#a.k. larkwood
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some gorgeous queer book series ppl need to be talking about more/at all:
the last binding - freya marske
the serpent's gates - a.k. larkwood
the tithenai chronicles - foz meadows
whatever the fuck everina maxwell is doing
and listen it's not technically a series but alex rowland has another book coming out in the same universe as a taste of gold and iron, and i am so prepared to lose my mind over that
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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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Nobody:
The Quincuriate or whatever they're called trying to get Shuthmili to join:
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Check out this ten-out-of-ten rundown two-out-of-ten (at best) wizards. Get your garbage on!
#wizards#sorcerers#magic users are the worst#garbage wizards#the thousand eyes#the unspoken name#a.k. larkwood#the warden#daniel m. ford#harrow the ninth#tamsyn muir#shades of magic#v.e. schwab#craft sequence#max gladstone#three parts dead
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The Thousand Eyes by A.K. Larkwood
goodreads
Two years ago, Csorwe and Shuthmili defied the wizard Belthandros Sethennai and stole his gauntlets. The gauntlets have made Shuthmili extraordinarily powerful, but they're beginning to take a sinister toll on her. She and Csorwe travel to a distant world to discover how to use the gauntlets safely, but when an old enemy arrives on the scene, Shuthmili finds herself torn between clinging to her humanity and embracing eldritch power. Meanwhile, Tal Charossa returns to Tlaanthothe to find that Sethennai has gone missing. As well as being a wizard of unimaginable power, Sethennai is Tal's old boss and former lover, and Tal wants nothing to do with him. When a magical catastrophe befalls the city, Tal tries to run rather than face his past, but soon learns that something even worse may lurk in the future. Throughout the worlds of the Echo Maze, fragments of an undead goddess begin to awaken, and not all confrontations can be put off forever...
Mod opinion: I haven't read this or the first book in this series, but it sounds interesting.
#the thousand eyes#a.k. larkwood#polls#trans lit#trans literature#trans books#lgbt lit#lgbt literature#lgbt books#nonbinary#fantasy
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Fantasy should have more sentient giant snake people. Adds variety
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has anyone read The Unspoken Name by A.K. Larkwood?
i know the series is called the serpent gates but gjdjgjsf how many snakes are actually in the books?
#i have a mild phobia sometimes so I'm on the fence if i should add it to my tbr#but tamsyn muir recommend it so....#the unspoken name#the serpent gates#a.k. larkwood
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The Serpent Gates Duology - A.K. Larkwood
Fantasy - Sci-Fi - Queer rep
⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/5)
I think i just figured out my favorite kind of romantic trope, and it says A LOT about me.
A.K. Larkwood's world building was so beautifully done in this Duology that I think I'm gonna be a little bit in love with it for the rest of my life. The combination of cultures, creatures, and worlds is probably my favorite thing about this story, and I consider myself to be a very harsh critic of world building. I loved the plot(s) I loved the characters, and I loved the language, so let's get into it.
Original Cover Art (respectively): Billelis / Katt Phatt
This duology follows 5 (6ish) main characters through land reclamation, seeking magic objects, fighting gods, becoming gods and much more. A LOT of things happen in the span of two books that keeps you hooked and on the edge of your seat wanting to know more.
Csorwe, an almost 14-year-old girl on the brink of sacrificing herself to her god, meets a mysterious wizard who convinces her to abandon everything she knows and follow him away from the people who want to gift her corpse to their god. From there everything falls into chaos. She meets Talasseres Charossa, her future chaotic sword gay brother (nonbiological), and they both start working for the mysterious wizard in hopes of gaining a drop of his favor (A LOT of father issues in that regard).
Sethennai, the wizard, is after an object that is rumored to contain the secrets of great magic, and in all honesty, I've never hated a character that much. he was brilliantly written to make you doubt your emotions towards him until finally you come to realize at the same time as Csorwe and Tal that he is the shittiest person to have ever existed (in any book you've ever read). I LOVED how A.K. Larkwood was capable of doing that, and then she went and did the exact opposite with Oranna, a librarian from the House of Silence, the cult that sacrifices children to The Unspoken Name (their god). My feelings on her progressed from complete hatred to what I call "me falling in love with every morally gray character that shows a bit of affection after committing unspeakable war crimes".
Finally, I just have one comment on the plot process. I think the series in general would've been even better if it was divided into more than two books. A LOT of things happened that were essentially skimmed over to a certain extent. A.K. Larkwood could have published at least 4 books with the events of these two if she went more into detail of some "in-between" events.
Regardless, I LOVED this duology, and I can't wait to read more of A.K. Larkwood's worlds.
