#elin gregory

[aurorawest]

Reading update

Best Men by Sidney Karger - 3.5/5 stars

Man. When I started reading this, I was positive I was going to rate it 5 stars. The first third or so was hysterical, often to the point of me not being able to breathe because I was laughing so hard. Ultimately though, the romance fell extremely flat. There wasn't really enough development for it, and I don't think it boils down to a marketing issue—the romance is too big of a focus to say, "Oh, this was just general fiction they wanted to market as a romcom." It really was an issue with the romance just not being very well written. Another issue I had was that at times, the writing was very...cringey. Like, I couldn't tell if the author was trying to keep Max's voice (which was funny) or if he just can't write genuinely heartfelt scenes. The big, romantic sex scene could probably be added to that one post with the collection of horribly written sex scenes.

There were also some weird inaccuracies about Midwesterners that of course bugged me as a Midwesterner. We call soda "Coke?" No we don't. It's pop. Maybe there's some southern creep into the Midwest but I've N E V E R heard anyone say Coke when they meant pop generally. Also, Midwesterners like pools? I mean I guess, but we learn to swim in lakes (as opposed to the ocean).

In case you're wondering, I knocked an entire star off for the Midwest inaccuracies.

Mountain Ghost Stories and Curious Tales of Western North Carolina, edited by Randy Russell and Janet Barnett - 3.5/5 stars

I picked this up at one of the visitor centers in Great Smoky Mountains National Park on our trip there last fall. Most of these are more like folk stories than ghost stories.

Timberdark by Darren Charlton - 5/5 stars

What if the real dystopia isn't the zombie apocalypse, but "normal" life?

I was going to leave it at that but NO, I have more to say. Why aren't these books more popular? Why isn't everyone screaming about how gorgeous they are and how this is what YA should be? Why do they not have a US publisher? Why are they not all over freaking BookTok tables at bookstores?

I honestly don't even want to say that much about the Wranglestone duology because I want everyone to read them and experience them. Wranglestone and Timberdark are genuinely a couple of the most gorgeous books I've ever read, Timberdark in particular.

Road of Bones by Christopher Golden - 3.25/5

Immaculate vibes and incredible setting. Not much more to it than that.

Ravensong by Carla Fay - DNF

At 4 pages in. I hated everything about this book immediately and I don't have a good reason.

Maelstrom by Jordan L Hawk - 4.5/5 stars

BODY SWAP.

A Pocketful of Lies: Collected Stories by KJ Charles - 5/5 stars

5/5 stars for Masters in This Hall alone.

If I See You Again Tomorrow by Robby Couch - 4.25/5 stars

Considering this is billed and marketed as a romance, there was surprisingly little romance in it. It was good, though. Robby Couch is one of my favorite queer YA romance writers.

Eleventh Hour by Elin Gregory - 3.75/5 stars

OMG they were mission partners! Interwar period gay spies in London, hard to go wrong.

Out in the Open by AJ Truman - 3.75/5 stars

Truman has this habit of describing sex scenes in bizarre and not particularly sexy ways ("I sucked his cock a thousand times harder than a vacuum cleaner" is an actual real comparison from this book), but his books are funny with endearing characters, so I give him a pass. I also think it MIGHT be something he does when he's writing younger characters, because the other time it was really pronounced was in The Barkeep and the Bro, where one of the characters was in his mid 20s (Out in the Open is a college romance).

Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell - 5/5 stars (reread)

This book was as good, if not better, the second time around. Kiem is so funny and lovable and Jainan's history made me even more sad. I really love how well Maxwell handles the fact that Jainan was in an abusive marriage for five years while still writing a slow burn romance that doesn't span multiple books. This book is an inspiration to me and is pretty much my perfect book—gay and sci-fi. On this reread I could really see its influence on my own writing, haha. Which is cool to know that I can still be influenced in a major way even this far into my writing life!

Anyway if you haven't read this book, I honestly don't know what you're waiting for. Read it read it reeeeead ittttt.

A Veil of Gods and Kings by Nicole Bailey - DNF

DNF at 15 pages. The main character was annoying and the author took 'show don't tell' a little too far. Everything was described in flowery, overwrought purple prose. Seriously, it's a road. You can just say it's a road. Also I never want to see 'Artemis' shortened to 'Temi' ever again. Please just no.

[poisindonottouch]

Queer reads: Elin Gregory

For day 26, I have a duology by Elin Gregory. 

