#lqbtq — Public Fediverse posts

Books: Favourite reads, Aug’26

My usual quick hello and thanks to new subscribers: I promise I won’t overload your inbox, you’ll only hear from me once a month or less with these book capsule-reviews or the occasional announcement about one of my own books. Onwards:

I’m in a bit of a reading slump (sure to be lifted when I shortly treat myself to Daggerbound and the Salt King, and the upcoming Bodies of Magic, not to mention a new book by AJ Demas with its sequel soon to follow1!) but I still found plenty of engrossing reads over the last little while to share. Equal mix fiction (mostly fantasy, one technically-spec-fic) and non-fiction this month.

Fiction

Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner

Richard St Vier is the best of the best in a short-lived career option, a hired swordsman who duels for the elite for money — while quite grimly finishing every argument his damaged but oh-so-appealing boyfriend merrily starts for free. Of course, upper-class machinations come slumming to join the fun. OH GOOD LORD DID I LOVE THIS! I came across it mentioned in the Queer Bookshelf by Layla McCay, was immediately intrigued, and was not disappointed: excellent world-building, non-boring politics, complex characters with all the twisty morality and motivations you could desire. I went straight on to read the sequel, The Privilege of the Sword, which I also greatly enjoyed, though I would have liked a clever resolution like in Swordspoint rather than what the character in question actually did (not that it was not satisfying in its own way). In fact, I loved this so much I immediately wanted to write my own “honour2-and-swordfights” sort of book, promptly shoving my “terrifying death wizard but also misunderstood puppy” idea down the queue3.

Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames

I get a real kick out of the Old Heroes fantasy sub-genre, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have got past the grimdark, blokey cover. My favourites are the Crimson Empire trilogy by Alex Marshall, and the Land Fit for Heroes trilogy by Richard Morgan (though dark, very very dark, it has a hell of a moment at the end of the first book). This one takes the (warrior/music) band metaphor and runs with it: old bandmates reunite for one last tour to mount an impossible rescue. All the characters are well-drawn (I especially loved Clay, our MC) and their old-friends interplay is a treat, the reunion road trip is immense fun, and the resolution satisfying. I also read the sequel, Bloody Rose, which I still liked but not quite at the same visceral level, since it’s coming-of-age, and I came of age thirty years ago; I have slightly more in common with the old heroes 🙂 I do wish this author had written more.

Perilous Times by Thomas D Lee

I think this probably counts as Old Heroes too, since our knights have been kicking about for a thousand years or so. It is eminently readable: once I started, I did not want to put it down. It begins with Kay, King Arthur’s brother (not technically a knight of the Round Table), digging his way out of his grave with a pragmatic all-right-what-peril-do-I-have-to-take-a-sword-to-this-time attitude, having grown used to answering the call through multiple wars and other crises. Unfortunately a young eco-warrior soon shows him it’s not something you can just whack with a sword: set in the near future, the peril is world-ending climate change, in a depressingly realistic fashion4. Meanwhile Lancelot is back, too, and just as jaded; I can’t be the only reformed teen-reader-of-Arthurian-legends to be unsurprised he’s portrayed as a dick. He’s also gay and still offended by accusations of seducing Guinevere (though the book uses traditional Welsh spelling quite often). They end up on opposing sides of an eco-war, and things just spiral from there. Funny and sad in turns, it has fantastic momentum and a charming mix of world-weariness and stubborn hope. I’d started recommending it to friends before I was even halfway through and will be reading the sequel (prequel?) soon.

Time Travel for Beginners by Jaclyn Moriarty

One of my more mainstream-lit reads, this is the one I’d call technically spec-fic, since it does, in fact, have time travel in it as promised5. But it’s more general fiction with family, friends and romance, with an element of hand-waved-science time travel to draw it together — but it’s funny (particularly the reviews of the time travel agency by satisfied, bemused, or angry customers), Australian, heartfelt, chockful of well-realised characters, and very easy to read.

Non-Fiction

A Curious History of Sex by Dr Kate Lister

A madcap dash through some of the illuminating trends and episodes in the long history and deep breadth of human sexuality by the inestimable host of the Between the Sheets podcast, with a lean towards her areas of research. Sometimes dark, sometimes hilarious, always told with sympathy, wisdom, and wit, and a deep understanding of human nature.

Lifeboat at the End of the World by Dominic Gregory

Part-memoir, part-history centred around the volunteer lifeboat crew of Dungeness, opening in the dramatic days of rescuing boat after boat of sinking asylum-seekers crossing from France and the resulting media scrum and racist rhetoric. Well-written, beautiful sense of place, steadfast morality in the face of provocation, and a paean to that most human of things: a lifesaving tradition maintained across centuries purely by volunteers, inspiring but also heart-breaking at times.

Proto by Laura Spinney

The story of the Proto-Indo-European language, and what the linguistic evidence, the archaeological evidence, the genetic evidence, and the blend of all three strands now tells us about its origins and messy spread across Europe and Asia, and how that reshapes what we know of world history. I personally found it enthralling, but it’s probably a slightly niche interest 🙂

If This Be Magic by Daniel Hahn [audiobook]

Subtitle is “the unlikely art of Shakespeare in translation”, a very apt tagline for a fascinating topic: there are so many major and micro-decisions to be made at every step just with standard translations, and translating the archaic language, wordplay, structure, rhythm, settings, culture and context of Shakespeare adds endless complexity: it can never be a literal word-for-word translation when you’re eg trying to recreate a pun or replicate an extended metaphor that simply does not work in the target language. Even punctuation has to be thought about. Hahn imparted so much respect for the skill, ingenuity and dedication of these translators. Sometimes they even have the advantage, because they can speak to their modern audience more effectively than the English productions where any adaptation for modern times is challenged: “I wish we could translate Shakespeare, too”. I could quote half the book, but I’ll limit myself to this last pithy maxim: “A writer will do things because they can, and so a translator must contrive to do those same things even if they can’t”.

And

Book release done! Writing Fest done! New WIP commences September 1, and I’m chomping at the bit (the upside of enforcing a solid three-week break was that my brain promptly started obsessively plotting scenes to avoid the stress of my first author-talk event in almost 20 years of publishing).

Fellow Aussies, I’ve added signed print copies to my Payhip store. (Sorry, International readers, I would be frankly embarrassed to have to charge you the postage it takes to send anything overseas from Australia.)

1. Is it too much to ask that an online-bookstore algorithm will alert me to new releases by an author whose every books I’ve devoured, instead of flooding me with books by an author I glanced at once, leaving me to discover precious new Demas by sheer fluke? ↩︎
2. My themes usually arise organically during the first draft, but the moment you’re dealing with duels, you’re dealing with honour, it’s unavoidable ↩︎
3. Itself having displaced the poor neglected “spider heist” book I’ve been wanting to write since I read Silk & Venom by James O’Hanlon in 2023. ↩︎
4. Especially with the new UK PM spectacularly failing to take the heatwave hint of the oncoming FO stage of our new FAFO era with his keep-drilling-cut-EV-and-solar-targets policies. ↩︎
5. This is a very vague reference to another recent mainstream book which did not fulfill its promise. ↩︎

Books: Favourite reads, Aug’26

My usual quick hello and thanks to new subscribers: I promise I won’t overload your inbox, you’ll only hear from me once a month or less with these book capsule-reviews or the occasional announcement about one of my own books. Onwards:

I’m in a bit of a reading slump (sure to be lifted when I shortly treat myself to Daggerbound and the Salt King, and the upcoming Bodies of Magic, not to mention a new book by AJ Demas with its sequel soon to follow1!) but I still found plenty of engrossing reads over the last little while to share. Equal mix fiction (mostly fantasy, one technically-spec-fic) and non-fiction this month.

Fiction

Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner

Richard St Vier is the best of the best in a short-lived career option, a hired swordsman who duels for the elite for money — while quite grimly finishing every argument his damaged but oh-so-appealing boyfriend merrily starts for free. Of course, upper-class machinations come slumming to join the fun. OH GOOD LORD DID I LOVE THIS! I came across it mentioned in the Queer Bookshelf by Layla McCay, was immediately intrigued, and was not disappointed: excellent world-building, non-boring politics, complex characters with all the twisty morality and motivations you could desire. I went straight on to read the sequel, The Privilege of the Sword, which I also greatly enjoyed, though I would have liked a clever resolution like in Swordspoint rather than what the character in question actually did (not that it was not satisfying in its own way). In fact, I loved this so much I immediately wanted to write my own “honour2-and-swordfights” sort of book, promptly shoving my “terrifying death wizard but also misunderstood puppy” idea down the queue3.

Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames

I get a real kick out of the Old Heroes fantasy sub-genre, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have got past the grimdark, blokey cover. My favourites are the Crimson Empire trilogy by Alex Marshall, and the Land Fit for Heroes trilogy by Richard Morgan (though dark, very very dark, it has a hell of a moment at the end of the first book). This one takes the (warrior/music) band metaphor and runs with it: old bandmates reunite for one last tour to mount an impossible rescue. All the characters are well-drawn (I especially loved Clay, our MC) and their old-friends interplay is a treat, the reunion road trip is immense fun, and the resolution satisfying. I also read the sequel, Bloody Rose, which I still liked but not quite at the same visceral level, since it’s coming-of-age, and I came of age thirty years ago; I have slightly more in common with the old heroes 🙂 I do wish this author had written more.

Perilous Times by Thomas D Lee

I think this probably counts as Old Heroes too, since our knights have been kicking about for a thousand years or so. It is eminently readable: once I started, I did not want to put it down. It begins with Kay, King Arthur’s brother (not technically a knight of the Round Table), digging his way out of his grave with a pragmatic all-right-what-peril-do-I-have-to-take-a-sword-to-this-time attitude, having grown used to answering the call through multiple wars and other crises. Unfortunately a young eco-warrior soon shows him it’s not something you can just whack with a sword: set in the near future, the peril is world-ending climate change, in a depressingly realistic fashion4. Meanwhile Lancelot is back, too, and just as jaded; I can’t be the only reformed teen-reader-of-Arthurian-legends to be unsurprised he’s portrayed as a dick. He’s also gay and still offended by accusations of seducing Guinevere (though the book uses traditional Welsh spelling quite often). They end up on opposing sides of an eco-war, and things just spiral from there. Funny and sad in turns, it has fantastic momentum and a charming mix of world-weariness and stubborn hope. I’d started recommending it to friends before I was even halfway through and will be reading the sequel (prequel?) soon.

Time Travel for Beginners by Jaclyn Moriarty

One of my more mainstream-lit reads, this is the one I’d call technically spec-fic, since it does, in fact, have time travel in it as promised5. But it’s more general fiction with family, friends and romance, with an element of hand-waved-science time travel to draw it together — but it’s funny (particularly the reviews of the time travel agency by satisfied, bemused, or angry customers), Australian, heartfelt, chockful of well-realised characters, and very easy to read.

Non-Fiction

A Curious History of Sex by Dr Kate Lister

A madcap dash through some of the illuminating trends and episodes in the long history and deep breadth of human sexuality by the inestimable host of the Between the Sheets podcast, with a lean towards her areas of research. Sometimes dark, sometimes hilarious, always told with sympathy, wisdom, and wit, and a deep understanding of human nature.

Lifeboat at the End of the World by Dominic Gregory

Part-memoir, part-history centred around the volunteer lifeboat crew of Dungeness, opening in the dramatic days of rescuing boat after boat of sinking asylum-seekers crossing from France and the resulting media scrum and racist rhetoric. Well-written, beautiful sense of place, steadfast morality in the face of provocation, and a paean to that most human of things: a lifesaving tradition maintained across centuries purely by volunteers, inspiring but also heart-breaking at times.

Proto by Laura Spinney

The story of the Proto-Indo-European language, and what the linguistic evidence, the archaeological evidence, the genetic evidence, and the blend of all three strands now tells us about its origins and messy spread across Europe and Asia, and how that reshapes what we know of world history. I personally found it enthralling, but it’s probably a slightly niche interest 🙂

If This Be Magic by Daniel Hahn [audiobook]

Subtitle is “the unlikely art of Shakespeare in translation”, a very apt tagline for a fascinating topic: there are so many major and micro-decisions to be made at every step just with standard translations, and translating the archaic language, wordplay, structure, rhythm, settings, culture and context of Shakespeare adds endless complexity: it can never be a literal word-for-word translation when you’re eg trying to recreate a pun or replicate an extended metaphor that simply does not work in the target language. Even punctuation has to be thought about. Hahn imparted so much respect for the skill, ingenuity and dedication of these translators. Sometimes they even have the advantage, because they can speak to their modern audience more effectively than the English productions where any adaptation for modern times is challenged: “I wish we could translate Shakespeare, too”. I could quote half the book, but I’ll limit myself to this last pithy maxim: “A writer will do things because they can, and so a translator must contrive to do those same things even if they can’t”.

And

Book release done! Writing Fest done! New WIP commences September 1, and I’m chomping at the bit (the upside of enforcing a solid three-week break was that my brain promptly started obsessively plotting scenes to avoid the stress of my first author-talk event in almost 20 years of publishing).

Fellow Aussies, I’ve added signed print copies to my Payhip store. (Sorry, International readers, I would be frankly embarrassed to have to charge you the postage it takes to send anything overseas from Australia.)

