• All Reviews,  Literature

    ARC Review: The Unbroken

    20 March, 2021

    Hopefully, you’ve all heard of this book. Hopefully, you’re all as in love with the cover (and those arms! 😍) as we are. But if you haven’t heard of it, or have only been tangentially interested in it (as inexplicable as this seems to us), let us do our best to convince you that you need to get your hands on this book.

    In a political fantasy unlike any other, debut author C. L. Clark spins an epic tale of rebellion, espionage, and military might on the far outreaches of a crumbling desert empire.

    Touraine is a soldier. Stolen as a child and raised to kill and die for the empire, her only loyalty is to her fellow conscripts. But now, her company has been sent back to her homeland to stop a rebellion, and the ties of blood may be stronger than she thought.

    Luca needs a turncoat. Someone desperate enough to tiptoe the bayonet’s edge between treason and orders. Someone who can sway the rebels toward peace, while Luca focuses on what really matters: getting her uncle off her throne.

    Through assassinations and massacres, in bedrooms and war rooms, Touraine and Luca will haggle over the price of a nation. But some things aren’t for sale.

    The Unbroken

    C. L. Clark

    Goodreads

    Rep: Black lesbian mc, bi mc with physical disability due to injury, wlw side characters, mlm side character, nonbinary side character
    CWs: violence, gore, past attempted rape, threats of rape, torture
    Release: 23rd March 2021

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  • All Recommended,  Film & TV Recs,  Film & TV Shows

    Film & TV Recs: New Adult LGBT Stories

    14 March, 2021

    Sounds weird to use terms associated more with literature, but really, when I say “new adult characters” what I mean is characters in their early or mid 20s. Young people trying to figure adult life out.

    I ended up with 11 titles, and because I cheated and am claiming the last one only half fits the theme & that’s why it can stay. I was also tempted to put And Then We Danced and God’s Own Country on here, but eventually figured you all must know about them already.

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  • All Recommended,  Book Recs,  Literature

    Book Recs: High Fantasy (II)

    12 March, 2021

    It’s been a while since I did my first high fantasy rec list on here, and I’ve read a lot more of it since so, it being Friday and I cannot come up with a more interesting theme for this list, I decided that it’s the perfect time for a sequel.

    In the interests of making this list a little more, I don’t know, readable, I suppose, I’m going to only include books that are already out. So, yes, there are several upcoming I’ve read and loved, but they won’t be on here. Plenty of motivation to make a part three then though…

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  • All Recommended,  Book Recs,  Literature

    Book Recs: Enemies to Lovers (II)

    25 February, 2021

    Waaaay back when this blog was just a baby blog, I did a rec list of enemies to lovers (or otherwise hate to love) and that rec list has been probably one of the most viewed of all time. But then I went back and looked at it the other day, and was like… this is quite basic.

    And hence the idea for a second part was born.

    Before we begin, however, I would like to say yes I am aware that enemies to lovers and hate to love are not synonymous. No, I don’t really care, but if you want to be specific, this is more of a hate to love list.

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  • All Recommended,  Book Recs,  Literature

    Book Recs: College-aged LGBT Protags

    23 February, 2021

    As requested by Lena on Twitter, here are ten books with “characters in college/university or that general age range”. A few are straight up taking place at uni, a few are just with protags roughly that age.

    I really wanted to include two more books, but I just featured them on my last rec list (Warm Hug LGBT Books), so I figured y’all need some more variety. Please know, though, Abroad by Liz Jacobs & Weak Heart by Ban Gilmartin also fit this theme perfectly.

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  • All Recommended,  Book Recs,  Literature

    Book Recs: Scribd, Intermediate Mode

    11 February, 2021

    So, you’ve opened up Scribd. The choices are overwhelming. You’ve read everything Anna suggested on their previous post. But where do you go from here?

    Not to worry because today it’s my turn to provide you with 50* books that you can read on Scribd! I’ve done the digging so you don’t have to! So whether you’re looking for YA or adult, classics or poetry, sapphic, achillean or trans/nonbinary rep, hopefully there’s something here for you.

    A little disclaimer first though: I myself haven’t read all of these books (some of what I initially included has been taken off since, thanks for that Scribd!), but they are all, if not read, then ones I want to read sometime soon.

    *You may not actually have access to all 50 of these books, since Scribd can vary in availability depending on country.

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  • All Recommended,  Book Recs,  Literature

    Book Recs: Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum

    19 January, 2021

    In desperation, two days ago, I asked for a rec list theme. The response I got was the theme of pirates, or the sea in general. Now, I’ve not read that many pirate books (not that I would feel able to rec, at least), so I went with the latter.

    So, if you’ve been listening to sea shanties non-stop for however long, in this list you’ll be able to find yourself a book that they’re the perfect soundtrack to.

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  • All Recommended,  Book Recs,  Literature

    Book Recs: Warm LGBT Hug Books

    15 January, 2021

    We asked what rec lists you guys would like to see & got this gorgeous request that maybe, possibly we have almost fought over. Just maybe.

    So anyway, the request was: “wholesome books full of queer characters if possible, essentially just books that feel like a big queer warm hug because I cannot handle reading anything else”. You would fight to recommend people books like that, too, wouldn’t you? Enjoy then!

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  • Book of the Month,  Literature

    Book of the Month: Me, My Dad and the End of the Rainbow

    7 January, 2021

    Today’s post is our, slightly delayed, book of the month announcement! This time, we’ve chosen Me, My Dad and the End of the Rainbow, a children’s-slash-middle-grade book about a kid who just wants to make his dad happy, so he sets off to Pride in order to do that. If you want a book that will make you feel happy and full of love, this is the book for you.

    You can also check out my (Charlotte’s) review of it here!

    Related: Don’t forget all releases can be found in our monthly lists here.
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  • All Recommended,  Book Recs,  Literature

    Book Recs: Gender in SFF

    24 December, 2020

    A while back, Anna asked for rec list suggestions and one of the ones that came up was nonbinary SFF. Now, they passed that onto me, since that’s not really their ballpark, and I sort of changed the rules ever so slightly. Instead of solely nonbinary rep (although most of the books here are still that), I’ve just gone for SFF that actually considers gender in its worldbuilding.

    It’s a smaller category than you might think, sadly. But because it’s Christmas (or another winter holiday of your choice), I’ve lengthened this post from the usual 10 books to include a couple more.

    So, enjoy!

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  • All Recommended,  Book Recs,  Literature

    Book Recs: YA Contemporary That Isn’t About Coming Out

    18 December, 2020

    Books which features coming out scenes are all very well and good — we do, after all, need to see a wide range of those and there are areas where that story still hasn’t been told — but sometimes you just want to read a book where the fact that the main character is gay is wholly incidental to the story. That is, not a coming out story, nor really a romance.

    So, here are 10 books which (hopefully) suit that remit. Yes, some do feature romances, but they aren’t romance books, in the sense that it’s central to the story. (Oh, and they’re all contemporary, because it doesn’t really make sense to make my task easier by including other genres, since obviously they wouldn’t have coming out scenes.)

    But anyway. On with the list.

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  • All Recommended,  Film & TV Recs,  Film & TV Shows

    Film & TV Recs: LGBT Romcoms

    16 December, 2020

    Okay, before we start: yes, there’s only one movie with trans rep and it’s a short feature at that. I know. (I made the list 11 titles long instead of the usual 10 to counterbalance that.) I was going to include Boy Meets Girl (which features a trans actress in the main role, in case you didn’t know), but frankly I have very mixed feelings about that movie. It feels a lot like a film for cis audience and not at all for trans people, and I really, really don’t understand why they didn’t go the sapphic route all the way.

    I will tell you about an upcoming romcom with a trans main character played by a trans actress, though! Right now it’s called Re-Live: A Tale of an American Island Cheerleader and it stars Rain Valdez in the main role. Look out for that in 2021!

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  • All Reviews,  Literature

    Book Reviews: Lesbian Books for the Soul

    12 December, 2020

    In case you haven’t heard of Bywater Books before now, they are an independent publishing company that only publishes lesbian fiction. So obviously, they’re one of our favourites. And we are very lucky to be able to review three of their books today!

    So, if you’re looking for a contemporary romance, or a mystery, check out these books!

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