softcryptidbooks

[softcryptidbooks]

when you're thinking about writing as you fall asleep, and you hear a voice say "that idea is so good you'll surely remember it in the morning," don't listen. that's the devil talking. write that shit down.

[softcryptidbooks]

HEY FRIENDS DO YOU LIKE QUEER BOOKS

We're officially setting up a Tumblr account (for cough cough other-social-media-having-problems-reasons) though you'll have seen Meredith around at @king-of-katz ♥

We're indie authors that rely heavily on word-of-mouth to get our stories out there, so reblogs and shares are always super helpful.

Check out our full list of books on our site! Here's a few:

The Cybernetic Tea Shop by Meredith Katz Genre: Retrofuture sci-fi, romance, asexual homoromantic F/F

A mechanic with a bad case of wanderlust meets a homebound robot stuck in the past. In accepting the things they cannot change and finding the courage to change the ones they can, both of them need to understand what it means to ‘move on’. Tea, AI, and kindness. Soft and warm.

Empty Vessels by Meredith Katz Genre: Paranormal, urban fantasy, romance, M/M/M, polyamorous

A psychic young man knows he has to overcome his anxieties to protect the local monsters from something terrifying lurking in the night. Along the way, he finds romance in unlikely places, between the ghost that keeps him company and the deer-antlered man running the mysterious antique shop. Monster kissing, flirty horned boys, mindscapes, and creepy dolls.

Smoke Signals by Meredith Katz Genre: Urban fantasy, romance, M/M, dragon, billionaire

A harried CSR for a games distributor gets put in charge of the video game collection of a grumpy and self-centered billionaire who is a literal dragon. At least the dragon is cute… in an apex predator sort of way. Includes soft cats, cooking shows, and knitting! Fun and upbeat.

All books available here. Hopefully you'll find your next read! xoxo

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🌈 Queer Books Coming Out in October 2024 🌈

🌈 Good afternoon, my bookish bats! Here are a FEW of the stunning, diverse queer books you can add to your TBR before the year is over. Happy reading!

❓What was the last queer book you read?

[ Release dates may have changed. List below! ]

❤️ Back in the Hunt - K. Sterling 🧡 The Connoisseur's Christmas Courtship - L.M. Bennett 💛 Shoestring Theory - Mariana Costa 💚 The Black Hunger - Nicholas Pullen 💙 Wild Fire - Radclyffe 💜 Because Fat Girl - Lauren Marie Fleming ❤️ The Ace and Aro Relationship Guide - Cody Daigle-Orians 🧡 Soul Survivors - River Kai 💛 Stolen Hearts - Michele Castleman 💙 Reverence - Milena McKay 💜 Love Immortal - Kit Vincent

❤️ Take a Sad Song - Ona Gritz 🧡 Showmance - Chad Beguelin 💛 Redundancies & Potentials - Dominique Dickey 💚 Alexander - Karla Nikole 💙 Rest in Peaches - Alex Brown 💜 Rise of the Wrecking Crew - Kalynn Bayron ❤️ Language Lessons - Sage Donnell 🧡 Legend of the White Snake - Sher Lee 💛 Sorcery and Small Magis - Maiga Doocy 💙 Cried Out - Kate Hawthorne 💜 Skysong - C.A. Wright 🌈 No Rules Tonight - Kim Hyun Sook, Ryan Estrada

❤️ My Mother's Ridiculous Rules for Dating - Philip William Stover 🧡 I Shall Never Fall in Love - Hari Conner 💛 Castle Swimmer - Wendy Martin 🧡 The Hollow and the Haunted - Camilla Raines 💙 How Does That Make You Feel, Magda Eklund? - Anna Montague 💜 The Arizona Triangle - Sydney Graves ❤️ Every Rule Undone - Nancy S.M. Waldman 🧡 Mister Nice - Jamie Jennings 💛 Under the Mistletoe with You - Lizzie Huxley-Jones 💙 How to Fall in Love in a Time of Unnameable Disaster - Muriel Leung 💜 The Snowball Effect - Haley Cass 🌈 This Will Be Fun - E.B. Asher

