Siavahda's Blog, page 2
September 8, 2025
Must-Have Monday #253
Must-Have Monday is a feature highlighting which of the coming week’s new releases I’m excited for. It is not meant to be a comprehensive list of all books being published that week; only those I’m interested in out of those I’m aware of! The focus is diverse SFF, but other stuff sneaks in occasionally too.
EIGHT books this week!
(Books are listed in order of pub date, then Adult SFF, Adult Other, YA SFF, YA Other, MG SFF.)
The Driftcap Inn (Innkeepers of Itharos Book 1) by Kate Valent Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
Published on: 8th September 2025
Goodreads
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Howl’s Moving Castle meets Legends & Lattes in this cozy fantasy set on a magical inn in the sky.
Welcome to The Driftcap Inn, a cozy perch among the clouds. Drift on in and stay awhile!
In all of Itharos no inn is more enchanting—or peculiar—than The Driftcap Inn, a cozy haven in the sky carved from a giant floating mushroom. Its owner, Eino the Wanderer, enjoys a life of breathtaking views and freedom from the petty wars and political intrigue of the kingdoms below. But a home set adrift in the vast, empty skies can also be unbearably lonely.
When a handsome and enigmatic apothecary named Joren comes aboard, an unexpected companionship blossoms between the two men, stirring the possibility of something deeper. But their peaceful journey through the clouds is shattered when a string of unsettling events threatens to send Eino’s home plummeting to the ground.
Something wicked is spreading its roots across The Driftcap Inn, and Eino suspects there’s much more to it than just bad luck. With dark secrets surrounding every guest and danger creeping ever closer, Eino must decide who he can trust with his life — and with his heart.
This sounds whimsical as hells, and I’m here for it!
Pantomime (Micah Grey) by L.R. Lam Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Secondary World Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Bi/pansexual intersex MC
Published on: 9th September 2025
Goodreads
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From the USA Today-bestselling author of Dragonfall comes a fantasy trilogy about a circus aerialist's quest to escape his past and decipher the magical prophecy that will shape his future
In a land of lost wonders, the past is stirring once more . . .
Micah runs away from a debutante’s life at home and joins the circus, harboring twosecrets–one: he was born between male and female, and two: he may have powers last seen in mysterious beings from an almost-forgotten age. Micah discovers the joy of flight as an aerialist, courting his trapeze partner, Aenea, and confiding in the mysterious white clown, Drystan. He finally feels free. But the circus has a darkside, and Micah’s past isn’t done with him.
Meanwhile, the strange 'ghost' of a woman with damselfly wings whispers to Micah that only he can help magic return to the realm, and he fears she may be right...Micah has much to learn, and he must do it quickly—before his past and future collide, withcatastrophic consequences.
Pantomime is a gorgeous and inventive fantasy with queer elements, inspired by Victorian Scotland. L.R. Lam weaves a coming-of-age tale, stirrings of first love, and prophetic whispers into this unforgettable first installment of the Micah Grey series.
Pantomime was originally released as a YA book over a decade ago, but it’s been extensively rewritten and is being re-released as Adult now! Very interested to see how it’s changed!
An Unbreakable World by Ren Hutchings Genres: Adult, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Queer MC
Published on: 9th September 2025
Goodreads
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If something seems too good to be real, you’ve got to get out of there.
That’s the rule that Page Found has always followed. She’s a petty thief with no memory of her past, scrounging to survive on a backwater outpost – until she’s kidnapped by one of her marks.
Her kidnappers – the cruel, self-serving Zhak and the tough maverick Maelle – plan to pass Page off as a monk from an ancient, isolated planet to help them capture a treasure-filled ship. If Page is willing to play along, they all stand to become richer than they can imagine.
Everyone is keeping secrets, and Maelle finds her loyalties conflicted as she gets closer to their captive. Page can’t remember the last time she counted on anyone. But to navigate this deception, she and Maelle will have to trust each other to survive.
KB Wagers is quoted on the cover as describing this as ‘Beautiful hopepunk at its best’ which is absolutely all I need to hear: I am SOLD!
You Weren't Meant to Be Human by Andrew Joseph White Genres: Adult, Horror, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Trans MC, M/M
Published on: 9th September 2025
Goodreads
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Alien meets Midsommar in this chilling debut adult novel from award-winning author Andrew Joseph White about identity, survival, and transformation amidst an alien invasion in rural West Virginia.
Festering masses of worms and flies have taken root in dark corners across Appalachia. In exchange for unwavering loyalty and fresh corpses, these hives offer a few struggling humans salvation. A fresh start. It’s an offer that none refuse.
Crane is grateful. Among his hive’s followers, Crane has found a chance to transition, to never speak again, to live a life that won’t destroy him. He even met Levi: a handsome ex-Marine and brutal killer who treats him like a real man, mostly. But when Levi gets Crane pregnant—and the hive demands the child’s birth, no matter the cost—Crane’s desperation to make it stop will drive the community that saved him into a devastating spiral that can only end in blood.
You Weren’t Meant to Be Human is a deeply personal horror; a visceral statement about the lives of marginalized people in a hostile world, echoing the works of Stephen Graham Jones and Eric LaRocca.
Honestly, I will probably skip this one, because it sounds like it’s gonna hit SO MANY of my ABSOLUTELY NOT places – but I’m not going to NOT feature an Andrew Joseph White release!
The Most Unusual Haunting of Edgar Lovejoy by Roan Parrish Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Nonbinary MC
Published on: 9th September 2025
Goodreads
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Jamie Wendon-Dale may design haunted houses, but they don't actually believe in ghosts—until they meet Edgar Lovejoy, who is tall, clever, beautiful…and 100% haunted.
A COZY, GHOSTLY LGBTQIA+ ROMANCE
Jamie Wendon-Dale creates haunted houses for a living. Haunting is their life—but nobody working New Orleans' spooky circuit actually believes in ghosts.
Edgar Lovejoy is 100% haunted. No, really. Ghosts have tormented him since childhood and he's organized his life around attempts to avoid them.
Opposites? Get ready to attract. But while Jamie's biggest concern is that Edgar sometimes seems a bit distracted, Edgar's fears are much greater. Not only is he scared of encountering the dearly departed whenever he leaves the house, but he's terrified of making himself vulnerable to Jamie. After all, how do you tell someone who believes ghosts only exist as smoke and mirrors that you see them everywhere you go? And how can you trust in a happy future when you can't even believe in yourself?
A little spooky, a little magical, and a whole lot The (Most Unusual) Haunting of Edgar Lovejoy will leave you feeling like you've found a brand new bookish family of your own.
Sounds potentially adorable; I plan on tucking this on the to-be-read-when-in-need-of-fluff pile!
Bind Me Tighter Still: A Novel by Lara Ehrlich Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Published on: 9th September 2025
Goodreads
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AUTHOR OF AWARD-WINNING, ANIMAL WIFE
WINNER OF CAI EMMONS FICTION AWARD and ERIC HOFFER AWARD
FOREWORD INDIE AWARD FINALIST
"The poetic prose mixed with the intense subject matter creates an undertow that will pull readers in."—Booklist
“A modern-day fairy tale that is both ghastly and beautiful.”—Kirkus
Mother and daughter mermaids navigate starting over and finding their place in the world in Lara Ehrlich’s debut novel.
The youngest siren sister, Ceto is weary of an existence driven by hunger, no better than a fish. She trades her tail for legs, marries the first man she meets, and bears a daughter—only to find domesticity as suffocating as the sea. Craving more, Ceto flees with her daughter Naia back to the ocean, where she reinvents herself as the star of a mermaid burlesque, performing in a lavish tank carved into the limestone cliffs above the waves.
At Sirenland, Ceto’s sensual performances and the erotic allure of her trained sirens transform the seaside attraction into a national sensation—a glittering empire where spectacle, desire, and female power reign. But as Naia comes of age and begins to question her mother’s vision, the boundary between empowerment and exploitation grows dangerously thin. When a shocking death rocks Sirenland, Ceto’s rule is threatened, and mother and daughter must reckon with the cost of performance on their already tenuous bond.
Bind Me Tighter Still is a lush, provocative exploration of power, sex, sacrifice, and motherhood—a celebration of female strength in a world determined to tame it.
I am SO HYPED FOR THIS, I cannot even. MERMAID BURLESQUE WITH REAL MERMAIDS?! GIMME!
An Embroidery of Souls by Ruby Martinez Genres: Fantasy, YA
Representation: Mexican MC
Published on: 9th September 2025
Goodreads
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Jade can manipulate souls with the tug of a thread--it's up to her, and a boy with a soul as bright as the universe to stop a creature on the loose before it claims its next victim in this lush, Mexican & German inspired romantasy.
Jade Aguilar can kill a man with nothing more than a needle and thread. Like her mother, a thread speaker in the queendom of Mérecal, she has the unique ability to stitch love, beauty, intelligence and to unravel even death. When her mother goes missing, the queen orders Jade to find her or be conscripted into a life of servitude.
Lukas Keller is desperate to feed his family and makes a deal with a vicious gang leader. Though he swore never to seek the help of a thread speaker, he's in over his head and it might be his only option.Jade and Lukas form a mistrustful alliance. But as Mérecal erupts into chaos and the killer closes in, they must cling to one another for survival--and perhaps . . . something more?
From debut author Ruby Martinez comes a wildly romantic, heart pounding mystery set in a lush fantastical world inspired by Mexican and German lore.
I only heard about this one at the last minute, which is outrageous: can’t believe my usual sources failed me like so badly! Very glad I did hear about it, though, because it sounds fascinating. Mexican and German is not a myth/folklore mash-up I’ve seen before!
Elegy of the Stars: A Medieval Dark Fantasy by J. J. DE GROOT Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, YA
Representation: Queer MC
Published on: 9th September 2025
Goodreads
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Dive into an apocalyptic medieval world from multiple perspectives in this standalone debut novel from award-nominated author J. J. DE GROOT that combines the epic horror of Attack on Titan with the religious mysteries of Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose.
The Horsemen are here, and they aren't leaving until the last remaining kingdom is burned to the ground.
Fifteen-year-old Balmung works as a necromancer, negotiating with malevolent ghosts and helping lost souls pass on. His goal? Join the Necromancy Guild – trusted by Brevaria’s High Astrologers to protect their kingdom from the Horsemen – and repay Guild leader Magdalene for saving his life.
To earn her favor and a place at her side, Balmung must journey into the heart of Horsemen territory and retrieve a holy relic that could save Brevaria. The quest sets him on a collision course with others seeking its Roma, an astrologer determined to bargain her way out of a political marriage, and Dieter, an undercover prince who must dethrone Brevaria’s king if he wants to save his people.
New horrors lurk in the ruins of fallen nations, and longstanding truths begin to crack. What is the true nature of the relic they're after, and are the Horsemen really mankind's greatest threat?
I’ve heard very little about this one, but that’s one heck of a synopsis!
Will you be reading any of these? Did I miss any releases you think I should know about? Let me know!
The post Must-Have Monday #253 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.
