Beyond Selidor

Thank you so much for the recs -- I knew Kate Elliott by name but I never know where to start with her (now I have at least a hook to something), while I didn't know Monica Furlong at all.

As for My Brilliant Friend_, both the books and the tv show are good and I recommend them. It doesn't have speculative elements (not overt at least -- you can certainly read into it), but one point of interest, in the way it goes through "two women's history of the second half of the 20th century" is that it also grapples on a historically "women's work" that later became a "boys' work" (and very very special indeed). It fits the bill in many ways, although most relationships are... deeply dysfunctional and seeped in the violence of the setting.