1. Is it too much to ask that an online-bookstore algorithm will alert me to new releases by an author whose every books I’ve devoured, instead of flooding me with books by an author I glanced at once, leaving me to discover precious new Demas by sheer fluke? ↩︎
2. My themes usually arise organically during the first draft, but the moment you’re dealing with duels, you’re dealing with honour, it’s unavoidable ↩︎
3. Itself having displaced the poor neglected “spider heist” book I’ve been wanting to write since I read Silk & Venom by James O’Hanlon in 2023. ↩︎
4. Especially with the new UK PM spectacularly failing to take the heatwave hint of the oncoming FO stage of our new FAFO era with his keep-drilling-cut-EV-and-solar-targets policies. ↩︎
5. This is a very vague reference to another recent mainstream book which did not fulfill its promise. ↩︎

Books: Favourite reads, Aug’26

My usual quick hello and thanks to new subscribers: I promise I won’t overload your inbox, you’ll only hear from me once a month or less with these book capsule-reviews or the occasional announcement about one of my own books. Onwards:

I’m in a bit of a reading slump (sure to be lifted when I shortly treat myself to Daggerbound and the Salt King, and the upcoming Bodies of Magic, not to mention a new book by AJ Demas with its sequel soon to follow1!) but I still found plenty of engrossing reads over the last little while to share. Equal mix fiction (mostly fantasy, one technically-spec-fic) and non-fiction this month.

Fiction

Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner

Richard St Vier is the best of the best in a short-lived career option, a hired swordsman who duels for the elite for money — while quite grimly finishing every argument his damaged but oh-so-appealing boyfriend merrily starts for free. Of course, upper-class machinations come slumming to join the fun. OH GOOD LORD DID I LOVE THIS! I came across it mentioned in the Queer Bookshelf by Layla McCay, was immediately intrigued, and was not disappointed: excellent world-building, non-boring politics, complex characters with all the twisty morality and motivations you could desire. I went straight on to read the sequel, The Privilege of the Sword, which I also greatly enjoyed, though I would have liked a clever resolution like in Swordspoint rather than what the character in question actually did (not that it was not satisfying in its own way). In fact, I loved this so much I immediately wanted to write my own “honour2-and-swordfights” sort of book, promptly shoving my “terrifying death wizard but also misunderstood puppy” idea down the queue3.

Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames

I get a real kick out of the Old Heroes fantasy sub-genre, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have got past the grimdark, blokey cover. My favourites are the Crimson Empire trilogy by Alex Marshall, and the Land Fit for Heroes trilogy by Richard Morgan (though dark, very very dark, it has a hell of a moment at the end of the first book). This one takes the (warrior/music) band metaphor and runs with it: old bandmates reunite for one last tour to mount an impossible rescue. All the characters are well-drawn (I especially loved Clay, our MC) and their old-friends interplay is a treat, the reunion road trip is immense fun, and the resolution satisfying. I also read the sequel, Bloody Rose, which I still liked but not quite at the same visceral level, since it’s coming-of-age, and I came of age thirty years ago; I have slightly more in common with the old heroes 🙂 I do wish this author had written more.

Perilous Times by Thomas D Lee

I think this probably counts as Old Heroes too, since our knights have been kicking about for a thousand years or so. It is eminently readable: once I started, I did not want to put it down. It begins with Kay, King Arthur’s brother (not technically a knight of the Round Table), digging his way out of his grave with a pragmatic all-right-what-peril-do-I-have-to-take-a-sword-to-this-time attitude, having grown used to answering the call through multiple wars and other crises. Unfortunately a young eco-warrior soon shows him it’s not something you can just whack with a sword: set in the near future, the peril is world-ending climate change, in a depressingly realistic fashion4. Meanwhile Lancelot is back, too, and just as jaded; I can’t be the only reformed teen-reader-of-Arthurian-legends to be unsurprised he’s portrayed as a dick. He’s also gay and still offended by accusations of seducing Guinevere (though the book uses traditional Welsh spelling quite often). They end up on opposing sides of an eco-war, and things just spiral from there. Funny and sad in turns, it has fantastic momentum and a charming mix of world-weariness and stubborn hope. I’d started recommending it to friends before I was even halfway through and will be reading the sequel (prequel?) soon.

Time Travel for Beginners by Jaclyn Moriarty

One of my more mainstream-lit reads, this is the one I’d call technically spec-fic, since it does, in fact, have time travel in it as promised5. But it’s more general fiction with family, friends and romance, with an element of hand-waved-science time travel to draw it together — but it’s funny (particularly the reviews of the time travel agency by satisfied, bemused, or angry customers), Australian, heartfelt, chockful of well-realised characters, and very easy to read.

Non-Fiction

A Curious History of Sex by Dr Kate Lister

A madcap dash through some of the illuminating trends and episodes in the long history and deep breadth of human sexuality by the inestimable host of the Between the Sheets podcast, with a lean towards her areas of research. Sometimes dark, sometimes hilarious, always told with sympathy, wisdom, and wit, and a deep understanding of human nature.

Lifeboat at the End of the World by Dominic Gregory

Part-memoir, part-history centred around the volunteer lifeboat crew of Dungeness, opening in the dramatic days of rescuing boat after boat of sinking asylum-seekers crossing from France and the resulting media scrum and racist rhetoric. Well-written, beautiful sense of place, steadfast morality in the face of provocation, and a paean to that most human of things: a lifesaving tradition maintained across centuries purely by volunteers, inspiring but also heart-breaking at times.

Proto by Laura Spinney

The story of the Proto-Indo-European language, and what the linguistic evidence, the archaeological evidence, the genetic evidence, and the blend of all three strands now tells us about its origins and messy spread across Europe and Asia, and how that reshapes what we know of world history. I personally found it enthralling, but it’s probably a slightly niche interest 🙂

If This Be Magic by Daniel Hahn [audiobook]

Subtitle is “the unlikely art of Shakespeare in translation”, a very apt tagline for a fascinating topic: there are so many major and micro-decisions to be made at every step just with standard translations, and translating the archaic language, wordplay, structure, rhythm, settings, culture and context of Shakespeare adds endless complexity: it can never be a literal word-for-word translation when you’re eg trying to recreate a pun or replicate an extended metaphor that simply does not work in the target language. Even punctuation has to be thought about. Hahn imparted so much respect for the skill, ingenuity and dedication of these translators. Sometimes they even have the advantage, because they can speak to their modern audience more effectively than the English productions where any adaptation for modern times is challenged: “I wish we could translate Shakespeare, too”. I could quote half the book, but I’ll limit myself to this last pithy maxim: “A writer will do things because they can, and so a translator must contrive to do those same things even if they can’t”.

And

Book release done! Writing Fest done! New WIP commences September 1, and I’m chomping at the bit (the upside of enforcing a solid three-week break was that my brain promptly started obsessively plotting scenes to avoid the stress of my first author-talk event in almost 20 years of publishing).

Fellow Aussies, I’ve added signed print copies to my Payhip store. (Sorry, International readers, I would be frankly embarrassed to have to charge you the postage it takes to send anything overseas from Australia.)

1. Is it too much to ask that an online-bookstore algorithm will alert me to new releases by an author whose every books I’ve devoured, instead of flooding me with books by an author I glanced at once, leaving me to discover precious new Demas by sheer fluke? ↩︎
2. My themes usually arise organically during the first draft, but the moment you’re dealing with duels, you’re dealing with honour, it’s unavoidable ↩︎
3. Itself having displaced the poor neglected “spider heist” book I’ve been wanting to write since I read Silk & Venom by James O’Hanlon in 2023. ↩︎
4. Especially with the new UK PM spectacularly failing to take the heatwave hint of the oncoming FO stage of our new FAFO era with his keep-drilling-cut-EV-and-solar-targets policies. ↩︎
5. This is a very vague reference to another recent mainstream book which did not fulfill its promise. ↩︎

Author Notes: Rogue & Vagabond

First thing: sometimes you just have to get a scream of outrage into the world. This book is my scream (if not screech). Please check the content warnings, particularly if you are sick of our current Epstein Files reality. A book with the Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon (aka Victorian-era exploitation of young girls by powerful men) as its background may not be the escapist read you are looking for.

That said: it’s out for release on 21 August, but as sometimes happens when I give myself plenty of lead-time, the ebook is ready to go, and blog readers can purchase it indie-direct right now. Otherwise, it might be popping up for pre-order at your usual retailer by now, or look for it on or after the 21st. As usual, it will be available in Kobo Plus and several other subscription services, and on Hoopla/request via your library.

I also made some fake vintage postcards1 to give away at my little local writers fest at the end of August: if you’d like one, email me your postal address, international a-ok (I’m not being creepy, I will purge it afterwards!). This is a while-stocks-last, first-come-first-served gift that I’ll mail out in the first week of September, assuming leftovers post-fest. You can use it as a bookmark, and it’s printed on recycled paper for eco-cred 🙂

Now, to Rogue & Vagabond. The title comes from Rictor Norton’s fantastic historical gay archive, specifically from this primary source. If there’s a better 1) way to be remembered 2) pub name 3) description of my central pair, Gabe & Tor, I don’t know what it could be.

If my other historical fantasy romance set in a popular garden of the Victorian era was ‘Leo’s Got Ghosts’, this one’s ‘Gabe Got Ghosted’ aka Tor left him on Read. Other words that weren’t around in their modern iteration in 1886 that would have been very useful: stroppy and bolshie (also deadline and burnt-out). That’s Gabe, London journalist, still thinking about a one-night stand he had eight months ago. He’s probably my most Australian-esque character so far2, so expect copious swearing.

The Victorian-era garden in question, at Lamport Hall, gained fame for – as in, tourists would come to see, in droves – the gigantic rockery created over five decades by Sir Charles Isham, the tenth baronet. And also for what he decided to populate it with:

Garden gnomes. More accurately, little decorative figurines from Bavaria, representing guardian spirits of the mines, which he repurposed into his rockery (Wikipedia will tell you he collected them from the 1840s, but that’s just when he inherited the baronetcy and started building the rockery, the gnomes came later, according to other sources).

Supposedly, his gnomes, or the use of decorative indoor ceramic figures outdoors, are the first documented garden gnomes in England, the spiritual forefathers of tacky modern garden decoration everywhere. We see where that ended up: I live within cooee3 of the eldritch horror that is Gnomesville4.

I write fantasy, this is an historical fantasy, you can guess where the focus on the gnomes is going. Should be fun and fluffy, right?

Except I decided to set the bloody thing just after WT Stead’s crusade, which adds a darker undertone, not least because the very same amendment to the Act that raised the age of consent for girls introduced the Labouchère Amendment, outlawing consensual sex between men in a much more enforceable way than previously (as Gabe5 points out, it wasn’t legal before Section 11, it was just harder to prosecute).

So my leads are dealing with a few things, to say the least. Hey, I could have set it in 1888…

By the way, you can do an online tour of Lamport Hall here, and, of course, if you’re in the UK, make sure to take a visit sometime, it’s a hidden gem an’ all.

1. Accurate to the early 1900s when they assumed their modern-ish form; 1880s postcards were just plain poorly-designed (the entire back was reserved for the address, your message had to be squeezed around the front image, what the hell!) ↩︎
2. Not literally “strewth, stone the flamin’ crows, we’re not here to fuck spiders” Australian (I’m saving him for the next historical…), more, Gabe and I might very well share some transported ancestors ↩︎
3. cooee = earshot/shouting distance, especially in the bush ↩︎
4. I’m allowed to make fun, because I’M LOCAL: it’s actually a very nice community tradition ↩︎
5. Hat tip to Rictor Norton again, and other commentaries, pointing out that the common framing of “Section 11 made gay sex made illegal” is too simplistic ↩︎

Books: Favourite reads, June’26

It was a month of catching up on series (for someone who strongly prefers stand-alones, I follow a fair few) – Singing Hills, MurderBot, the Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi – plus the latest releases by a subset of my usual favourites – Caitlin Rozakis, Alexis Hall, KJ Charles, CM Waggoner. These were all great reads that I would happily recommend, but this month’s mini-reviews feature new-to-me and debut authors, plus non-fiction.

Fiction

Wine for Roses by Emily O’Malley Liu

A sweet romantic fantasy novella set in a modern world that has widely-accepted hedgewitch-type magic, it follows Ethan as he must go work in a cursed garden after his father steals a rose, and meets the troubled trustee of the wild estate. Somewhere between a Beauty and the Beast retelling and a cosy T Kingfisher. This is one of those times I would have liked it longer than a novella, as the romance felt a bit quick/underdeveloped, but it was lovely read.

Bad, Bad Place by Francis Crawford

Twelve-year-old Janey finds a dead body, and her attempts to cope with it draw her and her grandmother into the grimy criminal underworld of her Scottish town (but much less grim than that makes it sound!). I have a soft spot for prepubescent-girl-solves-murder subgenre of murder-mysteries1, two favourites being The Nancys (since republished under a slightly different title), and Martha Grimes’s Emma Graham trilogy (highly recommend the audiobooks), this is an excellent addition, funny and authentic, by a debut author in her 60s.

Before the Bomb by Bobby Gass

A medium must solve a wartime cold case (more accurate, unidentified murder) when the murdered woman starts haunting her four-year-old son, giving him nightmares and the sort of disturbed behaviours that might make an ex-husband call in protective services. It’s set in the 90s, mostly so it’s plausible that some witnesses would still be alive, and partly so they can’t just use ancestors.co.uk to do most of the legwork (they have to use a volunteer pensioner instead). I was very involved in this story, Lucy is an excellent, wryly funny narrator (what they’re calling voicy), and I especially appreciated that being a single working mum with a young child did impact her investigations (sometimes they might as well not have a kid, for all they have to struggle to find babysitters or do parent stuff).

The Red Winter by Cameron Sullivan

Another debut author, this one from my hometown of Perth, and one of my rarest reads, a werewolf book – but not paranormal, a rich historical fantasy. It takes the original medieval French werewolf legend and gives its an extra supernatural twist involving demons and pseudo-saints. It is on the darker side, but is very well-told, and has great characters and a good voice. Would follow these characters into a sequel for sure.

