mistressofmuses

April was the most successful reading month of the year, so far! (At least by number of books read.) I finished seven books this month, plus a bonus short story.

I’ve been trying to put more time toward reading, particularly since I’ve decided to formally take a break from writing. (I didn’t make that decision until partway through the month, but even so.) I’m not always able to read as much as I’d like, either because there are still other things I need to get done, or because there are other things going on (loud TV, etc.) that prevent me from focusing, but I am still glad that it’s something I’m able to do more of. (Especially on my days off, I’ve read a lot in some cases!)

I’m still not fully “caught up” from my slow January/February, but I’m doing okay. I’d hoped to be farther down the list than I am, but I’m pleased with what I have read, and I’m pleased that it’s largely been at a pace that has let me enjoy what I’m reading, too.


I love this cover! The siren tail within the skull shape is great.
Our Bloody Pearl by D. N. Bryn
Book 1 of These Treacherous Tides (but it appears to be the only book so far, though there are others in the same universe)
2018
Fantasy (subgenre: steampunk) - m/nb queerplatonic relationship, background f/f - ebook novel
3.5/5

Pearl, a siren, has spent too long—how long, they aren’t even sure—in captivity, trapped by the pirate captain Kian. Kian is the only woman to ever manage to neutralize siren voices, and she has a particular hatred for their kind. When a rival crew boards and raids Kain’s ship, Pearl is part of the spoils. The new captain, Dejean, seems utterly unlike Kian, more interested in helping Pearl to heal than keeping them controlled and confined. Their time with Kian has left Pearl paralyzed and malnourished, unable to survive in the open ocean even if they could escape. Humans have never been more than enemies or occasional prey; can Pearl trust Dejean and his friends’ intentions? And if they do, is there hope for anything more than animosity between their species?

My thoughts, slight spoilers:

I’ve had this book in my kindle for a really long time. (2018 doesn’t seem like it should be that long ago… and then I realize it’s six nope, eight, years ago and the passage of time kneecaps me again.) I’m fairly sure I bought it back when I was sort of trying to engage more with the “writeblr” community on tumblr years ago, and wanted to support the author and their independent publishing, so bought it as a new release… and then never got around to reading it.

The book was more enjoyable than implied by the months that it took me to read it…

The good:
This book feels nicely polished. There may have been a few typos, but honestly nothing that stuck out horribly to me or was bad enough to throw me out. This felt especially notable to me for an indie published work, but honestly I’ve been increasingly unimpressed with editorial standards for professionally published work, too.
The setting is fun: pirates and steampunk ships and sirens!
I like Dejean and Pearl coming up with their own sign language to bridge the language gap. (Pearl understands human speech, but the humans do not understand sirens.)*
I am always excited to see queerplatonic relationships being portrayed.** Dejean and Pearl’s relationship is quite sweet.
The development of prosthetics to allow Pearl to return to the water—and the way they eventually utilize those in ways other than intended to give them an edge when it comes to some of the conflict—was really cool.
I actually felt okay with the base conflict between sirens and humans. I typically very strongly dislike “it was just a misunderstanding!” as a solution to an extremely broad conflict, but it worked better here than usual. Communication is an ongoing theme in the book, and it’s a case in which it actually does seem reasonable in a way that miscommunication often doesn’t, because it’s beyond a simple language barrier or just misconstrued tone and gets into broader aspects of culture.

The neutral:
When I got into reading the book it was a pretty breezy and quick read… but it would also easily fall out of sight out of mind, and didn’t really ever drag me back.
** While I’ve listed the relationship between Dejean and Pearl as queerplatonic, because that’s what the author calls it, and while I like a good queerplatonic relationship… to be honest, I’d say it reads as more overtly romantic to me. It’s definitely not sexual, and I know that queerplatonic can be a fairly nebulous category, but I think it still felt romantic. This did not bother me, but I don’t know that I would have called the relationship queerplatonic without knowing that was the intent.
The story very strongly skews toward being aggressively affirming, ha. There’s a lot of hashtag-representation, in terms of different queer identities, mental health, physical disability… I definitely don’t consider any of that to be bad, but at times it really did feel like it was shoving YOU ARE VALID!!! at me. Like… I’m happier for it to exist, and I can imagine it really mattering to someone, or helping someone to feel seen… it just sort of wasn’t for me.

The less good:
* I like the characters coming up with sign language to communicate with each other… but I don’t think the execution always quite worked. We’re in Pearl’s perspective, and so we as readers do understand everything that Pearl is trying to communicate, both verbally and through sign. Dejean frequently seems to respond to both aspects of their communication, when he really shouldn’t understand the verbal parts. The communication issues are also definitely never felt by the reader, since they’re pretty thoroughly one-sided, and the other character seems to fully understand things even in cases where he shouldn’t.
Along with the language, what human concepts Pearl understood or did not occasionally broke my immersion a bit. Most of the time, it seemed like Pearl understood basically everything very thoroughly and completely… and then would refer to alcohol as “human happy juice,” which just felt so weirdly childish and at-odds with their typical level of understanding.
I really wish I’d liked Muriel’s character more. She’s the engineer who helps to design Pearl’s prosthetics, and is in a relationship with Dejean’s first mate. She’s sort of a bubbly comic-relief character, and I found her grating, the way I usually do the comic relief sidekick type. I liked her fine in her more serious moments, but the scenes that seemed intended to be funny were more annoying to me than anything else.
I feel like the book goes a little bit too out of the way to absolve everyone to some degree. It sort of flirts with an “everyone is a monster!” theme, with Pearl contrasting Kian’s abuse and their own previous willingness to prey on humans… but ultimately seems to settle on a “hurt people hurt people” conclusion, where basically all the bad things are tragic but sort of understandable. It’s not terrible, so much as it just felt like it checked itself a bit too much. I wouldn’t say it was narratively excusing monstrous actions, but it did seem to soften them.

I feel like this was definitely a book for someone—maybe many someones—but just not quite for me. I still had fun reading it, and enjoyed the story, setting, and characters.

My classic covers, haha. (Surprisingly hard to find decent images of!)
The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
Book 1 of The Lord of the Rings
1954
Fantasy - physical novel
5/5

Hobbits have long lived in peace in the Shire, content to be separate from the goings-on of the rest of Middle Earth. Unfortunately, conflict in the world is brewing. After Bilbo Baggins departs the Shire on his 111th birthday, he leaves most of his worldly possessions to his beloved nephew, Frodo Baggins… including the magical ring he obtained on his grand adventure. The wizard Gandalf eventually recognizes the ring for what it is, the One Ring, created by the dark lord Sauron to consolidate his own power in his quest to rule the world and all its people. Frodo embarks on a quest to bring the One Ring to the Elvish city of Rivendell, where a council can decide what is to be done with it.
Ultimately, the decision is made to send Frodo to destroy the ring, taking it back to Mordor to throw it into the fires from which it was forged. Accompanying him will be a fellowship: his Hobbit friends, Sam, Pippin, and Merry; Men, Aragorn and Boromir; Dwarf, Gimli; Elf, Legolas; and Gandalf. The journey to Rivendell was perilous, but the journey beyond it will be far more so.

My thoughts:

Again, I feel like there is very little for me to say at this point. It’s not like there’s anything that hasn’t been said hundreds or thousands of times, haha.
I did have a much better time reading it now than I did back in high school. I appreciated it more, and didn’t get bogged down with the language and style.

The thing that stuck out the most to me, no surprise, is the depth of the world. The extensive and integrated history! The languages! It is extremely impressive and rich, and is certainly what most people come away from the series talking about. Somewhat ironically, that was both what I wanted to experience and what I had the hardest time with when I was younger.

Random observations:
- I did not remember how long a time the beginning spans, how long it is between Bilbo leaving The Shire and Frodo taking on the quest. (Seventeen years!?)
- I get why so many adaptations skip the whole Tom Bombadil section, and I recall being baffled by it on my high school attempt, but I actually liked that bit this time. It’s definitely weird, but I like having that weird detail to the world. Just a random somewhat unexplained freak that might be a deity or some nonsense. Like you do.
- Same with the barrow wights, which were creepy, and I liked having a creepy evil thing that’s not completely directly related to the current Evil. (I do realize that It’s All Connected in the broader lore and history, but this was less so than a lot of things.)
- The escalation of stakes and threat is pretty good, I think. Obviously, I’m not going into this series blind, so I do know exactly how bad it’s going to get for our hero and his companions… so I know that the threats early on are relatively mild compared to what they will encounter. Those threats are still very real—it’s still ringwraiths!—but all the dangers, even at the beginning while still in The Shire, feel believably terrifying.
- The emphasis on periods of rest is interesting to me. (I know that this, and the “homely houses” and all are common points of discussion and whatnot.) But the periods of rest that the characters take, regaining their strength and their will to continue onward stands out to me as one of the things I’d say I see least in more modern fantasy. Sometimes there might be a period of physical recovery that the characters have to go through, but even that is often grudging and hurried, with the sense that every minute spent idle is a wasted one. Instead, even when faced with pressing quests, the characters do take the time when calm is offered: with Tom Bombadil, in Rivendell, in Lorien.
- The settings did really give me the “I want to be there” feeling this time around.
- Again, not a unique observation, but another thing that makes this feel different from a lot of the imitating high fantasy that I’ve read, and that I often also forget, is how… almost post-apocalyptic aspects of the world feel. Not in the “zombie wasteland” sense, but in the sense of everything being surrounded by the ruins of that impressively deep history. There’s a preoccupation with previous glory days, of times of heroes and great power in the First and Second Ages… Rather than this epic conflict being the time of heroes and great power (despite what it may later be viewed as.) Obviously this conflict includes heroes and magic and good vs evil and impossible creatures… but with the context around it being this sort of internal mythologizing of a past that was even more all of the above. Artifacts that are still sought after and utilized, but that no one knows how to make any longer. Heroes that some of the long-lived beings of the current time knew or are descended from, yet no longer feel a hope to emulate. Ruins of cities and towers and roads and tombs of long-forgotten empires.

I really enjoyed getting to read this and appreciate it this time around.

(Utterly irrelevant: my copy of the book is utterly trashed, haha. It lived in the bottom of my high school backpack while I was trying to get through it, and is missing part of the cover, with other bits of the cover taped on, the corners of pages sometimes missing, and almost all curled. I managed to uncurl most of the pages as I read, but damn.)

A good cyberpunk-y cover.
These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart by Izzy Wasserstein
2024
Science fiction (subgenres: cyberpunk, noir, post-apocalyptic, queer) - f/f, f/nb - ebook novella
4.5/5

Dora gets a visit that she’d never wanted: one of her friends from the commune she used to be a member of, showing up to tell her that her ex-girlfriend, Kay, is dead. Dora, a sometimes private investigator, goes to see Kay’s body… and discovers that the “accidental overdose” may have been a murder. This is even more of a betrayal to Dora, because she turned her back on the commune—and on her relationship with Kay—because the commune refused to compromise their ideals in order to improve their security and safety for their members. As Dora investigates the commune and the surrounding parts of the city, she discovers potential corruption and conspiracy far deeper than she had guessed. Someone is very interested in preventing her from finding the answers, even sending clones of her pre-transition self to assassinate her.

My thoughts:

I really enjoyed this one! I liked the overall vibe. Its very classic cyberpunk noir detective, just make it queer(er).

The good things:
The core idea of a trans person interacting with pre-transition clones adds, I think, an interesting additional dimension to the “usual” sci-fi exploration of clones and what that can mean for identity/nature vs nurture/individuality/self-determination/etc.
This felt like a very believable apocalypse. It’s fairly near-future, in a setting where everything has slowly devolved into further political and economic fragmentation. It isn’t an apocalyptic wasteland so much as the kind of “new normal” that usually comes with and after disaster. Parts of it seem pretty awful, but also very plausible for a setting where national government has lost functional control, where almost all services have been privatized, where corporations control whole areas and can move on and leave everyone in the lurch. It feels like a place it would be easy and (mostly) plausible to reach. (At least socially, if not necessarily the tech side.)
I appreciated the… fairness, I suppose, toward the commune. It’s certainly not a utopia, and while their idealism can be frustrating and naive, there are good qualities to the group as well. Weighing community ideals vs safety, and different characters coming down on different sides of that debate, makes sense and is the sort of conflict that’s inevitable. On the whole I think the story does a decent job with ambiguity and complexity: being nostalgic for something while recognizing its flaws; reflecting on how terrible something was while wishing it had been different; figuring out what compromises to make in order to achieve a necessary end. The characters themselves also fall into this category in a lot of ways.

The neutral:
While I liked how quick a read this was—read it in two days!—and I think that the novella length kept it moving on at a very fast pace, I wouldn’t have minded it being a little longer. I think a few things could have been fleshed out a little more in a longer work, and it would have been beneficial. But… “wish there was more” isn’t really much of a criticism, because I don’t think the shorter length was a bad thing.

The less good:
Fucking typos! While they weren’t the worst, there were at least two that stuck out to me, because they were incorrect real words that mean something very different than the intended thing. Talking about a corporation wanting a “complaint” workforce. A comment toward the very end about no “stream” coming up from the vents on the street. Obviously not stuff that would get caught by spellcheck, but man I wish I could be a beta reader just to try and catch these sorts of things.

Legolas' luscious blond hair! The romance novel vibes!
The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien
Book 2 of The Lord of the Rings
1954
Fantasy - physical novel
5/5

The Fellowship—the alliance of Men, Hobbits, an Elf, and a Dwarf, accompanying The Ring Bearer on his quest—has been sundered. Boromir has fallen, after temptation by The One Ring; Frodo and Sam have struck off on their own, Frodo no longer wishing to bring the others on what feels like a hopeless quest; Merry and Pippin have been captured by Saruman’s force of orcs and uruk-hai; leaving Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli to determine which path to follow.
The three choose to pursue Merry and Pippin, hoping to rescue them. They get drawn into further conflict in the country of Rohan, where Saruman has focused much of his attention and immediate plans for conquest.
Frodo and Sam, somewhat reluctantly, join with Gollum (now calling himself Sméagol), as he promises he can get them into Mordor by a secret route.

My thoughts, one extra picture:

As before, I feel like there’s very little that I can offer in way of a review!


But please do appreciate the cover contrasted with my totally rad movie bookmark!

One thing that surprised me, or at least that remained consistently noticeable throughout, even having seen this very thing remarked upon, was how much emphasis there is on hope vs despair. Those feelings, and which one is dominant for the characters at any time, often has so much more impact on them and the experience of success vs failure than the actual circumstances they’re facing. This is even directly mentioned in reference to Hobbits, after Merry and Pippin escape, about how despite everything they’re able to immediately switch to fairly lighthearted conversation with each other, which would potentially be strange or off putting for others. Keeping a sense of hope is important and matters every time it comes up, and despair (especially for Frodo, but also the other characters) is such a constant danger in and of itself. (It also ties in a bit to what I said about Fellowship, and the importance of rest; often times, resting and finding solace with others is something that renews hope.)

Okay. So. I sort of wondered if I was going to see the romantic overtones to some of the character interactions that many, many people do in these books. If I had been able to get into the books as a teen I’m sure that I would have, but I wasn’t completely sure whether I would now. The shipping goggles are a little less firmly attached than they once were.
I Do See It, lol.
Legolas and Gimli’s matching “you comfort me, (you weirdo) (affectionate)” speeches? Their promises to come back to the area for some shared sightseeing (to show off to each other the specific places that they themselves were most charmed and awed by, even though the other found those places off putting.) Just get married.
Sam talking about his love for Frodo being responsible for the sort of etherial way he sees him at times. Sam then protecting Frodo from Shelob and it literally being textually compared to an animal protecting its mate? Come on.
Sorry not sorry I’m apparently too queer to read it as all platonic.

I won’t say it was “surprising,” but it felt different than a lot of more modern stories to have the book so split between different characters’ paths, despite the sections covering the same spans of time. Getting Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli’s part mostly separate from Merry and Pippin’s up until they rejoin each other, and those parts completely split off from Frodo, Sam, and Gollum’s part was interesting. Now I think it would be almost guaranteed to alternate chapters between each group, whether to keep the different paths “fresh,” or just to keep them anchored at similar points along the timeline. Having grown so used to genre fiction alternating between different characters/perspectives, it felt almost novel (which is an obviously silly thing to feel about such a classic work) to know that multiple groups were off doing things, but to follow one at a time. I think it was certainly a good choice; it does a lot to emphasize Frodo’s comparative isolation, how truly separate the rest of the conflict now is from his quest. If we’d been bouncing back and forth, it wouldn’t have had the same impact.

I still deeply want to know why anyone decided that they should definitely trust a dude named fucking Wormtongue as a royal advisor. What the hell, guys.

I really like Faramir. Also love the vague hints that he’s got Some Magical Shit going on with him, which I had not really remembered. It’s not a surprise, per se; it’s been talked about that the Stewards of Gondor have some distant blood from those long-forgotten heroes/greater men and such. Still, hadn’t remembered it, and liked it.

Looking forward to Return of the King!

I really love the design and the colors of the cover.
Be the Sea by Clara Ward
2024
Science fiction (subgenre: climate) - demisexual protagonist, background f/f and m/m/f/f/nb/nb - ebook novel
3/5

67 year old marine biologist Wend has always been different. Between growing up a child of a single parent, being nonbinary, neurodivergent, and somewhere on the demisexual spectrum, they’ve often struggled to be fully understood. Despite, or maybe because of this, they’ve always strived to live their life as authentically as possible. When they come aboard the boat of photographer Viola Yang, it’s in part a chance to get to Hawai’i while studying the ocean on the journey there, but more important to Wend is a bid for connection. They are hoping this will be an opportunity to be understood by someone who may be uniquely positioned to do so.
After arriving in Hawai’i, Wend is unexpectedly given the chance to reconnect with multiple people from their past. This presents the potential for a promising new future, both personally and professionally. When Wend starts studying a plastic-eating bacteria they observed at several points on their journey, it becomes clear that someone is trying to suppress the research… going so far as to threaten everything Wend could hope to build.

My thoughts, some spoilers:

This is one that I came away with mixed feelings about.

Good things:
The bits talking about marine biology were cool. I’m not an expert, but it felt like it was well-researched and interesting.
Also in terms of the science, this felt like a believable place for things to be in a few decades; it’s realistic in that there are both good and bad things in terms of conservation. In some ways it’s being taken more seriously on a global scale, but some global goals have failed to be met, and the failures that are currently happening in the real world have not been reversed.
The general conceit of characters being able to astral project to see things, but also inhabit the bodies and behaviors of creatures in dreams is interesting! Along with the marine biology bits, those bits of Wend “being” different creatures were cool, and the way it blended their human observations and the instincts of the animals was neat.
Once the sort of espionage plot started up, it held my attention and made me want to know what would happen next.
I really do like super diverse works and worlds, so I appreciate queerness and neurodiversity being treated as perfectly normal and standard things! I also appreciate those things still be acknowledged even when presented as normal, and the ways in which those things can be alienating or difficult to navigate. (Too often I feel like works that treat those things as “normal” also skew in favor of making them therefore “irrelevant” in a way that I don’t like.)
A few of the descriptions of implemented green architecture sound lovely and like things I hope will someday be real and commonplace.

