Siavahda's Blog, page 5

Your Gender Binary is Only Imaginary: SFF For Non-Binary People’s Day!

Non-Binary Pride dragon by Kaenith!

It’s International Non-Binary People’s Day, so OBVIOUSLY I had to put a rec list together! Here are five books I’ve read and loved, and three that I haven’t read yet but am hoping I’ll love!

Read and RecommendedTwo Dark Moons (Sãoni Cycle, #1) by Avi Silver
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, YA
Representation: Nonbinary asexual MCs
Goodreads

Sohmeng Par is sick of being treated like a child. Ever since a tragic accident brought her mountain community’s coming-of-age ritual to a halt, she’s caused nothing but trouble in her impatience to become an adult. But when she finally has the chance to prove herself, she’s thrown from her life in the mountains and into the terror of the jungle below.

Cornered by a colony of reptilian predators known as the sãoni, Sohmeng is rescued by Hei, an eccentric exile with no shortage of secrets. As likely to bite Sohmeng as they are to cook her breakfast, this stranger and their family of lizards are like nothing she’s ever seen before. If she wants to survive, she must find a way to adapt to the vibrant, deadly world of the rainforest and the creatures that inhabit it—including Hei themself. But Sohmeng has secrets of her own, and sharing them could mean losing everything a second time.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-14T14:27:31+00:00", "description": "Angels, hiveminds, not-werewolves...!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/your-gender-binary-is-only-imaginary-sff-for-non-binary-peoples-day\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Two Dark Moons (S\u00e3oni Cycle, #1)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Avi Silver", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

Sometimes a family is you, the kid that screech-danced and bit you, and a pack of (not!-)murderous lizards. And that’s okay.

The moon phase you’re born under determines your gender in the culture here, which is a ridiculously cool idea that I’m still in love with. It’s even more complicated because the main character has been lied to about when she was born – and thus about her gender. Cue shenanigans!

I’ve recced Two Dark Moons before, but I’m bringing it up again because the final book comes out in September! So if you haven’t read this series yet, now is the BEST time to start!!!

Leech by Hiron Ennes
Genres: Adult, Horror, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Nonbinary MC
Goodreads

In an isolated chateau, as far north as north goes, the baron’s doctor has died. The doctor’s replacement has a mystery to solve: discovering how the Institute lost track of one of its many bodies.

For hundreds of years the Interprovincial Medical Institute has grown by taking root in young minds and shaping them into doctors, replacing every human practitioner of medicine. The Institute is here to help humanity, to cure and to cut, to cradle and protect the species from the apocalyptic horrors their ancestors unleashed.

In the frozen north, the Institute's body will discover a competitor for its rung at the top of the evolutionary ladder. A parasite is spreading through the baron's castle, already a dark pit of secrets, lies, violence, and fear. The two will make war on the battlefield of the body. Whichever wins, humanity will lose again.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-14T14:27:31+00:00", "description": "Angels, hiveminds, not-werewolves...!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/your-gender-binary-is-only-imaginary-sff-for-non-binary-peoples-day\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Leech", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Hiron Ennes", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

Let’s pivot sharply and have some horror! Have you ever seen a Post-Apocalyptic Gothic novel before? Would you like to??? Because that’s what Leech is, with plenty of body-horror in an icy, polar-like setting! Our main character is a parasitic hivemind so, you know, of course it doesn’t bother with nonsense like human gender. I’m sure if I was a parasitic hivemind I wouldn’t either.

My review!

The West Passage by Jared Pechaček
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Gender weirdness
Goodreads

A palace the size of a city, ruled by giant Ladies of unknowable, eldritch origin. A land left to slow decay, drowning in the debris of generations. All this and more awaits you within The West Passage, a delightfully mysterious and intriguingly weird medieval fantasy unlike anything you've read before.

When the Guardian of the West Passage died in her bed, the women of Grey Tower fed her to the crows and went back to their chores. No successor was named as Guardian, no one took up the fallen blade; the West Passage went unguarded.

Now, snow blankets Grey in the height of summer. Rats erupt from beneath the earth, fleeing that which comes. Crops fail. Hunger looms. And none stand ready to face the Beast, stirring beneath the poisoned soil.

The fate of all who live in the palace hangs on narrow shoulders. The too-young Mother of Grey House sets out to fix the seasons. The unnamed apprentice of the deceased Grey Guardian goes to warn Black Tower. Both their paths cross the West Passage, the ancient byway of the Beast. On their journeys they will meet schoolteachers and beekeepers, miracles and monsters, and very, very big Ladies. None can say if they'll reach their destinations, but one thing is for the world is about to change.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-14T14:27:31+00:00", "description": "Angels, hiveminds, not-werewolves...!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/your-gender-binary-is-only-imaginary-sff-for-non-binary-peoples-day\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The West Passage", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Jared Pecha\u010dek", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

In the West Passage, role is not tied to gender – instead, gender is tied to role, a small detail that disproportionately delighted me! Honestly, I loved everything about this: it’s extremely weird – think Medieval marginalia – but also grand and intense, like some of the strangest dreams you’ve ever had. AND it’s illustrated by the author!

My review!

The Devourers by Indra Das
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Desi MC, queer + nonbinary Desi MC, major nonbinary character, M/NB (or NB/NB?)
Goodreads

For readers of Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood, China Miéville, and David Mitchell comes a striking debut novel by a storyteller of keen insight and captivating imagination.

LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD WINNER •  NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST

On a cool evening in Kolkata, India, beneath a full moon, as the whirling rhythms of traveling musicians fill the night, college professor Alok encounters a mysterious stranger with a bizarre confession and an extraordinary story. Tantalized by the man’s unfinished tale, Alok will do anything to hear its completion. So Alok agrees, at the stranger’s behest, to transcribe a collection of battered notebooks, weathered parchments, and once-living skins.

From these documents spills the chronicle of a race of people at once more than human yet kin to beasts, ruled by instincts and desires blood-deep and ages-old. The tale features a rough wanderer in seventeenth-century Mughal India who finds himself irrevocably drawn to a defiant woman—and destined to be torn asunder by two clashing worlds. With every passing chapter of beauty and brutality, Alok’s interest in the stranger grows and evolves into something darker and more urgent.

Shifting dreamlike between present and past with intoxicating language, visceral action, compelling characters, and stark emotion, The Devourers offers a reading experience quite unlike any other novel.

Praise for The Devourers

“A chilling, gorgeous saga that spans several centuries and many lands . . . The all-too-human characters—including the nonhuman ones—and the dreamlike, recursive plot serve to entrance the reader. . . . There’s no escaping The Devourers . Readers will savor every bite.” —N. K. Jemisin, The New York Times Book Review

“ The Devourers  is beautiful. It is brutal. It is violent and vicious. . . . [It] also showcases Das’s incredible prowess with language and rhythm, and his ability to weave folklore and ancient legend with modern day loneliness.” — Tordotcom

“A wholly original, primal tale of love, violence, and transformation.” —Pierce Brown, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Red Rising Trilogy

“Astonishing . . . a narrative that takes possession of you and pulls you along in its wake.” —M. R. Carey, author of The Girl with All the Gifts

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-14T14:27:31+00:00", "description": "Angels, hiveminds, not-werewolves...!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/your-gender-binary-is-only-imaginary-sff-for-non-binary-peoples-day\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The Devourers", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Indra Das", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

Gender is very much one of the (many) things The Devourers is playing with, although it’s not as simple as characters using ungendered pronouns. Instead, the book features a race of shapeshifters who don’t seem to have gender (and possibly not biological sex? at least as we understand it?) in their non-human forms. But all the ones we meet have male human forms (this is a choice of theirs), and there’s a whole lot of calling out the misogyny that seems very deeply entrenched in their culture. If you’ve read more conventional/easier nonbinary sff already, then I think The Devourers has a lot to add to the conversation; there’s so much food for thought here!

And that aside from the fact that it’s one of the most beautiful, soul-shaking books I’ve ever read in my life.

(It’s also dark as fuck – the shapeshifters eat humans, which is not technically cannibalism because they’re not human, but hits the same ick factor for human readers; a big chunk of the plot revolves around a rape committed by one of the shapeshifters; brace for a lot of violence. If you have triggers, please go look up the warnings before diving in!)

Out of the Drowning Deep by A.C. Wise
Genres: Adult, Queer Protagonists, Science Fantasy
Representation: Nonbinary MC, gay MC
Goodreads

In the distant future, when mortals mingle with the gods in deep space, an out-of-date automaton, a recovering addict, and an angel race to solve the Pope’s murder in an abandoned corner of the galaxy.

Scribe IV is an obsolete automaton, peacefully whiling away his years on the Bastion, a secluded monastery in an abandoned corner of the galaxy. But when the visiting Pope is found murdered, Scribe IV knows he has very little time before the terrifying Sisters of the Drowned Deep rise up to punish the Bastion’s residents for their crime.

Quin, a recovering drug addict turned private investigator, picks up a scrambled signal from the Bastion and agrees to take the case. Traumatized by a bizarre experience in his childhood, Quin repeatedly feeds his memories to his lover, the angel Murmuration. But fragmented glimpses of an otherworldly horror he calls the crawling dark continue to haunt his dreams.

Meanwhile in Heaven, an angel named Angel hears Scribe IV’s prayer. Intrigued by the idea of solving a crime with mortals, xe descends to offer xer divine assistance (whether those mortals want it or not). With the Drowned Sisters closing in around the Bastion, Scribe IV, Quin, and Angel race to find out who really murdered the Pope, and why. Quin’s missing memories may hold the key to the case—but is remembering worth the price?

Haunting, dreamy and beautifully written, Out of the Drowning Deep is perfect for fans of Becky Chambers, Martha Wells, and This Is How You Lose the Time War.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-14T14:27:31+00:00", "description": "Angels, hiveminds, not-werewolves...!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/your-gender-binary-is-only-imaginary-sff-for-non-binary-peoples-day\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Out of the Drowning Deep", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "A.C. Wise", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

All the gods are real AND humans can invent new ones in this far-future setting, where sentient robots and actual angels can join up to solve a murder (of a POPE). This isn’t a book about gender, we ‘just’ have a nonbinary angel called Angel, and what am I not supposed to love about that???

My review!

Not Yet Read

If you’ve read any of these already, I’d love to know what you thought of them!

Yoke of Stars by R.B. Lemberg
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Brown queer cast, nonbinary MC
Goodreads

An apprentice assassin and an inquisitive linguist trade interwoven tales in order to enact revenge. Ukrainian author R. B. Lemberg (The Four Profound Weaves) returns to their legendary Birdverse in an ode to the transformative power of storytelling.

“Haunting, nuanced, and hopeful, Yoke of Stars is essential reading.”
—Izzy Wasserstein, author of These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart

In the School of Assassins, Stone Orphan waits for a first assignment. After their first kill, they will graduate and attain the coveted cloth of bone. But instead of a commission, Stone Orphan gets an inquisitive linguist, Ulín. Ulín has heard the Orphan Star’s song of despair, mirroring her own, and drawing her to the School of Assassins. But Ulín is far more interested in learning Stone Orphan’s language than deciding whom she wishes to kill.

Unable to contain their curiosity, Stone Orphan offers to exchange stories with Ulín to help her decide the fate of three men. By turns, Stone Orphan and Ulín narrate tales of love, suffering, exile, and self-determination, and two wounded souls find hope in each other through the radical act of listening.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-14T14:27:31+00:00", "description": "Angels, hiveminds, not-werewolves...!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/your-gender-binary-is-only-imaginary-sff-for-non-binary-peoples-day\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Yoke of Stars", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "R.B. Lemberg", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

The Birdverse is one of the most incredible fantasy settings I’ve ever come across, and I’m so annoyed that I still haven’t gotten to Yoke of Stars!

A Curse for Samhain (The Skeleton Crew #1) by Dahlia Donovan
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Genderfluid autistic MC
Goodreads

Welcome to the Skeleton Crew. Bring your knitting needles and a good, strong brew.

Gender fluid, autistic vampire Hyde Snodgrass runs Between the Leaves—a cosy village book store. Their life revolves around books, all things autumnal, and the two cats who rule their world. The shop also plays host to a weekly knitting group called the Skeleton Crew.

When one of the leaders of the village coven fails to show up for the weekly knitting meeting, Hyde finds themselves investigating a horrific murder side by side with their long-term crush, Teresa Vega.

Suspicion immediately falls on other members of their group. Hyde and Teresa struggle to find answers to the growing list of questions. It’s made all the more difficult when the killer has them in their sights.

Can working together spark the romantic flame within them?

Will they solve the mystery before death comes too close?

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-14T14:27:31+00:00", "description": "Angels, hiveminds, not-werewolves...!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/your-gender-binary-is-only-imaginary-sff-for-non-binary-peoples-day\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "A Curse for Samhain (The Skeleton Crew #1)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Dahlia Donovan", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I’ve really enjoyed this author’s Motts Cold Case Mystery series, which is very cosy and extremely validating for my autistic brain – so I’m hopeful that her cosy fantasy series will be right up my alley too! (Because adding fantasy always makes great things better!)

The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones by Lex Croucher
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Nonbinary MC
Published on: 9th June 2026
Goodreads

From instant New York Times bestseller and Nero Award-shortlisted TikTok favourite Lex Croucher comes your new dark academia obsession...

Briar always dreamed of going to the elite Temple School of Thaumaturgy.

Briar's best friend, Seb, just wanted them to stay together.

When Seb gets in and Briar doesn't, their relationship is shattered.

Until, on the cusp of their final year, Briar secures a summer job sorting through the old magical textbooks strictly forbidden from the students who know how to read them, finally gaining entry to the notorious ivory tower to see what their closest friend has become and to learn, at last, who really controls the secrets of magical selection...

The Secret History meets Her Majesty's Royal Coven in this stunningly prescient fusion of dark academia and crossover fantasy following the life of a non-binary student and aspiring magician who fails to gain admission to the UK's only school of magic feat. tyrant prefects, trials-by-sorcery, queer found family fighting the establishment, and childhood friends-to-rivals-to-enemies-to-more.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-14T14:27:31+00:00", "description": "Angels, hiveminds, not-werewolves...!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/your-gender-binary-is-only-imaginary-sff-for-non-binary-peoples-day\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Lex Croucher", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

Alas, this one isn’t released yet, but I think you can see why it’s on my grabby-hands list?!

Happy International Non-Binary People’s Day, everybody! Hope it’s a great one for all of us!

You can find some of my other trans and non-binary SFF recs at the links below!

Fantasy Featuring Fabulous Trans Leads
Your Gender Binary Is Imaginary: Non-Binary Characters in Fantasy (+bonus scifi)
Your Gender Binary Is Still Imaginary: SFF For International Non-Binary People’s Day!
Celebrating Transgender Day of Visibility With SFF!
SFF Faves From Trans and Nonbinary Authors!
Your Gender Binary Remains Imaginary: SFF For Non-Binary People’s Day!
SFF For Trans Day of Visibility!
Visible in SFF: Trans Day of Visibility Recs!

The post Your Gender Binary is Only Imaginary: SFF For Non-Binary People’s Day! appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Must-Have Monday #245

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.)

Echoes and Embers: Speculative Stories by Pedro Íñiguez
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Sci Fi
Representation: Latine/Latinx MCs
Published on: 15th July 2025
Goodreads

From Bram Stoker Award winner Pedro Iniguez, Echoes and Embers: Speculative Stories weaves fantasy and science fiction, Latinx themes, and traditional pulp stylings. This book collects 21 tales of outsiders, explorers, renegades, and dreamers as they navigate the mysteries and perils of the vast sandbox that is the universe.

Some of the stories you'll read: A boy and his grandmother witness the spectacle of a magical lucha libre match; amidst the Robot Apocalypse, an expectant mother's only hope for survival may just be a robot; a convict finds himself torn asunder and reassembled into a facsimile as he is teleported to a distant battlefield; plagued by ghosts, a young girl finds the source of her hauntings may be tied to time travel; after the Earth is destroyed, three astronauts stranded on Mars may hold the key to humanity's future.

