Siavahda's Blog, page 69

10 (or so) SFF Books That Should Be Classics

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 21st Century Books I Think Will Become Classics (submitted by Lisa of Hopewell). As you can see, I changed it a bit to books that I think should be Classics, rather than will be, because after spending a chunk of my education in the British school system I don’t have a lot of faith in the people who decide which books become Classics.

How do you define a Classic, though? For me, whenever anyone talks about SFF Classics, I reflexively think of the Fantasy Masterworks series – not a series in the usual sense, but a collection of fantasy books that have been dubbed “some of the greatest, most original, and most influential fantasy ever written”.

I’m scrapping ‘most influential’ – though I know that’s a vital part of how most people define a Classic, I don’t think a book’s greatness should be determined by its reach, when so many factors can leave an incredible book flying under the radar – but here, in no particular order, are ten of the greatest, most original SFF books of the 21st century!

Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Science Fantasy
Representation: Bisexual MC
Goodreads

Radiance is a decopunk pulp SF alt-history space opera mystery set in a Hollywood-and solar system-very different from our own, from Catherynne M. Valente, the phenomenal talent behind the New York Times bestselling The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making.

Severin Unck's father is a famous director of Gothic romances in an alternate 1946 in which talking movies are still a daring innovation due to the patent-hoarding Edison family. Rebelling against her father's films of passion, intrigue, and spirits from beyond, Severin starts making documentaries, traveling through space and investigating the levitator cults of Neptune and the lawless saloons of Mars. For this is not our solar system, but one drawn from classic science fiction in which all the planets are inhabited and we travel through space on beautiful rockets. Severin is a realist in a fantastic universe.

But her latest film, which investigates the disappearance of a diving colony on a watery Venus populated by island-sized alien creatures, will be her last. Though her crew limps home to earth and her story is preserved by the colony's last survivor, Severin will never return.

Told using techniques from reality TV, classic film, gossip magazines, and meta-fictional narrative, Radiance is a solar system-spanning story of love, exploration, family, loss, quantum physics, and silent film.

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When it comes to originality, Radiance knocks it out of the park. It’s an Art Deco phantasmagora where humanity has colonised the solar system while movies are still in black and white, the story of a filmmaker whose disappearance on Venus sets in motion a cascade of mysterious, delicious events that stretch as far out as Pluto. And I feel that it really needs to be emphasised that in Radiance, the Moon and Mars and all the rest aren’t dusty big rocks, but extravagant fantasy-lands with their own flora and fauna and, once there are enough humans around to make one, their own culture. Radiance is a mystery and a documentary and a fantasy, dissecting the human condition while simultaneously sanctifying and celebrating it – and doing so in dozens and dozens of different formats and styles! It ought to be mandatory reading in English Lit classes.

Saint Death's Daughter by C.S.E. Cooney
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MC, nonbinary love interest
Published on: 12th April 2022
Goodreads

Fun, froofy and glorious: a coming-of-age story in a new trilogy from World Fantasy Award-winning author C.S.E. Cooney.

Nothing complicates life like Death.

Lanie Stones, the daughter of the Royal Assassin and Chief Executioner of Liriat, has never led a normal life. Born with a gift for necromancy and a literal allergy to violence, she was raised in isolation in the family’s crumbling mansion by her oldest friend, the ancient revenant Goody Graves.

When her parents are murdered, it falls on Lanie and her cheerfully psychotic sister Nita to settle their extensive debts or lose their ancestral home—and Goody with it. Appeals to Liriat's ruler to protect them fall on indifferent ears… until she, too, is murdered, throwing the nation's future into doubt.

Hunted by Liriat’s enemies, hounded by her family’s creditors and terrorised by the ghost of her great-grandfather, Lanie will need more than luck to get through the next few months—but when the goddess of Death is on your side, anything is possible.

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The TL;DR version is that Cooney takes a bunch of concepts we’ve heard of before – necromancy, assassins, ghosts, shapeshifters – and remakes them in her own image; and then she goes ahead and invents so much that we’ve never heard of before, that existed nowhere but her imagination until she wrote them down. But Saint Death’s Daughter isn’t great just because of its tropes and ideas, but in how it uses – plays with – language, which is something I don’t think nearly enough books do, and which Cooney does here peerlessly.

And for the long version, you can read my review.

Mazes of Power (The Broken Trust, #1) by Juliette Wade
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Gay with OCD, bisexual, asexual, secondary trans character
Goodreads

This debut work of sociological science fiction follows a deadly battle for succession, where brother is pitted against brother in a singular chance to win power and influence for their family.

The cavern city of Pelismara has stood for a thousand years. The Great Families of the nobility cling to the myths of their golden age while the city's technology wanes.

When a fever strikes, and the Eminence dies, seventeen-year-old Tagaret is pushed to represent his Family in the competition for Heir to the Throne. To win would give him the power to rescue his mother from his abusive father, and marry the girl he loves.

But the struggle for power distorts everything in this highly stratified society, and the fever is still loose among the inbred, susceptible nobles. Tagaret's sociopathic younger brother, Nekantor, is obsessed with their family's success. Nekantor is willing to exploit Tagaret, his mother, and her new servant Aloran to defeat their opponents.

Can he be stopped? Should he be stopped? And will they recognize themselves after the struggle has changed them?

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I would love to storm back into baby!Sia’s old English Lit class and slam these down on the table! There’s just so much to unpack here – caste, responsibility, the nature of power, how a kyriarchy works, and plenty of queer, feminist, and nuerodiverse themes. Wade’s worldbuilding is so beyond perfect that it allows for the examination of things that, in our world, come with tons of baggage and context that make conversations about them difficult – but placing them in Varin allows us to talk about them.

And that’s all aside from the fact that they’re objectively incredible books, with worldbuilding so detailed and alien that it makes even familiar plotlines – like political scheming for what’s effectively the King’s seat – become strange and unique.

The Hands of the Emperor (Lays of the Hearth-Fire, #1) by Victoria Goddard
Representation: Polynesian-coded MC, cast of colour
Goodreads

An impulsive word can start a war.
A timely word can stop one.
A simple act of friendship can change the course of history.

Cliopher Mdang is the personal secretary of the Last Emperor of Astandalas, the Lord of Rising Stars, the Lord Magus of Zunidh, the Sun-on-Earth, the god. He has spent more time with the Emperor of Astandalas than any other person.
He has never once touched his lord.
He has never called him by name.
He has never initiated a conversation.

One day Cliopher invites the Sun-on-Earth home to the proverbially remote Vangavaye-ve for a holiday.

The mere invitation could have seen Cliopher executed for blasphemy.

The acceptance upends the world.

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The Hands of the Emperor redefines Epic Fantasy, not making it smaller but making it more intimate, more believable, more approachable, and much more human. It’s a book about saving the world – making the world better – but not with swords or magic or grand final stands against darkness. Because saving the world doesn’t look like that, not really; and because those kinds of heroes make the rest of us think we can’t be heroes.

The Hands of the Emperor says we can be, actually. That we are, and if it’s in smaller, quieter ways than cinematic battles against a Dark Lord, that doesn’t make it mean less; it doesn’t make us mean less. Because there is no Dark Lord, there is no one great evil that can be slain; what there is is work, a lot of it, mundane, behind-the-scenes work that is unlikely to bring you accolades.

You’re not a Chosen One. That doesn’t mean you can’t choose to save the world anyway.

The Unraveling by Benjamin Rosenbaum
Genres: Sci Fi
Representation: Neo-genders, group marriage/polyamory
Goodreads

In the distant future somewhere in the galaxy, a society has emerged where everyone has multiple bodies, cybernetics has abolished privacy, and individual and family success within the rigid social system is reliant upon instantaneous social approbation.

Young Fift is an only child of the staid gender, struggling to maintain their position in the system while developing an intriguing friendship with the poorly-publicized bioengineer Shria–somewhat controversial, since Shria is bail-gendered.

In time, Fift and Shria unintentionally wind up at the center of a scandalous art spectacle which turns into the early stages of a multi-layered revolution against their strict societal system. Suddenly they become celebrities and involuntary standard-bearers for the upheaval.

Fift is torn between the survival of Shria and the success of their family cohort; staying true to their feelings and caving under societal pressure. Whatever Fift decides will make a disproportionately huge impact on the future of the world. What’s a young staid to do when the whole world is watching?

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There is so much to unpack from The Unraveling – gender and gender roles, social media and privacy, family structures and societal oversight… And I could go on. Even if you disagree with Rosenbaum’s takes, there’s no way you won’t be left with a lot to think about after turning the final page. And as for original? Dear gods, this is takes original to a whole new level. People having multiple bodies! Bodies that are easily customised with anything you want! A post-scarcity society, group marriages, an entirely new gender system, I COULD GO ON. And do, in my review, if you want to read more about it. But there’s no question that The Unraveling more than deserves to be a Classic.

The God Eaters by Jesse Hajicek
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Gay Indigenous-coded MC, gay MC, M/M
Goodreads

Imprisoned for 'inflammatory writings' by the totalitarian Theocracy, shy intellectual Ashleigh Trine figures his story's over. But when he meets Kieran Trevarde, a hard-hearted gunslinger with a dark magic lurking in his blood, Ash finds that necessity makes strange heroes... and love can change the world.

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The God Eaters already is a cult classic – those who know about it, who’ve read it, are so passionate that one reader recognised when one of its scenes had been plagiarised in a fanfic. How many books do you know so well you’d recognise lines of it somewhere else, out of context?

And The God Eaters absolutely deserves that level of passion; beyond beautiful prose and a beautiful love story, the magic and mythology are mindblowingly original, while the story itself wrestles with topics as wide-ranging as the power and place of violence, the need (or lack thereof) for redemption, and how badly wrong things go when church and state are one entity.

Kushiel's Dart (Phèdre's Trilogy, #1) by Jacqueline Carey
Genres: Fantasy, High Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Bisexual MC, queernorm culture, major Romani-coded character
Goodreads

The land of Terre d'Ange is a place of unsurpassing beauty and grace. It is said that angels found the land and saw it was good... and the ensuing race that rose from the seed of angels and men live by one simple rule: Love as thou wilt.

Phèdre nó Delaunay is a young woman who was born with a scarlet mote in her left eye. Sold into indentured servitude as a child, her bond is purchased by Anafiel Delaunay, a nobleman with very a special mission... and the first one to recognize who and what she is: one pricked by Kushiel's Dart, chosen to forever experience pain and pleasure as one.

Phèdre is trained equally in the courtly arts and the talents of the bedchamber, but, above all, the ability to observe, remember, and analyze. Almost as talented a spy as she is courtesan, Phèdre stumbles upon a plot that threatens the very foundations of her homeland. Treachery sets her on her path; love and honor goad her further. And in the doing, it will take her to the edge of despair... and beyond. Hateful friend, loving enemy, beloved assassin; they can all wear the same glittering mask in this world, and Phèdre will get but one chance to save all that she holds dear.

Set in a world of cunning poets, deadly courtiers, heroic traitors, and a truly Machiavellian villainess, this is a novel of grandeur, luxuriance, sacrifice, betrayal, and deeply laid conspiracies. Not since Dune has there been an epic on the scale of Kushiel's Dart-a massive tale about the violent death of an old age, and the birth of a new.

