I am, as ever, looking for ways to procrastinate doing work (usually reading professional practice articles, because Christ how dry can you make an already really dry subject, but anyway). So I figured I’d make a rec thread of quietly magical and gay books. Because I didn’t think I had that enough to turn into a rec list. But! Lo and behold, I did. So. That’s what you’re going to get. Books which are quietly magical (and gay, because this is a LGBT only site. No straights allowed here). (And also, this is a genre that there seem to be a lot of books where you go, hey I didn’t realise that was gay. Just trying to raise awareness here.)
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Book Recs: Books with Black Characters
Like I said in my last rec list – 10 upcoming books by Black authors – I wanted to celebrate Black History Month with some appropriate recommendations. So this is why today I decided to talk about books that feature Black characters. I tried to only choose titles with Black main characters, but I will admit in the end a few of the books have a Black love interest. Which, if you think about it… those are still kind of main characters…
Three out of ten books I’m recommending today are actually graphic novels, for some novelty. And three are novellas. There’s young adult and new adult, there’s fantasy and contemporary, and historical fiction… Today, you get a little bit of everything!!
Okay, so let’s jump in!
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Book Review: Thorn
On a cold day deep in the heart of winter, Rowan’s father returns from an ill-fated hunting trip bearing a single, white rose. The rose is followed by the Huntress, a figure out of legend. Tall, cruel, and achingly beautiful, she brings Rowan back with her to a mountain fastness populated solely by the creatures of the hunt. Rowan, who once scorned the villagers for their superstitions, now finds herself at the heart of a curse with roots as deep as the mountains, ruled by an old magic that is as insidious as the touch of the winter rose. Torn between her family loyalties, her guilty relief at escaping her betrothal to the charming but arrogant Avery Lockland, and her complicated feelings for the Huntress, Rowan must find a way to break the curse before it destroys everything she loves. There is only one problem―if she can find a way to lift the curse, she will have to return to the life she left behind. And the only thing more unbearable than endless winter is facing a lifetime of springs without the Huntress.
Thorn
Anna Burke
Rating: 4/5 🌈
Published: 29th January 2019
Goodreads
Rep: wlw mcs“You,” she said, as if she had only just realized who I was. “Rowan.” Her eyes dropped to the dress, then back to my face. “Rowan,” she said again, like it was the only word she knew.
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Book Recs: Upcoming Books by Black Authors
It’s the Black History Month so I wanted to focus my posts the next few weeks on books by and/or about Black people. As you can see from the title, today I will be recommending book written by Black authors. And specifically: books that are only about to come out. Most of them are set for this year, but there are a few 2020 titles as well.
Two books listed here are by authors I’ve already read something by before (I wonder if you can guess which authors I’m talking about…) & you can read my reviews of their previous books here and here.
There are some amazing stories coming our way, I can tell you that much already! So let’s dive in without any further ado.
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Book Recs: Enemies to Lovers
We all know how good a trope enemies (or rivals) to lovers can be when it’s done right. It has that perfect intensity and tension, and the point where they realise that actually they don’t hate each other any more and you get pining? Absolutely brilliant. So, of course, I had to do a rec list (and also, this was what was voted for on Twitter). There’s actually a lot of overlap between this list and some other ones, mostly because when a book has one of my favourite tropes it tends to hit a few more at the same time. And also. Because it’s a favourite trope, if the book is good it normally rockets onto my favourites shelf.
So, without further ado, the list.
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 hey, there’s now a second part to this, with ten more books!
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Book Recs: Novellas
We all have those days where you have an oh shit moment and realise you’re behind on your Goodreads challenge and what are you going to do??? Well. I have for you here a guaranteed way of boosting your numbers. Read loads of novellas! (Although, to be honest, I don’t really know what constitutes a “novella” and what’s a short story or even a novelette, but that’s a whole other kettle of fish.) Anyway, these are some of the best ones I’ve read (and they’re all gay, of course).
