#this series has incredible audiobooks too

[phialie]

I'd never had one in particular until a few years ago. Now it's definitely the one from The Locked Tomb series ❤️

i’m curious which river is “the river” for you guys? for me it’s the rhine

[asexualbookbird]

SPOOKY SEASON IS UPON US!

I crafted a lot this month, but can't share it yet so there's not too much to report here. Been watching a lot of Dropout and having fun with that. My tv started smelling like burning plastic so I'm out a Large Screen for things. Days are getting shorter and I'm walking at night, but have to change that because it's not even the end of DST and I already miss the sun. Got halfway through Swordtember before dropping it for more exciting projects. Doodles a lot of clouds. I don't know! Days went by and here I am!

Network Effect by Martha Wells ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - A reread to prepare myself for System Collapse. Still an emotional banger. I am normal about our favorite SecUnit and Asshole Research Transport. So incredibly normal.

When the Angels Left the Old Country by Sascha Lamb ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - YOU ARE THE FRIEND TO MY SOUL!!!! I want to reread this again and again, it's an absolute DELIGHT. The narrator was great and I'm glad I did the audiobook because hearing all the yiddish healed my soul in some way. Gay in every sense of the word.

The Hourglass Throne by KD Edwards ⭐⭐⭐⭐- My big hangup on this is the integration of COVID. You're telling me you found a magical cure for a disease that has killed and disabled millions and you're leaving it up to the non Atlanteans to figure things out on their own? Other than that, it was fun and emotional as I've come to expect from this series. Excited to learn it's not a trilogy and there are way more books planned to come.

Painted Devils by Margaret Owen ⭐⭐⭐ - Fun, but ultimately a disappointment coming off of Little Thieves. Way more focused on Vanja and Emeric's relationship, which is Fine, but took away from the things I liked about LT (heists! Mischief! Mayhem!) Not thrilled that everything came back to Vanja in the end, and something rubbed me wrong about how Big Happy Family they were immediately. Not to mention the guy everyone hates is RIGHT. Stop and think WHY this creature wants your blood! Don't give it freely! Will still read Holy Terrors because of course I am.

When Among Crows by Veronica Roth ⭐⭐⭐ - I was lovingly bullied into reading this because Roth isn't my favorite author but it's been long enough since Allegiant that I gave it a chance anyway. I'd rather just replay The Witcher. Not to say All Polish Folklore Is The Same, but this was so. Empty feeling. Three stars for the monsters, but that's all from folklore. There's no original world building here. Also funny she still made it about Chicago. I'm not complaining, I really do think that's funny.

System Collapse by Martha Wells ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐- THE SYSTEM SURE HAS COLLAPSED! I want to tell SecUnit I'm proud of it, but I can't because it's not ready to hear it. The one downside is I'm once again out of new Murderbot to read. Emotional, as always. Sarcastic, as it knows no other way to be.

October, my love. I had plans to do Drawtober, but I'm not really feelings it so I'll do other things. I have crafts to work on, and a stack of books to read. I'm coming to terms with the fact I will not be completing my 24 books in 2024 list, which is mine own fault for not really focusing on it until uh. Now. But Whatever! I'm vibing! Happy fall! Let's get spooky!

[buggywiththefolkmagic]

Buggy's Book Reviews: The Old Mountain Spellbook

Well well well, look who has returned after a long hiatus while life kicked my ass from here to Sunday. Let's get started with a bang shall we? TW: Slavery mentions, appropriation, generalized frustration at the writing space currently with the rise of ghost writers and AI.

This is: The Old Mountain Spellbook by Alda Dagny

Rating: 1/10 

Buckle up. This is gonna be a bumpy ride. Prepare to be shocked, horrified, and gobsmacked.

For context the cover art of this book caught my eye and then I read the small blurb of a subtitle for it and cringed so incredibly hard that the moment it showed up in my Spotify audio book list, I had to give it a listen for a measly 3 and a half hours of my life while at work. 

I regret this decision so very hard.

For further context:

This “author” Alda Dagny has also written books on…”The Secrets of the Nile” a three part series called “The Old Norse Spellbook:”, and “Secrets of Mesoamerica”. 

My head hurts from thinking about the gall to “write” on such a wide variety of topics in a seniority form. But before I get ahead of myself let me go back into my proper format for these reviews.

Pros: SOME of the information is right. The mentions of planting by the signs and how the signs works was very accurate. The generalized description of grannies, while very surface level and focused far too heavily on the midwife aspect, which don’t get me wrong is super mega ulta important! Was right if not very generalized. That’s about all I’ve got. 

It does mention that Hoodoo is a closed practice that stems from African Dispora/the Trans-Atlantic slave trade which good for this “author”. You will understand why that term is in parenthesis later! 

This book also included a Bell Witch mention twice which made my Tennessee heart hopeful for like two seconds.

Cons: Gods help me. For starters, I know this was likely not a choice this “author” made, but why in the seven hells did the publisher pick an AUSTRALIAN PERSON to do the narration for this book? The mispronunciation of Appalachia and Asfidy are now burned into my brain for life. I do not appreciate it. The MINIMUM a narrator should do is glance through for proper pronunciations. 

My gripes with the audiobook out of the way let’s get into the meat of this review: The book’s contents and why I believe this was ghost written/stolen from other places and put forward by an ai generated “author”. 

The second entire chapter of this book, a whopping 40 minutes of the audiobook, is all about Hoodoo. The real thing that got me was it SAYS that Hoodoo is a CLOSED PRACTICE stemming from Africa Diaspora. And what does this book do anyway? Break Hoodoo down into stupid candle magic and mojo bags and tell you how to do “it”. I was surprised it got the origin of Hoodoo right! It was RIGHT! And then it shits on itself. 

Examples: Hoodoo shares similarities with wicca. Tarot is incredibly important to the practice. And it is a religion and not a practice. The practice is “rootwork”. Did I mention that Hoodoo focuses on “doing no harm”? Oh and the third eye is important too, especially to Hoodoo despite it being a Hindu concept. I cannot make this up.

The wording of this book is also incredibly strange. I don’t have a ebook version to double check but I am positive the words Furthermore and However are included at least 50 times. EACH. The book also repeats itself numerous times. A good example is with the Furnace Ghost story it tells in the 4th chapter I believe? Where it repeats the same end of sentence with just slightly different beginnings within the same paragraph. There’s also other phrases used at the end of chapters to usher in the next that just read…weirdly? Examples: “Let me set the stage” “You are not going to want to miss this.” What are you writing a script or a book? 

Now for the proper “Appalachian Magic” side of the book. It consistently uses the term Granny Witch, and states numerous times that witchcraft was just fine! Appalachia did not care and the “fear” of witches never penetrated the mountains. But yet a “granny witch” would use faith not as a proper form of healing, oh no! It was “to keep doubters at bay”. So faith healing was a cover up and not the actual practice itself. 

This book also has two whole chapters on legends and myths, which is fine, if it didn’t focus on the ones everyone knows like Bigfoot and Mothman only. Like it doesn’t cover any of the smaller localized things or spirits at all. Just the things you could easily find if you googled “appalachia spooky”. Hmmmmmm. Strange isn’t it? 

This book also stated that tarot and black tourmaline was ULTRA important to Appalachian magic. Like where does that come from? There’s another chapter dedicated to the phases of the moon and “spells”  which they mean in a modern new-age witchcraft way and definitely not Appalachian, although I will give it props for saying the moon phases and astrology are different here. Because they are.

Tiktok was mentioned twice; it appropriates dreamcatchers and other Hoodoo items in the “non-Hoodoo” sections of the book. Hell, it even said, accurately mind you, that Mothman has even “spawned fanfiction”. It even got the information on where Roanoke was…wrong.  Roanoke is in Virginia. This book claims it is in North Carolina. 

The most damning thing however, and I use that however in a very sarcastic tone, is the “author” herself. I painstakingly typed in some text from the book and was surprised to see it come back as “human written”. I don’t think that’s quite true, if it is then they text portions must be stolen from other sources and shoved into a book form. Because this author? A bot.

Her profile image used on Amazon, which is the ONLY SOURCE of information on her, no socials, no google, nothing. Is AI generated. Proof is here: 

And a blurb from the book I wanted to include as well. The first of many furthermores used.