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Come on – you knew Kushiel’s Dart would make my list. Even if I didn’t love it more than words can express, the hundreds of ways the religious commandment love as thou wilt ripples through and changes society is enough all on its own to qualify Dart as one of the greatest and most original books out there. More than that, this is a book that leaves its mark on you – I’ve certainly never been the same since I read it. And shouldn’t that be what all Classics strive for?

Power and Majesty (Creature Court #1) by Tansy Rayner Roberts
Genres: Fantasy, High Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Gay MCs, M/M
Goodreads

Aufleur is a city of honey cakes, decadent ritual... and a secret war fought by an army of beautiful monsters. The Creature Court die and bleed to keep the daylight folk safe, but no one even knows they exist.

Who will be the new Power and Majesty of the Creature Court: a man who was broken and exiled from their world, or the woman who knows nothing of their ways? Neither of them wants to rule, but Ashiol is determined to train Velody to take his place, so that he can finally escape his destiny.

Winner of the 2011 Best Novel Ditmar, and the 2011 Best Fantasy Novel Aurealis Award.

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Folx. Folx. There are no books like these books. There is no story like the story they tell. They are defiant, they are feminist, they are queer, they are blood and hope and skysilver. You have never seen magic like the Creature Court’s magic. You have never seen the clash of savagery and kindnesslike Roberts writes it. You have never seen dressmakers become kings and poets shatter death like mirrors, you have never seen mice fight the sky and win, you have never seen flowers and honeycakes save the world and red-red jewels try and break it again. You have never seen a trilogy usurp the conventions and your expectations as thoroughly as these books do.

Hells yes they should be Classics.

Vellum (The Book of All Hours, #1) by Hal Duncan
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Science Fantasy
Representation: M/M
Goodreads

An extraordinary, incendiary debut from a rare new talent, Vellum showcases a complex and sophisticated level of writing coupled with a fecund imagination that defies description.

VELLUM: THE BOOK OF ALL HOURS

It's 2017 and angels and demons walk the earth. Once they were human; now they are unkin, transformed by the ancient machine-code language of reality itself. They seek The Book of All Hours, the mythical tome within which the blueprint for all reality is transcribed, which has been lost somewhere in the Vellum - the vast realm of eternity upon which our world is a mere scratch.

The Vellum, where the unkin are gathering for war.

The Vellum, where a fallen angel and a renegade devil are about to settle an age-old feud.

The Vellum, where the past, present, and future will collide with ancient worlds and myths.

And the Vellum will burn. . . .

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Not just original and great but also subversive and challenging, the Book of All Hours duet hits the ground running and demands you keep up, mixing realities, parallel universes, mythology, history and genres into a grenade of a masterpiece. Duncan plays with archetypes, tropes, cliches and stereotypes like a pyromaniac plays with matches, and yet the story never gets away from him. Vellum and lnk are flame and gunpowder and scalpels, incisive and detonating and an experience you’ll never forget.

It’s frankly criminal that these aren’t more well-known.

The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz
Genres: Sci Fi
Representation: Secondary queer characters
Goodreads

From Annalee Newitz, founding editor of io9, comes a story of time travel, murder, and the lengths we'll go to protect the ones we love.

1992: After a confrontation at a riot grrl concert, seventeen-year-old Beth finds herself in a car with her friend's abusive boyfriend dead in the backseat, agreeing to help her friends hide the body. This murder sets Beth and her friends on a path of escalating violence and vengeance as they realize many other young women in the world need protecting too.

2022: Determined to use time travel to create a safer future, Tess has dedicated her life to visiting key moments in history and fighting for change. But rewriting the timeline isn’t as simple as editing one person or event. And just when Tess believes she's found a way to make an edit that actually sticks, she encounters a group of dangerous travelers bent on stopping her at any cost.

Tess and Beth’s lives intertwine as war breaks out across the timeline--a war that threatens to destroy time travel and leave only a small group of elites with the power to shape the past, present, and future. Against the vast and intricate forces of history and humanity, is it possible for a single person’s actions to echo throughout the timeline?

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A world where time-travel is an accepted part of life…and one alt-right group is trying to change the present just as another group of inclusive feminists works to do the same – with each side making completely opposing ‘edits’. The concept is brilliant but it’s the execution that makes it capital-g Great, and a book I want to put in every school library. Yet another book I can’t recommend strongly enough!

This isn’t even close to a full list of all the books that should be Classics, but they are some of the strongest contenders.

Which books would you make Classics if you could?

The post 10 (or so) SFF Books That Should Be Classics appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Must-Have Monday #79

ELEVEN incredible-sounding SFF releases this week!!!

Sweep of Stars (Astra Black #1) by Maurice Broaddus
Genres: Sci Fi
Representation: Black cast
Published on: 29th March 2022
Goodreads

Maurice Broaddus's Sweep of Stars is the first in a trilogy that explores the struggles of an empire. Epic in scope and intimate in voice, it follows members of the Muungano empire – a far-reaching coalition of city-states that stretches from O.E. (original earth) to Titan – as it faces an escalating series of threats.

"The beauty in blackness is its ability to transform. Like energy we are neither created nor destroyed, though many try." - West African Proverb

The Muungano empire strived and struggled to form a utopia when they split away from old earth. Freeing themselves from the endless wars and oppression of their home planet in order to shape their own futures and create a far-reaching coalition of city-states that stretched from Earth and Mars to Titan.

With the wisdom of their ancestors, the leadership of their elders, the power and vision of their scientists and warriors they charted a course to a better future. But the old powers could not allow them to thrive and have now set in motion new plots to destroy all that they've built.

In the fire to come they will face down their greatest struggle yet.

Amachi Adisa and other young leaders will contend with each other for the power to galvanize their people and chart the next course for the empire.

Fela Buhari and her elite unit will take the fight to regions not seen by human eyes, but no training will be enough to bring them all home.

Stacia Chikeke, captain of the starship Cypher, will face down enemies across the stars, and within her own vessel, as she searches for the answers that could save them all.

The only way is forward.

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After reading the free excerpt, I’m so excited for this one! Basically, Wakanda in space. which is really all I need to hear. Eee!

Wild and Wicked Things by Francesca May
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: F/F
Published on: 29th March 2022
Goodreads

In the aftermath of World War I, a naive woman is swept into a glittering world filled with dark magic, romance, and murder in this lush and decadent debut.

On Crow Island, people whisper, real magic lurks just below the surface. 

Neither real magic nor faux magic interests Annie Mason. Not after it stole her future. She’s only on the island to settle her late father’s estate and, hopefully, reconnect with her long-absent best friend, Beatrice, who fled their dreary lives for a more glamorous one. 

Yet Crow Island is brimming with temptation, and the biggest one may be her enigmatic new neighbor. 

Mysterious and alluring, Emmeline Delacroix is a figure shadowed by rumors of witchcraft. And when Annie witnesses a confrontation between Bea and Emmeline at one of the island's extravagant parties, she is drawn into a glittering, haunted world. A world where the boundaries of wickedness are tested, and the cost of illicit magic might be death.

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There has been so much hype for this, and I have definitely been won over by said hype! (And fell in love with the first few pages, which you can read on Amaz*n!) I’m so tickled by the fact that I’ve never, and probably will never, read Great Gatsby, only Nghi Vo’s The Chosen and the Beautiful (flawless) and (soon) Wild and Wicked Things, both of which are queer and magic. Gatsby can’t possibly hold a candle to either of them.

Pennyblade by J.L. Worrad
Genres: Fantasy, Secondary World Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Lesbian MC, bi/pansexual love interest, F/F, secondary gay character, tertiary trans character, extremely minor asexual character
PoV: 1st Person, past tense
Published on: 29th March 2022
Goodreads

A sharp-tongued disgraced-noble-turned-mercenary has to stop the world collapsing into chaos in this gripping, savagely funny epic fantasy packed with unforgettable characters, for fans of Joe Abercrombie.

Exile. Mercenary. Lover. Monster. Pennyblade.

Kyra Cal’Adra has spent the last four years on the Main, living in exile from her home, her people, her lover and her past. A highblood commrach—the ancient race of the Isle, dedicated to tradition and the perfection of the blood—she’s welcome among the humans of the Main only for the skill of her rapier, her preternatural bladework. They don't care which of the gleaming towers she came from, nor that her grandmother is matriarch of one of Corso’s most powerful families.

But on the main, women loving women is a sin punishable by death. Kyra is haunted by the ghost of Shen, the love of her life, a lowblood servant woman whom Kyra left behind as she fled the Isle.
When a simple contract goes awry, and her fellow pennyblades betray her, Kyra is set onto a collision course with her old life, and the age-old conflict between the Main and the Isle threatens to erupt once more.

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I ADORED Pennyblade, and said as much in my review, but head’s up: most early readers consider this grimdark. (I don’t, quite. Grimdark-adjacent, sure, but not quite grimdark.) Eugenicist elves, a sapphic womanizer MC, and a surprisingly badass nun all come together in what might be one of my favourites of the year.

My Dearest Darkest by Kayla Cottingham
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: F/F
Published on: 29th March 2022
Goodreads

WILDER GIRLS meets THE CRAFT in this Sapphic horror debut that asks: What price would you be willing to pay to achieve your deepest desires?

Finch Chamberlin is the newest transfer student to the ultra-competitive Ulalume Academy... but she's also not what she seems. Months before school started, Finch and her parents got into an accident that should have left her dead at the bottom of a river. But something monstrous, and ancient, and terrifying, wouldn't let her drown. Finch doesn't know why she woke up after her heart stopped, but since dying she's felt a constant pull from the school and the surrounding town of Rainwater, like something on the island is calling to her.

Selena St. Clair sees right through Finch, and she knows something is seriously wrong with her. But despite Selena's suspicion, she feels drawn to Finch and has a sinking feeling that from now on the two will be inexplicably linked to one another.

One night Finch, Selena, and her friends accidentally summon a carnivorous creature of immense power in the depths of the school. It promises to grant every desire the girls have kept locked away in their insecure hearts―beauty, power, adoration―in exchange for a price: human body parts. But as the cost of their wanting becomes more deadly, Finch and Selena must learn to work together to stop the horror they unleashed, before it consumes the entire island.

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There’s something about teenage girls + the occult that always makes me starry-eyed! And this one gets bonus points for being sapphic! Plus it sounds like it might be genuinely dark, not the softcore dark we often get. (Which there’s nothing wrong with, but is disappointing when you go in looking for horror.)

The Book of Queer Saints by Mae Murray, Eric LaRocca, Hailey Piper, Joe Koch, Sam Richard
Genres: Horror, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MCs
Published on: 29th March 2022
Goodreads

In this debut horror anthology by editor Mae Murray, queer villains reign supreme. The Book of Queer Saints features 13 short stories and a lineup that includes renowned authors Eric LaRocca, Hailey Piper, and Joe Koch. Joining them are the innovative visions of Briar Ripley Page, Nikki R. Leigh, Joshua R. Pangborn, Eric Raglin, Belle Tolls, Perry Ruhland, James Bennett, LC von Hessen, K.S. Walker, and George Daniel Lea. A fresh blend of transformative body horror, crimson-coated romance, and monstrous eroticism, this anthology is sure to satisfy your every depraved itch. Foreword by Sam Richard of Weirdpunk Books.

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Honestly, the title alone sold me on this collection, but that freaking premise?! HI I’LL TAKE TEN.

