Fave Five: Queer Fiction About Addiction, Recovery, and/or Sobriety
Getting Clean with Stevie Green by Swan Huntley
A Shot in the Dark by Victoria Lee
All-Night Pharmacy by Ruth Madievsky
Shae by Mesha Maren
Just By Looking at Him by Ryan O’Connell
Today's sapphic book of the day is Getting Clean With Stevie Green by Swan Huntley!
Summary: "At thirty-seven, Stevie Green has had it with binge drinking and sleeping with strange men. She’s confused about her sexuality and her purpose in life. When her mother asks her to return to her hometown of La Jolla to help her move into a new house, she’s desperate enough to say yes. The move goes so well that Stevie decides to start her own decluttering business. She stops drinking. She hires her formerly estranged sister, Bonnie, to be her business partner. She rekindles a romance with her high school sweetheart, Brad. Things are better than ever—except for the complicated past that Stevie can’t seem to outrun.
Who was responsible for the high school scandal that caused her life to take a nosedive twenty years earlier? Why is she so secretive about the circumstances of her father’s death? Why are her feelings for her ex-friend, Chris, so mystifying? If she’s done drinking, then why can’t she seem to declutter the mini wine bottles from her car?
A winsome, fast-paced read, Getting Clean With Stevie Green is about coming to terms with who you are, resolving the pain of your past, and accepting the truth of your life in all its messy glory."
"I Want You More" Plays Into Our Innate Desire To Be Desired
It’s been a long time since I’ve picked up a thriller, but the cover of Swan Huntley’s I Want You More drew me in immediately. This sapphic story is about a ghostwriter, Zara, who goes to the house of her client, Jane, to interview her for her memoir.
This isn’t a thriller in the traditional sense of the word. Instead, it’s marked more by a persistent sense of uneasiness. This feeling is…
🩷 There's something especially sweet about a sapphic romance. Here are only a few of the amazing sapphic books hitting shelves in May 2024. Which ones are you adding to your ever-growing TBR?
Contemporary
💖 Here For the Wrong Reasons - Annabel Paulsen & Lydia Wang
💖 Perfume & Pain - Anna Dorn
💖 Cheryl - Jillian Fleck
💖 A Little Kissing Between Friends - Chencia C. Higgins
💖 Lavash At First Sight - Taleen Voskuni
💖 The Game of Giants - Marion Douglas
💖 We Were the Universe - Kimberly King Parsons
💖 Oye - Melissa Mogollon
💖 The Summer Love Strategy - Ray Stoeve
💖 Noah Frye Gets Crushed - Maggie Horne
💖 Halfway to Harbor - Nicole Melleby
💖 Sunhead - Alex Assan
💖 The 7-10 Split - Karmen Lee
💖 Trust & Safety - Laura Blackett & Eve Gleichman
💖 Second Night Stand - Karelia Stetz-Waters & Fay Stetz-Waters
💖 How It Works Out - Myriam Lacroix
💖 April May June July - Alison B. Hart
💖 The Ride of Her Life - Jennifer Dugan
💖 One Night With the CEO - Emily Hayes
💖 Dulhaniyaa - Talia Bhatt
💖 A Girl Can Dream - Emily Barr
💖 I Want You More - Swan Huntley
💖 Exhibit - R. O. Kwon
💖 Only a Bridesmaid - Haley Donnell
💖 Thirsty - Jas Hammonds
💖 Housemates - Emma Copley Eisenberg
💖 Don’t Be a Drag - Skye Quinlan
💖 True Love and Other Impossible Odds - Christina Li
💖 Murray Out of Water - Taylor Tracy
💖 The Redemption of Daya Keane - Gia Gordon
💖 Blame My Virgo Moon - Freja Nicole Woolf
💖 From Where We Are - Nicole Zelniker
💖 Cabin Fever - Tagan Shepard
💖 Channel Surfing in the Sea of Happiness - Guy Babineau
💖 Meet Me in Berlin - Samantha L. Valentine
💖 Behind You - Catherine Hernandez