From magical realism to military science fiction, Lovecraftian cyberpunk yarns to swashbuckling tales in space, this collection spans the frontiers of the imagination and the vastness of the cosmos.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-14T08:14:00+00:00", "description": "Queer selkies, witches vs Hitler, and sentient roses!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-245\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Echoes and Embers: Speculative Stories", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Pedro \u00cd\u00f1iguez", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

If you claim you’re not enchanted by that cover, you’re clearly lying – but the synopsis sealed the deal for me. I love the sound of this so much!

The Memory of the Ogisi (The Forever Desert Book 3) by Moses Ose Utomi
Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Representation: African-inspired cast and setting
Published on: 15th July 2025
Goodreads

The epic conclusion to Moses Ose Utomi's critically acclaimed Forever Desert series, The Memory of the Ogisi shatters every truth, destroys every lie, and is a story of oppression no one shall ever forget.

Even deserts have a beginning. Even gardens have an end. Even water has a story.

One thousand years after Tutu and five hundred years after Osi the City of a Thousand Stories stands resolute on the edge of the Forever Desert. A teeming oasis, water flows into every mouth that thirsts and knowledge sprouts in every mind that hungers for it.

Ethike is an Ogisi, one of the City's many historians, who has devoted his life to studying a little-known figure named Osi. Unfortunately, the city has never approved any of his research papers and if he doesn’t find Osi’s story soon he will be stripped of his position.

Desperate to keep himself and his family from losing everything, Ethike ventures into the Forever Desert in search of the Lost Tomb of Osi. If he can find it, he will finally be able to prove his worth to the City’s elders and, more importantly, cement Osi’s role in history. But history is a tale told by those with power. What Ethike uncovers beneath the sand is far beyond anything he could have expected….and it is extremely angry.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-14T08:14:00+00:00", "description": "Queer selkies, witches vs Hitler, and sentient roses!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-245\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The Memory of the Ogisi (The Forever Desert Book 3)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Moses Ose Utomi", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

It’s the finale of The Forever Desert trilogy! The second book was such a surprise after the first one that I have no idea what to expect from Memory!

Darker Than the Starless Night by Rebecca Brodkey
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Brown bisexual MC with OCD and addiction
Published on: 15th July 2025
Goodreads

A tale of gods and titans, the humans caught between them, and the chemistry that binds it all together

Yom has found a simple solution to avoiding the obsessive thoughts that have haunted her since burying herself beneath powdered drugs, bodies, and coin. But when her gang’s leader demands loyalty at all costs, Yom’s position as the gang’s head chemist comes under threat. Forced to investigate, she crosses paths with a cagey royal archivist named Quia as they unearth a horrifying conspiracy to reopen the ancient war that ripped the world in two.

Quia offers a tenuous cross the dangerous network of provinces to reach the queendom’s capitol, and seek the one mythical person capable of halting the forces of war. On the treacherous odyssey, Yom reckons with blood-thirsty crime lords, the queen’s personal guard, bounty hunters, forest spirits, old gods, and the specter of a friend she lost as a child—her first love—who might still be alive out there. The chemist must face her addiction to powder, her growing feelings for Quia, and the obsessive thoughts that threaten to tear her mind in two, lest she lose herself in her quest to save the world.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-14T08:14:00+00:00", "description": "Queer selkies, witches vs Hitler, and sentient roses!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-245\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Darker Than the Starless Night", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Rebecca Brodkey", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

Everything I hear about this book just makes me more and more wild to read it. (The gorgeous character art Brodkey has shared on her insta and substack hasn’t hurt either!) Girls in STEM, Princess Mononoke-esque forests, complaints that the romance is overshadowed by the plot… Yes please!

You can read the opening lines here! (Just swipe a few slides!)

The Salt in the Sea by J.D. Rivers
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
Published on: 15th July 2025
Goodreads

A downtrodden ex-soldier.
After leaving the military, werewolf Victor is shunned in his civilian life. Money is tight, so when an ex-comrade offers him an easy job—getting a package from an island—he jumps at the chance.

A lost inn-owner.
When Selkie Thoma opens the door to a knocking patron, he wants to close it again immediately. Standing before him is Victor, his one-night stand from three years ago. The last thing Thoma wants is to have to explain why he left that night.

As Victor and Thoma cross paths unexpectedly, emotions flare anew. But Victor is only on the island for a week, and Thoma can’t face his past, the consequences of his decisions, or the resulting condemnation from his sea-going selkie family.

A dead body in a post office.

When a corpse is discovered, fingers throughout the community point at Victor. With time running out before justice is served, it’s on Thoma to find out the truth. Because on the island justice is deadly.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-14T08:14:00+00:00", "description": "Queer selkies, witches vs Hitler, and sentient roses!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-245\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The Salt in the Sea", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "J.D. Rivers", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

Duck Prints Press published my beloved Many Drops Make a Stream by Adrian Harley, and therefore I pay close attention to everything else they release! The Salt in the Sea has a QUEER SELKIE, which is honestly all you need to sell me on a thing!

A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Representation: Brown MC
Published on: 15th July 2025
Goodreads

A whimsical and heartwarming novel about a witch who has a second chance to get her magical powers—and her life—back on track, from the national bestselling author of The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches.

Sera Swan used to be one of the most powerful witches in Britain. Then she resurrected her great-aunt Jasmine from the (very recently) dead, lost most of her magic, befriended a semi-villainous talking fox, and was exiled from her Guild. Now she (slightly reluctantly and just a bit grumpily) helps her aunt run an enchanted inn in Lancashire, where she deals with her quirky guests' shenanigans, tries to keep said talking fox in check, and longs for the future that seems lost to her. But then she finds out about an old spell that could hold the key to restoring her power…

Enter Luke Larsen, handsome and icy magical historian, who arrives on a dark winter evening and might just know how to unlock the spell’s secrets. Luke has absolutely no interest in getting involved in the madcap goings-on of the inn and is definitely not about to let a certain bewitching innkeeper past his walls, so no one is more surprised than he is when he agrees to help Sera with her spell. Worse, he might actually be thawing.

Running an inn, reclaiming lost magic, and staying one step ahead of the watchful Guild is a lot for anyone, but Sera Swan is about to discover that she doesn’t have to do it alone...and that the weird, wonderful family she’s made might be the best magic of all.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-14T08:14:00+00:00", "description": "Queer selkies, witches vs Hitler, and sentient roses!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-245\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sangu Mandanna", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

The Very Secret Society was sweet, and I’ll be surprised if A Witch’s Guide isn’t just as cosy. And I love the sound of the fox!

You can read an excerpt here!

A Resistance of Witches by Morgan Ryan
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Published on: 15th July 2025
Goodreads

A historical fantasy debut set against the backdrop of World War II, where a witch journeys to find a book of unspeakable power before it lands in Nazi hands

Stubborn, plain-spoken and from an unimpressive family, Lydia Polk never expected to be accepted into the Royal Academy of Witches. Eight years later, with Hitler’s army rampaging across Europe, the witches of Britain have joined the war effort, and Lydia is key to the she must use her magic to track down magical relics before Hitler—known to be obsessively seeking the artifacts himself—and his sycophants can. Then a Nazi witch infiltrates the Academy with heart-breaking consequences, leaving the coven shaken, exposed and the elder British witches have no interest in further loss of coven life in service of a government that has forced them into hiding for decades, no matter the consequences to the world. But with the discovery of the Grimorium Bellum, an ancient book that leaves a trail of death and destruction wherever it goes—one the Nazi coven is desperate to get their hands on—Lydia’s mission has never been more urgent.

Alone and woefully outnumbered, Lydia makes her way to the heart of occupied France, where she finds allies in Rebecca Gagne—a fierce French resistance fighter chockful of secrets—and Henry Boudreaux—a handsome Haitian-American art historian with a little magic of his own. Together, they traverse the country, stalked by the natural and supernatural alike, in search of the grimoire. But, as Lydia soon discovers, finding the Grimorium Bellum is only half the the book has a dark agenda of its own. Lydia must subdue it before the witches of the Third Reich can use it—but she’ll have to survive the book herself, first.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-14T08:14:00+00:00", "description": "Queer selkies, witches vs Hitler, and sentient roses!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-245\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "A Resistance of Witches", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Morgan Ryan", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I declared Resistance of Witches an Unmissable at the end of last year, and I’m so hoping it proves me right! I’m definitely in the mood for witches kicking some Nazi ass!

You can read an excerpt here (where it says Look Inside below the book cover)!

The Enchanted Greenhouse (Spellshop, #2) by Sarah Beth Durst
Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Published on: 15th July 2025
Goodreads

New York Times bestselling author Sarah Beth Durst invites you to her new standalone novel nestled on a far-away island brimming with singing flowers, honey cakes, and honeyed love.

Terlu Perna broke the law because she was lonely. She cast a spell and created a magically sentient spider plant. As punishment, she was turned into a wooden statue and tucked away into an alcove in the North Reading Room of the Great Library of Alyssium.

This should have been the end of her story . . . Yet one day, Terlu wakes in the cold of winter on a nearly-deserted island full of hundreds of magical greenhouses. She’s starving and freezing, and the only other human on the island is a grumpy gardener. To her surprise, he offers Terlu a place to sleep, clean clothes, and freshly baked honey cakes—at least until she’s ready to sail home.

But Terlu can’t return home and doesn’t want to—the greenhouses are a dream come true, each more wondrous than the next. When she learns that the magic that sustains them is failing—causing the death of everything within them—Terlu knows she must help. Even if that means breaking the law again.

This time, though, she isn’t alone. Assisted by the gardener and a sentient rose, Terlu must unravel the secrets of a long-dead sorcerer if she wants to save the island—and have a fresh chance at happiness and love.

Funny, kind, and forgiving, The Enchanted Greenhouse is a story about giving second chances—to others and to yourself.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-14T08:14:00+00:00", "description": "Queer selkies, witches vs Hitler, and sentient roses!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-245\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The Enchanted Greenhouse (Spellshop, #2)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sarah Beth Durst", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

The sentient spiderplant was easily the best part of Spellshop, so I have high expectations of the sentient rose in this one!

You can read the first two chapters here!

Once Upon a Punk Show by Katelyn Forrest
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: F/F
Published on: 15th July 2025
Goodreads

For Giulia Caesari, a small-time punk singer chasing a stage high, embracing the chaos of her life is a night in the mosh pit. Until she learns chaos is not an abstract thing. Chaos is a flesh and blood being trailing a universe of magic and danger in her wake.

Eris, Greek goddess of chaos, is dodging a German thunder god turned zealot when she is drawn to the flame of Giulia's musical chaos. Backstage, the goddess and the rocker begin a journey that will remold Giulia's understanding of a world that thinks gods are dead and gone.

But when Eris disappears, Giulia must master her own new magic over the strands of time and save her new flame before the goddess is sacrificed in a ritual to overdose humanity on old magic.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-14T08:14:00+00:00", "description": "Queer selkies, witches vs Hitler, and sentient roses!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-245\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Once Upon a Punk Show", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Katelyn Forrest", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

The goddess Eris as a punk? That makes so much sense to me!

Climate of Chaos by Cassandra Newbould
Genres: Sci Fi, YA
Representation: Disabled MC
Published on: 15th July 2025
Goodreads

An exhilarating dystopian YA recalling The Last of Us and Divergent—Climate Of Chaos is a hard-hitting survival story featuring a disabled protagonist that explores the chilling effects of climate change and medical debt.

In dystopic Seattle, storms have devastated Earth’s population, a new virus is spreading, and the privileged live inside domes controlled by Aegis Corp. Healthcare is earned by hours accrued working in Aegis’s pharmaceutical factories. If you run short on hours, you’re sent to the Harvest House for debt collection—a place few return from in one piece.

After a storm killed seventeen-year old Fox LaRosa’s parents and left her disabled, Fox and her younger sister Rabbit join their fugitive aunt’s mercenary group Still-Alive. Their mission is to restore the imbalance of medical access for post-storm survivors.

But when a med supply heist goes south, Rabbit is taken captive, and Still-Alive refuses to rescue her. Fox must choose between duty and family, and leaves home to infiltrate Aegis’ interior domes where Rabbit is being held hostage. The more Fox learns about life in the domes, though, the more she realizes Still-Alive isn’t as altruistic as they claim. In a world where everyone is out for themselves, Fox must rely on those she trusts least in order to reunite with her sister and expose both Aegis and Still-Alive for who they really are.

This “Hunger Games for the next generation” read stars a disabled protagonist and explores the devastating potential of climate change left un-checked and the all-too-real consequences of outrageously expensive health insurance affecting millions today.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-14T08:14:00+00:00", "description": "Queer selkies, witches vs Hitler, and sentient roses!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-245\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Climate of Chaos", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Cassandra Newbould", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I can’t recall where I first heard about this one, but I do remember that it made me WILDLY interested, so I’ll be snatching up a copy even if I can’t quite remember why…!

You can read an excerpt here (where it says Look Inside beneath the cover)!

A Testimony of Blood: An epic fantasy infused with the mythology of West Africa by Rogba Payne
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Epic Fantasy
Representation: West African-inspired cast and setting
Published on: 17th July 2025
Goodreads

'A bird in a cage may be safe but it will know no peace until it can fly. After all that we have seen, all that we have lost, I believe that the time to dance has come. We've hidden long enough.'

For those with the wit to learn, there is no better teacher than death. Nowhere is this truth better known than in the Eredo; where death's signature marks every corner as its leaders and people try to recover from a devastating attack. The lost princess Falina Almarak has been crowned queen of the Kasinabe and charged with the unenviable task of rebuilding a broken nation.

Rumi Voltaine, seen by so many as a hero, struggles to come to terms with the revelations of his ancestral past and the expectations that come with it. With the Shadow Order deprived of its essential healing elixir, Rumi and his companions embark upon an impossible to journey into the deepest parts of the forest known as the bush of ghosts. The forest holds many secrets - including the gateway known as the Door of Testimony which may hold the power to bring the dead back to life. They will have to be careful though; godhunters are on their trail and time is a precious commodity when your adversaries are immortal...

Inspired by West-African spirituality and set in a world reminiscent of colonial Africa. A TESTIMONY OF BLOOD is the continuation of the SONG OF GODHUNTERS an epic adult fantasy series.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-14T08:14:00+00:00", "description": "Queer selkies, witches vs Hitler, and sentient roses!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-245\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "A Testimony of Blood: An epic fantasy infused with the mythology of West Africa", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Rogba Payne", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I haven’t finished the first book in this series yet, but when I do…!

Cursed in the Lost City: the thrilling second book in the Elizabethan rom-com series by Gabby Hutchinson Crouch
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer Chinese MC, M/M
Published on: 17th July 2025
Goodreads

It’s 1599. Fang and Lazare are on the run with their friends Amber, Nell and half-fae child Tem. The news that Tem possesses the power to make humans immortal is spreading across London like wildfire – and has even reached the ears of the ailing Queen Elizabeth Tudor.

Desperate to avoid capture by the English crown, keep Tem safe, reverse their curse and not all die, the gang flee to The Lost City of Llanelli, the realm of the dragon queen Redthroat the Invincible. Rumoured to have almighty power, does Redthroat really have the answers to their problems? And if they can stop getting attacked by muggers, harpies and dragons for five minutes, might Fang and Lazare be able to confess that they are falling in love?

Grumpy x Sunshine
Found family
Dragons, vampires and supernatural beings
Mild spice

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-14T08:14:00+00:00", "description": "Queer selkies, witches vs Hitler, and sentient roses!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-245\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Cursed in the Lost City: the thrilling second book in the Elizabethan rom-com series", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Gabby Hutchinson Crouch", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

Still adore the covers this series has gotten! The author said way back that the colours of the covers have a specific meaning that we might start working out after book two. The first one was bright pink…any guesses???