❤️ Our Evenings - Alan Hollinghurst 🧡 Don't Let the Forest In - C.G. Drews 💛 Finding Delaware - Bree Wiley 💚 The Reeds - Arjun Basu 💙 The Bloodless Princes - Charlotte Bond 💜 Women's Hotel - Daniel M. Lavery ❤️ Alex McKenna and the Academy of Souls - Vicki-Ann Bush 🧡 A Vile Season - David Ferraro 💛 Synchronicity - J.J. Hale 💙 Writ of Love - Cassidy Crane 💜 Di-Curious - Erin Branch 🌈 Swordcrossed - Freya Marske

❤️ Stand Up! - Tori Sharp 🧡 Haunt Me, Baby - Rose Santoriello 💚 Planet Drag: Uncover the Global Herstory - Various 💙 Until We Shatter - Kate Dylan 💜 Metal from Heaven - August Clarke ❤️ Vicious Fates and Vast Futures - Tilly Bramley 🧡 The Daughter of Danray - Natalia Hernandez 💛 If I Stopped Haunting You - Colby Wilkens 💙 The Darkness Behind The Door - Mira Gonzalez 💜 Hunt Monsters, Do Magic, and Fall in Love - A.M. Weald 🌈 Jasmine Is Haunted - Mark Oshiro

❤️ Model Home - Rivers Solomon 🧡 Haunting Melody - Chloe Spencer 💛 The Door in Lake Mallion - S.M. Beiko 💚 The City in Glass - Nghi Vo 💙 Fang Fiction - Kate Stayman-London 💜 The Merriest Misters - Timothy Janovsky ❤️ Make the Season Bright - Ashley Herring Blake 🧡 My Kind of Trouble - L.A. Schwartz 💛 To Become A Flower - CEON 💙 What Was Lost - Melissa Connelly 💜 The Forbidden Book - Sacha Lamb 🌈 This Dark Paradise - Erin Luken

❤️ The Sound of Storms - Anya Keeler 🧡 Country Queers - Rae Garringer 💛 A Spell for Heartsickness - Alistair Reeves 💚 The Stars Inside Us - Kristy Gardner 💙 October's Ocean - Delaine Coppock 💜 Haunt Your Heart Out - Amber Roberts ❤️ The Dark Becomes Her - Judy I. Lin 🧡 Power Pose - Emily Silver 💛 The Magic You Make - Jason June 💙 House of Elephants - Claribel A. Ortega 💜 Tegan and Sara: Crush - Tegan Quin, Sara Quin, Tillie Walden 🌈 The Brightness Between Us - Eliot Schrefer

❤️ The Spring before Obergefell - Benjamin S. Grossberg 🧡 Pray For Him - Tyler Battaglia 💛 Coup de Grâce - Sofia Ajram 💚 Coal Gets In Your Veins - Cat Rector 💙 He Who Bleeds - Dorian Valentine 💜 The Revenge of Captain Vessia - Leslie Allen ❤️ Camelot's Tower - Brooke Matthews 🧡 The Manor - Tiffany E. Taylor 💛 Arcanum - Ashlyn Drewek 💙 Strange Beasts - Susan J. Morris 💜 On Vicious Worlds - Bethany Jacobs 🌈 Death Song - B. Ripley

❤️ Best Hex Ever - Nadia El-Fassi 🧡 I'll Be Gone for Christmas - Georgia K. Boone 💛 Make My Wish Come True - Rachael Lippincott, Alyson Derrick 💚 Gentlest of Wild Things - Sarah Underwood 💙 Troth - E.H. Lupton 💜 Solis - Paola Mendoza & Abby Sher ❤️ Lucy, Uncensored - Mel Hammond, Teghan Hammond 🧡 Mama - Nikkya Hargrove 💛 Under All the Lights - Maya Ameyaw 💙 Reclaimed - Seth Haddon 💜 The Devil's Dilemma - Alex J. Adams 🌈 The Jovian Madrigals - Janneke de Beer

❤️ Blood Price - Nicole Evans 🧡 Worship Me - K.C. Blume 💛 All the Hearts You Eat - Hailey Piper 💚 The Nightmare Before Kissmas - Sara Raasch 💙 Rogue Community College - David R. Slayton 💜 Mistress of Hours - Emma Elizabeth ❤️ The Dog Trainer's Secret - Sav Uong 🧡 Most Wonderful - Georgia Clark 💛 Antenora - Dori Lumpkin 💙 House of Frank - Kay Synclaire 💜 Sir Callie and the Witch's War - Esme Symes-Smith 🌈 Prince of Fortune - Lisa Tirreno

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hello! i’m looking for queer taiwanese recs. any genre (notes of a crocodile by qiu miaojin got me thinking about it but i read various genres), and doesn’t necessarily have to be set in taiwan (could be taiwanese diaspora, sff in a taiwan-inspired country). thanks for your help!