These are more mystery than romance, but the romance subplot is pretty significant. These share vibes with Cat Sebastian’s Page and Sommers books, as well as the Will Darling books by KJ Charles. They take place post WWI, and the two main characters are intelligence agents. I love her world building, and the chemistry between the characters. 

Elin Gregory is a Welsh author, and I’d recommend all of her stories. 

[kristipetersenschoonover]

34 ORCHARD ISSUE 7 HAS BURST ONTO THE SCENE!

IT’S RELEASE DAY!! I’m thrilled to announce that 34 Orchard ISSUE 7 is here! Heralding the coming of spring and the concept of the fresh start, Issue 7 has another winner from Nigeria’s Ernest O. Ògúnyẹmí (Issue 1’s “Christmas Chicken,” about which we STILL get mail!) and a few other 34O alums, as well as work by others familiar and brand-new. Plunging into the visceral rip tides of lost love,…

[helenkordart]

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

[drchristineputnam]

HEY FELLAS, how about some of that good good 1920s gay spy stuff with fake undercover marriage, crossdressing, a sweet linguist with a bold lady persona and a 6ft something professional undercover spy who is such an enormous dingus he calls an actual tiny baby 'Old Man'???

Pls read it I loved it so much

[bookgeekgrrl]

"Practical education," Falk said with an admiring shake of his head. "Every girl needs to know how to organise a dinner party, make a souffle, pick a lock, load a gun and make a rope out of bed sheets. Just the basics really."

Midnight Flit (The Carstairs Affairs #2) by Elin Gregory

[crazywitchkitty]

lovely read for dark, wet and foggy days

[fashionography]

Binx Walton for WSJ Magazine April 2020 https://ift.tt/3bI07ch

[aurorawest]

Summer Reading Update (part 2)

Fall for You by AJ Truman - 3.75/5 stars

Should have read this in the fall since it's fall themed.

By Any Other Name by Erin Cotter - 2.5/5 stars

In His Sights by KC Wells - 4/5 stars

The Bell in the Fog by Lev AC Rosen - 5/5 stars

LOVED this one. I enjoyed the first in the series as well but this one was much better IMO—just a tighter mystery. I actually gasped at one of the reveals.

Lightning Strike Blues by Gayleen Froese - 5/5 stars

I was really pleasantly surprised by how good this book was. It looks like a superhero book but the vibe was more Fringe to me. Fringe meets Letterkenny. And it was really well written! Another book with a good twist. I highly recommend this one.

A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid - DNF at pg 108

The Misfit Mage and His Dashing Devil - DNF at pg 8

In Plain Sight by KC Wells - 3.75/5 stars

Planetfall by Emma Newman - 4/5 stars

Before All the World by Moriel Rothman-Zecher

I didn't know how to rate this one, so I didn't. It was pretty experimental, and I just didn't think I could rate it fairly. Its Storygraph average is 4.2/5 and it's definitely an interesting read.

Somewhere in the Gray Area - DNF at pg 32

Kit & Basie by Tess Carletta - 4/5 stars

Fence Vol 6: Redemption by CS Pacat and Johanna the Mad - 5/5 stars

The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White - 4.75/5 stars

I haven't had good luck with Rainbow Crate books, to the point that after I canceled my subscription, I went through all the ones still in my TBR, read the first page, and got rid of most of them. I kept this one because it's highly praised, and I ended up loving it. It probably would have been a 5 star read, except I thought the epilogue really undercut the effectiveness of the rest of the book.

Time to Shine by Rachel Reid - 5/5 stars

I think Rachel Reid was the first m/m hockey romance author I read, and I still think she writes some of the best.

Paladin's Hope by T Kingfisher - 4/5 stars

One Wicked Night by Colette Rivera - DNF at pg 136

10 Things That Never Happened by Alexis Hall - 5/5 stars

I was really apprehensive about this book. A few years ago I LOVED Alexis Hall, but I haven't enjoyed several of his new releases. I'm so glad I gave this one a chance because it's probably my favorite of all his books now. It's hilarious and cringey (good cringey) and romantic.

After the Forest by Kell Woods - DNF at pg 63

Lord Garrington's Vessel by S Rodman - DNF at pg 5

Alike as Two Bees by Elin Gregory - 4.25/5 stars

Dragged to the Wedding by Andrew Grey - 3.75/5 stars

His Lordship's Master by Samantha SoRelle - 4.5/5 stars

Fire from the Sky by Moa Backe Åstot (translated by Eva Apelqvist) - 5/5 stars

Gorgeous YA book about a Sami teenage boy who's struggling to reconcile the fact that he's gay and in love with his best friend with the fact that he doesn't want to leave his town and reindeer herding, even though he'd find more acceptance in a city. Also the translator lives in Minnesota.