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ARC Review: Red, White & Royal Blue
A big-hearted romantic comedy in which the First Son falls in love with the Prince of Wales after an incident of international proportions forces them to pretend to be best friends…
First Son Alex Claremont-Diaz is the closest thing to a prince this side of the Atlantic. With his intrepid sister and the Veep’s genius granddaughter, they’re the White House Trio, a beautiful millennial marketing strategy for his mother, President Ellen Claremont. International socialite duties do have downsides—namely, when photos of a confrontation with his longtime nemesis Prince Henry at a royal wedding leak to the tabloids and threaten American/British relations.
The plan for damage control: staging a fake friendship between the First Son and the Prince. Alex is busy enough handling his mother’s bloodthirsty opponents and his own political ambitions without an uptight royal slowing him down. But beneath Henry’s Prince Charming veneer, there’s a soft-hearted eccentric with a dry sense of humor and more than one ghost haunting him.
As President Claremont kicks off her reelection bid, Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret relationship with Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations. And Henry throws everything into question for Alex, an impulsive, charming guy who thought he knew everything: What is worth the sacrifice? How do you do all the good you can do? And, most importantly, how will history remember you?
Red, White & Royal Blue
Casey McQuiston
Rating: 4.5/5 🌈
Published: 14th May 2019
Goodreads
Rep: Mexican-American bi mc, gay li with depression, female bi side characters, non-white side characters, trans lesbian side characterGive yourself away sometimes, sweetheart. There’s so much of you.
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Music Recs: 6 Sapphic Songs as Delicate as Mary Oliver’s Poetry
I’m sure I’m not the only one who still can’t believe Mary Oliver died. She was such an amazing person, such a calming force in this world. Her poetry was always simple but evoking the most complicated feelings; delicate but hitting straight in the heart with a power of a bulldozer. She was one of a kind. She was making the world a softer place just by sharing her words with us.
So I was wondering how to celebrate her beautiful legacy on Reads Rainbow, because there was no doubt in my mind we have to talk about a lesbian poet as iconic as her. And I decided that as much as I love her poetry, I want to do something different. I mean, I can let you know what are my favourite collections of hers… But I wanted to translate her tenderness into another medium. Hence the songs.
What works better with poetry than music, right? (I’m from Poland, we have a whole genre literally called ‘sung poetry’. Remind me to talk about that more some day.)
I selected six songs by sapphic artists that sounded to me as softly as Mary’s poems. I hope you’ll enjoy. And when you’re already at it, check out what 2018 LGBT music videos I recommended the other day.
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Book Recs: Gay Spanish Poets
If there’s one thing me and Anna want to do with this blog, it’s expand your horizons when it comes to LGBT lit. So, in that vein, we also want to review and recommend some literature that you might not have thought about reading before, namely literature in languages other than English. And to kick this off, I decided to write a post about some gay Spanish poets.
I know, I know. Your first thought may be something along the lines of woah, this is pretty niche, I don’t know if I’m interested in this. But. Bear with me here (and also with the length of this post, my slightly rusty/clunky translating skills, etc, etc). I spent an afternoon down a rabbit hole (aka Wikipedia) just to find some gay Spanish poets (it’s a procrastination technique). Most of them don’t have English translations, so it’s gonna go like this: a little bio about the author, and then one of my favourite poems of theirs, which I’ll attempt to translate (or, where possible, provide a translation from the internet). Hence why I’m apologising for the length of this post and my translating skills before we even get started.
I really hope you enjoy reading this post as much as I enjoyed writing it (and staring at the cost of actually reading some of these authors’ collections. No one should be charging upwards of even £20, not including shipping, for a poetry collection. No one), and let me know if this is something you would like to see more of!
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Book Recs: The Great Big LGBT Rec List (IV)
Today is the day (for better or for worse). We’ve reached the last part of our recs list (sad face). You can find the rest of the list here. I’m really not sure what to say here, because it’s all been said, and I just feel like saying more would mean talking out my arse, so like. On to the books!