P.S. I wanted there to be more exploration of the romance between Csorwe and Shuthmili. I loved every moment between them I just wished we saw a bit more.
P.P.S. My favorite trope is overpowering "bad-guy" royal Goddess impossibly in love with a troublemaker idiot that is the noblest person in existence.
#a.k. larkwood#the serpent gates#the serpent gates duology#the unspoken name#the thousand eyes#sapphic books#books#book review#gay idiot boy my love#gay#sapphic#nonbinary#they/them
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Review: The Thousand Eyes by A.K.Larkwood
Review: The Thousand Eyes by A.K.Larkwood
Series: The Serpent Gates #2Author: A.K. LarkwoodPublisher: Tor BooksReleased: February 15, 2022Received: NetGalley The Thousand Eyes is the second novel in A.K. Larkwood’s The Serpent Gates��series. I admit that I was pretty curious about how the sequel would go and thus couldn’t pass up the opportunity to read it. Also, I love that cover. Csorwe and Shuthmili survived the encounter two years…
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#A.K. Larkwood#Book#Book Review#Books#Fantasy#Fiction#Literary#Literature#Net Galley#NetGalley#Review#The Serpent Gates#The Serpent Gates 2#The Thousand Eyes#The Thousand Eyes by A.K. Larkwood#Tor#Tor Books#Tor Publishing#Tor.com
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What if you knew how and when you will die? Csorwe does. She will climb the mountain, enter the Shrine of the Unspoken, and gain the most honored title: sacrifice. On the day of her foretold death, however, a powerful mage offers her a new fate. Csorwe leaves her home, her destiny, and her god to become the wizard's loyal sword-hand -- stealing, spying, and killing to help him reclaim his seat of power in the homeland from which he was exiled. But Csorwe and the wizard will soon learn – gods remember, and if you live long enough, all debts come due.
#polls#book: the unspoken name#author: a.k larkwood#genre: young adult#genre: fantasy#genre: lgbt#year: 2020s
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Hi do you by chance have any sapphic fantasy recs? preferably adult fantasy but YA is fine too
sure! tho this could will get quite long... no links, sorry!, bc it was kicking up a fuss with those for some reason
+ = ya
pennyblade by j.l. worrad
lady hotspur by tessa gratton
sofi and the bone song by adrienne tooley (+)
she who became the sun by shelley parker chan
the scapegracers by h.a. clarke (+)
the third daughter by adrienne tooley (+)
the daughters of izdihar by hadeer elsbai
the malevolent seven by sebastien de castell
blackheart knights by laure eve
the warden by daniel m. ford
the unbroken by c.l. clark
dark earth by rebecca stott
witch king by martha wells
scorpica by g.r. macallister
the mirror empire by kameron hurley
now she is witch by kirsty logan
silverglass by j.f. rivkin
the woman who loved the moon and other stories by elizabeth a. lynn
...(this answer is how i discover there's a character limit per block so. doing this in chunks.)
fire logic by laurie j. marks
a restless truth by freya marske
when angels left the old country by sacha lamb (+)
the traitor baru cormorant by seth dickinson
an archive of brightness by kelsey socha
the bladed faith by david dalglish
the winged histories by sofia samatar
dragonoak by sam farren
the forever sea by joshua phillip johnson
into the broken lands by tanya huff
the jasmine throne by tasha suri
daughter of redwinter by ed mcdonald
the last magician by lisa maxwell (+)
the fire opal mechanism by fran wilde
...
the black coast by mike brooks
high times in the low parliament by kelly robson
foundryside by robert jackson bennett
the enterprise of death by jesse bullington
mamo by sas milledge (+)
from dust, a flame by rebecca podos (+)
uncommon charm by emily bergslien & kat weaver
wild and wicked things by francesca may
the unspoken name by a.k. larkwood
brother red by adrian selby
the final strife by saara el-arifi
way of the argosi by sebastien de castell (+)
the bone shard daughter by andrea stewart
ghost wood song by erica waters (+)
into the crooked place by alexandra christo (+)
ashes of the sun by django wexler
the midnight girls by alicia jasinska (+)
the midnight lie by marie rutkoski (+)
the never tilting world by rin chupeco (+)
water horse by melissa scott
...
a master of djinn by p. djeli clark
the good luck girls by charlotte nicole davis (+)
among thieves by m.j. kuhn
black water sister by zen cho
the velocity of revolution by marshall ryan maresca
sweet & bitter magic by adrienne tooley (+)
the dark tide by alicia jasinska (+)
the library of the unwritten by a.j. hackwith
a dark and hollow star by ashley shuttleworth (+)
the chosen and the beautiful by nghi vo
the councillor by e.j. beaton
these feathered flames by alexandra overy (+)
the factory witches of lowell by c.s. malerich
fireheart tiger by aliette de bodard
...