Paranormal/Horror
💖 Primal Hunt - L.L. Raand
💖 Blood on the Tide - Katee Robert
💖 We Mostly Come Out at Night - (ed) Rob Costello
💖 Flowers from the Void - Gianni Washington
💖 My Darling Dreadful Thing - Johanna van Veen
💖 When the Devil - Emma E. Murray
💖 Honeybites - I. S. Belle
💖 My Favorite Thing Is Monsters - Emil Ferris
💖 The Worst Perfect Moment -Shivaun Plozza
Fantasy
💖 The Honey Witch - Sydney J. Shields
💖 The Fireborne Blade - Charlotte Bond
💖 Chained Destinies - D. Jordan Redhawk
💖 Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea - Rebecca Thorne
💖 Grand Slam Romance: Major League Hotties - Ollie Hicks & Emma Oosterhous
💖 Snake Charming - Genevieve McCluer
💖 The Witches of Silverlake - Simon Curtis
💖 Death’s Country - R. M. Romero
💖 Snowblooded - Emma Sterner-Radleygh
💖 Bird Suit - Sydney Hegele
💖 Farzana's Spite - Felix Graves
Historical
💖 The Good Women of Fudi - Liu Hong
💖 Spitting Gold - Carmella Lowkis
💖 Adrift - Sam Ledel
💖 A Heart Divided - Angie Williams
💖 A Liaison with Her Leading Lady - Lotte R. James
Mystery/Thriller
💖 The Deadly Spark - Roxie Key
💖 The Advice Columnist - Cade Haddock Strong
💖 The Lilies - Quinn Diacon-Furtado
💖 Loyalty - E. J. Noyes
💖 Clean Kill - Anne Laughlin
💖 Have You Seen This Girl - Nita Tyndall
💖 The Last to Pie - Misha Popp
Sci-Fi
💖 The Sunforge - Sascha Stronach
💖 Road to Ruin - Hana Lee
💖 Exile in Guyville - Amy Lee Lillard
💖 The Lily of Enarah - Arden Brax
💖 The Z Word - Lindsay King-Miller
Author & illustrator Swan Huntley joins the show to celebrate her two new books, I WANT YOU MORE (Zibby Books), and YOU'RE GROUNDED: An Anti-Self-Help Book to Calm You the F*ck Down (Tarcherperigee). We talk about how ghostwriting a memoir for a Real Housewife of New York led her to write I Want You More, a thriller novel about fame, identity, and murder, why she uses the first person in fiction and loves the challenge of lying to the reader, how we're seen by others and how we want to be seen, and the fun of writing thrillers and melding character with a big plot. We also talk about how You're Grounded took shape as a melding of words and drawings, how she settled on "anti-self-help", how her various addictions shaped her identity and what it meant to be herself as she overcame (some of) them, how taking up drawing in a writing lull helped bring out different voices, and the need to calm the f*ck down. We also discuss the creation of identity vs. the discovery of identity, why she biked the El Camino pilgrimage solo, the memoir she's working on, the nature of celebrity & our reactions around famous people (& her upcoming essay, "My Best Friend Is Famous"), how she found her place in Los Angeles, and more. Follow Swan on Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter
Check out the new episode of The Virtual Memories Show
hiya i was tagged in two diff versions of this by my lovely pals @firenati0n and @bigassbowlingballhead thank you!! i am Lazy so i have compiled them both into one massive post. enjoy!?
Last song: Gimme a Minute by PVRIS
Last film: the dark knight!!! (excellent movie. i am not even a batman guy, im just a heath ledger guy)
Currently reading: i am reading an ARC of "I Want You More" by swan huntley (excellent so far!!) and also i'm slowly working my way through house of leaves
Currently watching: percy jackson!!!!! most beloved <3
Currently consuming: um!!! coke zero (perpetually)
Currently craving: it's like 1AM but i could probably go for some pasta rn
__
Were you named after anyone? no i was not!