The less good:
Okay. So, as much as I love the many, many different types of queerness and neurodivergence in this story, it felt extremely “instructive” in a way I really do not mesh with. It felt like 101 post after 101 post in some cases. Perhaps I would have felt differently if I was less familiar with some of what was being talked about, but instead it felt like I was being talked at rather than reading a story. Breaking the flow of everything to describe what a particular identity means, or multiple times to go into explanations of when and why someone might be interested in non-sexual petplay as a kink just didn’t work for me.
There were similarly explanatory passages about other things, where it feels like characters are spitting out quick search result definitions for something. One of the characters cooks something using jackfruit and then says “jackfruit is high in fiber, vitamins C and A, several minerals, and antioxidants. Besides, it’s a great substitute for meat in old recipes, because of the texture.” Not untrue, but felt really awkward.
A lot of the ways queerness was talked about also broke my immersion in the near-future setting, because so much of the language was extremely current-modern. The language used, and the way that queerness is discussed is extremely different now in 2026 than it was even just a few years ago. That was different than in the mid 2000s-early 2010s when I was in high school and college. At that point, things were different than the 90s, which were different from the 70s and 80s, etc. Lampshading it by talking about “all the words the millennials added to public discussion” and “now you sound like a millennial” and repeatedly calling things “millennial terminology” really doesn’t keep it from breaking immersion for me. (And sure… there’s an argument that Wend is in their 60s, but would stick to the vocabulary and language that they first utilized as a younger adult, when they were first learning to describe their identity… but that’s not how it felt in-context. They’re 67 in 2039 when the book is set, so not a millennial, and this didn’t feel like the character’s preferred terminology so much as the author’s, especially because every character uses these same terms and definitions. It also contributed to making Wend feel much more like a person in their 30s than approaching 70, and I found myself having to repeatedly remind myself of their age, though perhaps that was a me problem.) I do recognize that this is a tricky thing, because trying to invent new “future” terms often feels extremely silly at best, and isn’t really a good option. I think it might have just felt less obvious if it wasn’t being pointed out so often. (“Millennial” shows up nine times in the book, almost always as part of the phrase “millennial terminology” or “millennial vocabulary.”)
Communication and the desire for it (particularly Wend’s desire to be understood) is a constant theme in the story. I recognize that in some ways, Wend’s experiences with Matt’s polycule, and their very literal and explanatory communication with each other is a fantasy, the same way the green architecture mall full of vegan restaurants and sensory-friendly clothing companies is. Even recognizing that, and even as someone who thinks that people in real life would benefit by being very upfront about what they mean and what they want… characters constantly stating for themselves or for others exactly, literally how they feel and why does not work well for me as a reader. It comes across as awkwardly clinical, and honestly sort of condescending.
A character saying that he would hug Wend if he could (because they have already said they don’t wish to be hugged, which he understands), prompts another character to then say “He’s telling you because it’s a primary emotional response for him, wanting to express care that way, not because he wants to pressure anyone for physical contact.” I’d rather have that go unspoken than be treated like a therapy checklist.
The book is a bit excessively vegan. Mostly with food, but with other things too. (I’m curious about all the “vegan” fabrics that were mentioned, because in the real world, that almost always means plastic, but the book is even more aggressively (and understandably) anti-plastic.) It does make sure to state that in a blackmail photo of a character in kink gear, that he is wearing a “leather-like” collar, ha.
But my problem is not actually with the veganism itself! My issue is pettier. Almost all the characters are vegan, several of them like cooking, and there’s a lot of description of all the food that they’re making vegan versions of. (And honestly, a lot sounds tasty! I love when stories describe amazing food!) But… when inclusivity and providing accommodations for every possible sensory preference that someone may have is so heavily emphasized, to the point of almost feeling off-putting at times, it’s ironic that every scene with food was a reminder that “ah, yes… my partner would quite possibly be immediately sent into anaphylaxis just walking into the room, and I’d frankly be concerned about how much cross-contamination was present on myself if I spent any time there.” (It’s tree nuts. Tree nuts are a life-threatening allergy for him, and almost everything is made with tree nuts as the substitution for non-vegan ingredients.) It’s FINE. The book is not attacking me or my partner, and is in fact a work of fiction, and these things are not problems for the characters. It just felt like a very ironic reminder that the loving inclusivity of this queer and neurodiverse utopia would Not Be For Us, even as queer neurodivergents ourselves.
Also, I said before that once the espionage plot kicks in, with Wend discovering that their research is being prevented and sabotaged, that I was a lot more engaged. Unfortunately, that’s more than halfway through the book, and I found that first half a struggle to get through. And it’s a long book —600-some pages—so that first half wasn’t short. The first half (and much of the second) is very much about character interaction, and character introspection, and eventually some character conflict… but it hadn’t grabbed me enough to really care about any of that until there was something external impacting them.
I also feel like I never fully understood why the espionage bit was happening. There was a bit of a motive given (that this other group of people is fully opposed to human intervention in environmental matters), but… it just never really seemed to fully make sense, because it turned out that the culprits didn’t even really morally/financially/politically oppose what they were doing, but were trying to prevent anyone finding out about this plastic-eating bacteria (something that already existed, not something that could be prevented from existing) for… reasons?

This does feel like it’s probably a book that is much more for someone else, but was unfortunately not for me to the degree that I’d hoped. The good aspects were very good, but I didn’t fully mesh with the style, and by the time I felt a bit more engaged, it was just a little too late. I will say that it didn’t quite feel like anything else I’ve read, and that was in and of itself a cool thing.

This is so very Current Contemporary Romance, haha. But perfectly respectable.
Game Changer by Rachel Reid
Book 1 of Game Changers
2018
M/M Romance (hockey romance) - ebook novel
3.5/5

It’s a complete surprise to Kip Grady when hockey star Scott Hunter comes into the smoothie shop where he works. It’s even more of a surprise when Scott keeps coming back. It’s something out of his wildest dreams when Scott turns out to be just as interested in Kip as he is in the smoothies he’s been buying.
Scott Hunter has had the sort of rags-to-riches story and professional success that makes him a beloved captain of the New York Admirals hockey team. He’s also deeply closeted. He knows that coming out—becoming the very first out gay NHL player—could jeopardize his career, so he’s resigned himself to a life spent mostly alone… until Kip.
Kip understands why Scott doesn’t want to come out, and initially he’s fine with it. As their relationship deepens into something that feels like a lot more than just a fun fling, it becomes a lot harder to deal with. How long can he stand keeping a relationship with the man he loves a secret? And for Scott, is it worth risking everything else for a chance at happiness with Kip?

My thoughts, minor spoilers that shouldn’t be a major surprise:

This book was… Fine. Which seems to be the usual reaction to it. I’m told the series experiences a pretty drastic increase in writing quality (which I would say is borne out by the 20% 60% or so I’ve read of the second book so far. Never mind, I’ve finished it, lol. Definitely a vast difference in quality!)

The good:
The relationship between Scott and Kip is sweet. They’re cute, and of course I wanted things to work out for them. They have some fun banter. The sex did not make me cringe.
The conflict (Scott being closeted and not wanting to risk his career vs Kip’s desire to live his life openly) wasn’t astoundingly deep, but it was a believable conflict, even if it felt like a very foregone conclusion that of course Scott is going to risk it to be with Kip.
While I felt like it moved a bit too quick in terms of the timeframe, I did like Kips move from “I can be fine with this! I totally understand, and I’m just happy to get what’s on offer while the relationship lasts!” to “Well… hopefully it won’t be quite like this forever. But I can be patient, it’s fine if this is how it has to be…” to “I can’t actually handle being a secret hidden from the world, and having to hide aspects of my own life at all times with no end in sight.” I feel like it’s relatable to go through that arc of being willing to deal with something at the exciting start of a relationship, only to realize after a while that you actually can’t handle it forever once the more day-to-day reality starts to wear on you. (And it’s certainly a common feeling in the case of one member of a relationship being closeted, and the other not being able to openly be with them!)
As kind of a burnout who squandered my potential and “most likely to do something great in our field” undergrad award, Kip’s anxiety about feeling like a failure next to his more successful friends and partner was a little too relatable… sadly I don’t think I’m destined for quite the easy “as soon as I apply myself I can enter my own success arc” that he got, but it’s nice wish fulfillment, haha.

The neutral:
I know that there was some “controversy” over this book, in that it was allegedly posted as an AU fic to AO3, where the author got feedback, and then eventually pulled it to officially publish it. Rather than an example of “serial numbers filed off,” it allegedly started as an original work and then had Steve/Bucky serial numbers pasted on to solicit feedback in a big fandom, and then peeled ‘em back off for publishing. Also allegedly the author has expressed some regret for doing so.
I don’t know the definite details of the situation, and certainly haven’t read or personally seen definite proof of the fanfic version, but it absolutely felt like an AU fic for a popular ship in a big fandom. (And it felt specifically like AUs of the characters allegedly in question… which makes me vaguely skeptical that it truly started as NOT fic. Even if I’d never heard about the fic thing, I think I would have had suspicions, despite MCU being emphatically NOT my fandom!) Regardless, it did feel like reading fanfic. To me that’s a neutral observation: I love AU fics, and this is absolutely the sort I would stay up scrolling through late into the night. It’s competently structured, if not revolutionary, and it does make for a breezy read if not a terribly unique or deep one.
The whole love at first sight thing is cute enough, but isn’t really something I connect with. That’s a me problem and an understood standard of the genre, so it doesn’t bother me. It’s just not something that does much for me.

The bad:
The fanfic vibes aren’t bad, but they do make the story feel slightly generic. Even a fairly generic fic can borrow some depth from the canon, or just the reader’s knowledge of the characters and how the fic’s presentation conforms or differs. In this case, it feels like it’s built a bit on that framework… but without actually having a canon for the reader to use as a base. A little bit with the mains, but especially with some of the secondary characters, it feels like I’m supposed to recognize them and already have some built-in characterization that just isn’t there.
I also felt like I kept waiting for something to happen, a sort of “other shoe to drop” moment that was external to the relationship, but would impact them. Particularly with the player who was kicked off the team and had been an asshole prior… I really expected he was going to try to blackmail someone or out Scott or something… but no.
I mentioned it above, but while I liked Kip’s emotional progression, the story happened over such a short period of time that it felt a little difficult to take as seriously as I wanted to. I like the arc… but experiencing it over the course of a few weeks or even a couple months feels too fast/makes Kip’s legitimate feelings come across as a little bit impatient.

I am glad to have gotten the heads up that the series apparently improves (and I really liked book two!), because while I liked this book well enough, the rest of the series would likely have languished on the TBR. This certainly wouldn’t have turned me off from reading more, but wouldn’t have pushed the rest up to priority status either.

A nicely ominous and threatening cover.
The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling
2019
Sci-fi/Horror - f/f - physical novel - read with Alex
5/5

Gyre has been hired for an extended caving mission, mapping out a large cave system on her colony planet, presumably for mining interests. She may have falsified most of her qualifications and work history, but considering both the pay and the quality of the gear she was being provided with, Gyre was confident that it meant the mission would come with a strong support team to help. She was sure she'd be able to make it successfully through the mission... and to the high payout waiting on the other side.
Instead, there is no team at all. Her only support in the cave is Em, monitoring her from aboveground... the woman in charge of the mission entirely. Em has complete control over Gyre, including taking control over her caving suit, administering drugs, and even manipulating her displays to control what she sees. As Gyre continues the mission, more and more details start to seem strange: supply caches gone missing, unexpected changes to the cave system, and discovering just how many attempts have been made prior to Gyre’s. Soon it starts to feel like she's not alone. It’s become clear that she can’t truly trust Em… but the longer she’s in the cave, the less sure she is that she can even trust herself.

My thoughts, vague spoilers, plus mention of a fake spoiler:

I still really enjoyed this one!
A lot of my feelings are the same as they were when I read this one last year.
I love the sense of Gyre’s increasing paranoia as the isolation gets to her, and as she discovers more about Em’s motives. Parts of it are so extremely justified, while others are clearly extremely irrational. I enjoy seeing the ways it makes Gyre act, even when she’s making terrible, self-sabotaging decisions.
This is also still, I think, one of the best examples of escalating problems that I’ve read. Every new issue that Gyre encounters feels horrible and often near-insurmountable. Once each thing is resolved, a new problem arises, that feels equally horrible and insurmountable. Even on a reread, knowing what’s ultimately going to happen, the early challenges didn’t feel small. There’s a bit of an “if you only knew what was to come!” sense, but the danger still always feels and is quite real. Those early-cave problems could still have killed Gyre just as dead as the worse ones she has to face later on.
(There’s frequent advice I see about writing, that says “imagine the worst thing that could happen to your character, and then do it to them. And keep doing it the whole story.” I mostly hate that advice, maybe because I’m just too literal, because for me the worst thing is that a meteor comes down and kills my protagonist and everyone they love and the story is over in a way that satisfied nothing. But this! This feels like an example of taking that advice and actually managing it. And it’s also satisfying to read, rather than just feeling like unrelenting misery.)
I still love Gyre and Em and the way they play off of each other. They are clear foils for each other, in what their various (similar) obsessions have led them to do. I like the progression of their relationship, including the times that it regresses, and they lose the ground they’ve gained. I guess these are the “toxic lesbians” that people either love or hate. They’re messy and fucked up and both terrible and wonderful for each other. I want them to work everything out and live happily ever after, but know that it’s still going to be fucked, and I love that.

I will say that I kind of liked that this time I was not anticipating a twist that wasn’t going to happen. For some reason (probably my own fault for misunderstanding something, but my memory is that someone outright stated this in a rec, and I was at the time annoyed that it was an unmarked spoiler,) I had been “spoiled” for the “twist” that Em was an AI controlling Gyre’s suit. THIS IS NOT THE CASE. I can see ways that the start feels like that could be what it’s setting up, but it’s not! I was glad that I didn’t spend the first half of the book anticipating a non-existent twist.

The first time I read it, one of the things I said I liked was the ambiguity of the source of the things happening in the cave. Many are given physical, literal explanations: hallucinogenic fungus, psychological distress, [redacted spoiler], impacts from the alien Tunnelers. However, it felt to me like there was some ambiguity regarding whether there was something paranormal at work. This time… it felt less ambiguous. I think the book does come down on the “everything had an explanation” side, but… I kind of like the idea of there being something paranormal to the cave as well. It’s still an arguable point, I think, but I think on the reread I have to say there’s less support for that reading.

---

Bonus short story that I read:


The image accompanying the short story. I love me some intricate, fractal-esque organic images.
“Constellations” by Jeff VanderMeer
2026
Science fiction/horror - online short story
Published by MIT Technology Review: here (This is theoretically a non-paywalled link.)
4.5/5

When their ship crash lands on a remote planet, only the narrator, their ship’s badly-wounded captain, the astrogator, and the ship’s AI survive. The group sets off for distant domes they can see, feeling confident that reaching them will provide some sort of salvation. On their journey, they encounter more and more remains of other astronauts, of many, many species, who seem to have undertaken the same post-disaster journey.

My brief thoughts, slight spoilers:

This was a fun, short read. Very aesthetically similar to Scavengers Reign in a lot of ways. (The proliferation of strange life within the suit of a dead astronaut?* Amazing. Perfect Scavengers Reign vibes.)
I love me an unreliable narrator, and I really love the variation of “narrator that slowly begins to realize that something may be forcing unreliability and he is concerned.”
Definitely a “wouldn’t it be fucked up if…” story. I am left wanting to understand the mystery, and yet glad not to.

*I am now wondering if this short story has anything to do with the author’s novel Dead Astronauts, which is on the TBR. I don’t think so, and when he shared it he didn’t say anything to that effect.

Bonus bonus short stories:
These were written by my younger sibling, so I am clearly not unbiased, but I loved them both!

“America’s Darling” by Terramythos/Kezona
2025
Dystopian horror - online short story
On Taylor’s substack

Musings on the perfection of America, as exemplified by Darling, America’s Dog. Things are so much better now than they ever used to be!

(Fairly sure this was inspired at least in part by mentioning that Bella has to be called an “All-American Dog” when she competes, because the AKC doesn’t recognize her breed, haha.)

I love this one, and think it has a very classic skin-crawling creepiness of good classic spec-fic/horror.


“Just a Deer” by Terramythos/Kezona
2026
Horror - online short story
On Taylor’s substack

A man in a bar recounts a close call on the road. It was just a deer.

Just a deer. :) This one isn’t super overt horror, just that sort of slow creepiness of something not as it should be.

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Reading goals for 2026:
- Read 50 books (21/50)
- Read more genre classics (Tolkien, Le Guin, Pratchett) (3/x)
- Reread the Murderbot Diaries (0/8)
- Read the 2025 Pride ebook bundle (5/14)
- Read some short story collections (1/x)

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So far, I have finished two additional books in May:
- Return of the King
- Heated Rivalry

I am currently reading four books:
- The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle, which is my main read, and was my “TBR Book of choice” that I picked, having finished Lord of the Rings
- The Forward collection of short stories as my ebook side-read
- Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle, my co-read with Alex
- What Stalks the Deep by T. Kingfisher, my co-read with Taylor

My plans for what to read next:
- Fallen, from the Pride bundle
- A Wizard of Earthsea , starting on some Le Guin with the Earthsea books
- All Systems Red, starting the Murderbot Diaries reread
- A Necessary Chaos, from the Pride bundle
- Artificial Condition, continuing Murderbot
- A House With Good Bones
- For ebook side-reads, I might continue with the Game Changer books, or I might switch between those and something else. We’ll see where the vibes are at.

My TBR list is up to a distressing 758 books, driven at least partially by yet another Humble Bundle. This one was for a set of anthologies edited by Ellen Datlow.

I keep gazing at my TBR list (either the shorter one I have up on LibraryThing or the full one in a document on my laptop) like my own “do it for her” sort of board, lol.

Unfortunately, my reading did not fully rebound in February. Despite being a bit better recovered, my reading speed still seems to have taken a hit! I was hoping to at least reach six books for the month (if not more,) but only hit four again.


(A nice cover for the anthology.)
We’re Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction 2023 edited by Darcie Little Badger; series editor Charles Payseur
2024
Fantasy, Science Fiction, Horror (various subgenres) - various relationships - ebook anthology
4/5 [This is a rounded average of my ratings for the 14 individual stories.]

This is the first book I’ve read from the “2025 Pride” storybundle. (A different company, but similar to Humble Bundle.)

One of the things I’ve wanted to do this year is read more short stories. I typically stick to novel and novella-length works, and my experience with short stories has been hit or miss. I do really admire the ability to write something impactful or interesting or just plain good that’s also very short, so I look forward to trying to read more of them.

This was a decent collection. I appreciate the diversity of authors and story types. I’d say it skews a lot more (though not exclusively) toward f/f stories, and more fantasy than other genres of spec-fic, though there’s a decent amount of sci-fi, and just a few horror. There are also several stories that fall into more than one genre category, which is always a personal favorite.

I think the stories on the whole got better as the collection went on. There weren’t any stories that I didn’t like at all; the lowest rating I gave any was a 3/5. Most fell in the 4 range, with only one that I rated a 5/5. Most of these were by authors I am not familiar with, and I’d be willing to look for more by them in the future.

One disappointment was that there were a lot of spelling, grammar, and formatting errors. I don’t know how many of these were issues in the stories themselves in their original form (in which case the collection editors may not have been able to do anything about it), or how many may have been introduced as part of reformatting them for a new collection. (Formatting in particular may have been due to that, though I would hope that a reformat wouldn’t introduce spelling/grammar problems.) It was enough to be noticeable and frustrating, and was more obvious in some stories than others. I tried for the most part not to factor that in too heavily in my ratings of the stories, except for when it caused actual confusion. I certainly know that typos happen, but come on. As a consumer, I am really bothered by how often this is an issue in professionally published work. I have gone back and forth on docking a half a star from my overall rating because of how repeatedly frustrated by this I was, but decided not to.

Despite being short stories, this turned into a really long review, because I reviewed each of the 14 stories individually, since my feelings about them were all quite different. I tried (and failed) to keep it short, ha.

“A Promise in Bronze” by Ash Arya
Fantasy (subgenre: historical) (f/f)
3/5

Kalaa, the owner of a food shop, quickly falls for foreigner Mishrakeshi when she comes to the city. The women’s relationship deepens, as Mishri takes a job as an apprentice metalworker, and slowly starts to acclimate to the culture of the city.

My thoughts, spoilers:

This story was cute, but I think kind of suffers for how short it is. We are mostly told how the two feel for each other, when I think it would have been a bit more impactful to see it develop. Maybe hypocritical, as I have multiple oneshot fics I’ve written with the tag “slow burn speed run,” but that was a bit of the vibe here; it wanted the impact of a slow burn growing romance, and we got snapshots of the two of them over a longer stretch of time, but it only had a short wordcount to do it.

I like the conceit of the story. In the end, a bronze figure that Mishri made of Kalaa as a gift is rediscovered thousands of years later as an artifact from an archeological dig, named “The Dancing Girl of Mohenjo Daro,” with the context of the women’s love story entirely unknown.

This is a real artifact, and I assume the inspiration for the story, which I think is neat. However, I think that perhaps instead of that solely being the closing line of the story, it too would have been more impactful with a little bit more context or as a proper framing story. (As it is, you would have to already know or look up the fact that the artifact is real. I had heard of it before, but still looked it up to make sure I wasn’t misremembering.)

There’s also a grammatical error in the very first sentence, which is the very first sentence of the book as a whole, and that kind of started the whole collection off on an iffy note.

“Mama uat-ur” by Z. K. Abraham
Sci-fi/Fantasy (subgenre: post-apocalyptic) (f/f)
3.5/5

Temesghen lives in a Stack; an isolated, concrete building, rising out of the water of the drowned world. These are supposed to be the only safe places left for people to occupy, but life here is tightly and cruelly controlled, the residents forced into long hours of sometimes-dangerous labor. Tamesghen has seen a water-dweller out in the sea surrounding the Stack, and risks severe punishment to sneak down to see her again.