city of lies by sam hawke
bestiary by k-ming chang
the raven and the reindeer by t. kingfisher
the winter duke by claire eliza bartlett (+)
master of poisons by andrea hairston
the empress of salt and fortune by nghi vo
night flowers shirking from the light of the sun by li xing
down comes the night by allison saft (+)
wench by maxine kaplan (+)
girls made of snow and glass by melissa bashardoust (+)
girls of paper and fire by natasha ngan (+)
the impossible contract by k.a. doore
burning roses by s.l. huang
the house of shattered wings by aliette de bodard
not for use in navigation by iona datt sharma
weak heart by ban gilmartin
girl, serpent, thorn by melissa bashardoust (+)
the devil's blade by mark alder
...
we set the dark on fire by tehlor kay mejia (+)
the true queen by zen cho
moontangled by stephanie burgis
a portable shelter by kirsty logan
sing the four quarters by tanya huff
all the bad apples by moira fowley doyle (+)
the drowning eyes by emily foster
the priory of the orange tree by samantha shannon
miranda in milan by katharine duckett
the afterward by e.k. johnston (+)
thorn by anna burke
penhallow amid passing things by iona datt sharma
in the vanishers' palace by aliette de bodard
summer of salt by katrina leno (+)
the gracekeepers by kirsty logan
out of the blue by sophie cameron (+)
black wolves by kate elliott
the circle by sara b. elfgren & mats strandberg (+)
unspoken by sarah rees brennan (+)
thistlefoot by gennarose nethercott
passing strange by ellen klages
(and breathe)
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hi there! i started reading emily wilde’s encyclopedia of faeries on your recommendation and i’m having the most delightful time!! i’m usually not the biggest fan of faerie books (been burned by acotar 🫠) but i’m about halfway through emily wilde and i’m obsessed! have you been reading anything else lately that you would recommend?
hello lovely! "I'm usually not the biggest fan of faerie books" - this is bc acotar is not a faerie book it's a bad paranormal shifter romance, SJM wouldn't know faerie lore or any of it's associated literary history if it showed her its dick!
anyway, here are some books that I would recommend if you like Emily Wilde.
Half a Soul and Ten Thousand Stiches by Olivia Atwater (these are faerie books with similar tone to Emily Wilde)
The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black (this is a standalone novel of Holly Black's faerie books, I think this is the most like Emily Wilde as it's about a girl fascinated with the faerie world around her)
The Midnight Bargain by CL Polk (this one isn't about faeries but it is about rival magicians of different genders!)
The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope (this is a Tam Lin retelling, so there is some faeries, but the protagonist is also very Emily Wilde adjacent and I love her)
And some good books I've read lately! (mostly romance tbh)
Funny Story by Emily Henry
Act Your Age, Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert
Roleplaying by Cathy Yardley
Bitterthorn by Kat Dunn
The Unspoken Name/The Thousand Eyes by A.K. Larkwood (duology)
I'm also currently reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell and loving it (the OG in faerie/wizard academia crossover) but I would not in good conscience recommend this book as it's... about the same length as one of my fics lmfao.
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Book recs: great, unique and creative worldbuilding in fantasy books
A note: this is very much a subjective list. I typically do not care much for historical medieval-esque settings (though seeing as I'm a big critical role fan, obviously there are exceptions), but rather prefer settings that mix up historical and modern, fantastical and scientific, and make up entirely new things and societal structures not based on our world.
Other book rec posts:
Really cool sci-fi worldbuilding
Mermaid books
Dark sapphic romances
Vampire books
Without further ado, let’s go!
The Unspoken name by A.K. Larkwood
Honestly there's so much going on in this one worldbuilding-wise that it's kind of hard to explain. Portals, flying ships, orcs, elves, creepy snake gods, cults, immortal evil mages who traumatize teens as their hobby. It's also very queer!
A Master of Djinn by P. Djèli Clark
Set in an alternate 1910's steampunk Cairo, where djinn and other creatures (among other things, creepy steampunk angels) live alongside humans. We get to follow an investigator as she races to catch a criminal using a powerful object to control djinn and stir unrest. Fantastically creative and fresh, and also features a buddy cop dynamic between two female leads as well as a sapphic romance.