The author's Biography, which again is the ONLY SOURCE OF INFORMATION on this supposed person, says as follows: "Alda Dagny has always been drawn to history. Growing up in Scandinavia, history has always been all around her, gods and goddesses, pagan rituals and spells. Ancient ruins that dot her homeland captivated her from an early age, giving her a lifelong love of all things history. " That's all I can find. That's it. Just AI and or ghost writing/theft has officially found itself in the AFM space. I hate this society.

[donotnomi]

BEHIND THE SCENE OF SLOW HORSES S4 WITH JAMES CALLIS

source: this interview (worth reading using your browser's translation tool)

I’ve already translated the most interesting and curious parts and made a snippet list here for you. It's spoiler-free. Enjoy!

Callis read for Whelan's role - had the chance to audition for the role of Claude Whelan. I was already familiar with the series, having seen the first season, which I thought was fantastic. So I knew what it was about, but I ended up joining the cast without even watching the second season. To catch up, I started listening to the audiobooks to get a sense of who my character was. 

Discussion with Will Smith about the different take of the TV show on the character - I haven’t spoken with Mick, no, but I did talk a lot with the showrunner Will Smith and the director Adam Randall. In a way, the role is exactly as it was written, in the sense that the character serves the same dramatic purpose, but they wanted him to have a very different energy. I think it was a change they planned in light of what’s going to happen in the future, in the next season. The key point is that Claude has no idea what’s coming.

Being a new entry on an already established cast - The people behind Slow Horses are very, very confident in what they do. This gives you a level of freedom that's hard to describe. There’s definitely a generosity of spirit on that set, a great sense of respect and camaraderie. I came in after they had already been working together for years, so everyone knew each other really well. It’s clear how much they like each other and how well they get along. They’ve built a bond that’s been growing for four years. As a new entry, being on this set almost feels like stepping into a force field. You’re surrounded by this incredible energy, generated by the fact that everyone around you knows exactly what they’re doing—and not only that, they love what they’re doing. It’s an amazing atmosphere.

Slow Horses set feels real - Sometimes, a scene can put you under pressure because of the vibe it carries. In the first episode of this season, Claude is in the control room during the bombing attack. You imagine yourself in this hub, with bombs going off in London, live on the screens in front of you, responsibilities flying around, and so on. I don’t know, on set they recreate these situations in such a way that everything feels incredibly realistic. When you're standing in front of that wall of screens with the images of the bombings playing out, it doesn’t even feel like you’re making television—the impression is so real. It’s fantastic.

Bikering with Kristin Scott Thomas on set - Kristin is an incredible person to work with—she’s amazing, and I think that’s pretty clear just from watching the series. She really gives everything she’s got to the role, absolutely everything. It’s hard to put into words what she does, because sure, the script already gives her a lot to work with, and she handles it perfectly, but then she adds even more layers of her own. This season, she has to babysit me, all while making sure it’s not too obvious. Being part of a dynamic like that is, of course, a lot of fun.

The Bus Ride scene with Diane - We were on a real bus rented by the production, but at a fake bus stop created by the set designers. It was so realistic that people passing by would stand there, waiting for the bus to arrive. Every time the camera moved away, I’d explain to them that we were filming and that it wasn’t a real bus stop, just part of the set.

[schweizercomics]

THE GREATCOATS by Sebastien de Castell

I drew these up as one of the (mostly literary) paper figures I do each month for Patreon.

Despite always being drawn to the trappings of fantasy, there are precious few fantasy books (or movies, etc) that have resonated with me. One very notable exception is the Greatcoats series, four novels that follow a trio of comrades from an effectively-dissolved band of dueling magistrates, who, in their heyday, had been charged with enforcing unpopular verdicts against politically powerful folks who had, until that point, been untouchable by the rule of law.

It’s kind of a thrust-the-Musketeers-into-a-medieval-setting thing, and there are swordfights and sucked-into-political-intrigues-even-though-you’re-ill-suited-towards-them a’plenty, for folks who like that sort of thing, and I very much do.

From the first read (I’ve now read them all thrice, along with a collection of short stories), these have become some of my very favorite books, and I could not recommend them more highly. They can, at times, be a hard read; the world in which the Greatcoats live is an unjust one, and whatever terrible things you can imagine people doing (torture, sexual assault, murder, animal cruelty, etc) can and probably are enacted in it, but what has, to me, set this series apart from some other “grim” fantasies is the balance between the knowledge that the world is an unfair, cruel, and terrible place, with the wholehearted belief that it shouldn’t, and doesn’t have to be. Idealism colors every action of the leads, and there’s something incredibly moving and powerful about characters who persevere against impossible odds towards fairness and justice despite encountering the very worst examples of their absence, never in ignorance or denial but out of pure stubbornness.

De Castell crafts a narrative with masterful control over how it’ll affect the reader; it’s melodrama in the best way, with huge operatic emotional beats. They never feel calculated – they’re all earnest, and they’re all earned. There are sections that make you weep, that make you laugh, and (I suspect this is the rarest, and most difficult to achieve) that make you want to cheer, stomp, salute. Moving speeches, incredible narrative payoffs, characters for whom you desperately root. Plus, of course, the suspense of peril and the best action sequences I’ve ever encountered in prose. De Castell’s first-person narration of fight scenes from the point of view of a strategist follows a pretty wonderful pattern of beginning the fight, edging the audience, and then turning to an aside that informs the context of the fight - a lesson learned long ago, an observation about the human condition, a technique frequently incorporated by duelists, an anecdote – and then return to the fight, the new context both heightening the peril and also providing a means by which the reader can fully appreciate the very clever way that the hero(s) win despite being outmatched. It’s a great internal “meanwhile, back at the ranch” and it gives each action encounter (and they are joyously plentiful) narrative weight.

Again, I can’t recommend the series more highly. It has some truly great characters – the leads, the supporting cast, the villains are wonderful and terrible, and the setting is rich and immersive. De Castell describes it as “swashbuckling fantasy,” and it swashbuckles its heart out.

You can get it in print, or in unabridged audiobook (Audible has it, and probably your library does, too), wonderfully narrated by Joe Jameson.

There are a number of other great characters, too – co-leads in their own right – but to draw them is to provide spoilers, so rather than do a whole cast, as I sometimes do, I’ve stuck to the three that you get from the first page.

Design (for process buffs)

There’s not too much visual description about the characters; Kest is described as of average height and build, with short hair, Brasti has hair long enough to tie back and a beard and is tall… and I think that’s it (at least so far as I’ve noticed, or remember).

There’s a tendency to make archers lean and wiry – it compliments the arrow imagery, and a tight, sinewy form seems a carryover of the bowstring to its user, but I wanted Falcio to be lean and triangular, and stoic Kest to be square, so it got me thinking that Brasti ought to have rounder features to offset and compliment the others. He’s a country boy, too, and where I’m from the troublemakers are often a little meatier, so it felt fitting, though it does suggest that he's physically imposing in a way the stories don’t push. But I kind of like that beefy, country swagger he’s got. He’s carrying two bows, as it’s a plot point that he has bows for different purposes: a fast one, and a powerful one.

The eponymous coats were tricky; they’re practically magic; serving as armor (via little bone plates sewn under the leather) and utility belt, with little pockets for whatever the story may require the characters need. I wanted a way to make them modular, so I figured on making a pretty sturdy chest piece that folds back to allow the coat to be open and unbuttoned, and a rolled epaulet that unrolls and can be used as a gorget to protect the neck during a duel (or from the cold).

I wanted each of the characters to be able to wear the coat differently, to reflect their personalities: Kest, always at the ready and doing things the “right” way, has his greatcoat fully rigged. Byronic Falcio needs to be able to dash about with tragic romanticism, so his coat needs to be a little more open – I probably should’ve had the chestpiece partially unflapped ala the Rocketeer, but I also wanted it to read clearly. And Brasti wears his because he has to, so he has all the trappings tied or buttoned back.

Last Thoughts

For artist and writer pals, I’d highly recommend listening to any of De Castell’s interviews on podcasts or on youtube; he’s generous with his process and has a lot of great thoughts about the act of writing.