A Magic Steeped in Poison (The Book of Tea, #1) by Judy I. Lin
Genres: Fantasy
Representation: Asian-coded cast and setting
Published on: 29th March 2022
Goodreads

I used to look at my hands with pride. Now all I can think is, "These are the hands that buried my mother."

For Ning, the only thing worse than losing her mother is knowing that it's her own fault. She was the one who unknowingly brewed the poison tea that killed her—the poison tea that now threatens to also take her sister, Shu.

When Ning hears of a competition to find the kingdom's greatest shennong-shi—masters of the ancient and magical art of tea-making—she travels to the imperial city to compete. The winner will receive a favor from the princess, which may be Ning's only chance to save her sister's life.

But between the backstabbing competitors, bloody court politics, and a mysterious (and handsome) boy with a shocking secret, Ning might actually be the one in more danger.

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I’m here for exactly two things: magic tea and that cover!

So This Is Ever After by F.T. Lukens
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
Published on: 29th March 2022
Goodreads

Carry On meets Arthurian legend in this funny, subversive young adult fantasy about what happens after the chosen one wins the kingdom and has to get married to keep it…and to stay alive.

Arek hadn’t thought much about what would happen after he completed the prophecy that said he was destined to save the Kingdom of Ere from its evil ruler. So now that he’s finally managed to (somewhat clumsily) behead the evil king (turns out magical swords yanked from bogs don’t come pre-sharpened), he and his rag-tag group of quest companions are at a bit of a loss for what to do next.

As a temporary safeguard, Arek’s best friend and mage, Matt, convinces him to assume the throne until the true heir can be rescued from her tower. Except that she’s dead. Now Arek is stuck as king, a role that comes with a magical catch: choose a spouse by your eighteenth birthday, or wither away into nothing.

With his eighteenth birthday only three months away, and only Matt in on the secret, Arek embarks on a desperate bid to find a spouse to save his life—starting with his quest companions. But his attempts at wooing his friends go painfully and hilariously wrong…until he discovers that love might have been in front of him all along.

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Another seriously beautiful cover! Also, this sounds very sweet with the potential for much Feels.

Our Child of Two Worlds by Stephen Cox
Genres: Sci Fi
Published on: 31st March 2022
Goodreads

Cory is the child of two worlds: when his birth-people come, they will break his mother's heart . . . but they may also be this world's only salvation.

Molly and Gene Myers rescued Cory and kept him safe from those who wanted to use his remarkable knowledge and power for their own ends . . . and in doing so, they rediscovered themselves and fell in love with a remarkable child.

In this gripping sequel to Our Child of the Stars, Cory and his new family are having to deal with the consequences of fame - but Molly is more concerned about the future, for Cory's people are on their way.

This is the time of Woodstock and the moon landings; war is raging in Vietnam and the superpowers are threatening each other with annihilation - but the Myers know there is a far greater threat approaching from the stars, and only Cory's people possess the knowledge to fight off the invaders.

A Child of Two Worlds
is a remarkable story of family and the power of love, set against the backdrop of a fast-changing, terrifying decade and an interstellar threat almost beyond imagining.

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This is the sequel to Our Child of the Stars, and since I haven’t finished that yet I am studiously avoiding reading the blurb of this one. I know I’ll dive into it once I finish Stars, though!

(Also, this seems to be the ebook release – by all accounts the hardcover won’t be out until June.)

Prince of the Sorrows (Rowan Blood, #1) by Kellen Graves
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
Published on: 31st March 2022
Goodreads

Without an academic endorsement to make him valuable to the high fey, Saffron will be sent back through the veil to the human world. The place he was born, but not where he grew up. A place he is terrified of. And while getting an endorsement shouldn't be impossible, it's hindered by the fact he's edging on literate, having spent his life teaching himself to read using books stolen off of Morrígan Academy's campus of high fey students.

When mistaken identity leads to Saffron learning the true name of brooding, self-centered, high fey Prince Cylvan, what begins as a risk of losing his life (or his tongue) becomes an opportunity to earn the life Saffron wants. In exchange for an endorsement, he and Cylvan form a geis where Saffron agrees to find a spell to strip power from Cylvan's true name. While Prince Cylvan doesn't know Saffron's literacy is self-taught, and his knowledge of magic is nonexistent, Saffron is determined to meet his end of the agreement in order to remain in Alfidel-- or, maybe, to remain by Cylvan's side, as affections grow stronger every night they spend alone in the library together.

But when other human servants on campus are suddenly and inexplicably killed by an animal, Saffron realizes he may have inadvertently embroiled himself in the middle of a manipulative reach for power like he never anticipated. Not only is his future endorsement at risk, but also Cylvan's livelihood and ability to think for himself-- and Saffron will have to choose which is more important to him.

Prince of the Sorrows is a queer fantasy romance for New Adults.

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Dark Academia…with Fae?! Oh hell yes!

Undergrounder by J.E. Glass
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: F/F
Published on: 1st April 2022
Goodreads

Drowned by men. Saved by a monster.

The last place Alexandra Bailey expects her routine life of domestic journalism to lead is being sucked into icy floodwaters below New York City with a knife in her ribs. Headlines like this happen to other people, but it's real, and she knows she's dead. Which makes the circumstances of her survival as impossible as the woman who drags her from the water.

Saved but hardly safe, Alex wakes in the Underground, a world of misfits and monsters thriving below the streets. It's a journalism goldmine. One Alex can't resist digging into after learning her beastly savior is Leanna Farrow, adopted daughter of an infamous and "presumed dead" scientist. But Alex's curiosity, coupled with her rapidly developing feelings for Leanna, put both women in danger when Alex’s inquiries pique the interest of a powerful family with bloody secrets connected to the Underground.

If Alex wants to unravel the mystery of the world below she'll have to walk the razor's edge, but some mysteries are better left buried.

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This was pitched to me as a Beauty and the Beast retelling, but scifi and sapphic. What more could I ask for?

Crudrat: The Tinkered Stars by Gail Carriger
Genres: Sci Fi
Published on: 1st April 2022
Goodreads

Maura is doomed to starve. Her space station has no further use for her.

New York Times bestselling author Gail Carriger brings you a fast-paced young adult scifi adventure featuring a capable heroine, her adorable pet, and the alien they accidentally rescue.

Abandoned

Outcast

Crudrat

With only her crud-eating murmel and a fuzzy alien stranger to help, Maura must find a way to survive, before they catch her and blow what’s left of her life into space.

In the far future, on a space-port the size of a city, crudrats scrape out a meager living cleaning the great machines that generate usable power. Only children can safely traverse the cramped tunnels and the massive blades that harvest crud. But one misstep and a crudrat gets caught on a blade edge and killed. Like rats, they scurry through the bulkheads, duty-bound to clean the air ducts so everyone else can breathe.

But, when they grow too big to be useful, they become outcasts. Now one of the forgotten, Maura might just be able to turn rejection into escape – if she’s resourceful enough.

"Of course, as with much YA fiction these days, the book's appeal crosses generations; Carriger's whimsical sense of humor and lightness of touch is entertaining regardless of age." ~ Tor.com (Etiquette & Espionage)

In this classic YA adventure about finding one’s place in the universe, Gail Carriger brings golden age-style science fiction into the 21st century, stuffs it full of heart, and gives it a finely polished, gleaming edge.

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One of the first books I ever reviewed on this blog was The Fifth Gender, a book set in the same Tinkered Stars verse as Crudrat – and since I loved Fifth Gender, of course I want to read Crudrat! This seems to be more YA, but it’s Carriger, so I know it’s going to be fun for adults too!

Will you be reading any of these? Did I miss any books I should know about? Let me know!

The post Must-Have Monday #79 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Sunday Soupçons #4

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!

Three mini-reviews this week!

The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling
Genres: Horror
Representation: Autistic-coded MC
PoV: 3rd Person, past tense
Goodreads

From the Bram Stoker-nominated author of The Luminous Dead comes a gothic fantasy horror--The Death of Jane Lawrence.

“Intense and amazing! It’s like Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell meets Mexican Gothic meets Crimson Peak.” —BookRiot

Practical, unassuming Jane Shoringfield has done the calculations, and decided that the most secure path forward is this: a husband, in a marriage of convenience, who will allow her to remain independent and occupied with meaningful work. Her first choice, the dashing but reclusive doctor Augustine Lawrence, agrees to her proposal with only one condition: that she must never visit Lindridge Hall, his crumbling family manor outside of town.

Yet on their wedding night, an accident strands her at his door in a pitch-black rainstorm, and she finds him changed. Gone is the bold, courageous surgeon, and in his place is a terrified, paranoid man—one who cannot tell reality from nightmare, and fears Jane is an apparition, come to haunt him. By morning, Augustine is himself again, but Jane knows something is deeply wrong at Lindridge Hall, and with the man she has so hastily bound her safety to.

Set in a dark-mirror version of post-war England, Caitlin Starling crafts a new kind of gothic horror from the bones of the beloved canon. This Crimson Peak-inspired story assembles, then upends, every expectation set in place by Shirley Jackson and Rebecca, and will leave readers shaken, desperate to begin again as soon as they are finished.

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The Death of Jane Lawrence was one of my favourite books of 2021; one of many that were so good, I just had no idea how to review them. I’m still not sure what to say, beyond I loved it; I deeply appreciated the clearly-autistic MC, whose thoughts and choices and actions mostly mirrored what my own would have been in her situation, and had to laugh when the magic system was, in essence, exactly what it is in real-world, Western witchcraft – believe in something hard enough to make it real. (Minus the tumours. Real magic doesn’t give you tumours, I pinkie promise.)

From the description, I was a bit worried it was going to be a sort of Jekyll and Hyde retelling, but it’s not that at all. In fact, I was surprised to realise this wasn’t historical fiction either; it’s actually set in some other world, similar to our late-1800s (or so – I’m not great with recent time periods) but definitely not the same. Although there isn’t a lot of wouldbuilding – Jane spends most of the novel in a single house, so there’s not much opportunity for it – it was still a nice surprise.

The supernatural elements were clever and creepy, and although at first I thought the prose was a little dry, it rapidly showed itself to be extremely compelling; once I was in, I couldn’t get out until I’d turned the final page. Majorly recommended for those who like their horror with dark magics.

One Day All This Will Be Yours by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Genres: Sci Fi
PoV: 1st Person, present tense
Goodreads

Welcome to the end of time. It’s a perfect day.

Nobody remembers how the Causality War started. Really, there's no-one to remember, and nothing for them to remember if there were; that's sort of the point. We were time warriors, and we broke time.

I was the one who ended it. Ended the fighting, tidied up the damage as much as I could.

Then I came here, to the end of it all, and gave myself a mission: to never let it happen again.

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My third (I think?) read for the Subjective Chaos Kind of Awards, and it turned out to be a lot of fun! Initially I really despised the MC – he’s not a nice guy and freely admits it – but he grew on me. Tchaikovsky gave him a very compelling voice, and let the narrative undercut and contradict most of what the protagonist was claiming. I thought that was done incredibly well. And I really loved the take on time travel and paradoxes and all the rest of it!

Can something be nihilistically charming? Because that’s how I’d like to describe this.

(This is also the first Tchaikovsky work I’ve ever managed to finish, so now I’ve finally got some idea of why so many people like his books!)

Ansible: Season Two (The Ansible Stories Book 2) by Stant Litore
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Muslim cast, Middle-Eastern bisexual MC, bisexual PoV character, F/F
PoV: Multiple 1st Person PoVs, present tense
Goodreads

"The battlefleets burn and blacken in the infinite day of space..."

