Tag: Highly Recommended Rating

A Little Queer-Lady Rec List

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This rec list highlights some of my favorite reads for stories focusing on a queer female main character. I also tried to get a good balance focusing on diversity among authors and their characters!!

Title: Bloodbath

Author: Stephanie Ahn

Why You Should Read This Hella Gay Book:

I adore Stephanie. ADORE. Stephanie is an up and coming urban fantasy writer who takes trope and genre subversion to a whole other level with her Harrietta Lee series. I’ve reviewed Bloodbath and Deadline before and a constant across both reviews is how much I can’t stop loving Harry’s ridiculous ass. I don’t know if I want to be her bossy friend or gently kiss her face (or both??).

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Bloodbath (Harietta Lee #2) by Stephanie Ahn

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Bloodbath Cover

I spent a lot of time reading Bloodbath (Harrietta Lee #2) and wondering how on earth Harry manages to make it from one day to the next. To be fair, I’m pretty sure that she has no idea how she’s managed to survive as long as she has either.

In case y’all somehow missed me talking her up, Stephanie Ahn is currently my favorite urban fantasy writer in the game.

Her first book, Deadline, left me stunned by how amazing it was. My introduction to Harry, a dashing and disgraced witch booted from her community after making a bad call and dabbling in some demonic magic that led to the death of her mentor, really changed the way that I flat out looked at the urban fantasy genre.Read More »

[Small Stitch Reviews] Lies Sleeping (Rivers of London #7)

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Note: This short review contains some spoilers for the previous book in the series.

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Lies Sleeping, the seventh novel in Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series, is so good that I stayed up until 3 or 4 in the morning – on a day I had to wake up at 5:30am – to finish it. Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series is one of my all-time favorite urban fantasy series and the list of things I love about it would take up several single spaced pages in one of my notebooks.Read More »

[Book Review] Once Ghosted, Twice Shy (Reluctant Royals #2.5) by Alyssa Cole

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Note: I received a copy of this novella from the publisher as part of my participation in the blog tour for Pure Textuality  in exchange for an honest review. (Pure Textuality is also hosting a giveaway of a paperback of the first novel in the series! Yay giveaways!!)

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SUMMARY

Alyssa Cole returns with a fun, sexy romance novella in the Reluctant Royals series!

While her boss the prince was busy wooing his betrothed, Likotsi had her own love affair after swiping right on a dating app. But her romance had ended in heartbreak, and now, back in NYC again, she’s determined to rediscover her joy—so of course she runs into the woman who broke her heart.

When Likotsi and Fabiola meet again on a stalled subway train months later, Fab asks for just one cup of tea. Likotsi, hoping to know why she was unceremoniously dumped, agrees. Tea and food soon leads to them exploring the city together, and their past, with Fab slowly revealing why she let Likotsi go, and both of them wondering if they can turn this second chance into a happily ever after.

 

REVIEW

At this point in my life as a romance reader, I can safely say that I love Alyssa Cole’s writing more than I love naps. If you know anything about me, you’ll how much time I spend sleeping at the most ridiculous parts of the day and how much napping is part of my “routine” Me saying that her writing is better than the naps I take at least once a day? Now, that is a serious claim to make.Read More »

[Book Review] Minimum Wage Magic (DFZ #1) by Rachel Aaron

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Fantasy writer Rachel Aaron has had one hell of a year in publishing. She’s teamed up with her husband Travis to write Forever Fantasy Online (the first in a trilogy of fantasy novels), published Garrison Girl, an original novel set in the Attack on Titan universe, and opened up the year by releasing the fifth and final book in her amazing Heartstrikers series, Last Dragon Standing.