[witchthewriter]

𝑻𝒉𝒓𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝑮𝒍𝒂𝒔𝒔, 𝑨 𝑪𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝑻𝒉𝒐𝒓𝒏𝒔 & 𝑹𝒐𝒔𝒆𝒔 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑪𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒄𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝑪𝒊𝒕𝒚 𝑹𝒆-𝑹𝒆𝒂𝒅

Okay, so I'm re-reading all of SJM's books (well, Throne of Glass series, ACOTAR & Crescent City) before the new CC3 book comes out. And I've had some thoughts and opinions ... (I would also love if people wanted to share their 2 cents!)

𝑻𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔 𝒐𝒏 𝑻𝑶𝑮:

・Okay, I guess I'll never have the same exciting feeling when reading this series

・It feels like coming home, honestly.

・When the book ended, I just ... I didn't want it to be over, I felt like Aelin when everyone was going back to their own kingdoms - just stay until the end of Winter!

・I cannot say how much I love Abraxos; he PLAYS in the FLOWERS, and he FALLS IN LOVE. Like??? Can we get a lil book on the Wyverns SJM please! (because technically the game of thrones dragons are actually wyverns. Dragons have four legs and a pair of wings, wyverns have two legs and wins that attach to the front.

・I can't picture Lorcan perfectly in my head and that drives me crazy. And I was also againt Henry Cavill as Rowan, but I can't unsee it. After watching the Witcher...

・

𝑻𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔 𝒐𝒏 𝑨𝑪𝑶𝑻𝑨𝑹:

・I honestly do think Feyre is a bit of a Mary-Sue. Even after all these books, I still don't understand why a mother would ask her youngest to look after the two eldest? Her illiterate youngest child?

・And why is Elan planting FLOWERS in the garden? Why not VEGETABLES? Ffs, or at least edible flowers like wtf.

・Nesta ... I'm one of the people who understand her, but also ... coming from poverty myself, I know what it's like to

・Also can Feyre fall into her female rage a bit? I just feel like she has a lot of pain that she's pushed down, and down and down. She needs to ... have more healing.

・AND HER BECOMING PREGNANT GOD REALLY, it just kinda ... I hate that trope. I only like this trope with Katniss and Peeta: that's how it's done right.

・Having two sisters mated to two best friends, but then the third sister and best friend may not be mated?? It's either all in or all out.

・I wish there was some explanation about the magic involved in not only the mating, but also the cauldron. It's all too ambiguous.

・AND WHAT MAKES MOR POWERFUL?! "Her power is truth." What. Does. That. Even. Mean.

・I did like A Court of Silver Flames though. I thought it was a brilliant book about Nesta's healing.

𝑻𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔 𝒐𝒏 𝑪𝑪:

・It took me a while to get into the book, but once I did ... omg, I have even more characters that I love.

・And I cannot wait until the next book comes out! Although there were some aspects of the book that I found boring; like the viper queen (if I even got that right)

・Also the audiobook for CC & TOG are much more superior than ACOTAR. Even though they have a 'dramatised version,' there's an even better one on Youtube by the reader hag.

・I miss Lehaba so much

・And I saw somewhere that Bryce is the long-lost ruler of a Prythian court? And that Azriel might be one of the Princes of Hel?

・SJM does a great job at forming groups that you feel apart of

・Some people find Hunt boring, I don't ... I, well I rank him above Chaol. Ruhn is cool though, Bryce is incredible. Though I hate when I look up fanart of her and it's just a skinny girl with red hair? She's got golden skin, she's fit but curvy, and I want to see proper representation.

[theonlyendersgamefan]

I hate that it takes 4 books for the bean saga to go from “guys it’s he’s just like ender I promise. Remember ender? You liked him right? He’s just like ender” to genuinely good well written political thriller.

Orson Scott card developed this chronic illness sometime in the early 1990s which rendered him unable to write more than one compelling story line in a book at a time. There were experimental treatments done while he was writting shadow of the giant but they had to stop due to funding issues. His books weren’t selling very well.

Best example of this is actually outside of the bean saga entirely. Children of the mind, universally considered to be the worst of the original quartet and I would argue that it’s one of his weakest books of all time. Children of the mind actually has several compelling premises. 4 to be exact. Way to many for any to be well developed enough as to be compelling. You have Jane trying to find a new body, and peter and wang-wu planet hoping to influence government, and ender trying to get back with novinha, and everyone else trying to find thé descoladorians.

Only the intergalactic odyssey feels like it was given any real care. The other story lines feel thrown together like they exist purely to finish up the series and put a bow on top and say “here publishing house I did the thing” which ofcourse, is the case. In the post script of the children of the mind audiobook there is an extra from orson Scott card, he says that xenocide and children of the mind were originally going to be one book but it ended up being too long. He offered his publishers to make it into two books and the publishing house seeing an opportunity to sell twice Samantha books, readily agreed. Now this is immediately visible in the actual book. For one children of the mind does not have a large time skip like the other two sequels do. The story takes place immediately after the end of the xenocide. For another thing, after a certain point about half way through the book you notice and realize that this is the end of the series, even if you haven’t already known, and your think to yourself “why is this still going on”. And the answer is because Scott card hasint bothered making this one story. He thought “what haven’t I wrapped up” and tossed it all together.

I liked all the “moments” in children of the mind. I don’t think there are any chapters you can point to and say “this was poorly written”. I cried at some parts there was no lack of passion and emotion in the moments problem is there’s no narrative for the moments to hang on to and so unlike Enders game and speaker for the dead and yes to some extent xenocide the moments don’t blend together to form a story but rather the story has to hold the moments up to cover all of its holes.

What was a talking about? Oh right SHADOW OF THE GIANT IS SO PEAK. The bean saga had the same issues children of the mind had. Yes, bean growing up and his experience with battle school is an interesting idea but so much of the book left me thinking “so what?” Too much of it exists purely to retroactively justify beans position in Enders game. Then the next two books consist of the characters just doing incredible things without any explanation. Peter keeps talking about “his contacts” and graffs resources are seemingly endless unless of course it deals with anything plot related in which case “minister of colonization” is an empty title.

I would much rather read the bean saga from Achilles or alai or hot soups perspective. Why? Because orson Scott car abuses the fact that they are not POV characters to totally disregard any semblance of plausibility. Sure s story of a bunch of child geniuses ruling the world won’t be realistic but Jesus he just pulls whatever to get Achilles out of trouble until suddenly he’s stupid enough to trust one guy, who has known been ten times longer than he has know Achilles, to actually be loyal. Achilles de flandre, the most paranoid boy on planet earth, shot dead because he invited bean to come in with a gun. I would pay good money for a book on Achilles but it would have the same issues as Enders shadow there’d be to much shifting as Orson Scott card tries to fit Achilles where he is supposed to be in Enders shadow. But still it would be worth it just to hear his internal monologue, we really only get 4-5 moments where Achilles is interacting with Petra and I need to know what he was thinking every time. Why did he bring her to the India Pakistan meeting? Why open the plane door? Ajirodndej

This problem goes away entirely in shadow of the giant even a bit before. In shadow puppets we actually get important internal monologue from a character which is not bean or Petra. It’s hot soup, navigating Chinese bureaucracy. It’s boring and clever and I love it. It’s the kind of stuff you saw in Enders game small but totally reasonable conclusion based on real relevant information that existed before this very moment. In the actual book shadow of the giant, we see that alai hadn’t actually maneuvered his way into ruling the entire Islamic world, he was being used as a figure head, presumably by one of the high rankers who had formed the original caliphate. We are shown that the Islamic countries had a loose alliance and that alai, when brought back from Russia, was a mediator between these countries, eventually his prestige as one of Enders gishe and also having proved his unbiasedness, was pronounced caliph. This back tracks on the vague insinuation that alai had done what Peter did but just in a couple of years. We also get to see the bridge goddess thing with virlomi play out and the people that hot soup rule over as emperor act differently than the people that virlomi rules over as goddess of India and they act differently than the people alai rules over as caliph. The fact that we get to seem more of other people help’s this book out so much. We get a wider view of the world and so it doesn’t feel out of nowhere when they world Changes. It feels like an intelligent move made by competent people and not characters who exist purely to get the last page as quickly as possible. It’s genuinely like a different person wrote this book. Or like orson Scott card sent the bean saga back in time 2 decades and let his 40yo self write it.

