Things done today:

- Finished When Sorrows Come this morning, though haven't read the novella yet. Taylor *really* didn't like it when they read it a couple months ago, but I didn't have nearly as many issues with it as they did. I might write more about it. But after I read the ending novella... what do I read next??
- dealt with work. fine. boring. stupid.
- Came over to my mom and Taylor's house
- Finished part 1 of Angel of the Overpass with Taylor
- Cleared two more runs in Hades with Taylor. (Pretty sure Zagreus is the god of marriage counseling, actually: "Patroclus, sir! I'm here to fix your marriage!" "Euridice, ma'am! I'm here to fix your marriage!" "Mom! I'm here to fix your marriage!" "Asterius... you should get a divorce.")
- And finally maxed Megaera's romance route. I'm glad that they canonized a very specific dynamic between them, thank you. Lol
- Reading AotO and playing Hades at the same time is pretty funny because of the very different takes on Greek mythology, ha.

I think tonight will actually be the first day of 2022 in which I don't try to write. I am very sleepy. Maybe I'll aim for just like... 50 words.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

...Are you looking for book recs, then? :D?

My TBR pile is threatening mutiny at this point. ;_; I just have to pick the next thing! Leaning toward maybe A Conspiracy of Truths or Ninth House. Though I've got a good 10+ others that could win out, too!

(Though I'll always take reccs! I just know it'll take me a while to get to them.)

I've got a slight bias for A Conspiracy of Truths; not because I've read it, but because I've listened to more than a few episodes of a podcast the author co-hosts 😂

Recs I will now throw at you (knowing you may already be familiar with some):
- The Mangoverse (and/or anything else) by

shiraglassman; fluffy, feel good stories where all the queer people get happy endings, and also a majority of the cast tends to be Jewish
- Hunger Pangs: True Love Bites by Joy Demorra/

thebibliosphere; steampunk-ish m/m romance between a vampire and a werewolf, first in a series that will eventually be m/m/f; lots of fun characters, and there's two options for reading: Flirting with Fangs is the smutty one, and Fluff and Fangs is ace-friendly!
- Tales of Inthya by

efficalvin; very approachable high fantasy series, with plot and romance and filled to the brim with queer wish-fulfillment, difficult to put down once you start! Lots of familiar Romance tropes and an advertising campaign that went slightly viral on Tumblr for a bit; you can start with The Queen of Ieflaria or Daughter of the Sun (has extra identity porn!) as the first book in the series, but after that they get more interconnected
- No Man of Woman Born by Ana Mardoll; a collection of fairy-tale-ish short stories where trans/nonbinary characters' genders are validated through prophecy

The first three of those authors have a pretty fanfic-y style, so it was easy for me to get into them after having not read many original books for years and years. They're also all independent authors or published via small press. ~~Also I need to get more POC on this list 🤔~~

Edited (Forgot I added a fourth rec!) 2022-02-10 05:22 (UTC)

Ooh, all good recs!

I follow the author of Conspiracy of Truths on tumblr, so I see their posts and they seem very cool, which makes me want to read their books.

I haven't read anything by Shira Glassman, though I've heard nothing but rave stuff. I think I have an ebook of hers somewhere in the depths of my kindle app, but I could be wrong about that.

Hunger Pangs IS downloaded on my phone, and I've been hype to read it for years! (Poly ships are my BIGGEST weakness.) I support Joy's Patreon, so I got a link for it when it first came out.

I do remember the semi-viral "bad review" ad campaign for that one! I think The Queen of Ieflaria has been on my wishlist for a while. Should actually... get the book, haha.

Ana Mardoll is another one that I've had rec'd many times. Another book of theirs has been on my wishlist for a while, too.

I have a really hard time reading ebooks, unfortunately, which is why Hunger Pangs has had one and a half chapters read since release day. I can't figure out why! I think it's an out of sight/out of mind ADHD thing. A physical book I SEE when it's sitting on my nightstand, but an ebook is out of sight until I open the app to read it. I'll remember that I want to go back to the story, but I remember at times I can't actually read. When I do have time, I don't think about it. The same thing happens to me with long fic, though that I remember because I open my browser for other things, and see the (too many) tabs! I need to find something that reminds me my in-progress ebooks exist!

Well, the good news is that all of them have physical copies available 😁 ...Or should that be "bad" news, because money and space? Wait, there's libraries! And inter-library loan! Even if your local library is resistant to picking up a book by an independent or small-press author, there are other libraries that are less resistant and have copies you can ask them to lend your library! Ohohohoho, it's all coming together now 😈

One last drive-by rec for Jim C. Hines; he's genuinely good people, and if you like the "Humans are space orcs" posts on Tumblr, his latest series (Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse) leans a little bit into that.

A mixed blessing! I do really like physical copies... but oh, my wallet and my studio apartment... Though yes! Libraries are always a good option. (I worked in interlibrary loan when I was an undergrad!)

I like Jim Hines. I read the princess quartet a long while ago, and I have Libriomancer on one of my TBR shelves. I didn't know what his most recent series was about!

A lot of them also have audio options, though I don't know how you feel about those.

Oh, cool! My parents are retired librarians, and I gotta say that interlibrary loan is not well enough known.

Jim Hines is good people :)b He's a regular guest at our local SFF con, in fact!

Audiobooks (and podcasts, also) are things I very much like... except that I very easily get sidetracked or lost in thought and realize I've missed minutes of narration. Podcasts and things I have to find a transcript and read along or else I'm afraid I'll miss things, haha.

Interlibrary loan is NOT well enough known! I was working in an academic library, so a lot of people learned to use it for journals or other research material, but even a lot of those people didn't realize you can use it for like... fun books, too!

He does seem like good people. That's very cool that he's a regular guest at a local con!

I had a pretty incredible run of luck with Jim Hines, actually! I first discovered him in '09, after reading his essay contribution in Race Fail; I decided then and there to check out his writing and, if it was half as good as his politics, consider it time and money well spent. Coincidentally, the first Princess book had come out just a bit earlier, and IIRC he was going to be Guest of Honor at the local SFF con for the first time that same year! The dominoes lined up pretty great, really 😂

(I may have to look up in my old entries whether the timeline actually lines up exactly like that, but it's pretty close, at least!)

I love when stuff like that falls into place! Discovering a new author that you wind up really liking (especially if you enjoy their work AND they're good people) is a great thing, and it's always neat when stuff seems to sync up in such a fortuitous way.

(Not quite the same, but I found Seanan McGuire, whose work I very much love, because I picked up an ARC of "Feed" (written as Mira Grant) for $1 at a book sale at the library I worked at. It took me a couple years to even get around to reading it, so the rest of that trilogy was out by then, and now I've bought close to everything she's written. I almost certainly would have found her work eventually, but it had a very fortuitous feeling to finding that first book.)

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