My thoughts, spoilers:

I liked this one. This was a story that did feel suited to its length.

I always enjoy things that are on that sci-fi/fantasy cusp, so a post-apocalyptic setting where the seas have risen to the point that there’s little (if any) habitable land, plus migratory mermaids? Love it.

Temesghen has a fairly straightforward, but strong enough character arc: she wants freedom from the confines of the Stack, which makes sense, as she did have a full and rewarding life before.

The romance between Temesghen and Helena, the waterwoman, is… meh. It’s very much insta-love/love at first sight. While it may be aiming for a bit of a fairy tale vibe with that, the narrative really seems to want you to fully believe they’re meant to be together and in love, but I can’t quite buy into it all the way. There’s certainly an element of Helena representing the freedom that Temesghen is longing for, but I don’t feel like we get enough of a sense of who Helena is as an individual to feel much about her beyond that. Having their apparent romance be the resolution to the plot ended up feeling a bit weak.

“The Birds I Pull” by Sharang Biswas
Fantasy (subgenre: magical realism, contemporary) (m/m)
4/5

The narrator outlines different experiences in his life, by the different birds that come out of his chest based on his feelings.

My thoughts, spoilers:

This story is very short, and ends with a bit of a gut-punch.

It’s hard to say a whole lot about it, because it is so short, but the prose is lovely. The narrator has a pleasantly snarky and slightly rambling voice that I enjoyed.

After being pretty funny in tone, the end is a whiplash to very sad. I suppose it’s open to interpretation just how sad; my reading was that it ends in a death, though I suppose it could be read as just the end of a relationship.

“Sentience” by Nkone Chaka
Sci-fi (nonbinary main character)
3/5

The universe has long benefitted from the presence of the library; a sentient planet that has continually amassed a nearly-endless store of knowledge. Now, after millennia, the library has announced its intention to destroy itself, wanting to end its own existence. Salmik, a researcher, is horrified, and while they intend to go to the library’s grand send-off, they also intend to try and convince the library not to go through with its planned end.

My thoughts, spoilers:

This one is a bit longer.

I started off really liking this one, but wasn’t wowed by the ending.

I very much sympathize with Salmik at the start; to me, the thought of so much collected knowledge all being destroyed (especially as the library will not allow that knowledge to be removed prior to its destruction) is terrible! I have strong feelings about the importance of archival and preservation! So I very much understand their core issue.

At the same time, I have strong feelings about right-to-die as an extension of bodily autonomy. If a sentient being reaches a point where it no longer wishes to exist (and particularly here, where it’s a planet that has had an extraordinarily long existence,) it should have the right to make that decision. (A right that is reiterated as a given in this setting.) So I also sympathize with the library, despite what a loss it will represent.

To me, this was a really enjoyable sort of moral tension, regarding the idea of the rights of an individual vs their value to society as a whole, because those are warring moral feelings for me!

Smaller positive detail: I like the descriptions of the festival that serves as the death-party for the library. It’s celebratory, which I like, even though Salmik hates it.

It was a surprise to me, after Salmik mentions their two visits to the library, paired with their adamance that the library can’t be destroyed, that when we find out the details about those visits… they actually hated the experiences! They felt like the library was malicious, and they came away terrified and didn’t want to return.

But this also leads into their true source of horror and hatred of the library’s decision: their mother’s remains are in the library, as Salmik brought her there to die.

While I understand this personal connection, and it’s an interesting (and potentially unflattering) revelation about the character, to me it cheapened the thing that I best sympathized with and found interesting and engaging! I was so all-in on that tension between “this being has the right to cease existing, and shouldn’t be compelled to stay purely for its value to others” and “but that value is irreplaceable; the information it contains already saved countless lives, and its loss will be incalculable.”

Instead of Salmik’s journey to communicate with the library trying to reconcile those two ideas, it just made it into something else. It was no longer about that sort of individual autonomy vs collective good, now it’s individual autonomy vs “but I want you to give me, personally, something I’m emotionally attached to and feel I have a right to.” It kind of felt like a bait and switch on what I thought was being set up. Sure, I think it’s an easier conflict to morally reconcile, but it’s also not the conflict I wanted to grapple with.

In the end, Salmik leaves dissatisfied and angry, while I thought that the library’s “last gesture” was a bit sweet, if not what Salmik desired.

Another downside was that there were a few passages that I had to read multiple times to make sense of, so I wish a few things had been phrased a bit more clearly. However, it is also possibly “user error”; I was reading this fairly shortly after I was home from the hospital, and it could have been my brain fog at fault.

I really liked the start of this one, but was disappointed in the end feeling much smaller than the start. I wish I’d liked it better.

“The Ng Yut Queen” by Eliza Chan
Fantasy (subgenre: contemporary) (f/f)
3.5/5

Decades ago, Ada prayed to the goddess Guanyin for all kinds of things: to be the May Queen, to have honey-blonde hair… and now the goddess has come to answer her prayers. While Ada does her best to keep the goddess entertained as she visits, she starts to think about what she was really longing for when she made her wishes.

My thoughts, mild spoilers:

This one is quite cute, and I did enjoy it!

The trope of “that thing you wished for, but uncomfortably literal” is always fun. As is introducing a deity to modern life. The goddess just absolutely killing it on social media was great.

Ada and her obvious crush on her friend Lou is also sweet, and I’m glad to see that relationship develop, even just over the length of the short story.

One thing I liked was the use of texts between Ada and Lou, including showing what Ada typed but deleted before sending. It was sweet, and gave us good glimpses into Ada’s thoughts. It was a good blend of showing and telling!

EXCEPT. I’m 99% sure the first text conversation is messed up; partway through the conversation it accidentally switches which of them is speaking, so the texts that are obviously from Lou show up as Ava’s, while Ava’s responses show up as being from Lou. This was VERY confusing as I was reading the early section. I figured it out relatively quickly, but especially at the start before I was well-acquainted with the character voices it threw me off and left me with the wrong impression.

I’m trying not to harsh any story individually for the spelling/grammar/formatting errors, or at least not too much, but in this case it actually changed the understanding of the story in a way that really impacted reading it. If it weren’t for that issue, it would have been an easy 4/5.

“Baobab Lover” by Kwame Sound Daniels
Fantasy (subgenre: contemporary, urban fantasy) (f/nb)
3.5/5

The narrator is a dryad, who came to America from their original tree in Zimbabwe. They work a late shift in a diner, where they meet a necromantic student named Sofia, and slowly begin to get to know each other.

My brief thoughts:

This one was also very cute!

I enjoy the narrator’s voice, and perspective of still being a tree, even as they have a human body.

There’s not a lot of plot: it’s pretty much them getting to know Sofia, but I enjoyed it. It’s quite short, but each little interaction reveals more about the characters in a nice, easy way.

“Braid Me a Howling Tongue” by Maria Dong
Fantasy/horror (subgenre: cult, captivity, monster) (f/f)
4.5/5

Captured, muted, and taken from her tribe, the narrator (eventually nicknamed “Not Do”) is brought to a strange compound full of young women. Here the women are made to work through their days, weaving and cooking for the soldiers in the compound. But there are other rules to their lives there, including days they’re sent to flee and hide throughout the compound, trying to stay away from a monstrous beast that will hunt and kill them. Not Do begins to suspect more about the way the compound works, and she longs to save not only herself, but one of the other girls, Kalen, especially once Kalen seems to become an intentional target.

My thoughts, some spoilers:

This is one of the longer stories, and one of my favorites in the book.

It’s one where information is doled out fairly slowly, but always comes at the right time narratively. Not Do, unable to speak to the other girls because her tongue was cut out, is a fascinating character to be in the perspective of. She’s naturally smart, but she’s forced to be observant because she can’t actually ask about anything. I think this credibly makes it so that she figures out things that none of the other girls have, because she’s sort of forced to.

There’s information that we never fully get, but that’s okay for this story, I think. I’d love to know more about Not Do’s life before (where she was apparently a powerful mage, before her ability to speak was taken away,) and what her tribe was like. I’d also like to know what the deal with the compound actually is. It seems to be some sort of cult, but why? Where did they come from? What is their intention? What is the monster? I’m happy to be left wondering, even as I want to know those answers.

“Eulogy for a Brother, Resurrected” by Carson Faust
Fantasy (subgenre: contemporary, witchcraft)
4/5

After her brother, Callum, is murdered, shot to death by one of his lovers’ wives, Della can’t quite accept that her brother is gone. Della turns to her Auntie Ina, a woman estranged from the family because of her strangeness and possible talent for witchcraft. Auntie Ina is willing to show Della how to bring Callum back… though there’s always a cost.

My thoughts:

This is another one I really liked!

I find I don’t know quite what to say about this one. I like the themes of family and guilt. There’s also a lot about reconnecting: with cultural roots, with someone you never had the chance to be close to, with someone you lost. Those themes and feelings were very strong, and I enjoyed the way they carried through.

It’s also enjoyable because the story feels extremely grounded in a lot of ways (talking about the cost of Callum’s cremation; losing a job due to grief; family dramas) even while the fantastical elements (Auntie Ina’s witchcraft) are present and end up feeling almost equally mundane, as the tone and style of the prose treats it as so matter-of-fact.

“Morning Star Blues” by Tessa Fisher
Sci-fi (f/f, trans main characters)
3.5/5

Kelsey and Ashley are on a mission to Venus, studying it in the hopes of finding evidence of life on the planet. After an unfortunate past event on a different mission, current missions are designed to try and prevent the members from risking any romantic or sexual entanglements; it was assumed that with proper hormonal supplementation, this would not be a risk for Kelsey and Ashley, both trans women. Kelsey finds herself very much falling in love with her crewmate… and they have to decide how much they’re both willing to risk.

My thoughts, spoilers:

This was cute!

I feel like I don’t have much to say about it, except that it was very cute. I appreciated that the women (mainly Kelsey, who is our narrator) have their scientific goals in mind as well. While the story arc is very much about their relationship, and the science they’re out there to do really is mostly background, I’m happy that it’s there.
The bit about them singing together was extremely sweet.

There is some seriousness lurking. There’s the fear of being found out, the fear of consequence, and the fear of a past event (that neither of them had anything to do with) reflecting poorly on them now. (Particularly poignant but unfair, as it’s a trans woman fearing that her love for another trans woman would be treated the same way a cis man assaulting a woman would be.) As such, most of the real conflict winds up being internal. (I’ll spoil that while much of that fear is externally imposed, and there is a genuine reason for worry, it all works out okay in the end.)

Overall a fairly light and sweet story.

“Parásito” by Ana Hurtado
Horror/sci-fi (subgenre: parasite) (implied f/f)
4/5

On a field trip into the rainforest, Emi eats an ant, and feels something strange slide down her throat. Back at the university, Emi discovers that Professor Torres has been trying to coerce her best friend, Irene, into a relationship with him. When the university refuses to take his behavior seriously, and with Irene fearing for her grade, Emi wants to find a way to help her… even as her own health begins to decline.

My thoughts, minor spoilers:

I enjoyed this one!

I don’t think it’s subtle that it’s up to you whether the title refers to the literal parasite that infects Emi, or the professor who makes it a habit of preying on his female students.

There’s a good sense of slow-growing dread about what we know is happening to Emi, as well as a less-slow growing anger about Torres, and how obviously this is not an isolated incident, but something he’s been enabled to do for far too long. The end isn’t fully happy, per se, but certainly has an element of satisfaction.

This one is one that I’d say feels the least queer of the stories that are included. It feels like Emi may have romantic feelings for Irene, but it’s a bit ambiguous.

“Mandy and Lulu Welcome Walter” by S. M. Hallow
4.5/5
Fantasy (f/f)

Vampires Mandy and Lulu are happily settling in to their eternity together… until Lulu brings home a cat. According to Lulu, Walter has spent all of his lives so far with her, and Mandy’s dislike of cats certainly can’t apply to her beloved Walter, who may be onto his ninth and final life.

My thoughts:

This story was a lot of fun.

Mandy’s narration is nearly Valley-girl ish, and was entertaining to read. (I read it aloud, just because it was fun to.) It’s very much like you’re listening to a friend spill some tea.

This one is very short, but has a really fun conceit that suits the length perfectly. Much longer, the conversational style probably would stop being so enjoyable, and the plot of being won over by your lover’s cat wouldn’t have sustained any real interest. However, I like the hints about Lulu’s time with Walter’s previous lives, which gives a sense of an equally improbable and entertaining history.

“Three Nights in Orissa” by Sean Robinson
4/5
Fantasy (subgenre: high fantasy) (m/m)

Orrin is a fairly new king, having to face down Althair—the Red Queen—a conqueror who has brought her army to his city, after having swept over everything else in her path. He has enough magic to hold her back… for a time. As he tries to fight to protect his city during the days of the Red Queen’s siege, by night he tries to comfort the citizenry, before holing up in a tavern where he endeavors to be anonymous. Here he meets and is drawn to Jerrod, a stranger to the city. He knows it won’t be long until he is unable to hold off the invading force, yet feels compelled to spend what time he can with Jerrod, showing him the city he loves.

My thoughts, at least one big spoiler:

The high fantasy setting of this one was enjoyable. It also feels very much like there’s a broader story, and we’re just seeing a few days out of it, but that there was plenty that led up to it, and plenty that will continue after.

I also really liked the complicated generational conflict that we get to see glimpses of. Orrin’s mother, Vast, was apparently a great queen… but a vicious one. Initially it seems like she’s being spoken of admiringly, but it also seems that her “strength” is why they’re in the situation they’re in; the city once had both a unicorn and a phoenix as guardians that would have protected them. Both fled the city because of her cruelty.

Big spoiler: Jerrod ends up being the unicorn, which I did really like. He is also Althair’s general.

On the downside, I thought it was obvious that like Jerrod was the unicorn, that Althair was the phoenix… but that’s never actually confirmed or even suspected by Orrin. I wanted there to be a reckoning with that! I wanted him to have to truly face that both the city’s guardians were now trying to overthrow it! It’s not terrible for this to be something that the reader simply has to suspect and deal with, but it was something I wanted to see matter on-page, especially with the way the story ends!

“Please Mind the Poltergeist” by Tehnuka
3.5/5
Fantasy/horror (subgenre: supernatural) (f/f?)

When Vani’s friend Miriam goes on a long-term field assignment, Vani jumps at the chance to housesit for her. She’s eager to get out of her parents’ house, where she’s been stuck as she contends with a chronic illness that limits what she can do. She’s already been warned that it’s more ghost-sitting than house-sitting; the resident poltergeist likes to throw things, move the furniture, clog the drains, and more. As Vani is forced to continue dealing with her illness, she and the ghost begin to make peace, eventually finding companionship with each other.

My thoughts, spoilers:

This story is quite sweet, and I like the way that chronic illness is compared to the idea of a haunting, connecting both to the mourning for a life that can’t be regained, and a sense of being trapped and handling loss. It’s a much more compassionate comparison than the more common ways I see horror use illness and the paranormal to amplify each other.

On the other hand… this whole thing really just felt like this comic by charminglyantiquated. It’s not completely one to one the same; the chronic illness aspect is not in the original comic, and this story doesn’t start with the life or death stakes of the comic. However, the plot beats are extremely similar, as human and entity go through the arc of antagonism to grudging truce and tolerance to helpfulness to potentially being in love. Even some of the specific details, like writing on the mirrors and sharing cups of cocoa, are the same.

Now, some of that could very well be that those are perfectly common enemies-to-lovers plot beats, and something like writing in the steam on a mirror is pretty bog-standard poltergeist fare. I’m sorry if it turns out that this author did not ever actually see or read that comic, but it felt extremely similar to me the whole time. I would probably give it a 4/5, except that it felt so too-similar to something I’d already read and loved.

“A Record of Lost Time” by Regina Kanyu Wang, translated by Rebecca F. Kuang
5/5
Sci-fi (background f/f)

In the nearish future, a rare element discovery leads to a piece of revolutionary new technology: FastForward. This brain implant allows its users to speed up their processing and perception of the world, functionally living their lives at a higher speed, making everything else appear to be moving in slow motion. The boost in productivity that it affords makes it incredibly appealing, and more and more people choose to adopt the new technology.
An influencer, a percussion player, a corporate consultant, and a tourism guide share their experiences with the tech, now that FastForward has become omnipresent, as an initially unknown side-effect speeds the world toward its end.

My thoughts, spoilers:

We closed out on my favorite of the lot!

This one is very Black Mirror, and another example of a story that I think was perfectly suited to its length.

I like the different perspectives that we get from the different characters, and how FastForward impacted them individually.

It’s full of obvious capitalistic warnings. How far will people go in the name of productivity? In the name of having more time? But beyond that, I appreciate that the ultimate point (or one of them) is that the choice inherently impacts everyone else. It’s more than just opting in or out for yourself; the more widespread the adoption, the more it impacts the world around it, even for those who never chose to use it themselves. At the extreme, this is speeding up the passage of time toward the ultimate end of the world.

I can certainly choose to read a lot of allegory into it, when it comes to things like widespread AI use, which negatively impacts the environment (and arguably the culture) as a whole, and the consequences can’t be avoided even by those who actively would prefer to avoid it.
You could also compare it to surveillance: you may choose not to opt in to apps that want to film you and track you, you may choose not to opt in to meta glasses that record everything you’re doing and looking at, you may choose not to opt in to a doorbell camera that tracks everyone and everything in range… but that doesn’t opt you out of everyone else’s recordings that may include you.
Or social conditioning: you can do your best to avoid toxic attitudes, but when you’re steeped in them, you can’t escape their impact.

There’s real pressure to join: in the story, opting in to FastForward is the only way to slow down the end of the world to your own perspective, to give yourself more subjective time… yet the more people who get the implant, the faster it approaches.

This one was great, and I was glad for it to be the one the book closed out on.

Overall, this was a good collection! While some of the stories definitely felt stronger to me than others, even the ones that I didn’t love had aspects that I liked. A couple of them will probably stick with me, and I hope to see more from some of these authors in the future.


(The monstrous dog approaches!)
The Sun Dog by Stephen King
1990
Horror (subgenre: supernatural, artifact) - physical novella - read with Alex
3.5/5

Kevin Delevan gets exactly what he wanted for his fifteenth birthday: a Polaroid Sun 660 camera. Eager to try it out, he takes a picture… but instead of printing out a picture of his family, what develops is an image of an unrecognized street and a strange dog. Subsequent pictures seem to show the same scene, until it becomes obvious that the more pictures taken, the closer the dog is getting, and it is clearly preparing to attack. Kevin is certain that the camera must be destroyed, in order to stop the evil, monstrous dog’s approach.
Junk and antique store owner and local loan shark “Pop” Merrill has always been willing to ruthlessly pursue a chance to make money. He sees an excellent opportunity in Kevin’s Polaroid, even as he willingly disregards the danger it represents.

My thoughts, some spoilers:

I enjoyed this story. I do like horror stories that are of the “hey, wouldn’t it be fucked up if..?” variety. Why does the camera do that? What world is the camera ‘looking’ in on? Where is the dog from and why does it exist? Who cares! It’s just fucked up!

The characters feel… maybe slightly stock, but they’re good examples of the stock they are. Kevin is the sort of innocent that shows up in a lot of King’s work, and in other horror of this kind. He so obviously doesn’t deserve to be stuck in the middle of all that’s happening, and is merely a victim of being the one who got the strange camera; it could have been anyone. (Well… theoretically. Given the end, maybe he just needs to avoid technology forever.) On the other side, we have Pop, who is a garbage person who is aware that he’s awful (but thinks everyone else deserves it) and is perfectly happy to be awful as long as it benefits him in some way. They’re obvious foils, but it works.

It’s also nicely set in its time period. Polaroids and newfangled VCRs! Fun vibes. I like how this could be a “fear of technology” story, but with older tech. The setting certainly isn’t surprising for King, as frequently there’s a lot of warped nostalgia informing his settings, but I liked it.

Much of the horror is great (again, love the ‘oh, it’s just fucked up’), and there’s a definite sense of building dread, as the dog gets closer and closer. It does a good job of starting as a fairly vague menace, and then building up just how threatening it is.

