls that Rhiannon delights in reading. “Rage beat at her and filled her veins with liquid fire. A red mist enshrouded her vision.” And to be truthful, the language is often so well—or oddly—crafted that it escapes being simply romance-novel drivel and often rises to the level of actual creativity. So does the relationship between Lina and Rhiannon. Both are smitten with the other at once, but neither thinks it appropriate to mention it . And when their passion gets the best of them—as it does in strange situations, such as in a carriage when they are chasing a murderer—they will then play it down, or try to pretend it didn’t happen.
But it is almost as if the author gets tired of the novel halfway through. Repetition creeps in, as do inanities. The language becomes tedious, the amount of attention to describing Victorian-era women’s attire takes up too much space, the love story becomes sappy, important incidents are forced—rather than intelligently written—into the plot, gore is splattered more-than-generously on virtually everything ("black by gaslight", by the way, is the color of blood). And then there is the ending, where at least one of the women takes a series of actions so stupid that it defies even my imagination—which is one that has seen more than its share of ridiculous endings. It becomes just another Sherlock Holmes versus Jack the ripper novels, with Jack as someone that constantly hears the voices of prostitutes talking to him. Motivation? Backstory? And at somewhere around 150,000 words, this novel is too long by at least a third.
So the main thing wrong with this novel is the same thing that is wrong with most independently published books in general and lesbian mysteries in particular: the lack of an even halfway-decent editor. I don't mean proofreader, which is an entirely different thing; I found no misspellings or typos here. Yes, this an Uber novel and one that was almost certainly first posted to a fan site. And yes, fan sites are notorious for their unabashed enthusiasm for everything Xena (or everything Hermione or everything Kate Janeway) and lack of critical sensibility.
But lack of critical thinking bespeaks a lack of education, and a lack of education is the downfall of civilizations. If you don’t believe me, look around you. This review is being written between the 2016 elections and the 2017 inauguration. What’s worse, competent editors are very few and far between—it takes a great deal of study and reading to even attempt it, while university courses in the fine arts are becoming more and more unfunded. And let’s go even further; good editors command a respectable fee—as indeed they should—and few budding authors or even independent presses can afford one. Anyone can use a dictionary, but few can shape a novel into its best form.
So too bad, what started out as a potential Top 20 List novel turned into something that I finished with a sense of relief. What could—with a very competent editor—have been rated near a 5 ends up at somewhere near a 3.
Note: Adams, who died in 2015 at the age of 49, wrote at least nine novels outside the Gaslight series (although none are true lesbian mysteries), including a Golden Crown winner. She also hosted a website dealing with Victoriana. I read what was noted as the third printing of the “Third Edition” of Black by Gaslight, but I suspect it was simply a first-printing reprint of the original Cavalier edition. The edition I read was from P.D. Publishing, which specialized in reprinting Uber novels from fan websites. The other novels in the gaslight series are fairly rare and sell for hundreds of dollars. None are available in e-book form.
Another Note: This review is included in my book The Art of the Lesbian Mystery Novel, along with information on over 1250 other lesbian mysteries by over 400 authors.
In an odd twist, there is another Sherlock Holmes character that plays a big role in the novel. He is called Sherrinford Pike, who lives with his lover, Dr. Ormond Sacker. Lina’s love/hate relationship with Pike is charming and often hilarious. When she accuses him of shooting at her through a dressmaker’s window, he denies it, “even if I did once introduce a cobra into your sitting room. . . . Besides, I thought that you’d sworn not to mention that unfortunate incident with the air rifle again, St. Claire. . . . [and] the arsenic-filled bonbons were an honest mistake committed only once.”
And if that sounds a bit over the top, well, so is everything else in Black by Gaslight. Lina’s language is the language of Jane Austen squared—or maybe the language of the penny dreadfuls that Rhiannon delights in reading. “Rage beat at her and filled her veins with liquid fire. A red mist enshrouded her vision.” And to be truthful, the language is often so well—or oddly—crafted that it escapes being simply romance-novel drivel and often rises to the level of actual creativity. So does the relationship between Lina and Rhiannon. Both are smitten with the other at once, but neither thinks it appropriate to mention it . And when their passion gets the best of them—as it does in strange situations, such as in a carriage when they are chasing a murderer—they will then play it down, or try to pretend it didn’t happen.