The Girl with the Fierce Eyes by Sophia Vahdati
Genres: Fantasy, YA
Representation: Brown MC
Published on: 17th July 2025
Goodreads

Red Queen meets Divergent in this fast-paced YA fantasy romance debut—packed with love triangles, betrayal, and a heroine who must risk everything to survive.

Your eyes decide your destiny

Jantsia’s secret will kill her…

In the Empire of Shariza, eye colour determines wealth, status and even access to magical powers. Jantsia's blue eyes mark her as Azure, the lowest of the four oculary castes. Destined for servitude.

But no one – not even the boy who owns her heart – knows the truth. Jantsia is a dual-oc, a forbidden mix of two castes, condemned to death if discovered. To survive, she clings to one rule: stay invisible, stay alive.

Or will the truth save them all?

Yet whispers of rebellion are growing, and cracks are forming in the very foundations of their society. Could it be that the fiery untapped power burning inside Jantsia is a gift rather than a curse?

But who to trust when different means death?

The Girl with the Fierce Eyes has some potential content warnings, including sexual grooming (past), sibling/infant death (past), racism and discrimination, threatened torture and death, and characters in peril. Readers who may be sensitive to these elements, please take note.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-14T08:14:00+00:00", "description": "Queer selkies, witches vs Hitler, and sentient roses!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-245\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The Girl with the Fierce Eyes", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sophia Vahdati", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I’m not sure this one is for me, but fans of YA dystopias have had great things to say about it! So if that’s your thing, maybe make a look.

The Wizard (The Knights of Fedoris Book 1) by Niranjan K.
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MC
Published on: 20th July 2025
Goodreads

In the land of Ea, magic runs in bloodlines. But it is also believed to be evil, with the Order of the Knights of Fedoris ready to crack down on anyone who shows any hint of magic.

Stevin has hidden his magical ability all his life. When he and his friends are abducted and carried away to an island by the Wizards who only want them for their magic, he realises that learning to control his powers may be his only chance of survival. But why is the leader of the wizards so interested in his friends and why is the mysterious wizard Gertin offering to help him?

Beset on all sides and unable to trust anyone, Stevin must learn to accept his magic and to fight for everyone he holds dear if he’s to survive his captivity. But can he learn to master his magic while hiding his true potential from his captors?

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-14T08:14:00+00:00", "description": "Queer selkies, witches vs Hitler, and sentient roses!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-245\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The Wizard (The Knights of Fedoris Book 1)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Niranjan K.", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

If you promise me queer epic fantasy, you will ALWAYS have my attention!

You can find the buy links for this one (including itch.io) here, and read a sample on the book’s Smashword page! (Though you do need to be logged in to Smashwords to read it.)

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 #245 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Deadly Dull: The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez

The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, Speculative Fiction
Representation: Black lesbian MC, F/F, Lakota lesbian love interest, Black gay and sapphic characters, secondary M/M
PoV: Third-person, past-tense
ISBN: B01F1G67OK
Goodreads

Before Buffy, before Twilight, before Octavia Butler's Fledgling, there was The Gilda Stories, Jewelle Gomez's sexy vampire novel.

"The Gilda Stories is groundbreaking not just for the wild lives it portrays, but for how it portrays them--communally, unapologetically, roaming fiercely over space and time."--Emma Donoghue, author of Room

"Jewelle Gomez sees right into the heart. This is a book to give to those you want most to find their own strength."—Dorothy Allison

This remarkable novel begins in 1850s Louisiana, where Gilda escapes slavery and learns about freedom while working in a brothel. After being initiated into eternal life as one who "shares the blood" by two women there, Gilda spends the next two hundred years searching for a place to call home. An instant lesbian classic when it was first published in 1991, The Gilda Stories has endured as an auspiciously prescient book in its explorations of blackness, radical ecology, re-definitions of family, and yes, the erotic potential of the vampire story.

Jewelle Gomez is a writer, activist, and the author of many books including Forty-Three Septembers, Don't Explain, The Lipstick Papers, Flamingoes and Bears, and Oral Tradition. The Gilda Stories was the recipient of two Lambda Literary Awards, and was adapted for the stage by the Urban Bush Women theater company in thirteen United States cities.

Alexis Pauline Gumbs was named one of UTNE Reader's 50 Visionaries Transforming the World, a Reproductive Reality Check Shero, a Black Woman Rising nominee, and was awarded one of the first-ever "Too Sexy for 501c3" trophies. She lives in Durham, North Carolina.

More praise for The Gilda Stories:

"Jewelle's big-hearted novel pulls old rhythms out of the earth, the beauty shops and living rooms of black lesbian herstory, expressed by the dazzling vampire Gilda. Her resilience is a testament to black queer women’s love, power, and creativity. Brilliant!"--Joan Steinau Lester, author of Black, White, Other

"In sensuous prose, Jewelle Gomez uses the vampire story as a vehicle for a re-telling of American history in which the disenfranchised finally get their say. Her take on queerness, community, and the vampire legend is as radical and relevant as ever."--Michael Nava, author of The City of Palaces

"I devoured the 25th anniversary edition of Jewelle Gomez's The Gilda Stories with the same venal hunger as I did when I first read it. I still feel a connection to Gilda: her tenacity, her desire for community, her insistence on living among humanity with all its flaws and danger. The Gilda Stories are both classic and timely. Gilda emphasizes the import of tenets at the crux of black feminism while her stories ring with the urgency of problems that desperately need to be resolved in our current moment."--Theri A. Pickens, author of New Body Politics

"This revolutionary classic by a pioneer in black speculative fiction will delight and inspire generations to come."--Tananarive Due, author of Ghost Summer

"The Gilda Stories was ahead of its time when it was first published in 1991, and this anniversary edition reminds us why it's still an important novel. Gomez's characters are rooted in historical reality yet lift seductively out of it, to trouble traditional models of family, identity, and literary genre and imagine for us bold new patterns. A lush, exciting, inspiring read."--Sarah Waters, author of Tipping the Velvet

" . . . its focus on a black lesbian who possesses considerable agency throughout the centuries, and its commentary on gender and race, remain significant and powerful."--Publishers Weekly

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-12T08:25:00+00:00", "description": "I cannot express how much I hated this - but I sure tried my best!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/deadly-dull-the-gilda-stories-by-jewelle-gomez\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The Gilda Stories", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Jewelle Gomez", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "B01F1G67OK" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": 1.5, "bestRating": "5" }}

Trigger warning for brief mentions of suicide in this review.

Good gods, I hated this so much.

I’m open to the idea that I’m just not smart enough, and/or educated enough, to Get It – I’ve been seeing praise for this book for decades, heard so much about what it does with/says about race and sexuality, how clever the vampirism-as-metaphor is in this incarnation (because of course many other storytellers have used it as a metaphor too), its wisdom and insight re Life, The Universe, And Everything. Until I deliberately went looking (less than an hour after closing this book for the last time, and words cannot express how grateful I am that I never have to pick this up again) I had never seen or heard anyone say a bad word about this book.

With the caveat that perhaps I am just too stupid – thanks, I despised it.

This is so fucking BORING. How you can take the premise of ‘Black lesbian vampire vampiring through time’ and make it a yawn fest I do not know, but it has been accomplished! Gilda is unbelievably passive, with next to no personality – she collects books but we never see her read or feeling passionate about reading, she starts a hair salon that becomes central to the community but we only glimpse it minutes before it burns down, she writes songs but off-page, she becomes a best-selling romance author but OFF-PAGE. Gomez tells us all sorts of things (she tells us everything, brace for pretentious but awkward info-dumps on every other page) that Gilda gets up to, but we never get to see it, experience it. The existence of vampires becomes known to humans and we don’t see that happen either, we just hear about it after the fact. Every other vampire who gets mentioned travels and Experiences things, but Gilda is inexplicably afraid of the ocean or something so she does not, and like – what is the point of immortality if you’re going to be a homebody??? (You could curl up somewhere comfy and read All The Books, that would be an extremely valid approach to immortality, but Gilda doesn’t do that, either.) Also, you could still travel to Central and South America (she’s in the USA), you don’t have to cross water to get there! I think it’s even mentioned that she has in fact been to South America, but we don’t see it and if it meant anything to her I can’t tell.

She never changes, she doesn’t GROW, she’s allegedly learning all these languages but new art forms, sciences, technology??? Nope. There is zero sense of embracing the limitless potential of either humanity or knowledge/learning, there’s no sense of JOY, of GLADNESS to have the opportunity and ability to experience so much she never would have had she remained human. We’re told she feels these things, but the prose is dry as dust and so it rings extremely hollow.

The most change we see in her is her inexplicable flip-flopping over a) making new vampires and b) her relationship to humanity, both of which go back and forth with no explanation. I don’t know if I’m supposed to believe she’s impulsive or just stupid: she turns one man THAT SHE KNOWS IS IN LOVE WITH HER (way to send the wrong signal, this still makes no freaking sense to me) and she turns a woman who is mid-suicide for no apparent reason (later Gilda claims she sensed the woman didn’t actually want to die: why this was not made clear in the scene instead of being told to us after I cannot fathom). With humanity, she tries to be part of the communities she’s in sometimes and other times she’s extremely withdrawn and interacts very little with mortals, and I have no idea why it’s sometimes one and sometimes the other. She’s lectured by another vampire that they and mortals are Different, but I don’t see how: these vampires aren’t the least bit unhuman, they’re just humans who drink blood with bonus superpowers. They don’t think or feel or want differently from how humans think and feel and want; they don’t have their own culture (except for how they feed, and I’ll get to that); they still form relationships in exactly the same ways we do. They even eat and drink!

Speaking of, let’s talk about the feeding. Gilda drinks blood, but she was taught that the only way to be a Good VampireTM is to give in exchange – use her psychic powers to fill someone with joy or good dreams, that sort of thing. To not do this is to be a Bad VampireTM, and it’s unforgivable. (As is killing the people you feed on, which I appreciate as a rule.) At first, I really liked this – it’s an idea I haven’t seen before, and I thought it was fascinating. But not only do we never really dig into it (all the vampires just take it for granted that this is good, no one ever explains why it’s good, or questions it at all) as the book goes on, the psychic stuff gets creepier and creepier. Gilda and the other vampires unhesitatingly alter people’s desires, rewire their personalities, and it’s always For Their Own Good, but – what the hells gives you the right to so drastically change someone? Without their consent? At one point, Gilda is shocked to discover the sex worker she’s feeding on has no dreams, no inner world – she doesn’t want things, doesn’t dream about the future. So Gilda gives her a burning desire for a future, for Something Different, and like – what if that was a coping mechanism, Gilda? What if that’s how she survives? What if you’ve filled her with the want for something she can’t have or accomplish, and you’ve just doomed her to being miserable forever? Why do you get to decide for her? Why are you better qualified than any of your victims to decide what their lives ought to be like? And this is NEVER QUESTIONED. It’s drummed into us over and over that this is Super Ethical, that Gilda is a saint, that everyone she mindfucks is better off for it. That a person’s mind is their last sanctuary, the most private part of their selves, never comes up; that a person’s free will is of any concern at all is laughable; that there is no evil any human has ever accomplished that can go into someone’s mind and forcibly change them – that the vampires do this EVERY NIGHT – never occurs to any of them. And this is very clearly not a case of, we’re supposed to disagree with the vampires – we’re not. The narrative completely validates and supports them. It’s disgusting.

Gilda’s origin story is also pretty gross, and deeply bizarre; for years after running away from the plantation where she was a slave, she’s known only as The Girl, by the text and by her ‘found family’. The white vampire who gives her a home, and eventually turns her into a vampire, is the one who is called Gilda! Gilda the First then joyfully ends her existence (she’s very tired after a very long vampiric life, sure, I get that that could happen) after bestowing HER OWN name on the Black girl (now woman) she rescued. Gilda the Second is intended to be a replacement for Gilda the First, not only in the world but also as the lover/companion of Gilda the First’s lover/companion, the Lakota vampire called Bird. At no point is Gilda the First’s reasoning for any of this explained, and besides being several kinds of ick it’s just so damn weird. I don’t know if the author intended it to mean something, represent something, profound, but if so I didn’t understand it. It felt so extremely strange – a series of very weird choices – to have this Black girl nameless for so many years (why couldn’t she choose her own name???) and then give her the name and girlfriend of her maker. Why on earth would you…?

But the primary issue with this book is that it is boring. Boring boring boring. Even when Gilda and Bird have to fight off a murderous Bad Vampire, it manages to be boring. This is so many pages of nothing happening, of being told things instead of experiencing them, lectured instead of entertained. Gilda is a paper-thin character whose motivations I never understood (because they never seemed to exist, she did what she did Because Plot – though I use the term ‘plot’ extremely loosely) and so her actions were just random. I don’t understand the writerly decision to have all the interesting bits of Gilda’s life happen off-page (the book is really a collection of short stories/novelettes, each set in a different time period, rather than a typical novel). On-page, Gilda just sort of drifted through time, doing nothing of note, leaving no mark, changing nothing. She pines for Bird, but they spend more time apart than together, and when they’re together, they have no chemistry, no real connection that was evident to me.

And as for the big themes – I didn’t pick up on anything at all. At one point, very briefly, Gilda thinks to herself that she wants to stay connected to humanity because of her Blackness, and this is in contrast to the white vampire who is telling her vampires are Different, who clearly doesn’t feel the same way, but we don’t explore this! We’re told Gilda gets involved with projects and organisations working to help Black people and fight for equality, but we don’t see that and Gilda doesn’t think about that in more than the abstract. She comments exactly once that chattel slavery was not the only evil that needed ending, that no one is free while Puerto Ricans and queer people and so on are not free; it never comes up again. She is a lesbian, though I’m not sure she ever uses that word; we see her interact with a few queer mortal men, and she sleeps with other vampires, but we don’t see her as part of any queer community; I never understood what, if anything, her sexuality meant to her. (It doesn’t have to mean anything, of course, but after seeing so many people sing this book’s praises re how it talks about sexuality, I was expecting something.) That being said, I think Gomez gets point for making her characters unambiguously, on-the-page queer, which is a lot more than Anne Rice accomplished writing at the same time (don’t @ me, queer subtext is vitally important to the history of queer art, I get it! Gomez still had her lady vampires be functionally married and have sex right there on the page. Lestat and Louis were too subtle for my autistic self to Get It, but no one can miss the queerness of Gomez’s vampires). That would probably count for a lot more were I reading The Gilda Stories when it was first published; in 2025, it gets you an extra half-star from me.

The last two stories are very severely environmentalist, in a clunky, lecture-y way; I disliked how the author and Gilda both seem to blame normal people for climate change rather than governments and corporations, but I think that was the predominant thinking at the time The Gilda Stories was first published so I can ignore it. Again, though, I didn’t feel like anything important was being said; certainly I never felt any love for the natural world coming off these pages.

The prose is blunt, dry, often awkward (though the meaning of each sentence is always clear, unlike some authors I’ve critiqued for awkward prose!) It’s so heavy-feeling that I had to take breaks, and naps, constantly; it put me to sleep so many times. (I’m fully capable of reading a 500-page novel in a day; 24 hours if I have other stuff to do too. After DNFing it many times before, I started The Gilda Stories in February and finished in July. That’s how much trouble I had keeping my eyes open while reading it!) There’s little description and even less sensory description, which doesn’t help the numbness I felt throughout the book, the incredible disconnect between me and the characters and story. We’re lectured a lot; we’re told things constantly, via info-dumps or dialogue; almost everything feels vague and pointless and why-not, with Gilda drifting from place to place, time to time, with no urgency or passion for anything (that we can see/feel for ourselves, anyway, instead of being informed of its existence).