The previous Ansibles found themselves marooned, but Zahid, last survivor of "Ansible 15718," commands an interstellar fleet, and Sahira, the psionic savant we meet in "Ansible: Night Land" and "Ansible: Strike Force," will take the battle to the pneumavores, humanity's fiercest predators.

In Season Two of Ansible, humanity's last conflict continues to blossom open, dark fire and dark flower, torching all of time and space. These are your descendants' stories. Their cries in the dark. They are not to be missed.

PRAISE FOR ANSIBLE:

"Litore's stories aren't only entertaining. They are stories invading our lives, unexpectedly. You encounter them, as you might encounter people. They are those random elements in life that happen to you, like a mugging, like childbirth, like falling in love and marriage, like death and the funeral that follows. They are moments that leave a mark, and leave you changed." - Andrew Hallam, Ph.D., Metropolitan State University of Denver

"Stant eloquently writes passages that are so moving, full of passion, fury, loneliness, blind drive ... He takes us to places of amazing beauty, awe-inspiring, as well as places where the implications in the story can leave you almost in despair for the human race." - Nikki Ebright, Director, Myths & Legends Con

INCLUDED IN SEASON TWO:
Ansible 15718
Ansible: Night Land
Ansible: Strike Force

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I enjoyed this so much more than season one – partly because this season contains a lot more hope than the previous, which was bleak as hell; partly because we finally have people fighting back, and able to fight back against the monsters; and partly because this is very much Sahira’s season.

Sahira, the bisexual, timetraveling, shapeshifting hijabi who is, on so many levels, one of the most amazing protagonists I’ve ever seen.

I’m still waiting until I finish season three so I can review the entirety as one story, but wow, folx – my struggles with the dark bleakness of season one? More than paid off! I’m genuinely so excited to read the last third of the Ansible story, and I’m pretty sure it’s going to live up to my wildest hopes!

More on that once I’ve finished season three!

Have you read any of these, or plan to? Let me know!

The post Sunday Soupçons #4 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

I Can’t Wait For…No Gods For Drowning by Hailey Piper

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. 

This week my Can’t-Wait-For is No Gods For Drowning by Hailey Piper!

No Gods for Drowning by Hailey Piper
Representation: Sapphic MC, F/F
Published on: 20th September 2022
Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

IN THE BEGINNING, MAN WAS PREY.

WITHOUT THE GODS, THEY'LL BE PREY AGAIN.

The old gods have fled, and the monsters they had kept at bay for centuries now threaten to drown the city of Valentine, hunting mankind as in ancient times. In the midst of the chaos, a serial killer has begun ritually sacrificing victims, their bodies strewn throughout the city.

Lilac Antonis wants to stop the impending destruction of her city by summoning her mother, a blood god—even if she has to slit a few throats to do it. But evading her lover Arcadia and her friends means sneaking, lying, and even spilling the blood of people she loves.

Alex and Cecil of Ace Investigations have been tasked with hunting down the killer, but as they close in—not knowing they're hunting their close friend Lilac—the detectives realize the gods may not have left willingly.

As flooding drags this city of cars and neon screaming into the jaws of sea demons and Arcadia struggles to save the people as captain of the evacuation team, Lilac’s ritual killings at last bear fruit, only to reveal her as a small piece in a larger plan. The gods’ protection costs far more than anyone has ever known, and Alex and Cecil are running out of time to discover the true culprit behind the gods’ disappearance before an ancient divine murder plot destroys them all.

Set in an alternate reality which updates mythology to near-modern day, NO GODS FOR DROWNING is part hunt for a serial killer, part noir detective story, and unlike anything you’ve ever read before.

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Hailey Piper has written multiple horror novels with spec-fic elements (and queer leads), but this is definitely the one I’m most excited for! I love the idea of monsters so scary the gods ran away (or did they???) and while I’m not a fan of detective stories as a general rule of thumb, it’s very different when I already I know who the killer is and it’s only the police who don’t.

And I’m both horrified and intrigued by the idea of a serial killer who…actually has a genuinely good motive??? How am I supposed to process that?!

I love the idea of ‘updated’ mythology, and I’m very, very curious about these gods. Does updated mythology mean they’ll be gods we know – like the Ancient Greek pantheon – set in the modern day? Or has Piper created entirely new ones for this story? What was the cost of their protection???

Guess we’ll find out in September!

This one’s on my Unmissable SFF of 2022 list – do you think you’ll be reading it too?

The post I Can’t Wait For…No Gods For Drowning by Hailey Piper appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Must-Have Monday #78

EIGHT new SFF books this week, and one contemporary novel in verse!

The Shadow Glass by Josh Winning
Representation: Major queer character
Published on: 22nd March 2022
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

A thrilling race against the clock to save the world from fantasy creatures from a cult 80s film – perfect for fans of Henson Company puppet classics like Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal, and The NeverEnding Story.

“There's a stirring sense of adventure, excitement, and terror running throughout. A treat for fans of the movies that inspired it.” – Publishers Weekly

“Sometimes dark, but never heartless; gritty yet soulbaring. It stands proud with a VHS copy of its favorite movie held aloft, daring you to say it's not the greatest film ever.” – Edgar Cantero, author of Meddling Kids

Jack Corman is failing at life. Jobless, jaded and facing the threat of eviction, he’s also reeling from the death of his father, one-time film director Bob Corman. Back in the eighties, Bob poured his heart and soul into the creation of his 1986 puppet fantasy The Shadow Glass, but the film flopped on release and Bob was never the same again.

In the wake of Bob’s death, Jack returns to his decaying childhood home, where he is confronted with the impossible — the puppet heroes from The Shadow Glass are alive, and they need his help. Tipped into a desperate quest to save the world from the more nefarious of his father’s creations, Jack teams up with an excitable fanboy and a spiky studio exec to navigate the labyrinth of his father’s legacy and ignite a Shadow Glass resurgence that could, finally, do Bob proud.

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The book I’m most excited for this week! A whole bunch of my favorite bloggers have loved this, so I can’t wait to dive in!

The Bone Orchard by Sara A. Mueller
Published on: 22nd March 2022
Genres: Fantasy, Secondary World Fantasy
Goodreads

Charm is a witch, and she is alone. The last of a line of conquered necromantic workers, now confined within the yard of regrown bone trees at Orchard House, and the secrets of their marrow.

Charm is a prisoner, and a survivor. Charm tends the trees and their clattering fruit for the sake of her children, painstakingly grown and regrown with its fruit: Shame, Justice, Desire, Pride, and Pain.

Charm is a whore, and a madam. The wealthy and powerful of Borenguard come to her house to buy time with the girls who aren't real.

Except on Tuesdays, which is when the Emperor himself lays claim to his mistress, Charm herself.

Now—Charm is also the only person who can keep an empire together, as the Emperor summons her to his deathbed, and charges her with choosing which of his awful, faithless sons will carry on the empire—by discovering which one is responsible for his own murder.

If she does this last thing, she will finally have what has been denied her since the fall of Inshil—her freedom. But she will also be betraying the ghosts past and present that live on within her heart.

Charm must choose. Her dead Emperor’s will or the whispers of her own ghosts. Justice for the empire or her own revenge.

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This is one that unfortunately didn’t quite work for me, but I think a lot of other people will love it, and I do plan on giving it another try eventually.

911 Vampire by Caleb James
Representation: Gay MC
Published on: 22nd March 2022
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

A vampire succubus created during the Black Plague, Godfrey works as a Boston paramedic and battles loneliness and exhaustion as he fights to keep humanity safe from twin COVID and opioid epidemics.

He has always pursued that which provides him hope—medicine, the cello… love. But yielding to his feelings for his work partner, Trevor, would conflict with Godfrey’s complicated moral code. Instead he feeds on sexual energy when he must and investigates a drug ring in his spare time.

But even a vampire can’t ignore his feelings forever.

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Sorry-not-sorry, I LOVE the idea of a vampire paramedic!

The City of Dusk (The Dark Gods, #1) by Tara Sim
Representation: Sapphic MC, bisexual MCs
Published on: 22nd March 2022
Genres: Fantasy, High Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

Set in a gorgeous world of bone and shadow magic, of vengeful gods and defiant chosen ones, The City of Dusk is the first in a dark epic fantasy trilogy that follows the four heirs of four noble houses—each gifted with a divine power—as they form a tenuous alliance to keep their kingdom from descending into a realm-shattering war.

The Four Realms—Life, Death, Light, and Darkness—all converge on the city of dusk. For each realm there is a god, and for each god there is an heir.

But the gods have withdrawn their favor from the once vibrant and thriving city. And without it, all the realms are dying.

Unwilling to stand by and watch the destruction, the four heirs—Risha, a necromancer struggling to keep the peace; Angelica, an elementalist with her eyes set on the throne; Taesia, a shadow-wielding rogue with rebellion in her heart; and Nik, a soldier who struggles to see the light— will sacrifice everything to save the city.

But their defiance will cost them dearly.

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I haven’t read Tara Sims before, so I have no idea what to expect from her prose, but the premise and diversity promised by City of Dusk are right up my alley!

Curfew by Jayne Cowie
Published on: 22nd March 2022
Goodreads

Think The Handmaid's Tale but with the women in charge, set in a world where all men are electronically tagged and placed under strict curfew, and the murder investigation threatening to undo it all.
Imagine a near-future Britain in which women dominate workplaces, public spaces, and government. Where the gender pay gap no longer exists and motherhood opens doors instead of closing them. Where women are no longer afraid to walk home alone, to cross a dark parking lot, or to catch the last train.
Where all men are electronically tagged and not allowed out after 7 p.m.
But the curfew hasn’t made life easy for everyone. Sarah is a single mother who happily rebuilt her life after her husband, Greg, was sent to prison for breaking curfew. Now he’s about to be released, and Sarah isn’t expecting a happy reunion, given that she’s the reason he was sent there.
Her teenage daughter, Cass, hates living in a world that restricts boys like her best friend, Billy. Billy would never hurt anyone, and she’s determined to prove it. Somehow.
Helen is a teacher at the local school. Secretly desperate for a baby, she’s applied for a cohab certificate with her boyfriend, Tom, and is terrified that they won’t get it. The last thing she wants is to have a baby on her own.
These women don’t know it yet, but one of them is about to be violently murdered. Evidence will suggest that she died late at night and that she knew her attacker. It couldn’t have been a man because a CURFEW tag is a solid alibi.
Isn’t it?

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This seems very timely, since last year a politician in the UK was advocating for a curfew for all men after 6pm. At the same time, l immediately want to know how Cowie’s premise affects nonbinary and trans people – something typically forgotten in genderpocalypse stories.

Untethered by Rhonda Parrish, Alyx Barter, Beth Cato, M.L.D. Curelas, Alyson Grauer, Lucy Hagan, Jamie Lackey, Carter Lappin, Sally McBride, Marshall Moore, Wendy Nikel, Jamie Perrault, Jennifer Lee Rossman, Rose Strickman, D.J. Tyrer, Rachel M. Thompson, Laura VanArendonk Baugh
Published on: 22nd March 2022
Genres: Fantasy, Sci Fi
Goodreads

Unicorns locked away in the cargo holds of spaceships, becoming roller skating phenoms or leaving sparkly rainbow poop in a poor bartender’s living room are just the start. There’s a demi-god trying to figure out where Pegasus has disappeared to, horses formed of sea, or steam and even one who thinks he’s a spider. And so much more. These stories are all a little untamed, a little wild, a little… untethered.

