The Disastrous Debut of Agatha Tremain is a fantasy F-F romance novelette by Stephanie Burgis, which was originally released as part of an earlier anthology under a slightly different title (The Unladylike Education of Agatha Tremain), but now has been released as a stand alone 99 cents novelette for purchase. If you've ever read Burgis' Harwood Spellbook series, the content here shouldn't surprise you: it's a pretty fun romance featuring magic and a world with strict gender roles, and a protagonist fighting against them for the magic - both literal and figurative - in her own life.
Quick Plot Summary: Agatha Tremain was happy to dismiss her father's cold old fashioned/conservative servants, so that she could enjoy her father's books and learn about magic in peace....until one day her distant Aunt shows up and takes charge of her life, and plans to marry her off. But in the process, Agatha finds another woman, Isobel, and begins to think there may be another path.....
Thoughts: This is a novelette and probably on the short scale for a story of that kind, so I won't try to say too much for fear of spoiling. But this is a really fun romantic story featuring a young woman who wants at first nothing more than to learn magic, despite it not being a thing for women, who finds herself caught in an endlessly perpetuating cycle that keeps women chained to these roles....until she realizes a way to break the cycle. And that way comes from discovering a person she has feelings for, another girl who doesn't quite fit her own shackles of society. The story is hardly unique these days - which is a very good thing! - but it's executed rather well, doesn't outstay its welcome, and is a bunch of fun, as it keeps the reader guessing about how things will turn out, even if the eventual ending is going to be no one's surprised. Well worth a read.
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