I hate it. I have no idea why it’s so beloved. Perhaps I am dumb. Perhaps I’m even dumber for forcing myself to finish The Gilda Stories, instead of doing the sensible thing and DNFing it (again).

Either way, I do not recommend it.

The post Deadly Dull: The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Must-Have Monday #244

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.

ELEVEN books this week!

(Books are listed in order of pub date, then Adult SFF, Adult Other, YA SFF, YA Other, MG SFF.)

Infernal Hearts by Danny Haliwell
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
Published on: 7th July 2025
Goodreads

“I want to offer you a deal…”

Jason Blackwell thought he had finally escaped his father’s world of magical medicine. All he wants is a normal life as a practicing veterinarian. No supernaturals. No unpredictable magic. Just a small town, regular animals, and walking away from his family secrets…and lies.

Until he’s woken in the night by Levi—an incubus attired in a fancy suit with a Southern drawl, too much charm, and an annoying tendency to always get his way. Jason is his only chance to find his missing brother.

And they have only two weeks to find him…or the demon dies. And finding Levi’s brother might just be the key to figuring out his own father’s disappearance.

Pulled back into the life he thought he had left behind forever, Jason now returns to the shadows and secrets of the supernatural world. Only this time, there’s no hiding from the truth about himself—and his family’s troubled legacy—or from the magnetic demon who pulls at his heart.

But when you make a bargain with an incubus, there is always a price to be paid. The only question is whether Jason and Levi will live long enough to regret it…

Infernal Hearts is a supernatural enemies-to-lovers romance about a magic practitioner and a misbehaving incubus who discover that every deal has a dark side.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-07T08:13:00+00:00", "description": "Magic medicine, controversial moonbases, and fake exorcisms abruptly becoming real!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-244\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Infernal Hearts", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Danny Haliwell", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

Magical medicine!!! That’s it, I’m sold!

Curandera: A Novel by Irenosen Okojie
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Magical Realism
Representation: West African MCs, Haitian MC, Peruvian MC, MC with Inuit ancestry
Published on: 8th July 2025
Goodreads

Set between 17th Century Cape Verde, and contemporary London, Curandera is a kaleidoscopic story of rebirth and redemption, and a mythic tale of metamorphic recalibrations across time

In the Gethsemane, Cape Verde, the appearance of a mysterious new arrival, Zulmira, coincides with a series of strange events. Zulmira is a shamanic disciple of Oni, an omnipotent, loving yet vengeful deity. In contemporary London, botanist Therese lives with Haitian musician Azacca, Peruvian drifter Emilien, and daring Finn. Four kindred spirits, bound together by their shared descent from Oni, they travel to another realm to complete a secret, sacred task for her. But a disruptive object returns with them from the other a bleeding ribcage, flowering with intoxicating fruit.  

As Zulmira grows close to fisherman Domingos, his wife, Marguerite, and their daughter, Sueli, the increasingly disturbing occurrences in Gethsemane disrupt forms, time and place. In London, Therese and her group, growing ever more powerful on the otherworldly fruit, discover the disturbing costs of their service to Oni. As the stage is set for the collision of two dimensions, the workings of shamanism intersect with the powerful forces of friendship, love and jealousy.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-07T08:13:00+00:00", "description": "Magic medicine, controversial moonbases, and fake exorcisms abruptly becoming real!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-244\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Curandera: A Novel", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Irenosen Okojie", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

This sounds enchanting, I’ve been looking forward to it since I stumbled across it!

Moon Rising by Claire Barner
Genres: Adult, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: MLM Middle Eastern MC, M/M, Middle Eastern love interest (separate romance)
Published on: 8th July 2025
Goodreads

A debut near future romance, where Sea of Tranquility meets Winter's Orbit, told against the backdrop of the Moon's first lunar colony, with a multicultural and LGBTQ+ cast, about a cynical agronomist and charming Emirati businessman who fall in love, and battle eco-terrorists.

In 2073, controversial agronomist Dr. Alex Cole has dedicated her life to mutagenetic food, the only solution to feeding a world torn apart by climate change. When fierce opposition from radical environmentalists wipes out her lab funding, a surprising lifeline appears in the form of Mansoor Al Kaabi, a charismatic Emirati businessman who needs a sustainable food supply for his guests on the Moon’s first hotel.

Alex moves to the Moon colony with Mansoor, and they immediately dive into the challenging work. As she smuggles in illegal chickens, fights a vexing tomato fungus, and dreams of olive groves on the Moon, Alex is surprised to find herself falling in love not just with the lunar colony, but with Mansoor, whose vision for the future of the Moon extends far beyond luxury hotels.

Back on Earth, eccentric genius Victor Beard and Mansoor’s younger brother Rashid fight to push the Homestead Act through Congress. Without the support of the US government, they’ll never be able to achieve their goal to relocate humanity to the Moon and secure a second chance for life on Earth.

When eco-terrorists threaten the lunar colony, Alex, Mansoor, Victor, and Rashid must choose what they’re willing to die for–and what they’re really living for. Is it their grandiose visions of saving the planet–or is it each other?

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-07T08:13:00+00:00", "description": "Magic medicine, controversial moonbases, and fake exorcisms abruptly becoming real!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-244\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Moon Rising", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Claire Barner", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh I’m so excited for this!!! Smuggling chickens onto moonbases! YES PLEASE!

Ascension (The Summoner’s Circle, #2) by S.T. Gibson
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Bisexual MC, Black spouse, gay boyfriend, F/M/M polyamory
Published on: 8th July 2025
Goodreads

From bestselling author of Evocation comes it's hotly anticipated and spellbinding sequel, where Rhys steps into his new role as High Priest. A perfect read for lovers of urban fantasy.

Now the High Priest of Boston's famed and secret Society, Rhys McGowan has a lot on his shoulders. With the help of his adoring witch wife, Moira, and his newly rekindled relationship with psychic boyfriend, David, Rhys is destined to become the most powerful High Priest ever. 

However, Rhys's insatiable ambition may be his undoing...

The second book in the bestselling Summoner's Circle series sees beloved characters return for an all new dark and enthralling adventure.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-07T08:13:00+00:00", "description": "Magic medicine, controversial moonbases, and fake exorcisms abruptly becoming real!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-244\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Ascension (The Summoner\u2019s Circle, #2)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "S.T. Gibson", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

Really enjoyed the first book in this series, and I’ve only gotten more excited for the sequels after all the tidbits Gibson’s let sIip in her newsletter over the year since!

The Courtesan's Eye (The Winter Lily, #1) by Kate Hyers, J.C. Smith
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Bisexual MC
Published on: 8th July 2025
Goodreads

Cordè is a courtesan-spy who trades in sex and secrets. But when a prestigious assignment ends in a shocking death, she must navigate her city's shadowy underbelly to find the killer.

Aelus is a warrior priest, devout in his faith, plagued by his own complicated lineage. His efforts to prove himself, however, are shattered when a routine ceremony goes horribly awry. Given one last chance at redemption, he's sent to unravel the conspiracy threatening his Order—a mission that puts him in Cordè's employ.

Aelus's uptight personality and austere lifestyle clash with Cordè's free-spirited world of parties and indulgence, creating friction that breeds suspicion. But they must put their animosity aside when they discover a bigger threat lurking beneath the streets—one that's stolen the power of the gods themselves. As the bodies pile up, they'll be forced to choose: trust each other, or let the city burn.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-07T08:13:00+00:00", "description": "Magic medicine, controversial moonbases, and fake exorcisms abruptly becoming real!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-244\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The Courtesan's Eye (The Winter Lily, #1)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Kate Hyers, J.C. Smith", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I definitely see why this is getting comped to Kushiel’s Dart – the main characters sound very like Phedre and Joscelin! But presumably this’ll go in a very different direction… I’m intrigued because several readers who don’t usually enjoy romantasy had a great time with this. Fingers crossed!

Muted, Vol. 1 (Muted, #1) by Miranda Mundt
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Polyamorous sapphic MC, F/F/F
Published on: 8th July 2025
Goodreads

A summoning ritual gone awry kicks off a lush, witchy graphic novel series with joyful streaks of found family and polyamorous sapphic romance—in this first volume of the hit Webtoon coming-of-age story, now with bonus content.

It has been thirteen years since the mysterious fire at the Severin family manor that killed Camille’s mother and twin sister, and the last thing Camille wants to do is return to her old home deep in the swamps of Louisiana. But she doesn’t have a choice. Deeply ingrained family tradition and Matriarch Athalie—Camille’s coldhearted aunt and head of the Severin household—demand it.

When the time comes for Camille to perform the demon-summoning blood ritual that every prospective matriarch in her family must complete, she is fearful of making a mistake. No matter how hard she tries to be a witch worthy of the Severin name, nothing is ever good enough for her aunt. Camille has practiced and practiced, but instead of the beat of demonic wings or the snap of talons, her blood calls forth evergreen vines and leaves. Terrified, she flees into the swamps.

But her failed ritual gives her something precious: time away from Aunt Athalie. Time to spend with her beloved familiar Toben and kindly cousin Silvia. And—unbeknownst to her—time to fall in love, discover the truth of her magic, reunite with long lost family, work through her grief, and solve the mystery of who killed her mother and sister.

Complete with an exclusive bonus chapter, this first volume includes episodes 1-27 of the greatly successful Webtoon webcomic Muted.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-07T08:13:00+00:00", "description": "Magic medicine, controversial moonbases, and fake exorcisms abruptly becoming real!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-244\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Muted, Vol. 1 (Muted, #1)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Miranda Mundt", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I really struggle to read graphic novels, but I’ve heard such wonderful things about this one! Clearly I need to at least give it a go!

The Lavender Blade: An Exorcist's Chronicle by E.L. Deards
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
Published on: 8th July 2025
Goodreads

For readers who loved New York Times bestseller Gideon the Ninth, Deards delivers a queer speculative fiction novel about what happens when a con artist exorcist becomes possessed for real.

A pair of con artist demon exorcists scam the nation's wealthiest . . . until one of them is possessed for real

Colton and Lucian make a living conning the desperate with fake exorcisms—Lucian is the charm, Colton the trick, and together, they’ve turned deception into survival. Their work is dangerous, their romance even riskier, but they’ve always found a way to stay ahead.

Until Lucian is truly possessed.

A powerful demon takes hold, twisting his body into something unnatural, horrific, wrong—and no priest, no con, no desperate lie can fix it. With time running out and Lucian slipping further away, Colton has no choice but to learn real magic, break every rule, and attempt the impossible.

Because if he fails, Lucian won’t just be lost. He’ll be something else entirely.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-07T08:13:00+00:00", "description": "Magic medicine, controversial moonbases, and fake exorcisms abruptly becoming real!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-244\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The Lavender Blade: An Exorcist's Chronicle", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "E.L. Deards", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

The reviews for this have been really mixed, so I have no idea anymore what the reading experience with this one is going to be!

Stone and Sky (Rivers of London, #10) by Ben Aaronovitch
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Representation: Biracial Black MC
Published on: 8th July 2025
Goodreads

THE BRAND NEW NOVEL IN THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLING RIVERS OF LONDON SERIES

'This isn't London. The rules are different up here, and so are the allegiances.'

Detective Sergeant Peter Grant takes a much-needed holiday up in Scotland. And he'll need one when this is over...

If more's the merrier, then it's ecstatic as his partner Beverley, their young twins, his mum, dad, his dad's band and their dodgy manager all tag along. Even his boss, DCI Thomas Nightingale, takes in the coastal airs as he trains Peter's cousin Abigail in the arcane arts.

And they'll need them too, because Scotland's Granite City has more than its fair share of history and mystery, myth ... and murder.

When a body is found in a bus stop, fresh from the sea, the case smells fishy from the off.

Something may be stirring beyond the bay - but there's something far stranger in the sky...

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-07T08:13:00+00:00", "description": "Magic medicine, controversial moonbases, and fake exorcisms abruptly becoming real!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-244\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Stone and Sky (Rivers of London, #10)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Ben Aaronovitch", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

Love love LOVE this series, so thrilled to get a new instalment! This was actually out in the UK last week and I missed it, but still: EEE!

Terror at the Gates (Blood of Lilith, #1) by Scarlett St. Clair
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Published on: 8th July 2025
Goodreads

The first in an all-new fantasy series from #1 New York Times bestselling author Scarlett St. Clair. In this biting, feminist retelling of Lilith's story, Lilith will rise from the ashes of her former life to destroy the ancient power that stole everything she loves.

She is the beginning and the end.
She is peace and chaos.
She is terror knocking at the gates.

Estranged from her powerful family, Lilith Leviathan finds refuge in Nineveh, a district in the city of Eden devoted to sin. There, she uses her magic to steal for a living, attracting the attention of the five governing families as well as the church, which expects women to remain pious and silent. When Lilith comes into possession of a beautiful blade, she thinks all her worries are over…until her usual buyer dies while inspecting it.

Frantic, Lilith turns to the only man who can help Zahariev, head of the Zareth family and ruler of Nineveh. His currency is information, and his power is extortion, though he's always had a soft spot for Lilith. But when the dagger appears, he isn't sure he can protect her from what's to come.

Together, they embark on a mission to discover the true power running their world. As their lives intertwine, Lilith realizes Zahariev is more than just a friend, but their devotion to each other is a threat—to the truth, to the church, and to those who want to tear it all down.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-07T08:13:00+00:00", "description": "Magic medicine, controversial moonbases, and fake exorcisms abruptly becoming real!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-244\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Terror at the Gates (Blood of Lilith, #1)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Scarlett St. Clair", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

This is probably not going to be my thing (especially because I’ve seen it described as noir…) but I want to try it out, just because Lilith is one of my favourite mythological/folkloric figures!

Heal the Beasts: A Jaunt Through the Curious History of the Veterinary Arts by Philipp Schott
Genres: Adult, Nonfiction
Published on: 8th July 2025
Goodreads

This history of veterinary medicine provides an abundance of bizarre, funny, surprising, and heartwarming anecdotes. Heal the Beasts chronicles human efforts to treat animal illnesses from 14,000 BCE to today.

How and why did humans begin to treat sick and injured animals? And how did those practices, and the associated attitudes, evolve from prehistory to the present day?

To answer these questions, Dr. Schott shares stories of 22 different animal healers and veterinarians from across eras and continents, examining the always fascinating, often unexpected, and sometimes hilarious veterinary methods employed by these people and their colleagues. But at the heart of the tale lies the evolution of the human-animal bond, which has been more cyclical than linear. In many ways, we are returning to the outlook of our distant ancestors after a centuries-long detour through a more utilitarian approach.

James Herriot will be familiar to many people, but most of the other featured vets will be new. They range from Palakapya, who treated fighting elephants in India almost 3,000 years ago, to Dr. Louis Camuti, who had the first feline house call practice anywhere, tending to the cats of celebrities in mid-twentieth century Manhattan. Along the way, we see every kind of person trying to heal every kind of creature, from dogs, cows, horses, and cats to canaries, gorillas, and even dragons.

Whether you have a passion for animals, the history of the medical sciences, or just quirky history, this light-hearted exploration of the empathetic relationship between man and beast will entertain and delight.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-07T08:13:00+00:00", "description": "Magic medicine, controversial moonbases, and fake exorcisms abruptly becoming real!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-244\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Heal the Beasts: A Jaunt Through the Curious History of the Veterinary Arts", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Philipp Schott", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I don’t feature nonfic very often, but I’m a huge animal person (I live with two cats, two dogs, and a leopard gecko!) and I find myself very interested in a look at historical vets!

The Reaper by Jackson P. Brown
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Representation: Black MC
Published on: 10th July 2025
Goodreads

Del Rey's big debut of 2025, THE REAPER is a pacey, sexy ride through the underground fantasy world of London

Amy is an empath, able to sense the auras of the supernatural creatures that stalk London at night. But sorely lacking in knowledge, she spends night after night searching for answers.

Gerald is a Reaper - a weapon for hire - on the verge of his Awakening. Of coming into his power and becoming the man his family need him to be. The man they demand he be.