Non-Fiction

Why Q Needs U by Danny Bate

These “history of the [English] alphabet” books seem to come along with regularity, and I always end up reading them. This one takes an appealingly broader focus, using some letters to expand on the history of English as a whole, and includes a passionate defence of English’s idiosyncratic spelling system at the end. I listened on audiobook, which was good for hearing all the pronunciations (but an occasional challenge for visual shapes).

True Color by Kory Stamper

Continuing the English-language theme, this book takes an in-depth look at the particular challenge of defining colour in words, through the lens of the personalities involved in this speciality area during the creation of the third edition of the Mirriam-Webster Dictionary. I went straight on to read Stamper’s first book, a part-memoir, part-treatise about the art and science of lexicography.

The Blood Countess by Shelley Puhak

In a whiplash from cheerful explorations of the English language, this is the real story behind the legend of history’s most prolific female serial killer and supposed inspiration for Dracula. Simply put, it’s a biography of Elizabeth Bathory placed into the context of a turbulent era of war, plague, sectarian violence, political treachery, climate emergency and fear of powerful women (haven’t we come a long way in 400 years). As a wealthy widow from a powerful family, Elizabeth attracted enemies, but instead of the usual accusations of incestuous adultery and witchcraft so often used to attack women in power, her accusers spun ill-founded rumours of abuse into a frankly unbelievable murder spree that saw her arrested and her servants tortured into making convoluted confessions that radiated out unchallenged for hundreds of years. The saddest thing (aside from torture, murder and betrayal, of course) was the perverting of her genuine care for her people into examples of her supposed abuse, similar to how the medical care often provided by minor noblewomen in early England was turned into witchcraft.

Dark Archives by Megan Rosenbloom

A boutique history of medicine through the lens of human-skin (anthropodermic) book binding, telling the stories behind some of the confirmed examples, from criminals to impoverished women to volunteers to fakes, with detours to a traditional tannery to explore contemporaneous book-binding methods and a tattoo parlour for the modern problem of preserving treasured tattoos. Any book that includes the line “corpse desecration is ultimately in the eye of the beholder” is certainly delving deep into ethics and consent. A fascinating read!

And

Final draft complete! I even have a blurb (read it on my Books page). Full steam into the editing stage, still looking good for August.

1. As long as no harm comes to the girl, of course; some of these types of books mete out a very harsh punishment for tween meddling ↩︎

Books: Favourite reads, June’26

It was a month of catching up on series (for someone who strongly prefers stand-alones, I follow a fair few) – Singing Hills, MurderBot, the Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi – plus the latest releases by a subset of my usual favourites – Caitlin Rozakis, Alexis Hall, KJ Charles, CM Waggoner. These were all great reads that I would happily recommend, but this month’s mini-reviews feature new-to-me and debut authors, plus non-fiction.

Fiction

Wine for Roses by Emily O’Malley Liu

A sweet romantic fantasy novella set in a modern world that has widely-accepted hedgewitch-type magic, it follows Ethan as he must go work in a cursed garden after his father steals a rose, and meets the troubled trustee of the wild estate. Somewhere between a Beauty and the Beast retelling and a cosy T Kingfisher. This is one of those times I would have liked it longer than a novella, as the romance felt a bit quick/underdeveloped, but it was lovely read.

Bad, Bad Place by Francis Crawford

Twelve-year-old Janey finds a dead body, and her attempts to cope with it draw her and her grandmother into the grimy criminal underworld of her Scottish town (but much less grim than that makes it sound!). I have a soft spot for prepubescent-girl-solves-murder subgenre of murder-mysteries1, two favourites being The Nancys (since republished under a slightly different title), and Martha Grimes’s Emma Graham trilogy (highly recommend the audiobooks), this is an excellent addition, funny and authentic, by a debut author in her 60s.

Before the Bomb by Bobby Gass

A medium must solve a wartime cold case (more accurate, unidentified murder) when the murdered woman starts haunting her four-year-old son, giving him nightmares and the sort of disturbed behaviours that might make an ex-husband call in protective services. It’s set in the 90s, mostly so it’s plausible that some witnesses would still be alive, and partly so they can’t just use ancestors.co.uk to do most of the legwork (they have to use a volunteer pensioner instead). I was very involved in this story, Lucy is an excellent, wryly funny narrator (what they’re calling voicy), and I especially appreciated that being a single working mum with a young child did impact her investigations (sometimes they might as well not have a kid, for all they have to struggle to find babysitters or do parent stuff).

The Red Winter by Cameron Sullivan

Another debut author, this one from my hometown of Perth, and one of my rarest reads, a werewolf book – but not paranormal, a rich historical fantasy. It takes the original medieval French werewolf legend and gives its an extra supernatural twist involving demons and pseudo-saints. It is on the darker side, but is very well-told, and has great characters and a good voice. Would follow these characters into a sequel for sure.

Non-Fiction

Why Q Needs U by Danny Bate

These “history of the [English] alphabet” books seem to come along with regularity, and I always end up reading them. This one takes an appealingly broader focus, using some letters to expand on the history of English as a whole, and includes a passionate defence of English’s idiosyncratic spelling system at the end. I listened on audiobook, which was good for hearing all the pronunciations (but an occasional challenge for visual shapes).

True Color by Kory Stamper

Continuing the English-language theme, this book takes an in-depth look at the particular challenge of defining colour in words, through the lens of the personalities involved in this speciality area during the creation of the third edition of the Mirriam-Webster Dictionary. I went straight on to read Stamper’s first book, a part-memoir, part-treatise about the art and science of lexicography.

The Blood Countess by Shelley Puhak

In a whiplash from cheerful explorations of the English language, this is the real story behind the legend of history’s most prolific female serial killer and supposed inspiration for Dracula. Simply put, it’s a biography of Elizabeth Bathory placed into the context of a turbulent era of war, plague, sectarian violence, political treachery, climate emergency and fear of powerful women (haven’t we come a long way in 400 years). As a wealthy widow from a powerful family, Elizabeth attracted enemies, but instead of the usual accusations of incestuous adultery and witchcraft so often used to attack women in power, her accusers spun ill-founded rumours of abuse into a frankly unbelievable murder spree that saw her arrested and her servants tortured into making convoluted confessions that radiated out unchallenged for hundreds of years. The saddest thing (aside from torture, murder and betrayal, of course) was the perverting of her genuine care for her people into examples of her supposed abuse, similar to how the medical care often provided by minor noblewomen in early England was turned into witchcraft.

Dark Archives by Megan Rosenbloom

A boutique history of medicine through the lens of human-skin (anthropodermic) book binding, telling the stories behind some of the confirmed examples, from criminals to impoverished women to volunteers to fakes, with detours to a traditional tannery to explore contemporaneous book-binding methods and a tattoo parlour for the modern problem of preserving treasured tattoos. Any book that includes the line “corpse desecration is ultimately in the eye of the beholder” is certainly delving deep into ethics and consent. A fascinating read!

And

Final draft complete! I even have a blurb (read it on my Books page). Full steam into the editing stage, still looking good for August.

1. As long as no harm comes to the girl, of course; some of these types of books mete out a very harsh punishment for tween meddling ↩︎

Books: Favourite reads, June’26

It was a month of catching up on series (for someone who strongly prefers stand-alones, I follow a fair few) – Singing Hills, MurderBot, the Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi – plus the latest releases by a subset of my usual favourites – Caitlin Rozakis, Alexis Hall, KJ Charles, CM Waggoner. These were all great reads that I would happily recommend, but this month’s mini-reviews feature new-to-me and debut authors, plus non-fiction.

Fiction

Wine for Roses by Emily O’Malley Liu

A sweet romantic fantasy novella set in a modern world that has widely-accepted hedgewitch-type magic, it follows Ethan as he must go work in a cursed garden after his father steals a rose, and meets the troubled trustee of the wild estate. Somewhere between a Beauty and the Beast retelling and a cosy T Kingfisher. This is one of those times I would have liked it longer than a novella, as the romance felt a bit quick/underdeveloped, but it was lovely read.

Bad, Bad Place by Francis Crawford

Twelve-year-old Janey finds a dead body, and her attempts to cope with it draw her and her grandmother into the grimy criminal underworld of her Scottish town (but much less grim than that makes it sound!). I have a soft spot for prepubescent-girl-solves-murder subgenre of murder-mysteries1, two favourites being The Nancys (since republished under a slightly different title), and Martha Grimes’s Emma Graham trilogy (highly recommend the audiobooks), this is an excellent addition, funny and authentic, by a debut author in her 60s.

Before the Bomb by Bobby Gass

A medium must solve a wartime cold case (more accurate, unidentified murder) when the murdered woman starts haunting her four-year-old son, giving him nightmares and the sort of disturbed behaviours that might make an ex-husband call in protective services. It’s set in the 90s, mostly so it’s plausible that some witnesses would still be alive, and partly so they can’t just use ancestors.co.uk to do most of the legwork (they have to use a volunteer pensioner instead). I was very involved in this story, Lucy is an excellent, wryly funny narrator (what they’re calling voicy), and I especially appreciated that being a single working mum with a young child did impact her investigations (sometimes they might as well not have a kid, for all they have to struggle to find babysitters or do parent stuff).

The Red Winter by Cameron Sullivan

Another debut author, this one from my hometown of Perth, and one of my rarest reads, a werewolf book – but not paranormal, a rich historical fantasy. It takes the original medieval French werewolf legend and gives its an extra supernatural twist involving demons and pseudo-saints. It is on the darker side, but is very well-told, and has great characters and a good voice. Would follow these characters into a sequel for sure.

Non-Fiction

Why Q Needs U by Danny Bate

These “history of the [English] alphabet” books seem to come along with regularity, and I always end up reading them. This one takes an appealingly broader focus, using some letters to expand on the history of English as a whole, and includes a passionate defence of English’s idiosyncratic spelling system at the end. I listened on audiobook, which was good for hearing all the pronunciations (but an occasional challenge for visual shapes).

True Color by Kory Stamper

Continuing the English-language theme, this book takes an in-depth look at the particular challenge of defining colour in words, through the lens of the personalities involved in this speciality area during the creation of the third edition of the Mirriam-Webster Dictionary. I went straight on to read Stamper’s first book, a part-memoir, part-treatise about the art and science of lexicography.

The Blood Countess by Shelley Puhak

In a whiplash from cheerful explorations of the English language, this is the real story behind the legend of history’s most prolific female serial killer and supposed inspiration for Dracula. Simply put, it’s a biography of Elizabeth Bathory placed into the context of a turbulent era of war, plague, sectarian violence, political treachery, climate emergency and fear of powerful women (haven’t we come a long way in 400 years). As a wealthy widow from a powerful family, Elizabeth attracted enemies, but instead of the usual accusations of incestuous adultery and witchcraft so often used to attack women in power, her accusers spun ill-founded rumours of abuse into a frankly unbelievable murder spree that saw her arrested and her servants tortured into making convoluted confessions that radiated out unchallenged for hundreds of years. The saddest thing (aside from torture, murder and betrayal, of course) was the perverting of her genuine care for her people into examples of her supposed abuse, similar to how the medical care often provided by minor noblewomen in early England was turned into witchcraft.

Dark Archives by Megan Rosenbloom

A boutique history of medicine through the lens of human-skin (anthropodermic) book binding, telling the stories behind some of the confirmed examples, from criminals to impoverished women to volunteers to fakes, with detours to a traditional tannery to explore contemporaneous book-binding methods and a tattoo parlour for the modern problem of preserving treasured tattoos. Any book that includes the line “corpse desecration is ultimately in the eye of the beholder” is certainly delving deep into ethics and consent. A fascinating read!

And

Final draft complete! I even have a blurb (read it on my Books page). Full steam into the editing stage, still looking good for August.

1. As long as no harm comes to the girl, of course; some of these types of books mete out a very harsh punishment for tween meddling ↩︎

Books: Favourite reads, June’26

It was a month of catching up on series (for someone who strongly prefers stand-alones, I follow a fair few) – Singing Hills, MurderBot, the Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi – plus the latest releases by a subset of my usual favourites – Caitlin Rozakis, Alexis Hall, KJ Charles, CM Waggoner. These were all great reads that I would happily recommend, but this month’s mini-reviews feature new-to-me and debut authors, plus non-fiction.

Fiction

Wine for Roses by Emily O’Malley Liu

A sweet romantic fantasy novella set in a modern world that has widely-accepted hedgewitch-type magic, it follows Ethan as he must go work in a cursed garden after his father steals a rose, and meets the troubled trustee of the wild estate. Somewhere between a Beauty and the Beast retelling and a cosy T Kingfisher. This is one of those times I would have liked it longer than a novella, as the romance felt a bit quick/underdeveloped, but it was lovely read.

Bad, Bad Place by Francis Crawford

Twelve-year-old Janey finds a dead body, and her attempts to cope with it draw her and her grandmother into the grimy criminal underworld of her Scottish town (but much less grim than that makes it sound!). I have a soft spot for prepubescent-girl-solves-murder subgenre of murder-mysteries1, two favourites being The Nancys (since republished under a slightly different title), and Martha Grimes’s Emma Graham trilogy (highly recommend the audiobooks), this is an excellent addition, funny and authentic, by a debut author in her 60s.