However, this story did the same thing that I started to be annoyed by in Duma Key, where it’s so heavy-handed with the foreshadowing that it actually sort of removes the tension. It wasn’t quite the same thing this time, but it accomplished the same end for me. In Duma Key it tended towards statements that boiled down to “little did I know it would be the last time I’d see her alive,” therefore killing any tension regarding the character’s fate. In The Sun Dog, it was more that the characters would repeatedly mention that they noticed something, but then refuse to say what. Sometimes this would drag on for multiple chapters. “Kevin had noticed the thing around the dog’s neck, and was terrified by it.” “Pop hadn’t noticed the thing around the dog’s neck, but now that Kevin pointed it out, he wondered how he hadn’t seen it.” “Kevin drew his father’s attention to the thing around the dog’s neck, and it filled him with dread at what it meant.” Then, several chapters later, we find out what the thing was. It didn’t feel at all natural for the characters to take notice of it but to obscure what it was, to refuse to name it, especially multiple characters deliberately avoiding it in the same way. It made me very aware that I was reading a story and that it was trying to manipulate me to make me desperate to find out what “it” was… but instead it just made me kind of resentful at the attempt, and then by the time the thing was revealed I was just annoyed, haha.

To be fair, we read this over a couple of months (we read for about twenty minutes at a time on nights when Alex is cooking.) It might not have felt so dragged out if we were reading it more quickly. But still… even if we’d read those chapters closer to each other, this particular example would still have stretched on too long.

This was also a pretty decent “The end… OR IS IT” type ending, so appreciate that.

Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo
(I love these covers.
When Taylor gave me this book for Christmas, they also gave me a copy of What Moves the Dead, so remarked on the "if I had a nickel for every fucked up rabbit on the cover of a book I'm giving you...")
Book 2 of the Alex Stern trilogy
2023
Fantasy/Horror (subgenres: dark, dark academia, supernatural, demonic) - (m/f) - physical novel
5/5

Alex Stern has managed to stay at Yale, and as a representative of Lethe. However, her position might not last for long, as Lethe’s new leadership takes a very dim view of her doing anything beyond the most basic requirements of her role in managing the other houses’ rituals. This especially applies to any of her attempts to reach and free Darlington from where his soul is trapped in Hell. Alex, of course, has no intention to obey, and every intention of saving him.
Her role is also tested as a string of murders start on campus; murders that have an apparently supernatural component to them.
Alex and Dawes research a supposed ritual to enter Hell, the steps of which are hidden on campus, though the previous attempt to use it seems to have ended poorly. Opening the gates of Hell doesn’t only create an entrance, but also an exit.

My thoughts, some spoilers:

As is often the case with trilogies, I think I like the first book, Ninth House, slightly more, if only because it stands better on its own. Even so, Hell Bent gets five stars from me, and I really enjoyed it.

I would say that this book treads closer to truly falling within the horror genre than Ninth House did. That one had horror elements, for sure, but always felt more like a dark fantasy than true horror. Hell Bent is more a mix between fantasy and horror, focusing a lot more on demonic monstrosity.

The worldbuilding and setting are still very strong. I love the way it blends the real-world setting and the fictionalized aspects of the world. It also still does a good job, I think, of treading the line between “magic can solve it” and “but is it worth it?” The magic can do a lot… but it’s very rarely convenient or easy.

I liked getting more page time with some of the characters who were introduced in the previous book: Dawes, Turner, Tripp, Mercy, Darlington. It’s interesting to see the different backgrounds they all have, and how it’s brought them to the same place, and the ways in which they have similar drives within them, but are very different people.

One of the primary themes, which was present in the first book, but gets ramped up in this one, is the deep desire to find and be a part of something magical or secret. That’s one of the driving motivations for several of the characters: that secret desire to find another world behind the back of a wardrobe, or to discover a hidden magic that’s always been a part of you. Even just the desire to know that there’s something “more” to the world. I think a lot of fantasy fans can relate to that! These books have done a great job of showing the tension between that desire, and the ugly reality of what that secret world actually entails (at least in this story.) There is a secret world of magic… and the quest for the power it can bestow leads to the same sorts of evils that accumulating mundane social or political power leads to, just magnified and sometimes a bit more literal. It’s also often clustered in the same hands as that mundane power.

Sort of along with that, while these books would fall under the “dark academia” subgenre, and I think are in a lot of ways excellent examples of it, I also think that they’re being pretty critical of that aesthetic and what it would truly look like. It does focus a lot on what types of people (again, connecting to the real-world setting of secret societies at prestigious universities) would accumulate power and what they would use it for. There’s a lot of disgust at the rituals and what the intentions behind them are. It also doesn’t shy away from some really horrible aspects of real history, including the history of slavery in the region, and ways in which those structures of power and exploitation have stayed the same. (And I do not think that those real horrors are being downplayed by their inclusion in a work of fantasy fiction.)

I also, perhaps regrettably, am into the whole Alex/Darlington dynamic. Fucked up supernaturally compelled not-quite-romantic-or-sexual-yet-but-it’s-something femdom apparently works for me. -_-

While I don’t think that the twists in this one were quite as good as the ones at the end of Ninth House, I think they were still pretty good. It was clear that someone was leading them on, and getting the reveals about who/what/how/why was satisfying; the way in which Alex was able to help Darlington; going back with a better understanding later of the meeting between Alex and [redacted] and what was actually going on… all good stuff.

I really have very few complaints. I sort of missed getting to actually see the other societies this time around. They’re on the periphery, and we get told about some of their rituals, but don’t really get to see any. There’s pretty little of them directly on-page, and that was a bit of a shame. At the same time, I wouldn’t have wanted them to be included just to be included, and derail or distract from the plot we were focused on.

I am looking forward to the third book, coming out in September!

(These also have fantastic covers. Very creepy, love them.)
What Stalks the Deep by T. Kingfisher
Book 3 of the Sworn Soldier series
2025
Horror (subgenre: monster) - (background m/m) - physical novella
4.5/5

Alex Easton would be perfectly happy to leave any and all supernatural or unexplained happenings to other people to deal with. When Denton, the American doctor who helped with the situation with the Ushers, writes to kan* with an issue of his own, kan still feels compelled to help. If anyone understands what it was to face an unknown horror, it would be Denton. He’s asked for Alex’s help finding his cousin, who disappeared while investigating the family’s mine in West Virginia. The cousin’s letters to Denton described strange occurrences around the mine—strange lights, sounds, and figures being sighted—but then finally the discovery of a breathtaking cavern full of some unknown material. Alex travels to America to help him investigate. Their party soon discovers all the same things Denton’s cousin warned about, as well as unexplainable attacks on animals and people in the area. Whatever is in the mine seems to be more than just an animal or a human intruder.

*Alex’s native language has many sets of pronouns, including ka/kan, used exclusively for soldiers, which supersede any previous pronouns an individual might have used.

My thoughts, some spoilers:

I enjoyed this one! While I still enjoyed the second book, this one felt like more of a return to some of what I liked best about the first book.

Mild spoiler for both this book and the first, but I liked that this story returned to being about a sort of scientific/cryptid creature, as opposed to the more overtly paranormal folkloric monster of the second book. I like both types of creature, but the “vaguely scientific (even if it strays into pretty speculative biology,) simply unknown to science” cryptid sort is one I encounter less often. I think the one in the first book was more horrific, but I appreciate their similarities, and the way in which this one gets a different outcome.

I still like Alex’s sort of deadpan reactions to the world. Ka does not want to deal with emotional anything, and will go to great lengths to avoid it. Watching ka repeatedly notice Denton and Ingold’s relationship and then resolutely refuse to acknowledge it as none of kan business was entertaining.

The setting is fantastic! I love me some spooky abandoned mines, and this was an excellent one. (There are some similarities to the famous Ted the Caver creepypasta, which I mean as a compliment. The mingled awe of discovering some amazing unknown thing and the claustrophobic and isolated horror of being trapped underground is great!)

There are also two parallel mysteries: what’s happening in the mine, and what’s happening with the animal attacks in the nearby town. Those came together satisfyingly!

Really no complaints about this one.

Pretty lucky this month in terms of enjoying everything I read again!

---

Despite being a ways into March at this point, I have not finished anything additional.

I am currently reading four books:
- Point of Dreams by Melissa Scott and Lisa A. Barnett (my current main read, part of the Pride storybundle)
- Our Bloody Pearl by D. N. Bryn (my current ebook side-read, which has been slow going)
- The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling (reading with Alex)
- Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (reading with Taylor)

After this, my plan remains pretty much the same:
- The Hobbit
- The Map and the Territory (Pride storybundle ebook)
- The Fellowship of the Ring
- These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart (Pride storybundle ebook)
- The Two Towers
- Be the Sea (Pride storybundle ebook)
- Return of the King
- The next Incryptid book (coming out the day before my birthday), Butterfly Effects, will get to jump the line. It’ll probably land after The Hobbit.
- When I am done with my current ebook side read, I will probably let the Game Changer series (or at least the first three books, which I own) jump the line to side-read status.

It’s fairly clear that I will not be finishing up the above by the end of March, which was my original, admittedly ambitious goal. I am holding out hope for it to happen by the end of April, but that still seems a bit on the ambitious side. I’ve been doing more reading, spending more time per day on Point of Dreams, but it turns out that it’s a relatively long book, ha. And of course all the Tolkien books are long and not quick reads by any stretch, and I do not want to rush them.

Upsettingly, the TBR has now grown to an obscene 676 books.

This is partially due to another horror ebook humble bundle (Dread and Darkness) that I purchased, which includes 52 books. Four of those I already had (some of the Stephen Graham Jones titles,) but there were a few others (other Stephen Graham Jones titles,) that were already on my wishlist, so I failed to resist. The rest of the increase has mostly been due to cheap sales on individual books.

Thanks to silversea who shared this over at booknook!

Against my better judgement, I bought ANOTHER humble bundle...

This one is "Fierce Women of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror," which offers 65 works by female authors writing in genre spaces. It's a pretty widespread timeframe, too: the oldest stuff is I think from the early 60s, spanning up through I think 2020 for the most recent?
(It's also *more* than 65; it's 65 files, but a few of those are sets of 2-5 books.)

I already had the Mira Grant works that were included (a fave author!), though the included titles seem a little weird... Book two of the Parasitology trilogy, the sequel-ish novel to the Newsflesh trilogy, and the novellas set in the Newsflesh world... but including the novellas both individually AND including the book that collected them? I want everyone to read more Mira Grant, but I'm not sure this is a great intro to her work. Though the novella collection, Rise, is worth the price of admission on its own, imo, I don't know if they have the same impact if you haven't read the trilogy already.

But there was something off my wishlist (Wylding Hall, which came up on a couple rec lists that I saw recently), plus a few other books that fall into the "hey, I recognize that! Never got around to reading it!" category, plus a few sci-fi and fantasy classics from the 60s-90s that I might not be likely to pick up at random, but might be good to read! (Especially as I continue trying to read some "classics" of these genres, rather than just recent releases.)
Since I was likely to spend at least $10 or so for the wishlisted book alone, it felt like too good a deal to pass up to get 60-some works for around $20, ha.

But my poor TBR. It's up to 580 books total now, and I KNOW I'm never going to get around to reading the whole thing. :(

In 2024, I decided to keep track of the books I read by drawing them on a shelf in my tracker. I liked it, so I did that again! Each book is on there, along with an object from or representing the book, because maximalism forever.



I'm quite happy with it! :D (Minus the fact that I spaced them out way too much early in the year, and at the end I had to cram 'em in. But "I read more books than I expected having to fit on there" is very much a non-problem, haha.)

I read 68 books for 2025! :D I am thrilled. (Not as thrilled as I'd be if I'd hit 69, lol... or maybe I should have stopped one short in order to be hipper with the kids these days, and ended with 67.) The 68 does not count either of the in-progress books, or the short stories.

41 of those books were physical, and 27 of them were ebooks. 10 of them were books I read with someone else, either Alex or Taylor.

By far the most common rating I gave was a 4/5.

My initial goal when I started the year was to read 25 books (though I quickly realized I should aim for more.) I hit that goal in May!
After that, my next goal was to finish the currently available Wayward Children novellas. (That was 10 novellas, which I was interspersing between other reads.) I hit that goal in August!
My next stretch goal after that was to reach 50 books, double my original goal. I managed that in October!
My final stretch goal for the year was to finish the Tor Nightfire humble bundle ebooks, which was a set of 18 horror novels/novellas that I had gotten the year before. This one I did not quite manage, though I have started reading the final book from the set, so... almost!

---

A couple more zoomed in pictures of my drawn shelves to see better detail, plus a list of the books and their objects:

As before, I started with the bottom shelf, because you should always load shelves from the bottom, haha. Then I snaked back and forth, so the bottom shelf goes from left to right, then the next one up goes right to left, etc.

The books and their objects:

Bottom shelf, left to right:
(a decorative little plant cutting in a red owl glass, which are actual shotglasses Alex bought me, ha)
The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune, with the brass button of Linus' that Theodore takes
The Infernal City by Greg Keyes, with the locket that Annaïg uses to contact Atrebus
Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire, with a pomegranate, for Nancy's door
Somewhere Beyond the Sea by T.J. Klune, with a phoenix feather
Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire, which got two objects, one for each twin: Jill's choker, and a jar of captive lightning for Jack
Trouble and Her Friends by Melissa Scott, with a cable behind it
Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire, Rini's magic candy bracelet

Second shelf, right to left:
Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, with the jade bead that Atl got from her mother
Her Rival Dragon Mate by Arizona Tape, with a burgundy dragon scale
Never Say You Can't Survive by Charlie Jane Anders, with a cup of pens and pencils, plus a pride flag
The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling, with some of the mysterious cave fungus
In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire, with a golden eagle feather, the bird that Lundy is transformed into
Tell Me I'm Worthless by Alison Rumfitt, with a bloody scalpel (not a fun object in the book...)
The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle, with a unicorn horn in the trans pride colors (because there are Vibes)
Come Tumbling Down by Seanan McGuire, with Jack's glasses
Boys in the Valley by Philip Fracassi, with a bottle of holy water

The third shelf, left to right:
Breaking the Rules by Jen Katemi, with a bar of soap (the main character wants to start a soap business)
Installment Immortality by Seanan McGuire, with a ghost jar, containing a nail, rosemary branch, broken mirror...
(a decorative spider plant)
Space for Growth by Emily Antoinette, with a wrist communicator
You Feel It Just Below the Ribs by Jeffrey Cranor and Janina Matthewson, with a damselfly
Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire, with the bag that Regan ends up carrying her supplies in
Sister, Maiden, Monster by Lucy A. Snyder, with a tentacle
Awakening Delilah by Abigail Barnette, with a pine branch
Lord of Souls by Greg Keyes, with Coo, the little mechanical sparrow that connects to Annaïg's locket

The fourth shelf, from right to left:
Aftermarket Afterlife by Seanan McGuire, with a bundle of the Anima Mundi's wheat
Silver Under Nightfall by Rin Chupeco, with the knife chain from Remy's weapon
Where the Drowned Girls Go by Seanan McGuire, with a logo for the Whitethorn Institute (though I reread the description and it said it was chevron shaped, so oops.)
Overgrowth by Mira Grant, with a vine and one of the alien seeds
Maeve Fly by C.J. Leede, with a jar of teeth
Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle, with the demon Pachid's nametag
Lost in the Moment and Found by Seanan McGuire, with the note the shop tried to give Antsy
Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes, with a pair of earplugs

The fifth shelf, from left to right:
Installment Immortality by Seanan McGuire (again), this time with the magic map Apple gives them
Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff VanderMeer, with the titular hummingbird
Mislaid in Parts Half-Known by Seanan McGuire, with the empty perch that Hudson would sit on
Night's Edge by Liz Kerin, with the broken rose quartz crystal that Jade gave to Mia
Buchanan House by Charlie Descateaux, with another pride flag
Uprooted by Naomi Novik, with a branch from the Wood
Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear by Seanan McGuire, with one of Nadya's beloved turtles

The sixth shelf, from right to left:
Alice Isn't Dead by Joseph Fink, with Keisha's truck key
Little Eve by Catriona Ward, with a jar of the honey the inhabitants of the island harvest
Witch King by Martha Wells, with a veil that Kai wears
The Dead Take the A Train by Cassandra Khaw and Richard Kadrey, with one of the potions that St. Joan makes
Tidal Creatures by Seanan McGuire, with one of Chang'e/Judy's peaches of immortality
Duma Key by Stephen King, with the evil china doll
Diavola by Jennifer Thorne, with the key to the villa
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones, with a bison horn
Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw, with a lit candle
Silver and Lead by Seanan McGuire, with one of the bracelets the Luidaeg makes
What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher, with threatening mushrooms
Queen Demon by Martha Wells, with the emerald hair pins Kai has

The top shelf, from left to right:
Bloodhunt Academy by Minah Clement (adore!), with one of the vials of blood Jolene collects
Overgrowth by Mira Grant (again), with a figurine of Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors (Stacia has a novelty bank of Audrey II, but I don't think my little thing looks like a bank, ha.)
Dracula by Bram Stoker, with a little silver cross
Red Rabbit by Alex Grecian, with the poppet doll that was nailed to Rose's tree
A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab, with the broken black stone that unleashes Vitari
Your Shadow Half Remains by Sunny Moraine, with a knife stabbed through
A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab, with one of the glass element balls they use in the competition
Feeling the Heat: Part One by Emily Antoinette, with a rose
The Spite House by Johnny Compton, with the threatening lightbulb
Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes (again), this time with a screwdriver
Queen Demon by Martha Wells (again), this time with one of the fine little cups that Kai and group had
A Conjuring of Light by V.E. Schwab, with Lila's shattered glass eye (could not get enough detail...)
What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher (again), with more mushrooms
Mary by Nat Cassidy, with one of Mary's broken Loved Ones figurines... with some blood on it
Silver and Lead by Seanan McGuire (again), this time with the shell knife the Luidaeg gave Toby
Feeling the Heat: Part Two by Emily Antoinette, with another rose
The Fragile Threads of Power by V.E. Schwab, set on top of the persalis box

On top of the shelves on the right are Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin and The Sun Dog by Stephen King, which are my two in-progress reads. To the left are "Swelter," "Shiver," and "Soak," which were three short stories by Jules Kelley that I read.

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My top ten books for the year:

All of these got 5 stars from me:
1) Queen Demon
2) What Moves the Dead
3) The Buffalo Hunter Hunter
4) Little Eve
5) The Luminous Dead
6) Witch King
7) Uprooted
8) Down Among the Sticks and Bones/Come Tumbling Down (two books, but both novellas focusing on mostly the same characters, so I counted them together)
9) A Darker Shade of Magic
10) The Last Unicorn

Honorable mentions to Lost in the Moment and Found, The Spite House, A Conjuring of Light, and The Fragile Threads of Power, which were all in the 4.5-5 star range.

My three least favorite books of the year:

3) Maeve Fly (I feel like I CANNOT say enough that I think the writing was very good, but the content just didn't work for me)
2) Breaking the Rules (which was my own fault; it is what it says on the tin, but leans into a poly relationship being just the most scandalous, forbidden, dirtybadwrong thing possible, which I just do not care for.)
1) Nothing But Blackened Teeth (which I really *wanted* (and expected) to like, but was so bothered by the miserably unlikable characters and continuity errors that had no excuse to be there in such a short book.)

I did also DNF one book: The Queen Rises.

I am absolutely delighted by how much I read in 2025, and am also delighted at how much of it was made of books (those horror ebooks, particularly), that I might not have otherwise picked up. I didn't love all of them, but it introduced me to several authors that I hope to read more of.

I'm very much hoping I can carry that energy forward into 2026, and maybe read even more, haha.

I hope that everyone who celebrates has had (and is still having) a merry Christmas! (And if you don't celebrate... I hope it was a great Thursday!)

Maybe it's our record-breaking heat (71° today!), but it really hasn't felt terribly Christmas-y. Last year I got hit with the Christmas spirit atypically hard, but not so much this year. Not feeling un-Christmas-y or anything, just... not feeling a ton of hype.

Even so, I had a lovely day. I never sleep well the night before Christmas (or the night before any big event, like vacation, or a big show we're going to, etc.), even though I'm well beyond the "kid at Christmas" excitement phase, haha. I especially can't say I sleep well on my mom's tiny loveseat, though Jaspurr was a pleasant sleeping buddy, and even let us sleep in until there was light in the sky!

Mom and Taylor and I exchanged gifts: I mostly got books, haha. (I also mostly gave books.)

Alex came and joined us a few hours later, and we all hung out for a while. He made some delicious chocolate crinkle cookies and a pan of gingerbread blondies, which are SO GOOD.