[ofliterarynature]

FEBRUARY 2024 WRAP UP

[loved liked ok nope dnf (reread) book club*]

The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years • The Memory Librarian • Pixels of You* • Arch-Enemies • Moby Dyke • Pip Bartlett’s Guide to Magical Creatures • A Sinister Revenge • Lud in the Mist • Crying in H Mart • Something Close to Magic • Hula • (Renegades) • The Divorce Colony • Foundryside • Earthlings • A Far Wilder Magic

total: 13 books (12 audiobook, 1 print)

Not as many books this month! And not just because February has fewer days, I was really in a funk this month and struggling to pay attention to my audiobooks (and enjoy them). You wouldn't think there's such a thing as too many books, but I think the overtime hours at work are hitting their peak mental health destruction. Here's to hoping things improve in March!

The Divorce Colony (4.5 stars) - genuinely can't believe this was my 3rd nonfic of the year already! I picked a print copy of this up at a library sale in December after hearing about divorce colonies in the early 20th century on a recent episode of the 99% Invisible podcast. Turns out this book was actually about the beginning of the moment that took place in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in the 1800's. Western states had shorter residency periods and less strict divorce laws, so women (and the occasional man) would travel west and live there for several months in order to obtain a divorce. This book tracks the movement through the stories of 4 of the more infamous cases to make the papers, and does an incredible job of weaving in the surrounding political and religious discussions. Would recommend, and has a great cover to boot!

Renegades (3 stars) - a reread, and for some reason it was torture. I originally read this back in 2018 and loved it, and wanted to tackle it again and actually finish the rest of the series. But I kept getting worked up and frustrated this time around! It kept trying to take itself seriously while also being very YA and kind of superhero-camp, and I was absolutely overthinking it lol. I found the strength to press on into book two, Archenemies (3.5 stars). I liked it a bit more! Something about it being new, the story being a bit more settled and maybe getting a better grasp on its message/politics, the characters growing more, me figuring out that I shouldn't listen to the audiobook for more than an hour or so at a time, lmao. Not great, but fun, and possibly worth reading? I'll keep y'all updated when I finish book 3.

Hula (5 stars) - incredible. Part generational family story, part history, part discussion of what it means to be Hawaiian, culturally and legally. Not always the easiest of reads, but it was so so worth it. It was also doing something very interesting with parts of the narration voiced by a collective "we" (culture/community?) that I would love to get a look at in print. Highly recommend, I'll definitely be getting myself a copy.

Something Close to Magic (4.5 stars) - an absolute delight! The Gail Carson Levine comp on this one is not entirely unearned, anyone who's a fan of fairy tale type fantasies will enjoy this, I had a great time! Very interestingly, it has characters who are in their mid to late teens, but is written in a way where they're still allowed to be young, to the point I'm surprised it didn't get shoehorned into MG instead of YA. If the author writes any more of these I'd be happy to read them.

Crying in H Mart (3.5 stars) - nonfic number 4! I'm sure everyone's heard of this one by now, which is why I finally picked it up. It's fine (which is why it got an extra .5 star), but on the scale of take it or leave it, I'd leave it. It just wasn't for me and I kind of wish I'd dnf'd it. A great cover though.

Lud-in-the-Mist (3.5 stars) - this one seems to be considered a sort of early precursor to fantasy and fairy tale type stories from the early 20th century, and I was eager to try it! While I definitely don't think it would feel out of place amongst it's more recent fellows (think the Last Unicorn, Robin McKinley, DWJ, etc), I absolutely could not get into it. Probably the chief recipient of "my brain doesn't want to cooperate, sorry," so maybe I'll give it another shot someday.

A Sinister Revenge (4 stars) - enjoyable as always! Not to hide this deep in my reviews or anything, but have the Emily Wilde people tried Veronica Speedwell yet?

Pip Bartlett's Guide to Magical Creatures (3 stars) - This one's been sitting unread on my shelf for a while, and since I was on a bit of a Maggie Stiefvater run, I figured it was perfect! Well. Unless you are like 7, this was so bad. Not good. Having previously read and not liked a book by Maggie's co-author Jackson Pearce, I think it would not be unreasonable for me to assume she did most of the writing while Maggie did the illustrations - if the audiobook had been any longer than 4 hours I'd have absolutely DNF'd it, and I have no intention of continuing the series.

Moby Dyke: An Obsessive Quest to Track Down the Last Remaining Lesbian Bars in the Country (4.5 stars) - part of me was wondering what I was doing trying this lol, not being someone who drinks or goes to bars, OR, as previously mentioned, is not the biggest fan of memoirs. It was not, as I hoped, also part research project, but it is a travelogue, and as a consequence has a strong narrative thread. It also has a lot of discussions about issues in the LGBTQ+ community, and overall I really liked it once I figured out what it was doing!

Pixels of You (3.5 stars) - a very short sapphic rivals-to friends-to lovers graphic novel about a human-form AI and a human with an android eye competing for a photography internship at an art gallery. The creators clearly put SO much thought into their characters and worldbuilding, but sadly there is nowhere near enough length here to do it all justice, and a number of elements felt very odd or under explored. The relationship parts are great! I just think this needed to be twice as long to really given everything its due, or maybe explored in prose instead.

The Memory Librarian (3.5 stars) - to start, I know nothing about the musical album this is related to, so I don't know how much that might have affected my reading. Overall I wasn't super impressed - when I discovered that the first story was cowritten by Alaya Dawn Johnson - no shade to her - I almost dropped it then, I just really didn't like her writing style in the one book I've read. But I stuck through it. Of the five stories, only one really stuck in my mind - Nevermind, cowritten by Danny Lore, which I could have read an entire novel about. I wish I could recommend it on its own, but overall I just don't quite understand the world Monae has created.

The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years (3.5 stars) - I probably should say more about the book, it was fine, I was surprised to find that it's set in relatively current day, I found myself a lot more interested in the second narrative about the house's history, which did make me cry a bit. Mostly though, I really just want to let you know how MUCH of a non-entity the djinn was in this story, I have no idea why it was there and why it was included in the title of the book. All the author had to do was make the house a little more sentient and haunted and it would be fine, idk. Read it if you want, but it's not one I would rec.

DNF'S

Foundryside - I was so ready. I had the first two audiobooks checked out, I had the third one on hold. I started this but oh, the writing. bleh. I was looking thought reviews and someone referred to it as something like "21st century internet speak." In a high fantasy novel. I noped out at just 10%.

Earthlings - I've considered the author's other book before but haven't read it, but thought maybe a sci-fic book would work better for me? The beginning was odd but not uninteresting, and I might have continued if it had stayed that way. But then the main character was in school(?) and her teacher started getting handsy after class and I wasn't invested enough to stick it out.

A Far Wilder Magic - the success of Something Close to Magic made me a little too hopeful I think, bc while I'm still a little leery around YA, I know people have liked this. And it sounded interesting, truly, and I love the cover. But first it was the religion stuff. And I didn't really like the characters. Then it's like, oh, this is the same plot as The Scorpio Races, but nowhere near it's quality in any shape or form. I decided to stop while I was ahead, before I started to actually dislike it. (anyway here's your PSA to go read The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater, I recommend doing it in October if you can).

[thetarotsequence]

Part Two - Half House and The Tower

✨From here on out, there will be spoilers ✨

Half House:

This chapter is foundational knowledge, in my opinion, on how to build a lovable character and then let them do disagreeable things. Honestly, THE LAST SUN is a masterclass in character building, already, but this chapter is the cornerstone of getting the reader sucked in, and the next chapter (which I'll get to, pinky promise) is the string that tugs the stick out from under the edge of the box, effectively trapping the reader in complete and total love for these stories. I don't make the rules, that's just how it happens.

The key, I think, is how relatable Rune is. From his claim that the stories about the worst night of his life "Just. Won't. Fucking. Die," to the pause he has for the unsettling feeling of did I just fuck up? that he feels after the encounter with Max in the bathroom, Rune is just a regular guy. I mean, yeah, he's technically a fallen prince with the capability to incinerate everything in an as-yet-undetermined radius, but he's a normal dude with a shitty day job, spooky boss, and bills to pay! He worries about his weight and wears laundry of questionable cleanliness! Just me? Listen, once you start having a chair pile, you never go back. But I digress.

