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    Book Recs: Indie, Small Press & Self Published Books

    16 January, 2022

    This is a post I’ve been meaning to do for a while. We all know about all of the Big 5 books, the ones that appear on most rec lists most often, that get more marketing (comparatively speaking) and which more people know about. So, today’s rec list is specifically the opposite of that. Today, I’m reccing you books by independent publishers, small presses, and self-published authors.

    For ease, the definition of indie here that I’m using is “not Big 5 or an imprint of Big 5”. That is, not Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, or Hachette. Since the indies range in size beyond that, I’ve split those into two sections: smaller and larger (generally decided by output).

    A little key before we start:

    💛 = sapphic
    💚 = achillean
    💙 = trans or nonbinary
    🌻 = contemporary
    🌿 = historical
    🐚 = fantasy
    🌺 = mystery/thriller
    🍂 = paranormal/horror
    🍃 = science fiction

    For this list, I stuck to a single book by each author (although there are many where I’d rec multiple books) because I figured, hey, this can be a series! So, check back later this year for more, I guess!

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    Book Recs: Best of 2021

    1 January, 2022

    It’s 1st January, which means, firstly, HAPPY NEW YEAR! Secondly, here’s our best of summary of 2021, in typical expanding fashion (alright, so maybe a few books shorter than last year). If you want to have a look at the last few years of lists, you can find them here: from 2018, from 2019, and from 2020.

    Once again, we have divided our list into 3 categories: backlist books, books released in 2021 & books to be released in 2022 (that we read ARCs of). Books of 2021 has a further category of ones we both loved (upped to six this year simply because we couldn’t keep it to five). However, on the whole we’ve tried to do that (except where Anna only read a handful of backlist books, so filled up their 10 with 7 releases from this year).

    Before we start, though, I (Charlotte) would just like to note I found it incredibly hard to pick only 5 backlist books because there were so many I loved. So while this is technically our “best of” post, there’s still a lot that only just didn’t make it.

    But anyway. Here’s our list of our favourite 36 books of the year!

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    Book Recs: Friends to Lovers

    19 December, 2021

    In the three and a bit years this blog has been up, I’ve made two enemies to lovers rec lists and always intended to make a friends to lovers list too, but somehow never got round to it. Well, today, I have finally got my act together! If you love the friends to lovers trope, the pining, the yearning, the belief that it’s unrequited—this rec list is for you! (And if it’s not your favourite, then I live in hope these books will convert you.) So, let’s go!

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    Reads Rainbow Awards 2021: The Results

    8 December, 2021

    As you may have noticed, we ran the awards a little differently this year, allowing for a week’s worth of nominations in all categories, before taking those nominated more than once, adding a few more to reach 20 per category (although 15 in two, and 30 in debut), and then opening up voting for 3 and a half weeks. In selecting nominees, we tried out best to ensure different books were nominated in each category (debut and romance aside) and that, within each category, an author appeared only once.

    But enough of that. The results of that vote, with 2320 ballots cast, are now here and I’m sure you’re all excited to see who won! First though, if you’re interested in just who made the cut in this year’s awards, below you can:

    see the list of nominees!

    Otherwise, happy scrolling!

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    Book Recs: LGBT Fake Dating

    21 November, 2021

    Wouldn’t be much of a stretch, would it, to say that the fake dating trope is quintessential for LGBT lit somehow. Which is why it was only a matter of time for a fake dating rec list to be posted on the blog.

    At the end of this post you will find a few upcoming titles that I haven’t been fortunate enough to read an ARC of yet, but absolutely want y’all to be aware of. And if, like me, you’re constantly on the lookout for fake dating books with trans rep, we’ve been told you should keep an eye out for TJ Alexander’s projects (and follow them on Twitter).

    And hey, quite a few of those titles are available on Scribd, so if you want to check out that service but don’t have an account yet, use my invite code to get 2 months for free! (This also gives me one free month.)

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    Book Recs: Trans & Nonbinary Adult Fantasy

    19 November, 2021

    The final part of my impromptu adult fantasy rec list series is upon us! This one was, compared to the rest, pretty difficult to put together, if only because I hamstrung myself by doing almost this same rec list earlier in the year, and didn’t want to copy too many from that to here (that post was gender in SFF). You can see where I succeeded and failed in that, but I still hope I’ve given you enough different recs here that you’ll find something new and exciting.

    And hey, a lot of those titles are available on Scribd, so if you want to check out that service but don’t have an account yet, use my invite code to get 2 months for free! (This also gives me one free month.)