Featuring stories by Alyx Barter, Beth Cato, M.L.D. Curelas, Alyson Grauer, Lucy Hagan, Jamie Lackey, Carter Lappin, Sally McBride, Marshall Moore, Wendy Nikel, Jamie Perrault, Jennifer Lee Rossman, Rose Strickman, DJ Tyrer, Rachel M. Thompson, and Laura VanArendonk Baugh, this anthology is sure to have something for every horse lover.

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A WHOLE BOOK OF UNICORN STORIES?! *INCOHERANT SHRIEKING* I’m always looking for more stories about unicorns, and here’s a whole new anthology I only found out about at the last second!!! I cannot WAIT to dive in!

A Million Quiet Revolutions by Robin Gow
Representation: Brown trans MCs
Published on: 22nd March 2022
Genres: Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

Robin Gow's A Million Quiet Revolutions is a modern love story, told in verse, about two teenaged trans boys who name themselves after two Revolutionary War soldiers. A lyrical, aching young adult romance perfect for fans of The Poet X, Darius the Great is Not Okay, and Aristotle and Dante Discover the Universe.

For as long as they can remember, Aaron and Oliver have only ever had each other. In a small town with few queer teenagers, let alone young trans men, they’ve shared milestones like coming out as trans, buying the right binders—and falling for each other.

But just as their relationship has started to blossom, Aaron moves away. Feeling adrift, separated from the one person who understands them, they seek solace in digging deep into the annals of America’s past. When they discover the story of two Revolutionary War soldiers who they believe to have been trans men in love, they’re inspired to pay tribute to these soldiers by adopting their names—Aaron and Oliver. As they learn, they delve further into unwritten queer stories, and they discover the transformative power of reclaiming one’s place in history.

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As far as I can tell, this is contemporary with no spec-fic elements, but it still sounds like a beautiful book that I want to read – and boost, hence its inclusion in today’s post!

Comeuppance Served Cold by Marion Deeds
Published on: 22nd March 2022
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Goodreads

Seattle, 1929—a bitterly divided city overflowing with wealth, violence, and magic.

A respected magus and city leader intent on criminalizing Seattle’s most vulnerable magickers hires a young woman as a lady’s companion to curb his rebellious daughter’s outrageous behavior.

The widowed owner of a speakeasy encounters an opportunity to make her husband’s murderer pay while she tries to keep her shapeshifter brother safe.

A notorious thief slips into the city to complete a delicate and dangerous job that will leave chaos in its wake.

One thing is for certain—comeuppance, eventually, waits for everyone.

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I think this is the second of three or four 1920s fantasies I know of this year – and I’m not complaining, the more the merrier!

Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda
Published on: 24th March 2022
Genres: Fantasy
Goodreads

'Absolutely brilliant - tragic, funny, eccentric . . . Claire Kohda takes the vampire trope and makes it her own' Ruth Ozeki, Booker-shortlisted author of A Tale for the Time Being

Lydia is hungry. She's always wanted to try sashimi, ramen, onigiri with sour plum stuffed inside - the food her Japanese father liked to eat. And then there is bubble tea and the vegetables grown by the other young artists at the London studio space she is secretly squatting in. But Lydia can't eat any of this. The only thing she can digest is blood, and it turns out that sourcing fresh pigs' blood in London - where she is living away from her vampire mother for the first time - is much more difficult than she'd anticipated.

Then there are the humans: the people at the gallery she interns at, the strange men who follow her after dark, and Ben, a goofy-grinned artist she is developing feelings for. Lydia knows that they are her natural prey, but she can't bring herself to feed on them.
If Lydia is to find a way to exist in the world, she must reconcile the conflicts within her - between her demon and human sides, her mixed ethnic heritage, and her relationship with food, and, in turn, humans. Before any of this, however, she must eat.

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This is the UK release; Woman, Eating won’t be released in the USA for a while still. The early reviews for this have been extremely mixed – it seems to be a love-it or hate-it kind of book – but the premise is so interesting to me that I’ll definitely be giving it a go. I don’t have much interest in the humans-with-fangs kind of vampires, but I’m always on the lookout for ones who feel properly not-human, and I’m hopeful that’s the case here!

Will you be reading any of these? Did I miss any books I should know about? Let me know!

The post Must-Have Monday #78 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Sunday Soupçons #3

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!

Just two this week – although the first is a collection of short stories, and the second is a trilogy!

Ansible by Stant Litore
Representation: Muslim cast, Middle-Eastern cast, F/F
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Goodreads

It is the twenty-fifth century. As in the early Middle Ages, the Islamic world is now the center for learning and scientific exploration. And the planet’s most ambitious project is Starmind, a research institute that transfers the minds of volunteers, called Ansibles, across gulfs of space and time to make first contact with other sentient beings in the universe.

Sometimes, this does not go well.

Each of the Ansible Stories follows one team of brave minds across the void. These are their reports, their transcripts, the only accounts of what they have found.

You should read them.

After all, Starmind might need you, too, and isn't it time you finally found out what’s out there?

ANSIBLE includes four of Stant Litore's Ansible Stories in one volume, including the never-before-published story "Ansible 2."

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I wanted to write a quick warning about this one – not because it’s bad (anything but!) but because it’s fucking dark. I don’t recommend anyone read Ansible: Season One as a single volume; definitely buy the omnibus, if you’re interested (which you should be) since I can’t imagine anyone but horror fans continuing to read this series if this is all you have of it.

Does that make sense???

Happily, I do have the omnibus, and have been promised that it gets better. But I’ll talk about that when I’m done with the whole of Ansible and can review it properly.

Winterglass (Her Pitiless Command, #1) by Benjanun Sriduangkaew
Representation: BIPOC sapphic MCs, trans MC, BIPOC cast, secondary nonbinary characters, F/F
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

The city-state Sirapirat once knew only warmth and monsoon. When the Winter Queen conquered it, she remade the land in her image, turning Sirapirat into a country of snow and unending frost. But an empire is not her only goal. In secret, she seeks the fragments of a mirror whose power will grant her deepest desire.

At her right hand is General Lussadh, who bears a mirror shard in her heart, as loyal to winter as she is plagued by her past as a traitor to her country. Tasked with locating other glass-bearers, she finds one in Nuawa, an insurgent who’s forged herself into a weapon that will strike down the queen.

To earn her place in the queen’s army, Nuawa must enter a deadly tournament where the losers’ souls are given in service to winter. To free Sirapirat, she is prepared to make sacrifices: those she loves, herself, and the complicated bond slowly forming between her and Lussadh.

If the splinter of glass in Nuawa’s heart doesn’t destroy her first.

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More than anything else, it’s Sriduangkaew’s prose that makes this trilogy absolutely breathtaking; it’s lush and gorgeous, elevating a story we’ve seen a thousand times before – someone raised to be an assassin out to get close to the monarch they were groomed to destroy – into something gods-damn legendary. Each novella is a jewelled mosaic, and together they form a triptych that shines like opal and ice.

winter colors, the gleam and the glare.

The story is superficially simple – the unhuman Winter Queen has been conquering the known world one land at a time, including Sirapirat, a country who so fiercely defended their tropical climate that they’ve been ground beneath the Queen’s heel ever since. Nuawa is the daughter of revolutionaries who raised her to destroy the Queen, and she gains the beginning of an opportunity when it is announced that Sirapirat will be hosting the next tribute game – a fierce tournament where the winner is inducted into the Queen’s inner circle. Nuawa has no idea, however, that the Queen is looking for something far more than mere martial skill from the winner.

Nuawa is nothing if not a quick study, a chameleon of thought-schools.

It’s a story inspired by the Hans Christian Anderson fairytale The Snow Queen (I say inspired by rather than calling it a retelling because this trilogy is so much itself that calling it a retelling feels disingenuous). We have the Winter Queen, and a magical mirror that has been broken, and whose shards have scattered across the world, embedding themselves in human beings and altering them in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Everything else is wholly Sriduangkaew’s, and it is stunning! The worldbuilding!!! The worldbuilding is enough to make me spin in a circle and swoon. Technology powered by ghosts, swords that damage the body by slicing up its shadow, snow-maidens and gods – Sriduangkaew seems to have wanted to write not just beautiful fantasy, but fantasy that is beautiful – even as ugly and terrible things are going on, the prose and the details of this world conspire to enchant.

viper locks, serpent curlicues whose fangs drip venom in slow, clear beads. Lussadh clicks her tongue and makes staccato claps, timed to a specific rhyme; the serpents unlatch, falling into limp hibernation.

And it’s just so unapologetically queer. All of the MCs are sapphic, and over the course of the trilogy we meet several important nonbinary characters; not only that, but Sriduangkaew takes what I can only call a queer approach to sex as well; more than a little kinky, a little boundary-pushing – although tame compared to, say, her novella Now Shall Machines Devour the Beast – but that’s a discussion for another time!

Sriduangkaew also touches on how complicated colonialism and freedom are, how it’s rarely black and white. (After the invasion, anyway – I can’t think of many scenarios where I could see an invasion as anything other than awful.) Lussadh, the Queen’s General, was a prince who ‘betrayed’ her country to the Queen, and years later still isn’t sorry for it, for some pretty good reasons;

But Sirapirat’s citizens live well now, granted access to greater comforts and conveniences than they ever had before. “And my grandaunt’s subjects live under fairer terms,” she says to a dark corner where Ytoba might inhabit. “They live more justly. There are no more inheritances of power, of wealth born into. Before winter, all are equal, whether scions of the dynasty or of the enamel. The least laborer’s child is given the same education as the most opulent landlord’s scion. If you think the queen cruel, still she does not pursue petty power. She will not execute a servant’s clan because they spilled milk on her or broke her favorite vase. Do you understand, Ytoba? Life under the Kemiraj throne was fine enough for you, for me. For most of the country, it was a charnel house.”

I’ve seen critiques of the ending of the final book, but I was satisfied with it, and all three of these novellas have gone straight onto my favourites shelf. I’ve been enjoying Sriduangkaew’s sci-fi too, but I hope she comes back to fantasy eventually – I definitely need more of her magical take on magic!

Have you read either of these, or plan to? Let me know!

The post Sunday Soupçons #3 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

The Most Perfect Book to Ever Book: Saint Death’s Daughter by C. S. E. Cooney

Saint Death's Daughter by C.S.E. Cooney
Representation: Queer MC, nonbinary love interest, queerplatonic-coded F/F
Published on: 12th April 2022
Genres: Fantasy, High Fantasy, Secondary World Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
ISBN: 1786184702
Goodreads

Fun, froofy and glorious: a coming-of-age story in a new trilogy from World Fantasy Award-winning author C.S.E. Cooney.

Nothing complicates life like Death.

Lanie Stones, the daughter of the Royal Assassin and Chief Executioner of Liriat, has never led a normal life. Born with a gift for necromancy and a literal allergy to violence, she was raised in isolation in the family’s crumbling mansion by her oldest friend, the ancient revenant Goody Graves.

When her parents are murdered, it falls on Lanie and her cheerfully psychotic sister Nita to settle their extensive debts or lose their ancestral home—and Goody with it. Appeals to Liriat's ruler to protect them fall on indifferent ears… until she, too, is murdered, throwing the nation's future into doubt.