When Amy stumbles onto Gerald one night, she notices his strange aura, unlike anything she has seen before. And so, against her better judgement she helps him. In thanks he makes her an offer she can't refuse: become his partner and he will introduce her to a world she has only ever felt the shallow surface of: the secret underground city.

And their first mission together: find the girl who murdered her parents.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-07T08:13:00+00:00", "description": "Magic medicine, controversial moonbases, and fake exorcisms abruptly becoming real!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-244\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The Reaper", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Jackson P. Brown", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

Always delighted to see an urban fantasy set in London rather than the US! I actually really like the aura thing? Definitely gonna try it out!

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 #244 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Sunday Soupçons #39

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 started out loving, then hated; one I DNFed over and over, then really liked!

The Enchanted Lies of Céleste Artois by Ryan Graudin
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: F/F
PoV: Third-person, past-tense; multiple PoVs
ISBN: B0CLKVV8MB
Goodreads

In this lush and lyrical fantasy, Ryan Graudin transports readers to the hidden magic pockets of early 1900s Paris, a place of enchanted salons, fortune tellers who can change your stars, and doorways that can take you to the most unexpected places—and introduces readers to the delightful Céleste Artois, a con artist who will make a deal with the devil in exchange for her life...and change the fate of the world. 

Once, Céleste Artois had dreams of being an artist. But when the creative elite of Paris dashed those plans, she turned her talents to forgery and cons. She and the Enchantresses—her two fellow thieves and best friends—see Paris as a rich hunting ground for marks. Yet even though their hideout in Peré Lachaise cemetery is bursting with francs, Céleste cannot rest. There is always more to take. And the blood she has begun to cough into her handkerchief means her time is running out.  

But everything changes when she encounters Rafe, a mysterious and beautiful stranger who leads her to an enchanted salon—a place where artists can bring wondrous imaginations to life. Céleste is captivated by this establishment, and learns of the existence of magical Paris, hidden in the pockets and alleys of the ordinary world, if one only knows where to look. 

Rafe offers Céleste an irresistible the gift of time in exchange for lending him and his benefactor her forging talents. But one must be careful making deals with devils, and there's more to this hidden world than meets the eye. Shadows have begun to circle Paris. And soon, the Enchantresses will find that true magic is far more powerful, and deadly, than they ever imagined. 

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-06T09:46:34+00:00", "description": "One book I started out loving, then hated; one I DNFed over and over, then really liked!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/sunday-soupcons-39\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The Enchanted Lies of C\u00e9leste Artois", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Ryan Graudin", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "B0CLKVV8MB" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": 1.5, "bestRating": "5" }}

My journey with Enchanted Lies was extremely odd; I soft-DNFed it back in December, and at the time, I really liked it! (So why did I soft-DNF it? Because I got distracted by other books, in laughably stereotypical ADHD-fashion, and by the time I remembered I was meant to be reading Enchanted Lies, it had been so long that I wasn’t feeling it anymore.) I loved Graudin’s prose and properly magical, beautiful magic – it was giving me Laini Taylor vibes, albeit with less teeth.

So I came back to it – and wow, did I end up hating it!

Enchanted Lies has nothing to it except the pretty magic I mentioned. It’s three or four times longer than it needed to be – the paperback is only a bit under 600 pages, and for most of those, NOTHING WHATSOEVER IS HAPPENING. And I say this as someone who is usually quite happy to feast on nothing but pretty prose; if it’s pretty enough, I don’t need plot, honest, but this was beyond ridiculous! There was a whole plotline wherein Sylvie, the young girl Celeste and her friend Honoré take care of, made friends with Princess Anastasia of Russia that went nowhere and had no purpose whatsoever, culminating in a wishy-washy, pointless wrap-up that made me furious. And WW1 gets shoehorned in to the end of the book without warning, extremely clumsily, and that also goes nowhere. (Which is extra strange seeing as the author claims in the author’s note that the frontlines art of WW1 was what she wanted to write about in the first place, which??? I can’t even.)

Celeste and Honoré (and kid Sylvie) are thieves in Paris who discover the secret underworld of magic, taking very different paths within it. Honoré turns out to be sapphic, which would have been lovely if her romance hadn’t been written as weirdly sexless (wouldn’t have been a problem in and of itself, but Celeste’s romance with Rafe is intensely sexual, and the contrast is pretty crappy). It really bothered me, the way that romance was handled, and I still don’t know how to articulate why; the closest I can get is that it felt like the author was awkward with it, treated it differently to the f/m romance.

And like – Celeste, Honoré, and Sylvie are homeless. They live in a crypt in a graveyard. And that also felt like…like their situation was being romanticised? It never felt as desperate and awful as homelessness actually is, it was more like a strange, handwaved kind of fairytale – extra odd because they had countless bags of money buried all over the graveyard, but they did nothing with it? And I know poverty and homelessness can both make you not perfectly rational about money, but it didn’t seem to be that, either. In hindsight the whole thing is kinda ick – like the author just wanted them to live in a crypt Because Reasons, but didn’t want to reckon with the reality of that. Everything had to be pretty, even things that are awful.

The pages and pages of NOTHING were definitely the worst part; by the end, I was so ready to throw this book out the window. Pretty magic, and even pretty prose, does NOT justify 600 pages of nothingness, okay? Christ.

Ninefox Gambit (The Machineries of Empire, #1) by Yoon Ha Lee
Genres: Adult, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: East Asian coded cast, sapphic MC, major bisexual character, queernorm world
PoV: Third-person, past-tense; multiple PoVs
ISBN: B01EBE05X2
Goodreads

When Captain Kel Cheris of the hexarchate is disgraced for her unconventional tactics, Kel Command gives her a chance to redeem herself by retaking the Fortress of Scattered Needles from the heretics. Cheris’s career isn’t the only thing at stake: if the fortress falls, the hexarchate itself might be next.

Cheris’s best hope is to ally with the undead tactician Shuos Jedao. The good news is that Jedao has never lost a battle, and he may be the only one who can figure out how to successfully besiege the fortress. The bad news is that Jedao went mad in his first life and massacred two armies, one of them his own.

As the siege wears on, Cheris must decide how far she can trust Jedao – because she might be his next victim.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-07-06T09:46:34+00:00", "description": "One book I started out loving, then hated; one I DNFed over and over, then really liked!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/sunday-soupcons-39\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Ninefox Gambit (The Machineries of Empire, #1)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Yoon Ha Lee", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "B01EBE05X2" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": 4, "bestRating": "5" }}

Ninefox Gambit is another book that I had an odd history with: I’ve tried to read it at least three times before this, and always ended up DNFing it. But this month I am doing a Thing, so I was determined to give Ninefox another go – and it worked!

Though I think I appreciated this one more than I actually enjoyed it – mostly because it’s very much military sci fi: the entire book is the siege and infiltration of this fortress, and that’s really not my thing! Though there’s no military jargon or anything, and Yoon does an excellent job at conveying worldbuilding and making every character we encounter incredibly vivid; I liked the glimpses we got of random soldiers, and I was really impressed by how quickly Yoon was able to make each one feel incredibly real, just by giving us a few key details about them.

Cheris, our MC, is a loyal Kel (the Kel are soldiers) who seems to have no critiques of the dystopia she’s in. Her society is called the Hexarchate, made up of the six factions (the Kel are one) who oversee and manage the general civilian populace; the Hexarchate’s power depends on the calendar system, which depends on the people’s belief in it. How does the calendar stuff work? Wellllll, I think Yoon understands it (I think I read somewhere that he’s a mathematician himself?) but I don’t at all – you just need to roll with it. Somehow keeping different calendars allows people to use different impossible tech, that’s the main thing you need to understand. There’s also many references to equations and angles and what I’m willing to handwave as ‘math magic’, which can be very dense at points – but once you shift gears in your head, and stop trying to understand it, it becomes much less dense. There’s no actual math going on on the page, but Cheris is doing a lot of math a lot of the time, and it’s convincingly complicated even without us seeing the actual sums. But you just need to let it flow over you – like the calendar stuff, you’re not going to understand it, I suspect we’re not supposed to understand it, and once you stop trying it all becomes much easier!

That the Hexarchate is terrible is established very quickly; the Kel are treated as disposable and are programmed to be physically unable to disobey orders; ‘practising’ the calendar mandates ritual torture and execution; one of the ruling factions is responsible for ‘re-educating’ citizens; the list of awfulness goes on. What normal, everyday life looks like under the Hexarchate, we don’t really see in this book, as Cheris goes from a messy, pointless campaign in chapter one to being made a fake general so that the ghost only she can see can have his orders acted upon – I’m hoping that future books will give us a bit more of a look at what non-military life is like in this setting. But either way, it’s clear the Hexarchate is Extremely Bad, Actually.

So it’s interesting that Cheris isn’t any kind of rebel. In fact, she deliberately chose to become Kel even though she has the math genius required to join a much more prestigious faction; she wanted to fit in, and the ‘flock instinct’ Kel get programmed with, the thing that makes them super loyal and unable to disobey orders? That was appealing to her! There’s ‘drank the Kool-Aid’ and then there’s Cheris, is what I’m saying. It’s not even that she thinks the Hexarchate is actively good, so much as she just…takes it for granted that the way things are is Correct (not the same as Good) and does her best to be a good little cog in the system. (There’s a very funny moment where she’s introduced to the concept of democracy and just doesn’t get how a society could function that way.) It’s an interesting mindset to get from an outsider perspective.

Cheris gets sent to deal with a (space-)fortress that’s been taken over by heretics using their own, heretical calendar; to do this, she’s given permission to take a legendary general’s ghost with her. Jedao’s a military genius, but he was made into a ghost after massacring his own army, supposedly in a fit of inexplicable ‘madness’, so anyone making use of him has to be very careful not to be infected by his madness, and/or not to be manipulated by him into doing something terrible. As you’d expect, Jedao’s backstory and motivation is actually much more complicated than Cheris’ higher-ups have told her, and Jedao himself is…well, I absolutely bought that he was a genius not just at strategy, but at manipulating people! He’s a much more vibrant character than Cheris, but I think that’s very deliberate – Jedao is outside the Hexarchate, in a way, and Cheris is loyal to it, and part of the way that contrast manifests is Cheris feeling very…washed-out and grey at first. She’s not a person, she’s a Kel, which is exactly what her society wants her to be.

But through her relationship with Jedao, and over the course of the campaign against the fortress (which involves High Command screwing her over quite a bit) Cheris…becomes more and more of a person. It’s fascinating to watch.

I definitely want to read book two, although I’m really hoping for a bit less military stuff. (This doesn’t seem likely, given the plot that’s been set up by the end of Ninefox Gambit, but I’m hopeful anyway.) I’m really intrigued by what we’ve seen of this sci fi space empire, and I want plenty more; plus I have no idea how the plot that’s been set up is going to go, and I want to find out!

The post Sunday Soupçons #39 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

2025 Mid-Year Freakout Book Tag

It’s that time of year again!

If you want to see how my answers have changed over time, you can see them here: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020.

How Much Have You Read?

122 books! That’s a good bit more than last year’s 91! In 2023 I’d read 120 books by the end of June, and in 2022, 114. So there was a drop last year, but now I’m back to my normal/average point!

This is very reassuring, since I’ve been convinced that I haven’t been reading as much as I used to. But clearly that’s not the case!

What Have You Been Reading?

Sorry my pie charts are lame this year, I had to use Canva because my beloved meta-chart made them illegible. I think it’s been abandoned, sigh.

Books Read by Genre Jan-June 2025

Surprising no one, I’m sure, Fantasy has the largest slice of pie! But even though it’s still the biggest category, it’s dropped a lot; last year Fantasy was 70.2% of my reading. This year, only 59%. That’s a not-insignificant drop!

We don’t have to look hard for the answer, though: last year the Sci Fi slice was only 11.7%, and now it’s 22.1%! Almost exactly doubled! This pleases me; I’ve been trying to read more sci fi for ages now. Nobody should expect it to take the biggest slice any time soon, though!

This year I have a Nonfic slice for the first time, mostly because the hubby and I have found that my reading him nonfiction is a great way to get him to sleep. The Historical slice is new too; I probably tucked those reads under Other in previous years, but I think if you make up 5% of my reading you deserve to be your own category!

On the other hand, I didn’t bother with a Horror category this year, because I know I’ve read barely any.

Sci Fan, aka Science Fantasy, is basically unchanged; 3.3%, compared to last year’s 3.2%. I blame the publishing industry for not GIVING me science fantasy: I would read more if I could find it!

Books Read by Rating Jan-June 2025

Almost the same amount of 5 stars as DNFs?! YIKES. If we compare to last year, it looks like the DNF slice got bigger and the 5★ slice got smaller, which I guess helped them balance. I DISPROVE! THERE SHOULD ALWAYS BE LOTS MORE 5★S THAN ANYTHING ELSE!

I think this does show that I continue to DNF more and more casually. I’m not very bothered by this. If anything, I should maybe be DNFing more: last year my 2★ and 3★ segments were 0.8 and 8.4% respectively; this year, they’re up to 2.9 and 10.5%. I’m a bit confused by the maths of this, but I’m pretty sure I ought to be DNFing books that are going to end up 2 or 3★ rather than wasting my time on them!

At least the 4★ segment is also bigger: from 21.8% to 24.6%.

Books Read by Author Ethnicity Jan-June 2025

Yay, I got WORSE. Last year 18.7% of my reads were by BIPOC authors, which was already terrible, and now it’s 15.6%.

I am really really really bad at this, and having a 400-book collection of BIPOC authors on my ereader is apparently not helping.

Books Read by MC Queerness Jan-June 2025

Unknown = books where I had absolutely no clue, as in several MG novels; N/A is mostly for things like my nonfic reads. More queer MCs than straight ones! Yes good excellent. Although it could be more more.

Books Read by MC Ethnicity Jan-June 2025

I almost scrapped this chart this year, because I’m not sure if it ‘counts’ if you’re reading BIPOC characters from white authors – isn’t the goal specifically to support BIPOC authors? Like yes, reading about people who are not like you is good for all kinds of reasons, but I’m pretty sure when we talk about diversity in publishing, we really mean who gets to write, not who they write about?

But I guess this chart is some kind of useful re how much diversity there is in the kinds of books I like. Or something. Regardless, it does not reflect well on me!

Best Book/s You’ve Read So Far In 2025

Sometimes I’ve had 3 books for this section, sometimes 20, but even if there aren’t so many of them, these 8 WOWED me! I managed to review The Mercy Makers, The Raven Scholar, Incandescent, and The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association, and have been TRYING to get my feels about the other three put into words for MONTHS! Like. Gods DAMN, it’s going to be difficult for the next half of the year to top these, I’m not kidding. (Links take you to reviews!)

Best Sequel/s You’ve Read So Far In 2025

I hope it goes without saying that these are also among the best books I’ve read this year; they’re only in separate sections because this one specifies sequels!

Saint Death’s Herald was incredible, and an incredible sequel; if by some evil mischance we don’t get another Lanie book, Herald will make a wonderful conclusion. Point of Hearts turned out to be one of my favourite Astreiant books yet, and Soulstar just…wrecked me and put me back together again better than I was.

New Release You Haven’t Read Yet, But Want To

Does this need much explanation???

Most Anticipated Release/s For the Second Half of the Year

Or this? You’ll find most of these on my Unmissables list if you want details! (The ‘cover to be revealed’ stands in for The Shipwright and the Shroudweaver, which STILL HAS NOT HAD A COVER REVEAL, GOLLANCZ, QUIT TORTURING US AND REVEAL IT ALREADY!)