Sunshine by Robin McKinley
Urban fantasy on a level of its own, where dangerous magic exists alongside humans. It keeps you guessing and much is left unexplained; if you want clear answers and explanations to everything you might be disappointed, but if you want a world that feels mysterious and dangerous and lived in you'll probably like it. It follows a baker who, after getting kidnapped by vampires, gets embroiled in a dangerous struggle.
Radiant (Towers Trilogy) by Karina Sumner-Smith
A strange mix of fantasy, sci-fi and post apocalyptic, Radiant follows a girl without magic in a world where magic is currency. Those with much of it live in magically floating towers, while everyone else scrambles to survive in the ruins of an old city left devastated from an unknown cataclysm. The setting is creepy and mysterious and leaves me itching as I want to dig for more. Also there are ghosts.
Three Parts Dead (Craft Sequence) by Max Gladstone
This is one of those books where you just kind of have to let go and go along as it throws you all over the place. I started reading it expecting an urban fantasy, but it is much more and wholly unique. It features a world where gods and magic are deeply enmeshed with society at large, and a base of much of its technology and progress. It doesn't quite feel historical, but also not modern, but rather like you took a fantastical world and let it develop naturally into its own contemporary era.
Strange the Dreamer (Strange the Dreamer duology) by Laini Taylor
One of my favorite things is when the mysteries of the world and how it works become part of the plot, with characters trying to figure out their own world. Strange the Dreamer is beautiful and complex and will hurt your heart. Personally I didn't care much for the central romance, but the wonderful characters, themes, mysteries and world make up for it.
The Dawnhounds by Sascha Stronach
Like Three Parts Dead, The Dawnhounds is a book where you just kind of have to let the story and the world wash over you. It skirts the line of scifi and fantasy, with a futuristic world of environmentally friendly mushroom houses and deadly fungi bio weapons next to literally god-given superpowers and near-immortality. It's really cool and unlike anything else I've ever read. Bonus: it’s also sapphic!
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (Inheritance Trilogy) by N.K. Jemisin
Another example of a world that feels wholly like its own organically developed thing, with societal structures developed around the magical aspects and a presence of gods and demi-gods, many of whom walk the streets and will smite you if you piss them off.
Dead Witch Walking (The Hollows series) by Kim Harrison
Okay, here we have an actual urban fantasy. While I got a bit worn out by the many, many love interests throughout the series, the worldbuilding is simply phenomenal and relies heavily on a well-developed alternate history. Basically, magical beings such as vampires, werewolves, elves, fairies, witches, etc, used to exist secretly alongside us, but when humanity delved into genetic research instead of the space race during the cold war, an engineered virus ended up wiping a good chunk of us out and the magical beings stepped in to stop us from going extinct. Now in the modern day, we co-exist but tensions remain. Our main character is a witch who, alongside her roommates (a vampire and a fairy) solve mysteries and crime and end up unveiling secrets about their world centuries in the making.
Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger
Another urban fantasy, this one aimed at young adults and featuring indigenous mythology alongside creatures such as vampires and ghosts. We follow a young apache girl with the ability to raise ghosts as she works to solve the murder of her cousin.
Red Sister (Book of the Ancestor trilogy) by Mark Lawrence
Honestly, most of what I've read by Mark Lawrence so far could be featured on this list (special shoutout to his Broken Empire trilogy!). We follow a young girl training to become an assassin in a slowly dying world, where ice is overtaking the land and only a small band along its middle is habitable, kept alive by a mirror in the sky sharpening the dying sun's light. Question is, how long will this machine last, and what even is it? Very dark but very good.
The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth trilogy) by N.K. Jemisin
Listen, N.K. Jemisin gets to have two books on this list, okay, she is very good at what she does. In a world regularly torn apart by natural disasters, a big one finally strikes and society as we know it falls, leaving people floundering to survive in a post apocalyptic world, its secrets and past to be slowly revealed. We get to follow a mother as she races through this world to find and save her missing daughter.
The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez
AKA the book the killed me. Two boys travel throughout their land with the body of a god as her horrible, horrible children try to hunt them down. It's hard to explain more than that, but trust me when I say the narrative voice and literary techniques are incredibly unique in how they blend past and present, reality and story, lead and bystander. Truly an experience. Bonus: gay romance!
Wild Seed by Octavia Butler
Master of slightly fucked up romance, Octavia Butler knocks it out of the park in this story featuring two immortals struggling throughout the centuries. What do you do when there is only one other person remotely like you, and you simultaneously can't stand them and can't live without them? Apparently, you turn yourself into a dolphin for a while.
Birth of the Fire Bringer by Meredith Ann Pierce
Cards on the table, it has been a great many years since I actually read this, and just as many years spent meaning to read the sequels (I have a lot of stuff on my tbr okay, don’t judge me), but I do remember it making a great impact on me back in the day. Our main character is a unicorn! Fighting wyverns and gryphons! How cool is that!