Hunted by Liriat’s enemies, hounded by her family’s creditors and terrorised by the ghost of her great-grandfather, Lanie will need more than luck to get through the next few months—but when the goddess of Death is on your side, anything is possible.

I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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~reliquaries > roses as the Most Romantic Gift
~Do you floomp or do you froof???
~The dog does not die
~Real necromancers love life
~don’t trust the birds
~dress your school up like a brothel to trick people into an education

A very few times in my life, I’ve encountered books that make the universe entire shift into alignment, books that are the culmination of every moment from the Big Bang to now. Books that feel like the reason the Big Bang happened, like everything that has ever existed did so just so that these books could be written and published and put in my hands. Like every moment that ever was has been leading up to this one.

Books that feel like the point; of the world, of humanity, of me.

Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey. The God Eaters by Jesse Hajicek. Palimpsest by Catherynne Valente. A few priceless others.

And, now, Saint Death’s Daughter.

How are you supposed to talk about a book it feels like you were born to read?

*

Take a generous handful of edible candy jewels and mix them into a casket of perfectly-cut gemstones. Stir in the most beautiful sugar skulls you can find. Add red velvet and pink tulle, spangles and razor blades, sequins and silver spearheads. Choose the most perfect, moonstone-gleaming bones and entomb them lovingly with your treasures. Breathe life into little mice skeletons to watch over your hoard. Give them tutus and tiaras and burning blue fire where their eyes would be. Give them cuddles and kisses and names.

Cast royal blood in a circle around it all, and set that blood alight.

Et voilà: Saint Death’s Daughter.

*

In all her twenty-two years, Lanie had mainly kept company with forty thousand skeletons (mostly furniture), a ghost (megalomaniacal), and a revenant housekeeper (seldom garrulous).

The thing is, I don’t want to tell you much about this book. I want you to experience it the way I did; a cake whose every layer is more delicious than the last; a gemstone that always has another glittering facet when you turn it over in your hands; a gift that never stops giving. And part of that was the surprise, of going in not knowing what to expect. For once, I have no argument with the blurb being coy with information. This is a book you should go into unprepared.

And unarmed.

Lay down your armour. Your cynicism, your scepticism, your grown-up-ism – set them all aside. The part of you that frets about what other people think, the part that would be too embarrassed to dye your hair rainbow colours or deck yourself in glitter, the part that’s too shy to get up on stage and sing karaoke even though you’d love to – let all of that go.

You don’t need them here. Saint Death’s Daughter is an escape, and it’s an escape because it’s true, because it taps into something real and rare that too many of us struggle to remember: life is fucking wonderful, actually.

*

Saint Death’s Daughter is joy. (Not a joy – although that too! – but joy.) It’s a feast, a banquet, a ball, rich and glittering and strange and perfect. This is a book about a necromancer but it is fundamentally a book about life, about the love of life, about how beautiful and wonderful it is to be alive in the world.

Love was the Dreamcalling, love the Great Wakening, love the foundation of the Maranathasseth Anthem. It was the finest of all reasons to live–and after death, to live again.

You would not believe how long it’s taken me to write this review, or how many drafts I’ve started and scrapped. I simply don’t know how to talk about it. But something clicked recently, and I realised what it was I was struggling to put into words about this book:

Saint Death’s Daughter is the opposite of depression. The exact opposite. It is the opposite of depression, distilled.

She wanted to eat everything and everyone right down to the bone and suck the marrow clean.

This book is giggles and glory, richness and rawness, sweet and seraphic and swish. It is ornate and orphic, jubilant and jocose, luxurious and luminous and lit. It is flamboyant and fierce, dashing and devious, iridescent and intoxicating, extravagant and effervescent and epic. It is candyfloss and glitter and toe-bones as love-gifts; a literal, physical allergy to violence in a babe raised by a revenant; jewelled nail-talons pricking fingers so you can wield blood-fire. It is rich in everything, and overflows with love and life and gorgeous prose, an ivory cornucopia of unstinting, unending magic. Literal magic: necromancy and shapeshifting and blood-fire-wielding, deities and revenants and ghosts, even one character who can slow down time. But also the kill-for-you die-for-you live-for-you magic of family and friendship, and I don’t care if that sounds like a Hallmark card, it’s genuine and moving and caught my heart in my throat.

It is everything at once, and I don’t know how that’s possible – I don’t know how you can have Epic Fantasy vibes and a school set up inside a brothel to trick would-be patrons into getting an education, how you can have green moustaches alongside terrifying Blackbird Brides, how you can have divine benedictions alongside mispronounced lemonade. I don’t know how you can have Fire Knights next to froofing, how footnotes full of glorious silliness can go so well with scenes that will have you sobbing, or how any one story can juggle so many different kinds of love and make them all balance perfectly, none outweighing the others. I don’t know how a single book can make me gasp and beam and cackle and quake and pother and hiss and whoop and goosebump and cheer and crow and curse and cry, but I can only assume each of the 12 gods of Athe blessed this book like fairy godmothers and these are all the gifts they gave wrapped up in paper and ink.

Saint Death’s Daughter is absolutely a gift.

“Bless your prism eyes, that see rainbows trapped in the plain plumage of your fellows.”

(I wish I could take it through a time-machine back to baby!Sia, leave it on her pillow so she’d know that being weird is wonderful, is something to be celebrated, not only is there room for you in the world, the world wants you. You’re going to grow up in a world where this gets written and published and it will be good.)

“But, as you Lirians say, ‘a salacious selling point is the first friend of social change!’”

Lanie lifted her head. “Wait. We say that?”

“Sex sells,” Canon Lir translated.

It is delightful. It is whimsy writ large and bolt and brilliant; it is gutpunchingly powerful; it had me breathless with laughter one minute and my blood pounding at the poignancy the next. It is as extravagant as a Guo Pei fashion show, as exuberant as a Pride parade, as stirring and beautiful as Día de los Muertos. It is an exhilerant – an exhilarating accelerant of a book, lighting you up with elation.

It’s impossible to sing its praises too much or too loudly, just as it’s impossible to point to anything – anything! – and call it a flaw.

For real. Usually I’m able to take a step back and admit that however much I love the thing, this and this and this could have been better. I pride myself on my ability to be objective like that. But here? It doesn’t matter how far I step back, I can’t see any stretch marks. I can whip out the magnifying glass, the microscope, and I still can’t find anything to critique. Not one single thing. Not the characters, not the dialogue, not the plot, not the worldbuilding, not the relationships, not the villains, not the quests, not even the outfits. Not even the TIME-SKIPS, and we all know how impossibly difficult those are to utilise well! But not even them.

Mak was taking all of his daughter’s daytime dreads and re-shaping them into a beautiful nighttime myth, the same way he reshaped his body with sothaín into the very essence of his prayers.

And I do think I’m being objective when I say that. Why do you think this hit me so hard? Why do you think I’ve been struggling like I have to talk about this book? It is literally perfect. Just thinking about it now genuinely, honestly brings tears to my eyes so my glasses get all smudged up. I have had to take so many breaks, typing this up. I can’t – there aren’t words.

She felt surrounded by a lifetime of Canon Lir’s letters. It was as if she moved through the world protected by the walls of an invisible library

There aren’t words, so I made one, because that’s apparently what I do whenever I’m given a new Cooney book. Thus: the only way to describe the world of Athe that Cooney has created, this book she’s written about it? Is athegravagant. Saint Death’s Daughter is athegravagant, and you’ll only understand what that means if you read it.

Just. This is my book, folx. This is The Book, for me. This is everything I ever wanted and everything I didn’t know to want.

(Except a unicorn. I must admit that I did not spot any unicorns, but! This is only the first book in a series and so I will hold out hope that there will be one later, and you know what, even if there isn’t, Saint Death’s Daughter is still perfect.)

I’ve never read anything like this before. I’ve never experienced this sense of – of being seen and loved and celebrated by a book. I don’t know what to say. I want to sit here and write pages and pages of adoring analysis on each and every character, even the villains; I want to write epic love poetry to the worldbuilding, which is beyond anything I’ve ever encountered, or thought possible, or thought was allowed. I want to create altars to the gods of this book, Doédenna and Sappacor and Amahirra and Ajdenia, Kantu and Enjoloth and Wykkyrri and Brotquen, Lan Satthi and Aganath and Yssimyss and Kywit, and that sounds Extra as hell, doesn’t it, but the thing is, I’m not kidding. I’ve never seen gods who feel so much like gods before, I’ve never come across an author who managed to make me believe in fictional deities, who wrote the grace and majesty of them so well that every time they appeared on-page I understood what it was I was supposed to feel in cathedrals as a kid.

So trying to talk about this book feels…impossibly intimate. I want to shove a copy into everyone’s hands, but I feel shy about it too, like it’s private.

I know it’s silly. It’s just that it’s true, too.

It doesn’t take a prince, after all, to turn blood into light.

If you crossed Catherynne Valente with N.K. Jemisin, you might be lucky enough to get something almost as extravagantly epic as Saint Death’s Daughter. You might, just, come close to the wealth of word-love and magic and strangeness and wonder and JOY. You might, almost, brush your fingers against the edges of vast, impossible imagination and creativity that went into this world, these characters, this book.

*

I said there aren’t words, so I invented one – exhilerant – because that’s apparently what I do now whenever I’m given a new Cooney book. But here’s another; because the only way to describe the world of Athe that Cooney has created, this book she’s written about it? Is athegravagant. Saint Death’s Daughter is athegravagant, and you’ll only understand what that means if you read it.

*

Hi. My name is Sia. Here’s my heart in a book. I think it might hold yours too.

You should read it and see.

Saint Death’s Daughter fireworksicals into the world on April 12th, and you can (and absolutely should) preorder it in all formats from the usual places!

The post The Most Perfect Book to Ever Book: Saint Death’s Daughter by C. S. E. Cooney appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Books to Read While Waiting For The Hourglass Throne

The Hourglass Throne – third book in the Tarot Sequence and the finale of the first trilogy – comes out on May 17th. But what do you read until then???

Although the TTSPromo team is running the #TTSReadalong on Twitter and Goodreads – rereading The Tarot Sequence series in the lead-up to the release of The Hourglass Throne – you might want to read new books instead of rereading, or as well as rereading.

To that end, I’ve assembled a list of books that I hope will appeal to other fans of The Tarot Sequence! I can vouch for all of these, as I’ve read and adored them all. I’ve also broken them down by their similarities to TTS. So if you’re looking for…

…more Tarot Sequence!

The obvious first choice is – the bonus content! K.D. Edwards has Tarot Sequence fans spoiled rotten; he’s written us a ton of extra content, including multiple novellas, all of which are available FOR FREE on his website! The latest novella, The Great Atlantean Battle Royalchemy, is scheduled to be completed TODAY!

Technically, you don’t need to read the bonus content to understand the events of the books, but you’re massively missing out if you skip them.

…underdogs breaking the world for love?

The God Eaters by Jesse Hajicek
Representation: Indigenous American-coded gay MC, gay MC, M/M
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

Imprisoned for 'inflammatory writings' by the totalitarian Theocracy, shy intellectual Ashleigh Trine figures his story's over. But when he meets Kieran Trevarde, a hard-hearted gunslinger with a dark magic lurking in his blood, Ash finds that necessity makes strange heroes... and love can change the world.

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God Eaters is criminally under-known, in part because it’s self-published – you can buy the paperback from Am*azon here or as an ebook via Lulu.com. But you can also read it online for free, and if you do, you’ll see why it’s worth buying your own copy.