Before the Bomb by Bobby Gass

A medium must solve a wartime cold case (more accurate, unidentified murder) when the murdered woman starts haunting her four-year-old son, giving him nightmares and the sort of disturbed behaviours that might make an ex-husband call in protective services. It’s set in the 90s, mostly so it’s plausible that some witnesses would still be alive, and partly so they can’t just use ancestors.co.uk to do most of the legwork (they have to use a volunteer pensioner instead). I was very involved in this story, Lucy is an excellent, wryly funny narrator (what they’re calling voicy), and I especially appreciated that being a single working mum with a young child did impact her investigations (sometimes they might as well not have a kid, for all they have to struggle to find babysitters or do parent stuff).

The Red Winter by Cameron Sullivan

Another debut author, this one from my hometown of Perth, and one of my rarest reads, a werewolf book – but not paranormal, a rich historical fantasy. It takes the original medieval French werewolf legend and gives its an extra supernatural twist involving demons and pseudo-saints. It is on the darker side, but is very well-told, and has great characters and a good voice. Would follow these characters into a sequel for sure.

Non-Fiction

Why Q Needs U by Danny Bate

These “history of the [English] alphabet” books seem to come along with regularity, and I always end up reading them. This one takes an appealingly broader focus, using some letters to expand on the history of English as a whole, and includes a passionate defence of English’s idiosyncratic spelling system at the end. I listened on audiobook, which was good for hearing all the pronunciations (but an occasional challenge for visual shapes).

True Color by Kory Stamper

Continuing the English-language theme, this book takes an in-depth look at the particular challenge of defining colour in words, through the lens of the personalities involved in this speciality area during the creation of the third edition of the Mirriam-Webster Dictionary. I went straight on to read Stamper’s first book, a part-memoir, part-treatise about the art and science of lexicography.

The Blood Countess by Shelley Puhak

In a whiplash from cheerful explorations of the English language, this is the real story behind the legend of history’s most prolific female serial killer and supposed inspiration for Dracula. Simply put, it’s a biography of Elizabeth Bathory placed into the context of a turbulent era of war, plague, sectarian violence, political treachery, climate emergency and fear of powerful women (haven’t we come a long way in 400 years). As a wealthy widow from a powerful family, Elizabeth attracted enemies, but instead of the usual accusations of incestuous adultery and witchcraft so often used to attack women in power, her accusers spun ill-founded rumours of abuse into a frankly unbelievable murder spree that saw her arrested and her servants tortured into making convoluted confessions that radiated out unchallenged for hundreds of years. The saddest thing (aside from torture, murder and betrayal, of course) was the perverting of her genuine care for her people into examples of her supposed abuse, similar to how the medical care often provided by minor noblewomen in early England was turned into witchcraft.

Dark Archives by Megan Rosenbloom

A boutique history of medicine through the lens of human-skin (anthropodermic) book binding, telling the stories behind some of the confirmed examples, from criminals to impoverished women to volunteers to fakes, with detours to a traditional tannery to explore contemporaneous book-binding methods and a tattoo parlour for the modern problem of preserving treasured tattoos. Any book that includes the line “corpse desecration is ultimately in the eye of the beholder” is certainly delving deep into ethics and consent. A fascinating read!

And

Final draft complete! I even have a blurb (read it on my Books page). Full steam into the editing stage, still looking good for August.

1. As long as no harm comes to the girl, of course; some of these types of books mete out a very harsh punishment for tween meddling ↩︎

Books: Favourite reads, June’26

It was a month of catching up on series (for someone who strongly prefers stand-alones, I follow a fair few) – Singing Hills, MurderBot, the Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi – plus the latest releases by a subset of my usual favourites – Caitlin Rozakis, Alexis Hall, KJ Charles, CM Waggoner. These were all great reads that I would happily recommend, but this month’s mini-reviews feature new-to-me and debut authors, plus non-fiction.

Fiction

Wine for Roses by Emily O’Malley Liu

A sweet romantic fantasy novella set in a modern world that has widely-accepted hedgewitch-type magic, it follows Ethan as he must go work in a cursed garden after his father steals a rose, and meets the troubled trustee of the wild estate. Somewhere between a Beauty and the Beast retelling and a cosy T Kingfisher. This is one of those times I would have liked it longer than a novella, as the romance felt a bit quick/underdeveloped, but it was lovely read.

Bad, Bad Place by Francis Crawford

Twelve-year-old Janey finds a dead body, and her attempts to cope with it draw her and her grandmother into the grimy criminal underworld of her Scottish town (but much less grim than that makes it sound!). I have a soft spot for prepubescent-girl-solves-murder subgenre of murder-mysteries1, two favourites being The Nancys (since republished under a slightly different title), and Martha Grimes’s Emma Graham trilogy (highly recommend the audiobooks), this is an excellent addition, funny and authentic, by a debut author in her 60s.

Before the Bomb by Bobby Gass

A medium must solve a wartime cold case (more accurate, unidentified murder) when the murdered woman starts haunting her four-year-old son, giving him nightmares and the sort of disturbed behaviours that might make an ex-husband call in protective services. It’s set in the 90s, mostly so it’s plausible that some witnesses would still be alive, and partly so they can’t just use ancestors.co.uk to do most of the legwork (they have to use a volunteer pensioner instead). I was very involved in this story, Lucy is an excellent, wryly funny narrator (what they’re calling voicy), and I especially appreciated that being a single working mum with a young child did impact her investigations (sometimes they might as well not have a kid, for all they have to struggle to find babysitters or do parent stuff).

The Red Winter by Cameron Sullivan

Another debut author, this one from my hometown of Perth, and one of my rarest reads, a werewolf book – but not paranormal, a rich historical fantasy. It takes the original medieval French werewolf legend and gives its an extra supernatural twist involving demons and pseudo-saints. It is on the darker side, but is very well-told, and has great characters and a good voice. Would follow these characters into a sequel for sure.

Non-Fiction

Why Q Needs U by Danny Bate

These “history of the [English] alphabet” books seem to come along with regularity, and I always end up reading them. This one takes an appealingly broader focus, using some letters to expand on the history of English as a whole, and includes a passionate defence of English’s idiosyncratic spelling system at the end. I listened on audiobook, which was good for hearing all the pronunciations (but an occasional challenge for visual shapes).

True Color by Kory Stamper

Continuing the English-language theme, this book takes an in-depth look at the particular challenge of defining colour in words, through the lens of the personalities involved in this speciality area during the creation of the third edition of the Mirriam-Webster Dictionary. I went straight on to read Stamper’s first book, a part-memoir, part-treatise about the art and science of lexicography.

The Blood Countess by Shelley Puhak

In a whiplash from cheerful explorations of the English language, this is the real story behind the legend of history’s most prolific female serial killer and supposed inspiration for Dracula. Simply put, it’s a biography of Elizabeth Bathory placed into the context of a turbulent era of war, plague, sectarian violence, political treachery, climate emergency and fear of powerful women (haven’t we come a long way in 400 years). As a wealthy widow from a powerful family, Elizabeth attracted enemies, but instead of the usual accusations of incestuous adultery and witchcraft so often used to attack women in power, her accusers spun ill-founded rumours of abuse into a frankly unbelievable murder spree that saw her arrested and her servants tortured into making convoluted confessions that radiated out unchallenged for hundreds of years. The saddest thing (aside from torture, murder and betrayal, of course) was the perverting of her genuine care for her people into examples of her supposed abuse, similar to how the medical care often provided by minor noblewomen in early England was turned into witchcraft.

Dark Archives by Megan Rosenbloom

A boutique history of medicine through the lens of human-skin (anthropodermic) book binding, telling the stories behind some of the confirmed examples, from criminals to impoverished women to volunteers to fakes, with detours to a traditional tannery to explore contemporaneous book-binding methods and a tattoo parlour for the modern problem of preserving treasured tattoos. Any book that includes the line “corpse desecration is ultimately in the eye of the beholder” is certainly delving deep into ethics and consent. A fascinating read!

And

Final draft complete! I even have a blurb (read it on my Books page). Full steam into the editing stage, still looking good for August.

1. As long as no harm comes to the girl, of course; some of these types of books mete out a very harsh punishment for tween meddling ↩︎

Pride Month, Human Rights & the African Diaspora: 16 Discussion Points 🌍🌈

1. Pride Month as a Global Human Rights Moment

Pride Month symbolizes visibility, dignity, and the continued struggle for equality worldwide.

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” — United Nations

Source: United Nations Human Rights

2. The European Union’s Commitment

The European Union continues to position equality as a universal value.

“Human rights are universal and indivisible.”

Website: European Union

3. Namibia’s Emerging Equality Debate

Namibia is increasingly part of regional conversations around inclusion and constitutional rights.

“Constitutional democracy demands equal dignity.”

Website: Government of Namibia

4. Colonial Laws Still Shape Modern Africa

Many anti-LGBTQ+ laws remain rooted in colonial-era legislation.

“These laws are colonial relics.” — Human Rights Watch

Source: Human Rights Watch

5. Religion and Public Morality

Religion remains one of the strongest influences on social values across Africa.

“Faith continues to shape moral frameworks.”

Source: Pew Research Center

6. African Culture and Identity

Questions of tradition and modern identity remain central.

“Culture does not make people. People make culture.” — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Website: Chimamanda Official

7. The Diaspora’s Double Identity

African diaspora communities often navigate multiple social and cultural realities.

“Migration transforms identity.”

Source: Migration Policy Institute

8. South Africa’s Legal Model

South Africa remains one of Africa’s strongest constitutional examples of equality.

“Equality is protected by law.”

Website: South African Government

9. Violence Against LGBTQ+ Communities

Violence remains a reality in many parts of Africa.

“No one should fear violence because of who they are.” — Amnesty International

Website: Amnesty International

10. Civil Society and Activism

Local organizations continue to challenge exclusion.

“Grassroots advocacy creates impact.”

Website: Out-Right Namibia

11. Youth and Social Change

Young Africans are increasingly redefining conversations on equality.

“Youth shape the future.”

Source: UN Youth

12. Media Representation Matters

Media visibility influences how societies understand marginalized communities.

“Visibility creates understanding.”

Source: Reuters

13. Diplomacy and Human Rights

Diplomatic spaces continue shaping global human rights discussions.

“Diplomacy is a bridge for difficult conversations.”

Website: EU External Action Service

14. Economic Inclusion

Discrimination affects access to jobs, housing, and wealth.

“Equality is also economic justice.”

Website: World Bank

15. Human Rights Are Universal

The global human rights framework emphasizes equal treatment.

“Rights belong to everyone.” — United Nations

Website: OHCHR

16. Africa’s Future on Equality

Africa’s next generation may shape a new balance between culture and constitutional freedom.

“The measure of society is how it treats its most vulnerable.” — Mahatma Gandhi

Website: African Union

Discussion Question

Can African societies create space where cultural identity and universal human dignity coexist?

Hashtags

#PrideMonth #AfricaDiaspora #HumanRights #Equality #Namibia #EU #LGBTQAfrica #SocialJustice #Inclusion #Democracy

https://www.instagram.com/euinnam

Pride Month, Human Rights & the African Diaspora: 16 Discussion Points 🌍🌈

1. Pride Month as a Global Human Rights Moment

Pride Month symbolizes visibility, dignity, and the continued struggle for equality worldwide.

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” — United Nations

Source: United Nations Human Rights

2. The European Union’s Commitment

The European Union continues to position equality as a universal value.

“Human rights are universal and indivisible.”

Website: European Union

3. Namibia’s Emerging Equality Debate

Namibia is increasingly part of regional conversations around inclusion and constitutional rights.

“Constitutional democracy demands equal dignity.”

Website: Government of Namibia

4. Colonial Laws Still Shape Modern Africa

Many anti-LGBTQ+ laws remain rooted in colonial-era legislation.

“These laws are colonial relics.” — Human Rights Watch

Source: Human Rights Watch

5. Religion and Public Morality

Religion remains one of the strongest influences on social values across Africa.

“Faith continues to shape moral frameworks.”

Source: Pew Research Center

6. African Culture and Identity

Questions of tradition and modern identity remain central.

“Culture does not make people. People make culture.” — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Website: Chimamanda Official

7. The Diaspora’s Double Identity

African diaspora communities often navigate multiple social and cultural realities.

“Migration transforms identity.”

Source: Migration Policy Institute

8. South Africa’s Legal Model

South Africa remains one of Africa’s strongest constitutional examples of equality.

“Equality is protected by law.”

Website: South African Government

9. Violence Against LGBTQ+ Communities

Violence remains a reality in many parts of Africa.

“No one should fear violence because of who they are.” — Amnesty International

Website: Amnesty International

10. Civil Society and Activism

Local organizations continue to challenge exclusion.

“Grassroots advocacy creates impact.”

Website: Out-Right Namibia

11. Youth and Social Change

Young Africans are increasingly redefining conversations on equality.

“Youth shape the future.”

Source: UN Youth

12. Media Representation Matters

Media visibility influences how societies understand marginalized communities.

“Visibility creates understanding.”

Source: Reuters

13. Diplomacy and Human Rights

Diplomatic spaces continue shaping global human rights discussions.

“Diplomacy is a bridge for difficult conversations.”

Website: EU External Action Service

14. Economic Inclusion

Discrimination affects access to jobs, housing, and wealth.

“Equality is also economic justice.”

Website: World Bank

15. Human Rights Are Universal

The global human rights framework emphasizes equal treatment.

“Rights belong to everyone.” — United Nations

Website: OHCHR

16. Africa’s Future on Equality

Africa’s next generation may shape a new balance between culture and constitutional freedom.

“The measure of society is how it treats its most vulnerable.” — Mahatma Gandhi

Website: African Union

Discussion Question

Can African societies create space where cultural identity and universal human dignity coexist?