Biggest Disappointment/s

To be clear, I think A Drop of Corruption is a great book! I was just massively disappointed when I realised it was functionally a standalone – that this trilogy isn’t going to have an overarching plot. And I was disappointed by the worldbuilding – I loved the empire, but this book is set outside it, and I thought the new setting was really dull and basic, especially given that Bennett is excellent at creating new settings so my standards for him are very high! And to be blunt, I think he undercut his attempt at writing an anti-colonial story. If anything, Drop of Corruption seemed to be pro-colonial, which is a pretty big blunder when you’re trying to write the opposite.

The rest of these, though, were disasters. I mean, Mutual Interest was mostly great, but then had a wishy-washy, pathetic Lit Fic ending that retroactively ruined it for me. The other four – Enchanted Lies of Celeste Artois, Gryphon King, Antlered King, and Amplitudes – are all objectively bad and you can fight me about it :) (links go to my reviews for them).

Enchanted Lies I actually soft-DNFed first – and at the time, I was very happy with it; I didn’t DNF because I hated it, I just drifted away from it the way my ADHD brain does sometimes. But I did come back to it, and I did finish it, and it was SO BAD. Should have been about a third as long as it was; the entire Russia plotline should have been cut; and the story should have been wrapped up before WW1 started, OR, it should have been part of the book from the get-go – shoving it in at the absolute last second was a terrible call.

Biggest Surprise/s

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I spend a LOT of time looking forward to new books. But there’s always ones I didn’t know to anticipate, like A King’s Trust and Pagans, that end up SOMERSAULTING onto my favourites shelf! Or, this year, books I had previously DNFed, which I tried again on a whim and then UTTERLY CONSUMED ME: see CJ Cherryh’s Foreigner (I blew through almost the entire series in Q1 of this year!) and Fire Logic, which was basically a galaxy-brain moment in book form!

New Favourite Authors (Debuts or New To You)

Antonia Hodgson for sure – Raven Scholar was her Fantasy debut, though she had a few historical fiction novels before that. I don’t think I’ve seen a single review for Raven that wasn’t glowing! It’s an incredibly impressive start to what I hope is a VERY LONG SFF career! SE McPherson, also, has catapulted onto my auto-buy authors list after their wonderful King’s Trust, which I picked up on a whim with no expectations at all; plus CJ Cherryh and Laurie J Marks, both of whom I am very late to, but am proportionally obsessed with!

Underrated Gems You’ve Discovered Recently

…I am just now realising that these are all indie or self-published, which is probably why they’re not as well-known as they deserve to be! Let me pitch them each to you, in the hopes that you might pick some of these up!

Nine-Tenths by JM Frey: a Coffee Shop (not-)AU, in a contemporary fantasy setting, with (shifter) dragons, is definitely a (queer) romance, but has a magical mystery which is also a capitalist conspiracy, the resolution of which is probably going to be world-changing within its setting. Plus, it’s alt-history with anti-colonial themes!

A King’s Trust by SE McPherson: a polyamorous fantasy romance, with an auADHD prince struggling when he suddenly becomes the crown heir. Intrigue, lots of glittery Feels, extremely validating for me as an auADHDer who is sure I’d do as badly in a court setting!

Little Wolf and the Witch by Wendy Palmer: minimal-magic fantasy, wherein an ex-Viking gets tricked into a marriage that obligates him to try and slay a monster. Intrigue, awesome personal growth for all involved, characters acting like Actual Adults, omg.

His Secret Illuminations by Scarlet Gale: would probably be called romantasy if it was published today; fantasy romance about a cinnamon roll of a monk trained in healing and magic who gets swept up into adventure with a very badass woman-warrior. Kinky, very sweet, surprisingly meaty commentary on religious factionalism and access to medical care. (The sequel was also great!) Mini-review here!

The Iron Below Remembers by Sharang Biswas: a Neon Hemlock novella, which should be a recommendation all by itself! In a UK that was colonised by a fictional East Asian empire, superheroes are very real and our professor MC writes a lot of footnotes!

Pagans by James Alistair Henry: what if the Normans never conquered England? Gritty crime novel where England is a barbaric backwater, Africa is the global superpower, and North America was never colonised. (None of those things are the focus, but I found them all extremely cool.) Mini-review here!

No Such Thing As Duty by Lara Elena Donnelly: another Neon Hemlock novella! A bisexual spy dying of consumption attempts to convince a vampire to get a British asset out of the path of the Germans in WW1.

A Bloomy Head by J Winifred Butterworth: historical romance where a trans surgeon falls for a widowed cheesemaker, and honestly her whole family as well. As excellent as the cover is terrible. Check the trigger warnings before jumping in.

Rereads This Year

Fewer rereads than usual, which I have no strong feelings about; I’m not sure number of rereads means anything? Well, I guess it actually implies good things about my mood and concentration, because usually a lot of rereads means I’m not up to dealing with something new, and/or want the comfort of something familiar. So yay!

Book/s That Made You Cry

Not unhappy tears, to be clear! But my gods, this was so intense and poignant and beautiful that I’d be surprised to hear ANYONE gets through it without carrying at least a little! It’s not often that the last book in a series is my favourite, but Stormsong was so much better than Witchmarked, and Soulstar blew them both out of the water!

Genuinely can’t believe I didn’t read Stormsong and Soulstar until this year. IF YOU HAVEN’T EITHER IT’S HIGH TIME YOU DID!

Most Beautiful Book You’ve Bought So Far This Year

That’s a terribly tough call between the illuminate edition of The Raven Scholar OR their edition of A Song of Legends Lost – both are absolutely STUNNING! My taste doesn’t often line up with illumicrate’s choices, but when it does–!!! (Links go to vids on instagram where you can see the books!)

What Books Do You Need to Read By the End of the Year?

All my Unmissables, obviously, and all my arcs! ‘Caus that’s definitely for sure gonna happen, yep

Other than that: everything in the ‘new releases you haven’t gotten to yet’ section, duh, aaand…wow, too many books I still have not gotten to! (But isn’t that true for all of us???)

These are just a few from my seriously-sia-sit-down-and-read-it shelf…

I thought about adding a question to go over things like, how many reviews have I written, how many non-review posts…but nah. Maybe next year!

How’s YOUR reading been going???

The post 2025 Mid-Year Freakout Book Tag appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

In Short: June

Not a bad month at all, but I was definitely more scatter-brained than usual – I started more and more books instead of finishing the ones I was already reading. The hubby was on vacation for two weeks, which was LOVELY; we went hunting for rocks, for the walls he’s been building in the garden! (They’re beautiful.) We didn’t catch up on any of our tv shows though, despite swearing we were totally going to do that. (We are so bad at watching tv that it’s a little bit embarrassing.)

ARCs Received

MANY EXTREMELY EXCITING BOOKS! The Isle in the Silver Sea and To Ride a Rising Storm hopefully need no introduction; if you’re not already starry-eyed, go look them up and then you will be! Pantomime has had an interesting publication history: it was originally published as a YA novel, but has now been massively rewritten and is being released as an Adult book, which is very cool! Savage Bloom is a gamble on my part; I’ve loved one of ST Gibsons’ books, enjoyed a few others, and DNFed one, so I have no clue if I’ll mesh with this one or not, but let’s hope so! What a Fish Looks Like looks absolutely enchanting; click the title to see the publisher page with the synopsis, and tell me it’s not immediately going on your tbr! He’s So Possessed With Me is YA, but was immediately addictive from the first page, and Cry, Voidbringer (the Solaris edition, not Bindery) looks extremely promising!

Those were all via Netgalley, but Nine-Tenths, which I am 2/3s of the way through and loving immensely, was sent to me by the author; Goldheart I received through BookSirens. The Dreaming Man and The Dead Withheld were sent to me from Neon Hemlock, who consistently publish very cool queer stuff and I am HYPED; and last but certainly not least, the author of Daughters of Flood and Fury sent me an arc as part of the book tour, which I enjoyed a lot!

Daughters of Flood and Fury is the sequel to one of my Best of 2024 reads, Saints of Storm and Sorrow (review here), an anti-colonialist Filipino fantasy that is VERY QUEER with WONDERFUL WEATHER MAGIC! I’m already obsessed.

Read

13 books read this month – quite a drop from 25 in May! Like I said: extra-scatterbrained!Sia this month!

But on the flip side, most of these were freaking INCREDIBLE reads: Architects of Memory and Fire Logic were phenomenal, and I should have read them years ago! Notes From a Regicide is so hard to describe, but I am so, so in love with it; Ocean’s Godori delighted me from start to finish; and Kit Whitfield’s books about fairy smiths–!!!

Seriously, PLEASE go read In the Heart of Hidden Things, and then All the Hollow of the Sky! They’re just!!! SO INCREDIBLY EXCELLENT!

It belatedly occurred to me that I have a Bluesky thread where I jot down a couple of sentences on every book I read (though it’s sometimes weeks between updates, and then I post a bunch at once) and there’s a chance some of you might be interested? So the start of the thread is here, and this is where the June reads start!

Reviewed

I have several more reviews in the works, but I only finished two mini-ones and the epically long essay on The Mercy Makers this month. All in all, I’m okay with that.

DNFed

Quite a few of these were objectively good, but not for me. Several were straight-up-stupid! I wrote about them in my DNF post yesterday.

ARCs Outstanding

This is totally a manageable number of arcs. For sure. No let’s not add this month’s arcs in, why would you do that???

Unmissable SFF Updates

No additions to this year’s Unmissable list this month, so we remain at 81 books! (Though I do have a handful of reads that I strongly suspect will go on the Unmissable list once I finish them…)

But I started putting together next year’s Unmissables, which is very exciting!!! There’s only 11 books on it at the moment, but I’m sure it’ll be much longer before next January!

How did my predictions/anticipated reads for June go? I declared seven books Unmissable for this month, and–

two were five-star reads (The Witch Roads and The Mercy Makers)three were DNFs (Six Wild Crowns, Dance of Lies, Meet Me at the Crossroads)two I haven’t finished yet, but am enjoying very much (Starstruck and Seventhblade)

If both the ones I haven’t finished yet turn out to be wonderful, then I’ll do a bit better than breaking even…which I think is not a very successful month for my predictions! I guess we’ll see?

Misc

I reviewed The Mercy Makers twice; once here on my blog, and once for Ancillary Review. I’m not very happy with the latter, I think it’s way too reductive about the book, but Ancillary has strict wordcount rules so what can you do???

I spent a lot of this month working on my ‘Every month is Pride’ post, where I list queer Adult sff coming out post-June. I’ve done this for a couple years now, but this is the longest one yet! It’ll go live tomorrow.

Along with my Mid-Year Freakout Tag! That’s been fun, even if the stats have made me blanch a few times…

Looking Forward

So many wonderful new releases to look forward to on the next page of the calendar! A Covenant of Ice and Daughters of Flood and Fury are sequels to books I loved, wrapping up their respective series; as far as I know Moonrising and A Resistance of Witches are standalones, about building a commune on the moon and witches going against Hitler, respectively; The Memory Hunters kicks off a new series about a post-apocalyptic world in which some people can use mushrooms to access memories of the past; and Stone & Sky is the latest Rivers of London novel! Which gives me a lovely excuse to reread the series…

Wishing us all a jubilant July!

The post In Short: June appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Must-Have Monday #243

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.)

Trial of Flame (Ashiri's Covenant Book 2) by Olasheni Somotun
Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Representation: Yoruba-inspired cast and setting
Published on: 30th June 2025
Goodreads

A Yoruba-Inspired Romantasy of Elemental Trials, Twin Hatchlings, and Betrayal’s Price

Trial of Flame - Book Two of Ashiri’s Covenant

In a kingdom of dragons and betrayal, trust can burn faster than flame.

When the Grootslang’s roar splits the night, Eshe Adenike must embrace the inferno within. Bound to the Talaka’s covenant, she faces the Trial of Flame—a crucible where every flicker of magic costs a memory. At Ashiri Academy, Yoruba proverbs crackle through every spell, and twin hatchlings stir, their scales echoing the future’s treachery.

Beside her, Tobi wields stormlight and secrets. Their bond is a volatile spark, too dangerous to name, too hot to deny. As elemental gauntlets rise and betrayal erupts, every choice threatens to forge them—or break them.

When betrayal erupts, what remains of trust?
When twin destinies clash, whose oath will stand unbroken?
And when memory burns away, who will remember love’s last spark?

Perfect for fans of Children of Blood and Bone and Fourth Wing; Trial of Flame - the second book in the Ashiri’s Covenant series blazes with Yoruba magic, serpentine trials, and a romance that scorches the soul.

Will Eshe’s fire light the way—or consume everything she holds dear?

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-06-30T08:11:00+00:00", "description": "Foodie myths, addictive magic, and a coffeeshop where universes collide!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-243\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Trial of Flame (Ashiri's Covenant Book 2)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Olasheni Somotun", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

Okay look, I think we’ve established that romantasy and I don’t get on. But Yoruba romantasy? I’m willing to give that a try! This is part two in a series I’ve not heard of before; this book is only 81 pages in paperback. So more like a novella, I guess?

Nine-Tenths by J.M. Frey
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
Published on: 30th June 2025
Goodreads

Colin Levesque is at loose ends. He's finished university, but has no career; he adores romance novels, but he's crap at relationships; and his prickliness is a detriment at the café where he's making ends meet. He also has a crush on his regular Dav, a homo draconis who comes in every morning to read his newspaper, sip his double-strong coffee, and stare longingly at Colin in return.

So it figures that the day Colin gets up the courage to do something about the sexual tension simmering between them, he also learns that Dav has an embarrassing habit of hiccupping fire when he's nervous. Which, in this case, destroys the fancy custom-made bean roaster. When Dav volunteers to take over the coffee roasting with his fire-breath, being squished together in the hot, cramped kitchen leads to even hotter kisses.

Everything's finally happening for Colin—until people start claiming the dragon-roasted coffee has cured their genetic ailments. As their budding relationship struggles under the scrutiny of scientists and media, the hype around the coffee leads the lovers to be inducted into a centuries-old conspiracy: dragon-roasted food has always healed humans. And the most powerful draconic nobles have been withholding this symbiotic advantage to keep themselves on top. Colin and Dav are determined to expose the truth, but if they're not careful, their objections could goad power-mad monarchs into destroying everything they hold dear.

Including each other.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-06-30T08:11:00+00:00", "description": "Foodie myths, addictive magic, and a coffeeshop where universes collide!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-243\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Nine-Tenths", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "J.M. Frey", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I’m about 2/3s of the way through my early copy of this, and I love it so much! TALK ABOUT SURPRISES: this has gone in so many directions I never saw coming! (I did expect to be surprised, because it’s Frey, but!!!)

Nine-Tenths is out for Kindles today; paperback and other ebook retailers will be available in September.

You can read the first five chapters here!

Run Like Hell by Eira Brand
Genres: Adult, Sci Fi
Representation: Trans MC
Published on: 30th June 2025
Goodreads

A shootout at a streetside bazaar. A pursuit through darkened city streets. A courier brutally murdered by his pursuers. Blown apart and left to rot in the gutter. All of that makes for an average day in the bowels of the megatropolis of New York City— at the bottom of the Barrel.

But for Raide, that day was anything but average. That courier was a friend— probably Raide's best friend— and he left a life-changing contract behind. The job and its promised rewards force Raide to face impossible odds, all while eluding relentless corporate security agents and outrunning a horrifying plague that's sweeping the city.

When faced with such a situation, there are really only two options...

Lie down and die or run like hell.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-06-30T08:11:00+00:00", "description": "Foodie myths, addictive magic, and a coffeeshop where universes collide!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-243\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Run Like Hell", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Eira Brand", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I listed this in last week’s post, because I didn’t realise the 30th was part of THIS week! But whatever, I’m happy to feature it twice!

Beasts of Bearing by Isabelle Törnqvist
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
Published on: 30th June 2025
Goodreads

Gaze too long into the magic, and it starts to see you back.

Vicente is an up-and-coming ambassador and the first magic-user trained by the Crown—unfortunately making him a pawn in the power struggle between the queen and the other magic wielders. Desperate for freedom, he agrees to mediate a land dispute in an isolated town.