This is a love story and epic fantasy featuring a death-witch and an empath, neither of whom will conform to your expectations, both of whom just want to be left alone by a world that’s out to destroy them – and yes, there are actual gods involved. Hajicek’s prose is quick and gleaming, with flashes of heart-stopping beauty, and the plot, magic and worldbuilding are all incredibly clever and unique.

It’s also a standalone, so you won’t need to wait for sequels to get the whole story! Which truly is unmissable.

…a romance full of Feels and an are they/aren’t they soulmates plot?

The Magic Between by Stephanie Hoyt
Representation: Bisexual MC with clinical anxiety, bisexual MC, M/M, secondary sapphic character, minor trans and bisexual characters
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

The official release of The Magic Between includes an updated prologue not found in advanced copies.

In a world where everyone has magic coursing through them, legend says magic itself craves a mate. Legend says those with opposite magics have the greatest chance of forming the unbreakable Bond it desires.

A.B. Cerise is an obsessive compulsive pop star with the ability to turn invisible. He’s an out bisexual with absolutely no belief in Bonds. He has a love-bruised heart, thinks dating in the spotlight is a hassle at best and a nightmare at worst, and has no intention of going through it all over again.

Matthew Hellman-Levoie is the NHL’s number one goalie prospect, the youngest in a hockey dynasty, and one of the rare few who can see the unseeable. He’s a straight man who wears his heart on his sleeve, has grown up searching for a Bond, and dreams of finding the love of his life.

Legend never said anything about what to do when sparks fly between two people opposite in more ways than just magic.

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Another standalone, The Magic Between is one of those magical romances that makes you GLOW with happy!Feels – and it’s all about a potential soulmate bond! Who does that remind you of???

Like the Tarot Sequence, this book has a contemporary setting, and a damn fabulous cast of secondary characters (and the leads, of course, are wonderful). I adored it from start to finish; you can read my full review here!

…a detective!fantasy that deconstructs toxicity?

The Imaginary Corpse by Tyler Hayes
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Goodreads

A dinosaur detective in the land of unwanted ideas battles trauma, anxiety, and the first serial killer of imaginary friends.

Most ideas fade away when we're done with them. Some we love enough to become Real. But what about the ones we love, and walk away from? Tippy the triceratops was once a little girl's imaginary friend, a dinosaur detective who could help her make sense of the world. But when her father died, Tippy fell into the Stillreal, the underbelly of the Imagination, where discarded ideas go when they're too Real to disappear. Now, he passes time doing detective work for other unwanted ideas - until Tippy runs into The Man in the Coat, a nightmare monster who can do the impossible: kill an idea permanently. Now Tippy must overcome his own trauma and solve the case, before there's nothing left but imaginary corpses.

File Unders: Fantasy [ Fuzzy Fiends - Death to Imagination - Hardboiled but Sweet - Not Barney ]

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One of the most unique aspects of The Tarot Sequence is its complete, and completely refreshing, lack of toxic masculinity. Imaginary Corpse takes that much further, introducing a world where asking for someone’s pronouns is a default part of asking their name, everyone understands trauma, and you need consent before touching someone in any way, not just as regards sex.

And it’s about an ex-imaginary friend who is a yellow triceratops plushie…and who decompresses by taking a spin in the clothes dryer.

You’re welcome.

(You can read my review here!)

…a queer fantasy that deals with abuse, trauma, and monsters?

Mr. Big Empty by Gregory Ashe
Representation: Gay MC, gay love interest, bisexual love interest, M/M
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

Vie Eliot arrives in the small town of Vehpese, Wyoming with little more than the clothes--and scars--on his back. Determined to make a new life for himself after escaping his abusive mother, he finds that living with his estranged father brings its own problems.

Then Samantha Oates, the girl with blue hair, goes missing, and Vie might be the only one who can find her. His ability to read emotions and gain insight into other people’s darkest secrets makes him the perfect investigator, with only one small problem: he wants nothing to do with his gift.

When the killer begins contacting Vie through a series of strange cards, though, Vie is forced to hone his ability, because Samantha was not the killer’s only target.

And, as Vie learns, he is not the only psychic in town.

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There’s a streak of very seriousness darkness running though the Tarot Sequence; in the Hollow Folk series, it’s front and centre. Vie is a gay teenager who’s been viciously abused by his mother, and has now been sent to live with his not-much-better father. He’s also a psychic, one whose powers grow in direct relation to the gathering and expansion of his found-family – and who has to face off against monsters much bigger than his parents, whose powers far outmatch his own.

This series is incredible from start to finish, in every possible way. I’m going to link you to Kathy’s review, because I’ve never seen anyone describe and explain these books as well as she does!

…found-family that always has your pack?

Wolfsong (Green Creek, #1) by T.J. Klune
Representation: Bisexual MC, M/M, secondary bi/pansexual cast
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

Ox was twelve when his daddy taught him a very valuable lesson. He said that Ox wasn’t worth anything and people would never understand him. Then he left.

Ox was sixteen when he met the boy on the road. The little boy who talked and talked and talked. Ox found out later the little boy hadn’t spoken in almost two years before that day, and that the little boy belonged to a family who had moved into the house at the end of the lane.

Ox was seventeen when he found out the little boy’s secret and it painted the world around him in colors of red and orange and violet, of Alpha and Beta and Omega.

Ox was twenty-three when murder came to town and tore a hole in his head and heart. The boy chased after the monster with revenge in his bloodred eyes, leaving Ox behind to pick up the pieces.

It’s been three years since that fateful day—and the boy is back. Except now he’s a man, and Ox can no longer ignore the song that howls between them.

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I find it unlikely that Tarot Sequence fans have not read the Green Creek series, but it had to be included just in case! These books feature werewolves instead of Atlantean scions (although the MC of Ravensong is a witch, not a werewolf) and go HARD on the Feels – every kind of Feels. Be ready to be emotionally gutted, laugh out loud, and sob your heart out…in a good way!

…rewritten myths in ancient and urban settings?

Rituals (Rhapsody of Blood, #1) by Roz Kaveney
Representation: Lesbian MCs, F/F, brown lesbian MC, secondary queer cast
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Epic Fantasy
Goodreads

Two women - and the workings of Time and Fate.

In a time too long ago for most human memory, a god asked Mara what she most wanted. She got her wish: to protect the weak against the strong. For millennia, she has avenged that god, and her dead sisters, against anyone who uses the Rituals of Blood to become a god through mass murder. And there are few who can stand against her.

A sudden shocking incident proves to Emma that the modern world is not what she thought it was, that there are demons and gods and elves and vampires. Her weapon is knowledge, and she pursues it wherever it leads her. The one thing she does not know is who she - and her ghostly lover, Caroline - are working for.

RHAPSODY OF BLOOD is an epic fantasy not quite like anything you've read before: a helter-skelter ride through history and legend, from Tenochitlan to Los Angeles, from Atlantis to London. It is a story of death, love and the end of worlds - and of dangerous, witty women.

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KD has reimagined the traditional tarot for his books, but also quite a bit of human mythology and folklore (who remembers the burning bush reference in The Last Sun?) The Rhapsody of Blood series does the same, but much more directly and pointedly, and on a much larger scale. (Lucifer and God used to be boyfriends. They’re That Kind of exes now.) The story is split between Emma, whose superpower is Talking Sensibly, and Mara, who is an immortal huntress of those who would use the Rituals of Blood to turn themselves into gods (trust me, you’ll be glad she stops them). Emma’s story starts in pre-2000s London; Mara’s takes place over millennia, and only slowly and rarely interacts with Emma’s – at least to begin with.

The premise is more or less that Mara’s adventures – some of them, at least – are the basis for human myths and legends. Just in book one, we see the ‘origins’ of the Amazon warriors, Noah’s Ark, Morgana Le Fay, Atlantis…the list goes on, and continues into each of the subsequent books.

There are also drag-queen chaos magicians. Again, you’re welcome.

…unique magic and a platonic love to die for?

Radiant (Towers Trilogy, #1) by Karina Sumner-Smith
Genres: Fantasy
Goodreads

Xhea has no magic. Born without the power that everyone else takes for granted, Xhea is an outcast—no way to earn a living, buy food, or change the life that fate has dealt her. Yet she has a unique talent: the ability to see ghosts and the tethers that bind them to the living world, which she uses to scratch out a bare existence in the ruins beneath the City’s floating Towers.

When a rich City man comes to her with a young woman’s ghost tethered to his chest, Xhea has no idea that this ghost will change everything. The ghost, Shai, is a Radiant, a rare person who generates so much power that the Towers use it to fuel their magic, heedless of the pain such use causes. Shai’s home Tower is desperate to get the ghost back and force her into a body—any body—so that it can regain its position, while the Tower’s rivals seek the ghost to use her magic for their own ends. Caught between a multitude of enemies and desperate to save Shai, Xhea thinks herself powerless—until a strange magic wakes within her. Magic dark and slow, like rising smoke, like seeping oil. A magic whose very touch brings death.

With two extremely strong female protagonists, Radiant is a story of fighting for what you believe in and finding strength that you never thought you had.

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Xhea’s city is not New Atlantis, but it is similar in one way: it runs on magic. The people with the least of it are at the bottom, and the ones who are rich with it live in flying towers above the ruins below. Magic is power, but it’s also currency, and everyone has it – except Xhea. Xhea has no magic, is colourblind, and sees ghosts.

Then she meets Shai.

I couldn’t believe it when I read this trilogy the first time, and turned the final pages, and there had been no romance anywhere. None! The central relationship in this trilogy – the only one that really matters – is the platonic love between Xhea and Shae, who grow into friends who would, and will, do anything for each other. We hardly ever get to see hard fantasy that focusses on friendship, but that’s exactly what this trilogy does.

Also, Xhea, like Rune? Is absolutely planning on changing the system. BIG TIME.

…outside the-box urban fantasy that reimagines ancient stories?

Blackheart Knights by Laure Eve
Representation: Bi/pansexual MC, nonbinary secondary characters, sapphic secondary character, queernorm world
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

Power always wins.

Imagine Camelot but in Gotham: a city where knights are the celebrities of the day, riding on motorbikes instead of horses and competing in televised fights for fame and money.

Imagine a city where a young, magic-touched bastard astonishes everyone by becoming king - albeit with extreme reluctance - and a girl with a secret past trains to become a knight for the sole purpose of vengeance.

Imagine a city where magic is illegal but everywhere, in its underground bars, its back-alley soothsayers - and in the people who have to hide what they are for fear of being tattooed and persecuted.

Imagine a city where electricity is money, power the only game worth playing, and violence the most fervently worshipped religion.

Welcome to a dark, chaotic, alluring place with a tumultuous history, where dreams come true if you want them hard enough - and are prepared to do some very, very bad things to get them . . .

"A riveting tragedy of blood and desire - and the coolest thing you'll read this year" ― Samantha Shannon, author of The Bone Season and The Priory of the Orange Tree

"The boldest, smartest, most adventurous fantasy I've read in ages - and it's really f**ing fun" ― Krystal Sutherland, author of Our Chemical Hearts

"Arthurian legend meets urban fantasy in a brilliant, bloody wild ride" ― Jay Kristoff, No.1 New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author

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Officially, Blackheart Knights is a King Arthur retelling; unofficially, you don’t need to know anything about the King Arthur mythos to enjoy the hell out of this book. There’s a few Easter eggs here and there for those who know the ‘canon’ (not that there really IS a King Arthur canon) but that’s it. Functionally, this is a unique urban fantasy where knights use swords but ride motorbikes, London is ruled by a king, and those who can use magic are tattooed and forced to wear tracking bracelets.

Oh, and it’s queer. Because of course it is.

…a pack of misfits facing off against a powerful conspiracy?

A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe (The Salvagers, #1) by Alex White
Representation: Brown sapphic MC, disabled MC, F/F
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Science Fantasy
Goodreads

Boots Elsworth was a famous treasure hunter in another life, but now she’s washed up. She makes her meager living faking salvage legends and selling them to the highest bidder, but this time she might have stumbled on something real–the story of the Harrow, a famous warship, capable of untold destruction.

Nilah Brio is the top driver in the Pan Galactic Racing Federation and the darling of the racing world–until she witnesses the murder of a fellow racer. Framed for the murder and on the hunt to clear her name, Nilah only has one lead: the killer also hunts a woman named Boots.

On the wrong side of the law, the two women board a smuggler’s ship that will take them on a quest for fame, for riches, and for justice.

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A more misfit pack of misfits I have never seen. This is another universe where (almost) everyone has magic, primarily one magical ability that, in the more gifted, can be utilised in all sorts of ways. But someone people aren’t happy with just being powerful, and decide they want to become gods instead…which our rag-tag band are out to prevent.

Eventually.

If they can stop butting heads.

This trilogy isn’t just strong in the found-family vibes; as you’ve probably guessed from the covers, it’s a mix of fantasy and sci-fi, with spaceships flying alongside spells. I think that counts as ridiculously unique, don’t you???

…a book that goes deep but will still make you laugh?

In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan
Representation: Bisexual MC, major gay character, matriarchy
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

“What’s your name?”

“Serene.”

“Serena?” Elliot asked.

“Serene,” said Serene. “My full name is Serene-Heart-in-the-Chaos-of-Battle.”

Elliot’s mouth fell open. “That is badass.”

The Borderlands aren’t like anywhere else. Don’t try to smuggle a phone or any other piece of technology over the wall that marks the Border—unless you enjoy a fireworks display in your backpack. (Ballpoint pens are okay.) There are elves, harpies, and—best of all as far as Elliot is concerned—mermaids.

Elliot? Who’s Elliot? Elliot is thirteen years old. He’s smart and just a tiny bit obnoxious. Sometimes more than a tiny bit. When his class goes on a field trip and he can see a wall that no one else can see, he is given the chance to go to school in the Borderlands.

It turns out that on the other side of the wall, classes involve a lot more weaponry and fitness training and fewer mermaids than he expected. On the other hand, there’s Serene-Heart-in-the-Chaos-of-Battle, an elven warrior who is more beautiful than anyone Elliot has ever seen, and then there’s her human friend Luke: sunny, blond, and annoyingly likeable. There are lots of interesting books. There’s even the chance Elliot might be able to change the world.

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I’ve always pitched this as ‘snarky bisexual goes to magic school and is Unimpressed’, but it’s a good bit deeper than that – although Other Lands will absolutely have you cackling with laughter, because Brennan is a comedic genius. And a genius in many other ways – Other Lands sees her taking a bunch of traditional fantasy tropes and dissecting and/or subverting them – matriarchal elves are the least of it. The biggest thing for me was the examination of how messed-up the glorification of violence in fantasy is, and how Elliot will have nothing to do with it.

It’s intensely, addictively readable, and it will break your heart over and over – but always put it back together again and make you laugh through your tears. Promise.

…powers beyond mortal comprehension, a lot of laughs, and a lot of heart?

Lovequake by T.J. Land
Representation: Black pansexual MC, deaf trans love interest, Black sapphic secondary character, minor brown asexual aromantic character, M/M and F/F
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Goodreads

No one knows what to make of Sunday.

He’s handsome. He’s stylish. He’s got endless amounts of cash that he splashes around like water.

But there’s something just a little bit wrong about the way he talks – like he’s never had a conversation before – and the way he walks – like he expects walls to simply get out of his way. Though his hair and beard are immaculately groomed, he never brushes the former or trims the latter. And he talks to the sky.

All of which are very solid, sensible reasons for Zip Fletcher, cheerfully rude Welsh sex worker, not to develop a crush on him.

Zip is, however, not a sensible man.

LOVEQUAKE is an M/M + F/F romantic scifi adventure set against the backdrop of a quintillion-year-old cosmic war.

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Ahh, Lovequake. The book I always completely fail at being able to describe! This is hysterically funny, and blindingly original and unique – a cosmic-horror alien comes to Earth, accidentally names himself after ice-cream, and blithely collects interesting humans as he travels the planet looking for long-lost pieces of his psyche. This book made me smile when I was in an immense amount of pain and a bad bout of depression, so I will always recommend it as an incredible pick-me-up book. Even if it doesn’t sound like your thing, I urge you to pick it up. It’s so funny, and so diverse, and so sweet, and there is not one thing I’d critique or change about it!

Will you be reading any of these? Do you have any recs of your own for TTS fans? Let me know!

The post Books to Read While Waiting For The Hourglass Throne appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Perfectly Okay: Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher

Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher
Representation: Extremely minor nonbinary character
Published on: 26th April 2022
Genres: Fantasy
ISBN: 1250244048
Goodreads

After years of seeing her sisters suffer at the hands of an abusive prince, Marra—the shy, convent-raised, third-born daughter—has finally realized that no one is coming to their rescue. No one, except for Marra herself.

Seeking help from a powerful gravewitch, Marra is offered the tools to kill a prince—if she can complete three impossible tasks. But, as is the way in tales of princes, witches, and daughters, the impossible is only the beginning.

On her quest, Marra is joined by the gravewitch, a reluctant fairy godmother, a strapping former knight, and a chicken possessed by a demon. Together, the five of them intend to be the hand that closes around the throat of the prince and frees Marra's family and their kingdom from its tyrannous ruler at last.

I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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~curses can be more useful than blessings
~don’t doubt the moth
~almost-nuns get shit done

Nettle & Bone is as readable as all of Kingfisher’s books – I finished it in under 12 hours – but it felt like a bit of a let-down. Which I think is mostly due to the amount of hype it’s gotten and the expectations I had going into it, because it is not a bad book! Not at all.

It’s just that I was expecting to be blown away, and I wasn’t.

In a lot of ways, Nettle & Bone feels like someone turned the dial down on the Kingfisher persona to make her work more approachable for first-time readers; it’s a lot less weird, and much less funny, than anyone who’s been following the World of the White Rat books is going to expect. It also felt much…not darker, but grimmer, than anything I’ve seen from Kingfisher before – which is an odd thing to say, I know, because all of her books deal with real-and-rough topics. But the vibe was different here. Maybe because it’s built around marital physical abuse, and never takes it anything but seriously (as is only appropriate)? Off the top of my head, I can’t think of another Kingfisher book that dealt with as dark a realistic issue – most of the time, the Serious Issues are…either not quite as serious, or a little bit removed from what the average reader can expect to ever experience. Clockwork monsters and death mazes are awful, but most of us will never run into either, will we?

As usual, Kingfisher’s characters are wonderfully human, immensely relatable in a way fantasy characters often aren’t. Marra is a princess, but only on paper; she’s been raised in a convent and eventually makes a space for herself as the healer’s assistant. She’s no good with fancy things or crowds or people in general, really – and she has absolutely no idea what to do when she discovers, almost by accident, that her sister’s husband is abusing her. That helplessness is painfully relatable, and I thought it was handled (and portrayed) very well. But she does eventually latch onto the idea of seeking help from a dust-wife (a kind of graveyard-keeper crossed with a witch), and from there the adventure unspools.

There were glimpses, here and there, of Kingfisher’s signature whimsy and weirdness…but surprisingly little of either. Both the dog of bones Marra creates as one of her Impossible Tasks and the demonically-possessed chicken played extremely small roles; the delightfully strange but somewhat unnerving Toothdancer we only meet for a moment. The visit to the Goblin Market was probably my favorite part of the book, with all the non-humans and their magics on display, Kingfisher’s imagination clearly given free rein. Other than that, there was one brief aside about how Marra’s kingdom believe that the souls of the damned are devoured by crabs, and that was…kind of it? There wasn’t a whole lot of wonderful weirdness/weird wonder here, which was really disappointing.

I do think the synopsis is hugely misleading; the Impossible Tasks take Marra a few pages to complete – they’re certainly not the focus of the story. (Unless you count killing a prince as an Impossible Task, which, fair.) Also, although I’ve referred to it as an adventure, describing Marra’s travels that way is stretching it a bit. She goes to find the dust-wife, they go to the Goblin Market, they pick up a couple of friends along the way, and head to the prince’s city. (One reason this book is so short is that Kingfisher, sensibly, fast-forwards through the actual travel parts. Despite that, she still manages to have all the relationships develop believably.) And finally – I wouldn’t really call this a book about sisterhood. Marra and her sister don’t really have a relationship, and the general impression is very much that Marra would go to these lengths for anyone – the fact that the woman who needs help is her sister isn’t really relevant. That made me like Marra more, but it does mean that Nettle & Bone isn’t really about the powers of sisterhood.

It’s not at all a bad book; it was extremely readable, even the grimmer bits. But it’s nowhere near the level of any of Kingfisher’s other books, in terms of addictiveness or humour or strange-but-delightful-ness. I don’t know how readers who are new to Kingfisher will feel about it, but for me, after Swordheart and Stranger in Orcus and The Raver and the Reindeer? After all those, Nettle & Bone is a let-down. It’s definitely not the book I’d give to someone who’s never read Kingfisher before.

The post Perfectly Okay: Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

I Can’t Wait For…Uncommon Charm by Emily Bergslien & Kat Weaver

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. 

This week my Can’t-Wait-For is Uncommon Charm by Emily Bergslien & Kat Weaver!

Uncommon Charm by Kat Weaver, Emily Bergslien
Representation: Lesbian MC, gay Jewish MC
Published on: 17th May 2022
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

In the 1920s gothic comedy Uncommon Charm, bright young socialite Julia and shy Jewish magician Simon decide they aren’t beholden to their families’ unhappy history. Together they confront such horrors as murdered ghosts, alive children, magic philosophy, a milieu that slides far too easily into surrealist metaphor, and, worst of all, serious adult conversation.

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I’ve been excited for Uncommon Charm ever since Neon Hemlock, the publisher, announced their 2022 line-up! Even moreso when I discovered that both the MCs were queer (it’s a fair bet that there will be queerness in most Neon Hemlock novellas, for the record) and that anarchist witches were involved!

What’s also extremely cool? Apparently Bergslein and Weaver have been working on this shared universe for ages, and there are other stories set in it (although I believe they’re all unrelated to the events of Uncommon Charm.) You can find links to those stories, and to an interview they did at Reads Rainbow, over in this Twitter thread.

I think there’s something extra special about a universe, setting or story – or characters! – that you’ve had with you for years and years; it’s been loved for longer, and I think that comes through in the writing. Couldn’t be more excited for this one!

Neon Hemlock’s 2022 novellas are currently being funded over on Indigogo, so if you’re interested in Uncommon Charm, go back it!

The post I Can’t Wait For…Uncommon Charm by Emily Bergslien & Kat Weaver appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.