Alex and I then came home and exchanged our gifts. Then I fairly quickly fell asleep. Just as I was waking up from my nap, Alex fell asleep, haha.


Highlights of my received gifts. <3

I got lots of books from my mom and Taylor! All are books I'm very excited to read. What Moves the Dead (which I did have an ebook of, but wanted a physical copy), What Feasts at Night and What Stalks the Deep. The Scholomance trilogy. Hell Bent. The Strange Bird. The Ballad of Black Tom.
From Alex, I got Sinners and Late Night With the Devil, which were two of my favorite horror movies from the last couple years, and that I wanted copies of. He also got me a couple nice blank notebooks. (I'll have to psych myself up to use the nicer of the two, haha.) He also got me some candy, the cute spider plush keychain, and the fluffy blanket that everything is sitting on.
Not pictured: A shirt, some hot chocolate, and some bubble bath stuff from Alex. My mom bought us a seat cover for the truck.
And of course, Bella got a million treats, haha.

Our remaining plans for the evening are eating a frozen pizza (er... we will bake it first), since we're both very tired of making food, and then maybe some sort of holiday movie. We meant to try and watch a few before today, but never got around to it. My vote is for The Muppet Christmas Carol, but Christams Twister (sic) is truly our longest movie tradition, and he's more likely to vote for A Christmas Story or It's a Wonderful Life. So we'll see which one we land on!

ETA:

Christams Twister is the winner again! A misspelled title card is truly the best indicator of quality that I can imagine.

For the month of November, I read seven books! The most for any month this year!

My goal was actually to get through one more, but tragically I didn’t finish it until December 1st, so alas.

I was pretty lucky this month in terms of enjoying everything I read.

Overgrowth by Mira Grant
Sci-fi/Horror (background m/f) - physical novel - read with Taylor
4/5

When Anastasia Miller was a child, she went into the woods and found an alien flower. She never came home, but something that looked just like her did. The new Anastasia has never hidden what she is: she is the vanguard of an alien species that plans to arrive on earth, a fact she is compelled to share with everyone she meets.
Even she isn't completely sure that she's telling the truth, and very few people in her life truly believe her. Then the signal comes, announcing the approach of the alien armada. Suddenly, people do believe there's an invasion impending, and they do not react kindly to the aliens already hiding among the human race. Stacia herself is torn, particularly as the humans grow increasingly cruel and violent in response to the alien presence: are her loyalties with the species she's always actually been, or the world that raised her?

My thoughts, vague spoilers:

This one was a reread for me, just reading it with Taylor this time.

My thoughts are mostly the same as the first time I read it. I feel like there were a few aspects I actually liked better this time, in terms of the pacing and watching Stacia weigh her options between the aliens and the humans. I remember previously feeling like she was too back and forth between the “sides” the first time (rather than it feeling like a steadier progression toward her ultimate decision.) This time that bothered me less, and felt like a more realistic struggle.

I feel like lots of people really didn’t like Graham, but I do. :( I still really like their relationship being based on believing each other about who and what they are, in a world that largely doesn’t. (And no I don’t think that this is an offensive 1:1 comparison of those identities; different things can have an aspect in common that creates sympathy without being identical!)

I also don’t hate the ending. It’s not a good ending, as in, good things happening to everyone/triumph over evil/completely uncomplicated good vs. evil/etc., but I wouldn’t have wanted it to end otherwise, tbh.

Finding out the “how this could have been prevented” still felt like a gut punch.

Something that bothered me more this time was the fucking editing. Again. Reading it aloud meant that I didn’t manage to gloss over a bunch of the typos that I apparently passed over last time. I know I’d noticed a few the first time, but there were more than I remembered. Mostly just stupid little “typo turned this into the wrong word” type stuff, but it’s so frustrating in a traditionally published book. If I’m noticing multiples on a read-through, what the fuck were the editor or copyeditor doing?
There was also one factual error that I really feel like the author shouldn’t have made in the first place, but also should have gotten caught by an editor. Stacia thinks something about it being a shame they weren’t in New Mexico, because then they could take her to Area 51, or something to that effect. Area 51 is not in New Mexico. The “Roswell crash,” if you’re into alien stuff, happened in New Mexico, but Area 51 is in Nevada. Like… maybe that’s “obscure” knowledge, but it doesn’t feel obscure to me, particularly in a book about aliens/alien invasion/conspiracy theorists being proved right, and was enough to bug me.

Dracula by Bram Stoker
Horror (subgenres: vampire, religious, epistolary, classic) (m/f) - daily ebook newsletter/full-cast audio adaptation
4.5/5

It's Dracula. How much of a summary can I offer?
Jonathan Harker, newly-minted solicitor, is sent to Transylvania to assist a new client: a count who wishes to purchase property in London. Count Dracula is initially a charming and generous host, but as Jonathan's stay continues, it becomes clear that something is deeply, even supernaturally, wrong, and Jonathan begins to fear he is not going to leave the castle alive.
In London, Jonathan's fiancee, Mina, waits for his return. She spends quite a bit of time with her friend Lucy, until Lucy's health begins to fail in bizarre ways. Others who care about Lucy rally to try and solve her mysterious illness, even when it, too, seems supernatural in origin.
Eventually they discover that the entity stalking Lucy presents danger to far more than just her.

My thoughts, spoilers for a novel that's more than 125 years old:

Again, it’s Dracula, again, how much can I say? Lol

It definitely deserves its place as a classic, and I appreciate it existing and creating so many of the tropes that have been returned to again and again. Epistolary horror, my beloved.

It’s really quite funny at times to read, because of course few of the characters are terribly genre savvy (with the possible exception of Van Helsing), because this is where so many of the genre norms came from! Wow, the creepy, foreboding castle was, in fact, Not Good??

I do often forget how much religious stuff is in the story? Like, crosses and holy water being primary weapons against vampires makes it hard to ever forget entirely, but the whole thing about Mina being bitten and then corrupted/damned/removed from God’s light is a lot. (And like, I morally hate it. She’s a victim! I hate that being a victim damns her to hell! Though yes, she gets saved, and they save Lucy’s soul, and apparently even Dracula’s in the end. The damnation is the “true horror” of the vampire, even more than the murder and drinking blood and all. I just don’t love it.) In terms of dated contextual everything, those gender roles certainly do be gender role-ing, too. I am not judging the book for that context, hopefully obviously, but it is certainly there. (Though not without at least some complication: Mina knowing shorthand because she wanted to help Jonathan with his work is a huge help in the story! The attempts to protect Mina by refusing to give her information almost always lead to things getting worse!)

The experience of reading this as “Dracula Daily,” which shares the story in chronological order on the dates that each part of the book happen, is very fun. I got behind a few times, and of course there are a few long stretches with no entries, but overall getting to read it all “in real time” is a really enjoyable way to do it. I read along with it, but also listened to it this year via “Re: Dracula,” which is a full-cast audio drama adaptation, released the same way, where each episode is one day’s worth of the story. Some of the episodes are just a few seconds long for quick entries, while some are a couple hours long, so it’s a bit of an uneven experience/time commitment, but again, worth the real-time aspect. (The cast is also very good, as is the sound design and background score.)

Red Rabbit by Alex Grecian
Horror (subgenres: supernatural, western, historical) - ebook novel
4/5

Sadie Grace is a witch, and the town where she resides knows she is the cause of every misfortune they face. When a bounty is placed on her, dead or alive, bounty hunters from across the west come to collect.
One of them is witch-hunter Tom, traveling with a strange mute child named Rabbit. They’re joined by a pair of cowboys, Moses and Ned, and widow Rose.
As the group travels, they encounter all sorts of bizarre supernatural horrors, from demonic possessions, to haunted forests, to towns that you may never get to leave.

My thoughts, tried to avoid spoilers:

This one was pretty good! Warning for some pretty grossly descriptive gore in a couple parts. And why did the toads have to be evil. ;_;

The story is told in a very episodic fashion, with a lot of the places the group travels through being pretty discrete sections of the story, but I thought those bits still built on each other and came back around in ways that were worthwhile. While episodic, none of those episodes felt like they didn’t matter, which was nice. I also liked how there were occasional chapters that introduced characters that were unrelated to our main group, but ultimately got folded in to the story.

I really liked the ambiguity around Sadie and her motives for most of the story. I thought that it was well-constructed, how we get a lot of other people’s views on her before we get much information about her directly.

[Redacted late reveal] had not occurred to me in advance, but seemed like an obvious thing in retrospect, which was kind of nice. It’s possible I was simply terribly unobservant about it, but it’s nice to be surprised by something that also doesn’t feel like it came out of nowhere.

In the utterly petty complaint department: this is absolutely the curse of “more knowledge on one specific, usually inconsequential thing than the average person,” but boy do I wish more authors understood horse words. Mostly descriptive color/pattern words, in this case. This wasn’t the most egregious example of an author clearly not knowing the terms (or thinking they mean something other than they do) that I’ve ever seen, but it was noticeable to me a few times, even when I was trying to give the benefit of the doubt to force the descriptors to make sense.

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab
Fantasy - physical novel
5/5

Kell is an Antari, a particularly rare and powerful kind of magician, capable of wielding all the elements, but also the power of blood. One of the powers this grants him is the ability to travel between the three existing worlds: each very different, but tied to each other by the fact that each of them has a city called “London.” Kell lives in Red London, in a world rich with magic; Grey London (our world) is part of a world completely cut off from any magic; and White London is in a world where magic burned out and what remains is now viciously fought over. Once there was a fourth London, Black London, but that world has been long dead, having consumed itself completely as the magic ran wild.
Adopted into the royal family to serve the Red London crown, one of Kell’s duties is to travel between the remaining Londons, sharing messages with their rulers. Other than the sanctioned letters he transports, any transference of objects between worlds is strictly forbidden. When Kell is tricked into transporting a relic of Black London across the border between worlds, it places all of Red London, including his brother, crown prince Rhy, in horrible danger. Kell is assisted by a Grey London thief named Lila, and is thrown against Holland, the only other living Antari, and the brutal White London rulers he serves.

My thoughts, some spoilers:

This was a reread for me, but it’s been several years since I read the series.

I still really enjoyed the first book. I love the magic system, with the division between the elemental magic that a fair number of characters can use, and the blood magic that only the Antari have access to. I love the Arnesian language (which has enough similarity to existing roots that sometimes the meaning can be sussed out even before it’s given, and it feels consistent.) As conlangs go, it’s certainly not the most complex ever made or anything, but it flows really naturally to me, without feeling forced or like I’m trying to do translation homework. I love the differences between the Londons, and how horribly creepy White London is. The Dane twins are so awful!

I’d forgotten that Kell is kind of an asshole, haha.

I feel bad that I often have less to say about the books I enjoy the most…

Your Shadow Half Remains by Sunny Moraine
Horror (subgenre: psychological, pandemic, post-apocalyptic) (background f/nb) - ebook novella
3.5/5 [I originally gave this a 4, but later revised it to a 3.5.]

A pandemic swept the globe, but rather than a virus, this contagion spread by eye contact. Seeing another person’s eyes, no matter how briefly, could send a person into a violent, homicidal and then suicidal rage. Years in, the people who remain live in total isolation as a method to survive. Riley has retreated to a cabin on a lake, a place that her family used to come. Her only contact with anyone else is through the sometimes-unreliable internet. Until Ellis moves in a few doors down. Riley’s new neighbor is a mystery; a new person brushing up against her carefully cultivated isolation. As dangerous as it is, Riley finds herself drawn to Ellis, but when strange, possibly threatening things begin to happen in her house, it seems natural to suspect the new person is behind it. As she tries to find out what’s happening, it becomes harder to tell: is it Ellis who has ulterior motives, or is it Riley losing touch with reality?

My thoughts, minor spoilers:

This was clearly covid pandemic fiction. Not like it hides it, but this drew really heavily on the experience of covid, I think.

It definitely had some relatable quotes:
“It’s horrifying. Then it’s weird. Then it’s inconvenient. Then it’s just every fucking day.”
Or
“In the end, maybe it’s disturbing how easy it was to adjust. How easy it is for the worst things imaginable to become normal.”

(Sure, a pandemic that causes people to try and commit immediate, violent murder/suicide would be worse than covid. Probably. But that arc sure feels familiar.)

Riley’s growing paranoia was definitely dread-inducing.

Ellis is very carefully never gendered at any point in the book. (I think there’s one place where a “they” could be arguably applied to Ellis, but Riley may have meant it more generally.)

The ending is a bit ambiguous, so I will not be recommending this one to Alex, lol. I don’t think he’d like that.

A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab
Fantasy (background m/f) - physical novel
3.5/5 [I originally gave this a 4, but later revised it to a 3.5.]

Having left Red London behind, Lila has followed her lifelong dream of boarding a ship. It may not be her ship (yet), but serving on the crew as a thief under privateer Captain Alucard Emery will do for the time being, particularly as he agrees to help train her newly-emerging magical gifts.
Back in Red London, Rhy and Kell both struggle with the aftermath of what Kell sacrificed to save Rhy’s life.
Meanwhile, Red London prepares to host a tri-annual tournament, bringing the best magicians from all three empires to compete. Among the competitors is Alucard… and more than one magic-wielder planning to compete in secret.

My thoughts, some spoilers:

There’s nothing wrong with this book, and I do generally enjoy it… but not nearly as much as book 1.

There is a lot of important stuff happening in this book, and the character stuff I like a lot. Lila discovering and working with her magical gifts is important. The struggle between Rhy and Kell, and having their lives bound together is something I find super engaging. The guilt Rhy feels over what that means for Kell, along with the additional layer of guilt when he isn’t sure he even wants to have been saved. The far worse, absolutely heartbreaking divide between Kell and the rest of the Maresh family. Kell and Lila reconnecting. Everything happening in White London. Alucard getting introduced, because I do love him.

Even so… the stakes just feel so much lower in this book that it’s tough for me to get as into it. The first book focuses on a truly world-ending threat, with the Black London stone, plus White London’s attempt to take over Red. This book, the main plot is… just the tournament. Who will win, who will get unmasked and possibly disqualified, etc. It’s not a bad plot, and I’d probably be more into it if it were a standalone or part of a different series, but the stakes, while not meaningless, are just a downgrade from the first book.

Yes, we get the glimpses of Ojka and what’s happening in White London, and so there’s some awareness that there’s another big world-spanning threat, but none of the other characters are aware of that, so it doesn’t really create any urgency in terms of plot, and it doesn’t really pay off for the reader until the very end. Which is a cliffhanger, as a warning.

Feeling the Heat: Part One by Emily Antoinette
M/M/M/F Romance (subgenres: contemporary, omegaverse) - ebook novel
4/5

On her fortieth birthday, Camille gets an unexpected and undesired surprise: rather than the beta she always believed herself to be, she’s actually just an extremely late-presenting omega. When she visits a heat clinic, she discovers she’s a scent match with the handsome clinic doctor, Ambrose, and also meshes incredibly well with the beta she selects to help her through her heat, a man named Jackson.
Coincidentally, Ambrose and Jackson are already part of a pack together, and neither of them can get Camille off their minds. Despite some terrible past attempts at finding an omega to join their pack, they get the third member of their pack, alpha River, to agree to court her… but things quickly grow more complicated than they’d hoped.

My thoughts, some spoilers:

As per usual, don’t judge me for liking omegaverse, lmao.

This was pretty good. I like this author; her stuff is generally competently written, which is way better than a lot of the random indie romance or erotica books that I’ve picked up. That sounds like damning with faint praise, but I genuinely mean it: there are actual plot arcs, she fleshes out the relationships between the characters (and especially does so for all the different connections in a poly story), and there are few typos or errors that jump out at me, which is honestly better than a lot of tradpub stuff. It basically always gives me just what I’m hoping for when I say I want a brain-candy read. Light enough to enjoy, well-constructed enough to be worth enjoying.

Unfortunately, even when it’s an author I like, mdom/fsub stuff still squicks me out. (Tragic, since it’s probably the most bog-standard and popular thing to find.) This is pretty mild on the kink scale, but still, bleh. Most of the characters are kind of switchy (so there’s also some mdom/msub, and a brief very light fdom/msub scene as well.) It wasn’t enough to make me dislike the story or anything, and I at least buy that the characters are having fun, even if I wouldn’t be, but that personal preference does keep it from being a 4.5 or a 5.

There are also a couple little omegaverse worldbuilding things in particular that I don’t love in this incarnation. Specifically, I’m not a fan of settings where characters refer to their designation as something separate from them. “My alpha doesn’t want to let her go,” or “my omega adores the feeling” or whatever. (Werewolf or shifter type stories do this too sometimes “my wolf tells me to…”) I don’t like it, unless it’s a character choice for a specific character who uses that to try and distance themselves from that trait. Just as a standard? Nah, grates on me. Petty complaint, and not really something that mattered too much to my enjoyment, but just didn’t care for it.

On the other hand, I really liked how the scent stuff worked in this one. Beyond just pleasant scent, or even enjoyable emotions attached to one that a character is compatible with, I really liked that it called up a whole sense memory for the characters. A pleasant tea scent turns into a specific memory of a particular cup of tea on a perfect day, or things like that. It wasn’t overbearing, but felt like more than just “smell good.”

Also, it is a fully poly romance, which is by far my preference, as opposed to a v-type where everyone is into Camille. Two of the men are in an established relationship, while the third is “platonic” but harboring some not-so-platonic thoughts that book two promises to explore, while also being the target of “unrequited” love on the part of one of the other men.

I liked all three of the dudes who are love interests, but hate that I’m a predictable bitch, because of course my favorite was River… the one that there's ~drama~ with, haha. The other two are comparatively straightforward, and while I like them, of course I was most interested in how the mutual “I mistakenly think the other one hates me for Reasons” arm of the story would turn out.

This one ends on a cliffhanger… which is also not my favorite. Not the cliffhanger per se, but the fact that it’s A Big Misunderstanding. It’s set up well enough that yes, it makes sense for both characters to come to the conclusions that they do, but I hate when shit would be solved with one conversation that the characters simply refuse to have. We’ll see how it gets solved in part two, which I will certainly read. (Also, parts one and two are very much full novels on their own; it’s not two novella-length things that should have been one story being split up for algorithm or ‘sell more things’ reasons.)

For December, I’m off to a good start so far: On December 1st I finished another horror ebook, and Alex and I finished our co-read.

I do have five more books that it’s my goal to get through before the end of the year. (Book three of the Darker Shade of Magic trilogy, plus the first (currently only) book in the sequel series, the two remaining horror ebooks, and one other book that I’ve been looking forward to for a long time, yet somehow keeps getting put off.) I don’t know if I’ll manage to get through them all, especially with other stuff coming up for the holidays, but I’m going to try!

Currently I am reading three books, soon to be four:
- A Conjuring of Light by V.E. Schwab (my main read)
- Feeling the Heat: Part 2 by Emily Antoinette (my brain candy side read)
- Queen Demon by Martha Wells (co-read with Taylor)
- TBD co-read with Alex (sounds like he wants to read another Stephen King book he has, but I don’t remember which one.)

For October, I had a couple new releases that I wanted to read, in addition to still wanting to make progress through the TBR as a whole. I succeeded! Another month where I read six books (plus two bonus short stories.)

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
Horror (subgenres: indigenous, vampire, revenge) - physical novel
5/5

In 2012, a journal is found in the wall of a church being demolished. The journal belonged to Arthur Beaucarne, a Lutheran pastor, writing a century before. His descendant, Etsy, is given the chance to study the document. Within it, Arthur chronicles bits of his own life, but primarily focuses on his interactions with a Blackfeet—called Good Stab, among other names—who visited repeatedly to speak with him. Good Stab provided an accounting of his own life and the lives of the people around him, including the massacre of his people by white settlers, and his encounter with "The Cat Man"; a blood-drinking, immortal monster that made Good Stab into a creature like him.

My thoughts, some spoilers:

Reading this right after visiting Sand Creek was appropriate and certainly something.
I really enjoyed this book, but it was also very intense. Definitely not an easy read at times. It is deeply about long-running, all-consuming revenge, even at the expense of all else, and also about "just how much worse can this shit get?"
It also really kind of made me sit with sort of... moral ambiguity, I suppose. It is clear who the worst people are, but there's also very much not an unambiguous "hero." Which is good for the kind of story it is, but meant that for me at least there were some moments of "wow, I am 99% of the way with you, but yikes." (And yet knowing that the stuff that feels "yikes" is nothing in the scheme of things that happened.)
An odd thing I really appreciated was the way the narrative twisted something that at first felt like an honestly charming little character detail into something awful. I want to say what, but it's a pretty major spoiler. If you've read the book and are curious what thing I mean/know exactly what I'm talking about, please tell me so I have an excuse to tell you, because it was a weird thing to retroactively make my skin crawl, lol.

Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw
Horror (subgenre: haunted house) - ebook novella
2/5 [I originally gave this a 3, but later revised it to a 2.]

Cat, Phillip, Talia, Faiz, and Lin, a group of friends, reunite on a trip to Japan. Phillip pulled the strings necessary to allow them all to stay in a Heian-era mansion, not typically open to the public. The location is reportedly haunted by the ghost of a bride who was buried alive after the death of her husband, as well as the ghosts of others who have been sacrificed in the same way. Talia has always wanted to get married in a haunted house, so this provides the perfect opportunity for her to wed fiancé Faiz. The reunion between the friends is not purely happy; many harbor resentments over past romantic entanglements or remembered slights, but they try to settle in to having a good time. It turns out the haunting of the castle is very real, and the ghost bride would welcome additional sacrifices...

My thoughts, spoilers:

I saw someone describe their own criteria for how they rate a book, based on what was interesting/boring/well-executed/poorly done, etc. Their 3/5 is split into what they call a "spicy three": something that did some things really well, and some things really poorly, so it averages out to a three, vs. a bland three, where it just did nothing remarkably well or badly. My scale is not really based on any objective or consistent criteria so much as "did I enjoy it?" but this book would be a "spicy three." [On further consideration, this is more of a "spicy two." There were a couple good points, but I can NOT get past the parts I didn't like.]
So... the good: it really did a great job, to me, of setting the scene and building up a nice sense of dread and creepiness. The building initially having incongruously clean parts that slowly begin to decay? Nice! The descriptions of the yokai painted on the screens and then later when those paintings and the figures within them begin to move and follow the characters? ABSOLUTE A+. I was picturing it like the stunning art and animation of Mononoke, and it was so so cool.
The bad: fuck all of these characters. This felt very much like a horror movie that I've seen before. I realize that was also something I said about Diavola last month, but in this case, I do not mean it as a compliment. In this case it was the cliche introduction of a whole group of people who are ostensibly supposed to be friends, but all insufferably hate each other. Why the FUCK are all of you getting together in a foreign country, even, with so many people you can't stand? I can't stand any of you.
Also, continuity errors. I realize this is something that seems to bother me slightly more than average, but it is probably the single thing most likely to throw me out of the story. In this case, part of what leads into the horror getting starting is the group of miserable assholes deciding to play a spooky game: 100 Candles. The gist is that you light 100 candles, then take turns telling scary stories, and you blow a candle out for every story you tell, then the last one still sitting in the slowly-darkening room (not freaking out or leaving) is the "winner." But there were two really annoying continuity issues at this point. One, when Talia decides they're playing this game, our main character, Cat, notes that Talia already had her fiancé set up the game, hundred candles lit and all. Cat goes into this room, has a creepy ghost encounter, some conversation, and then... the next scene is her complaining about how long it took for Talia to pick a room for them to set the game up in, because she didn't think any of them had the right atmosphere. Except... you already said it was all set up?
Then also with the game, we jump to midway through the game, where Cat is getting ready to take her turn to tell a story, and Talia walks into the room as she's about to start telling it. The whole point was to be the last one who didn't leave the room for any reason, but the one who wanted to play (who we get the impression is very competitive) is just wandering in and out?
That was actually an issue throughout: characters constantly seem to be entering and leaving rooms to facilitate having a conversation with Cat, but to an extent it felt really weird. Why are all of these people just randomly roaming around?
[For a bit I was trying to convince myself that these continuity errors and weird conversations had some purpose, like a hint that the characters were... idk, trapped as part of the haunting, reliving things in slightly different ways or something. But no.]
The neutral: the writing style. The writing style leans really heavily on figurative descriptions and narration. I liked it to start, but it started to grate on me. (It felt a bit like someone trying to do a writing assignment to use as much figurative language as possible, rather than something that flowed naturally. I didn't hate it, but I did get annoyed by it eventually.)
Mostly I was just disappointed by this one. It was blurbed by several of my favorite authors, and I had really high hopes for it, and then... I did not like it. With so many positive comments from writers I enjoy and respect, I felt like it was some failure with me, so I was a little relieved when I ventured onto its LibraryThing page and discovered that a lot of people felt similarly.
I was also a bit surprised that there were two Cassandra Khaw books included in the Tor ebook bundle (though The Dead Take the A Train was a co-write.) A little disappointed that I didn't like either of them as much as I'd hoped. I've heard a ton of recommendations for her book The Salt Grows Heavy, but I'm not super inclined to pick it up at this point.

Silver and Lead by Seanan McGuire
Book 19 of October Daye
Urban fantasy - physical novel
3.5/5 [I originally gave this a 4, but revised it to a 3.5.]

Now returned to the real world, after months spent in Titania's false version of faerie, October and the rest of her family are getting back to what passes for normal. For October, that includes being eight months pregnant, and her husband not wanting her to do anything that could put her or their unborn child's life at risk. Toby is ready to start climbing the walls, when Arden, the local Queen, comes to her with a request. During Titania's enchantment, a distressing number of magical items were stolen from the palace's treasury, and some of them are now being used to harm  some of the kingdom's citizens. Arden needs a hero of the realm to find the culprit and retrieve these objects... and Toby is it. "Hero" doesn't come with maternity leave. Of course, the plot thickens, and it becomes clear that this is a trap that may have been set for Toby, specifically.

My thoughts, some spoilers:

I basically always enjoy this series, and I'm glad to see everyone returned to the "real world." (And while we got two books in 2023, the switch to a new publisher made 2024 a long, sadly Toby-less stretch, haha.)
This is a mostly self-contained story/mystery, which tend to be the books that don't hit quite as well for me vs. the ones that focus much more on the overarching plot. This one was pretty enjoyable, though. (I liked it better than When Sorrows Come, which was the last mostly self-contained book.)
There was one part that annoyed me, because there's a character that I thought was the obvious culprit, there's basically a flag waved about "YES, [CHARACTER] WOULD HAVE BEEN FREE TO DO THIS THING", and Toby still did not suspect that they were involved. Then when [character] shows up, Toby literally thinks "Ah, I should have expected that!" and I'm like... "Yes. Yes, Toby, you should have, and I'm deeply annoyed that you didn't." Maybe it's just me, because I had latched on to [character] having a really recognizable magical signature, so it seemed like, heavily-handed obvious that they were the one being hinted at, but... come on. I really hate characters just suddenly being stupid or oblivious in order to facilitate plot. (This wasn’t as frustrating as in the aforementioned When Sorrows Come, where they just seemed to forget the powersets of the characters present, but it still bothered me.)
Other than that, I found it pretty enjoyable. Didn't expect Bucer to show up and be relevant. (But kinda wonder where he went at the end, there.)
One thing it did for me was absolutely feed Taylor's and my theory, which I'll give a separate cut to, in case you don't want to read about our speculation that feels more and more confirmed...

Taylor and I have a theory about Maeve:

We think she's Marcia. And everything that Marcia says in this book is just wildly confirming that theory to me!
Our board is not covered in red string, it's just painted solid red at this point.
I kept texting Taylor, telling them "I am looking directly into the camera, I cannot possibly be staring at the camera any harder. Marcia, you can't be saying that. You can't be saying that, Marcia."
- How conveniently it's explained why Titania's enchantment just didn't affect her.
- Gosh, Toby just somehow can’t tell what her heritage is… must be because she’s got so little fae blood…
- “Why do we value some family connections and not others?”
“[…] Like blood only matters up until a certain degree of removal.”
“I hate it.”
- Just quietly being unaffected by Bucer’s powers.
- Simon asking if she has children, and her answer: "It was a long time ago, and I don’t particularly want to talk about it. Their father and I are not presently together.”
- Simon saying that Maeve would have to be better than Titania, and Marcia just with a steely "She will be."

Fucking KILLING me.

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher
Book 1 of Sworn Soldier
Horror (subgenres: gothic, body horror, possession) - ebook novella
5/5

Alex Easton, a 'sworn soldier,' hasn't spoken to kan* friends, the Ushers, in years. When Alex receives a letter from Roderick, expressing his fears for his sister Madeline's failing health, Alex comes to visit them. The Usher family house is in a terrible state of decay, and so are the twins. As Alex spends more time on the estate, ka sees even more without explanation: strange lights in the tarn by the house, hares that behave and move in bizarre ways, Madeline's odd behavior during bouts of sleepwalking... Alex fears there may be something more at play than any of them understand.

*Alex's native language has many sets of pronouns, including ka/kan, which is a set of pronouns used solely for soldiers, which supersede any gendered pronouns they might have used prior.

My thoughts, minor spoilers

This story is a retelling/reimagining of "The Fall of the House of Usher," seeking to create an explanation for the events of the original story.
I really enjoyed it!
As usual, I don't have as much to say when I enjoyed something as I do for the things I didn't like. The imagery was really creepy, I love the care given to the explanation that the author went with, and how it worked.
The blending of the fictional history of Alex's fictional country brushing up against some real history within the book hit a good tone for me.
(I also appreciated that the pronouns explanation early in the story served two purposes: it did explain Alex's own use of the ka/kan pronouns reserved for soldiers (with worldbuilding flavor about that history), but also brought up the va/van pronouns, reserved for children. Much appreciated when that came up later to creepy effect!)
Alex Easton is an enjoyable character, and I definitely plan to get the other two books in the series.

Queen Demon by Martha Wells
Book 2 of The Rising World
Fantasy - physical novel
5/5

Kai and Zeide; along with Zeide’s rescued wife, Tahren; Tahren’s brother, Dahin; and their younger charges Sanja and Tenes; return to the Rising World. The conspiracy against them, to destabilize the coalition and raise one of the Prince-Heirs to the position of emperor, has been revealed. Kai is perfectly happy to leave everything to the political powers to sort out, now that the conspirators have been unmasked. Unfortunately, before he’s able to fully retreat home, Dahin requests his help. Dahin thinks that he might have discovered the location of the Heirarch’s Well, the massive reservoir of power that they used in their conquest of the world. When an archeological expedition to the same area finds evidence that there was a Hierarch there far more recently than should be possible, the theory becomes something far too dangerous to ignore.
In the past, Kai continues to travel with Bashasa, the Prince-Heir who has become the leader of an alliance against the Hierarchs.

My thoughts, minor spoilers:

Again, I have so much less to say when I really liked something!
Much like with Witch King, I found the worldbuilding really enjoyable. I like the setting, I like that to me it feels like a very fully-fleshed world, even when some given group is not actively on the page. I like that different groups within similar cultures still feel extremely different from each other and can clash because of it. This book also gave us a brief glimpse of what normal life feels like, which I really appreciated. (I see that come up really often in writing advice; allowing the characters to breathe, getting the chance to see aspects of 'normal' life that they would desire to protect or return to. The story moves at a quick pace, but getting to see the characters relax with each other, even for just a few hours of in-book time, was nice.
While my above-cut summary mostly focuses on the “present” timeline, the one following Kai’s past is also still very enjoyable. I liked seeing him forced into the leadership role that in the present he seems to be famous for… even when he really wasn’t interested in that and kind of complains about it the whole way.
One thing that surprised me was that this book clarified the timeline a bit more, and it’s actually a lot less time than I thought it was… I came away from Witch King with the idea that the timeline in the past was very removed from the ‘present’ timeline, probably to the tune of a couple hundred years. (We simply have so many immortal principal characters…) It’s actually roughly sixty years, which changes the landscape a bit. It’s a bit more dismal that it took so little time for certain groups to decide that maybe an empire wouldn’t be so bad!
The relationship between Bashasa and Kai continues to break my heart. Like, we know what’s happened by the present timeline, but seeing them in the past as funny as it is when Bashasa just keeps getting cockblocked just guts me basically every time. (Especially paired with Kai's very obvious grief in the present, which felt more present in this book than the previous one. For understandable reasons; he isn't actively trying to solve his own murder in this book, and also just went on a location tour of where his time with Bashasa started.)

Bloodhunt Academy by Mynah Clement/adore
Book 1 of Bloodhunt Academy
Paranormal Romance - ebook novel - read as an ARC
4/5

Vampires struggle in the world; they’re often hunted by humans, who are taught to hate and fear them. Our main character was happy to live peacefully, content with her job as a night courier… until her home is burned down and she is attacked. She knows she’ll have to flee… and then she concocts a plan. Her final delivery was to a woman named “Jolene”: a letter telling Jolene to report to the Academy of Attack Magic, drafting her into training to join the nation’s military. She decides that she will take Jolene’s place; the academy will be a place for her to stay, and her vampiric powers will help her to excel… despite the danger of being truly embedded in hostile territory. There she finds herself drawn to her human roommate, Yulia, as well as to the golden boy of the academy and legacy student, Kian. “Jolene” will be forced to hunt eventually, as her menstrual cycle forces her to drink the blood of men. Soon it becomes clear there is an even darker secret than she could have guessed being hidden at the heart of the academy.

My thoughts, some spoilers:

When adore offered ARCs for her upcoming book, I definitely wanted to take her up on it.
I will say that this is a bit to the side of genres I typically read, but I do particularly like a good “why choose” romance.
Despite how long it took me to read, this was an extremely fast book! (The length of time was solely because I had so many other books I was trying to finish; once I had the chance to focus on this one, it went extremely quickly!) It was a lot of fun, and kept up a snappy pace the whole time.
I would say it does feel very “fanfic-y”, which is something the author herself has said she was going for. It’s meant to be a breezy, enjoyable read, and I think it hit the mark.
It’s a very… affirming book. Jolene is reassured multiple times by other characters regarding things many people struggle with: the necessity of rest, the importance of listening to your own body’s limits. When other characters or the systems around them don’t allow for this, it’s portrayed as a bad thing that is being done to the characters, not a mark of strength that the characters are “being tough” by having to push through those limits.
The story is heavy on themes of gender; vampires are always female, and they feed exclusively on men. Some of the prejudice that vampires face is very strongly linked to misogyny, which is an overarching theme.
The one thing I sometimes struggled with a bit was how few consequences there seemed to be within the academy itself, though I think that this mostly just turned out to be because the academy wants it to be a bit of a free-for-all when it comes to the students. But initially when ‘Jolene’ refused a mandatory ceremony with the school (and had to use her powers to escape) it was noted, but she didn’t face any immediate punishment. Later, when the students are pushed into fighting each other to “root out the vampire’s accomplice,” things just sort of carry on afterwards, with everyone going to class, and getting together socially, again without any apparent reaction from the staff or administration. It left me looking over my shoulder for something to happen in response, and it never really did.
I liked the eventual reveal of what the secret within the academy is. It’s perfectly diabolical in terms of the purpose it’s serving!
I am certainly looking forward to the conclusion to the duology!

Bonus short stories (because I don’t count short stories as “books” unless it’s an anthology):

“Shiver” by Jules Kelley
(Sequel to “Swelter”)
F/F Romance - ebook short story
4.5/5

Grace has transferred back to Alabama from her school in Colorado, wanting to be closer to her family. In late October, she shows up at Maya’s doorstep, asking her to go with to a corn maze. According to Grace, her brother, Rob, bailed, and she needs someone to accompany her. Maya agrees, even though their relationship has been entirely undefined since their hookup at Rob’s wedding.

My brief thoughts:

Cute and hot, just like the first story.
Funnily enough, the corn maze stuff was so nostalgic for me; I loved a particular corn maze that I went to a few times in college (Alex’s and my first official date was there!), but as it took off in popularity it just isn’t the same any more, and there was a hint of that same vibe to the one Maya and Grace go to.
I was glad to see Maya and Grace’s relationship continue, even if for them it’s still a bit undefined.
If the author ends up writing another continuation for them, I’d certainly be happy to read it.

“Soak” by Jules Kelley
(Kind of a 1.5 between “Swelter” and “Shiver”)
F/F Romance - short story on author’s website
4/5

Grace’s “spring break” plans are pretty well sunk after she has to come home after a health scare with her father. After getting drenched in a surprise rainstorm, Maya picks her up, and gives her a spot to wait out the rain.

Extremely brief thoughts:

I didn’t know this story existed, except it was mentioned in the front matter for “Shiver,” and I suspected that Shiver was referring to it a couple of times. Indeed! This one is a free short story on the author’s website, not available as an ebook.
I can sort of see why; it really is just a sort of bonus conversation between the two women, and unlike the other two stories, the physicality maxes out with flirting and kissing. They do have a sweet conversation about making the choice to come out or not. I actually really liked that conversation… while it’s in a lot of ways a good thing, most current queer romance I’ve read treats queer relationships as completely normative, and there’s really no worry about coming out, or wanting a relationship with a family that might not be supportive. So it’s actually nice to see the sort of acknowledgement that sometimes it IS a difficult choice to make.
Glad I did go hunt this one down (not that it took that much hunting.)

I am currently reading five books:
- Red Rabbit by Alex Grecian, my current main read
- Feeling the Heat by Emily Antoinette, my current brain-candy side-read
- Queen Demon by Martha Wells, immediately rereading it with Taylor
- Dead Silence by SA Barnes, reading with Alex
- Dracula by Bram Stoker, following along via Dracula Daily/Re: Dracula

And I did finish one in November so far:
- Overgrowth by Mira Grant, which Taylor and I finished yesterday

My original goal for 2025 was to read 25 books. As soon as I actually made a real TBR list, it was clear that wouldn't even make a dent in it. And then the list just kept growing.
I did make a literal list, to save myself from decision paralysis, ha. The list was structured to alternate between a physical book, one of the horror ebooks I'd gotten from a Humble Bundle last year, and a novella from the Wayward Children series. This didn't account for all the books I was reading; there were a couple new releases that jumped the line, ebooks I was reading on the side, or books I was reading with other people.)
While not all of them were from the "official" TBR, I did manage to hit my original 25-book goal around May!

My second goal for 2025 was to at least make it through all of the Wayward Children novellas. The series is up to 10 books, and I was reading them as roughly every third book. I still had 3 left after hitting the first goal.
Good news for me, because I've hit that goal now, too! I have finally caught up on the series, after having fallen behind on it some seven years ago.

My third "stretch" goal, which may be a bit more difficult to hit, is to reach the end of that horror ebook bundle. Now that the Wayward Children novellas are finished, the ebooks have been "upgraded" to every other book on the list, rather than every third. That means I need to get through 17 more books on the TBR for the year. That's just under 4 per month, which should absolutely be doable... except that I've finished the quick-to-read novellas, and I do also have at least two new releases (Silver and Lead and Queen Demon) that will be skipping the line when they come out. And even when I do read 4+ books per month, that also typically includes at least one side-read or co-read that isn't even on the list. It's very possible I won't quite make it quite make it through that many "official" TBRs, but we'll see how far I get!

For August I read four books.

Uprooted by Naomi Novik
Fantasy (background m/f) - physical novel
5/5

Agnieszka lives in one of the small villages on the margins of the kingdom. The biggest threat to them is the Wood, a darkly evil forest, a source of spreading corruption that makes its way into the rest of the kingdom, or takes people for its own. The only thing that protects them and fights that corruption back is The Dragon, a powerful wizard. But he takes things too: one seventeen year old village girl every ten years. He doesn't harm them, and always releases them when their ten years are up, but none of them have ever been willing to stay in the villages after.
Everyone knows that the next girl he will take will be Nieshka's best friend Kasia, who has always been the most perfect... except that when the time comes, he takes Nieshka instead.
Nieshka has a previously undiscovered talent for magic, if not for the carefully-controlled kind of The Dragon's, and he grudgingly tries to train her.
The Wood grows more and more threatening, and Nieshka begins to believe that it is more than just a source of corruption; it has its own will and intentions and plans, and it is ready to escalate them.

My thoughts:

I really enjoyed this book. It's taken me too long to read any of Naomi Novik's (original) works!

This really was excellent fantasy. The magic system was really interesting (maybe not unique, as it does mostly consist of "people with magic skill can use magic words to do magic," but it felt consistent and well-considered), and I enjoyed the ways in which Nieshka's abilities conformed to the broader system that we can see, but also the ways in which her skills and methods were different from the "norm", and how much it frustrated the other characters around her.

The story and the worldbuilding and the conflict all grew increasingly complex as the story went on, in a way that felt very natural.