[poisindonottouch]

Queer reads: a month of links

Here are the 30 books/authors I’ve recommended for the month of June.

Science Fiction

1: The Locked Tomb, by Tamsyn Muir

2: Provenance, by Ann Leckie 

3: A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine 

4: The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K LeGuin 

5: The Roads of Heaven, by Melissa Scott 

6: Winter’s Orbit & Ocean’s Echo, by Everina Maxwell

7: Murderbot Diaries, by Martha Wells 

8: Stars In My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, by Samuel R Delany

9: The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold

Horror 

(I don’t really read too much horror, because I’m a scaredy-cat, but these were both so good!) 

10: The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling

11: Summer Sons, by Lee Mandelo 

Fantasy

12: The Greenhollow Duology, by Emily Tesh 

13: The Manifold Worlds, by Foz Meadows

14:  Paladin’s Hope, by T Kingfisher

15: The Last Binding, by Freya Marske

16: The Scholomance trilogy, by Naomi Novik

17:  Rain Wild Chronicle, by Robin Hobb

18: The Cemeteries of Amalo, by Katherine Addison

19: My Real Children, by Jo Walton

20: The Amberlough Dossier, by Lara Elena Donnelly

21: The Broken Earth trilogy, by N.K. Jemisin

Romance! 

22: K.J. Charles

23: Cat Sebastian

24: Alexis Hall

25: AJ Demas

26: Elin Gregory

27: Roan Parrish

Sport Romances! 

28: KD Casey

29: Rachel Reid

30: Avon Gale & Piper Vaughn

Go enjoy some queer books! 

[kristipetersenschoonover]

Announcing the ToC for 34 ORCHARD ISSUE 7, SPRING 2023 – Coming April 25!

I’m thrilled to announce the Table of Contents for 34 Orchard Issue 7, Spring 2023! Heralding the coming of spring and the concept of the fresh start, Issue 7 has another winner from Nigeria’s Ernest O. Ògúnyẹmí (Issue 1’s “Christmas Chicken,” about which we STILL get mail!) and a few other 34O alums, as well as work by others familiar and brand-new. Plunging into the visceral rip tides of lost…

[perfettamentechic]

12 giugno … ricordiamo …

12 giugno … ricordiamo … #semprevivineiricordi #nomidaricordare #personaggiimportanti #perfettamentechic

2019: Sylvia Miles, pseudonimo di Sylvia Reuben Lee, attrice statunitense. (n. 1924) 2016: Elin Ortiz, attore, comico e produttore cinematografico portoricano. (n. 1934) 2015: Micol Fontana, stilista e imprenditrice italiana. È celebre per aver fondato, insieme alle sue sorelle Zoe e Giovanna, l’atelier romano di Alta Moda Sorelle Fontana. (n. 1913) 2005: Emmanuelle Arsan, pseudonimo di Marayat…

[helenkordart]

Some time ago I was commissioned by the delightful Elin Gregory to draw the characters of her equally delightful Eleventh Hour, Briars and Miles/Millie. If you want to read a wonderful and unusual 1920s queer british spy romp romance between a badass spy and a charming non-binary linguist, this is the book for you.

Eleventh Hour has:

undercover fake marrieds!

Cool Spy Stuff

Tol snarky falls in love with smol snarky

They go on a date to see the movie Wings and marvel at that famous gay kiss (wow im so soft)

Theres a scene where Briars, the hardened spy and also a war vet, has to calm down a baby and he freaks out and says “sorry old man”. To a baby. That hes holding

a german best frenemy spy who turns up even more in the second book and I love him so much

just. real good Gender Stuff when it comes to Miles and his gender presentation 

Please go put money in Elin Gregory’s pocket and also make a fandom for this series

[macaronis-telegraph]

Queer WWI Literature

This is a very niche and limited category, so I’ve been trying to throw together a list of what I can find out there for anyone else who might also be interested. What follows are all books that contain LGBTQ+ rep of any kind, that also involve the First World War as a central theme.

Titles with an asterisk* are the ones I have personally read, and would be more than happy to talk about/answer any questions about their content/rep!