September 7, 2025
Sunday Soupçons #41
soupçon/ˈsuːpsɒn,ˈsuːpsɒ̃/ noun
1. a very small quantity of something; a slight trace, as of a particular taste or flavor
Sunday Soupçons is where I scribble mini-reviews for books I don’t have the brainspace/eloquence/smarts to write about in depth – or if I just don’t have anything interesting to say beyond I LIKED IT AND YOU SHOULD READ IT TOO!
One book I appreciated more than I enjoyed, and one I adored!
What a Fish Looks Like by Syr Hayati Beker Genres: Adult, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi, Speculative Fiction
Representation: Trans and nonbinary MCs, many BIPOC
PoV: 1st/2nd/3rd-person at different points
Published on: 4th September 2025
ISBN: 1738316564
Goodreads
What are the stories we need to survive?
In ten days, the last spaceship is leaving for a new planet. Some of us will stay on Earth. How do we decide?
#TeamEarth. Once upon a time, the oceans were full of fish and the forests dark with brambles. Seb read about it in a book of fairy tales, and memory means hope.
#TeamShip. Adaptation means knowing when to walk away. Jay is ready. So their ex, Seb, shows up on the dance floor, T-minus-10. What’s the harm in one last dance?
What if the stories themselves are evolving?
Told in margin notes, posters, letters scrawled on napkins, and six retellings of classic fairy tales, What A Fish Looks Like gathers the stories of a queer community co-creating one another through the strange landscapes of climate change, wondering who is going to love us when there are not, in fact, plenty of fish in the sea.
And now this book belongs to you.
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
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The main thing that didn’t work for me is what NEVER works for me with these things (even though I insist on continually trying): I didn’t find it hopeful. I found it so, so bleak, and depressing, and heartbreaking. I don’t think that was the author’s intent – and some of the other early reviews I’ve seen make it clear that not everyone has this takeaway for this book. But this was painful to read – it’s really a story about climate collapse, and snippets of these different lives as the planet is dying and human civilisation is falling apart (or so I inferred from the not-Snow Queen story?) And like – nothing is fixed? We see climate protesters etc around the edge of some of the stories, but they don’t accomplish anything, we’re still going down, so???
I don’t know.
this is what theater is: the thing you do when crying isn’t enough.
The set-up is amazing, though: the framing is that there is a book of fairytales, and the stories we read have been written over them – modern, very queer reimaginings of stories like The Matchstick Girl and The Snow Queen. But between the stories, we also have flyers and letters and things, scribbled on by one of a handful of interconnected trans and nonbinary people who are trying to survive, and (some of them) decide whether or not to leave Earth on the last spaceship. It’s very mixed-media, and I LOVED that, I wish we saw that so much more often!
Question: Is the ax part of the forest for its wood handle?
The stories themselves…Well, I didn’t Get them. And apart from the Snow Queen and Red Riding Hood ones, I couldn’t tell what fairytales they were supposed to be retelling (although I’m guessing the mermaid one was meant to be the Little Mermaid? Somehow?) But I loved all the queer rep – specifically, so many trans and nonbinary characters, which made me SO FREAKING HAPPY – and I loved the way some of the stories were told, especially the Red Riding Hood one, which is framed like it’s a series of transmissions/queries between different machines? I think? Seb – arguably the main character? – writes notes in the introduction to the book-within-the-book, the collection of fairytales that is being written over, and I enjoyed those immensely. The writing itself is objectively excellent; Beker has a wonderful way with words, and a twisty, let’s-experiment imagination that felt playful and wickedly smart. I’d really like to read more from them in the future, even if it never gets more overtly fantastical than this!
With the caveat that I found this very depressing, I’d recommend this one to anybody interested in mixed-media stories, especially readers who are pining for trans and nonbinary rep. What a Fish Looks Like is a beautiful book, even if I definitely wasn’t smart enough to understand or catch everything it was doing. I’m very glad it exists, even if it’s not quite for me.
Karen Memory (Karen Memory, #1) by Elizabeth Bear Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Sapphic MC, Desi love interest, F/F, major trans character, minor Chinese character, minor amputee character, major Black character, secondary Native American character
PoV: First-person, past-tense
ISBN: 194279407X
Goodreads
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“You ain’t gonna like what I have to tell you, but I’m gonna tell you anyway. See, my name is Karen Memery, like memory only spelt with an e, and I’m one of the girls what works in the Hôtel Mon Cherie on Amity Street. Hôtel has a little hat over the o like that. It’s French, so Beatrice tells me.”
Hugo-Award winning author Elizabeth Bear offers something new in Karen Memory, an absolutely entrancing steampunk novel set in Seattle in the late 19th century—an era when the town was called Rapid City, when the parts we now call Seattle Underground were the whole town (and still on the surface), when airships plied the trade routes bringing would-be miners heading up to the gold fields of Alaska, and steam-powered mechanicals stalked the waterfront.
Karen is a “soiled dove,” a young woman on her own who is making the best of her orphaned state by working in Madame Damnable’s high-quality bordello. Through Karen’s eyes we get to know the other girls in the house—a resourceful group—and the poor and the powerful of the town. Trouble erupts into her world one night when a badly injured girl arrives at their door, seeking sanctuary, followed by the man who holds her indenture, who has a machine that can take over anyone’s mind and control their actions.
And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the next night brings a body dumped in their rubbish heap—a streetwalker who has been brutally murdered.
Bear brings alive this Jack-the-Ripper-type story of the old west with the light touch of Karen’s own memorable voice, and a mesmerizing evocation of classic steam-powered science.
This was so much FUN. Especially because of Karen’s narration – she has a ‘Wild West’ style of speaking, whatever the official term for that is, full of delightfully colourful turns of phrase! She’s that wonderful combination of street-smart and no-nonsense that I love (even if she can, absolutely, be more impulsive than is strictly sensible), with lots of wry insight into people and her world. (I loved the questions that occurred to her every now and then, lots of ‘why ARE things this way actually?’ that really make you stop and think.)
Miss Francina went striding out into that burning cold in her negligee and marabou slippers like she owned the night and the rest of us was just paying rent on it.
I also appreciated the fact that she’s not very brave in combat situations! She freezes when things get scary, sometimes! It made her feel so much more human. (And honestly, made it more impressive when she was brave, because we know how hard it is for her.)
I was trembling like a marriage license in a young man’s hand.
I wouldn’t call Karen Memory a murder-mystery, but it’s kind of difficult to say what it IS instead. There’s adventure elements and political stuff and rescues to enact, and the setting is Old West but with Mad Scientists (no really, they’re actually called that) and a streampunk aesthetic. (In fairness, I think it’s more than just an aesthetic, because the outlook and flavour of the whole story seems pretty damn punk to me, with the cast packed full of people who are, shall we say, under-served by the patriarchy; but your mileage may vary.) And yes, there’s some kind of serial killer about, who maybe has ties to the foul man running what I don’t want to call brothels with indentured/enslaved women. It’s a book about human trafficking and sex work and – is ‘minority solidarity’ a term? I’ve heard ‘female solidarity’, but it’s more than that here, there’s a very deliberate aligning of Karen and the other white women with the BIPOC characters, because white women – and especially sex workers – were in similar societal positions to a Black ex-slave in this time period, even more overtly than now. There’s an important trans character on the edge of the main cast, and she has an unquestioned place in that solidarity too (I loved SO MUCH that when she needed to go undercover as a man, the narration says “he” when referring to the undercover persona – with the quotation marks. Just a small detail to drive home that she is not, ever, a guy). IT’S SO GREAT.
Can I just call Karen Memory a romp? It’s a romp. It’s FUN. It doesn’t ignore or flinch away from all the issues affecting the characters, all the awfulness built into their society, but it doesn’t lecture us about those things either, just presents them, and though those things obviously effect everything the characters do, we’re not drowned in the bleak bits. Things absolutely do get scary, and there’s really horrific things happening, but it’s the kind of book where you’re never in doubt that it’s all gonna end well, you know?
I jumped so high I near came down next to my pants.
More than anything, it’s Karen’s voice that makes this a great read, puts a grin on your face. It might have become quite a bleak story, with a different narrator, or written in third-person instead of first-, but instead we got Karen, and Karen is, simply, wonderful. I’d recommend this especially to anyone interested in writing in first-person, actually, because Karen’s a fantastic object-lesson in the power of perspective and voice and how the angle of the audience view alters the tone.
But I also recommend it to anyone who ‘just’ wants to read something fun that doesn’t talk down to you. In fact, you should read it soon, because the next book in the series came out last week!!! So when you love it (and you will definitely love it) you can IMMEDIATELY dive into more Karen Memory!!!
The post Sunday Soupçons #41 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.
September 3, 2025
I Can’t Wait For…A Fleurlings Field Guide by Kaitlin Hoyt
Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted over at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about but haven’t yet read. Most of the time they’re books that have yet to be released, but not always. It’s based on the Waiting on Wednesday meme, which was originally hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.
You can find the releases I’m most anticipating this year over on my Unmissable list, but I use Can’t-Wait Wednesday to feature books I’m hopeful about but aren’t 100% sure will be five star reads.
This week my Can’t-Wait-For Book is A Fleurlings Field Guide by Kaitlin Hoyt!
A Fleurlings Field Guide by Kaitlin Hoyt Genres: Fantasy
Published on: 23rd September 2025
Goodreads
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Step into the enchanted world of animal-flower hybrids with A Fleurlings Field Guide! From floral frogs to wildflower wolves, this whimsical handbook unveils the curious creatures of a long-lost magical island. Should you ever set foot on its shores, keep this guide close—but beware, linger too long, and you might just start to bloom yourself!
About the author
Kaitlin Hoyt is a wildlife illustrator whose work explores themes of growth and interconnectedness through whimsical fusions of flora and fauna. Inspired by early scientific illustrators and the magic of fairytales, her art is a celebration of nature’s resilience and adaptability—qualities that have also shaped her self-taught creative journey.
Since committing to painting in 2019, Hoyt has participated in multiple artist residencies, written and illustrated children's books, and shared her work with collectors around the world.
I’ve followed Kaitlin Hoyt online for ages – because her art is simply enchanting! A Fleurlings Field Guide is her second book, and exactly what it sounds like: a field guide to my favourite of her creations, the fleurlings!
What’s a fleurling??? A MOST DELIGHTFUL AND BEAUTIFUL FLOWER–BEASTIE HYBRID! Each word of the previous sentence will take you to the page of a different fleurling, some of my favourites – you’re welcome! And of course, you can find even more over on Hoyt’s instagram.
I think the Field Guide will be giving us a bit of lore on each fleurling, and between the gorgeous art AND my being obsessed with worldbuilding, I obviously I have a MIGHTY NEED to get this book into my collection!
For whatever weird reason, the Big River site’s listing for this book is all messed up, so even if you usually buy through them, I recommend going through the publisher page for the Field Guide (there’s a link on the page that’ll help you find a store local to you that can sell you a copy!)
The post I Can’t Wait For…A Fleurlings Field Guide by Kaitlin Hoyt appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.