Hashtags

#PrideMonth #AfricaDiaspora #HumanRights #Equality #Namibia #EU #LGBTQAfrica #SocialJustice #Inclusion #Democracy

https://www.instagram.com/euinnam

Pride Month, Human Rights & the African Diaspora: 16 Discussion Points 🌍🌈

1. Pride Month as a Global Human Rights Moment

Pride Month symbolizes visibility, dignity, and the continued struggle for equality worldwide.

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” — United Nations

Source: United Nations Human Rights

2. The European Union’s Commitment

The European Union continues to position equality as a universal value.

“Human rights are universal and indivisible.”

Website: European Union

3. Namibia’s Emerging Equality Debate

Namibia is increasingly part of regional conversations around inclusion and constitutional rights.

“Constitutional democracy demands equal dignity.”

Website: Government of Namibia

4. Colonial Laws Still Shape Modern Africa

Many anti-LGBTQ+ laws remain rooted in colonial-era legislation.

“These laws are colonial relics.” — Human Rights Watch

Source: Human Rights Watch

5. Religion and Public Morality

Religion remains one of the strongest influences on social values across Africa.

“Faith continues to shape moral frameworks.”

Source: Pew Research Center

6. African Culture and Identity

Questions of tradition and modern identity remain central.

“Culture does not make people. People make culture.” — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Website: Chimamanda Official

7. The Diaspora’s Double Identity

African diaspora communities often navigate multiple social and cultural realities.

“Migration transforms identity.”

Source: Migration Policy Institute

8. South Africa’s Legal Model

South Africa remains one of Africa’s strongest constitutional examples of equality.

“Equality is protected by law.”

Website: South African Government

9. Violence Against LGBTQ+ Communities

Violence remains a reality in many parts of Africa.

“No one should fear violence because of who they are.” — Amnesty International

Website: Amnesty International

10. Civil Society and Activism

Local organizations continue to challenge exclusion.

“Grassroots advocacy creates impact.”

Website: Out-Right Namibia

11. Youth and Social Change

Young Africans are increasingly redefining conversations on equality.

“Youth shape the future.”

Source: UN Youth

12. Media Representation Matters

Media visibility influences how societies understand marginalized communities.

“Visibility creates understanding.”

Source: Reuters

13. Diplomacy and Human Rights

Diplomatic spaces continue shaping global human rights discussions.

“Diplomacy is a bridge for difficult conversations.”

Website: EU External Action Service

14. Economic Inclusion

Discrimination affects access to jobs, housing, and wealth.

“Equality is also economic justice.”

Website: World Bank

15. Human Rights Are Universal

The global human rights framework emphasizes equal treatment.

“Rights belong to everyone.” — United Nations

Website: OHCHR

16. Africa’s Future on Equality

Africa’s next generation may shape a new balance between culture and constitutional freedom.

“The measure of society is how it treats its most vulnerable.” — Mahatma Gandhi

Website: African Union

Discussion Question

Can African societies create space where cultural identity and universal human dignity coexist?

Hashtags

#PrideMonth #AfricaDiaspora #HumanRights #Equality #Namibia #EU #LGBTQAfrica #SocialJustice #Inclusion #Democracy

https://www.instagram.com/euinnam

Pride Month, Human Rights & the African Diaspora: 16 Discussion Points 🌍🌈

1. Pride Month as a Global Human Rights Moment

Pride Month symbolizes visibility, dignity, and the continued struggle for equality worldwide.

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” — United Nations

Source: United Nations Human Rights

2. The European Union’s Commitment

The European Union continues to position equality as a universal value.

“Human rights are universal and indivisible.”

Website: European Union

3. Namibia’s Emerging Equality Debate

Namibia is increasingly part of regional conversations around inclusion and constitutional rights.

“Constitutional democracy demands equal dignity.”

Website: Government of Namibia

4. Colonial Laws Still Shape Modern Africa

Many anti-LGBTQ+ laws remain rooted in colonial-era legislation.

“These laws are colonial relics.” — Human Rights Watch

Source: Human Rights Watch

5. Religion and Public Morality

Religion remains one of the strongest influences on social values across Africa.

“Faith continues to shape moral frameworks.”

Source: Pew Research Center

6. African Culture and Identity

Questions of tradition and modern identity remain central.

“Culture does not make people. People make culture.” — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Website: Chimamanda Official

7. The Diaspora’s Double Identity

African diaspora communities often navigate multiple social and cultural realities.

“Migration transforms identity.”

Source: Migration Policy Institute

8. South Africa’s Legal Model

South Africa remains one of Africa’s strongest constitutional examples of equality.

“Equality is protected by law.”

Website: South African Government

9. Violence Against LGBTQ+ Communities

Violence remains a reality in many parts of Africa.

“No one should fear violence because of who they are.” — Amnesty International

Website: Amnesty International

10. Civil Society and Activism

Local organizations continue to challenge exclusion.

“Grassroots advocacy creates impact.”

Website: Out-Right Namibia

11. Youth and Social Change

Young Africans are increasingly redefining conversations on equality.

“Youth shape the future.”

Source: UN Youth

12. Media Representation Matters

Media visibility influences how societies understand marginalized communities.

“Visibility creates understanding.”

Source: Reuters

13. Diplomacy and Human Rights

Diplomatic spaces continue shaping global human rights discussions.

“Diplomacy is a bridge for difficult conversations.”

Website: EU External Action Service

14. Economic Inclusion

Discrimination affects access to jobs, housing, and wealth.

“Equality is also economic justice.”

Website: World Bank

15. Human Rights Are Universal

The global human rights framework emphasizes equal treatment.

“Rights belong to everyone.” — United Nations

Website: OHCHR

16. Africa’s Future on Equality

Africa’s next generation may shape a new balance between culture and constitutional freedom.

“The measure of society is how it treats its most vulnerable.” — Mahatma Gandhi

Website: African Union

Discussion Question

Can African societies create space where cultural identity and universal human dignity coexist?

Hashtags

#PrideMonth #AfricaDiaspora #HumanRights #Equality #Namibia #EU #LGBTQAfrica #SocialJustice #Inclusion #Democracy

https://www.instagram.com/euinnam

#lgbtq #LQBTQ #lgbtqrights #lgbtqiaplus

#lgbtq #LQBTQ #lgbtqrights #lgbtqiaplus

#lgbtq #LQBTQ #lgbtqrights #lgbtqiaplus

#lgbtq #LQBTQ #lgbtqrights #lgbtqiaplus

#lgbtq #LQBTQ #lgbtqrights #lgbtqiaplus

Transgender Experiences in Weimar & Nazi Germany.

#LQBTQ #Trans #Germany

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueuKM6Wqoc0

Transgender Experiences in Weimar & Nazi Germany.

#LQBTQ #Trans #Germany

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueuKM6Wqoc0

Transgender Experiences in Weimar & Nazi Germany.

#LQBTQ #Trans #Germany

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueuKM6Wqoc0

Transgender Experiences in Weimar & Nazi Germany.

#LQBTQ #Trans #Germany

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueuKM6Wqoc0

Transgender Experiences in Weimar & Nazi Germany.

#LQBTQ #Trans #Germany

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueuKM6Wqoc0

Books: Favourite Kobo Plus reads, May’26

Hello to new subscribers; I will reiterate my usual assurance that I won’t overload your inbox. I only post once a month, mostly these short book reviews and every now again a new-release announcement for my own books.

The choices are ever-growing on Kobo Plus – either Kobo’s algorithm finally worked me out, or more authors are breaking out of the Kindle Unlimited exclusivity prison, or both. These were my favourite books this month, all available on the K+ subscription, but also through your favourite retailer, and some on Hoopla too.

Fiction

Curse of Bronze by Tansy Rayner Roberts

Beth, the unassuming and sensible member of a family of adventurers and daredevils, unexpectedly inherits her aunt’s townhouse and promptly has to solve a mystery or two. An enjoyable novella with a hint of romance-to-come, riffing off Beauty and the Beast (what with Beth’s cursed talking furniture and the lion-man next door). I look forward to reading the follow-up, Tomb of Brass, out in June. (I also read and enjoyed the Castle Charming collection by the same author this month).

The Past is Red by Catherynne M. Valente

Tetley lives on one of the last floating refuges in drowned world, Garbagetown aka the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. We follow her life as we learn how she got her name, why she’s hated, and her new secrets. Technically a dystopian tale of our future if we don’t take climate change seriously, but told with dark humour and hope in Valente’s usual expansively lyrical fashion. Highly recommended.

Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows by James Lovegrove

The Conan Doyle/Lovecraft mash-up you weren’t expecting and didn’t know you wanted. In this version, the original stories, and Holmes’s lauded rationality, are the anodyne cover for the eldritch horrors he and Watson must battle. Lovegrove also writes straight Sherlock stories, so is very good at the voice and world while adding a suitably supernatural twist. The Cthuluhu Casebooks has three stories in its original run, plus a more recent fourth volume.

Uncanny Aviator by Jenya Keefe

A steampunk-ish m/m romance. Lord Cay, a Cinderella rags-to-riches type, is suddenly iced out by his formerly loving husband and falls afoul of blackmail. To escape, he makes up a plausible lie, promptly plunging himself and everyone around him into even more trouble. I found this very charming, and truly felt for Cay whenever Adrio was mean to him. At first I thought it was an honest-talking-would-have-solved-this situation but ended up finding both parties’ actions believable. Satisfying, will happily read more by this author.

Clockwork Heart by Heidi Cullinan

An actual steampunk m/m romance (from 2017, so perhaps back when steampunk was big last time?). Cornelius is a tinker, a clockwork engineer, with a medical specialty. He, slightly traitorously, saves a enemy soldier from death…by implanting into him a clockwork heart it turns everyone wants. Keeping Johann hidden involves a fake relationship, of course, which soon turns real, of course, with plenty of plot (and sex) along the way. It is a complete story, but there were two more planned which did not eventuate (or at least which aren’t yet on Kobo) — you can see those pairings being set up in this story, but otherwise nothing is left hanging.

Flowers by Night by Lucy May Lennox

Samurai Tomonosuke and blind masseur Ichi develop a relationship in nineteenth-century Edo, negotiating class (/caste) differences, Tomonosuke’s unimpressed wife, and disasters natural and manmade. This is phenomenal in its evocation of Japan’s bygone history at the cusp of the big shift into modernity, the very non-Western acceptance of unconventional masculinity/femininity, and also where the lines of acceptance were drawn across the many different sub-groups.

Non-Fiction

Bodysnatchers by Suzie Lennox

A non-fiction account of the prolific theft of corpses, mostly in Scotland and Northern England, to supply anatomy schools, using the newspaper articles and court reports of the time (it reached its peak in the 1820s and early 30s, in the gap between a boom in medical student numbers and the Anatomy Act which provided the many bodies needed for practice1). This is a Today I Learned sort of book. TIL Burke and Hare never dug up a body, they jumped directly to life-snatching (thus this book doesn’t cover their murder spree in anything more than a paragraph or two). TIL early medical students had to source their own corpses for their anatomy lessons before the industry “professionalised”. TIL sometimes the bodysnatchers would cut to the chase and break into homes to steal the laid-out bodies before burial. TIL they’d send bodies cross-country in public coaches, stuffed into trunks; a pair of students even Weekend-at-Bernies’d their prize. TIL the quickest (and least respectful) technique to get a body out of a buried coffin without having to dig the whole thing up. It does get a little repetitive at points (there’s only so many ways this story can go, really), and I would have liked more exploration of the tension between the very blasé thieves and surgeons, the angry, disgusted parishioners trying to save their departed loved ones with overnight watchers, locked cages and booby traps, and the judges who would openly tell juries such acts were necessary for medical advancement and hand out light sentences, but this is a truly fascinating and macabre eye-opener of a read.

A Clear Case of Genius by Admiral Sir Reginald ‘Blinker’ Hall and Philip Vickers

Hall’s autobiography (incomplete as not all chapters survived the sixty years between writing and post-embargo publishing) about his time leading the secretive early Intelligence unit known as Room 40, simplistically, the WWI precursor to Bletchley. Vickers added the explanatory notes and maps for helpful context. I’ll be honest, I read this as research for a future WIP and didn’t think I’d enjoy an old-fashioned and rambling account of some self-important admiral with one of those twee upper-class in-joke nicknames, but I was wrong: Hall’s voice is clear, self-deprecating, and droll, with many fascinating spying titbits and anecdotes. The Blinker nickname comes from a facial twitch, because this is the same era when an Enid Blyton character could be nicknamed Fatty without anyone raising an eyebrow.

And

I have a second draft (technically, a sixth(?) draft, given the back and forth, but let’s just go with second), and a cover (check it out on my Books page if interested), and a planned release month (early August). I will soon have a blurb, because that’s what I will make myself write while I take the usual short break before tackling the make-it-good third draft. Ahem, “third” draft.

I also have something almost as painful to complete as this bloody manuscript: an author photo. It only took me a solid fifteen years of publishing (you can see it over here, if you happen to want to know what I look like2).

1. By finally giving surgeons the Continental solution of taking the unclaimed bodies of the poor from workhouses, so not exactly without ethical questions of its own. ↩︎
2. Incredibly Uncomfortable Middle-Aged White Woman TM ↩︎

Books: Favourite Kobo Plus reads, May’26

Hello to new subscribers; I will reiterate my usual assurance that I won’t overload your inbox. I only post once a month, mostly these short book reviews and every now again a new-release announcement for my own books.

The choices are ever-growing on Kobo Plus – either Kobo’s algorithm finally worked me out, or more authors are breaking out of the Kindle Unlimited exclusivity prison, or both. These were my favourite books this month, all available on the K+ subscription, but also through your favourite retailer, and some on Hoopla too.