Her newest release, Minimum Wage Magic, returns to the Heartstrikers series main setting, the Detroit Free Zone (DFZ for short) with a new cast of main characters and a DFZ that is the most stable it’s been in a while. Set twenty years after the original series, this novel revolves around Opal Yong-ae, a freelance mage that works as Cleaner in the city, who fumbles her way into a mystery when she finds the dead body of a mage in one of the apartment she’s supposed to be cleaning.Read More »

[Review] A Duke by Default (Reluctant Royals #2) by Alyssa Cole

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I only recently bought Alyssa Cole’s A Duke By Default so I missed out on months of basking in this glorious and delightful novel (because my local library never got around to purchasing it on my request). But I have read this book and it is everything I’d hoped it’d be.

Now, I’m a diehard Alyssa Cole fan. I seriously stan her because she’s a wonderful writer, a fellow Caribbean islander, and she always manages to get me super invested in her characters. She’s another writer that could write a grocery list and have me pleading to read it because it’d be art on scratch paper.

So it can’t be a surprise that I genuinely loved the second book in her Reluctant Royals series, A Duke by Default.Read More »

[Review] The Neon Boneyard (Daniel Faust #8) by Craig Schaefer

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The Neon Boneyard Cover

We’re eight (and a half, there’s a novella) books into Craig Schaefer’s Daniel Faust series and I’m still as huge a fan as I was when I cracked open the first book a couple years ago.

Schaefer’s Daniel Faust series is urban fantasy that blends the supernatural with elements that wouldn’t be out of place in heist/gangster movies. Daniel Faust is a con-man, a practitioner, and a pain in the ass to a whole bunch of powerful people in the supernatural and mundane parts of Las Vegas.Read More »

[Book Review] Rafe (Loose Ends #1) by Rebekah Weatherspoon

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Rafe cover copy

After her live-in nanny bounces without warning, leaving her twin six-year-old daughters alone for several hours, Dr. Sloan Copeland finds herself in desperate need of a new nanny as she works long hours and the girls are set to start school very soon.

Enter Rafe.

A big, bearded, babe of a man, Rafe has been working as a nanny for a while and, after his most recent family heads to Australia, he’s starting to consider whether or not he wants to keep working in childcare. He loves his job and the kids he takes care of (seriously swoonworthy, y’all), but he’s contemplating changing careers… right until he sees Sloan and her cute as heck little girls.Read More »

[Review] Brooklyn Ray’s Undertow (Port Lewis Witches #2)

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Note: This review contains spoilers for the first book in Brooklyn Ray’s Port Lewis Witches series.

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Things get extra tense in Undertow, the second novella in Brooklyn Ray’s Port Lewis witches series.

Now, I seriously enjoyed my introduction to Ray’s writing in Darkling and thought it was a fantastic read, but Undertow is even better.

For one thing, Undertow introduces us to some more of the mysteries present in Port Lewis’s witch community – including a conflict between demons that shapes their lives.

Undertow is set shortly after Darkling, the novella that introduced us to necromancer Ryder Lewellyn and his friend-turned-boyfriend, Liam Montgomery, a witch whose magical affinity tends towards water. Liam is the focus of this novella and I think he’s an incredibly solid protagonist, fleshed out even more than he was in the previous novella.Read More »

[Review] Deadline (Harrietta Lee #1) – Stephanie Ahn

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Deadline Cover

Stephanie Ahn’s debut novel is, frankly, one of the finest urban fantasy books that I’ve read this year.

Deadline is such a super rereadable book thanks to Harrietta Lee, our main character who happens to be flawed and fun, and Ahn’s incredible worldbuilding. From the first line in the book, one that sees Harry noticing a demon that’s busy checking her out, I was hooked. Harry is a witch who doesn’t exactly have the best reputation in New York’s magical community and, as a result, has been forced to take assorted odd jobs as a magical private investigator because she doesn’t have the connections she once had.Read More »

[Review] Soulless (Awakening of the Spirit #3) by Montiese McKenzie

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Note: In the interest of full disclosure, I received an advanced copy of this book from the author. All of the opinions in this review are my own and entirely honest. There are no significant spoilers beyond what’s in the “Content Notes/Warning” section directly below the review.

Soulless Cover

Soulless, the third novel in Montiese McKenzie’s Awakening of the Spirit series, is an urban fantasy crime drama with expansive cast of interconnected characters, a thrilling main plot, and a frightening villain called the Darkness looming over the protagonists’ lives and manipulating the world around them.