But it is almost as if the author gets tired of the novel halfway through. Repetition creeps in, as do inanities. The language becomes tedious, the amount of attention to describing Victorian-era women’s attire takes up too much space, the love story becomes sappy, important incidents are forced—rather than intelligently written—into the plot, gore is splattered more-than-generously on virtually everything ("black by gaslight", by the way, is the color of blood). And then there is the ending, where at least one of the women takes a series of actions so stupid that it defies even my imagination—which is one that has seen more than its share of ridiculous endings. It becomes just another Sherlock Holmes versus Jack the ripper novels, with Jack as someone that constantly hears the voices of prostitutes talking to him. Motivation? Backstory? And at somewhere around 150,000 words, this novel is too long by at least a third.
So the main thing wrong with this novel is the same thing that is wrong with most independently published books in general and lesbian mysteries in particular: the lack of an even halfway-decent editor. I don't mean proofreader, which is an entirely different thing; I found no misspellings or typos here. Yes, this an Uber novel and one that was almost certainly first posted to a fan site. And yes, fan sites are notorious for their unabashed enthusiasm for everything Xena (or everything Hermione or everything Kate Janeway) and lack of critical sensibility.
But lack of critical thinking bespeaks a lack of education, and a lack of education is the downfall of civilizations. If you don’t believe me, look around you. This review is being written between the 2016 elections and the 2017 inauguration. What’s worse, competent editors are very few and far between—it takes a great deal of study and reading to even attempt it, while university courses in the fine arts are becoming more and more unfunded. And let’s go even further; good editors command a respectable fee—as indeed they should—and few budding authors or even independent presses can afford one. Anyone can use a dictionary, but few can shape a novel into its best form.
So too bad, what started out as a potential Top 20 List novel turned into something that I finished with a sense of relief. What could—with a very competent editor—have been rated near a 5 ends up at somewhere near a 3.
Note: Adams, who died in 2015 at the age of 49, wrote at least nine novels outside the Gaslight series (although none are true lesbian mysteries), including a Golden Crown winner. She also hosted a website dealing with Victoriana. I read what was noted as the third printing of the “Third Edition” of Black by Gaslight, but I suspect it was simply a first-printing reprint of the original Cavalier edition. The edition I read was from P.D. Publishing, which specialized in reprinting Uber novels from fan websites. The other novels in the gaslight series are fairly rare and sell for hundreds of dollars. None are available in e-book form.
Another Note: This review is included in my book The Art of the Lesbian Mystery Novel, along with information on over 1250 other lesbian mysteries by over 400 authors.
March 27, 2012
Had some trouble rating this one since on the one hand, I kept reading it and found some of the characters quite engaging and the plot interesting, but on the other, felt like the book was longer than the story supported and could have easily shed fifty or more pages without losing much. The historical detail was inconsistent, but not so wildly off to completely throw me out of the book. So on the whole, I'd recommend to anyone who likes historical lesfic mysteries (though be warned that the Ripper scenes are graphic).
February 7, 2013
I adored this book! I've attempted to get my hands on several lesbian romance or simply fiction novels for quite some time. Each time, I'm presented with half drawn out plots, inconsequential characters...and end up with a sour taste in my mouth.
From the first sentence in Black by Gaslight; I knew I was in for a treat. The story line of this novel is new and refreshing; I found myself finished long before I was ready.
I will admit I was a little disappointed to find that there was not one single drawn out scene of the oft mentioned love making between Rhiannon and Lina. While it was alluded to several times throughout the book, the reader never gets to experience it for themselves. So, if you're looking for a romance novel with a touch of the erotic, Black by Gaslight won't set your fire. However, if you're into reading a sweet romance novel with historically significant events, read on!
"Hell was supposed to be a place of flames and heat, not darkness and damp; not this perpetual night broken feebly by a few dim shop-front lights." -Black by Gaslight
From the first sentence in Black by Gaslight; I knew I was in for a treat. The story line of this novel is new and refreshing; I found myself finished long before I was ready.
I will admit I was a little disappointed to find that there was not one single drawn out scene of the oft mentioned love making between Rhiannon and Lina. While it was alluded to several times throughout the book, the reader never gets to experience it for themselves. So, if you're looking for a romance novel with a touch of the erotic, Black by Gaslight won't set your fire. However, if you're into reading a sweet romance novel with historically significant events, read on!
"Hell was supposed to be a place of flames and heat, not darkness and damp; not this perpetual night broken feebly by a few dim shop-front lights." -Black by Gaslight
Want to Read
April 16, 2022omg, look what i found!!!