You got it! (You can always find these under Taiwanese here: https://lgbtqreads.com/representation/nationality-tribal-affiliation/)

Bestiary by K-Ming Chang

A Milky Way Home by Hsinju Chen

Ghost Town by Kevin Chen

Solo Dance by Li Kotomi

I Will Find You Again by Sarah Lyu (Chinese-Japanese-Taiwanese-Vietnamese)

Ruse by Cindy Pon (second in a duology but only this one has a queer lead)

The Membranes by Chi Ta-wei

Taiwanese Travelogue by Yang Shuang-Zi

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I hate the “open floor plan” that everyone is obsessed with in houses now. I want nooks and crannies and bizarre floor plans. I don’t need to be able to see what someone is doing on the other side of the house. I want places to hide and lurk and dwell in the shadows. I am the beast who awaits in the labyrinth

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Rating: 4/5

Book Blurb:

High heat. Low stakes. Sharp steel. The cozy, low stakes of Legends & Lattes meets the scorching bodyguard fantasy of Jennifer L. Armentrout's From Blood and Ash in this enemies-to-lovers romance where, yes, the swords do cross.

A USA Today bestseller! An Indie Next pick A LibraryReads Hall of Fame pick A LitHub most anticipated book of 2024

Mattinesh Jay, dutiful heir to his struggling family business, needs to hire an experienced swordsman to serve as best man for his arranged marriage. Sword-challenge at the ceremony could destroy all hope of restoring his family's wealth, something that Matti has been trying—and failing—to do for the past ten years.

What he can afford, unfortunately, is part-time con artist and full-time charming menace Luca Piere.

Luca, for his part, is trying to reinvent himself in a new city. All he wants to do is make some easy money and try to forget the crime he committed in his hometown. He didn't plan on being blackmailed into giving sword lessons to a chronically responsible—and inconveniently handsome—wool merchant like Matti.

However, neither Matti's business troubles nor Luca himself are quite what they seem. As the days count down to Matti's wedding, the two of them become entangled in the intrigue and sabotage that have brought Matti's house to the brink of ruin. And when Luca's secrets threaten to drive a blade through their growing alliance, both Matti and Luca will have to answer the question: how many lies are you prepared to strip away, when the truth could mean losing everything you want?

"There's nothing in fantasy or queer romance that Marske can't do."—Sarah Rees Brennan

Review:

When you need to hire a swordsman to fight a duel in case someone challenges you on you're wedding day the last thing you expect is to fall for him. Mattinesh Jay is the dutiful heir to a struggling house, and has tried everything to keep his family's wool business afloat... and his latest attempt is to marry another heir to a rich house, yet one of her suitors is determined to duel Matt on his wedding day and since he has zero swordsmanship skills he sets out to hire a bodyguard to fight the duel should it arise. Cue Luca, the guy who kind of conned Matt the previous night at a bar and who is on the run from his own family, yet he offers a trade: he'll fight for Matt and teach him sword fighting skills and in exchange Matt will not blackmail him. Yet the more time Matt and Luca spend together training and getting to know one another, the more the chemistry between them begins to grow... yet Luca's lies are going to catch up to him and Matt will have to choose between following his duty and marrying someone he doesn't love or following his heart and going after the man who's tumbled into his life. This was a fairly easy and fun read, it's got low stakes but a fun arc to follow and the romance was nice. It's a good time and one I'd absolutely recommend for anyone looking for a romance with low stakes.

Release Date: October 8,2024

Publication/Blog: Ash and Books (ash-and-books.tumblr.com)

*Thanks Netgalley and Tor Publishing Group | Bramble for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

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Omen

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aro & ace books: parents or parent figures/mentors

in some of these the parent/mentor relationship is central, in some it's just one aspect!