Honestly, it kind of has a little bit of everything thanks to the book’s focus on found families, immediately aww-worthy relationships, intense action scenes, and McKenzie’s vivid writing style.Read More »

[Review] Brooklyn Ray’s Darkling (Port Lewis Witches #1)

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Note: I won an ebook copy of this novella from the author themselves in a giveaway last week. That has no influence on my enjoyment of the book and all opinions herein are my own.

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Darkling CoverDarkling, the first novella in Brooklyn Ray’s Port Lewis Witches series is a dark and delicious deep dive into a magical world unlike many I’ve seen before.

In Port Lewis, a small town in the state of Washington, magic practitioners of all types are kind of commonplace in everyday life, with different families bringing their specialties to the table.

Darkling primarily focuses on Ryder Lewellyn, a late-blooming trans dude who happens to be a necromancer with an affinity for fire, and his close friend (and future lover) Liam Montgomery, a witch with an affinity for water.Read More »

[Small Stitch Reviews] Medusa Uploaded by Emily Devenport

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BUY HERE

I stayed up until 2AM reading this book.

It’s good.

Generation ships are a staple in the science fiction genre, with the theme showing up across the genre for decades with vary levels of success. The idea of a generation ship is interesting enough, a hypothetical form of interstellar travel that’s basically a space ark for humanity (or another group of beings) traveling to a usually unnamed and partially unknown destination after the destruction of their homeworld.

Medusa Uploaded is about life on one such ship, but it’s also about a brilliant, kind of murder-prone augmented human named Oichi Angelis navigating the politics of the generation ship and the ruling class that are responsible for the death of her loved ones. I love Oichi. Seriously. Her evolving worldview, coupled with the fact that she’s literally just ready to kill at a moment’s notice, makes her one of my favorite characters in a sci-fi novel. And she was ready to kill before she got a bad ass AI suit.

Imagine what she does with it…

Medusa Uploaded is a brilliant book with beautiful writing, tons of exquisite violence, characters of color in different positions of power, and an interesting plot that opens the universe up even further.

I liked it, and I think y’all will too!

And, as always, if y’all come across any commentary or criticism on race in the book, feel free to send them my way!

[Book Review] Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann

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Title: Let’s Talk About Love
Author: Claire Kann (Twitter)
Genre: Contemporary, Queer Fiction, Queer Romance, Ace/Aro Representation
Rating: Highly Freaking Recommended

Publisher: Swoon Reads/Macmillan

Publishing Date: January 23, 2018

LINKS: AMAZON | BARNES AND NOBLE

SYNOPSIS

Alice had her whole summer planned. Non-stop all-you-can-eat buffets while marathoning her favorite TV shows (best friends totally included) with the smallest dash of adulting—working at the library to pay her share of the rent. The only thing missing from her plan? Her girlfriend (who ended things when Alice told her she’s asexual). Alice is done with dating—no thank you, do not pass go, stick a fork in her, done.

But then Alice meets Takumi and she can’t stop thinking about him or the rom com-grade romance feels she did not ask for (uncertainty, butterflies, and swoons, oh my!).

When her blissful summer takes an unexpected turn and Takumi becomes her knight with a shiny library employee badge (close enough), Alice has to decide if she’s willing to risk their friendship for a love that might not be reciprocated—or understood.

 

REVIEW

Straight up, I wish that I’d had Claire Kann’s Let’s Talk About Love back when I was a teenager trying to figure out who I was and what the heck I was doing. Like me, Alice is the baby of her family. She’s the youngest daughter and a surprise baby to her parents who have to be in their mid to late fifties in Let’s Talk About Love.

This book seriously matches so much of my experience as a queer, Black, lady-oriented person that’s on the ace-spectrum that I kept having to put the book down in order to squish my own face.

(In case you didn’t know, face squishes are the HIGHEST sign of my pleasure when reading.)Read More »