While I don't want to majorly dwell on it, I found the way the story used class and privilege really effective. Nieshka is a villager, and doesn't desire anything more than that. She's forced into interactions with royalty and nobility and the wizards who are granted similarly high status... And the story doesn't shy away from how drastic a gap that is, and how little those upper classes truly care for their subjects in anything beyond the abstract. I liked the tone it struck, neither buying into the "righteous fantasy ruler" or "crapsack misery for the peasants" tropes that are common. It ended up feeling like a far more realized and balanced world.

I liked the ultimate resolution, and how Nieshka chose to end the conflict once she'd come to understand it. The story did an excellent job repeatedly setting up the ways in which she was equipped to want to do things differently than anyone else was willing to, and she carried that through to a satisfying narrative and character conclusion.

Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear by Seanan McGuire
Book 10 of Wayward Children
Fantasy (background m/f) - physical novella
4/5

Nadya was born in Russia, raised in an orphanage after being surrendered at birth. Here she is happy to try and help other children be adopted, never particularly caring to aim for the same for herself. Then a pair of American missionaries come, and see adopting the poor one-armed girl to be the perfect opportunity for them to prove their own moral correctness. There's a culture shock in coming to America, and in trying to live up to the standards of gratitude that Nadya's new parents expect, particularly when they force her to wear an unwanted prosthetic to replace the arm she'd never had, and consequently never missed.
She visits the turtles—one of her true favorite things—at the nearby pond, and falls into the water... and into Belyyreka, a world of layered rivers, underwater cities, and giant turtles tamed as steeds and companions. Here Nadya is able to live the life that she truly longed for, as one of the Drowned Girls who find their way beneath Belyyreka's waters... Though this world is not without its own dangers.

My thoughts:

This was a good one! I like Nadya as a character: her fairly practical, pragmatic view of the world is one I understand pretty well.

I also like how, again (like with Jack and Jill, and to a lesser extent some of the other children) it's the expectations of her parents that presents more of a horror than any of the fantasy dangers she ends up facing. Jack and Jill's parents wanted the perfect ideas of children to show off as a status symbol. Nadya's adoptive parents are much the same: they adopt her as an extension of their missionary work, and they very much want a perfect, grateful little orphan that they can use to show how righteous and godly they are for giving her the opportunity to live with them. They're far less interested in an actual child, and especially in allowing that child to make her own decisions, even about the things solely affecting her! (Nadya's bodily autonomy being violated as she is forced to wear a prosthetic that she finds uncomfortable and inconvenient, but her parents want her to wear it because it's expensive and makes her "look normal." Themes about the ways in which children are denied autonomy are common in the series!)

I also like the world of Belyyreka: it's a world that I can see the appeal of without feeling like it would be home to me. (I enjoy that about this series quite a lot. There are several worlds, like the Goblin Market or the Moors, that are appealing to me in a very personal way. I feel like those worlds, or something like them, could very much have called me away if I had been a child finding a door. Others, like Belyyreka or Confection are worlds I can understand being appealing, but wouldn't want to do more than visit. Still others, like The Halls of the Dead, sound completely terrible, yet I can still buy into how perfectly they suit the characters that called them home.)

About the only thing that I didn't love about Nadya's time through her door was that it covered a large amount of time, and so moved quite fast. It gives nice little snapshots of her life growing up in Belyyreka, including the family that takes her in as a really good narrative foil for her adoptive parents in our world, and her finding her own way and a job to do there, and getting married... but it felt like an overview rather than something I could quite get grounded in. Then again, I'm not sure that I would have wanted to narrow in more on any specific part of her time, and it is significant that she got the chance to grow up fully before being pulled back to our world, so I'm not sure I would have wanted it to be changed, either.

Little Eve by Catriona Ward
Horror (subgenres: gothic, religious/cult, family) - ebook novel
5/5

On the small island of Altnaharra, off the coast of Scotland, a small group of seven people plan for their apocalypse, and the promised rebirth of the world. Eve, one of the four children in the group, is the most willing to do whatever it takes to prove her worthiness to Uncle, also called "The Adder," the leader of the cult.
The group's insular nature puts them at odds with the nearest village, and when one of the men of the village is murdered, the investigation comes to Altnaharra as well. While investigating, Inspector Black takes an interest in the cult, and Eve in particular, recognizing some of the horror of the conditions she is living in.
Years later, a man from the village visits the island, and finds the inhabitants have been the victims of a grisly ritual sacrifice. The oldest child, Dinah—the only survivor—claims Eve was the one who killed the rest.

My thoughts, minor spoilers, though I try to avoid either of the big ones:

I really enjoyed this book. The writing style is excellent.

A lot of the horror is pretty subtle... well, subtle might not actually be the word. A lot of the horror is... unremarked-upon, because the characters find it so completely normal. This is very much the case for most of the cult-related horror: to the reader, and to the outsider characters like the inspector, life within the cult is horrifying, but the children who have been raised within it find everything to be perfectly normal. (One example: basically everyone except for Uncle is constantly starving. They're strictly limited in how many bites of food they're allowed, as well as what kinds and how often. Things like "only The Adder is permitted meat" are treated as matter-of-fact, but are awful in context.) The cult also operates very realistically, in my opinion, down to that restriction of food: keeping people undernourished and exhausted and [redacted spoiler] are excellent ways to maintain control over them!

This truly did feel like an excellent gothic horror. The physically and socially isolated setting of the island, with its crumbling castle and ancient stone circle, is so, so good. It also feels very well set in its time period, which I appreciated.

The narrative choice to switch between Eve's perspective on the island, and then Dinah's perspective at various points afterwards, as she looks back to tell her story, is also very effective. The two perspectives juxtapose in interesting ways, and there was definitely a lot of good tension built up wondering how we get from point A to the point B that we already know happened.

This was another book that felt pretty cinematic to me; I think that a well-handled visual adaptation of it could be amazing, though some parts of it would be difficult to pull off.

It has a twist that worked for me, and I figured out just pages before the characters did, (which to me, feels like one of the ideal ways for a twist to hit.) There is information that is deliberately obscured in order to facilitate that twist, but it never felt underhanded to me, which is to say I don't think the twist creates any plot holes or contradictions. There were things that seemed odd at the time, that were actually hinting toward the ending. I'd actually really like to reread it and see how some of it comes across now.

Alice Isn't Dead by Joseph Fink
Horror (f/f) - physical novel
4/5

Years after her wife went missing and was declared dead, Keisha gets a job as a truck driver, traveling back and forth along the American highway system. She's doing more than just a job, though: she's looking for clues. Because she knows that her wife, Alice, isn't dead; she's seen her, in the background of news coverage across the country. Keisha wants to find her wife, to find out why she left, and why she's never come back.
Before long, Keisha discovers that there are terrible things stalking the roads of America; monsters, brutalizing and murdering people with impunity, somehow being ignored by everyone around. The conspiracy goes deeper than Keisha could possibly have guessed, and now that she knows it, there's no way to escape.

My rambly thoughts, some spoilers:

I've seen this book called a "different take" on Keisha and Alice's story vs. the podcast Alice Isn't Dead (and in the back of the book, the podcast is advertised the same way) but... eh... I wouldn't say they're that different. It's been years since I listened to the podcast, despite wanting to give it a relisten, but it followed most of the same plot beats in mostly the same ways (at least as far as I can recall.)

I do think the story worked a little bit better as a podcast. The novel covers all three seasons of the series, so it cuts out a lot of "filler." Except I feel like the filler was some of what I most enjoyed; it's what really gives it the spooky road trip vibes, when there are episodes that were pretty self-contained as Keisha discovers some weird little town or creepy goings-on. The book distills it just down to the overarching plot, with comparatively few diversions. I think that's a good choice for the book, but I also felt the absence of the parts that were cut. Jasika Nicole's narration is also just so excellent in the podcast, and her voice was the series for me in a lot of ways, and I missed that, too. I know she also narrated the audiobook, so if I felt like I was capable of paying attention to audiobooks, I probably would have enjoyed that.

Still, this was a MUCH easier way to get the canon refresh for the series that I've been wanting to do for years now, haha. (I still really want to write an Alice Isn't Dead x Sparrow Hill Road crossover, but re-listening to a 30-episode audio drama was a daunting amount of research for what will probably amount to a few thousand words of fic.)

The spooky road trip vibes, the isolation of the American highways, the liminality of diners, motels, rest areas, and the abandoned places the oracles can be found in, are definitely all still present and enjoyable.

The themes of the story, and what the evils of Thistle represent aren't subtle; I mean, they literally spell out eventually that the Thistle Men are monsters created by bigotry and hatred. I still really like when it starts out a bit less literal, though. Initially these monsters are attacking and taking victims, but are mostly ignored by everyone else around, are specifically aided by the police who insist that they don't see anything wrong and wish the monsters well... (The main character being a Black lesbian certainly adds a layer, too!) The metaphor is obvious even at the start, but I appreciated it still being a metaphor. It isn't bad that it's made completely literal, but that does certainly remove any subtlety from it.

The ending of the series/book is ultimately pretty hopeful. While the big bad evil isn't fully defeated, because there will always be bad people out there, it presents a very hopeful view of a world in which banding together with others who refuse to turn a blind eye the way the majority does can make a difference. 
I've given some thought trying to figure out why I found it more effective here than in say, Beyond the Sea, which I found demoralizing in a way that it very much wasn't intended to be. I think it comes down to Beyond the Sea presenting a magical solution to what felt like a very real-world problem (the registration and restrictions of magical people being VERY MUCH an allegory for the treatment of trans people.) In Alice Isn't Dead it's a magnified realistic solution to a magnified realistic problem. Both sides have supernatural entities on their sides, but it's ultimately about people choosing to fight against hatred, even when in this case the two sides are larger-than-life.

I'm currently reading five books:

- The Dead Take the A Train, my current main read (another of the horror ebooks)
- A Queen Rises, my ebook side read that I'm debating DNFing. I feel bad, because it's an indie book I won in a giveaway like, six years ago or something, but I am really struggling to get into it, and it is also very long. On the one hand, as my mom used to very frequently remind me as a kid, "Life is too short for bad books." On the other hand, I feel guilty when it comes to indie stuff if I don't feel like I'm giving it a fair shot, or when the author seems nice or really earnest about caring about their work... But back to the first hand, I've given several hours to this book, and am about a quarter of the way through, still feeling like I'm waiting for something to happen. Pushing through is going to be at least another 8 or more hours. I think it definitely needed stronger editing. It has some good points, which feel like almost enough to keep going, but it also feels like more of a slog than I want it to. (The ebook sidereads are supposed to be my brain candy!) DNFing it now doesn't mean I can't ever go back to it, obviously. I am still deciding, but right now I'm leaning toward switching to something else.
- Duma Key, which I'm reading with Alex (also a very long book, but we're at least two thirds of the way through it now! Maybe three fourths!)
- Dracula, which I'm reading/listening along with as a serial via Dracula Daily and Re: Dracula
- Dead Silence, on hold for the moment - Alex and I started it after forgetting our main book, but we haven't touched in almost two months, as we shifted back to the main one

I also finished one more:
- Witch King, which I read with Taylor, and finished on 9/01. Starting September off strong!

Oof. Only three books this month, which feels rough. This was a rough month as a whole, and that definitely did have an impact on my reading and just how much I wanted to do anything in general.

Maeve Fly by CJ Leede
Horror (subgenres: erotic(?), psychopath/serial killer/torture/slasher-y) (background f/m) - ebook novel
2.5/5

As a teenager, Maeve ran away to Hollywood, seeking out a grandmother she'd never met. In her grandmother—retired Hollywood royalty of the silver screen—Maeve finds an unexpected kindred spirit. Her grandmother recognizes that Maeve is, like her, a predator among ordinary humanity, though she warns her that she must keep that predatory instinct firmly leashed, lest she be found out. Maeve loves Hollywood and LA as a whole, adoring the artifice and artificiality, the desperation of so many of its inhabitants. She loves very few other things: her job as the "Nordic Princess" in a carefully-unnamed destination theme park, her grandmother, her coworker and friend Kate, the weird erotic and misanthropic literature that she tries to find reflections of herself in, Halloween. 
Maeve's carefully curated and controlled life begins to fall apart, with her grandmother falling into a coma she'll never wake from, and Kate beginning to leave her behind as her career as an actress takes off. Kate's brother, hockey player Gideon, moves to town and seems to believe that he understands Maeve on some deeper level... though she's certain that with the exception of her grandmother, there is no one out there who could.

My thoughts, some spoilers, and pretty significant content warnings:

I'm going to be clear that my rating is largely a mismatch of taste. I like a lot of horror genres, but torture porn is one of the few that I just don't care for. No shade, and if you are a fan of it, then this book is probably going to appeal a lot more. If that's your jam, I recommend this one! Because yeah, content warning for some eventually very graphic descriptions of torturing people, sometimes to death. Much of the torture also has a sexual element to it. The book itself I think was well written, and enjoyable from the "be in the head of a terrible person" perspective, it just turned out to be very much not for me. 
(I saw some other discussion of this book call it "part slasher-romance" but I mostly disagree; slasher vs. torture porn are, to me, pretty distinct from each other, and this falls more firmly in the latter category, even if both are under the "serial killer/psychopathic killer" umbrella. If you specifically like slasher-romance, this might scratch that itch, but I wouldn't say it is that. Maeve's relationship with Gideon is highly relevant to the story, but is also very much a subplot.)
Maeve is clearly pretty psychopathic from the start, and this is very much a negative character arc, so she very deliberately gets worse. I don't dislike that, and it's the obvious throughline for a theme of the book (and one that Maeve expresses for herself): that women aren't allowed to be monsters the same way men are in fiction. For female characters there's often a question of what happened to make them "like that," or to have pushed them to that point, where male characters can just be monsters. This isn't fourth-wall breaking, but I feel like just sort of cozies up to that fourth wall, when Maeve deliberately styles herself after and takes inspiration from monsters in fiction, (ultimately channeling American Psycho.) She is the example of that thing she wishes she could find: a female character (written by a female author) who is monstrous not because of some secret trauma or tragedy, but because she just is, and because she actively chooses to embrace it.
I wouldn't say that I ever fully liked Maeve, but I don't think she's intended to be liked. She certainly wouldn't want to be! She was at least interesting, even if it was often in a "ah, so you're just horrible!" way. Other times she was... maybe a bit tedious, if only because she was a little too much like some "yeah, I'm into the really dark stuff, no one else gets it" sort-of "guy in your MFA" subtypes that I've met, haha. Of course, Maeve makes sure to earn her "no, I'm genuinely a monster" cred in a way I hope none of those dudes I've spoken to did, lol.
There are times where she is still sympathetic in her loneliness or her strange brand of protectiveness over the few people she cares for. There are other times where the book goes out of its way to make sure she isn't too sympathetic. (Like... one of her hobbies is targeting people online in order to ruin their lives, often by outing them as having abhorrent views. But even as she's revealing a woman's desire to join the KKK to keep non-whites out of her neighborhood, Maeve remarks that she really doesn't care that the woman is racist; she wants to ruin her because she's self-righteous in a way that Maeve hates. It is made clear this is not a vigilante "channeling my dark impulses to do harm to bad people" situation or anything.)
The book goes to excellent and often darkly funny lengths to never mention anything too directly Disney-related, while still making it completely and inescapably clear that Maeve is an Elsa face-character.
I liked the twist at the end, and the way Maeve sets herself up for it, but won't spoil it.
Perfectly decent book, but wasn't my thing.

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle
Horror (subgenres: queer, religious/cult/demonic) (background f/f) - physical novel
3.5/5

Rose is a perfectly happy and ordinary member of the Christian cult church Kingdom of the Pine, a denomination that all but owns the town of Neverton, Montana. The church's main claim to fame is Camp Damascus, a gay conversion camp that boasts a 100% success rate. Rose is devout, happy, and content living with her loving parents. Then strange things begin to happen: she sees a strange humanoid figure lurking in the shadows, she vomits up masses of flies, and she experiences glimpses of memories that could never have happened. Her parents and her church-approved therapist seem only mildly concerned, implying that any of these circumstances may have been brought on by her own failings of faith. As the mystery figure haunting her escalates to violence against her and others around her, Rose begins to identify gaps in her own memories, and becomes increasingly certain that there is something deeply sinister going on.

My thoughts, mild spoilers:

This one is right between a 3.5 and a 4 for me. I did enjoy it, but I didn't love it the way I'd hoped to. I went with the 3.5 because I felt like it had a stronger start than finish.
I did really like the early parts, where the hints of weirdness were starting. I wouldn't say that the end was disappointing per se, and parts of it certainly delivered well on the premise, but I just couldn't quite connect with all of it. There were a few aspects of the ending that I didn't feel fully explained what they were meant to. (Okay, we have this [spoiler] substance to induce memory loss... but that memory loss in practice seems more targeted than seems plausible. Okay, [spoiler] explains why the whole 'puking flies' thing happened, but also... does it explain that, really? There's enough extra-dimensional weirdness to handwave the bits that still feel off, but I don't want to handwave!) This wasn't like... Lost levels of "excellent creepy setup, zero payoff" or anything, but the setup felt stronger than the explanation.
I enjoyed Rose's perspective, and how very attached to her devout upbringing she was at the start - lots of Bible verses and instinctive "what would the church want me to do?" thoughts, which was certainly different than I'm used to reading. Watching doubt creep in (consistent with the ways in which she was already a very curious and analytical person) was a good arc, as is later realizing just why she may have had those "instinctive" thoughts in the first place.
But as the book went on, it felt like the perspective on religion was a little too... tepid? I'm not sure why exactly it felt that way, because it's not like I disagree with any of it, really. But her friend Saul comes down on the side of wanting to maintain his Christian faith, just in a way that feels more affirming and loving. Willow is an unspecified type of witch. Rose initially takes a pretty staunchly atheistic position, but almost immediately decides that that would be swinging too far the opposite direction from the coercive religion she's disconnecting from, and that she should settle somewhere in the middle, that she still "should" have some amount of faith. On the one hand, I get it: the book isn't trying to say that all Christianity or all religion is a bad thing! It's specifically about the damaging, abusive attitudes of a fundamentalist and extreme version, so it's good to make it textually clear that there are alternatives even within religion. But... on the other, it just ended up feeling meh.
I did enjoy the specifics of how the cult was operating, and what decisions they'd justified for themselves.
I pictured Pachid, Rose's demon, as the Pale Lady from "The Dream" from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark the whole time (except wearing a polo shirt), which is really neither here nor there, but it was a strong image.

And I loved the creepiness of the demons wearing polo shirts with nametags. The whole "this demonic horror is simply an employee" vibes were great.
There were a couple writing quirks that weren't my favorite. It felt like an attempt to avoid overuse of pronouns, but Rose frequently referred to her parents in her thoughts by their first names (which felt weird, and didn't seem to be a narrative choice to show distance or anything, as she did so even when she felt very close to her parents), and she repeatedly referred to Saul as "my friend" in her narration in a way that felt weird, too. These may just be character quirks, or deliberate emphasis on what these characters are to her, but it felt unnatural to me.
I feel like the ideal medium for this story would have been like... a SyFy original movie, but it would have been a really good one.

Lost in the Moment and Found by Seanan McGuire
Book 8 of Wayward Children
Fantasy - physical novella
5/5

The first and most important thing that Antsy loses as a child is her father. After, her mother remarries, to a man Antsy cannot force herself to like. When he proves that her mistrust was extremely justified, she runs away, eventually arriving at a mysterious junk shop. There she meets an older woman named Vineta, and a talking magpie named Hudson. They explain that the store is a nexus world, a place connected to all manner of other worlds by way of the magical Doors, which Antsy is able to easily open to explore. Theirs is a kingdom of lost things, providing a safe place for them until they can be found again. Antsy settles in to work in this new place... but something seems wrong about the time that passes, as if there's a secret that Antsy has been kept from knowing.

My brief thoughts, minor content warning:

This book does come with a content warning up front, because Antsy, who is a child, is repeatedly targeted and gaslit by an adult would-be abuser, who ultimately does threaten her with non-graphic, but clearly implied future sexual abuse. None of this comes to pass, because she escapes before it can.
I really enjoyed this one. It was an extremely quick read. (These are all fairly short novellas, but this one seemed to go particularly fast.)
While it's been hinted at previously, it's interesting to see more information about the Doors between worlds, and the fact that they have some form of will and sentience, and it's ambiguous what their motives and purpose may be.
This world itself is a fun one, and I particularly love it being the world from which all magpies originate.
Fun cameo from Jack and Jill, when Antsy ends up briefly in The Moors, though she is directed to retreat before they can interact with her.
Antsy's story is another tragedy, made worse because so little of what happens to her is her fault. I hope that we get to stick with her as a character long enough for things to work out for her (though that's far from a guarantee, I know!)

