ownvoices Archives — Page 4 of 14

All Recommended, Book Recs, Literature

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

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Book of the Month, Literature

Book of the Month: Spin Me Right Round

3 November, 2021

We’re approaching the end of the year now, which makes this month’s book of the month the final 2021 release we’ll be highlighting. And it’s one you won’t want to miss out on, that’s for sure. If you like the same kind of vibes as Back to the Future has, then this book is for you.

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: 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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All Recommended, Book Recs, Literature

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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All Recommended, Book Recs, Literature

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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All Recommended, Book Recs, Literature

Book Recs: Books for fans of Mary Oliver’s poetry

27 September, 2021

It’s a companion post of sorts to one of my previous rec lists, where I recommended people books based on their favourite Richard Siken quotes. This time the quotes are lesbian, though.

The idea is very simple: I asked our followers on twitter to choose their most beloved quote by Mary Oliver (which isn’t easy, I know!) & then tried to figure out what book does it remind me of. Sometimes based on vibes alone, sometimes based more on the plot. So let’s go.

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All Recommended, Book Recs, Literature

Book Recs: Historical Romances

13 September, 2021

There’s something about a good histrom that just perfectly scratches a certain itch for me. And once I find an author whose books I enjoy, I will binge their entire backlist. That being said, it’s still an area where, at least in tradpub, it’s very cishet and white. So, here I’ve done my utmost to find you 10 recs that are very much not cishet (although they do remain quite white, so if anyone has recs of their own, please do drop them in the comments!). For that time when you just need a good histrom.

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All Reviews, Literature

ARC Review: The Final Child

5 September, 2021

I’m sure by now you know that I a) love thrillers, and b) love Fran Dorricott’s thrillers. If you don’t? Well, here I am to put you right on that. If you’re looking for something fast-paced and full of action to read this week, then I offer you this one.

Erin and her brother Alex were the last children abducted by ‘the Father’, a serial killer who only ever took pairs of siblings. She escaped, but her brother was never seen again. Traumatised, Erin couldn’t remember anything about her ordeal, and the Father was never caught.

Eighteen years later, Erin has done her best to put the past behind her. But then she meets Harriet. Harriet’s young cousins were the Father’s first victims and, haunted by their deaths, she is writing a book about the disappearances and is desperate for an interview. At first, Erin wants nothing to do with her. But then she starts receiving sinister gifts, her house is broken into, and she can’t shake the feeling that she’s being watched. After all these years, Erin believed that the Father was gone, but now she begins to wonder if he was only waiting…

The Final Child

Fran Dorricott

Goodreads

Rep: lesbian mcs
CWs: child death, child abduction, gore, amputation, violence, child abuse, past suicide
Release: 7th September 2021

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Book of the Month, Literature

Book of the Month: A Tale of Two Omars

3 September, 2021

After months and months of fiction for our BOTM feature, for September, we’ve taken a different tack, and selected a memoir. It’s due out in just over a month so still plenty of time to preorder, if you find it’s of interest to you. So take a look, and let us know!

Related: Don’t forget all releases can be found in our monthly lists here.

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All Releases, Book Releases, Literature

Book Releases: Ownvoices M/M books of July-December 2021

16 August, 2021

Specific labels may vary but all the books in this post have achillean main characters & are written by achillean authors. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t be reading m/m books which aren’t, roughly speaking, ownvoices. Rather, a place to celebrate the few that are.

Of course, I’m only human, so if you spot any mistakes or missing titles, let me know!

See also: ownvoices m/m books of January-June 2021, of January-June 2020 & of July-December 2020.

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All Recommended, Book Recs, Literature

Book Recs: Zodiac Signs as LGBT Books

8 August, 2021

This idea is sort of born of this thread (which was a great thread, if I do say so myself, so there’s a little bit of overlap in some signs…but I’ve mostly tried to add new books), but I decided I wanted to turn it into a blog post featuring all LGBT books, instead of solely sapphic ones. And here we are! This post contains thirty six books, one for the sun, moon & rising for each sign. So, if you’re looking for a way to create a little fun TBR, look no further!

Of course, I couldn’t start this post without having mentioned Anaïs, who is vastly more knowledgeable of astrology than me, and who helped a lot with fitting the right books in.

Want to skip to your sign?

Aquarius | Pisces | Aries | Taurus | Gemini | Cancer | Leo | Virgo | Libra | Scorpio | Sagittarius | Capricorn

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Book of the Month, Literature

Book of the Month: The Final Child

3 August, 2021

This month’s book of the month was selected highly democratically (i.e. I said, let’s choose this one and Anna said you do you). I have to admit to already having read (and LOVED) this book, so, yeah, I’m a little biased here when I say this is perhaps one of the best thrillers I’ve ever read. It’s tense and terrifying and you’ll be on the edge of your seat the entire time. It’s one I’d suggest you preorder, and if you scroll down, you’ll find out just why I think that.

(But if that’s got you very excited, I can highly recommend After the Eclipse as well!)

Related: Don’t forget all releases can be found in our monthly lists here.

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All Releases, Book Releases, Literature

Book Releases: July-December 2021 Books With Bi Protagonists

24 July, 2021

A companion post to the one from the beginning of the year. Over 100 books with canon bisexual and/or pansexual protagonists. Or love interests. Or really major side characters.

My guidelines for choosing books to include in this post were pretty simple: either a character just uses the label or the text makes it abundantly clear that they’re bi/pan. (As you can imagine, not a lot of fantasy or historical books use modern labels.) If I missed anything that you think should be on the list, please let me know in the comments!

Like always on this blog, the rainbow emoji indicates that the book is by an LGBT author. 🌈

Related: January-June 2021 Bi/Pan Books, January-June 2020 Bi/Pan Books, July-December 2020 Bi/Pan Books

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Book of the Month, Literature

Book of the Month: For the Love of April French

4 July, 2021

July’s book of the month is a welcome addition to the subgenre of romance that features trans main characters. If you find yourself loving YA trans lit, but pining for something more adult to go along with that, then you’ll want to check this book out. So without further ado, scroll on to find out more!

Related: Don’t forget all releases can be found in our monthly lists here.

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All Recommended, Book Recs, Literature

In the Intersection: Neurodiversity and Disability in LGBT Lit

24 June, 2021

The final post in our intersection series is here! Today we’re looking at books which feature neurodiverse or disability rep. That does, of course, give us a vast array of stories to choose from, and we couldn’t represent every possible facet of it in a single post. As such, perhaps even more than the lists, this is very much a starter pack. And if you don’t see a more popular one on here, that you might have been expecting, that’s just because we wanted to highlight those which aren’t often recced.

Everything else we’ve featured in this series can be found here: Black, African & Caribbean lit, East Asian lit, West Asian lit, South Asian lit, Southeast Asian lit, Indigenous lit, religion in lit.

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