September 1, 2025
Must-Have Monday #252
Must-Have Monday is a feature highlighting which of the coming week’s new releases I’m excited for. It is not meant to be a comprehensive list of all books being published that week; only those I’m interested in out of those I’m aware of! The focus is diverse SFF, but other stuff sneaks in occasionally too.
THIRTEEN books this week!
(Books are listed in order of pub date, then Adult SFF, Adult Other, YA SFF, YA Other, MG SFF.)
Daevas 1 by Milan Sno Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MC
Published on: 1st September 2025
Goodreads
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In a world ravaged by holy war, Ari clings to one truth: mouths lie, but blood does not. Haunted by the past and desperate for answers, he turns to Auovin—a demon whose secrets could unravel everything Ari believes.
What follows is a journey of uneasy revelations and slow-burning desire, where the lines between love and betrayal, redemption and damnation blur. Guided—and tormented—by Auovin, Ari must confront not only the war’s deeper truths but the shifting foundations of his own identity.
Daevas: Volume One is the beginning of a dark, emotionally charged fantasy saga told across three volumes. With lyrical prose, mythic intimacy, and haunting introspection, it explores the cost of truth, the pull of identity, and the price of being seen in a broken world.
I’ve seen a few early readers warning that this is ‘literary’ fantasy and pretty low on actual magic, but it could still be worth a try!
The Nga'phandileh Whisperer by Eugen Bacon Genres: Adult, Horror, Science Fantasy
Representation: African-inspired cast and setting
Published on: 2nd September 2025
Goodreads
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When a precocious Guardian in Sector Z in New Inku’lulu—an elite space outpost—misuses her sound magic, the Guardians punish her by stripping away her magical ability.
Now Chant’L is exiled to Savage Mound, a sound island on planet Wiimb-ó, and grows increasingly vengeful—until she discovers that magic is inborn, never truly lost or taken. She channels energy from two spirit moons and reclaims her sound magic.
Chant’L summons the Nga’phandileh, creatures of unreality. But her magic is more than she bargained for when an uncontained trinity of the hive mind slips from unreality and brings peril to the federation of planets.
Now the Guardians in Sector Z find themselves with a massive catastrophe they must not only keep secret, but resolve.
A science fiction horror from an award-winning queen of Afro-Irreal genre bending.
A glossary of Bantu, Afrocentric and authorly-crafted words complements this genre-bending, cross-cultural novella. Something beautiful, something dark in lyrical language packed with affection, dread, anguish and hope.
The Sauútiverse is an amazingly epic shared universe, science fantasy with sound and music magic and African-inspired worldbuilding. Most of the stories and books set in it are standalones, and Nga’phandileh Whisperer is too – so you don’t have to have read any Sauútiverse before jumping in!
(Though if you do want more of it, I suggest starting with Mothersound, which is a collection of short stories across the Saútiverse timIine!)
Moonflow by Bitter Karella Genres: Adult, Horror, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Fat trans MC, sapphic MCs
Published on: 2nd September 2025
Goodreads
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Moonflow is three-time Hugo Award nominee Bitter Karella's debut horror novel-a gloriously queer and irreverent psychedelic trip into the heart of an eldritch wood and the horrors of sisterhood. Answer the call of the forest, if you dare.
I see something out there, in the woods. It does not have a face.
They call it the King's Breakfast. One bite and you can understand the full scope of the universe; one bite and you can commune with forgotten gods beyond human comprehension. And it only grows deep in the Pamogo forest, where the trees crowd so tight that the forest floor is pitch black day and night, where rumors of strange cults and disappearing hikers abound.
Sarah makes her living growing mushrooms. When a bad harvest leaves her in a desperate fix, the lure of the King's Breakfast has her journeying into those vast uncharted woods. Her only guide is the most annoying man in the world, and he's convinced there's no danger. But as they descend deeper, they realize they're not alone. Something is luring them into the heart of the forest, and they must answer its call.
Weird and gross exactly as intended, with lots of revelling in the…physicality of bodies? Not sure how to articulate it, but a certain kind of Horror fan is going to LOVE this one!
You can read an excerpt here!
Angel Maker by Elizabeth Bear Genres: Adult, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi, Historical Fantasy
Representation: Sapphic MC, sapphic Desi girlfriend
Published on: 2nd September 2025
Goodreads
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Every cowboy story needs a horse no man can ride.
No man—but Miss Karen Memery is all woman. When she and her beloved Priya sign on to do stunts for a motion picture about a rogue Mechanical named Cowboy and a Wild West show, she finds the horse of her dreams: Angel Maker.
Her plans to rescue him from a deadly stunt are ambitious enough, but she’s soon beset by even greater threats when two men are murdered brutally. Cowboy and Priya are arrested for the crime, and Karen must prove them innocent—and save the life of the wild stallion too!
"The surprise sequel that Karen Memory fans needed! A novel of strong emotional bonds, chasing after mysteries, and adventures at the dawn of motion pictures. Ladies and gentlemachines, this book was worth the wait."—John Wiswell, author of Someone You Can Build A Nest In
"Karen and her world are a delight!"—Katherine Addison, author of The Goblin Emperor
NEW KAREN MEMORY ADVENTURE!!! I just finished rereading the first book, and the novella, to be ready for this, and I loved them just as much as I did when they first came out. PRETTY SURE I’LL LOVE THIS AS WELL!
Dwellers: A Novel: Winner of the Philippine National Book Award by Eliza Victoria Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Representation: Filipino (?) cast and setting
Published on: 2nd September 2025
Goodreads
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This dark fantasy is sure to take your breath away.
The rules are strict and absolute:
Rule No. 1: Don't kill the body you inhabit.
Rule No. 2: Never mention your previous name again.
Rule No. 3: Don't talk about your previous life. Ever.
But what happens when, in escaping your old life by stealing a new one, you jump out of the frying pan and into the fire?
Cousins from a clan of dwellers--people who inhabit the bodies and lives of others--become brothers when they take over the bodies of Jonah and Louis. An injury forces them to remain in the brothers' house, where they discover that the basement holds a dead body! As old and new secrets come to light, it becomes clear there is no such thing as actions without consequences.
Fans of Richard Morgan, Adam Silvera, and Blake Crouch's speculative fiction will adore Eliza Victoria's action-packed supernatural mystery. Winner of the Philippine National Book Award, Dwellers is the urban fantasy novel that you won't want to miss!
This is apparently a very short novel, but the reviews I’ve seen for it are GLOWING. Really curious about the premise!
A Blood as Bright as the Moon by Andrea Morstabilini Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Gay MC
Published on: 2nd September 2025
Goodreads
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A vampire, desperately torn between worlds, is hunted down by a secret society bent on his destruction, in this elegiac and unsettling queer gothic horror, perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher and Silvia Moreno-Garcia.
Frankenstein, Germany. Ambrose, a young vampire, lives a life secreted away from the modern world with the rest of his clan, all of them under the spell of the charismatic Regina, who spins stories of salvation for their kind. Their grand plan? To build makeshift wings and fly to the moon where a safe haven awaits for all vampires.
But Ambrose harbours a secret: he is not ready to abandon the earth, and he is in contact with a human who believes he can be saved. As the rest of his kind prepare to flee their home, Ambrose is torn between loyalties.
However something else is on the horizon – the Royal Diurnal Society – a group with sinister plans for vampires, are closing in, and if Ambrose isn’t careful, he could find himself right at the centre of a terrifying and mysterious experiment.
Okay, this didn’t work for me at all, but I still wanted to include it in case it works for some of you!
You can read an excerpt here!
Crying Out For Magic by P.S.C. Willis Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, New Adult, Queer Protagonists
Published on: 2nd September 2025
Goodreads
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A meet-cute across worlds!
Draven Montrose’s world, Galdorsfarne, is like a soggy firework; so much potential, so little sparkle. Magic is running out, and so are his dating options. Whilst he should be grateful for a cruelty-free world, he’s never known anything else. His (entirely realistic and modest) goals for the year are to solve the magical energy crisis…and get a proper boyfriend.
Niall Silverstein lives in Northern England, wishing fantasy stories were real and he had the guts to talk to cute boys. He isn’t out to his parents, he’s never kissed anyone, and he’s convinced he’ll die alone in a corner of the library, a spotty and unloved nerd.
A magical portal between worlds and a chance meeting might be all that’s needed to fix both their broken worlds. But does Draven’s world contain enough magic to keep their meetings going?
Fantasy / Romance / LGBT / gay / BL
Adult and New Adult
An inter-dimensional meet-cute? I predict adorableness!
Honeyeater by Kathleen Jennings Genres: Adult, Horror
Published on: 2nd September 2025
Goodreads
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A richly imagined dark fantasy that pulses with the beautiful destruction of a town reclaimed by the natural world.
Sub-tropical Bellworth is founded on floodplains and root-bound secrets. And Charlie, remarkable only for vanished friends and a successful sister, plans to leave for good, just as soon as he deals with his dead aunt’s house. Then Grace arrives, desperate, with roses pressing up through her skin, and drags Charlie into the ghost-choked mysteries of Bellworth, uncovering the impossible consequences of loss and desire — and a choice Charlie made when he was a boy.
But peeling back the rumors and lies that cocoon the suburb disturbs more than complacent neighbors and lost souls. And Charlie and Grace are forced to a decision that threatens not only their lives, but all they believed those lives could be.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Jennings is very famous for her art – I’ve seen it on many book covers! – but I think this is her first novel? (After a short story collection and at least one novella!) Always awe-inspiring to discover someone who can make illustrative art AND write!
You can read an excerpt here!
Crime Ink: Iconic: An Anthology of Crime Fiction Inspired by Queer Icons by Multiple Writers, Salem West Genres: Adult, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MCs
Published on: 2nd September 2025
Goodreads
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Prepare for intrigue, suspense, and unforgettable twists in this groundbreaking anthology of queer crime fiction.
In 2023, crime fiction anthologies featured 517 stories across 30 titles—but shockingly, fewer than 1 percent were penned by LGBTQ+ writers. Crime Iconic (An Anthology of Crime Fiction Inspired by Famous Queer Icons) is a resounding response to this glaring disparity, offering a vibrant collection of stories by and about queer authors and characters.
Drawing inspiration from queer icons—James Baldwin, Oscar Wilde, Candy Darling, Radclyffe Hall, Babadook, Megan Rapinoe, Laverne Cox, Dolly Parton, Vita Sackville-West, and many more—these tales span the rich spectrum of crime fiction, from cozy mysteries and whodunits to noir, psychological thrillers, and police procedurals. Each story is a testament to the depth, ingenuity, and thrilling originality of queer voices in the genre.
This anthology showcases an incredible array of talent, including New York Times Best Crime Novels of 2024 honorees Margot Douaihy, Robyn Gigl, John Copenhaver, and Katrina Carrasco; Lambda Literary winners Ann Aptaker, Greg Herren, Ann McMan, and J.M. Redmann; and other celebrated writers like Cheryl Head, Penny Mickelbury, Christa Faust, and Kelly J. Ford. But that’s not all—this collection also includes many more decorated and emerging voices, ensuring a dynamic reading experience as inclusive as it is entertaining.