He assembles a trusted team, but the queen forces them to bring along Iver: a dangerous mercenary, intent on pushing Vicente to his breaking point. Loyalties are strained from the outset, and in a town that seethes with old grudges, one misstep could ignite something irreversible. Even with the odds stacked against them, Vicente still believes they can make it work.

But Vicente has a secret: his magic gives him a surge of euphoria, and he’s becoming addicted to it. When a string of brutal murders unsettles the town, Vicente must navigate his deteriorating self-control while working with his crew to keep the peace. However, Iver has a mission of his own—one that, if successful, will destroy everything Vicente is fighting for.

That is, if Vicente doesn’t destroy himself first.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-06-30T08:11:00+00:00", "description": "Foodie myths, addictive magic, and a coffeeshop where universes collide!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-243\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Beasts of Bearing", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Isabelle T\u00f6rnqvist", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

Addictive magic??? All right, I’m listening!

The Witch of Toledo by Elanor Landrie
Genres: Adult, Sci Fi, Science Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Representation: Hispanic MC
Published on: 30th June 2025
Goodreads

Elanor Landrie’s breakout novel is an imaginative, emotional, and rebellious saga that seamlessly blends genres and entwines worlds.

This epic tale weaves together tragedy, hope, adventure, romance, and deep thought. It’s perfect for lovers of adult sci-fi, gritty fantasy, historical fiction, and philosophical fiction.

In the autumn of 1513, ten-year-old Micaela is dragged from her home and forced to witness a ritual heretic burning. Just as her tormentor intended, it is an event that will haunt her forever.
To protect her from further harm, her guardian spirits her away from Toledo to the distant, green shores of Cantabria. But even ten years and a new life cannot erase the horrors of her past.
When the shadow of an otherworldly, shape-shifting woman appears across her kitchen floor, Micaela realizes the past she fled is not done with her—and the secrets she carries may be more dangerous than she ever imagined.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-06-30T08:11:00+00:00", "description": "Foodie myths, addictive magic, and a coffeeshop where universes collide!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-243\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The Witch of Toledo", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Elanor Landrie", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I’ve been assured that this is sci fi more than fantasy, which is interesting – historical sci fi is relatively rare. The author (who is autistic) has talked about the anti-fundamentalist themes in the story, too, and I can always get behind those!

Storyteller: A Tanith Lee Tribute Anthology by Julie C. Day, Carina Bissett, Craig Laurance Gidney, C.S.E. Cooney, Martha Wells, Maya Deane, Ann VanderMeer, John Kaiine, Nisi Shawl, Mike Allen, Theodora Goss, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Andy Duncan, Rocío Rincón Fernández, CL Hellisen, Getty Hesse, Starlene Justice, Amelia Mangan, Michael Yuya Montroy, Marischa Pichette, KT Wagner, Julia DeRidder
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Sci Fi
Published on: 1st July 2025
Goodreads

Sixteen new stories from some of today’s most renowned authors. All inspired by the master storyteller Tanith Lee.

Drowning cities and unicorns. Burning deserts and forgotten gods. Golems, elf warriors, and inner-Earthers. Alien lifeforms and museum workers. Ancient plagues and the future of humanity. The familiar and the fantastical. Each story in this anthology is both unique and compelling: from fairy-tale retellings to romance-tinged high fantasy, from nihilistic horror to gripping science fiction. Immersive, wide-ranging, and sublime, Storyteller features worlds and characters that are sure to travel with you long after the last page has been read.

Mike Allen, C.S.E. Cooney, Maya Deane, Andy Duncan, Rocío Rincón Fernández , Theodora Goss, CL Hellisen, Getty Hesse, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Starlene Justice, Amelia Mangan, Michael Yuya Montroy, Marisca Pichette, Nisi Shawl, KT Wagner, Martha Wells

Foreword by John Kaiine. Afterword by Ann VanderMeer.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-06-30T08:11:00+00:00", "description": "Foodie myths, addictive magic, and a coffeeshop where universes collide!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-243\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Storyteller: A Tanith Lee Tribute Anthology", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Julie C. Day, Carina Bissett, Craig Laurance Gidney, C.S.E. Cooney, Martha Wells, Maya Deane, Ann VanderMeer, John Kaiine, Nisi Shawl, Mike Allen, Theodora Goss, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Andy Duncan, Roc\u00edo Rinc\u00f3n Fern\u00e1ndez, CL Hellisen, Getty Hesse, Starlene Justice, Amelia Mangan, Michael Yuya Montroy, Marischa Pichette, KT Wagner, Julia DeRidder", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

It still wrecks me every time I remember that Tanith Lee is gone, so I suspect I’ll shed some tears while reading this. But talk about an incredible author line-up!!!

A Promise of Sirens (Pilgrim Archives) by V. L. Barycz
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Representation: Black MC
Published on: 1st July 2025
Goodreads

Brigitte Fitzpatrick Laveau is about 99% sure she's cursed.

As Senior Pilgrim of Detroit, she's supposed to be keeping humanity--and magic folks--safe from each other. Instead, she's babysitting fallen gods, dodging djinn trying to con her, and finding homes for orphaned seers. Why is it her job to keep Detroit running smoothly? Oh, It's the family business.

So now--because she's a good daughter, thank you very much--she has accepted her fate to become the next Divine Arbiter. With more magic come more problems. Problems like sirens being murdered across Detroit, problems that feel a little too personal and a whole lot bloodier than she bargained for.

It's going to take more than a shot of luck in her latte to bring them justice.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-06-30T08:11:00+00:00", "description": "Foodie myths, addictive magic, and a coffeeshop where universes collide!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-243\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "A Promise of Sirens (Pilgrim Archives)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "V. L. Barycz", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

Continually looking for urban fantasy with great worldbuilding, and I’m hopeful about this one!

Annapurna's Bounty: Indian Food Legends Retold by Veena Gokhale
Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Representation: Indian/Desi cast
Published on: 1st July 2025
Goodreads

Feed your mind, body, heart, and soul with these reinvented food legends blessed by Annapurna, Indian Goddess of Nourishment.

In this delicious collection, the stories explore food as ploy, bargain, symbolic communication, origin, profession, and bone of contention. Rediscover surprisingly relatable characters from history and legend. Stand by Parvati Bai, wife of the village headman, who must save her village from bandits. Witness the teasing friendship between Emperor Akbar and his problem-solving courtier, Birbal. Experience the anger and anguish of Goddess Parvati, who must put aside her quarrel with Lord Shiva to save a dying Earth. Follow the perilous journeys of Sambusak, an adventurer, and Arman, a refugee, from ancient Persia to India, over land and sea. Some of these stories leap into the present, connecting with twenty-first-century characters.

Expertly blending ancient and modern, mystic and mundane, East and West, these delectable tales will banish negativity, to entertain and inspire in equal measure.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-06-30T08:11:00+00:00", "description": "Foodie myths, addictive magic, and a coffeeshop where universes collide!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-243\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Annapurna's Bounty: Indian Food Legends Retold", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Veena Gokhale", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I love foodie stories, so a collection of food myths sounds like a wonderful time!

Native American Myths and Legends (Arcturus Gilded Classics) by Katharine Berry Judson
Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Representation: Native American cast
Published on: 1st July 2025
Goodreads

This deluxe hardback anthology brings together incredible tales from Native American folklore, presented in a beautiful volume with gold gilded page edges.

This fascinating volume collects together myths and legends from across the North American continent, ranging from the Tlingit of Alaska to the Sioux and Cherokee of the Great Plains to the Seneca of the Atlantic coast. With stories on the creation of the world, the adventures of Gods and heroes, the nature of the cosmos, and tricksters like Coyote and Raven, these tales are sure to entertain and amaze.

Tales include:
• How the World Was Made (Cherokee)
• Origin of the Winds (Inuit)
• Why the Aspen Leaves are Never Still (Blackfoot)
• How the Seasons Came to be (Ojibwa)
• War with the Sky People (Thompson River)
• The Northern Lights (Wabanski)

In these classic retellings previously compiled by Professor of History Katharine Berry Judson, these stories will immerse readers in the many and varied cultures of the Native Americans, each with their own languages, folklore and traditions.

ABOUT THE SERIES: The Arcturus Gilded Classics series presents luxury gift editions of classics works, printed on opulent ivory paper, featuring hardcover Wibalin binding, foil-embossed cover designs, beautifully designed end-papers and gilded page edges. These make perfect collectibles for lovers of classic literature.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-06-30T08:11:00+00:00", "description": "Foodie myths, addictive magic, and a coffeeshop where universes collide!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-243\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Native American Myths and Legends (Arcturus Gilded Classics)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Katharine Berry Judson", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I don’t know very much about any Native American mythologies, just bits and pieces here and there, so the stories in this collection will be very new to me!

The Moonlit Knight (Elegy of an Empire) by L.R. Tourmaline
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Representation: Zoroastrian Persian MC
Goodreads

The Lady of Ruby was a beautiful dream from which Sir Gawain never wanted to wake.

King Arthur's famous nephew, Sir Gawain of Orkney, Knight of the Round Table, is known by many names: Hawk of May, Dawnbreaker, Maiden's Knight. With great acclaim comes even greater expectation. When a challenge from Persian knight Sir Gromer Somer Joure draws Gawain east of the Mediterranean Sea, a new confrontation arises from Gromer's outspoken sister. The Knight of Maidens' reputation could be his undoing.

Zoroastrian widow Osti Mahtab, granddaughter of Iran's revolutionary Mobed Mazdak, detests violence. And the men who make names for themselves through it. While long resigned to her devout life within the Old City's walls, she would sooner die than admit her little brother's challenger to the inner sanctum uncontested. Yet by forestalling this game of blows betwixt paladins, has Mahtab inadvertently entered the fray herself?

In this retelling of The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle, Persian mythology clashes and mingles with Arthurian to create a new and exciting tale of romance, self-discovery, and fantasy. The Moonlit Knight marks the first installment of the Elegy of An Empire epic that promises to entice old and new fans of the legends for years to come.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-06-30T08:11:00+00:00", "description": "Foodie myths, addictive magic, and a coffeeshop where universes collide!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-243\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The Moonlit Knight (Elegy of an Empire)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "L.R. Tourmaline", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I know so little about Arthurian stuff that I’ve certainly not heard of The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle before – but I’m intrigued! No idea how fantastical this is going to be, though, or if it’ll be closer to historical fiction.

Coffeeshop in an Alternate Universe by C.B. Lee
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, YA
Representation: Chinese-American sapphic MC, Vietnamese-American sapphic MC, F/F
Published on: 1st July 2025
Goodreads

A geeky overachiever determined to save the world through science and a troublemaking chosen one lashing out against her destiny meet and fall in love in a magical coffeeshop as their two very different universes begin to collide in Coffeeshop in an Alternate Universe, C.B. Lee's fun, sapphic, cozy fantasy YA romance.

When Brenda’s internet goes out right before an important scholarship deadline, she stumbles right into Kat’s family’s coffeeshop. Brenda is swept away by cool, confident Kat, who actually cares about Brenda’s 19-step plan to save the world through science. Meanwhile, Kat can’t stop thinking about Brenda, who is smart, passionate, and doesn’t seem to care that Kat is the prophesized Chosen One.

The only problem? Kat and Brenda are from different universes. Like need-to-find-a-portal-to-go-on-a-second-date different universes.

As their universes collide and things spiral out of control, can a girl who is determined to save the world find love with a girl determined to outrun her destiny?

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-06-30T08:11:00+00:00", "description": "Foodie myths, addictive magic, and a coffeeshop where universes collide!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-243\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Coffeeshop in an Alternate Universe", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "C.B. Lee", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

The author of the extremely beloved Sidekick Squad series is bringing us a cute sapphic fantasy! This sounds delightful and I am here for it!

Tenderly, I Am Devoured by Lyndall Clipstone
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, YA
Representation: Bi/pansexual MC
Published on: 1st July 2025
Goodreads

Perfect for fans of Saltburn, For the Wolf, and House of Hollow, Tenderly, I Am Devoured is a moody, monstrously Gothic romantasy in which a young woman must bind herself to a dangerous chthonic demon with the help of the son of a rival family to save her family's legacy—and herself—from ruin.

Expelled from her prestigious boarding school following a violent incident, eighteen-year-old Lacrimosa Arriscane returns home in disgrace to discover her family on the point of financial ruin. Desperate to save them, she accepts a marriage of convenience… to Therion, the chthonic god worshipped by Lark’s isolated coastal hometown.

But when her betrothal goes horribly wrong, Lark begins to vanish from the mortal realm. Her only hope is to seek help from Alastair the brilliant, arrogant boy who was her first heartbreak, and his alluring older sister, Camille. As the trio delve into the folklore of gods, Lark falls under the spell of the Felimath siblings.

Ensnared by a fervent romance, they perform a bacchanalia with hopes the hedonistic ritual will repair the connection between Lark and her bridegroom. Instead, they draw the ire of something much darker, which seeks to destroy Therion—and Lark as well.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-06-30T08:11:00+00:00", "description": "Foodie myths, addictive magic, and a coffeeshop where universes collide!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-243\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Tenderly, I Am Devoured", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Lyndall Clipstone", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I have been promised decadent, lush prose and ‘beautiful horror’, and I’m very eager to find out what the latter means! Also, apparently our main character falls in love with both Felimath siblings? Really hope that’s resolved well…

A F*ckery of Fae & Fate by A.J. Braun
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: F/F
Published on: 3rd July 2025
Goodreads

In one of their first-ever documented adventures, bounty hunters Rhema—a grumpy, axe-wielding fighter—and Benny—her chipper, easily excitable dragon—save a bratty princess from a trickster fae prince.

But when they attempt to return her home, not only is Rhema growing an inconvenient attachment to the spitfire royal, but the princess is also being chased down by droves of sexy, dumb, and very violent fae men who claim she's their mate. In order for Rhema and Benny to make it to the Butter and Barmaids Festival on time, they have no choice but to seek out Rhema's hot bounty hunter rival, an expert of the fae realm, to help them uncover the mystery of where all these chiseled-jawed men are coming from—and stop them before the princess falls for their illustrious charm.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-06-30T08:11:00+00:00", "description": "Foodie myths, addictive magic, and a coffeeshop where universes collide!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-243\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "A F*ckery of Fae & Fate", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "A.J. Braun", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

This sounds like SUCH fun and I am so looking forward to it! More books taking the piss out of paranormal romance/romantasy tropes, please!

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 #243 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

I Can’t Wait For…Between the Walls by Caspian Faye

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 Between the Walls by Caspian Faye!

Between the Walls by Caspian Faye
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Horror, Queer Protagonists, YA
Representation: MLM MC, trans love interest, M/M
Published on: 30th September 2025
Goodreads

When James Thorne and his recently divorced dad move into their new house, in a new town, looking for a new start, James can’t help thinking about all he’s left behind.

Missing his best friend, his high-maintenance boyfriend, and troubled by the paranormal occurrences rattling his nerves, James wishes he’d never moved.

But when his presence awakens Nathaniel, the ghost of a seventeen year old trans boy who has haunted the walls of this house since the 1700s, things take a surprising turn.

After a false start or two, Nathaniel and James hit it off, an easy connection that could become something more.

But only if they survive.

Because Nathaniel isn’t the only ghost haunting this house.In the basement hides a dark entity, longing to escape, to claim their souls.

Can James and Nathaniel cross the boundaries of the living and the dead in order to see each other and themselves for who they truly are?

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-06-25T17:03:15+00:00", "description": "One of you is dead, and also, there's something very wrong in the basement...", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/i-cant-wait-for-between-the-walls-by-caspian-faye\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Between the Walls", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Caspian Faye", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

Tiny Ghost Press are an indie publisher I keep a close eye on – their stuff is always queer and outside-the-box! – and Between the Walls caught my eye in their latest newsletter. Its premise reminds me a little of Violet Ghosts – though maybe only because they both tick the boxes for YA, trans, and ghost-romance?