When was the last time you cried? god i dunno. a couple months ago maybe?? (i probably should have cried more recently, there was cause for it lol but i am Bad at crying)
Do you have kids? lmfao. no!
What sports do you play/have you played? this may surprise nobody, but: hockey. i also played soccer growing up and i did horseback riding if that counts (this is how i have broken so many bones)
Do you use sarcasm? oh, frequently. constantly, one might say!
What’s the first thing you notice about people? i actually... don't know?? hair, i guess
What’s your eye color? green!!!!!!
Scary movies or happy endings? why not both <3
Any talents? oh i am so talented!!!! (lying) i mean... writing, i guess? that's the only thing i know how to do
Where were you born? canada, babyyy
What are your hobbies? read, write, scroll on tumblr <3 walk dogs <3 i like to drive, does that count as a hobby?? oh i also occasionally paint
Do you have any pets? yuh
How tall are you? like five foot eight
Favorite subject in school? guess. (its english)
Dream job? to echo roop, i dont dream of labour (lmao!) but i would love to be an editor!! publishing industry i am coming for u
__
i am not tagging any pals simply because i have created my own frankensteinian hybrid of this tag game and i don't want to inflict it on anybody else <3 but feel free to participate if it calls to you!
[Image: Poem by Morgan Harper Nichols, via 90sanxiety]
*
"Any time you are feeling shame over life choices, ask yourself who is benefitting from it (likely not you)." The 9 Essential Lessons My Summers Of Solo Travel Have Taught Me [Glynnis MacNicol, Vogue]
"Dirty, hedonistic, happy and bra-less - it beats journalling after a long day of pilates." Brat girl summer [Zoe Williams, The Guardian]
London's best outdoor spaces, according to National Park City founder Dan Raven-Ellison [Kate Lewis, BBC Travel]
Trekking Across Switzerland, Guided by Locals’ Hand-Drawn Maps [Ben Buckland, The New York Times]
“The completeness of this record is dizzy, stupefying: I’m using 43.87 gigabytes of data. The only way to navigate that vertiginous expanse is through the conduit of the Gmail search function. I type the names of my husband, my best friend, my girl gang out of college, my former roommate, my late uncle; some of these people long lost to me now, but eerily present in that window. Here we are planning road trips. Scheduling brunches. Sharing links." Gmail will break your heart [Links I would Gchat you if we were friends by Caitlin Dewey]
"I wanted to know how to be breezy. To meet someone for a drink but order food because I’d missed lunch. To free myself of this habit of rehearsing conversations in advance only to be disappointed when none of my prepared talking points naturally arose. ... No matter where I was, it seemed I was doomed to always feel as though I were in the window seat on a flight, prodding apologetically, mincing and smiling for the person in the aisle to get up." On getting diagnosed with autism as an adult [Mary HK Choi, The Cut]
"We need to go places and touch things." The people turning away from smartphones [Clea Skopeliti, The Guardian]
Before Smartphones, an Army of Real People Helped You Find Stuff on Google [Amelia Tait, Wired]
This Is What It Looks Like When AI Eats the World [Charlie Warzel, The Atlantic]
When did you last do one thing at a time? In defence of single use objects [Celia Mattison, Dirt]
I Have a Terrible Memory. Am I Better Off That Way? Wild scenes. [Katy Schneider, The Cut]
"But [parenthood] did not unearth new ethical or emotional resources. I am, it is true, far more patient with my daughter than I would be with anyone else exhibiting comparably high levels of incompetence, need, or obstinance. But this tolerance does not extend to anyone else. There is less of it to go around." What if parenthood isn't transformative at all? [Anastasia Berg, The Cut]