With a foreword by Ellen Hart and an afterword by Katherine V. Forrest, two luminaries of queer crime fiction, this anthology is more than a collection of stories—it’s a movement. Bursting with intrigue, twists, and unforgettable characters, Crime Iconic is essential reading for crime fiction fans and anyone who craves representation in the stories they love.
Includes stories
Jeffrey Marks • Ann Aptaker • Ann McMan • Cheryl Head • Meredith Doench • Kelly J. Ford • Margot Douaihy • Christa Faust • Robyn Gigl • Greg Herren • Anne Laughlin • Kristen Lepionka • Katrina Carrasco • Mia Manansala • Renee James • Penny Mickelbury • Diana DiGangi • Baxter Clare Trautman • JM Redmann • Katherine V. Forrest • Stephanie Gayle• Marco Carocari • Jeffrey Round• David Pederson • Christopher Bollen • John Copenhaver
Edited
John Copenhaver • Salem West
If you’ve hung around here for a while, you know crime is not my usual genre – Pagans being a very unusual (and speculative) exception! – but this is such a cool idea for a collection that I think I need to take a peek at it!
You can get a rundown on all the stories inside here!
SURVIVA: A Future Ancestral Field Guide by Cannupa Hanska Luger Genres: Adult, Nonfiction
Published on: 2nd September 2025
Goodreads
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An ambitious, world-envisioning work of Indigenous futurism.
Since 2015—through a proliferation of forms including sculpture, regalia, film, photography, poetry, painting, and installation—acclaimed multimedia artist Cannupa Hanska Luger has been weaving together strands of a new myth. Collectively referred to as Future Ancestral Technologies, this sprawling series of interrelated works seeks to reimagine Indigenous life and culture in a postcolonial world where space exploration has reduced and reconfigured the earth’s population.
Part graphic novel, part art book, A Future Ancestral Field Guide offers readers a view beneath, beyond, and between the lines of Luger's ever-expanding artistic universe. In this ecstatically hybrid work, Luger transforms a 1970s military survival guide through poetic redaction, speculative fiction, and iterative line drawing—deftly surfacing and disrupting the colonial subconscious that haunts this vexed source text. An epic and timely meditation on planetary life in the midst of transformation, SURVIVA boldly presents an earth-based, demilitarized futuredream that foregrounds Indigenous knowledge as critical to humanity’s survival.
SURVIVA is the first title from Aora Books, a publishing imprint dedicated to exploring transformational thought and culture that transcends borders, disciplines, and traditions. Rooted in an ethos of polyvocality and planetary consciousness, Aora publishes works that forge bold connections across time, place, ideas, and beings often seen as separate.
Not quite sure what to expect of this one, but it looks interesting!
Bad in the Blood by Matteo L. Cerilli Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, YA
Representation: Queer MCs
Published on: 2nd September 2025
Goodreads
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In a world where magical beings, fey, are mistrusted and often institutionalized, a human brother and fey sister must team up to solve a bizarre murder in this 1920s-inspired queer teen fantasy novel.
In the city of Puck's Port, where motorized vehicles fill the streets and new technological marvels abound, something rotten is lurking under the surface. A violent murder at the docks seems to point to a fey killer, igniting a powder keg of distrust between the city's humans and its fey inhabitants — folks who wield wonderful but often uncontrollable magical power.
Gristle Senan Maxim Junior finds himself caught in the middle. Forced into the reluctant role of private investigator, like his late father, he's working to solve the mystery of this fiery murder . . . mainly because his sister, Hawthorne Stregoni, is a fey herself with an unfortunate penchant for setting things ablaze.
Hawthorne is part of an experimental study to control feyism but struggles to keep her powerful magic in check in a country that hates what she is. Can she and Gristle work together to find the true instigator of the murder before it's too late?
I have been promised gender-weirdness, which, on top of the changeling stuff, means I’m excited to try this!
You can read an excerpt here (where it says Look Inside beneath the book cover)!
What a Fish Looks Like by Syr Hayati Beker Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Magical Realism, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Nonbinary MCs, queer MCs
Published on: 4th September 2025
Goodreads
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What are the stories we need to survive?
In ten days, the last spaceship is leaving for a new planet. Some of us will stay on Earth. How do we decide?
#TeamEarth. Once upon a time, the oceans were full of fish and the forests dark with brambles. Seb read about it in a book of fairy tales, and memory means hope.
#TeamShip. Adaptation means knowing when to walk away. Jay is ready. So their ex, Seb, shows up on the dance floor, T-minus-10. What’s the harm in one last dance?
What if the stories themselves are evolving?
Told in margin notes, posters, letters scrawled on napkins, and six retellings of classic fairy tales, What A Fish Looks Like gathers the stories of a queer community co-creating one another through the strange landscapes of climate change, wondering who is going to love us when there are not, in fact, plenty of fish in the sea.
And now this book belongs to you.
This is an odd one, set a bit in the future during climate collapse, but with magical realism woven in? And a cast full of trans and nonbinary people! It’s mixed media – the conceit is that most of it is marginalia in another book, and there are flyers and things included too, with scribbles from the characters on them. Personally, I found the climate/society collapse really depressing, but many other early readers didn’t, and it’s an objectively lovely book!
Eight Doors from Dawn to Midnight by Rachel Neumeier Genres: Fantasy
Representation: East Asian (?) MCs
Published on: 4th September 2025
Goodreads
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Long ago, Vích took her younger brother and fled the mysterious but terrible fate their mother intended for them both.
Bound together by her curse and his gift, neither Vích nor Lahn have ever needed to fear any of the ordinary dangers that beset mortal people. But they have never been safe from those who would use them both in pursuit of power beyond life and death.
Now those enemies have found them.
The world will never be the same.
NEW RACHEL NEUMEIER! In an entirely new setting! (I think this might be her first non-Toyo-verse fantasy in a WHILE.) No idea what this one’s about, but there’s a tiger AND a dragon on the cover, so I’m very excited! (I also don’t know whether it’s meant to be Adult or YA – most of the Neumeier books I’ve read work well as either.)
Will you be reading any of these? Did I miss any releases you think I should know about? Let me know!
The post Must-Have Monday #252 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.
Must-Have Monday #252 1st-7th
Must-Have Monday is a feature highlighting which of the coming week’s new releases I’m excited for. It is not meant to be a comprehensive list of all books being published that week; only those I’m interested in out of those I’m aware of! The focus is diverse SFF, but other stuff sneaks in occasionally too.
THIRTEEN books this week!
(Books are listed in order of pub date, then Adult SFF, Adult Other, YA SFF, YA Other, MG SFF.)
Daevas 1 by Milan Sno Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MC
Published on: 1st September 2025
Goodreads
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In a world ravaged by holy war, Ari clings to one truth: mouths lie, but blood does not. Haunted by the past and desperate for answers, he turns to Auovin—a demon whose secrets could unravel everything Ari believes.
What follows is a journey of uneasy revelations and slow-burning desire, where the lines between love and betrayal, redemption and damnation blur. Guided—and tormented—by Auovin, Ari must confront not only the war’s deeper truths but the shifting foundations of his own identity.
Daevas: Volume One is the beginning of a dark, emotionally charged fantasy saga told across three volumes. With lyrical prose, mythic intimacy, and haunting introspection, it explores the cost of truth, the pull of identity, and the price of being seen in a broken world.
I’ve seen a few early readers warning that this is ‘literary’ fantasy and pretty low on actual magic, but it could still be worth a try!
The Nga'phandileh Whisperer by Eugen Bacon Genres: Adult, Horror, Science Fantasy
Representation: African-inspired cast and setting
Published on: 2nd September 2025
Goodreads
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When a precocious Guardian in Sector Z in New Inku’lulu—an elite space outpost—misuses her sound magic, the Guardians punish her by stripping away her magical ability.
Now Chant’L is exiled to Savage Mound, a sound island on planet Wiimb-ó, and grows increasingly vengeful—until she discovers that magic is inborn, never truly lost or taken. She channels energy from two spirit moons and reclaims her sound magic.
Chant’L summons the Nga’phandileh, creatures of unreality. But her magic is more than she bargained for when an uncontained trinity of the hive mind slips from unreality and brings peril to the federation of planets.
Now the Guardians in Sector Z find themselves with a massive catastrophe they must not only keep secret, but resolve.
A science fiction horror from an award-winning queen of Afro-Irreal genre bending.
A glossary of Bantu, Afrocentric and authorly-crafted words complements this genre-bending, cross-cultural novella. Something beautiful, something dark in lyrical language packed with affection, dread, anguish and hope.
The Sauútiverse is an amazingly epic shared universe, science fantasy with sound and music magic and African-inspired worldbuilding. Most of the stories and books set in it are standalones, and Nga’phandileh Whisperer is too – so you don’t have to have read any Sauútiverse before jumping in!
(Though if you do want more of it, I suggest starting with Mothersound, which is a collection of short stories across the Saútiverse timIine!)
Moonflow by Bitter Karella Genres: Adult, Horror, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Fat trans MC, sapphic MCs
Published on: 2nd September 2025
Goodreads
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Moonflow is three-time Hugo Award nominee Bitter Karella's debut horror novel-a gloriously queer and irreverent psychedelic trip into the heart of an eldritch wood and the horrors of sisterhood. Answer the call of the forest, if you dare.
I see something out there, in the woods. It does not have a face.
They call it the King's Breakfast. One bite and you can understand the full scope of the universe; one bite and you can commune with forgotten gods beyond human comprehension. And it only grows deep in the Pamogo forest, where the trees crowd so tight that the forest floor is pitch black day and night, where rumors of strange cults and disappearing hikers abound.
Sarah makes her living growing mushrooms. When a bad harvest leaves her in a desperate fix, the lure of the King's Breakfast has her journeying into those vast uncharted woods. Her only guide is the most annoying man in the world, and he's convinced there's no danger. But as they descend deeper, they realize they're not alone. Something is luring them into the heart of the forest, and they must answer its call.
Weird and gross exactly as intended, with lots of revelling in the…physicality of bodies? Not sure how to articulate it, but a certain kind of Horror fan is going to LOVE this one!
You can read an excerpt here!
Angel Maker by Elizabeth Bear Genres: Adult, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi, Historical Fantasy
Representation: Sapphic MC, sapphic Desi girlfriend
Published on: 2nd September 2025
Goodreads
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Every cowboy story needs a horse no man can ride.
No man—but Miss Karen Memery is all woman. When she and her beloved Priya sign on to do stunts for a motion picture about a rogue Mechanical named Cowboy and a Wild West show, she finds the horse of her dreams: Angel Maker.
Her plans to rescue him from a deadly stunt are ambitious enough, but she’s soon beset by even greater threats when two men are murdered brutally. Cowboy and Priya are arrested for the crime, and Karen must prove them innocent—and save the life of the wild stallion too!