I will die on the hill that these books - while fantastic to read - are even better when listened to. Josh Hurley, the narrator, is my dream narrator for my OWN book (if I get lucky enough to be published one day - I hope he can do a British accent). I hated audiobooks, legitimately hated them, until these stories, because the narration just feels like listening to a friend tell you about what's going on in their life, until all of a sudden it doesn't and you're in an epic battle with a lich, or struggling not to cry as your worst fears and biggest hopes are confirmed one right after the other (but that's HOURGLASS THRONE talk). So, if you're a hands-on reader who hates audiobooks, just trust me. I've listened to these books so many times I don't hear my own brain voice when I read them anymore. It's just the incredible talents of Mr. Hurley that have been engraved on my memory like grooves in a vinyl record.

It's the narration, too, that enhances that relatable factor, especially where Brand is concerned. He's definitely doing a violence on Max that would get American CPS called, but the narration makes it funny, the way I think it was intended to be. And again, they all clearly grow from this point over the series, and moreover, no one is perfect, and if you haven't wanted to stick someone's head in a toilet and flush, you're probably a liar.

Speaking of liars - Queenie. Settle in and grab some tinfoil for your hat, because I Have A Theory:

I think Brand went fucking nuts on Max - and granted, this is mild considering what he, a literal sharpshooter mercenary, is capable of - because he was programmed to do so. I have the benefit of having read all the way through the 3rd book and the EIDOLON, so I know that evidence supporting my theory exists, but that's an essay for a different day. What matters now, dear reader, is that I think that Queenie fucked up, and she's realizing it in the background of this scene when she tries to stop Brand, only to have him steamroll the conversation right over her. He goes oddly (and humorously) formal in his recount of what he did and why, and the ferocity of his protectiveness coupled with his recount of events just never sat well with me. It was disproportionate; there's no doubting that. I've always been suspicious of this sequence of events, specifically because this happened on the heels of Rune mentioning that the Empress, in her "unhinged grief" (such a mood) vanished into thin air and obtained Cryptid Status. From the first time I read these books, I thought (and continue to think) this bitch is the Empress, isn't she? Every time.

But! More on that theory soon.

Queenie's gentle manipulation, asking Rune how it was for him, after he lost everything, was masterfully done, Empress or not. It speaks to someone who has been a parent, or at least has been responsible for giving guidance (which, ahem, the Empress is the Mother archetype in the Tarot soooo...I am, as the kids say, standing on business) and knows that a delicate hand is needed. Where she couldn't stop Brand's irate retelling, she is able to successfully pull one of Rune's heartstrings and get him thinking about what she wants him to think about.

Overall, I genuinely enjoyed this passage not only for the breadcrumb trail beginning in front of us as readers, but also for the dynamic emerging between the characters. Especially knowing how much trauma exists between the three of them now, and being a parent of a child with trauma (she's bootleg, don't worry, I didn't give it to her) and being a parental figure with my OWN trauma, I could really relate to the feeling of fucking up because of a trigger being set off when I was unprepared.

The last thing I loved about this chapter is how Brand and Rune work a case. It's incredibly smooth, subtle world-building that SHOULD, by rights, feel like an info-dump, but it doesn't, because of how expertly this is written. The personality embedded in Rune and Brand saturates the page and obfuscates any sense of things being spelled out for the reader. Plus, the way Rune and Brand riff off of one another is fun, and funny, and 100% the reason why my wife ships them romantically, because they DO bicker like an old married couple. It feels more than anything to me, like conversations I would have with my wife (if we were magic-case-solving-mercenaries, obviously). It's impossible not to love Rune and Brand. They're iconic.

Favorite Quote:

Not so much a quote, but the way Josh Hurley narrates Rune proudly theorizing "Maybe he wants to give me a big fat check" is stuck permanently in my vernacular, cadence, tone, everything. I have quoted it while opening the mail several times. There is never a big fat check.

The Tower:

This, as I said before, is where the string gets pulled, and we, the readers, get trapped. It's not the hook - that was buried back in the sparkly lure of the Heart Throne chapter - this is us being reeled in so swiftly we can't even struggle on the line. The continued world-building is seamless, concise, and vivid. I love the line where Rune says the rest of the world thought New Atlantis pulled their Gotham out of a cereal box, and the way he follows it up with "not a bad rep to have". This sentence does so many things at once: it establishes how New Atlantis came to be, it establishes what other people thought of it happening, and it establishes that it was costly on multiple levels, AND it establishes that it is incredibly unlikely to happen again. This makes New Atlantis feel more real, to me, because it's the difference between living somewhere and just visiting, or seeing photos online. Y'all might see a picture of bluebonnets in a meadow and think "Wow, so pretty," and I would see it and definitely think "God, it was probably 102 degrees when this was taken."

Speaking of differences in perspectives! When Rune said that Lord Tower and Brand "didn't get along" my first instinct is best described as uh huh...sure, Jan. HOURGLASS THRONE survivors know what I'm talking about.

I also loved the stealth-worldbuilding of wandering the streets of New Atlantis with Rune and Max on their way to the Pac Bell. And did you notice the seamless way Rune interrogates Max? I literally didn't notice that that was what it was, an interrogation, until THIS REREAD, so like...yesterday. And then Rune effortlessly provokes Max to reveal his true feelings about the situation? Slow clap goes here.

Another thing I just realized this reread is that IF QUEENIE IS THE EMPRESS, IS SHE THE ONE WHO TOLD LORD TOWER MAX WAS THERE????? Because who was holding New Atlantis together in her wake? Oh, just good ol' L.T. That takes LOYALTY, a deep kind of loyalty that most political figures don't deserve, and I'm curious to see if I'm right, if the loyalty was reciprocal, or if Queenie/The Empress was still trying to call the shots from behind the scenes instead of stepping back. Also, calling it now: I don't think it was just grief that sent Queenie to ground. I think she had something to be legitimately scared of coming for her, and she bolted for her own survival. I feel this way because New Atlantis, according to Rune, treats grief differently than we might. He refers to himself as a cautionary tale, even - why would a society designed to not support victims have space for grief? So my next question is - did she participate in the raid? Or does she know something about it?

Going back to Lord Tower - this is a weird experience, this reread, because of the loss of my own Dad, but it's even weirder to realize that I can see how Rune identifies L.T. as a father figure, now. It's right there on the page, but in THT, the recognition of that role in his life was a sucker punch for me. So that's interesting. I look forward to seeing what else this reread elicits for me.

Also, what happened to that AI, KD? It's been a while...I'm just saying. Is this Chekov's AI?

Another 'love it' moment for this chapter, to close out my TEDx talk, is yet more casework, this time in the form of Rune getting info from L.T. It initially felt like a mysterious-benefactor-and-protege situation before, but like I said, this reread, I can feel the difference, and like a paperback that's gone soft as fabric from too many rereads, I hear the soft affection in Lord Tower's sigh and "Must you make me so terrifying?" quote. I also hear that paternal vibe in "Addam is special, and I worry." You even hear it in the OBVIOUS (except to Rune) matchmaking energy from Lord Tower calling Addam a "confirmed bachelor, much like you." Which I love, every time.

Favorite Quote:

"His walkabouts?" (Emphasis to try to capture Josh Hurley's narration). Honestly, Rune's entire snarky commentary is just so funny, especially now that I know what happens, and it's obvious just how not like what he expected Addam turned out to be. But that's another topic for another day.

[abstract-ornithology]

some miscellaneous thoughts after rereading Ancillary Justice (this is my third time reading it but first time listening to the audiobook):

I think I’ve gotten better at picking up on unreliable narrator since the last time I read this book because it is only now hitting me that Breq (whom I love and cherish) is (respectfully) kind of a fucking dumbass sometimes

Adjoa Andoh!!!! is so good!!!!!

