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Title: The Name She Gave Me | Author: Betty Culley | Publisher: HarperTeen (2022)

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How to Steal a Galaxy

By Beth Revis.

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I’ve finally gotten around to taking photos of BigBang’s Silas edition, with artwork by the incredibly talented Noëmie Chevalier. I couldn’t resist including one of my favorite pages, an excerpt from Katrien’s notes on booklouse biology, in which she’s trying to convince Silas to help her search for the giant booklice rumored to live in the sewers beneath the Royal Library (in the green writing, he politely declines). There’s also a brand new map and Thorn family tree. Noëmie did an amazing job of capturing Silas! I especially love how the spine and painted edges look with his contrasting human and demon form.

I should be all caught up with sending out the English annotations, which came to a whopping 40 pages. If you’ve contacted me and not received an email, please reach out again!

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Title: The Creeper | Author: A.M. Shine | Publisher: Head of Zeus (2022)

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One thing I truly love about Ed and Stede's adorable and iconic "tea with seven sugars" bit is that...Ed does not like tea. He obviously cannot STAND tea.

I know this because I like tea, and one time I tried making a cup with seven sugars and a dash of milk just to see what it would be like. My friends, that concoction was no longer tea. The sugar could not entirely dissolve in a nice big mug, let alone the dainty teacup Ed was drinking from. The milk combined with the high sugar content made the drinking experience like a very, very gritty milkshake. The unincorporated sugar grains started to kind of hurt my tongue. I have a low tolerance for very sweet things and I could only manage a couple sips.

So that paints such a picture of what happened here. Has Ed been the kind of person who could really indulge in a nice warm cuppa before? Probably not. So Stede is teaching him about the aristocratic lifestyle, and they Simply Must have tea because tea parties and coming round for a cuppa are such a core aspect of upper-crust social life. Stede invites Ed to make it how he likes, and...

Well, Ed can't stand the stuff. It's bitter and thin and the tea dregs are unappealing to him. So he just keeps adding sugar until he can stand it, and he winds up with seven. Plus a dash of milk, to tie everything together. And THEN, Ed can understand why this is a nice indulgance.

And what does Stede do? He doesn't remark on it. He remembers how Ed likes it. Ed hates tea, he just likes sugar, but Stede's not going to tell him that, because Ed enjoys having tea with him. He'd never dream of making fun of Ed for this. And that's what love is all about, really.

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vote yes if you have finished the entire book. vote no if you have not finished the entire book.

(faq · submit a book)

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The Book of Gold by Ruth Frances Long

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The Rainfall Market by You Yeong-Gwang

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Hi!

I was wondering if you had any wlw Christmas book rec.

Thank you

Hi!

Check out the comments in this post by @thereadingchallengechallenge.

Also, @battyaboutbooksreviews is preparing a rec list of queer books for the holidays.

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Martha Wells created one of the most iconic characters in 21st-century science fiction: Murderbot, reluctant savior of humanity. Then she faced an existential threat of her own.

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Title: Phoenix and the Frost Palace | Author: Aisling Fowler | Publisher: HarperCollins (2023)

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While fantasy authors often cite such iconic fantasy stories as "Lord Of The Rings" and "Harry Potter" as influences, in my new interview with author T.L. Huchu about his urban fantasy novel "The Legacy Of Arniston House," the fourth book in his "Edinburgh Nights" series, he also cites a video game-inspired TV show of the bloody battle persuasion. https://paulsemel.com/exclusive-interview-the-legacy-of-arniston-house-author-t-l-huchu/ 📖🪄🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

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The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo

A young royal from the far north is sent south for a political marriage in an empire reminiscent of imperial China. Her brothers are dead, her armies and their war mammoths long defeated and caged behind their borders. Alone and sometimes reviled, she must choose her allies carefully.

Rabbit, a handmaiden, sold by her parents to the palace for the lack of five baskets of dye, befriends the emperor’s lonely new wife and gets more than she bargained for.

At once feminist high fantasy and an indictment of monarchy, this evocative debut follows the rise of the empress In-yo, who has few resources and fewer friends. She’s a northern daughter in a mage-made summer exile, but she will bend history to her will and bring down her enemies, piece by piece.

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What are you currently reading?

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dont let the forest in by cg drews is for the pynch enjoyers, i just know it

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Okay time to go off on something about A Marriage of Body and Soul I've been waiting to go off about, the Beauty and Beast reading.

So the obvious take with a human and non-human pairing is the human as Beauty and the non-human as the Beast, and maybe you could read A Marriage of Body and Soul that way. But I personally see Simon as more aligned towards the Beast and Beleth as more of the Beauty.

Simon is like the Beast because it's his secluded domain the story takes place in, and beauty is framed as something he lacks, while Beleth is the beautiful one who comes in and is served by the one who summoned him there. And like Beauty, there's a part where Beleth is gone and returns to find his love having basically given up on life.

I think the ending can work for viewing either as the Beauty however. Beleth is able to assume a human form for a brief while, and Simon undergoes a less physical but more lasting transformation of starting to accept he can be loved and beautiful.

As I've said before this story isn't a full on retelling of Beauty and the Beast, but it did influence some of the decisions I made with A Marriage of Body and Soul once I decided to lean into it as an inspiration.

For reference I mainly looked at the Jeanne-Marie LePrince de Beaumont telling of the fairy tale specifically.

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