"The surprise sequel that Karen Memory fans needed! A novel of strong emotional bonds, chasing after mysteries, and adventures at the dawn of motion pictures. Ladies and gentlemachines, this book was worth the wait."—John Wiswell, author of Someone You Can Build A Nest In
"Karen and her world are a delight!"—Katherine Addison, author of The Goblin Emperor
NEW KAREN MEMORY ADVENTURE!!! I just finished rereading the first book, and the novella, to be ready for this, and I loved them just as much as I did when they first came out. PRETTY SURE I’LL LOVE THIS AS WELL!
Dwellers: A Novel: Winner of the Philippine National Book Award by Eliza Victoria Genres: Adult, Sci Fi
Representation: Filipino (?) cast and setting
Published on: 1st June 2014
Goodreads
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This dark fantasy is sure to take your breath away.
The rules are strict and absolute:
Rule No. 1: Don't kill the body you inhabit.
Rule No. 2: Never mention your previous name again.
Rule No. 3: Don't talk about your previous life. Ever.
But what happens when, in escaping your old life by stealing a new one, you jump out of the frying pan and into the fire?
Cousins from a clan of dwellers--people who inhabit the bodies and lives of others--become brothers when they take over the bodies of Jonah and Louis. An injury forces them to remain in the brothers' house, where they discover that the basement holds a dead body! As old and new secrets come to light, it becomes clear there is no such thing as actions without consequences.
Fans of Richard Morgan, Adam Silvera, and Blake Crouch's speculative fiction will adore Eliza Victoria's action-packed supernatural mystery. Winner of the Philippine National Book Award, Dwellers is the urban fantasy novel that you won't want to miss!
This is apparently a very short novel, but the reviews I’ve seen for it are GLOWING. Really curious about the premise!
A Blood as Bright as the Moon by Andrea Morstabilini Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Gay MC
Published on: 2nd September 2025
Goodreads
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A vampire, desperately torn between worlds, is hunted down by a secret society bent on his destruction, in this elegiac and unsettling queer gothic horror, perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher and Silvia Moreno-Garcia.
Frankenstein, Germany. Ambrose, a young vampire, lives a life secreted away from the modern world with the rest of his clan, all of them under the spell of the charismatic Regina, who spins stories of salvation for their kind. Their grand plan? To build makeshift wings and fly to the moon where a safe haven awaits for all vampires.
But Ambrose harbours a secret: he is not ready to abandon the earth, and he is in contact with a human who believes he can be saved. As the rest of his kind prepare to flee their home, Ambrose is torn between loyalties.
However something else is on the horizon – the Royal Diurnal Society – a group with sinister plans for vampires, are closing in, and if Ambrose isn’t careful, he could find himself right at the centre of a terrifying and mysterious experiment.
Okay, this didn’t work for me at all, but I still wanted to include it in case it works for some of you!
You can read an excerpt here!
Crying Out For Magic by P.S.C. Willis Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, New Adult, Queer Protagonists
Published on: 2nd September 2025
Goodreads
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A meet-cute across worlds!
Draven Montrose’s world, Galdorsfarne, is like a soggy firework; so much potential, so little sparkle. Magic is running out, and so are his dating options. Whilst he should be grateful for a cruelty-free world, he’s never known anything else. His (entirely realistic and modest) goals for the year are to solve the magical energy crisis…and get a proper boyfriend.
Niall Silverstein lives in Northern England, wishing fantasy stories were real and he had the guts to talk to cute boys. He isn’t out to his parents, he’s never kissed anyone, and he’s convinced he’ll die alone in a corner of the library, a spotty and unloved nerd.
A magical portal between worlds and a chance meeting might be all that’s needed to fix both their broken worlds. But does Draven’s world contain enough magic to keep their meetings going?
Fantasy / Romance / LGBT / gay / BL
Adult and New Adult
An inter-dimensional meet-cute? I predict adorableness!
Honeyeater by Kathleen Jennings Genres: Adult, Horror
Published on: 2nd September 2025
Goodreads
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A richly imagined dark fantasy that pulses with the beautiful destruction of a town reclaimed by the natural world.
Sub-tropical Bellworth is founded on floodplains and root-bound secrets. And Charlie, remarkable only for vanished friends and a successful sister, plans to leave for good, just as soon as he deals with his dead aunt’s house. Then Grace arrives, desperate, with roses pressing up through her skin, and drags Charlie into the ghost-choked mysteries of Bellworth, uncovering the impossible consequences of loss and desire — and a choice Charlie made when he was a boy.
But peeling back the rumors and lies that cocoon the suburb disturbs more than complacent neighbors and lost souls. And Charlie and Grace are forced to a decision that threatens not only their lives, but all they believed those lives could be.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Jennings is very famous for her art, but I think this is her book debut? Always awe-inspiring when artists reveal they’re also writers!
You can read an excerpt here!
Crime Ink: Iconic: An Anthology of Crime Fiction Inspired by Queer Icons by Multiple Writers, Salem West Genres: Adult, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MCs
Published on: 2nd September 2025
Goodreads
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Prepare for intrigue, suspense, and unforgettable twists in this groundbreaking anthology of queer crime fiction.
In 2023, crime fiction anthologies featured 517 stories across 30 titles—but shockingly, fewer than 1 percent were penned by LGBTQ+ writers. Crime Iconic (An Anthology of Crime Fiction Inspired by Famous Queer Icons) is a resounding response to this glaring disparity, offering a vibrant collection of stories by and about queer authors and characters.
Drawing inspiration from queer icons—James Baldwin, Oscar Wilde, Candy Darling, Radclyffe Hall, Babadook, Megan Rapinoe, Laverne Cox, Dolly Parton, Vita Sackville-West, and many more—these tales span the rich spectrum of crime fiction, from cozy mysteries and whodunits to noir, psychological thrillers, and police procedurals. Each story is a testament to the depth, ingenuity, and thrilling originality of queer voices in the genre.
This anthology showcases an incredible array of talent, including New York Times Best Crime Novels of 2024 honorees Margot Douaihy, Robyn Gigl, John Copenhaver, and Katrina Carrasco; Lambda Literary winners Ann Aptaker, Greg Herren, Ann McMan, and J.M. Redmann; and other celebrated writers like Cheryl Head, Penny Mickelbury, Christa Faust, and Kelly J. Ford. But that’s not all—this collection also includes many more decorated and emerging voices, ensuring a dynamic reading experience as inclusive as it is entertaining.
With a foreword by Ellen Hart and an afterword by Katherine V. Forrest, two luminaries of queer crime fiction, this anthology is more than a collection of stories—it’s a movement. Bursting with intrigue, twists, and unforgettable characters, Crime Iconic is essential reading for crime fiction fans and anyone who craves representation in the stories they love.
Includes stories
Jeffrey Marks • Ann Aptaker • Ann McMan • Cheryl Head • Meredith Doench • Kelly J. Ford • Margot Douaihy • Christa Faust • Robyn Gigl • Greg Herren • Anne Laughlin • Kristen Lepionka • Katrina Carrasco • Mia Manansala • Renee James • Penny Mickelbury • Diana DiGangi • Baxter Clare Trautman • JM Redmann • Katherine V. Forrest • Stephanie Gayle• Marco Carocari • Jeffrey Round• David Pederson • Christopher Bollen • John Copenhaver
Edited
John Copenhaver • Salem West
If you’ve hung around here for a while, you know crime is not my usual genre – Pagans being a very unusual (and speculative) exception! – but this is such a cool idea for a collection that I think I need to take a peek at it!
You can get a rundown on all the stories inside here!
SURVIVA: A Future Ancestral Field Guide by Cannupa Hanska Luger Genres: Adult, Nonfiction
Published on: 2nd September 2025
Goodreads
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An ambitious, world-envisioning work of Indigenous futurism.
Since 2015—through a proliferation of forms including sculpture, regalia, film, photography, poetry, painting, and installation—acclaimed multimedia artist Cannupa Hanska Luger has been weaving together strands of a new myth. Collectively referred to as Future Ancestral Technologies, this sprawling series of interrelated works seeks to reimagine Indigenous life and culture in a postcolonial world where space exploration has reduced and reconfigured the earth’s population.
Part graphic novel, part art book, A Future Ancestral Field Guide offers readers a view beneath, beyond, and between the lines of Luger's ever-expanding artistic universe. In this ecstatically hybrid work, Luger transforms a 1970s military survival guide through poetic redaction, speculative fiction, and iterative line drawing—deftly surfacing and disrupting the colonial subconscious that haunts this vexed source text. An epic and timely meditation on planetary life in the midst of transformation, SURVIVA boldly presents an earth-based, demilitarized futuredream that foregrounds Indigenous knowledge as critical to humanity’s survival.
SURVIVA is the first title from Aora Books, a publishing imprint dedicated to exploring transformational thought and culture that transcends borders, disciplines, and traditions. Rooted in an ethos of polyvocality and planetary consciousness, Aora publishes works that forge bold connections across time, place, ideas, and beings often seen as separate.
Not quite sure what to expect of this one, but it looks interesting!
Bad in the Blood by Matteo L. Cerilli Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, YA
Representation: Queer MCs
Published on: 2nd September 2025
Goodreads
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In a world where magical beings, fey, are mistrusted and often institutionalized, a human brother and fey sister must team up to solve a bizarre murder in this 1920s-inspired queer teen fantasy novel.
In the city of Puck's Port, where motorized vehicles fill the streets and new technological marvels abound, something rotten is lurking under the surface. A violent murder at the docks seems to point to a fey killer, igniting a powder keg of distrust between the city's humans and its fey inhabitants — folks who wield wonderful but often uncontrollable magical power.
Gristle Senan Maxim Junior finds himself caught in the middle. Forced into the reluctant role of private investigator, like his late father, he's working to solve the mystery of this fiery murder . . . mainly because his sister, Hawthorne Stregoni, is a fey herself with an unfortunate penchant for setting things ablaze.
Hawthorne is part of an experimental study to control feyism but struggles to keep her powerful magic in check in a country that hates what she is. Can she and Gristle work together to find the true instigator of the murder before it's too late?
I have been promised gender-weirdness, which, on top of the changeling stuff, means I’m excited to try this!
You can read an excerpt here (where it says Look Inside beneath the book cover)!
What a Fish Looks Like by Syr Hayati Beker Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Magical Realism, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Nonbinary MCs, queer MCs
Published on: 4th September 2025
Goodreads
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What are the stories we need to survive?
In ten days, the last spaceship is leaving for a new planet. Some of us will stay on Earth. How do we decide?
#TeamEarth. Once upon a time, the oceans were full of fish and the forests dark with brambles. Seb read about it in a book of fairy tales, and memory means hope.
#TeamShip. Adaptation means knowing when to walk away. Jay is ready. So their ex, Seb, shows up on the dance floor, T-minus-10. What’s the harm in one last dance?
What if the stories themselves are evolving?
Told in margin notes, posters, letters scrawled on napkins, and six retellings of classic fairy tales, What A Fish Looks Like gathers the stories of a queer community co-creating one another through the strange landscapes of climate change, wondering who is going to love us when there are not, in fact, plenty of fish in the sea.
And now this book belongs to you.
This is an odd one, set a bit in the future during climate collapse, but with magical realism woven in? And a cast full of trans and nonbinary people! It’s mixed media – the conceit is that most of it is marginalia in another book, and there are flyers and things included too, with scribbles from the characters on them. Personally, I found the climate/society collapse really depressing, but many other early readers didn’t, and it’s an objectively lovely book!