AAAAA, i've seen so many cases where there is a crime/mystery aspect in mm (and they look so good):
- The Cardigans
- Cut & Run
- Hell & High Water
but i've never seen this aspect with ff (which is a shame, i hope authors start getting into something like that)
BUT OMG SAPPHIC GIRLIES SOLVING CRIME YES!!
AAAAA, i've seen so many cases where there is a crime/mystery aspect in mm (and they look so good):
- The Cardigans
- Cut & Run
- Hell & High Water
but i've never seen this aspect with ff (which is a shame, i hope authors start getting into something like that)
BUT OMG SAPPHIC GIRLIES SOLVING CRIME YES!!
August 31, 2011
If you're a Sherlock Holmes fan you'll love this. Language, location, details, atmosphere, all contribute to the feel of reading a Saphhist mystery published 200 years ago. A delightful romp.
October 26, 2015
It's like a Sherlock and Watson in lesbian characters. Good story, the murder is here and the old-fashioned romance too, of course is not traditional for the Victorian's standart.
November 23, 2014
Black by Gaslight by Nene Adams is a delightful, saucy, fast-paced Holmesian romantic adventure. Lady Evangeline St. Claire has the status and wealth to indulge her penchant for investigations – a penchant that brings her path across that of Rhiannon Moore, a woman whose personal misfortunes dragged her down from respectability to the life of a Whitechapel prostitute. And there is a murderer stalking the alleys of Whitechapel who has a particular animosity toward prostitutes. A rescue and a fleeting kiss in the dark—with St. Claire in disguise as a man—sets both their hearts on a collision course.
Black by Gaslight is solidly written (a level above what one sometimes finds in lesbian fiction, though it's not entirely without flaws) and solidly grounded not only in the history and atmosphere of Victorian London, but also in the genre that inspires its setting. (The only flaw in this grounding is a touch of “researcher’s disease” sometimes in the level of descriptive detail, or the tendency to explain things for the reader’s benefit that hardly need explaining in-story.) The Holmesian presence is felt not only in the model for St. Claire’s activities and abilities, but in an assortment of secondary characters who are transparent reflections of the Sherlock Holmes canon. The story has its own take on the identity and motivations of Jack the Ripper that allows St. Claire and Moore to have a central role in defeating him while allowing for the mystery to remain undisturbed for the public.
This is more of a thriller than a mystery, in the sense that the reader is pulled along behind the unfolding events rather than being encouraged to range ahead of them. Encounters of deadly peril come thick and fast, literally throwing the two women into each other’s arms on a regular basis until they fight past a rather prolonged period of self-denial and confess their attraction to each other. This was one point on which I felt there was some weakness in the story. The period when both women are burning with desire--yet tying themselves in knots to avoid expressing it for fear of scandalizing the other--is simultaneously lingered over with obsessive and repetitive detail, and drawn out to improbable lengths. (I could buy one or the other, but the combination began to pall.) The number of times they are thrown into titillating full-body contact on the excuse of being shot at or otherwise attacked seems a bit over the top, as if the deliciousness of the hurt/comfort motif was too much to resist. The romance is rather spicy: definitely not on the side of erotica, but dwelling on the women’s sexual activities more than the plot might otherwise require. (Sometimes flying in the face of other plot events. Their first serious make-out session occurs in a cab hurtling at speed across the city on the track of one of the villains, which did leave me thinking, “Oh really?”)
Both characters are well-drawn, having original histories and personalities that support their adventures, while leaving enough mystery for further exploration. The various flaws, if not entirely dismissible, didn’t interfere with my enjoyment of the story. Adams has created an intriguing and individual pair of protagonists and has a competent grasp of her setting and its genre context. I’m looking forward to seeing how her craft developed over the course of the four books featuring these characters. It’s unfortunate that the demise of P.D. Publishing has left the series orphaned for the moment. (I’ve managed to lay hands on one and three, but have balked so far at the second-hand prices I’ve seen for the others.)
Black by Gaslight is solidly written (a level above what one sometimes finds in lesbian fiction, though it's not entirely without flaws) and solidly grounded not only in the history and atmosphere of Victorian London, but also in the genre that inspires its setting. (The only flaw in this grounding is a touch of “researcher’s disease” sometimes in the level of descriptive detail, or the tendency to explain things for the reader’s benefit that hardly need explaining in-story.) The Holmesian presence is felt not only in the model for St. Claire’s activities and abilities, but in an assortment of secondary characters who are transparent reflections of the Sherlock Holmes canon. The story has its own take on the identity and motivations of Jack the Ripper that allows St. Claire and Moore to have a central role in defeating him while allowing for the mystery to remain undisturbed for the public.