I think what threw me off the first time I read the book is that Breq is both incredibly confident in her abilities and competent enough for it to be justified, so I, being the emotionally incompetent (and almost certainly neurodivergent) teenager I was at the time, failed to pick up on the fact that despite this, she is also oblivious to the extent that her actions are dictated by her emotions (I say this like I’m not still an emotionally incompetent teenager, but humour me)

I want to make my was-almost-an-English-major friend read this so we can analyze it together, but she said she doesn’t like sci-fi because she finds the worldbuilding stuff too complicated so that’s not going to happen :(

I love how Ancillary Justice gets around the otherwise potentially suspension-of-disbelief-breaking coincidences by making them A Thing That’s Important for Radchaai citizens. Also the moments where it outright tells the reader the connotations of a word because it’s different in the in-universe languages compared to English. My thoughts on this aren’t very coherent, I just think some of the literary devices in this book are really interesting and different to what I’ve had to analyze in English class and Ann Leckie is really cool

Like, seriously, I want to have an actual conversation about this with someone who actually knows what they’re talking about because there’s so much neat stuff in the writing of this book and I want to have coherent ideas about it. I can hear all my past English teachers laughing maniacally as they bask in their success.

All the names in this series are such a vibe. And now I even know how to pronounce them! Audiobooks are great :)

Seivarden’s character development??!! (/pos)

That’s all the words my brain has to vomit for now, but I may do some actual analysis or something when/if I develop more coherent thoughts. It’s exam season though so no guarantees

[vera-dauriac]

EEK!!!! I loooooooove the audiobooks of this series, but I'm incredibly excited to finally have the hard copies so I can make them sit still in that way that's easier with a copy you're reading instead of listening to. And I can make notes and add post its and all that sort of crazy shit. Now the only question is when do I start the reread. Book 4 has a UK release date of April, but no word of a US date. Don't want to start too soon or wait too long. It's rough being a fangirl.

[euphoric-melancholyy]

Romantic Fantasy & Fantasy Romance Book Recs

I recently made a post looking for the book/reader community on Tumblr and I found a lot of you! A couple people asked for book recommendations so here they are. All of these have varying levels of spice unless otherwise mentioned. I do recommend going into all of these blind and just see if you like them with zero expectations. I find it makes the reading experience better if you aren’t expecting something to be the greatest thing ever. Then you can only be surprised if you like it (or hopefully love it!) All of these are fantasy romance!!

Tagging some peeps who said they also love fantasy romance or seemed like they would like to know about some book recs: @imhilien @raven-reads87 @accidentalspaceexplorer @the-dust-jacket @melindacopp @taylorsversion213 @siruisreader @faerie-smut-merchant @gwelwynn @hitchhikerbooks @astrid162 @arewedancer99 @bookwyrmtaz @sourpatchkid99 @caffeinated-bibliophile @books-and-cookies @eaterofbooks @franticvampirereads @carissabroadbent - sorry if I forgot anyone or if you did not want to be tagged. Happy reading!

- Daughter of No Worlds, the first book in The War of Lost Hearts trilogy by Carissa Broadbent. You’ve got grumpy/sunshine, badass female protagonist, a “who did this to you?” scene, and so much more!! It’s dark but still has so much love and is just. So, so good. I will never shut up about how much I adore this criminally underrated series. There is absolutely nothing I disliked about this book. This is my favorite trilogy ever, up there tied with my favorite series ever. There’s no miscommunication and the characters handle hard situations maturely. It’s dark at times and deals with slavery, torture, and the injustices that entails, but it’s also empowering and full of hope and funny quips. The characters are lovable and complex. The pacing is the best pacing of any book. The romance is sweet yet still full of tension. The plot is incredible. I cannot recommend this book enough. It flawlessly balances the mundanity of living with the largeness of this universe and literal world ending stakes. She balances joy and grief, laughter and sorrow, trauma and healing. It’s a true feat when your heart aches with all of it at the same time. Each book is incredible. The character I was hesitant to love in the first book had me sobbing with the realism and heartache that I felt for her in the last book. If you listen to the audiobook, the narrators were perfectly cast as well. Tisaanah, the FMC has a language barrier and it’s done so incredibly well, especially when listening to the audiobook. It remains one of my favorite things about Daughter of No Worlds. This series is criminally underrated and I will never understand how it isn’t at the top of booktok. 12/10, move this up to the top of your TBR. Each book is just as good as the one before it. I’m obsessed with this series. This series is on KU!! It’s a completed trilogy!!

- The Bridge Kingdom by Danielle L Jenson. And it’s included in your Audible Plus subscription if you have one. The tension, the conflict, the romance. I love a morally grey mc as much as the next gal, but Aren is the equivalent of a golden retriever and I would die for him and Laura. Enemy kingdoms. Marriage. A perfect Enemies to lovers!! Also on KU!! Completed duology, with a third book focusing on a different couple.

- The Witch Collector by Charissa Weaks. This is one of the best fantasy romances I’ve read! The FMC is a mute witch!! The plot, the tension, the characters, all of it is amazing. I fell in love with these characters and this world. Not to mention the ✨sexual tension✨ is some of the best I’ve ever read. It’s well earned too! Alexus and Raina have made my list of favorite ships. The sequel, City of Ruin, introduced a bunch of new characters and POVs (including the villains!) is a lot spicier, and just overall expands the world and the characters!! It’s action packed and made me look at the series in a new light! It does end on a major cliffhanger though, so be aware! Still read it. But it’s not tied up with a bow (yet!) I cannot express how excited I am for the third book and the direction this story is going. Highly, highly recommend! She also has signed copies on her Etsy!

- The Scribe by Elizabeth Hunter! This is a completed urban fantasy with romance series with 7 books. The first 3 books follow the same couple and can be read as a completed series - the other books focus on different couples and are just an extension. A race of beings ascended from angels are at war. Our main protagonist Ava is a human photojournalist who has heard voices in a nonexistent language her whole life and has always been told and believed she’s just crazy…but is she?? I love when we get a character thrown into a fantasy world who has no knowledge of it (like the reader!) it’s so fun. The romance is 🔥🔥🔥 and I love them. Ava is smart and savvy but not otherworldly strong like a lot of protagonists. She’s learning. And MAGIC! I love magic. I love the magic in this universe. The pacing is great and it’s a great balance of romance and plot. It’s a super interesting premise and I just think more people should read this series. I do not recommend the audiobook through - I hated the narrator. Book is great though! Also on KU!!

- I’ve found that whichever SJM series you start with is your favorite but Throne of Glass is next level. It was her first series and she spent half of her life writing it. You can see some of the groundwork for ACOTAR in it. But where ACOTAR is about the romance, ToG is about the plot. The romances are secondary to the plot. But for ACOTAR, the plot is secondary to the relationships and romance. ToG is so expertly planned out and it’s a slow burn into fantasy. It’s my number 1, favorite series. It’s definitely more YA but grows into what I would consider more New Adult towards the end of the series. Do not go into this series expecting spice. There is romance, but there are not any spicy scenes until the later books. The journey you go on with Celaena from Assassin’s Blade to Kingdom of Ash is unparalleled. It feels so special and epic. BUT I will say I went into the series completely blind with no expectations. So I suggest doing the same. And the first few books might seem slow. But KEEP GOING it’s worth it, I swear. And start with the prequel Assassin’s Blade!! It’s broken up into interconnected short novellas for the prequel only. The series has a more full circle feeling when you start with the prequel, and you don’t know things that you might otherwise know if you read Throne of Glass first. Starting with the prequel also made me love Celaena more. If you are just starting fantasy, start with Throne of Glass because it is a slow burn into fantasy. This is a completed series

- The Song of the Marked by S.M. Gaither. I was told this book would cure my Throne of Glass hangover. I’d agree! It also gives me major From Blood and Ash vibes, but with better characters. It’s got a great magic system, fun friendship dynamics and banter, a slow burn enemies to lovers, and some good ol’ fashion mystery surrounding the protagonist. I’m really enjoying it so far and if you like fantasy, I highly recommend!!

- Hollow Heathens (Tales of Weeping Hollow) by Nicole Fiorina - it’s like if Halloweentown met Storybrooke from Once Upon a Time, and had a child. It’s a gothic romance and is just so different from everything I’ve read. Also on KU!! This is a standalone.

- The North Wind by Alexandria Warwick. It’s a fun enemies to lovers Beauty and the Beast and Hades and Persephone retelling. Mix elements of those stories together and you have The North Wind. Also on KU!! Can be read as a stand-alone. The next book, which isn’t out yet, focuses on a different couple.

- An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir. You’ve got a spy posing as a slave to save her brother. A trained assassin brought up in a merciless, brutal school where he wants to escape. There’s a love triangle of sorts, which I usually hate but I didn’t mind it in this! It’s action packed and has made me love YA again. Dark, with themes of generational trauma, the importance of storytelling, the ✨power of love✨, breaking generational cycles, mercy, and tragedy of war. Lots of character growth for everyone!! Inspired by the gladiator times in the Roman Empire. Young Adult but very violent. No spice, all fade to black.

- The Serpent and The Wings of Night by Carissa Broadbent!! I had high expectations for this book. Carissa’s other series, The War of Lost Hearts, is my favorite series ever. And now with one book out so far, Crown of Nyaxia is making that list too. The world building. The characters. The complexity and emotions and just everything about it. It’s a masterpiece. I love the relationships!! And the last quarter of the book had me on an emotional rollercoaster through the end. I wanted to reread this book the moment I finished it. If a dark, gritty, high stakes fantasy romance with Hunger Games meets vampires and swoon worthy, epic romance (and some spice!!) sounds like your thing, drop everything else your reading and start this. This is the first book in a series and was just released. Carissa is my favorite author and one thing that she does really well is write strong, healthy relationships. Her characters don’t fall into lust and then in love - it’s a buildup of respect, trust, friendship, and then love. (And 🌶️🌶️ of course, but the relationships are more than that.) Raihn is my new #1 book boyfriend!!

- The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen is a new comfort read for me. but if you want a super fun, quirky, romance with You’ve Got Mail vibes set in a fantasy universe that also has zombie like creatures, this is it. I know that sounds weird af, but it is so cute and I can’t stop smiling as I read it!! It’s a new favorite and is just SO CUTE! And I cried!!

- A Deal With the Elf King by Elise Kova! This is a standalone, enemies to lovers, arranged marriage fantasy romance!! I love all the characters in this, especially the growth of the MMC! The FMC feels a lot of responsibility to take care of everyone around her and she doesn’t allow others to disrespect her (especially the MMC!) There are lots of swoon worthy lines that had me smiling and blushing and some spice! Highly recommend!!

- The High Mountain Court by A.K. Mulford. It has witches, fae, a fun magic system, mates, natural LGBTQIA+ and POC representation, spicy, enemies to lovers, touch her and die (and the opposite touch him and die!), a truly wonderful and swoon worthy romance, and is just a great NA fantasy romance! Each book focuses on a different couple and follows a cohesive storyline!

- Between Wrath and Mercy by Jess Wisecup. You’ve got a mom hellbent on getting her kidnapped teenage daughter back. She needs the help of the Crown Prince - her first love - to do it. A spicy fantasy romance that is both character driven and plot driven. It’s so refreshing to read “older” (ie not 16 - 25 years old) characters in a fantasy romance!! The tension is high and the grief and love that intermingle to form the emotional backbone of these characters is so poignant and beautifully done. It’s also nice to see a mom who has an identity outside of being a mom! But she’s still a great mom! It was so refreshing to read and the second book is even better than the first! Very dark and yet also sweet and romantic and intense.

- The Cruel Prince by Holly Black! Also known as The Folk of the Air trilogy. If you’re looking for a spicy fantasy series, this isn’t it. There’s no spice. But if you’re looking for an AMAZING YA fantasy villain arc with enemies to lovers, fantastic storytelling, plot twists, and just an overall faerie adventure, read this series. I was hesitant to read it because of its YA rating/audience. But it’s easily one of my favorite series of all time! I love the characters, the plot, the arc, and the writing style! I read each book in less than two days. Highly, highly recommend. I also read them on audiobook and the narration is fantastic!

[spockandawe]

You know what, I'm not happy about this either :T

Unless I'm t-boned by another reblog from someone huge, this likely won't reach as wide of an audience. And I regret that! Because either I presented myself badly or people are taking the wrong thing away from my words.

So, I strongly, STRONGLY believe in supporting writers. I also strongly believe in archival work and preservation of online media. I mentioned my own binding of the raksura patreon short stories earlier this year, hoping to manifest an official printing to buy, which.... folks, the implicit logical endpoint is that I went and expanded them all and saved them locally too.

It wasn't scraping, since I've seen that description being tossed around in the notes. My copy was manual copy and paste, because I don't respect my own time, and so was the other recent version. If you're going to rail against that, I guess you've successfully transported nft rage about right click + save as to a new medium.

Frankly, the patreon interface is a pain for this. Infinite scroll is part of the enshittification of the internet, this is a lot of text and posts, patreon isn't a powerful archival site, and it started choking horribly by the time I was halfway through. Now that I know people can still sign up (which i didn't, for years, that closed label is misleading), I still emphatically encourage them to do so and fight through the lag to read the stories.

I also quoted the thing where I said I owned all the books in three formats - physical, ebook, audiobook. Guess what copy I use for most rereads - that's right, none of them, because I was a dumb youth who didn't understand how awful kindle drm is and I can't word search in a paper book, so the secret fourth format is pirated ebooks, which I know amazon will never be able to yoink out of my grip. If I ever git gud at illumination and make a hand-illustrated compendium of the series, that's going to be my starting base, because there arent digital rights to lock me down to owning ACCESS to a copy of the book and not the copy of the book itself.

Now, the existence of pirated ebooks isn't all sunshine and roses. I've seen the talks about how new books IMMEDIATELY get pirated and shared and start cutting into an author's livelihood and future publishing prospects. I think it's incredibly important to support authors directly and in ways corporate marketing teams are able to observe. But especially in light of the Hollywood strikes, I'm sure many of us have seen posts about corporate entities playing shitty games with what they'll make available and withhold, and what they'll CHARGE versus what the customer has PURCHASED.

The only thing in the original post I take issue with is the reposting of something that was still available directly through the author. That has already been addressed. The originator is remorseful. I still understand if the patreon vanishes, to be clear. But i quietly made my own copy years ago BECAUSE i understand how easy it is for something like that to vanish, for much more arbitrary reasons. It could have been vanished because of site policy, patreon abruptly archiving all posts more than X years old. Online media is dangerously ephemeral.

I bind a lot of cnovel fan translations. So many amazing stories are getting licensed for translation - great! But it's also a massive extinction event for all the backbreaking translation work other fans have been sharing for years for free. And from that perspective it's a fucking TRAGEDY. I have... a Lot of files that I'm not sharing publicly. My goal is never to preempt or undermine the translators who did the actual work. But that hoard of files is still precious to me, because it takes about five seconds to delete a gdoc of translation, and there's not always warning to save a copy first.

Again, emphasis, my only issue here was the reposting. I'm not happy that it happened. I'm glad the files were quickly taken down, whether or not the patreon itself goes away. I'm glad op is remorseful for overstepping, and I can... mostly see how they didn't realize the problem, and mainly wanted to help more people experience a story they loved.

So it's also worth saying that I'm also not too stoked about the direction tags on that post were starting to go. 'Piracy is inexcusable, piracy is the death of--' STOP. I recognize that begging for nuance while tossing thoughts out onto social media is a losing game. But actually, I'm out of patience for black and white thinking happening on my post. Piracy is a valuable tool for archivists and a hazard to creators, which is why it should be practiced quietly and with deliberate care. It should be practiced in a way that attempts not to damage the creator's livelihood or take away control of their creations. That's where the misstep was here. OP understood they had misstepped and they were expressing remorse even before I got on my high horse, and it sure doesn't seem like the notes care about that, so! I'm done letting the outrage machine feed on it.

That's probably enough. I'm not saying anything I haven't said on here before. If you've ever grieved for a beloved fic missing from your ao3 bookmarks because it was deleted, you understand the basic archival urge. If you lost access to a favorite artist's extensive archives because the images were flagged in the 2018 boob ban, you should be able to understand. I manually saved 36,000 pictures in that brief grace period before I completely burned out. The fundamental impulse shouldn't be that hard to grasp. The rest is just responsible practices, and people fuck up sometimes. It sucks, but sometimes you don't recognize a boundary is there before you blunder right over it with the best of intentions. I think a lot of us have been there too.

Anyways, this is too much text, how boring to look at. Here's my remaining pictures of my own little anthology copy. Still manifesting an official release someday, or any books of the raksura material at all. Money will literally fly from my pocket to purchase it in every available format.

[lia-land]

From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout

3/5

Spoilers for the first book in the Blood and Ash series*

I cannot start this review with anything other than how bad the audiobook is. This is an incredibly slow book for about 250/300 pages, as lots of fantasy series tend to be, so I wanted to get the world building over with on the audiobook. I could not continue listening to the narrator after the first few chapters. Hawke’s voice and accent combination is the worst thing I have ever heard and I can’t believe there was no one else who could have narrated this. Give me a microphone at this point... It’s like she was purposely trying to make it sound bad. I don’t know her name but I refuse to believe that she is not Jennifer L. Armentrout’s biggest hater.

Hawke is a relatively sexy character and maybe a little bit like ACOTAR’s Rhys, but this narrator completely ruined him for me. I can’t even read the books without hearing that stupid voice she gave him. I won’t even digress about every time she says ‘Oh my Gods…’ but I do like that this story eventually acknowledges the Gods that it’s referring to.

The world building was dragged out and I was very bored until around 50% in. I didn’t love that the book immediately jumped into spice; it gave me the impression that this series was just going to be porn with a weak plot, but I was somewhat wrong. Not entirely wrong, but the plot was stronger than I expected.

Then there’s the bad writing. The story is okay after chapter 15, but the bad writing outweighs it. I was constantly aware that I was reading, especially during the dialogue. It didn’t flow naturally and felt really forced. As many others have said, this book would have benefited from a good editor. Get Grammarly on this at the very least. The dialogue reminded me more of a TV show script where they quickly refer to/recap a previous episode since viewers might have forgotten. In this book, the dialogue sometimes referred to things that happened only a few pages or even sentences ago. I wanted to know what would happen, but I didn’t want to actually read it because the writing was really dull. The publisher is Simon & Schuster, by the way. Not sure how this met any standards of such a big publisher. Update: I've since seen a few people say that JLA doesn't have an editor at all? That should have told me all I needed to know before even starting this series.

Poppy was boring. She felt less like a character and more like a device for us to see the story unfold. Of course, every character has that purpose to some extent, but the only interesting thing about her is that she is the Maiden, and we still don’t even fully know what that means. I’m far more interested in the other characters. 

I thought Hawke was probably the Dark One after he made out with Poppy, otherwise he would just be really bad at his job as a guard. I was even more convinced after the Duke was stabbed with a cane right after. It seemed too obvious. Poppy is a very dumb character and I think the purpose was for readers to maybe relate to her? No clue. I could probably justify this partially by house secluded she is from other people, but the cane in the Duke’s chest right after her and Hawke made out was too obvious. Not sure how she didn’t pick that up in any part of her endless inner monologue. There's a big thing now about author's treating readers as if they're dumb and it was very clear in this book. I've also mentioned before that I don't base my reviews off of who authors are as people and I haven't, but if you feel like doing a deep dive into JLA's interactions with her readers, she does indeed think we are all dumb.

This isn’t a bad book, but it’s not good either, in my opinion. There really wasn’t that much plot. It’s just a bunch of repetitive inner dialogue with maybe 100 pages of things actually happening. I was so ready for this to be my next obsession, but it just wasn't for me.

Update: Tried reading the second book but it was just too boring. DNF at 12%.

[asthedeathoflight]

Get bothered back fellow theater nerd:

Any favorite musicals/plays to recommend? Are there ones you think are like “easy starters” vs ones you think will tell people something important about your taste?

Okay so the problem with me is that I am not strictly speaking a "theater nerd" as in like someone who is a fan of theater. I am someone who works in professional theater for a living. I have opinions about theater even my fellow theater artists cant get behind. This is all to say i dont have any concept of what an easy starter play would be. I'm in too deep. Im the XKCD comic about geochemists. Fuckin... Hamlet? Hamlet is good. You've gotta find a Hamlet where Hamlet is like a foppish emo kid tho. Dont watch the branagh one. I dont have a good Hamlet to recommend I just read Hamlet and imagine it in my mind.

Also I must confess that I dont really like musicals. Which will sound like peak clownery coming from me with a musical pfp but compared to most theater people i am the Grinch of musicals. I just dont like musical music. Sorry Wicked, sorry Les Mis, sorry Into The Woods. Simply could never be me.

Having said that. Musicals which are good (complete list):

Spring Awakening (ONLY the Deaf West production. I have the bootleg you can dm me for it. The obc was. Bad. sorry.)

Come From Away (i am not immune to folk rock or narratives about the inherent goodness of humanity. Full disclosure I haven't gotten around to watching this one i just like listening to the soundtrack.)

Warriors (obviously)

Plays which are good (incomplete list):

Until The Flood, Dael Orlandersmith (series of monologues about the police shooting of Mike Brown in Ferguson)

Notes on Killing Seven Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Board Members, Mara Velez Melendez (drag show about Puerto Rican anti-colonial resistance)

Draw the Circle, Mashuq Mushtaq Deen (one-man show about trans identity)

Keffiyeh/Made in China, Dalia Taha (series of vignettes about life in occupied Palestine)

Other stuff:

I saw the Geffen's production of The Inheritance two years ago and it was so incredible i went back and saw the whole thing again. There is an audiobook of it on Audible but ymmv because they made the baffling decision not to include any stage directions? So it might be incomprehensible unless you can find a script to read along with it. I might try and track down a pdf of the script for my own records so if i find one I'll share it with you.

Also I know Sara Porkalob's show at the Geffen just closed but if you ever have a chance to see her absolutely take it, she has this cycle of one-woman plays about the women in her family which are like. Absurd and heartfelt and incredible.

[blue-disco-lights]

Fandom Tag Game

This was really fun to think & reminisce about! Thank you @lupeloto for putting this together, and @suzy-queued @energievie @michellemisfit @creepkinginc @stocious for tagging me!

************ Name: Julia

First fandom you became a part of: Well this was all pre-internet, so the fandoms were all in my imagination: The Goonies & Anne of Green Gables (the PBS series) are my earliest ones. I didn’t even know who to talk to about it back then, so it was a lot of lone-fangirling in middle school.

What was the first TV show fandom you joined: OK look I had this Days of our Lives phase where I found this one message board (I haven’t watched in a LONG time, but Steve & Kayla -who are still on the show- were such a hot couple back in the day)…… and then I did the same for The Office around the time the last writers strike was happening… But my first legit modern-day fandom was probably Schitt’s Creek a couple of years ago, which was the first time I sought out community on socials like Reddit and Facebook. 

How old were you: very much all over the place lol

Latest TV/Movie fandom you became a part of? Shameless 

A tv/movie fandom you haven’t joined but like to creep on? When Our Flag Means Death first came out, I loved all the gorgeous fan art. They really need to release season 2 already…. 

Your favourite fandom: Oh this Shameless/Gallavich fandom is VERY special. Granted I don’t have a ton of experience in online fandom spaces, but this community has been really incredible, so warm and welcoming and CREATIVE omg.  

The tv show that gives you the most brainrot? Shameless for sure (but you know, just because of that one couple). I do get that anxiety from time to time that I’ll never get brainrot like this again – it’s really fun to move around and create in this space, and I love the inspiration.

The fictional couple that gives you the most brainrot? See above. 

Guilty pleasure fictional couple? Very un-guiltily please see above. But I’ll always have a place in my heart for David & Patrick from Schitt’s Creek, and Jim & Pam, of course, from The Office. I’ll throw my Days of Our Lives fave in here too because they were the first to introduce me to my beloved tropes - enemies-to-lovers and epically drawn-out, will they/won't they angst.

Guilty pleasure TV show? Is this where I admit to watching Just Like That so I can complain about it? It’s no Sex in the City….. 

And finally something that made you happy this week? I started a new audiobook - Last Night at the Telegraph Club, and it’s set in the city where I live. I always love reading books or watching TV shows & movies where I recognize the set! Also re-audiobooking Red, White & Royal Blue, and the narrator is so much fun to listen to.

**********************

Hello friends, if you'd like to play 🪄 @deedala, @bawlbrayker @depressedstressedlemonzest @too-schoolforcool @gallawitchxx @sisitrip @callivich @ms-moonlight-inn @palepinkgoat @shinygalaxyperson @sweetbee78 @sickness-health-all-that-shit @sleepyfacetoughguy @grumble-fish @look-i-love-u @thepupperino @francesrose3 @ian-galagher@gillyp @starcrossedsoulmates84 @jademickian @tanktopgallavich