Eight Doors from Dawn to Midnight by Rachel Neumeier Genres: Fantasy
Representation: East Asian (?) MCs
Published on: 4th September 2025
Goodreads
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Long ago, Vích took her younger brother and fled the mysterious but terrible fate their mother intended for them both.
Bound together by her curse and his gift, neither Vích nor Lahn have ever needed to fear any of the ordinary dangers that beset mortal people. But they have never been safe from those who would use them both in pursuit of power beyond life and death.
Now those enemies have found them.
The world will never be the same.
NEW RACHEL NEUMEIER! In an entirely new setting! (I think this might be her first non-Toyo-verse fantasy in a WHILE.) No idea what this one’s about, but there’s a tiger AND a dragon on the cover, so I’m very excited! (I also don’t know whether it’s meant to be Adult or YA – most of the Neumeier books I’ve read work well as either.)
Will you be reading any of these? Did I miss any releases you think I should know about? Let me know!
The post Must-Have Monday #252 1st-7th appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.
August 31, 2025
In Short: August
The heatwave here finally broke, the spouse is on vacation…that’s about it, really, things have been nice and unexciting. Except in my head, where the stories have been playing!
(I did have a galaxy-brain moment wherein I realised that, since the spouse and I met via online text roleplaying and I loved him as a(n?) rp partner before I loved him romantically, this means that my extremely persnickety taste in writing styles is what brought me and the love of my life together. I SHALL NEVER APOLOGISE FOR BEING PICKY ABOUT PROSE EVER AGAIN!)
ARCs Received
Lots of promisingly WEIRD arcs this month! Millennium Bug, alas, already proved not to be to my taste, but I’m loving Oblivion’s Hymn so far, where we have shapeshifters and divine magics galore. The Iron Garden Sutra has been on my radar for ages, and since I’m auto-approved for that publisher I nabbed it the second it showed on Netgalley!
One Morning Sun is the finale of Avi Silver’s Sãoni Cycle (EEEEEEEEE!), and Hell’s Heart is Alexis Hall’s first sci fi (I plan to read it simultaneously with Uncontinented Stars, since the premises are so similar and I want to compare them!)
Strange Animals is the first fiction offering by the person behind the cryptonature tumblr I’ve followed for years (nothing to do with crypto currency, just spooky woodsy feels), so I’m very curious to see what it’s like!
The Heart of the Nhaga was on my Unmissable list for this year until it was pushed back to 2026, and We Will Rise Again is a collection of stories and nonfic essays about resisting fascism – a collaboration between very well-known authors and equally well-known protest organisers.
Canon sounds utterly bizarre and has promised to be very queer – in some listings it has the subtitle A Nonbinary Epic, so, you know, obviously I had to check it out. I already know from glancing through it that it’s written in a more experimental style, so I’m hopeful!
Read
25 books read this month! Many of which were novellas, which obviously upped the numbers by a LOT. I’m still thrilled!
I loved Earth Logic EVEN MORE than I loved Fire Logic last month, and I was absolutely obsessed with Lessons in Magic and Disaster, where weird queer witches made many messes and nobody should blame them ever. The Duke is a sapphic regency romance in an England where women can be lords, and it knocked me RIGHT out of a reading slump and the start of a depression-spiral – so many glittery Feels! I thought I was going to DNF Hymn to Dionysus, but instead it went on my favourites shelf; I just couldn’t get enough of the prose, so many stunning turns of phrase. The Thread That Binds is one I’d previously DNFed a few times, but again, won a spot on my favourites shelf: low-stakes fantasy about making magic books, how the hells could I NOT love it??? Origins of Desire in Orchid Fens was strange and beautiful, water spirits and Roma and environmentalism in a novella where most chapters were just a page or two.
Rereads included most of the Penric & Desdemona series and some of the Rivers of London books, to refresh my memories before diving into the latest instalment in each (it’ll be a while before I get to the new RoL book, I guess!) Karen Memory, too, I reread because the sequel is out NEXT WEEK (well, the first full-length sequel – we did have a novella sequel years back).
DNFed
I guess it makes sense that in a month where I read more than usual, I also DNFed more books than usual! I feel genuine regret for a few of these, though.
(Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil wasn’t listed in yesterday’s DNF post, because I defenestrated it after the post went live, but I’ll add it later.)
Reviewed
Stunned and delighted by how many reviews I got written in August! AND most of them weren’t for arcs!!! (My mini-reviews of What a Fish Looks Like and Karen Memory go live next Sunday, which is why you haven’t seen them yet.) I feel like I had an easier time this month saying ‘it doesn’t have to be perfect’? Which took a lot of the pressure off, which made writing easier.
I doubt I’ll be able to keep writing this much in the near future – knowing how my body works, I’m probably due a collapse – but I need to keep the mentality, clearly.
Next Up(Discounting arcs and new releases, ofc)
I have so many arcs whose release dates are in October – so those are what I need to focus on in September. But I also want to get to Adventure of the Demonic Ox, the latest Penric & Penric & Desdemona novella, and continue my Rivers of London reread! The newest Warriors’ Guild book is waiting for me too, and I need to read Three Seeking Stars before I can pick up my arc of One Morning Sun. I adored Legendborn when I read it last month and really want to get to the sequel, Bloodmarked, and since my Rainbow Crate edition of How to Survive This Fairytale should show up this month, I’d like to finally get to that as well!
ARCs Outstanding
No comment!
Unmissable SFF UpdatesI belatedly added The Sign of the Dragon to this year’s Unmissable list, which brings us to 82 books! I also got to add some covers – we officially have no more covers-to-be-revealed entries, they all have their covers now! – and adjust the release date for The Entanglement of Rival Wizards, which I had listed as in September but at some point was moved up to the end of this month instead. Woo!
Now because I didn’t do them last month, I’m going to have a rundown of the Unmissables for July AND August here!
How did my predictions/anticipated reads for July go? I declared twelve books Unmissable for July, and–
one was a four-star read (Daughters of Flood and Fury)eight were DNFs (Moonrising, Secret Market of the Dead, Bloodless Queen, Resistance of Witches, Library of Hellebore, Beasts of Caraval, Blood Slaves, Memory Hunters, and Silvercloak) – although Library and Blood Slaves were by no means bad, just far too scary/dark for me!two I haven’t gotten to yet (Stone and Sky and Covenant of lce)That’s…pretty abysmal! Yikes. Most of the DNFs were new-to-me authors, so I guess I continue to really suck at gauging authors I haven’t read yet. Or – since I’d imagine most people can’t judge an author before they read them! – it’s probably a reflection of how picky my tastes are. Hm. I should do some kind of survey of how many new-to-me authors I’ve loved this year… Try and guesstimate what the odds are I’ll enjoy a new author, and see if they’re really all that low?
How did my predictions/anticipated reads for August go? I declared seven books Unmissable for this month, and–
two were five-star reads (Mad Sisters of Esi and Lessons In Magic and Disaster)one was a four-star read (The Entanglement of Rival Wizards)one was a three and a half read (Hemlock & Silver)two were DNFs (House of Dusk and Katabasis) – though again, I thought House of Dusk was pretty great, just not for me.one I haven’t finished yet, but am entirely in love with (Helm)MUCH better than July! And it’s the exact opposite situation: almost all of these books were from authors I already know. Which is likely very relevant!!!
MiscThe Every Month Is Pride list got a big update this month – a whole bunch of new books added, ones I wasn’t aware of or somehow forgot about when I first put the list together!
I put way more thought and work into my 10 Books Sure to End Your Reading Slump list than anybody asked for, but I had a lot of fun with it – and I stand by my selection!
Pagebound is an alternative to Goodreads and Storygraph that I stumbled upon this month, and have been enjoying a lot! The creators, inspired by fanfiction sites like archiveofourown, have reimagined a lot of features we’re familiar with – like the quests in place of Storygraph’s reading challenges, where only one user chooses the books instead of everyone contributing possible selections. (I am, obviously, ridiculously delighted that I can now make lists which other readers can’t mess with, although I do hope there’s an option for collaborative ones, and collaborative quest-suggestions, at some point.) There’s a reading challenge WITH A SANE LAYOUT (why does Storygraph make us scroll forever to see our reading challenge and why did Goodreads decide to copy them?!), a reading plan function that I am about to become obsessed with, a forum for every book to make it easier to discuss them with other readers, HALF-STAR RATINGS – and no Amazon or ‘AI’. There’s a few niggly bits and pieces that need polish, but I have faith they’ll get it. I encourage you to try it out! (And if you’d like to be friends, my username is Siavahda!)
Looking Forward
A most eclectic mix to look forward to next month! Almost all of them indie, too! Audition For the Fox is already one of my favourites of the year, but I can’t wait to see how everyone else reacts to it; Bind Me Tighter Still is mermaid burlesque with real mermaids. Summer War is one I wouldn’t be interested in from a different author, to be honest, but it’s Novik so I’m hyped! Angel Maker is the newest Karen Memory adventure, and One Morning Sun, as mentioned above, closes out the Sãoni Cycle. And last but likely not least, a new fantasy from Rachel Neumeier that I know nothing about! No idea what to expect, but the odds are good that I’ll love it!
What new releases are everyone else looking forward to?
And now, let us all go ahead and have a stupedous September!
The post In Short: August appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.
August 29, 2025
Queer Shapeshifters and Cultural Change: Skin-Singer by Heather Rose Jones
Skin-Singer: Tales of the Kaltaoven by Heather Rose Jones Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: F/F, queernorm world
PoV: First-person, past-tense
ISBN: 1942794061
Goodreads
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~shapeshifting via song
~demanding different choices
~sometimes self-interested people are very helpful
~squirrel shapeshifters make excellent wood-carvers
~‘I will give you wings.’
Heather Rose Jones is the author of the very sapphic Regency fantasy Alpennia, which I love very much and recommend. So when I heard she was publishing a new collection – of queer shapeshifter stories! – OBVIOUSLY I POUNCED!
I have no idea how I was unaware of the Kaltaoven stories, but unsurprisingly I love them! The Kaltaoven are a secretive, oft-persecuted people who use enchanted animal skins and songs to transform into birds and animals. The skins – which are usually in cloak-form – are not something just any Kaltaoven can create; only someone with the inmate gifts and (crucially!) the training of a skin-singer can make new ones. Skin-singers can also pick up and use any skin, whereas other Kaltaoven can only use a skin whose song they know. Each skin’s song is unique, and I do mean each individual skin – two raven-skins will each have their own song, rather than all raven-skins sharing the same one.
Most of the Kaltaoven stories were written and first published decades ago, but a) since I never read the originals these were all new to me, b) Jones has edited here and there to help with continuity, and c) the final and longest story is new to this book. They form a very clear arc; we first meet Laaki, a skin-singer without a clan, in very dramatic circumstances, and through her we are introduced to Ashóli, who is the narrator and protagonist of all but the first two stories, and who is pivotal in the Kaltaoven people finding a new place in the world. The final story ties off the knot of the tale in an immensely satisfying way – and even if some might find the shape of the happy ending a little cliche, the story itself is wonderful enough that I doubt anyone will mind (and besides, it’s very in-character for a certain character to want this kind of ‘white picket fence’). Myself, I cheered at the final lines!