This is more of a thriller than a mystery, in the sense that the reader is pulled along behind the unfolding events rather than being encouraged to range ahead of them. Encounters of deadly peril come thick and fast, literally throwing the two women into each other’s arms on a regular basis until they fight past a rather prolonged period of self-denial and confess their attraction to each other. This was one point on which I felt there was some weakness in the story. The period when both women are burning with desire--yet tying themselves in knots to avoid expressing it for fear of scandalizing the other--is simultaneously lingered over with obsessive and repetitive detail, and drawn out to improbable lengths. (I could buy one or the other, but the combination began to pall.) The number of times they are thrown into titillating full-body contact on the excuse of being shot at or otherwise attacked seems a bit over the top, as if the deliciousness of the hurt/comfort motif was too much to resist. The romance is rather spicy: definitely not on the side of erotica, but dwelling on the women’s sexual activities more than the plot might otherwise require. (Sometimes flying in the face of other plot events. Their first serious make-out session occurs in a cab hurtling at speed across the city on the track of one of the villains, which did leave me thinking, “Oh really?”)
Both characters are well-drawn, having original histories and personalities that support their adventures, while leaving enough mystery for further exploration. The various flaws, if not entirely dismissible, didn’t interfere with my enjoyment of the story. Adams has created an intriguing and individual pair of protagonists and has a competent grasp of her setting and its genre context. I’m looking forward to seeing how her craft developed over the course of the four books featuring these characters. It’s unfortunate that the demise of P.D. Publishing has left the series orphaned for the moment. (I’ve managed to lay hands on one and three, but have balked so far at the second-hand prices I’ve seen for the others.)
November 2, 2014
I first read various incarnations of this story and the characters back in my "Xena-fanfic" days of the late 90s. This story comes from the überXena fanfic that cropped up a lot at that time, which took the premise that the characters of Xena and Gabrielle (from the tv series Xena: Warrior Princess) were reincarnated together over and over gain throughout time (which was series canon), and therefore could exist together in any time and place. Many of these stories were published, but Nene Adams' series is one of the best. Lina is clearly Xena, and Rhiannon is obviously Gabrielle, but the Victorian London setting, peppered with new Jack the Ripper possibilities and a nod to Sherlock Holmes make the stories unique. Reading this, I was also reminded strongly of the Paternoster Gang on Doctor Who, but Adams' story predates those characters by around a decade!
December 31, 2010
This is a detective mystery set in Victorian London (written in modern times) centered around Jack the Ripper. It's sort of a combination of a Jane Austen novel, Miss Marple and a lesbian romance novel with a dose of CSI-like gruesomeness thrown in for good measure. As lesbian romance novels go, this one was pretty good. There are evidently a couple more in the series and I look forward to reading them.
April 3, 2014
A good fun read and a nice nod to the Sherlock Holmes stories. But this time Holmes and Watson are the secondary characters to two women who serve as the detective and side kick. I didn't mind this mystery also being a lesbian bodice ripper but more than once I wanted to say "just get it on and get back to the story!"
August 22, 2012
Lesbian detective novels are a dime a dozen, but this one was so much fun that I was more than willing to forgive it for its utter ridiculousness and hackneyed plot. The characters are likable and the writing frequently hysterical. (And bonus points for the secondary Holmes/Watson romance.)
April 23, 2013
It could have been a really good book. The first chapter was a great beginning and I was excited to read it, but the entire rest of the story read like sub-par, genderswapped, OOC Sherlock fanfiction.
I was sadly disappointed.
I was sadly disappointed.
February 9, 2017
I really found myself gripped by this book from start to finish. It's been a long time since I have enjoyed a book so much I couldn't put it down to go to sleep.
wont-finish
March 19, 2018Pros: Lesbian mystery novel; tall gorgeous physically capable protagonist.
Cons: Reads like bad fanfic; can we say "mary sue"?; the dialogue is absurd.
Probably not getting any further in this.
Cons: Reads like bad fanfic; can we say "mary sue"?; the dialogue is absurd.
Probably not getting any further in this.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews