#queersff

[kellshaw]

WIP Series - The Revenant Records

My ongoing series. Expected to be five books.

How does growing up work when you’re forever seventeen? How do you remain a good person when you’re a soul-eating undead creature? And how do you maintain your independence when you’re mired in supernatural debt—in hock to a ghost lord for your very existence, and bound to your grown-up high school friend who controls whether you live or die?

The Revenant Records is an urban fantasy series focusing on ghost stories, mysteries and dark adventure. It’s the story of an undead teenager, trying to balance her responsibilities to help lost ghosts, while maintaining a semblance of a normal life.

In the first book, Final Night, Lukie is searching for answers to her murder. She’s cut a deal with the Underworld to return to the living lands. But when Lukie returns as an undead revenant, twenty years have passed. Her former sleepy beach-side town is now a roaring tourist hot-spot. Her memory is full of holes and she doesn’t know which of her old friends to trust....

Main characters

Lukie Carpenter. Seventeen, undead. Excitable, enthusiastic, trying to figure how to live when she's no longer alive. And trying to balance that with her duties of being an intermediary between the world of the living and the dead.

Tamlyn Tanner. Lukie’s best friend from high school. His life was messed up by Lukie’s murder. He’s thirty-eight when she comes back, and he’s appointed to be the guardian of a teenager that might never grow up (or old).

Their relationship isn't romantic, but still complicated and messy. Tamlyn controls Lukie's ability to feed on souls, something that was dumped onto him by the monster hunter that nearly kills her in the first book. Lukie wants to be free, and bristles under the bond forcing them together. Tamlyn's changed a lot from the person she knew at high school—he's a transman, which is fine, but why won't he tell her about his personal life? What happened in the twenty years of existance she missed out on?

Tropes

Finding your place in the world. Surviving a hostile and dangerous supernatural world by making friends and contacts.

Found family. The ongoing relationship between two friends forced into a strange supernatural world.

Helping trapped and tormented souls.

Diverse/queer characters in a thriller/mystery series.

Books

1. Final Night. eBook | Audiobook 

2. TBD (late 2023)

3. TBD (2024)

4. TBD 

5. TBD 

Below is the chapter from Final Night that kicks everything off....

7:53pm, 7 Bloodstone 1983 (?)

She had no idea how she got here.

Sand. A lapping tide. Confused, Lukie struggled to her feet. Water sloshed in her boots, and she was cold all over like she’d been at her after-school job stacking the freezer section at Cubermarket.

The ocean was dark and heaving, the sky above colored in bands of lavender and gold. Far to the south she glimpsed the shadowy edges of the Pillars of Majesty—limestone formations spearing out of the sea along the coastal King’s Road. A late summer sunset. Later than… when?

You’ll have until dawn… Her memories were jumbled. Running from hungry shadows. Hiding in the darkness. An impassioned conversation. Crawling out and upward through a pipe for a long time.

Which didn’t explain anything. She looked around, then down, and clawed wet sand off her jacket.

Light glinted off Marmaruk, the thin planetary ring that girdled the overhead sky. His sister, Amarun—the surviving moon—rose above him, her face a slender crescent.

Wait, hadn’t the moon been full earlier? Lukie scratched grit from her hair. She faced the steep cliff. On the top was the old beach house where the party had been.

Oh yeah. She’d been there. She remembered…

Well, nothing clearly. Spook Club. Holding her guitar. The music. A blur of voices and faces. But not how she had gotten to the beach.

She recalled a dark tunnel. Stairs leading upwards with worn carpet. A voice: You’ll have until dawn…

To do what?

It had to be the same evening. She must have been confused about the moon. Time to get back to the party and find out what was going on.

If this was a sick joke, she’d punch the people responsible. Repeatedly.

Lukie patted herself down.

She was wearing familiar clothes. Amber bangles. Outside Sky t-shirt. Red leather jacket. In one pocket were the keys to her new—okay, newish—car. In the other was a cassette, a home recording of her own composition that had helped her gain admission into Storm City’s Conservatorium of Music. And in the other, a photograph of her family taken when they’d been on their last holiday together at Storm City for Winterdark. Before Mom had passed.

I never brought these with me. The keys, yes. But the cassette and their final family photo had been tucked in her special drawer in her bedroom. They weren’t wet; her jacket had kept them dry.

Am I dreaming? She poked herself. She felt that. But her skin was nearly frozen. I need to get somewhere warm before I die of hypothermia.

Lukie staggered toward the cliff. 

Something else was wrong. The stairs were in the right position, but now with a wooden railing. Maybe Nathel’s parents had installed it before the party. Wouldn't I have remembered it, though? She hurried upward to the beach house.

And things got strange.

The structure should have been there. All gleaming glass and steel. Drunken people sitting under the porch. The boom of music from inside, the clink of glasses, and the smell of beer. She even expected cruel laughter as she clambered up the steps, wet and thoroughly pissed off, clearly the victim of a practical joke.

Instead, there was just a lonely, weed-infested ruin. Peeling paint covered the stucco walls. The window frames were empty, revealing a scarred concrete slab and an interior dusted with sand.

This wasn’t right. 

She ran past the abandoned place, down the overgrown driveway. If this had been the actual site of the house, her car would have been parked there. But it wasn’t.

Now what? Perhaps she was at the incorrect location. Or she was on a macabre prank TV show.

But the area was too real, too familiar to be elsewhere. And there was no camera in sight.

Every time things went wrong in life, she saw Dad. He sorted out her worst problems, made it all right again.

So she ran home to Breakwater Bay.

Lukie had spent her entire life in the small town. It was one of many that dotted the east coast, popular with tourists who came to surf on the golden beaches during summer or to visit the region’s historical mansions during the winter. It should have taken her an hour to hike into town, but it felt like only minutes had passed when she arrived.

But as Lukie reached the outskirts, a sense of wrongness slammed into her senses like an unhealed wound.

As she remembered things, Endeavor Drive, the central street, ran directly in front of the beach, lined with ocean-facing brown brick cottages and fibro houses. A large wharf speared down the main beach, and around it clustered bars, fast-food restaurants, and bait and tackle shops.

But as she followed the street, her attention was snagged by a giant shopping mall and bowling alley that hadn’t been there earlier this evening. Strange cars drove past; only a few recognizable models, and all of those were battered and worn. Small high-rise apartment blocks clustered along the beachfront streets rather than the familiar homes.

She zigzagged back and forth across the road, staring at the street signs. Bream Road. Seaview Plaza. Catch Lane. Surfside Drive—that wasn’t right! Why—

A car crunched into her.

She slammed against the hood and bounced against the blacktop like a ragdoll.

Brakes squealed. A woman screamed from inside the vehicle.

Lukie sprawled on her back.

Her left arm was bent wrong.

Bone was sticking out of it like a snapped twig.

But it didn’t hurt. Sure, it itched. But there was no pain. And no blood.

Am I on drugs? She clenched her teeth as black, oozing smoke trickled out of the cuts in her skin. Under the shadowy mass, gray tendons knitted together.

So freaky!

Oily black vapor briefly encircled the protruding bone. It faded away, leaving a healed wound and unmarked pallid flesh. What is this dark stuff? It feels almost sentient. It leaked out of me—

“Are you alright?” A huge man loomed over her. “I’m so sorry! We were talking, and I wasn’t watching the road.”

Lukie blinked, staring at the car that had hit her. It was sleek, with red chrome stylings, and like no design she’d ever seen.

There were four people around her—university-age twenty-somethings dressed strangely in low-rise jeans without flared ends, sparkly lip gloss, and flat, straightened hair. The big man had obvious ogre ancestry. There was a curly-haired human woman and two dwarrow, which was weird because in Lukie’s experience, different hominins rarely mingled with each other.

“I’m checking you for broken bones!” The woman patted Lukie down. “She’s like ice. Get me the picnic blanket.” When she touched Lukie, a smooth brassy dance beat thumped in the air.

“I’m fine!” Lukie got to her feet and pushed the woman away.

The music cut out. And that didn’t make any sense either.

But Lukie was more distracted by her own voice than some weird hidden radio. It had come out slow and raspy, like she had a bad cold.

Her left foot straightened, and bones clicked into place. She tested it. Needs a bit longer.

“Stay down. You could have a serious injury! We need to call an ambulance.”

“Maybe she knows what she’s doing, Maz.” The big man put his arms around the curly-haired woman. “It might be an elf thing.”

“I’m human,” Lukie insisted, despite feeling the heat rise in her pointed ears as the others stared with disbelief. But her grandmother’s people were insistent: half an elf was not an elf. She desperately tried to clear her throat. “And I’m fine.” She jumped up and down, demonstrating her fitness. “You braked just in time.” Her voice remained husky.

“See, she’s okay.” The ogre wiped the sweat from his face.

“Are you sure?” One of the dwarrow women put her hands on her hips. “She looks like a zombie to me.”

Lukie’s stomach churned. Zombie? An ice-cold sensation speared through her left leg. She stamped her foot—ready for walking. “Uh, I’m going to a party.”

“The one in the hills?” Maz said. “We’re heading there. We can give you a lift. Love your 80s costume and your spooky contacts. Perfect for Final Night.”

“What’s that?” Lukie asked.

Maz and her ogre friend glanced at each other and then back at Lukie.

“You know,” Maz spoke slowly. “It’s a horror party about those girls who got murdered twenty years ago. It’s the only reason people come to the sticks this time of year. Hey, are you sure you don't want a ride to the hospital?”

Murdered? 

Twenty years?

No, no. There has to be an explanation for this.

“I have to go!” Lukie fled, despite them calling out to her. Something was wrong with her—and the town—and she needed to figure out what it was. She shoved past a group of onlookers, nearly collided with a confused tourist in a baseball cap eating a burger, and sprinted through the neon-lit streets to the first sign of safety: a public restroom that had been there this morning. 

The bathroom was still there. Painted white now, but the same. Five stalls, graffitied doors, dirty cream tiles, stainless steel sink and taps, an empty paper towel dispenser.

Her blurred reflection stared back at her from smeared glass.

Red, luminous eyes. Deathly skin.

She looks like a zombie to me.

Lukie clenched the bathroom sink and inhaled deeply to steady herself. And then she realized she hadn’t been breathing at all.

[cmrosens]

Author Spotlight: Shariva Khan (Authors for Palestine Host)

Meet author Shariva Khan, host of the event Authors for Palestine that raised over $1800 for families trying to evacuate Gaza. Find out about them and their novel Maiden of the Hollow Path! #AuthorInterview #IndieAuthor #QueerSFF

I’m a first generation queer, trans desi person (what a mouthful). I’ve been writing ever since I was a kid which usually meant putting things off and scraping by with grades. Nowadays, I spend time fostering exotic animals through several charity foundations that help save them from terribly abusive and negligent situations. When I’m not writing, I’m usually thinking about it, immersing myself…

[lauraroselam]

Seven Devils is now out in US paperback! (UK paperback came out a few months ago). 

This book was a Sunday Times bestseller and is basically STAR WARS BUT MAKE IT NEARLY ALL WOMEN AND GAY. We sometimes also call it Mad Max: Fury Road meets Rogue One. 

Representation: autistic, asexual, lesbian, bisexual/pansexual, trans, disabled (amputee). 

PURCHASE LINKS: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/607293/seven-devils-by-laura-lam-and-elizabeth-may/9780756418281

Cover copy: 

This first book in a feminist space opera duology follows seven resistance fighters who will free the galaxy from the ruthless Tholosian Empire–or die trying. When Eris faked her death, she thought she had left her old life as the heir to the galaxy’s most ruthless empire behind. But her recruitment by the Novantaen Resistance, an organization opposed to the empire’s voracious expansion, throws her right back into the fray. Eris has been assigned a new mission: to infiltrate a spaceship ferrying deadly cargo and return the intelligence gathered to the Resistance. But her partner for the mission, mechanic and hotshot pilot Cloelia, bears an old grudge against Eris, making an already difficult infiltration even more complicated. When they find the ship, they discover more than they bargained for: three fugitives with firsthand knowledge of the corrupt empire’s inner workings. Together, these women possess the knowledge and capabilities to bring the empire to its knees. But the clock is ticking: the new heir to the empire plans to disrupt a peace summit with the only remaining alien empire, ensuring the empire’s continued expansion. If they can find a way to stop him, they will save the galaxy. If they can’t, millions may die.

Praise:

“A thrilling ride from two of the most exciting authors in the genre.” —Gareth L. Powell, BSFA award-winning author of Embers of War “More gripping than The Expanse.” —Charles Stross, award-winning author of The Laundry Files “I was promised Mad Max: Fury Road in space—I got that and so much more. Seven Devils is an explosive new addition to the space opera genre. May and Lam had me from the first severed finger! This is a book you are not going to want to miss and the start of a series that promises to be a wild ride.” —K. B. Wagers, author of the Farian War trilogy “Lam and May bring a multivoice story from a group of diverse, courageous females attempting to save themselves and their galaxy. Backstories and present-day actions are built into an alien setting, well-rounded characters, and an action-filled plot with themes of colonization, military manipulation, and conditioning.” —Library Journal (starred review)

And it’s only SIX MONTHS until the conclusion to the duology, Seven Mercies. 

Like so many books, it came out during the pandemic. Books live and die by worth of mouth, so if you enjoyed it, please shout about it! And if you’ve never heard of it before but your eye was caught by the beaaaautiful cover by Dan Dos Santos, please consider picking it up? 

Aesthetic made by one of our editors, Leah Spann at DAW. 

Thanks for reading! <3 -Laura Lam

[escapevelocitycollection]

Little by little Robin guides me (Jop) into the wonderful world of graphic novels, and I'm thankful for it! On a Sunbeam (by Tillie Walden) was one of her first recommendations, and today we spread the word in our reviews.

Embark on a journey into a mystical universe, and experience the characters' stories.

Want to read the full reviews? Go to our website for our latest posts!

Have you read 'On a Sunbeam'? If so, how did you like it?

[montparnassee]

There’s also queersff. theillustratedpage. net which is a site for finding queer authors and they try to tag things so you can search for like queer protagonist lives or worlds without homophobia etc (part 2)

And another 🌹

[laurenkmyers]

I think my ask didn't get through because it contained a link. So here I try again! :D There's a queer science fiction and fantasy book database (theillustratedpage). You should find it by googeling queersff.

You keep coming through for me! Thank you! Appreciate this so much. 

[osgoodmichelle-blog]

Join me, FT Lukens, Carrie Pack, CB Lee, and Taylor Brooke on twitter this evening for a #BiSciFi chat! #queersff #sff #twitterchat #bisexual #pansexual #onthepage #scifi #fantasy #paranormal #youngadult #newadult #queerauthors #ownvoices (at Vancouver, British Columbia)