Fiction

Curse of Bronze by Tansy Rayner Roberts

Beth, the unassuming and sensible member of a family of adventurers and daredevils, unexpectedly inherits her aunt’s townhouse and promptly has to solve a mystery or two. An enjoyable novella with a hint of romance-to-come, riffing off Beauty and the Beast (what with Beth’s cursed talking furniture and the lion-man next door). I look forward to reading the follow-up, Tomb of Brass, out in June. (I also read and enjoyed the Castle Charming collection by the same author this month).

The Past is Red by Catherynne M. Valente

Tetley lives on one of the last floating refuges in drowned world, Garbagetown aka the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. We follow her life as we learn how she got her name, why she’s hated, and her new secrets. Technically a dystopian tale of our future if we don’t take climate change seriously, but told with dark humour and hope in Valente’s usual expansively lyrical fashion. Highly recommended.

Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows by James Lovegrove

The Conan Doyle/Lovecraft mash-up you weren’t expecting and didn’t know you wanted. In this version, the original stories, and Holmes’s lauded rationality, are the anodyne cover for the eldritch horrors he and Watson must battle. Lovegrove also writes straight Sherlock stories, so is very good at the voice and world while adding a suitably supernatural twist. The Cthuluhu Casebooks has three stories in its original run, plus a more recent fourth volume.

Uncanny Aviator by Jenya Keefe

A steampunk-ish m/m romance. Lord Cay, a Cinderella rags-to-riches type, is suddenly iced out by his formerly loving husband and falls afoul of blackmail. To escape, he makes up a plausible lie, promptly plunging himself and everyone around him into even more trouble. I found this very charming, and truly felt for Cay whenever Adrio was mean to him. At first I thought it was an honest-talking-would-have-solved-this situation but ended up finding both parties’ actions believable. Satisfying, will happily read more by this author.

Clockwork Heart by Heidi Cullinan

An actual steampunk m/m romance (from 2017, so perhaps back when steampunk was big last time?). Cornelius is a tinker, a clockwork engineer, with a medical specialty. He, slightly traitorously, saves a enemy soldier from death…by implanting into him a clockwork heart it turns everyone wants. Keeping Johann hidden involves a fake relationship, of course, which soon turns real, of course, with plenty of plot (and sex) along the way. It is a complete story, but there were two more planned which did not eventuate (or at least which aren’t yet on Kobo) — you can see those pairings being set up in this story, but otherwise nothing is left hanging.

Flowers by Night by Lucy May Lennox

Samurai Tomonosuke and blind masseur Ichi develop a relationship in nineteenth-century Edo, negotiating class (/caste) differences, Tomonosuke’s unimpressed wife, and disasters natural and manmade. This is phenomenal in its evocation of Japan’s bygone history at the cusp of the big shift into modernity, the very non-Western acceptance of unconventional masculinity/femininity, and also where the lines of acceptance were drawn across the many different sub-groups.

Non-Fiction

Bodysnatchers by Suzie Lennox

A non-fiction account of the prolific theft of corpses, mostly in Scotland and Northern England, to supply anatomy schools, using the newspaper articles and court reports of the time (it reached its peak in the 1820s and early 30s, in the gap between a boom in medical student numbers and the Anatomy Act which provided the many bodies needed for practice1). This is a Today I Learned sort of book. TIL Burke and Hare never dug up a body, they jumped directly to life-snatching (thus this book doesn’t cover their murder spree in anything more than a paragraph or two). TIL early medical students had to source their own corpses for their anatomy lessons before the industry “professionalised”. TIL sometimes the bodysnatchers would cut to the chase and break into homes to steal the laid-out bodies before burial. TIL they’d send bodies cross-country in public coaches, stuffed into trunks; a pair of students even Weekend-at-Bernies’d their prize. TIL the quickest (and least respectful) technique to get a body out of a buried coffin without having to dig the whole thing up. It does get a little repetitive at points (there’s only so many ways this story can go, really), and I would have liked more exploration of the tension between the very blasé thieves and surgeons, the angry, disgusted parishioners trying to save their departed loved ones with overnight watchers, locked cages and booby traps, and the judges who would openly tell juries such acts were necessary for medical advancement and hand out light sentences, but this is a truly fascinating and macabre eye-opener of a read.

A Clear Case of Genius by Admiral Sir Reginald ‘Blinker’ Hall and Philip Vickers

Hall’s autobiography (incomplete as not all chapters survived the sixty years between writing and post-embargo publishing) about his time leading the secretive early Intelligence unit known as Room 40, simplistically, the WWI precursor to Bletchley. Vickers added the explanatory notes and maps for helpful context. I’ll be honest, I read this as research for a future WIP and didn’t think I’d enjoy an old-fashioned and rambling account of some self-important admiral with one of those twee upper-class in-joke nicknames, but I was wrong: Hall’s voice is clear, self-deprecating, and droll, with many fascinating spying titbits and anecdotes. The Blinker nickname comes from a facial twitch, because this is the same era when an Enid Blyton character could be nicknamed Fatty without anyone raising an eyebrow.

And

I have a second draft (technically, a sixth(?) draft, given the back and forth, but let’s just go with second), and a cover (check it out on my Books page if interested), and a planned release month (early August). I will soon have a blurb, because that’s what I will make myself write while I take the usual short break before tackling the make-it-good third draft. Ahem, “third” draft.

I also have something almost as painful to complete as this bloody manuscript: an author photo. It only took me a solid fifteen years of publishing (you can see it over here, if you happen to want to know what I look like2).

1. By finally giving surgeons the Continental solution of taking the unclaimed bodies of the poor from workhouses, so not exactly without ethical questions of its own. ↩︎
2. Incredibly Uncomfortable Middle-Aged White Woman TM ↩︎

Books: Favourite Kobo Plus reads, May’26

Hello to new subscribers; I will reiterate my usual assurance that I won’t overload your inbox. I only post once a month, mostly these short book reviews and every now again a new-release announcement for my own books.

The choices are ever-growing on Kobo Plus – either Kobo’s algorithm finally worked me out, or more authors are breaking out of the Kindle Unlimited exclusivity prison, or both. These were my favourite books this month, all available on the K+ subscription, but also through your favourite retailer, and some on Hoopla too.

Fiction

Curse of Bronze by Tansy Rayner Roberts

Beth, the unassuming and sensible member of a family of adventurers and daredevils, unexpectedly inherits her aunt’s townhouse and promptly has to solve a mystery or two. An enjoyable novella with a hint of romance-to-come, riffing off Beauty and the Beast (what with Beth’s cursed talking furniture and the lion-man next door). I look forward to reading the follow-up, Tomb of Brass, out in June. (I also read and enjoyed the Castle Charming collection by the same author this month).

The Past is Red by Catherynne M. Valente

Tetley lives on one of the last floating refuges in drowned world, Garbagetown aka the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. We follow her life as we learn how she got her name, why she’s hated, and her new secrets. Technically a dystopian tale of our future if we don’t take climate change seriously, but told with dark humour and hope in Valente’s usual expansively lyrical fashion. Highly recommended.

Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows by James Lovegrove

The Conan Doyle/Lovecraft mash-up you weren’t expecting and didn’t know you wanted. In this version, the original stories, and Holmes’s lauded rationality, are the anodyne cover for the eldritch horrors he and Watson must battle. Lovegrove also writes straight Sherlock stories, so is very good at the voice and world while adding a suitably supernatural twist. The Cthuluhu Casebooks has three stories in its original run, plus a more recent fourth volume.

Uncanny Aviator by Jenya Keefe

A steampunk-ish m/m romance. Lord Cay, a Cinderella rags-to-riches type, is suddenly iced out by his formerly loving husband and falls afoul of blackmail. To escape, he makes up a plausible lie, promptly plunging himself and everyone around him into even more trouble. I found this very charming, and truly felt for Cay whenever Adrio was mean to him. At first I thought it was an honest-talking-would-have-solved-this situation but ended up finding both parties’ actions believable. Satisfying, will happily read more by this author.

Clockwork Heart by Heidi Cullinan

An actual steampunk m/m romance (from 2017, so perhaps back when steampunk was big last time?). Cornelius is a tinker, a clockwork engineer, with a medical specialty. He, slightly traitorously, saves a enemy soldier from death…by implanting into him a clockwork heart it turns everyone wants. Keeping Johann hidden involves a fake relationship, of course, which soon turns real, of course, with plenty of plot (and sex) along the way. It is a complete story, but there were two more planned which did not eventuate (or at least which aren’t yet on Kobo) — you can see those pairings being set up in this story, but otherwise nothing is left hanging.

Flowers by Night by Lucy May Lennox

Samurai Tomonosuke and blind masseur Ichi develop a relationship in nineteenth-century Edo, negotiating class (/caste) differences, Tomonosuke’s unimpressed wife, and disasters natural and manmade. This is phenomenal in its evocation of Japan’s bygone history at the cusp of the big shift into modernity, the very non-Western acceptance of unconventional masculinity/femininity, and also where the lines of acceptance were drawn across the many different sub-groups.

Non-Fiction

Bodysnatchers by Suzie Lennox

A non-fiction account of the prolific theft of corpses, mostly in Scotland and Northern England, to supply anatomy schools, using the newspaper articles and court reports of the time (it reached its peak in the 1820s and early 30s, in the gap between a boom in medical student numbers and the Anatomy Act which provided the many bodies needed for practice1). This is a Today I Learned sort of book. TIL Burke and Hare never dug up a body, they jumped directly to life-snatching (thus this book doesn’t cover their murder spree in anything more than a paragraph or two). TIL early medical students had to source their own corpses for their anatomy lessons before the industry “professionalised”. TIL sometimes the bodysnatchers would cut to the chase and break into homes to steal the laid-out bodies before burial. TIL they’d send bodies cross-country in public coaches, stuffed into trunks; a pair of students even Weekend-at-Bernies’d their prize. TIL the quickest (and least respectful) technique to get a body out of a buried coffin without having to dig the whole thing up. It does get a little repetitive at points (there’s only so many ways this story can go, really), and I would have liked more exploration of the tension between the very blasé thieves and surgeons, the angry, disgusted parishioners trying to save their departed loved ones with overnight watchers, locked cages and booby traps, and the judges who would openly tell juries such acts were necessary for medical advancement and hand out light sentences, but this is a truly fascinating and macabre eye-opener of a read.

A Clear Case of Genius by Admiral Sir Reginald ‘Blinker’ Hall and Philip Vickers

Hall’s autobiography (incomplete as not all chapters survived the sixty years between writing and post-embargo publishing) about his time leading the secretive early Intelligence unit known as Room 40, simplistically, the WWI precursor to Bletchley. Vickers added the explanatory notes and maps for helpful context. I’ll be honest, I read this as research for a future WIP and didn’t think I’d enjoy an old-fashioned and rambling account of some self-important admiral with one of those twee upper-class in-joke nicknames, but I was wrong: Hall’s voice is clear, self-deprecating, and droll, with many fascinating spying titbits and anecdotes. The Blinker nickname comes from a facial twitch, because this is the same era when an Enid Blyton character could be nicknamed Fatty without anyone raising an eyebrow.

And

I have a second draft (technically, a sixth(?) draft, given the back and forth, but let’s just go with second), and a cover (check it out on my Books page if interested), and a planned release month (early August). I will soon have a blurb, because that’s what I will make myself write while I take the usual short break before tackling the make-it-good third draft. Ahem, “third” draft.

I also have something almost as painful to complete as this bloody manuscript: an author photo. It only took me a solid fifteen years of publishing (you can see it over here, if you happen to want to know what I look like2).

1. By finally giving surgeons the Continental solution of taking the unclaimed bodies of the poor from workhouses, so not exactly without ethical questions of its own. ↩︎
2. Incredibly Uncomfortable Middle-Aged White Woman TM ↩︎

Books: Favourite Kobo Plus reads, May’26

Hello to new subscribers; I will reiterate my usual assurance that I won’t overload your inbox. I only post once a month, mostly these short book reviews and every now again a new-release announcement for my own books.

The choices are ever-growing on Kobo Plus – either Kobo’s algorithm finally worked me out, or more authors are breaking out of the Kindle Unlimited exclusivity prison, or both. These were my favourite books this month, all available on the K+ subscription, but also through your favourite retailer, and some on Hoopla too.

Fiction

Curse of Bronze by Tansy Rayner Roberts

Beth, the unassuming and sensible member of a family of adventurers and daredevils, unexpectedly inherits her aunt’s townhouse and promptly has to solve a mystery or two. An enjoyable novella with a hint of romance-to-come, riffing off Beauty and the Beast (what with Beth’s cursed talking furniture and the lion-man next door). I look forward to reading the follow-up, Tomb of Brass, out in June. (I also read and enjoyed the Castle Charming collection by the same author this month).

The Past is Red by Catherynne M. Valente

Tetley lives on one of the last floating refuges in drowned world, Garbagetown aka the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. We follow her life as we learn how she got her name, why she’s hated, and her new secrets. Technically a dystopian tale of our future if we don’t take climate change seriously, but told with dark humour and hope in Valente’s usual expansively lyrical fashion. Highly recommended.

Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows by James Lovegrove

The Conan Doyle/Lovecraft mash-up you weren’t expecting and didn’t know you wanted. In this version, the original stories, and Holmes’s lauded rationality, are the anodyne cover for the eldritch horrors he and Watson must battle. Lovegrove also writes straight Sherlock stories, so is very good at the voice and world while adding a suitably supernatural twist. The Cthuluhu Casebooks has three stories in its original run, plus a more recent fourth volume.