    And if you want to check out the other posts in this series, you can find them below:

    Lesbian | Gay | Bi/Pan

    Part twos:

    Lesbian (II) | Gay (II) | Bi/Pan (II) | Trans (II)

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    Book Recs: Messy LGBT Teens

    15 November, 2021

    The “messy” in the title is to be understood in a few different ways. You will find here teens who make mistakes, teens who do (& don’t regret) things society thinks they shouldn’t, teens who make questionable choices… Which is to say: teens who are only human.

    So for everyone who is tired of books trying to portray teenagers as perfect (since no one in the world is), enjoy! And don’t judge.

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    Book Recs: Bi/Pan Adult Fantasy

    13 November, 2021

    The other day, I did part two of this adult fantasy series, with books featuring gay mcs. Today, I’m back for part three: bi/pan mcs. I say bi/pan, because often it’s hard to tell, since this is fantasy and mostly labels are not in use. But these are ten recs for you, in which the mc is definitively attracted to more than one gender.

    And hey, a lot of those titles are available on Scribd, so if you want to check out that service but don’t have an account yet, use my invite code to get 2 months for free! (This also gives me one free month.)

    And if you want to check out the other posts in this series, you can find them below:

    Lesbian | Gay | Trans

    Part twos:

    Lesbian (II) | Gay (II) | Bi/Pan (II) | Trans (II)

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    Book Recs: Gay Adult Fantasy

    5 November, 2021

    During Lesbian Visibility Week earlier this year, I made a whole rec list of adult fantasy books featuring lesbian rep. And I left it at that. But then, while thinking of possible further rec lists to post on the blog, I went back to it and thought: what if I made this a series, with one rec list for every letter of the LGBT acronym? And hence, this rec list (and two future ones) was born.

    I admit, this one was a little tricky to do: turns out I know a lot more achillean adult fantasy books with bi mcs than gay mcs (this may be a pattern? Much like there seems to be more sapphic than achillean high fantasy, at least right now. Both may also just be confirmation bias of some sort), but we got there! Ten adult fantasy recs are ready and waiting for you just below.

    And hey, a lot of those titles are available on Scribd, so if you want to check out that service but don’t have an account yet, use my invite code to get 2 months for free! (This also gives me one free month.)

    And if you want to check out the other posts in this series:

    Lesbian | Bi/Pan | Trans

    Part twos:

    Lesbian (II) | Gay (II) | Bi/Pan (II) | Trans (II)

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    Book Recs: LGBT Retellings

    24 October, 2021

    There are already 3 posts about LGBT retellings on the blog: for fairy tales, for mythology and for classic books. They’re all a few years old, though, so it was a high time for an update. So I asked on twitter what kind of retellings y’all would want to see the most and the answer was “a little bit of everything”

    And that’s exactly what I’m bringing you today. I divided my recs into four categories, for ease of browsing. There is, of course, some overlap, because books aren’t always clean cut & they might fit into more than one category, but there needs to be some kind of logic to the chaos. So let’s go! Choose what you’re interested in the most (or simply browse all the recs):

    folklore • fairy tales • classic books • historical figures

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    Book Recs: Get Your Spook On

    20 October, 2021

    It’s October, it’s autumn, it’s spooky season, so what better rec list today than a BUMPER rec list of books to read when you want to feel extra spooky! You can even pick your reads based on the emojis below, depending on what you feel like. It’s a win-win situation, I’m sure.

    And if you want yet more recs, here’s the list I made last year.

    Pick your spooky season emoji of choice!

    🧙🏼‍♀️ • 👻 • 🎃 • 🐺 • 🧛🏼‍♂️ • 🧟

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    Book Recs: Adult Fantasy (II)

    14 October, 2021

    By happy coincidence (or not, you decide), our rec list today comes on the heels of some twitter discourse stemming from an opinion that is—how to put this politely—really fucking stupid. And because of that opinion, in addition to making sure that each of these books is gay, today I’ve challenged* myself to not include a single cis white man!

    *It’s not really a challenge.

    You can also find part one of this list here. And, handily, you can find a massive thread of recs here!

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    Book Recs: LGBT Sports Lit

    10 October, 2021

    I think we can all agree that books including sports in any way, be it a romance between two teammates or the main character running marathons, just somehow hit harder. Sometimes they’re truly all you need in life! Which is why I’m here with ten sports books.

    Anyway, I hope no one is surprised that more than half of this list are YA books…

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