Sailing By Orion's Star - 3 aroace MCs, one is a mentor figure to the other two (& parent figure to other kids)

A Promise Broken - MC is an aroace man who's adopted his niece

Of The Wild - MC is ace, and adoptive parent of a bunch of fey kids

Màgòdiz - one of the 6 MCs is an aroace person who's a parent/mentor to a bunch of kids

Bang Bang Bohdisattva - two MCs, one is an ace man who's a parent/mentor figure to the other

Kaikeyi - MC is an aroace woman and mother

The Thread That Binds - aroace MCs with demi/greyaro mentor figures

Fallen Thorns - aroace MC with an older aroace mentor figure

Breasts and Eggs - MC is an ace woman questioning asexuality & motherhood/donor conception

An Accident of Stars - secondary MC is aromantic and a mother

The Many Half-Lived Lives of Sam Sylvester - MC's dad is aroace

Seeing Colour (in Everything Under The Moon) - aro MC and older aro relative/mentor figure

#aspec books / aspec database / tumblr masterpost

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Cozy Queer Books 🍁

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldtree

Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldtree

Can't Spell Treason Without tea by Rebecca Thorne

The Tea Dragon Society by Kay O'Neill

A Psalm For The Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

Fried Green Tomatoes at The Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg

Silver In The Wood by Emily Tesh

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

The Cybernetic Tea Shop by Meredith Katz

The Remaking of Corbin Wale by Roan Parrish

The Watchmaker of Filligree Street by Natasha Pulley

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For October, I decided to challenge myself to draw as many couples from some of my favourite romances as possible, and I surprised myself by finishing 18 whole paintings! I will post them in three batches, but you can see them all on my twitter here! This is part 2 out of 3!

Here’s the books these arts from from, in order:

On a Lee Shore by Elin Gregory

Rebel by Beverly Jenkins

The Pursuit of… by Courtney Milan

True Pretenses by Rose Lerner

The Cybernetic Tea Shop by Meredith Katz

The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite

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a solid visual representation of me in a bookstore

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ok half way through legends & lattes and it's such a cozy read??? just wanna curl in a cozy blanket and sip the rest like a steaming cup of bean water

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Do you have any book recs that are similar to "A Psalm for the Wild-Built" by Becky Chambers?

I have not found a lot of cozy sci-fi, assuming that's what you mean to be looking for! But Becky Chambers has the Wayfarers series as well, and try The Cybernetic Tea Shop by Meredith Katz.

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Today’s review is for Meredith Katz’s How Saeter Robbed the Underworld!

I love stories within stories and found families and this one combined them beautifully. I tried to get some of the symbolism from the story in my calligraphy piece!

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Book asks! :) 4. Did you discover any new authors that you love this year?

11. What was your favorite book that has been out for a while, but you just now read?

20. What was your most anticipated release? Did it meet your expectations?

4. Did you discover any new authors that you love this year?

Margaret Owen! I absolutely LOVED Little Thieves and Painted Devils, and I can’t wait for the next book in the series! I will definitely be checking out The Merciful Crow this year, it sounds extremely up my alley as well!

11. What was your favorite book that has been out for a while, but you just now read?

I read The Cybernetic Tea Shop by Meredith Katz this year and really enjoyed it! Such a lovely, quiet story that packs a lot of Feelings and worldbuilding into a pretty small package. There’s an angsty AI, of course I’m into it. :D

20. What was your most anticipated release? Did it meet your expectations?

I didn’t read a ton of new releases, but I was looking forward to a quick, fun read with Bookshops & Bonedust, and it met my expectations perfectly!

Thanks for the asks! :)

[softcryptidbooks]

Exciting to see The Cybernetic Tea Shop included on this list of cozy SFF books! It's a retro-future asexual sapphic sci-fi novella about a wandering mechanic, Clara, who meets Sal—a fully autonomous robot running a tea shop who is struggling to let go of the past.

If you enjoyed Legends and Lattes or the Monk and Robot series, Tea Shop might be your next cozy read!

(Also, if you've already read and enjoyed Tea Shop, there are a lot of great books on this list. We particularly love The Goblin Emperor series, A Marvellous Light, and The Murderbot Diaries!)