Uncanny Aviator by Jenya Keefe

A steampunk-ish m/m romance. Lord Cay, a Cinderella rags-to-riches type, is suddenly iced out by his formerly loving husband and falls afoul of blackmail. To escape, he makes up a plausible lie, promptly plunging himself and everyone around him into even more trouble. I found this very charming, and truly felt for Cay whenever Adrio was mean to him. At first I thought it was an honest-talking-would-have-solved-this situation but ended up finding both parties’ actions believable. Satisfying, will happily read more by this author.

Clockwork Heart by Heidi Cullinan

An actual steampunk m/m romance (from 2017, so perhaps back when steampunk was big last time?). Cornelius is a tinker, a clockwork engineer, with a medical specialty. He, slightly traitorously, saves a enemy soldier from death…by implanting into him a clockwork heart it turns everyone wants. Keeping Johann hidden involves a fake relationship, of course, which soon turns real, of course, with plenty of plot (and sex) along the way. It is a complete story, but there were two more planned which did not eventuate (or at least which aren’t yet on Kobo) — you can see those pairings being set up in this story, but otherwise nothing is left hanging.

Flowers by Night by Lucy May Lennox

Samurai Tomonosuke and blind masseur Ichi develop a relationship in nineteenth-century Edo, negotiating class (/caste) differences, Tomonosuke’s unimpressed wife, and disasters natural and manmade. This is phenomenal in its evocation of Japan’s bygone history at the cusp of the big shift into modernity, the very non-Western acceptance of unconventional masculinity/femininity, and also where the lines of acceptance were drawn across the many different sub-groups.

Non-Fiction

Bodysnatchers by Suzie Lennox

A non-fiction account of the prolific theft of corpses, mostly in Scotland and Northern England, to supply anatomy schools, using the newspaper articles and court reports of the time (it reached its peak in the 1820s and early 30s, in the gap between a boom in medical student numbers and the Anatomy Act which provided the many bodies needed for practice1). This is a Today I Learned sort of book. TIL Burke and Hare never dug up a body, they jumped directly to life-snatching (thus this book doesn’t cover their murder spree in anything more than a paragraph or two). TIL early medical students had to source their own corpses for their anatomy lessons before the industry “professionalised”. TIL sometimes the bodysnatchers would cut to the chase and break into homes to steal the laid-out bodies before burial. TIL they’d send bodies cross-country in public coaches, stuffed into trunks; a pair of students even Weekend-at-Bernies’d their prize. TIL the quickest (and least respectful) technique to get a body out of a buried coffin without having to dig the whole thing up. It does get a little repetitive at points (there’s only so many ways this story can go, really), and I would have liked more exploration of the tension between the very blasé thieves and surgeons, the angry, disgusted parishioners trying to save their departed loved ones with overnight watchers, locked cages and booby traps, and the judges who would openly tell juries such acts were necessary for medical advancement and hand out light sentences, but this is a truly fascinating and macabre eye-opener of a read.

A Clear Case of Genius by Admiral Sir Reginald ‘Blinker’ Hall and Philip Vickers

Hall’s autobiography (incomplete as not all chapters survived the sixty years between writing and post-embargo publishing) about his time leading the secretive early Intelligence unit known as Room 40, simplistically, the WWI precursor to Bletchley. Vickers added the explanatory notes and maps for helpful context. I’ll be honest, I read this as research for a future WIP and didn’t think I’d enjoy an old-fashioned and rambling account of some self-important admiral with one of those twee upper-class in-joke nicknames, but I was wrong: Hall’s voice is clear, self-deprecating, and droll, with many fascinating spying titbits and anecdotes. The Blinker nickname comes from a facial twitch, because this is the same era when an Enid Blyton character could be nicknamed Fatty without anyone raising an eyebrow.

And

I have a second draft (technically, a sixth(?) draft, given the back and forth, but let’s just go with second), and a cover (check it out on my Books page if interested), and a planned release month (early August). I will soon have a blurb, because that’s what I will make myself write while I take the usual short break before tackling the make-it-good third draft. Ahem, “third” draft.

I also have something almost as painful to complete as this bloody manuscript: an author photo. It only took me a solid fifteen years of publishing (you can see it over here, if you happen to want to know what I look like2).

1. By finally giving surgeons the Continental solution of taking the unclaimed bodies of the poor from workhouses, so not exactly without ethical questions of its own. ↩︎
2. Incredibly Uncomfortable Middle-Aged White Woman TM ↩︎

Books: Favourite Kobo Plus reads, May’26

Hello to new subscribers; I will reiterate my usual assurance that I won’t overload your inbox. I only post once a month, mostly these short book reviews and every now again a new-release announcement for my own books.

The choices are ever-growing on Kobo Plus – either Kobo’s algorithm finally worked me out, or more authors are breaking out of the Kindle Unlimited exclusivity prison, or both. These were my favourite books this month, all available on the K+ subscription, but also through your favourite retailer, and some on Hoopla too.

Fiction

Curse of Bronze by Tansy Rayner Roberts

Beth, the unassuming and sensible member of a family of adventurers and daredevils, unexpectedly inherits her aunt’s townhouse and promptly has to solve a mystery or two. An enjoyable novella with a hint of romance-to-come, riffing off Beauty and the Beast (what with Beth’s cursed talking furniture and the lion-man next door). I look forward to reading the follow-up, Tomb of Brass, out in June. (I also read and enjoyed the Castle Charming collection by the same author this month).

The Past is Red by Catherynne M. Valente

Tetley lives on one of the last floating refuges in drowned world, Garbagetown aka the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. We follow her life as we learn how she got her name, why she’s hated, and her new secrets. Technically a dystopian tale of our future if we don’t take climate change seriously, but told with dark humour and hope in Valente’s usual expansively lyrical fashion. Highly recommended.

Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows by James Lovegrove

The Conan Doyle/Lovecraft mash-up you weren’t expecting and didn’t know you wanted. In this version, the original stories, and Holmes’s lauded rationality, are the anodyne cover for the eldritch horrors he and Watson must battle. Lovegrove also writes straight Sherlock stories, so is very good at the voice and world while adding a suitably supernatural twist. The Cthuluhu Casebooks has three stories in its original run, plus a more recent fourth volume.

Uncanny Aviator by Jenya Keefe

A steampunk-ish m/m romance. Lord Cay, a Cinderella rags-to-riches type, is suddenly iced out by his formerly loving husband and falls afoul of blackmail. To escape, he makes up a plausible lie, promptly plunging himself and everyone around him into even more trouble. I found this very charming, and truly felt for Cay whenever Adrio was mean to him. At first I thought it was an honest-talking-would-have-solved-this situation but ended up finding both parties’ actions believable. Satisfying, will happily read more by this author.

Clockwork Heart by Heidi Cullinan

An actual steampunk m/m romance (from 2017, so perhaps back when steampunk was big last time?). Cornelius is a tinker, a clockwork engineer, with a medical specialty. He, slightly traitorously, saves a enemy soldier from death…by implanting into him a clockwork heart it turns everyone wants. Keeping Johann hidden involves a fake relationship, of course, which soon turns real, of course, with plenty of plot (and sex) along the way. It is a complete story, but there were two more planned which did not eventuate (or at least which aren’t yet on Kobo) — you can see those pairings being set up in this story, but otherwise nothing is left hanging.

Flowers by Night by Lucy May Lennox

Samurai Tomonosuke and blind masseur Ichi develop a relationship in nineteenth-century Edo, negotiating class (/caste) differences, Tomonosuke’s unimpressed wife, and disasters natural and manmade. This is phenomenal in its evocation of Japan’s bygone history at the cusp of the big shift into modernity, the very non-Western acceptance of unconventional masculinity/femininity, and also where the lines of acceptance were drawn across the many different sub-groups.

Non-Fiction

Bodysnatchers by Suzie Lennox

A non-fiction account of the prolific theft of corpses, mostly in Scotland and Northern England, to supply anatomy schools, using the newspaper articles and court reports of the time (it reached its peak in the 1820s and early 30s, in the gap between a boom in medical student numbers and the Anatomy Act which provided the many bodies needed for practice1). This is a Today I Learned sort of book. TIL Burke and Hare never dug up a body, they jumped directly to life-snatching (thus this book doesn’t cover their murder spree in anything more than a paragraph or two). TIL early medical students had to source their own corpses for their anatomy lessons before the industry “professionalised”. TIL sometimes the bodysnatchers would cut to the chase and break into homes to steal the laid-out bodies before burial. TIL they’d send bodies cross-country in public coaches, stuffed into trunks; a pair of students even Weekend-at-Bernies’d their prize. TIL the quickest (and least respectful) technique to get a body out of a buried coffin without having to dig the whole thing up. It does get a little repetitive at points (there’s only so many ways this story can go, really), and I would have liked more exploration of the tension between the very blasé thieves and surgeons, the angry, disgusted parishioners trying to save their departed loved ones with overnight watchers, locked cages and booby traps, and the judges who would openly tell juries such acts were necessary for medical advancement and hand out light sentences, but this is a truly fascinating and macabre eye-opener of a read.

A Clear Case of Genius by Admiral Sir Reginald ‘Blinker’ Hall and Philip Vickers

Hall’s autobiography (incomplete as not all chapters survived the sixty years between writing and post-embargo publishing) about his time leading the secretive early Intelligence unit known as Room 40, simplistically, the WWI precursor to Bletchley. Vickers added the explanatory notes and maps for helpful context. I’ll be honest, I read this as research for a future WIP and didn’t think I’d enjoy an old-fashioned and rambling account of some self-important admiral with one of those twee upper-class in-joke nicknames, but I was wrong: Hall’s voice is clear, self-deprecating, and droll, with many fascinating spying titbits and anecdotes. The Blinker nickname comes from a facial twitch, because this is the same era when an Enid Blyton character could be nicknamed Fatty without anyone raising an eyebrow.

And

I have a second draft (technically, a sixth(?) draft, given the back and forth, but let’s just go with second), and a cover (check it out on my Books page if interested), and a planned release month (early August). I will soon have a blurb, because that’s what I will make myself write while I take the usual short break before tackling the make-it-good third draft. Ahem, “third” draft.

I also have something almost as painful to complete as this bloody manuscript: an author photo. It only took me a solid fifteen years of publishing (you can see it over here, if you happen to want to know what I look like2).

1. By finally giving surgeons the Continental solution of taking the unclaimed bodies of the poor from workhouses, so not exactly without ethical questions of its own. ↩︎
2. Incredibly Uncomfortable Middle-Aged White Woman TM ↩︎

Heute bei Rat der Stadt #Hemmingen haben sich alle Parteien im Rat für den Schutz von Minderheiten und für die Rechte der #LQBTQ+ bzw. #queer Community ausgesprochen. Leider haben sie trotzdem geschlossen unseren Antrag abgelehnt. #SPD #FDP Die Unabhängigen Hemminger und die #CDU wollten keine Regenbbigenmarkierung im Stadtbild in Hemmingen. Schade, aber wir denken trotzdem, dass es gut war den Antrag gestellt zu haben und so die Aufmerksamkeit zum Thema zu erhalten. #Vielfalt #regenbogen

Heute im Rat der Stadt #Hemmingen haben sich alle Parteien im Rat für den Schutz von Minderheiten und für die Rechte der #LQBTQ+ bzw. #queer Community ausgesprochen. Leider haben sie trotzdem geschlossen unseren Antrag abgelehnt. #SPD #FDP Die Unabhängigen Hemminger und die #CDU wollten keine Regenbbigenmarkierung im Stadtbild in Hemmingen. Schade, aber wir denken trotzdem, dass es gut war den Antrag gestellt zu haben und so die Aufmerksamkeit zum Thema zu erhalten. #Vielfalt #regenbogen

Heute im Rat der Stadt #Hemmingen haben sich alle Parteien im Rat für den Schutz von Minderheiten und für die Rechte der #LQBTQ+ bzw. #queer Community ausgesprochen. Leider haben sie trotzdem geschlossen unseren Antrag abgelehnt. #SPD #FDP Die Unabhängigen Hemminger und die #CDU wollten keine Regenbbigenmarkierung im Stadtbild in Hemmingen. Schade, aber wir denken trotzdem, dass es gut war den Antrag gestellt zu haben und so die Aufmerksamkeit zum Thema zu erhalten. #Vielfalt #regenbogen

Heute im Rat der Stadt #Hemmingen haben sich alle Parteien im Rat für den Schutz von Minderheiten und für die Rechte der #LQBTQ+ bzw. #queer Community ausgesprochen. Leider haben sie trotzdem geschlossen unseren Antrag abgelehnt. #SPD #FDP Die Unabhängigen Hemminger und die #CDU wollten keine Regenbbigenmarkierung im Stadtbild in Hemmingen. Schade, aber wir denken trotzdem, dass es gut war den Antrag gestellt zu haben und so die Aufmerksamkeit zum Thema zu erhalten. #Vielfalt #regenbogen

Heute im Rat der Stadt #Hemmingen haben sich alle Parteien im Rat für den Schutz von Minderheiten und für die Rechte der #LQBTQ+ bzw. #queer Community ausgesprochen. Leider haben sie trotzdem geschlossen unseren Antrag abgelehnt. #SPD #FDP Die Unabhängigen Hemminger und die #CDU wollten keine Regenbbigenmarkierung im Stadtbild in Hemmingen. Schade, aber wir denken trotzdem, dass es gut war den Antrag gestellt zu haben und so die Aufmerksamkeit zum Thema zu erhalten. #Vielfalt #regenbogen

Books: Favourite reads, March’26

Hit a major reading slump1 early in the month, but thoroughly enjoyed the books where I did manage to get past the first chapter, or first few pages, or first line, it really was that kind of month for kneejerk DNFs… Non-fiction also suffered, because everything I tried was just plain depressing in light of the handbasket’s current trajectory. So it ended up being a fiction month, and pretty much 100% queer in one way or another.

