#I've already read through like 4 terry pratchetts since starting

[inkmaze]

going from fast food to my current job was kinda wild. like oh nice I can wear some clothes I actually like (+ won't smell like food)? I can read or craft or whatever on shift? I can sit down? hell yeah?

[reluming]

Hi Cynthia. I'm about 3/4 of the way through the traitor baru cormorant based on your rec and I'm adoring it, so thank you for blessing me with it. I've also added the broken earth series to my tbr based on your love of it. Your taste in books is excellent/aligns a lot with mine, so I wanted to ask if you have any more recs? Stuff you're enjoying now, all time faves, w/e. I'm interested in anything you've enjoyed. Thanks :)

Hi anon!! :D YES I love books and I love talking about books!!

Since The Traitor Baru Cormorant and The Broken Earth are both adult fantasy, here are some more adult fantasy book recs:

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street and The Bedlam Stacks by Natasha Pulley: literary historical fantasy with steampunk-y elements and very soft, quiet, slow-burn m/m romance! (standalone books with different main characters, but set in the same universe)

Death by Silver and its sequel Death at the Dionysus Club by Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold: magical murder mysteries set in Victorian London with m/m romance, think Holmes/Watson but magic and canon gay!

The Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch: more magical murder mysteries, this time in modern-day London, with a mixed race police officer MC and his v old wizard mentor who survived WW1. Very diverse and loveable cast of characters and just some really enjoyable mysteries

Anything that Catherynne M. Valente has ever written. She’s my fave author, hands down. If you’ve never read any of her books, here’s a guide to some of my faves to help you decide where to start:

Radiance: noir mystery set in space Hollywood, about the disappearance of a female filmmaker, ft. space whales

The Habitation of the Blessed and its sequel The Folded World: medieval fantasy, monsters, angels, Christianity, translation, trees that bear books as their fruit

The Refrigerator Monologues: female characters in superhero comics who’ve been fridged, telling their stories in the afterlife!

Deathless: her most popular one but I read this years ago so I need a reread, but it’s based on Russian folklore & history

Discworld books by Terry Pratchett are forever faves - I’ve not read them all but my fave ones are the books about the Watch because, as you may have discerned from the above, I really love mysteries…

I just finished reading Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey and it’s the first book of a trilogy but in the same universe there are three trilogies. So I can’t say about the rest of the series yet, but I really enjoyed Kushiel’s Dart. Definitely not for everyone as it’s set in a place with a formal system where some children receive an education from a young age to become sex workers (although they don’t begin the actual sex work until they come of age). The main character is a sex worker who is basically magically destined to find pleasure in pain/be the most masochist of masochists and there’s some hardcore BDSM, but like. If you’re into that, f/f, political intrigue, and sprawling epic fantasy with voyages and battles, definitely check it out.

Adult books that aren’t fantasy:

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt: a coming-of-age novel about grief and art that many readers have complained about being boring but I somehow found so engrossing that I once not only MISSED MY STOP on a train while reading it but ended up LITERALLY RIGHT BACK AT THE STOP WHERE I STARTED (i.e. I was on that train for double the time that I should’ve and I didn’t even fucking notice)

Days Without End by Sebastian Barry: a queer love story during the Indian wars and the Civil War in 19th-century America, incredibly moving and a prose style that takes some getting used to but then once you’ve got used to it will repeatedly stab you in the heart with its sharp, devastating beauty

I also read a fair bit of YA, so if you’re interested in YA, here’s some fantasy/fantasy-adjacent stuff:

The Conqueror’s Saga trilogy by Kiersten White: I made a rec post for this recently, it’s historical fiction about if Vlad the Impaler was female, and it’s surprisingly queer! (Maybe less of a surprise if you know more about that bit of history but I knew nothing going in, and nobody really talks about this series as a queer series, so…)

The Skyscraper Throne trilogy by Tom Pollock: urban fantasy set in London, one of the main characters is a brown Muslim lesbian who gets a lovely romance and a really powerful narrative about overcoming trauma

In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan: if you read a lot of novel-length fanfics you’ll probably love this novel, a very heartfelt and funny slow burn m/m fantasy with an extremely prickly bi MC, it’s wonderful and joyful and snarky and the banter is incredible, and it will have you shrieking in delight constantly, also BEST TRIO since the Golden Trio in the HP books *draws sparkly hearts*

I also have recs for (queer) contemporary realistic YA so if anyone wants those, please hmu! That seemed quite different to what you might be interested in and this post is already quite long so I’m not going to mention them here.