Bonus AKA I haven’t read these yet but they seem really cool
The Surviving Sky by Kritika H. Rao
From Goodreads: This Hindu philosophy-inspired debut science fantasy follows a husband and wife racing to save their living city—and their troubled marriage—high above a jungle world besieged by cataclysmic storms.
High above a jungle-planet float the last refuges of humanity—plant-made civilizations held together by tradition, technology, and arcane science. In these living cities, architects are revered above anyone else. If not for their ability to psychically manipulate the architecture, the cities would plunge into the devastating earthrage storms below.
Clean Sweep by Ilona Andrews
Urban fantasy but the vampires are aliens? Sign me the fuck up
The Gaslight Dogs by Karin Lowachee
From Goodreads: At the edge of the known world, an ancient nomadic tribe faces a new enemy-an Empire fueled by technology and war.
#thanks tumblr for fucking me over and posting the draft before i was done#anyway its finished now sorry for the confusion#nella talks books#long post#book recs
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#the atlas paradox#one for my enemy#the atlas complex#olivie blake#the unspoken name#a.k. larkwood#ocean's echo#everina maxwell#legends & lattes#travis baldree#book list#book recommendations#bookblr#to read#tbr
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hi!! i know this has beeb asked before but not for a while and I thought there might be some releases since then, so : any Queer High Fantasy? I've been recommended Priory of the Orange Tree before. Thank you!!
Not sure when the last time was but here’s what’s currently on my radar! (You can also find these here, and an asterisk means it’s not out yet: https://lgbtqreads.com/sff/spec-fic-by-subgenre/) I bolded some of the ones that are newer or coming out in the next few months.
MG
*Splinter & Ash by Marieke Nijkamp – NB
Sir Callie by Esme Symes-Smith – NB
YA
Female Protags
The Winter Duke by Claire Eliza Bartlett
The Never Tilting World by Rin Chupeco – L
Queen of Coin and Whispers by Helen Corcoran
Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst – L,B
Inkmistress by Audrey Coulthurst – B
The Impostor Queen by Sarah Fine – B
Noble Falling and Noble Persuasion by Sara Gaines
Rule by Ellen Goodlett
Havenfall by Sara Holland
*Hearts Forged in Dragon Fire by Erica Hollis
The Afterward by EK Johnston
Empirium by Claire Legrand – B
Belle Révolte by Linsey Miller – BA
These Feathered Flames by Alexandra Overy
The Midnight Lie by Marie Rutkoski
It Ends in Fire by Andrew Shvarts
Beneath the Citadel by Destiny Soria – B, A
The Third Daughter and The Second Son by Adrienne Tooley
Shatter the Sky by Rebecca Kim Wells – B
The Thousand Names by Django Wexler
Male Protags
Cloaked in Shadow by Ben Alderson
The Runebinder Chronicles by Alex R. Kahler
Skybound by Alex London
So This is Ever After by F.T. Lukens
Beneath the Citadel by Destiny Soria
The Sunbearer Trials by Aiden Thomas – T
Non-Binary Protags
Spell Bound by FT Lukens
Mask of Shadows by Linsey Miller – GF
*A Hundred Vicious Turns by Lee Paige O’Brien
Adult
Female Protags
A Broken Blade by Melissa Blair
Tales of Inthya by Effie Calvin
The Vanished Queen by Lisbeth Campbell
Rook & Rose by M.A. Carrick
The Night and its Moon by Piper CJ
The Unbroken by C.L. Clark
*Warmongers by C.L. Clark
The Gardener’s Hand by Felicia Davin
*The Water Outlaws by S.L. Huang
Dragonfall by L.R. Lam
The Unspoken Name by A.K. Larkwood
The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
From Under the Mountain by C.M. Spivey
The Drowning Empire by Andrea Stewart (Amz)
The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri
Malice by Heather Walter
When Women Were Warriors series by Catherine M. Wilson
Male Protags
Kirith Kirin by Jim Grimsley
The Cadeleonian series by Ginn Hale
Tales From Verania by T.J. Klune
A Chorus of Dragons by Jenn Lyons
The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
*Dark Moon, Shallow Sea by David R. Slayton
Stagsblood Trilogy by Gideon E. Wood
Genderqueer Protags
*The Water Outlaws by S.L. Huang
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The Unspoken Name is surprisingly hefty. It's not hard to read as in the writing is too wordy, but a lot happens. They've already passed what could have been the climactic point of a different, shorter novel.
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