"The Lennon Patek captures a measure of time that no other watch ever will—the little they had left together." The Strange Journey of John Lennon’s Stolen Patek Philippe Watch [Jay Fielden, The New Yorker]
Inside the Old Bailey with Britain’s last court reporters | Crime [Sophie Elmhirst, The Guardian]
So long, Longform Podcast [Brady Brickner-Wood, The New York Times]
The Precarious Future of Big Sur’s Highway 1 [Emily Witt, The New Yorker]
“I think to an unusual degree Agnes sort of lives what she thinks and thinks what she lives.” Agnes Callard’s Marriage of the Minds [Rachel Aviv, The New Yorker]
"Change is slow in me. It’s a little like turning a tanker. I find I have to set it in motion and then wait patiently for it to happen, and try not to lose faith in the meantime. Since November, I’ve been intending to go and swim in the local outdoor pool, and on Tuesday I finally managed it. I’ve had my swimming bag packed all that time. I just needed to think through the steps before I could manage it. Even then, it took me all day to get in my car and drive down there, and I don’t think I’d have done it if H hadn’t gone with me. Until the moment I got in the water, swimming in a new place seemed like a multi-stage problem that I couldn’t solve." The Clearing by Katherine May
I’ve Spent a Lot of Time Pretending Not To Know What I Want [Swan Huntley, Autostraddle]
On being brave [Penny Wincer]
My life is boring Extra Honey by Jenny Clark
"I now could see the world in the uncanny, photonegative way that it wasn’t meant to be seen, but that was the truth — a truth I can’t shake even to this day. ... I truly never got over how apparently fragile I am, how unresilient I proved to be. That was one of the worst parts for me, that I knew something about myself now, which was that I was delicate. I had been rocked into a full nervous breakdown. ... All I knew was that, should something go wrong — a car accident, maybe, or a mugging — I would be prone to falling apart." How to live with it [Taffy Brodesser-Akner, The New York Times]
In Getting Clean With Stevie Green, by Swan Huntley, Stevie Green heads back home to help her mom pack and move. This goes so well that Stevie starts a decluttering business helping other rich people solve their non-problems of too many Vespas filling up their massive garages. It’s the same income bracket of We Could Be Beautiful, by the same author, only with a California style instead of a…
Book Review: Getting Clean with Stevie Green by Swan Huntley
Book Review: Getting Clean with Stevie Green by Swan Huntley
Summary:At thirty-seven, Stevie Green has had it with binge drinking and sleeping with strange men. She’s confused about her sexuality and her purpose in life. When her mother asks her to return to her hometown of La Jolla to help her move into a new house, she’s desperate enough to say yes. The move goes so well that Stevie decides to start her own decluttering business. She stops drinking. She…
10 Anticipated May Book Releases: Memoirs, Queer Fiction, Fantasy, and More
It’s May, and that means I’m back with another list of books coming out this month that I am desperate to get my hands on. Unlike usual, there’s a heavy emphasis on memoirs in this list. I’m not sure what it is about the month of May, but everyone’s publishing! Aside from that, we have queer romance, a thriller, fantasy, and so much more. If I missed out on your book coming out this month (or one…
🩷 There's something especially sweet about a sapphic romance. Here are only a few of the amazing sapphic books hitting shelves in May 2024. Which ones are you adding to your ever-growing TBR?