Ghost/living romances have so much potential to be really interesting – what does sex mean if you can’t touch? Can you build anything long-term when one of you will age and one won’t? And that’s without the question of, is the ghost involved stuck in one location? Because if they are, that adds another layer of complication!

What does ‘happily ever after’ look like, when one of you’s already dead?

Plus – scary thing in the basement! Most romances don’t have to worry about something like that!

You can preorder directly from the publisher here!

The post I Can’t Wait For…Between the Walls by Caspian Faye appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

10 2025 Books Whose Releases I’m (Still!) Counting Down To

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish and is now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. Check out upcoming Top Ten themes on Jana’s blog!

This week’s prompt is all about the books we’re most excited for in the second half of the year. You can check out my Unmissable list for every SFF release I’m most looking forward to this year…but if I had to pick just 10, from July to December?

The only way I could do it was to not include books I’ve already read and/or am currently reading – which is why Audition For the Fox and Works of Vermin aren’t here, despite my rabid love for both!

I don’t think there’s any surprises on this list, if you’ve been here a while; these are all books that you’d expect me to look forward to, all but one already on my Unmissable list. But I like making lists, so I’m listing them again!

Moonrising by Claire Barner
Genres: Adult, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: MLM Middle Eastern MC, M/M, Middle Eastern love interest (separate romance)
Published on: 8th July 2025
Goodreads

A debut near future romance, where Sea of Tranquility meets Winter's Orbit, told against the backdrop of the Moon's first lunar colony, with a multicultural and LGBTQ+ cast, about a cynical agronomist and charming Emirati businessman who fall in love, and battle eco-terrorists.

In 2073, controversial agronomist Dr. Alex Cole has dedicated her life to mutagenetic food, the only solution to feeding a world torn apart by climate change. When fierce opposition from radical environmentalists wipes out her lab funding, a surprising lifeline appears in the form of Mansoor Al Kaabi, a charismatic Emirati businessman who needs a sustainable food supply for his guests on the Moon’s first hotel.

Alex moves to the Moon colony with Mansoor, and they immediately dive into the challenging work. As she smuggles in illegal chickens, fights a vexing tomato fungus, and dreams of olive groves on the Moon, Alex is surprised to find herself falling in love not just with the lunar colony, but with Mansoor, whose vision for the future of the Moon extends far beyond luxury hotels.

Back on Earth, eccentric genius Victor Beard and Mansoor’s younger brother Rashid fight to push the Homestead Act through Congress. Without the support of the US government, they’ll never be able to achieve their goal to relocate humanity to the Moon and secure a second chance for life on Earth.

When eco-terrorists threaten the lunar colony, Alex, Mansoor, Victor, and Rashid must choose what they’re willing to die for–and what they’re really living for. Is it their grandiose visions of saving the planet–or is it each other?

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-06-24T07:18:51+00:00", "description": "If you force me to pick just 10, then I guess it's this 10!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/10-2025-books-whose-releases-im-still-counting-down-to\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Moonrising", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Claire Barner", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I can’t help it, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Moonrising since I first heard of it. I blame the whole ‘smuggling chickens’ thing!

Daughters of Flood and Fury (Stormbringer #2) by Gabriella Buba
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Filipino-coded cast and setting, sapphic MC, F/F, bisexual MC
Published on: 22nd July 2025
Goodreads

In this powerful sequel to Saints of Storm and Sorrow, Lunurin and Alon struggle to unify the archipelago against the returning Codicíans, 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 Codícians 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.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-06-24T07:18:51+00:00", "description": "If you force me to pick just 10, then I guess it's this 10!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/10-2025-books-whose-releases-im-still-counting-down-to\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Daughters of Flood and Fury (Stormbringer #2)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Gabriella Buba", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

Saints of Storm and Sorrow, book one of this duology, blew me away, and I am WILDLY excited for the finale! It’s honestly kind of a relief to find a fantasy series that so vehemently says ‘no, violence against oppressors is FINE, actually!’

Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher
Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Published on: 19th August 2025
Goodreads

From New York Times bestselling and Hugo Award-winning author T. Kingfisher comes Hemlock & Silver, a dark reimagining of “Snow White” steeped in poison, intrigue, and treason of the most magical kind.
Healer Anja regularly drinks poison.

Not to die, but to save— seeking cures for those everyone else has given up on.
But a summons from the King interrupts her quiet, herb-obsessed life. His daughter, Snow, is dying, and he hopes Anja’s unorthodox methods can save her.

Aided by a taciturn guard, a narcissistic cat, and a passion for the scientific method, Anja rushes to treat Snow, but nothing seems to work. That is, until she finds a secret world, hidden inside a magic mirror. This dark realm may hold the key to what is making Snow sick.

Or it might be the thing that kills them all.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-06-24T07:18:51+00:00", "description": "If you force me to pick just 10, then I guess it's this 10!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/10-2025-books-whose-releases-im-still-counting-down-to\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Hemlock & Silver", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "T. Kingfisher", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

There’s a snake made of plants on the cover and you expect me NOT to be excited??? I think not! Seriously though, I think this is the first of Kingfisher’s trad-pubbed books I’ve gotten excited about. I did fall in love with Sorceress Comes to Call, but only after I picked it up on a whim; I wasn’t looking forward to its release, you know? For the most part, I massively prefer the books she self-publishes (or self-publishes first and that then go trad); in comparison, I’ve found the books of hers that go straight to trad are way less…exuberant? They feel restrained, tamer. But I’ve been hearing such great things about Hemlock and Silver – and again, there’s a plant-snake on the cover!!! – and I ended up loving Sorceress. So I’m very hopeful that I’m going to adore this one too!

Slow Gods by Claire North
Genres: Adult, Sci Fi
Published on: 16th September 2025
Goodreads

From one of the most original and dazzling voices in speculative fiction comes an intergalactic tale of conspiracy, war and the fall of empires.

My name is Mawukana na-Vdnaze, and I am a very poor copy of myself.
In telling my story, there are certain things I should perhaps lie about. I should make myself a hero. Pretend I was not used by strangers and gods, did not leave people behind.

Here is one out there in deep-space, in the pilot's chair, I died. And then, I was reborn. I became something not quite human, something that could speak to the infinite dark. And I vowed to become the scourge of the world that wronged me.

This is the story of the supernova event that burned planets and felled civilizations. This is also the story of the many lives I've lived since I died for the first time.

Are you listening?

Discover this thrilling and breathtakingly imaginative space opera from the multi-award-winning Claire North, perfect for fans of Ann Leckie, Adrian Tchaikovsky and Arkady Martine.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-06-24T07:18:51+00:00", "description": "If you force me to pick just 10, then I guess it's this 10!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/10-2025-books-whose-releases-im-still-counting-down-to\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Slow Gods", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Claire North", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

Under another penname (she has had MANY) Claire North wrote the Matthew Swift series, which is, not to put too fine a point on it, the best urban fantasy ever written in English. And that was DECADES ago; she’s only become a better and better writer since then, still with the most incredible imagination. So HELLS YES I want to see her take on a space opera!!! This is going to blow us all away, I just know it.

Queen Demon (The Rising World, #2) by Martha Wells
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Brown cast, queer MC, secondary F/F
Published on: 7th October 2025
Goodreads

From the breakout SFF superstar author of Murderbot comes the remarkable sequel to the USA Today and Sunday Times bestselling novel, Witch King. A fantasy of epic scope, Queen Demon is a story of power and friendship, of trust and betrayal, and of the families we choose.

Dahin believes he has clues to the location of the Hierarchs' Well, and the Witch King Kai, along with his companions Ziede and Tahren, knowing there's something he isn't telling them, travel with him to the rebuilt university of Ancartre, which may be dangerously close to finding the Well itself.

Can Kai stop the rise of a new Hierarch?

And can he trust his companions to do what’s right?

Follow Kai to the end of the world in this thrilling sequel to the USA Today-bestselling Witch King.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-06-24T07:18:51+00:00", "description": "If you force me to pick just 10, then I guess it's this 10!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/10-2025-books-whose-releases-im-still-counting-down-to\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Queen Demon (The Rising World, #2)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Martha Wells", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I fell head over heels for Witch King, the first book, and I SHRIEKED when I heard we were getting a sequel! I don’t even care what the plot is, SIA NEEEEEDS!

The Isle in the Silver Sea by Tasha Suri
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: F/F
Published on: 21st October 2025
Goodreads

From World Fantasy Award-winning author Tasha Suri comes The Isle in the Silver Sea, a heart-shattering romantasy of sapphic longing, medieval folklore and a love that spans the centuries.

In a Britain fuelled by stories, the knight and the witch are fated to fall in love and doom each other over and over, the same tale retold over hundreds of lifetimes.

Simran is a witch of the woods. Vina is a knight of the Queen's court. When the two women begin to fall for each other, how can they surrender to their desires, when to give in is to destroy each other?

As they seek a way to break the cycle, a mysterious assassin begins targeting tales like theirs. To survive, the two will need to write a story stronger than the one that fate has given to them.

But what tale is stronger than The Knight and the Witch?

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-06-24T07:18:51+00:00", "description": "If you force me to pick just 10, then I guess it's this 10!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/10-2025-books-whose-releases-im-still-counting-down-to\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The Isle in the Silver Sea", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Tasha Suri", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

NEW TASHA SURI!!! I’ve been obsessed with Suri’s prose since Empire of Sand, and reading about the influences on Silver Sea has me absolutely certain that I’m going to love it!

The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, High Fantasy
Published on: 28th October 2025
Goodreads

From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Starling House, Alix E. Harrow, comes a moving and genre-defying adventure through time – as a reluctant lady knight and a not-so-heroic-historian will fight through time and space to rewrite their tragic fates . . . and finally reveal the truths hidden beneath the greatest legend ever told.

It begins where it ends: beneath the yew tree – a girl not yet a knight, and a boy without a story.

It is where she pulls a sword from the heartwood and becomes a legend.
And it is where, more than a thousand years later, he will find her – and lose her – and find her – and lose her again.

It is where a new story will be written – but whose will it be?

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-06-24T07:18:51+00:00", "description": "If you force me to pick just 10, then I guess it's this 10!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/10-2025-books-whose-releases-im-still-counting-down-to\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The Everlasting", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Alix E. Harrow", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

Harrow has yet to release a novel or short story I haven’t adored, so obviously The Everlasting is a book I’m making grabby-hands at! Apparently this grew out of her story The Six Deaths of the Saint, which was fantastic. I wonder how different the reading experience of Everlasting will be for those who’ve read Six Deaths and those who haven’t?

The Shipwright and the Shroudweaver by Rafael Torrubia
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MCs
Published on: 30th October 2025
Goodreads

MEET YOUR NEW EPIC FANTASY OBSESSION

No one remembers the calamity that killed the gods and stole the names of their people. Now Shipwright and Shroudweaver are known only by their professions.

She's a master of magical shipbuilding. He's a maker of the gilded gods that fuel their sails, stitched from the souls of dead sailors.

When a chance to save their world sets the horizon alight, they decide they'll stop at nothing to vanquish the ultimate evil, embarking on a deadly race against time to beat the grief-wracked sorceress Crow-kisser to the notorious mountain kingdom in the legend-infested north before she unleashes the ancient evil entombed at its heart - the one that could destroy them all.

The Shipwright and the Shroudweaver introduces the most exciting new voice in Scottish fantasy with an epic adventure set in a post-apocalyptic landscape of god-fuelled ships, goth-as-hell villains, shadow-warping assassins, effortless queerness, and well-worn love - unmissable for fans of by Jay Kristoff, The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon, and Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-06-24T07:18:51+00:00", "description": "If you force me to pick just 10, then I guess it's this 10!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/10-2025-books-whose-releases-im-still-counting-down-to\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The Shipwright and the Shroudweaver", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Rafael Torrubia", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I’m beginning to worry we’re not going to get this this year, but as long as the official release date says 2025, it’s going to be on my most-anticipated list! I have Google alerts set up for this one and everything; I’ve been obsessed since I first saw the pub deal announcement. It just sounds so entrancingly different!!!

The Wolf and His King by Finn Longman
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
Published on: 27th November 2025
Goodreads

Madeline Miller meets Angela Carter in this spellbinding queer retelling of the 12th-century tale of Bisclavret the werewolf—unmissable for fans of Uprooted by Naomi Novik, Swordcrossed by Freya Marske, and The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden.

A noble knight hiding the beast inside. A lonely king isolated by his courtiers. Between them an impossible gulf surmountable only by the twists and turns of relentless destiny in this spellbinding retelling of Marie de France’s classic 12th-century tale of romance and adventure.

The wolf-sickness strikes always without warning, stealing Bisclavret’s body and confusing his mind. Since boyhood he hasn’t dared leave his isolated holdings—not to beg the return of his father’s lost estate, not to seek brotherhood among the court, not even to win the knighthood he yearns for. But when a new king ascends, Bisclavret must deliver his kiss of fealty or answer for the failure.

Half an exile himself, the young king is intrigued by this uneasy, rough-hewn nobleman. Bisclavret seems a perfect knight: bold, strong, and merciful. But he keeps his secrets close, and the king’s longings are not for counsel alone. As his fascination grows, the barriers between them multiply, until the king battles desperation and grief. Then Bisclavret vanishes beyond reach, just as the greatest threats to the kingdom converge. Only duty to his people stands between the king and ruin—duty, and the steady loyalty of the strangest wolf . . .

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-06-24T07:18:51+00:00", "description": "If you force me to pick just 10, then I guess it's this 10!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/10-2025-books-whose-releases-im-still-counting-down-to\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The Wolf and His King", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Finn Longman", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

Following Longman online has been so fascinating: he’s a professional historian, and he’s talked about how much of that has gone into his debut. Plus, lycanthropy as a metaphor for chronic pain! With all that plus the stunning cover, I think the odds are excellent that this is solidly Fantasy, not Romantasy.

We Will Rise Again: Speculative Stories and Essays on Protest, Resistance, and Hope by Annalee Newitz, Karen Lord, Malka Older
Genres: Adult, Sci Fi
Published on: 2nd December 2025
Goodreads

From genre luminaries, esteemed organizers, and exciting new voices in fiction, an anthology of stories, essays, and interviews that offer transformative visions of the future, fantastical alternate worlds, and inspiration for the social justice movements of tomorrow.

In this collection, editors Karen Lord, Annalee Newitz, and Malka Older champion realistic, progressive social change using the speculative stories of writers across the world. Exploring topics ranging from disability justice and environmental activism to community care and collective worldbuilding, these imaginative pieces from writers such as NK Jemisin, Charlie Jane Anders, Alejandro Heredia, Sam J. Miller, Nisi Shawl, and Sabrina Vourvoulias center solidarity, empathy, hope, joy, and creativity.

Each story is grounded within a broader sociopolitical framework using essays and interviews from movement leaders, including adrienne maree brown and Walidah Imarisha, charting the future history of protest, revolutions, and resistance with the same zeal for accuracy that speculative writers normally bring to science and technology. Using the vehicle of ambitious storytelling, We Will Rise Again offers effective tools for organizing, an unflinching interrogation of the status quo, and a blueprint for prefiguring a different world.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-06-24T07:18:51+00:00", "description": "If you force me to pick just 10, then I guess it's this 10!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/10-2025-books-whose-releases-im-still-counting-down-to\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "We Will Rise Again: Speculative Stories and Essays on Protest, Resistance, and Hope", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Annalee Newitz, Karen Lord, Malka Older", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I love this concept and I love this line-up of authors – I’m as excited for the essays as I am for the stories! Hoping the latter are in the same sorta mode as Everything For Everyone!

Which books are you most looking forward to in the next six months?

The post 10 2025 Books Whose Releases I’m (Still!) Counting Down To appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.