A brief reminder of the key:
lesbians & wlw relationships: ☀️
gays & mlm relationships: 🌿
bisexual characters: 💎
trans, genderqueer, non-binary, gnc characters: 🌷
LGBT authors: 🌈
poetry: 🌉 -
Book Recs: The Great Big LGBT Rec List (III)
I really hope I can say “here comes the post you’ve all been waiting for!!” and be right… Well, the post does come, so I’m already halfway there… In any case! Like the title says, this is part 3 of our very big and very great, and very much made up of books by & for the LGBT community recommendations list!
Today I give you books number 51 all the way to 75. There’s only one post in this series left! (So far. Charlotte & I hope you guys would be interested in more posts like this when we hit our next followers milestone!)
Question we already asked on twitter (here): would you be interested in a Q&A, to get to know Charlotte and me better? Let us know in the comments!
Before you dive in, make sure you read part one and part two of our Great Big LGBT Rec List! And take one more look at how we mark the rep in this series:
lesbians & wlw relationships: ☀️
gays & mlm relationships: 🌿
bisexual characters: 💎
trans, genderqueer, non-binary, gnc characters: 🌷
LGBT authors: 🌈
poetry: 🌉 -
Book Recs: The Great Big LGBT Rec List (I)
We talked about this giant rec list on twitter before & if anyone thought we’re only joking… well, you guys just don’t know how serious we are about LGBT literature yet.
100 LGBT books. Fifty from me & fifty from Charlotte. Our favourite titles that we think everyone should read. Posted in four neat parts over the first two weeks of the year, so we can start off 2019 properly.
Of course, for this list to make sense, you have to know what rep you can expect from each book. And this time, to make things obvious right away (and also to make everything cuter), we chose to use various emojis. And so it goes:
lesbians & wlw relationships: ☀️
gays & mlm relationships: 🌿
bisexual characters: 💎
trans, genderqueer, non-binary, gnc characters: 🌷
LGBT authors: 🌈And because most of the list is composed of novels and short stories, we decided to mark poetry as well: 🌉
Let’s go!
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Book Recs: Graphic Novels
Let’s be real, what’s better than some graphic novels. I mean, you get a great story and great artwork! (Also, you get a nice boost to your reading challenge, if you’re a bit behind at times like me…)
So today I’m here with ten titles, all of them featuring LGBT leads, most of them actually having way more than one character who’s not cishet. A Christmas gift for you all, if you will. :>>
Enjoy!
And if you need more, here’s a post about LGBT graphic novels, part II.
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Book Review: True Letters from a Fictional Life
If you asked anyone in his small Vermont town, they’d tell you the facts: James Liddell, star athlete, decent student and sort-of boyfriend to cute, peppy Theresa, is a happy, funny, carefree guy.
But whenever James sits down at his desk to write, he tells a different story. As he fills his drawers with letters to the people in his world—letters he never intends to send—he spills the truth: he’s trying hard, but he just isn’t into Theresa. It’s a boy who lingers in his thoughts.
He feels trapped by his parents, his teammates, and the lies they’ve helped him tell, and he has no idea how to escape. Is he destined to live a life of fiction?
True Letters from a Fictional Life
Kenneth Logan
Rating: 4/5 🌈
Published: 7th June 2016
Goodreads
Rep: gay mcI didn’t come up with the lie. It wasn’t mine. They handed the lie to me, and I tried like hell to make it work for a while.
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Book Recs: NA Romances
If you’re like me, then you’ll understand that sometimes, you really have to read a romance novel. And, of course, 99% of the time, you just can’t find a decent LGBT one – it’s all either sex-filled and lacking tension, or straight-up awful. So, the point of this list is to rec you ten of the best LGBT NA romances I’ve read (hopefully, to be the first part of many).