Besides the superficially simple but extremely excellent worldbuilding (the Kaltaoven culture was so interesting!) what I loved about this series was how completely it went against genre expectations – and in the process, was very gently anti-grimdark. Kaltaoven are often persecuted – Laaki is running for her life when we first meet her – and in most books a happy ending would probably involve them building a new home in some place without non-Kaltaoven people, or stumbling across a realm that was already a haven for shapeshifters. Jones takes neither approach, and while she never claims people are perfect – the non-Kaltaoven who open their arms to the shapeshifters are absolutely doing so for their own interest – there’s nonetheless a quietly powerful messaging throughout that most humans aren’t terrible, actually. I loved seeing how, story by story, Ashóli and the rest were able to let go of Kaltaoven habits of secrecy, bit by bit, as the people around them made that secrecy less and less necessary – or, rather, proved day by day that the Kaltaoven could trust them.
This makes for changes to Kaltaoven culture that, again, were really interesting – and it was very believable to me that Ashóli et al weren’t always sure all those changes were good. But they weren’t bad, either.
I don’t know: it just made me really happy to see, for once, stories where prejudice was worn away, and fear was gradually proven unnecessary, rather than a theme of Human Nature Is Immutably Awful And Will Never Improve. The latter is very depressing, and boring, and I don’t buy it anyway (if you need convincing, please check out Humankind by Rutger Bregman, which I think ought to be mandatory reading) but it’s frustratingly common in fantasy – especially in Medieval- or pre-Medieval-esque settings, like the one in Skin-Singer.
The prose was plainer than I prefer, but not blunt or dry, and I appreciated how much Jones shows rather than tells us – a fair bit is left for the reader to put together or infer, rather than beating us around the head with spelling everything out. There’s the strong sense that Jones trusts the reader to understand her stories, her world and her characters, and I really enjoyed that. Speaking of, every character we met was incredibly life-like – there were basically decent people making terrible decisions, characters doing awful things out of fear, people desperate or keeping secrets or making irrational choices because they’re lovestruck. Everybody felt complicated – and, important for me personally, not intentionally cruel or evil, just scared or stupid. (I grant, you can still do plenty of harm acting out of fear or ignorance, whatever your intentions.) Even the most minor characters with the smallest amount of page-time felt like real, breathing people – which shouldn’t have surprised me, since the Alpennia series is the same way! And throughout all the stories, I loved the emphasis on cleverness and what I can only call diplomacy or social skills, how often the characters succeed with tricksiness and by thinking outside of the box, instead of conventional strength or overwhelming magical power or the like.
So yes – I enjoyed this greatly, and strongly recommend it!
Trigger warnings: [View post to see spoiler]
The post Queer Shapeshifters and Cultural Change: Skin-Singer by Heather Rose Jones appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.
August 27, 2025
I Can’t Wait For…The Driftcap Inn by Kate Valent
Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted over at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about but haven’t yet read. Most of the time they’re books that have yet to be released, but not always. It’s based on the Waiting on Wednesday meme, which was originally hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.
You can find the releases I’m most anticipating this year over on my Unmissable list, but I use Can’t-Wait Wednesday to feature books I’m hopeful about but aren’t 100% sure will be five star reads.
This week my Can’t-Wait-For Book is The Driftcap Inn by Kate Valent!
The Driftcap Inn (Innkeepers of Itharos Book 1) by Kate Valent Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
Published on: 8th September 2025
Goodreads
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Howl’s Moving Castle meets Legends & Lattes in this cozy fantasy set on a magical inn in the sky.
Welcome to The Driftcap Inn, a cozy perch among the clouds. Drift on in and stay awhile!
In all of Itharos no inn is more enchanting—or peculiar—than The Driftcap Inn, a cozy haven in the sky carved from a giant floating mushroom. Its owner, Eino the Wanderer, enjoys a life of breathtaking views and freedom from the petty wars and political intrigue of the kingdoms below. But a home set adrift in the vast, empty skies can also be unbearably lonely.
When a handsome and enigmatic apothecary named Joren comes aboard, an unexpected companionship blossoms between the two men, stirring the possibility of something deeper. But their peaceful journey through the clouds is shattered when a string of unsettling events threatens to send Eino’s home plummeting to the ground.
Something wicked is spreading its roots across The Driftcap Inn, and Eino suspects there’s much more to it than just bad luck. With dark secrets surrounding every guest and danger creeping ever closer, Eino must decide who he can trust with his life — and with his heart.
Cosy fantasy and I rarely click, but I keep trying! And the latest I’m excited to try is this one about a FLYING MUSHROOM INN! That immediately has the whimsy I demand of cosy!
I’ve heard good things about Valent’s other series, SerendipiTea (which gains points from me even before I’ve read it for the tea-themes and the puns!) so I’m hopeful this will be as wonderful as it sounds!
(And given the title of THIS series, I’m immediately curious about whether the next book will follow this same inn, or whether we’ll be introduced to a wholly new one?)
The post I Can’t Wait For…The Driftcap Inn by Kate Valent appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.
August 26, 2025
Truer Than Myth: The Sign of the Dragon by Mary Soon Lee
The Sign of the Dragon by Mary Soon Lee Genres: Adult, Fantasy, High Fantasy
Representation: Chinese-inspired setting and cast, minor queer character
PoV: Third-person, present-tense; multiple PoVs
ISBN: 1625674902
Goodreads
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Drawing on Chinese and Mongolian elements, award-winning poet Mary Soon Lee has penned an epic tale of politics, intrigue, and dragons perfect for fans of Game of Thrones and Beowulf.
As the fourth-born prince of Meqing, Xau was never supposed to be king. But when his three older brothers are all deemed unfit to rule and eaten by a dragon, as is the custom, Xau suddenly finds himself on the Meqinese throne. The early years of his reign are marred by brutal earthquakes and floods, and the long-simmering tension with the neighbouring country of Innis finally erupts into war. Worst of all, demons rise out of legend to walk the realm again, leaving death and destruction in their wake. In a desperate gamble, Xau must broker an uneasy peace with his former enemies and hope their combined strength is enough to vanquish the demons before it's too late.
The Sign of the Dragon is comprised of over 300 individual poems, including the Rhysling-winning "Interregnum." The first 60 poems appeared in the 2015 Dark Renaissance Books publication Crowned, which won the 2016 Elgin Award, and many individual poems have appeared in award-winning literary magazines such as Fantasy & Science Fiction, Spillway, and Strange Horizons. Collected together in its entirety for the very first time, with over 200 never-before-published poems, readers can finally enjoy King Xau's story of sacrifice and war and dragons from beginning to end.
~a snarky dragon
~horse-magic
~bodyguards to die for
~a most imperial cat
~brace for all the Feels
The Sign of the Dragon is not like any book you’ve ever read before, for a few reasons.
The most immediate and obvious is that each chapter is a poem. The reaction this has gotten, when I mentioned it to a few of my nearest and dearest, has universally been one of alarm: the idea of poetry is much more intimidating than prose, apparently! But there’s no need to be intimidated: speaking as someone who rarely Gets poetry, I found The Sign of the Dragon wonderfully easy to read and understand – so much so that at first I wasn’t sure why Lee had written the story in poem-form at all. As far as I could tell (not that my opinion is ever worth much re poetry) the poem-format wasn’t really doing anything. So why hadn’t this been written as prose instead?
In the distance, fire:
a lithe, live light leaping tree to tree.
I’m sure I missed a lot of what Lee was doing, but I did gradually realise that, actually, the poem-format was doing a lot. The part that was clearest to me was how writing this as a long (over 500 pages on my ereader) series of poems distilled the story; this book would have had to be three or four books if Lee had been writing in prose, because it would have been impossible to be as succinct in prose as poetry allowed her to be (at least, not without massively worsening the quality). Each poem captures the core of the scene or event that’s being written about, goes for the heart of the story and skips an immense amount of set-dressing.
But this doesn’t mean that there’s nothing – ‘extraneous’ is a terrible word, because it implies that what is not plot-relevant has little value, and that’s not correct. Lee could have used the distilling power of poetry to give us only plot, and I’m sure that would still have been wonderful, but it wouldn’t have been as breathcatching as The Sign of the Dragon turned out to be. Amidst the politicking and magic are quiet moments between Xau and his wife, Xau and his children, and the adventures of the palace cat. (The perspective of that last, by the way, is hysterical!) These add a softness to the epic that is not extraneous, that is in fact vital: this would be a very different book without them, and Xau would not be the living myth he is if he were not gentle, and if we did not get to see and experience the gentleness of him and around him.
Li stood,
watching over his king,
as the stars swept out the hours.
Xau is the heart of this book, and Lee does something genuinely incredible, and inspiring, with his character. I think there’s an idea that wholly good people don’t make for believable, or realistic, characters in Adult fiction; that kind of person belongs to fairytales, to stories that are simpler and therefore considered lesser. (Wrongly, but that’s a whole separate thesis!) But Xau is that good a person, so good he hearkens back to the fairytales you first heard when you were little, so good he should be hard to believe in. But he isn’t hard to believe in, because Lee expertly leads us in his footsteps, shows us his humanity so viscerally we can’t fail to believe it – we see him ill, exhausted, wounded, playing with his children, grieving, being lovestruck. We see how much he agonises over the difficult, necessary choices that comes with kingship. We see his discomfort with acclaim, how awkward he is with the spotlight, how he isn’t the legendary once-in-a-generation kind of warrior. He is real – he acts as so many of us would act (see: his relationship to his body-guards, a powerful, beautiful thread woven throughout the whole novel) – and because he is real… Because he is real, Lee slips him past our cynicism and you find your faith in humanity blossoming petal by petal in your chest, coming back to life like a resurrection plant given water.
(The water is your own breathless, aching tears, because oh, it hurts to feel shrivelled faith un-shrivel.)
Reinforcing this is that Xau is the only one like this. The rest of the cast are more ‘typical’, doing their best but, you know – imperfect. Mortal. And they, too, feel the awe, the disbelief – and then the wonder as that disbelief is gently dissolved – when faced with Xau. At no point does Lee, or the world she’s created, act as though Xau is normal – he surprises and inspires his friends and court and family as much as he does the reader. Seeing how many of the characters grow and become better people because he’s inspired them to do so is a small but wonderful part of the book, as are all those moments when people who don’t believe a word of Xau’s reputation are poleaxed when they meet him and discover that no, he really is as impossibly wonderful as the poets say. It’s a reminder of the kind of influence an individual can have, an influence that has nothing to do with kings and conventional power – the way that a determination to be good can change a world, bit by bit, slowly and quietly. Xau’s world is a normal world, and the contrast between him and his setting is just – it’s beautiful. It only makes him more beautiful, as a person, a soul, that he can be so good in a world that has just as many evils and darknesses as ours does.