Written in the 20th Century

Alf, by Bruno Vogel (1929)

Despised and Rejected, by Rose Allatini (pseud. A.T. Fitzroy) (1918)*

Lads: Love Poetry of the Trenches, edited by Martin Taylor (1989)

The Memorial, by Christopher Isherwood (1932)

My Father and Myself, by J.R. Ackerley (1968)

The Prisoners of War: A Play in Three Acts, by J.R. Ackerley (1925)*

The Regeneration Trilogy (Regeneration, The Eye in the Door, The Ghost Road), by Pat Barker (1991, 1993, 1995)*

A Scarlet Pansy, by Robert Scully (1932)*

Strange Meeting, by Susan Hill (1976)

Written in the 21st Century

The Absolutist, by John Boyne (2011)

Across Your Dreams, by Jay Lewis Taylor (2016)

Alec, by William di Canzio (2021)

Ashthorne, by April Yates (2022)

Awfully Glad, by Charlie Cochrane (2014)

Bonds of Earth, by G.N. Chevalier (2012)*

The Boy I Love, by Marion Husband (2005)*

The Daughters of Mars, Thomas Keneally (2012)

Eleventh Hour, by Elin Gregory (2016)

The Fallen Snow, by John J. Kelley (2012)

Fighting Proud: The Untold Story of the Gay Men Who Served in Two World Wars, by Stephen Bourne (2017) – (I know I said fiction, but I’m going to leave this one here anyhow)

Flower of Iowa, by Lance Ringel (2014)*

The Great Swindle, by Pierre Lemaitre (2013)*

The Indian Clerk, by David Leavitt (2007)

The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing, by Mary Paulson-Ellis (2019) *

In Memoriam, by Alice Winn (2023)

The Lie, by Helen Dunmore (2014)

The Paying Guests, by Sarah Waters (2014)

A Pride of Poppies, short story collection published by Manifold Press (2015)

Promises Made Under Fire, by Charlie Cochrane (2013)

The Shell House, by Linda Newbery (2002)*

Spectred Isle, by K.J. Charles (2017)

The Stranger’s Child, by Alan Hollinghurst (2011)

The Warm Hands of Ghosts, by Katherine Arden (2024)

Whistling in the Dark, by Tamara Allen (2008)*

Wild with All Regrets, by Emma Deards (2023)

The World and All that it Holds, by Aleksandar Hemon (2023)

This is a dynamic list, which I will continue to update whenever I find something new. If you know of anything that isn’t on this list and needs to be, please let me know!

[bookgeekgrrl]

Sunday reading recap (10-Mar-2019)

at least i’m on vacation for the next week! gonna read a whole lotta fanfic (which is no different than any other week, except MORE)

Embers (shiftylinguini) - drarry, ABO, 41K - Harry’s a Heat Companion, Draco needs some help. 

Ulysses (girlbookwrm) - 00Q, 89K, really excellent, recced on a recent Be The Serpent - 

Best of Luck (Chance of a Lifetime #3, Kate Clayborn) - solid ending to a really good series, though not my fav of the series. I really did like the characters, even if the first time they hook up it's so unhygenic that I couldn't find it remotely sexy. (The rest of the sexy times were fine.) And I felt like Greer’s ‘mystery illness’ was drawn out for the reader too long - like, bc of the POV we know she’s got a chronic illness, it’s not ACTUALLY a mystery to us. But all in all, pretty good,

Midnight Flit (The Carstairs Affairs #2, Elin Gregory) -  LOOOOVED this! Such fun! I loved spending time with Briers and Miles again, this time including Miles' mother, being pursued by all sorts of foreign agents and a trip on the Orient Express.Also possibly the first super erotic leg shaving scene I’ve read. (I’m sure others are out there, this was just my first.)

sidereal (girlbookwrm, verbalatte) - Stucky, 67K, soulmark AU, really great worldbuilding in this, lots of great ‘historical’ and ‘pop culture’ stuff for soulmarks, lots of really chewy details on soulmark compatibility and multiple soulmates. honestly, a LOT of great worldbuilding in what’s a relatively small number of words.

misc shorter fanfic, including this very satisfactory fake-dating-for-grant-money fic

[inclineto]

Books, November - December 2020

The Relentless Moon - Mary Robinette Kowal [I...was not prepared for an eating disorder to drive as much of the plot as it does; maybe you should be]

How to Read Water: Clues and Patterns from Puddles to the Sea - Tristan Gooley

Spoiler Alert - Olivia Dade [This could have gone so wrong; honestly, I expected to ditch it in the first two chapters, because usually I HATE giddy novels about fandom...and yet! it turned out to be wish fulfillment in the best possible way, somehow despite the inclusion of multiple tropes that I also dislike (least spoilery: “I betrayed your trust by not telling you my terrible secret that involves you when I had the opportunity, and now you can never know,” when that will obviously only make the eventual inevitable reveal much worse). Anyway: if you wanted actor RPF/fandom AU for a canon that doesn’t exist, here you go.]

Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait - Bathsheba Demuth

Desire and the Deep Blue Sea - Olivia Dade

The Way Past Winter - Kiran Millwood Hargrave [dnf]

Sisters in Hate: American Women on the Front Lines of White Nationalism - Seyward Darby

Swordspoint - Ellen Kushner

Jeoffry: The Poet’s Cat: A Biography - Oliver Soden

Gaudy Night - Dorothy L. Sayers *

Yes, I’m Hot in This: The Hilarious Truth About Life in a Hijab - Huda Fahmy [I introduced this artist to a former boss, whose reaction was to immediately purchase and lend me every book she’s published; I’m overdue to mail this one back (and if your thought was “that book exchange sounds backwards,” well, ...yes)]

One by One - Ruth Ware [it’s fine, I didn’t have anywhere to go the next morning, I didn’t mind staying up until 2:30 to finish this, it’s fine]

A Deadly Education - Naomi Novik

Solutions and Other Problems - Allie Brosh

The House of the Four Winds - Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory

There Is No Good Card for This: What To Say and Do When Life Is Scary, Awful, and Unfair to People - Emily McDowell and Kelsey Crowe [self-help is not usually my genre, but given that I’ve written so many condolence cards this year that I’ve run out of condolence card-appropriate stationary - archives love using scenes from Hamlet on their exhibition giveaway cards, and they’re absolutely not okay to use for...really any occasion, but especially death - and am utterly unable to tell whether anything I’m writing is any good, and that my standard How To Be A Better Person manual is an etiquette book from the 1930s, what could it hurt?]

Orlando - Virginia Woolf

Around My French Table: 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours - Dorie Greenspan

Return of the Thief - Megan Whalen Turner

Spectred Isle - KJ Charles [still really fond of this one; still really want the lesbian ghost sequel]

Division Bells - Iona Datt Sharma [there’s one scene that threw me out of the world, and I’d kind of love to see whether it got editorial notes and if so, what...but on the other hand, I wasn’t expecting this to make me cry, and it did]

Serpentine - Philip Pullman, illustrated by Tom Duxbury [the story is slight; what you want to read this for are the illustrations, which are delightful]

The Rakess - Scarlet Peckham

The Midnight Bargain - C. L. Polk

The House of Green Turf - Ellis Peters

Beach Read - Emily Henry

Not the End of the World - Kate Atkinson

World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments - Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Eleventh Hour - Elin Gregory

Ahab’s Rolling Sea: A Natural History of Moby-Dick - Richard J. King [Let’s get this right out there: “Cetology” is my favorite chapter in the entire novel; I think it’s brilliant and fabulously funny and I loathe the lazy “everybody hates ‘Cetology’” trope that shows up everywhere - looking at you, Dave Malloy! - (although my mother tells me that her students did, indeed, universally despise it, which I find incomprehensible), so I’m always a little salty on approaching any Melville criticism: will they disrespect ‘Cetology”??? Sure enough, it’s there, but at least it’s on the way to explaining why you ought to appreciate it.]

Rereadings: Seventeen Writers Revisit Books They Love - ed. Anne Fadiman [the essay to read is Diana Kappel-Smith on the Peterson Field Guide to Wildflowers of Northeastern and North-Central North America]

Why Birds Sing - Nina Berkhout

Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country - Louise Erdrich

Barn 8 - Deb Olin Unferth

Black Sun - Rebecca Roanhorse

Where the Wild Ladies Are - Aoko Matsuda, translated by Polly Barton * [completely won over by this linked collection of present-day yōkai stories]

Ammonite - Nicola Griffith

Or What You Will - Jo Walton

Vesper Flights - Helen Macdonald

La Belle Sauvage - Philip Pullman [I’m fascinated to discover that the sequence I remember from reading this the first time doesn’t start until more than halfway through! He can tell a riveting story, so I wish I trusted Pullman even a tiny bit...but I don’t.]

Written in the Stars - Alexandria Bellefleur

A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear: The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town (and Some Bears) - Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling [some of this would never be funny; it’s possible I’d find parts of it funnier if libertarians didn’t make me so damn angry]

The Glass Magician - Caroline Stevermer