Contemporary
💖 Here For the Wrong Reasons - Annabel Paulsen & Lydia Wang
💖 Perfume & Pain - Anna Dorn
💖 Cheryl - Jillian Fleck
💖 A Little Kissing Between Friends - Chencia C. Higgins
💖 Lavash At First Sight - Taleen Voskuni
💖 The Game of Giants - Marion Douglas
💖 We Were the Universe - Kimberly King Parsons
💖 Oye - Melissa Mogollon
💖 The Summer Love Strategy - Ray Stoeve
💖 Noah Frye Gets Crushed - Maggie Horne
💖 Halfway to Harbor - Nicole Melleby
💖 Sunhead - Alex Assan
💖 The 7-10 Split - Karmen Lee
💖 Trust & Safety - Laura Blackett & Eve Gleichman
💖 Second Night Stand - Karelia Stetz-Waters & Fay Stetz-Waters
💖 How It Works Out - Myriam Lacroix
💖 April May June July - Alison B. Hart
💖 The Ride of Her Life - Jennifer Dugan
💖 One Night With the CEO - Emily Hayes
💖 Dulhaniyaa - Talia Bhatt
💖 A Girl Can Dream - Emily Barr
💖 I Want You More - Swan Huntley
💖 Exhibit - R. O. Kwon
💖 Only a Bridesmaid - Haley Donnell
💖 Thirsty - Jas Hammonds
💖 Housemates - Emma Copley Eisenberg
💖 Don’t Be a Drag - Skye Quinlan
💖 True Love and Other Impossible Odds - Christina Li
💖 Murray Out of Water - Taylor Tracy
💖 The Redemption of Daya Keane - Gia Gordon
💖 Blame My Virgo Moon - Freja Nicole Woolf
💖 From Where We Are - Nicole Zelniker
💖 Cabin Fever - Tagan Shepard
💖 Channel Surfing in the Sea of Happiness - Guy Babineau
💖 Meet Me in Berlin - Samantha L. Valentine
💖 Behind You - Catherine Hernandez
Paranormal/Horror
💖 Primal Hunt - L.L. Raand
💖 Blood on the Tide - Katee Robert
💖 We Mostly Come Out at Night - (ed) Rob Costello
💖 Flowers from the Void - Gianni Washington
💖 My Darling Dreadful Thing - Johanna van Veen
💖 When the Devil - Emma E. Murray
💖 Honeybites - I. S. Belle
💖 My Favorite Thing Is Monsters - Emil Ferris
💖 The Worst Perfect Moment -Shivaun Plozza
Fantasy
💖 The Honey Witch - Sydney J. Shields
💖 The Fireborne Blade - Charlotte Bond
💖 Chained Destinies - D. Jordan Redhawk
💖 Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea - Rebecca Thorne
💖 Grand Slam Romance: Major League Hotties - Ollie Hicks & Emma Oosterhous
💖 Snake Charming - Genevieve McCluer
💖 The Witches of Silverlake - Simon Curtis
💖 Death’s Country - R. M. Romero
💖 Snowblooded - Emma Sterner-Radleygh
💖 Bird Suit - Sydney Hegele
💖 Farzana's Spite - Felix Graves
Historical
💖 The Good Women of Fudi - Liu Hong
💖 Spitting Gold - Carmella Lowkis
💖 Adrift - Sam Ledel
💖 A Heart Divided - Angie Williams
💖 A Liaison with Her Leading Lady - Lotte R. James
Mystery/Thriller
💖 The Deadly Spark - Roxie Key
💖 The Advice Columnist - Cade Haddock Strong
💖 The Lilies - Quinn Diacon-Furtado
💖 Loyalty - E. J. Noyes
💖 Clean Kill - Anne Laughlin
💖 Have You Seen This Girl - Nita Tyndall
💖 The Last to Pie - Misha Popp
Sci-Fi
💖 The Sunforge - Sascha Stronach
💖 Road to Ruin - Hana Lee
💖 Exile in Guyville - Amy Lee Lillard
💖 The Lily of Enarah - Arden Brax
💖 The Z Word - Lindsay King-Miller
This Chick Read: Getting Clean With Stevie Green by Swan Huntley
This Chick Read: Getting Clean With Stevie Green by Swan Huntley
Stevie Green has spent the last 20 years moving around the country, moving from one bar to another, having one night stands and running from her past. When her mother calls and asks for her help packing up her house and moving, Stevie heads home. She reinvents herself and starts a decluttering business and with her sisters help pursues being number one. As she declutters others lives she faces a…