The succinctness allowed by writing in poetry instead of prose allows Lee to give us so much more story than most novels can. The Sign of the Dragon isn’t one adventure: it’s many, because the book covers Xau’s entire life, and life doesn’t have just one big quest and then it’s done. There are wars and many kinds of politics, there are multiple kinds of magic, there’s international intrigue and drama within the palace and court. Those who set themselves up as Xau’s enemies – there isn’t just one, alas. This struck me as very believable, but also reminded me of epic myths – Xau is a hero, albeit not a terribly traditional one (just wait till you learn what his hero-power is!) and heroes often have to ride out over and over again. Heroes never get to finish, and they rarely get to rest. It doesn’t make the idea of being a hero very appealing, and I was heartbroken (and often terrified) for Xau. By the final third of the book, I wanted to drop each new villain in a volcano because HOW DARE THEY COME FOR THIS WONDERFUL MAN?
And of course, the multiple plots or adventures means there is always something interesting happening, for us readers! Although even the less dramatic plotlines – the softer ones, where Xau is a bit less mythic and a bit more mortal – were riveting for me. I thought Lee balanced the adventures with the softness perfectly; neither one ever outweighed the other for very long, and that was one of many elements that makes this book so special, so unique. The humanity woven in with the legend. I think that helped make it all feel more real, more true, as well; I can’t think of a single myth that shows me a hero fishing with his son, and getting that kind of thing here…made me believe in it even more. If that makes any sense at all.
The Sign of the Dragon is a myth-maker – or maybe it would be better to say, it’s the record of a myth, a myth’s life-cycle, from its first seeds to its riotous, searing blooming. We watch the myth be made, be grown; we watch it form, and only grow greater and greater because Xau never stops. Never. But it’s more than a myth, too, more than just a wonderful story (if there’s ever anything ‘just’ about a wonderful story): it’s an inspiration. It’s a renewal of your hope, fuel for your guttering heart-flame. It’s a soul-shaker, and I understand if you, too, are intimidated by the idea of a novel-in-verse – but I’m pleading with you to give it a chance anyway. Just writing up this review has had me in tears, being hit with the beauty and emotion of this book all over again. You can’t imagine what actually reading it is like!
Xau might not be a once-in-a-generation warrior – but his story is a once-in-a-generation book.
So go read it already!!!
The post Truer Than Myth: The Sign of the Dragon by Mary Soon Lee appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.
August 23, 2025
Crocodiles and Moon-Eating Dragons: Daughters of Flood and Fury by Gabriella Buba
Daughters of Flood and Fury (Stormbringer #2) by Gabriella Buba Genres: Adult, Fantasy, High Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Filipino-inspired cast and setting, bisexual MCs, lesbian MC, F/F
PoV: Third-person, past-tense; multiple PoVs
ISBN: 1803367830
Goodreads
In this powerful sequel to Saints of Storm and Sorrow, Lunurin and Alon struggle to unify the archipelago against the returning Codícians, while Inez embraces her power and makes new allies among the ruthless pirates of the South Sea.
Enthralling Filipino-inspired fantasy for fans of The Hurricane Wars, R.F. Kuang and Tasha Suri.
Several years after the defeat of the Codicíans in Aynila, Lunurin and Alon are fighting to solidify their alliances across the archipelago. But petty rivalries, suspicion and conflicted loyalties threaten to undermine their efforts.
Inez has been training as a tide-touched healer with Alon, but the gentle side of Aman Sinaya's gift does not come naturally to her. When she hears a rumour that her sister Catalina is living among a group of missionaries on a nearby island, Inez embarks on a dangerous journey over the sea. Aboard a pirate ship, she meets Umali, the boat's fierce fire-tender captain. Umali has never been gentle, and she burns brighter than anyone Inez has ever known.
Lunurin and Alon are desperate to follow Inez, but the Codicíans are closing in with a powerful armada to retake Aynila. To stand any chance, Lunurin must unify the disparate factions of her forces before the festival of the eclipse, when the world's magic will be at its strongest.
Three goddesses stand behind them. But without human allies, even that power may not be enough to save their islands and the people they love.
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
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~the storm-goddess is Not Happy
~dragon out to eat the moon
~the girlfriends that slay together, stay together
~sometimes you’ve just got to bring the typhoon
:Read my review for book one, Saints of Storm and Sorrow, here!:
:implicit spoilers for Saints of Storm and Sorrow ahead!:
The first book in this duology, Saints of Storm and Sorrow, freaking rocked! Daughters isn’t quite up to the same standard – ‘just’ great, rather than gasp-out-loud phenomenal – but I had a wonderful time with it, and strongly recommend it for everyone who loved book one!
In Saints, our POV characters were Lunurin, a rare stormcaller, and Alon, one of her love interests; in Daughters, Inez gets a POV too. In the last book, Inez was a child; in this one, five years later, she’s just barely an adult, struggling to find her place in the world. Like Alon, Inez is a tidecaller, and in their society that means she ought to be a healer. But she can’t seem to work her magic like other tidecallers, with the result that she hasn’t progressed to the point other tidecallers her age have. Given that, like Lunurin, she’s biracial, on an island that is fighting hard to cast out the ways of the Codicían colonisers (half Inez’s heritage), she’s in a pretty uncomfortable position. And it was pretty heartbreaking, seeing her try so hard to Not Be A Problem – since Lunurin and Alon adopted her, and their family is the one ruling their island, Inez knows that everything she does reflects on them politically, which only adds to her fears and stress. She doesn’t understand why she isn’t like other tidecallers – and unfortunately, Alon and her other teachers all seem to think the issue is a lack of practice, or that Inez just isn’t trying hard enough. It reminded me of chronic illness, actually – the growing certainty that there is Something Wrong With You, but no one will listen because no one understands.
To all the ones who survived, but healed wrong.
They broke our halos so we grew teeth.
Inez is a spiky, difficult character, largely due to the trauma she went through in her early life, and the events of Saints particularly. Buba says in her dedication that Daughters is for those who ‘healed wrong’, everyone who went through hell and didn’t come out the other side Nice – everyone whose trauma makes them Difficult. IT WAS SO UNBELIEVABLY GREAT TO SEE! I can think of literally one other series where I’ve encountered a deeply traumatised character who was really, genuinely Difficult because of it (Hollow Folk by Gregory Ashe, if you’re curious). We need a lot more rep like this, honestly.
And even aside from that, I just loved that Inez gets to be vicious. One of the things I dearly loved about Saints was the utter rejection of ‘violence is never an option’, and in Daughters Inez gets to be as monstrous as she wants – murdering, quite awfully, Codicíans and slavers and anyone else who wants to hurt her, her friends/family, or her people. IT WAS GREAT. A++ revenge fantasy, very cathartic, 10/10 for Inez getting to feed slave-traders to hungry crocodiles! Like – even if she HADN’T had trauma, I would have been delighted to get a heroine (anti-heroine?) who gets to be this angry and powerful and murderous!
she murmured her way through an Ave Maria. Silence. Nothing. Only the nagging feeling Catalina would be disappointed in her for not saying at least ten, with how long it had been since she’d attended confession. They sat on her tongue, waiting for her to finish her penance.
Penance for what? She’d always wanted to ask. They should be asking penance of her, begging on their knees, and it would never be enough.
Buba’s messaging re violence and trauma and survivors, specifically with regards colonisation – and also healing, and rebuilding/recreating, because you can never get the past back but you can build a future – isn’t just powerful and well-done: it’s woven into the worldbuilding! Tidecallers are almost universally healers – but Inez isn’t, and that feels extremely important in a world where magic comes from being chosen by a goddess. What does it mean, that Inez is a tidecaller, but more crocodile than healer? Is the ocean goddess sending a message to her people? Very possibly! I especially loved how this was woven into the myth of the laho, an ocean-dwelling serpent-dragon being who tries to eat the moon every once in a while. This is a real Filipino myth (specifically Tagalog, according to Wikipedia) and it was just so freaking COOL that Inez’s arc brought her to the laho – the laho is a real being in Inez’s world, but it was also a symbol, a different way of relating to the sea and to Inez’s tidecalling powers. Through the laho (and a badass fire-tender girlfriend) Inez learns that there’s nothing wrong with her – that she doesn’t have to be gentle. That she is what she’s supposed to be. I WAS SO VERY HAPPY FOR HER!
The laho is also pivotal to Lunurin’s half of the book; she and Alon are gathering their allies and potential-allies together for an event during which the laho will try to eat the moon, and Lunurin, Alon, and all their people must drive it away to stop that happening. No one is expecting this to be a problem – the laho regularly tries to do this, and humans regularly prevent it from succeeding – but there are immense tensions around this event: those who follow the indigenous faith of the islands are not super happy with those who’ve converted to Christianity under Codicían influence, and too many of the Christians think Lunurin and her mother-in-law (the leader of the island) should be assassinated. It doesn’t help that one of Alon’s brothers is (albeit understandably) virulently anti-Christian and keeps making things worse, including casting aspersions against the island’s allies.
Running beneath all the political and religious intrigue is Alon’s plotline, which mostly concerns him not telling Lunurin a Very Important Thing because he knows it’ll upset her, and this is an extremely bad time for her to be distracted. He knows he’s in the wrong, keeping this secret from her, but… I have to admit, this annoyed me – I hate this kind of nonsense, I always do. It felt less contrived in this book than many other examples I’ve come across, and I was cautiously pleased with how it was resolved, but it felt very unnecessary to me.
I think the main reason this didn’t end up another five-star read like Saints is that it was too much crammed into one book. I wish this duology had been a trilogy instead; Daughters felt very rushed, with a lot of very big happenings not really given enough time to breathe and have the impact they were clearly supposed to have. Inez’s romance with her fire-tender is a pretty good example; it wasn’t insta-love or anything, but we also didn’t really get to see the relationship develop – most of it happened off-page. The tensions between Aynila (Lunurin and Alon’s island) and the Stormfleet also needed a lot more room; especially given that those tensions involved family drama, with Lunurin’s biological family being very highly placed in the fleet, and bringing past hurts and the like into the politics. I loved how much page-time went to Lunurin’s relationship with her goddess, and what she, the stormcaller goddess, thought about the archipelago’s other stormcallers – but I wish we could have had the same kind of exploration and depth going into the relationship between all the tidecallers and their goddess, and what Inez’s unique tidecaller powers meant for that.
That being said, the final showdown was gloriously cinematic and gave me everything I wanted! Every plotline was resolved, every question was answered. And over the course of the whole book, there were plenty of wonderfully indulgent moments and scenes; there were so many surprises; there were so many THRILLS. I had shivers running down my spine multiple times; I gasped and I cheered and I might have teared up once or twice. (Or three times, but you’ll never prove it.) Books that make you feel things are priceless, and Daughters made me feel EVER SO MUCH.
I love these characters. I love this world. I will pounce on anything Buba writes in the future. I am so happy this series exists!!!
So if you haven’t read it already? GET ON THAT!
The post Crocodiles and Moon-Eating Dragons: Daughters of Flood and Fury by Gabriella Buba appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.