I am currently in the middle of four books:
- Dead Silence (my current main read)
- Buchanan House (still my side read)
- Duma Key (with Alex)
- Installment Immortality (with Taylor)

---

I also finally got a LibraryThing account set up! I looked at it based on olivermoss's recommendation, as I was looking for something to keep track of books read and such, but really didn't want to use Goodreads. (In part because they're Amazon-owned, but also people can also be real weird about stuff on there at times. People can and will be weird anywhere, but Goodreads drama can be a lot, lol.) Storygraph is a popular alternative, and I know I did set up a login on there, but it didn't seem to mesh well with how I actually wanted to use it.

LibraryThing definitely works for what I want to use it for! It's been easy to find and get books added, easy to rate them, easy to edit any other information about them, easy to tag them in whatever way makes sense for me... so it's currently working really well for me. 

The UI looks very simple in a lot of ways, but is very robust. It's intended to be usable as a catalog for libraries as well as individuals. I really like how easily customizable it is. I can easily edit the publication date if the one it pulled isn't the correct one for the edition I have (a problem I think caused by how Amazon does their listings, where hardcover/paperback/ebook/audiobook are all part of the same listing, despite having different pub dates, and Amazon is one of the easiest places to pull book info from.) I can edit the title field to standardize the way it includes series information (since that's not completely standardized in what it defaults to.) If it defaults to a cover I don't like/the wrong edition for a book, I can check the site to find alternate covers that have been uploaded, or could provide my own. (But you also don't HAVE to do any of that.)
I also appreciate how easy it is to sort the way it's displayed. I wanted the dates for when I read each book to show up, so I was able to add that as a column to my default view and then sort the whole library based on those dates. There's also a lot of information that isn't relevant to me (the dimensions of the book, some extremely specific cataloging or publishing info, etc.) and it's extremely easy to ignore all of the stuff I don't find important, haha.

The only annoyance I've really found is that reordering collections doesn't seem to be working (as it hasn't worked on three different devices/OSs and two different browsers). [When in doubt, check the forum! Other people have had the same issue, but there's a page that serves as a workaround, so I was able to do that.] The "pulling the wrong edition's publication date" or "inconsistent series title/number formatting" are mildly annoying, but so trivially easy to fix that it's a non-issue.

I went back as far as 2022 to list the books I've read, up through everything I have in progress. (I don't plan to include anything farther back than that, though I was considering at least adding in the earlier books in various series in... but most series will eventually get reread, so I can probably just wait for that, ha.) I also feel bad not including a lot of favorite books... but again, they're on the TBR list as rereads, so they'll get there eventually.

I haven't yet put the rest of my TBR in, and am trying to decide if I want to do that, or if I want to keep it as a record only of the things I have read. I'm torn! Wanting to track the TBR is part of what I wanted a site like this to do, and limiting how many things you could mark as officially "to be read" was part of what I didn't like about some sites. However... I also don't know that I want to completely overwhelm my library with books I haven't yet read and likely won't get to for a few years. I will likely compromise and maybe add in the next five or so books that I plan to read, to keep it a bit more manageable.

Back up to six books read for the month!

Awakening Delilah by Abigail Barnette
M/M/F Paranormal (shifter) Romance - ebook novella
4/5

Delilah is a deer shifter, the only shifter in her family. Raised in Boston and told always to keep her "condition" utterly secret, she eventually takes a huge chance: moving to Glenn Close, a community in Michigan's Upper Peninsula dedicated entirely to shifters. It will be the first chance she's ever had to be around her own kind after a lifetime of hiding.
There she encounters Miguel, a wolf shifter, and Darius, a bat shifter. The two rescue her from a close call in the woods, and then all three end up sleeping together. Delilah is sure that this was a one-night stand between her and the couple, but Miguel and Darius feel differently; they're sure that she's intended to be their mate, a third member of their pack.

My thoughts, minimal spoilers:

I enjoyed this one! I think I bought it because I wanted to support the author (Jenny Trout; Abigail Barnette is a pen name) when I was reading some of her entertaining recaps of bad books. This was one that she was excited to get the rights back to, and republished for herself, so I bought a copy, since I like poly romance... but that was years ago, and it took me forever to get around to reading it, haha.
I was struck how similar the setup is to the M/M/F story that I didn't particularly enjoy from a couple months ago. ("Breaking the Rules.") The initial setup could sound almost the same: woman moves to a new area, has a minor crisis, and is rescued by a pair of men more established in the area, who are already connected to each other, and the three sleep together; after, the woman expects it to be a one-time thing, while the men want it to be more. The details were very different, but the broad summary is basically identical! Despite that, the the execution was not especially similar at all, and I think this one was a lot better.
I liked the characters better in this one. This is maybe just personal preference, but while Delilah still has some hangups about her past, her arc is a lot more about wanting freedom rather than escaping shame. (Maybe it's more that the other protagonist's escape from unhappiness also came with a push toward seeking conformity, which is probably really the part I didn't connect with.) I also liked that Miguel and Darius are an established couple, as opposed to the "we couldn't be a couple; we aren't gay! We just fuck sometimes" guys from the other book.
This also did not at all do the "oh no, a threesome is so dirty and wrong and forbidden!" thing. Like, Delilah does think a little bit about how it's a new thing for her, and there's a bit of "what would my mother think!", but not at all the same tone. The setting itself is fairly poly-normative, though I don't recall if there were any other background poly relationships portrayed, though there were other queer background characters. Miguel and Darius talk about how forming "packs" of more than two people is common for shifters (even though the species they shift into are all different).
I found the sex scenes less offputting, too. Fewer descriptions that made me wince, lol.

Lord of Souls by Greg Keyes
Fantasy - physical novel
Book two of a duology set in the Elder Scrolls universe; read with Alex
3/5 [Originally I gave this book a 3.5, but later revised it to a 3.]

After their failed attempt to kill the master of Umbriel, Sul and Atrebus are cast back through Oblivion, and must go on a dangerous quest to find a monstrous, possessed sword that may help them succeed the next time. Annaig continues her ruthless climb through the ranks of the chefs of Umbriel, eventually gaining access to the lords. Her desire to entirely destroy the island puts her at odds with her long-time friend, Mere-Glim, who has grown to know and care for the ordinary servants and denizens of the island. Back in Cyrodiil, Colin thinks he has uncovered who is behind the plot both to kill Atrebus and to bring Umbriel into the world.

My thoughts:

Parts of this book felt a little bit more... video-game-y than the last book. (Particularly Atrebus and Sul's part, on their quest for the sword. It felt like a game objective.) This is a tie-in for a video game franchise, so that isn't a complaint, exactly, but parts of it felt like they'd be a better game than a book.
The first book felt a little more cohesive... there weren't really too many new characters introduced in this one, but it felt like the perspectives hopped around more. Annaig, Mere-Glim, Atrebus and Sul, Colin, the orc soldier (Maz Gar? I think she was new to this book, actually)... it's a lot of hopping between them. All of those perspectives added to the whole, but some were definitely more interesting than others, I thought.
I don't think I found anything in this book surprising. It was pretty straightforward in terms of what was happening, who was behind it, how they were going to be stopped, etc. The first book wasn't full of shocking twists, but it had a few: the reveal about Atrebus' reputation and heroism, how Umbriel-the-island was creating its workers, who Umbriel-the-being was before he was Umbriel, etc. In this book it felt like we already knew basically everything, and were just watching it play out the conclusion. It was satisfying to see how all the different characters finally got to interact with each other, though.

Aftermarket Afterlife by Seanan McGuire
Urban fantasy - physical novel
Book 13 of Incryptid; read with Taylor
4/5

Mary Dunlavy, ghost babysitter for the Price family, has been freed from her job as a crossroads ghost, leaving her duty to her family as the only job she has. Unfortunately, The Covenant of Saint George has escalated their attacks on the family and on the cryptids of North America, conducting coordinated assaults on various communities. The only thing the family can do is try to take the fight to them, to make the fight too expensive in terms of loss of life for the Covenant to continue. Mary may be happy as a ghost, but she will do anything she can to keep her family among the living.

My thoughts:

A reread for me, reading it with Taylor. This one is good! I enjoy Mary as a protagonist, and getting her perspective on everything, which is by necessity very different than the living family members'. The fact she's been with them so long lets us get little insights and memories of some of the characters we haven't seen in the series proper, like Fran (Alice's mother, who died young, but would be great-grandmother to most of the protagonists.) This was a much darker entry into the series in a few ways, and a bit of a downer at times. There are deaths, and they are tragic, largely for the ways in which they ended those characters' arcs, the things that will be left unfinished for them, as well as the grief left behind for the other characters. Which is good in terms of narratively making those deaths matter! But it sucks!
It also very significantly escalated the conflict with the Covenant. I said it when I read it last year, but I still appreciated the grappling with revenge and the fact that it's not a morally pure act, even when it's the good guys doing it, and even when it may be the best option there is.

Silver Under Nightfall by Rin Chupeco
Fantasy (background f/m/m) - physical novel
3/5 [Originally I gave this book a 3.5, but later revised it to a 3.]

Remy is a member of the Reapers, an elite organization dedicated to fighting vampires in the country of Aluria, and he is very good at what he does. Unfortunately, the rest of the organization doesn't seem to agree, allowing political infighting and dislike of his father to affect how they treat him. Vampires Lady Xiaodan Song of the Fourth Court and her fiance Lord Zidan Malekh of the Third Court come to Aluria seeking a peace treaty. Remy is extremely drawn to Xiaodan... and a bit more reluctantly to her fiance, as well. When a bizarre new infection takes hold in the country, mutating its victims into horrific monstrosities, the three agree to work together to find the cause... and to stop the incursions from a group of vampires who are extremely disinterested in anything resembling peace.

My too-extensive thoughts, minor spoilers:

I wanted to love this book, but I couldn't quite get past some of the issues that I had with it, though I did still like it.

Good points:
I did really like the characters and their relationship. I always love poly ships, and canon ones are a joy to me. The characters themselves were all interesting, and I enjoyed their chemistry with each other. They each have their sad backstories, which also interact in interesting ways, and make for good tension. I'd love to keep learning more about all three of them!
It felt a lot like the sort of story I wanted to be able to write when I was a teenager. It reminds me of the sorts of things I'd imagine, now put to page, and that was extremely fun in a lot of ways. Though along with that (and perhaps showing some of the same influences?), this definitely felt like a story and a world where "rule of cool" gets to take precedence sometimes. That isn't a terrible thing, and I was glad it was established pretty early, so that I could read the rest of it with that mindset. Like... Breaker, Remy's super special vampire-hunting weapon, sounds wildly impractical if not impossible to actually use... but it also probably looks cool as fucking hell. Stylistically, it felt like the sort of rad-but-unlikely weapon I'd expect an anime or video game protagonist to have, but I'll willingly buy in because it's cool, even if I don't think it's realistic.
The places where it sort of blends genres are really fun... the setting is a sort of ambiguous historical fantasy, set in a fictional world, but clearly inspired a bit by historical-England-but-with-more-diversity. I thought it really stood out where it bordered on horror, and especially the parts that are essentially mad science. Having parts of the fantasy setting brushing up against in-universe scientific study was interesting. (Emphasis on scientific understanding being something that Malekh was interested in was also a cool aspect of his character.)
I did have fun reading it!

Unfortunately... there were a lot of parts that bothered me. (Mostly clustered in the first half.) The fact that I have so many things to mention here really isn't because I think it was bad... It's more like it was so close to being something that I would have LOVED, I wanted to dig into what kept it from being that.
I really think that most of the issues could have been fixed with stronger editing, both on the copyediting side and the developmental side. While the developmental stuff is more subjective, some of the objective errors absolutely should have been caught by an editor, and it frustrates me how much it seems those standards have dropped in professional publishing.
The parts that bothered me:
A few wrong word uses, which I think an editor should have caught. "It appears we were lapse in our investigation." Not the word you wanted!
There were also multiple incorrect plurals, which again... editing! ("Her hair was so long they brushed the floor behind her throne." There were at least three I noticed within a span of two chapters, but the other one I remember was minorly NSFW (it amounted to "her breasts was...") and I forget the third.) I try not to be TOO pedantic about errors like this, but these are things that should have been fixed, and they happened often enough that it didn't feel like just a random errant typo. It was frequent enough to be distracting.
There were some continuity things that bothered me, too, which I also think a round of editing would have really helped. I'm afraid this sounds like nitpicking, but it's more that these individual things are just examples of a trend that I felt throughout; like the book didn't lean into its own worldbuilding quite enough, and ended up unintentionally undercutting its cool ideas or significant details by not following through on them. (Which I fear is a weakness in my own writing, which may have made my reaction to noticing it stronger, too.)
One was fairly minor: there's a pretty big deal made about Remy sleeping with a noblewoman in exchange for information. She is able to get someone to copy documents that are given to her husband, and then she passes this information along to Remy. But then later, when he's looking at these copied documents, he says he recognizes a specific man's handwriting... The tech of the world would not support this being a photocopy; the implication is that her source copies them by hand, so am I supposed to think that source is accurately mimicking handwriting?? It super threw me out of the exciting intrigue plot.
Another I found confusing... we start with Remy getting a mysterious bit of information from an informant, about a string of killings that he plans to investigate. When he does go look into it, he encounters the first of the Rot-infected creatures, which seems like a big deal. He doesn't know what it is, he's shocked and horrified when he can't kill it, had no suspicion that something like this was the culprit... then they come back to the city, and suddenly it seems like everyone is aware of the Rot. I'll buy it from the Reapers, who are known to withhold information from Remy, but if random civilians are aware of it, he should have been, too. (I was also confused about what the victims of the Rot were supposed to be, since initially it seemed like it was vampires, then no, vampires were actually immune, so it was humans, then yes it was vampires, but only new ones, then maybe it was both new vampires and human victims? I think part of this was the back cover copy inaccurately calling it "a new breed of vampire" and that sticking in my head, so I won't lay that entirely on the writing.)
One other continuity thing isn't an error per se, but threw me off as a reader. We get some exposition about how the First Court—the terrible, evil, and extremely elusive vampires that Remy is personally invested in hunting down—are marked with a tattoo. Then it's explained that it is almost impossible to tattoo vampires (presumably their healing prevents the marks from taking), without one of the Ancient vampires getting their blood involved somehow. That way the characters (and by extension the readers) know the markings are legitimate for identification, since they'd be near impossible to fake. This was a fun detail that I thought was cool! 
A chapter or two later, we hear from an informant that there's a group of vampires killing villagers! They have a distinctive tattoo that the informant doesn't even want to describe! Oh ho, I think, we have our extra evil vampire group sighted! ...but nope. It's an unrelated group of vampires that just also happen to have tattoos, with no explanation given as to why. (It also wasn't even an actual red herring, as none of the characters assumed it was the First Court. But having just established the details about the tattoos, I'm not sure why the characters wouldn't have been suspicious. If it was meant to be hinting at this second group also having connections to an Ancient vampire, I would have expected that to be of interest to one of the characters as well.) Especially coming so close on the heels of the details about the rarity and special-ness of the tattoos, it just felt like it was undermining its own worldbuilding, because apparently that isn't actually a particularly distinct or unique detail after all.
Last bit I want to whinge about: consequences seemed super variable based on what was convenient for the plot. The second time we meet Xiaodan, she uses her special sun-bringer power to rescue Remy, and it leaves her unconscious and incapacitated. After that, they talk about it tiring her, but until [redacted spoiler] it never wipes her out that way again, even when she uses it more often and against bigger/stronger/more targets.
Another example: later in the book, they find out that Xiaodan and Malekh are no longer welcome in Aluria, and it's sort of a cliffhanger to a chapter... But then they have no trouble at all getting into the country. The vampires are turned away when they reach the capital... but the next we hear about them, they're meeting with the queen in the city. This isn't an "error"; I can believe they snuck in somehow, but them being barred from the country seemed like it was going to impede them in some way... and then just was zero barrier at all. It would feel more meaningful if they actually had to overcome the challenges that are set up, rather than just... breezing past them with no evident effort or consequence.

Overall, I did enjoy the book, but I wish so badly that some of the worldbuilding had just been made a little more cohesive. A lot of the ideas are really cool, but then something else sort of contradicts or undercuts them, which was always disappointing.
All that said, I've still added the second book to my TBR, though I don't know when I'll get there!

Where the Drowned Girls Go by Seanan McGuire
Book 7 of Wayward Children
Fantasy - physical novella
4.5/5 [Originally I gave this book a 5, but revised it to a 4.5.]

Ever since returning from The Moors, Cora has been haunted by the Drowned Gods she encountered there. They whisper to her from the shadows and in her dreams. They want her back, and the world they offer may be underwater, but it is not the beautiful world of the Trenches, where she was a mermaid. Fearful that their claim on her means she'll never be able to find the door back to her correct world, Cora asks to be transferred to another school, the Whitethorn Institute. This school is dedicated not to helping the children of the doors to make sense of their experiences, but to helping them forget them entirely. They promise that their graduates all become perfectly normal, and ready to integrate into regular society.
The students there are ostensibly there by choice... but it becomes clear that that may not always be true, and that there is something sinister behind the promise to help the students to move on.

My (brief) thoughts:

I really liked this one. I do love me a good evil boarding school. The quote from the school when Cora shows up, "Here, we don't require you to be sure. Here, we're sure enough for everyone." is just skin-crawlingly awful in the best villainous way.
I had enjoyed seeing how Cora got to interact with the Drowned Gods, that whole "something adjacent to the right world, but still wrong" thing, and having that bleed over for her was interesting and I liked it, even though Cora absolutely does not enjoy it in the slightest!
I was glad to see Regan again, our protagonist from the last book.
Fun implied cameo of a cuckoo child (from Incryptid), with a kid mentioned to be certain that they'll escape as soon as they "get the math right."
Overall, it was just a fun story, and the kind of "escaping a controlling evil" adventure that I really enjoy.
While the existence of another school has been mentioned before, it was always fairly neutral in the previous mentions; an alternative option for the students who find their memories of their adventures through their doors distressing or traumatizing, and would prefer to move on to something resembling a normal life. Considering how traumatic some of the experiences in the other worlds can be, that seems like a reasonable thing for some people to want... so finding out that there is something sinister behind that option is something I imagine will become an ongoing arc in the story.

Overgrowth by Mira Grant
Sci-fi/Horror (background m/f) - physical novel
4/5

When Anastasia Miller was a child, she went into the woods and found an alien flower. She never came home, but something that looked like her did. The new Anastasia has never hidden what she is - she is the vanguard of an alien species that plans to arrive on earth, a fact she is compelled to share with everyone she meets.
Even she isn't completely sure that she's telling the truth, and very few of the people in her life truly believe her. Then the signal comes, announcing the approach of the alien armada. Suddenly, people do believe there's an invasion impending, and they do not react kindly to the aliens already hiding among the human race. Stasia herself is torn: are her loyalties with the species she's always actually been, or the world that raised her?

My thoughts, minor spoilers:

I really enjoyed this one! I like Mira Grant (pen name for Seanan McGuire's more thriller/horror work, as opposed to her urban fantasy) and it was nice to have another book from her.
The thing I think I found most impressive, personally, was that I felt like I was going through the same arc as Stasia was, in terms of loyalties, and that was a believable conflict to me. Not that I think that a species that routinely and repeatedly destroys every other species it comes across is a good thing... but I found it was at least presented in a way that made it sympathetic as well. I can't say for sure which "side" I'd come down on were this situation to present itself... but I think ultimately I'd almost certainly make the same choice that quite a few of the human characters do.
(The mild twist, which I won't spoil, about how humans and/or any other species the aliens come to could have avoided their fate was very good, imo.)
I appreciated the ways in which Stasia and Graham complemented each other... while it's not at all a 1:1 comparison, the fact that they bonded over believing each other about their own identities (Stacia as an alien, Graham as a man) was a thing I liked about them.
I also liked that part of Stasia's early thesis about why her species sent infiltrators like her to live among their target species is that they want them to learn to hate the species, and that it is the lesson that some of them end up learning. But later there is the realization that a lot of the aliens, like Stasia, did end up finding relationships and loves within humanity as well, and that the range of emotions matters.
This did not latch onto my hindbrain the way Feed and the rest of Newsflesh did, but I had a good time the whole way through.

I am currently in the middle of four books:
Maeve Fly, my current main read
Buchanan House, my ebook side read
Duma Key, reading with Alex
Installment Immortality, reading with Taylor