Fiction

The Paper Boys by DP Clarence

Extremely charming contemporary gay romance: it’s journalists divided by rivalry and class, it’s funny and sweet, it’s British humour, it’s completely my jam. I read all three currently available Brent Boys books (standalone but loosely following a group of friends/roommates; I don’t have to tell you how contemporary series work), and eagerly look forward to more by this ex-journalist author.

Out of the Loop by Katie Siegel

This is a Groundhog Day story with a difference: it starts when Amie wakes up the next morning, for the first time in two years. It then deals with the aftermath: how do you, a homebody with anxiety about trying new things, cope with unpredictability when you’ve grown comfortable knowing exactly how your day goes…while also solving a murder and pursuing a second-chance romance with your ex-girlfriend? Does a great job with a new angle to an well-known plot device.

The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes

Holy shit, this was amazing, and I say that as someone with aphantasia aka I cannot picture what the hell this “tree stump” city looks like, but I’m still here for it. There’s two storylines: the first follows Guy and Dawn, exterminators who hunt the myriad of pests that attack the city, as they encounter a new and deadly vermin. The second follows the arrival of a mysterious stranger into the political minefield of the upper city. Of course the two storylines intersect eventually – the more attention you pay, the faster you’ll see it. I really liked Leech by this author; I loved this one for the rare trifecta of great writing, characters, and plot. (Darker than my usual recommendations, however.)

The Incandescent by Emily Tesh

As with Naomi Novik’s Scholomance series, this uses the notion that magic makes children vulnerable to otherworldly predators/demons and that a magical boarding school is the best way to solve that problem (while causing secondary problems: a buffet of magic kids sure attracts the demons…). Instead of following students, however, it follows a career teacher, Walden, whose job, among many others, is to protect the school from demonic invasion. When a major outbreak almost destroys the school, it raises personal demons from the past, literally and metaphorically. I’ve loved all of Tesh’s previous books and this is no exception; I especially liked the way the rhythms of a busy school year flowed through the text (without being dull about it); her past as a teacher makes it very genuine and it matters as part of the plot too. I’m also glad to see the magical boarding school genre reclaimed, modernised and deepened.

The Pairing by Casey McQuiston

I didn’t read this when it first came out due to a deep aversion to contemporaries that is only just lifting (I guess I’ve swung from “need anything but the real world” to “need an alt-real world that is better than this cursed timeline”). I’m glad I came across it again – I loved it. The second-chance queer romance is good (very sexy, very pining; you might have trouble if you don’t like to see your romantic pairs hook up with others) but the love letter to the hedonism and sheer intensity of a fantastically idealised European food and art tour when you’re young and desirable and full of appetites is unsurpassed. It made me want to bake a focaccia and open an artisanal bookstore on the cobbled backstreet of a tiny mountain village.

Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs to Die by Greer Stothers

Sir Cameron finds out he’s the star of a prophecy which predicts his death will bring about the fall of the dark lord. Sir Cameron doesn’t love this turn of events, but he figures there’s one other person featured in that prophecy who also won’t like it… Just plain fun, and I am enjoying the modern crop of dark-lord books that play with the concept.

Into the Midnight Wood by Alexandra McCollum

There’s few plot threads, but mostly it’s a mismatched roommates m/m romance between David and Meredith, set in a fantasy-normative world (ie the presence of magic and magical creatures is never questioned nor explained, which I really liked) – but not an entirely queer-normative world (Meri cops some schtick from his family). This is the type of story that I often find a bit too cosy, but it has good writing and extra depth, particularly with Meri. I also got a little stomach swoop every time someone was accidentally or purposefully mean to him, and I hardly ever have physical reactions when reading, so that’s an ringing endorsement of the extent of my engagement with this couple 🙂

Hell’s Heart by Alexis Hall

As it says on the cover, sapphic Moby Dick in space. The first-person narrator (“call me whatever the fuck you like”, but really just “I”) and Q join a crew hunting an atmosphere-dwelling Leviathan under the captaincy of, you guessed it, A. I’ve only come across negative-leaning mentions of this one so it’s likely a YMMV one; as much as I have liked or loved all of Hall’s books, my very favourite is the “gender-swapped Sherlock Holmes in a SF world” one, so Hell’s Heart is right up my alley and I loved spending time with it. It’s extra fun if you’re passing familiar with Moby Dick but it’s not necessary.

Writing News

I finally have a (very ugly) first draft complete, hallelujah, it was like pulling teeth. I tend to switch to a procrastination novel when I get this stuck, but my brain(/Mr Bolshie MC) wasn’t having with that either. Fortunately, the only thing worse than writing when in this mood is not writing, so I cudgelled this monster out of my head at about 100 words a day.

I’m usually editing a final-draft-shaped MS during the annual Easter family holiday Up North, but this year, I’ll put this eldritch horror of a first draft aside for valuable fallow time and amuse myself collecting cover ideas.

All that to say there will be no May release, but there will be a release at some point this year!

1. everything slump. Jesus, it’s been a year (Captain, it’s April) ↩︎

Books: Favourite reads, March’26

Hit a major reading slump1 early in the month, but thoroughly enjoyed the books where I did manage to get past the first chapter, or first few pages, or first line, it really was that kind of month for kneejerk DNFs… Non-fiction also suffered, because everything I tried was just plain depressing in light of the handbasket’s current trajectory. So it ended up being a fiction month, and pretty much 100% queer in one way or another.

Fiction

The Paper Boys by DP Clarence

Extremely charming contemporary gay romance: it’s journalists divided by rivalry and class, it’s funny and sweet, it’s British humour, it’s completely my jam. I read all three currently available Brent Boys books (standalone but loosely following a group of friends/roommates; I don’t have to tell you how contemporary series work), and eagerly look forward to more by this ex-journalist author.

Out of the Loop by Katie Siegel

This is a Groundhog Day story with a difference: it starts when Amie wakes up the next morning, for the first time in two years. It then deals with the aftermath: how do you, a homebody with anxiety about trying new things, cope with unpredictability when you’ve grown comfortable knowing exactly how your day goes…while also solving a murder and pursuing a second-chance romance with your ex-girlfriend? Does a great job with a new angle to an well-known plot device.

The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes

Holy shit, this was amazing, and I say that as someone with aphantasia aka I cannot picture what the hell this “tree stump” city looks like, but I’m still here for it. There’s two storylines: the first follows Guy and Dawn, exterminators who hunt the myriad of pests that attack the city, as they encounter a new and deadly vermin. The second follows the arrival of a mysterious stranger into the political minefield of the upper city. Of course the two storylines intersect eventually – the more attention you pay, the faster you’ll see it. I really liked Leech by this author; I loved this one for the rare trifecta of great writing, characters, and plot. (Darker than my usual recommendations, however.)

The Incandescent by Emily Tesh

As with Naomi Novik’s Scholomance series, this uses the notion that magic makes children vulnerable to otherworldly predators/demons and that a magical boarding school is the best way to solve that problem (while causing secondary problems: a buffet of magic kids sure attracts the demons…). Instead of following students, however, it follows a career teacher, Walden, whose job, among many others, is to protect the school from demonic invasion. When a major outbreak almost destroys the school, it raises personal demons from the past, literally and metaphorically. I’ve loved all of Tesh’s previous books and this is no exception; I especially liked the way the rhythms of a busy school year flowed through the text (without being dull about it); her past as a teacher makes it very genuine and it matters as part of the plot too. I’m also glad to see the magical boarding school genre reclaimed, modernised and deepened.

The Pairing by Casey McQuiston

I didn’t read this when it first came out due to a deep aversion to contemporaries that is only just lifting (I guess I’ve swung from “need anything but the real world” to “need an alt-real world that is better than this cursed timeline”). I’m glad I came across it again – I loved it. The second-chance queer romance is good (very sexy, very pining; you might have trouble if you don’t like to see your romantic pairs hook up with others) but the love letter to the hedonism and sheer intensity of a fantastically idealised European food and art tour when you’re young and desirable and full of appetites is unsurpassed. It made me want to bake a focaccia and open an artisanal bookstore on the cobbled backstreet of a tiny mountain village.

Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs to Die by Greer Stothers

Sir Cameron finds out he’s the star of a prophecy which predicts his death will bring about the fall of the dark lord. Sir Cameron doesn’t love this turn of events, but he figures there’s one other person featured in that prophecy who also won’t like it… Just plain fun, and I am enjoying the modern crop of dark-lord books that play with the concept.

Into the Midnight Wood by Alexandra McCollum

There’s few plot threads, but mostly it’s a mismatched roommates m/m romance between David and Meredith, set in a fantasy-normative world (ie the presence of magic and magical creatures is never questioned nor explained, which I really liked) – but not an entirely queer-normative world (Meri cops some schtick from his family). This is the type of story that I often find a bit too cosy, but it has good writing and extra depth, particularly with Meri. I also got a little stomach swoop every time someone was accidentally or purposefully mean to him, and I hardly ever have physical reactions when reading, so that’s an ringing endorsement of the extent of my engagement with this couple 🙂

Hell’s Heart by Alexis Hall

As it says on the cover, sapphic Moby Dick in space. The first-person narrator (“call me whatever the fuck you like”, but really just “I”) and Q join a crew hunting an atmosphere-dwelling Leviathan under the captaincy of, you guessed it, A. I’ve only come across negative-leaning mentions of this one so it’s likely a YMMV one; as much as I have liked or loved all of Hall’s books, my very favourite is the “gender-swapped Sherlock Holmes in a SF world” one, so Hell’s Heart is right up my alley and I loved spending time with it. It’s extra fun if you’re passing familiar with Moby Dick but it’s not necessary.

Writing News

I finally have a (very ugly) first draft complete, hallelujah, it was like pulling teeth. I tend to switch to a procrastination novel when I get this stuck, but my brain(/Mr Bolshie MC) wasn’t having with that either. Fortunately, the only thing worse than writing when in this mood is not writing, so I cudgelled this monster out of my head at about 100 words a day.

I’m usually editing a final-draft-shaped MS during the annual Easter family holiday Up North, but this year, I’ll put this eldritch horror of a first draft aside for valuable fallow time and amuse myself collecting cover ideas.

All that to say there will be no May release, but there will be a release at some point this year!

1. everything slump. Jesus, it’s been a year (Captain, it’s April) ↩︎

#AmReading "Sick and Dirty: Hollywood's Gay Golden Age and the Making of Modern Queerness" by Michael Koresky. Not very far in, but I think it's going to be fascinating. It's about finding value in older film depictions of queerness. Seems to be a bit in response to "The Celluloid Closet."

#Movies #LQBTQ #Nonfiction
@bookstodon
#Bookstodon

#AmReading "Sick and Dirty: Hollywood's Gay Golden Age and the Making of Modern Queerness" by Michael Koresky. Not very far in, but I think it's going to be fascinating. It's about finding value in older film depictions of queerness. Seems to be a bit in response to "The Celluloid Closet."

#Movies #LQBTQ #Nonfiction
@bookstodon
#Bookstodon

#AmReading "Sick and Dirty: Hollywood's Gay Golden Age and the Making of Modern Queerness" by Michael Koresky. Not very far in, but I think it's going to be fascinating. It's about finding value in older film depictions of queerness. Seems to be a bit in response to "The Celluloid Closet."

#Movies #LQBTQ #Nonfiction
@bookstodon
#Bookstodon

#AmReading "Sick and Dirty: Hollywood's Gay Golden Age and the Making of Modern Queerness" by Michael Koresky. Not very far in, but I think it's going to be fascinating. It's about finding value in older film depictions of queerness. Seems to be a bit in response to "The Celluloid Closet."

#Movies #LQBTQ #Nonfiction
@bookstodon
#Bookstodon

#AmReading "Sick and Dirty: Hollywood's Gay Golden Age and the Making of Modern Queerness" by Michael Koresky. Not very far in, but I think it's going to be fascinating. It's about finding value in older film depictions of queerness. Seems to be a bit in response to "The Celluloid Closet."

#Movies #LQBTQ #Nonfiction
@bookstodon
#Bookstodon

«Clanmitglieder, die ihr Auto aufgebrochen hätten, von einer Polizei, die oft zu spät komme und dann nichts unternehme, und von einer Justiz, die Übeltäter frei herumlaufen lasse, selbst wenn diese mehrfach kriminell gehandelt hätten.» www.watson.ch/internationa... #berlin #deutschland #lqbtq

«Berlin ist kaputt»: Dieser sc...

Our next Live Q&A will be this Sunday 9pm EST / 7pm Pacific. Come with your questions about moving to Thailand and our members will be on the call to answer. ❤️ #transactionrefuge #transisbeautiful #transrightsarehumanrights #helpmeleave
#transinthailand #transinchiangmai #lqbtq #pride #transjoy

Our next Live Q&A will be this Sunday 9pm EST / 7pm Pacific. Come with your questions about moving to Thailand and our members will be on the call to answer. ❤️ #transactionrefuge #transisbeautiful #transrightsarehumanrights #helpmeleave
#transinthailand #transinchiangmai #lqbtq #pride #transjoy

Our next Live Q&A will be this Sunday 9pm EST / 7pm Pacific. Come with your questions about moving to Thailand and our members will be on the call to answer. ❤️ #transactionrefuge #transisbeautiful #transrightsarehumanrights #helpmeleave
#transinthailand #transinchiangmai #lqbtq #pride #transjoy

Our next Live Q&A will be this Sunday 9pm EST / 7pm Pacific. Come with your questions about moving to Thailand and our members will be on the call to answer. ❤️ #transactionrefuge #transisbeautiful #transrightsarehumanrights #helpmeleave
#transinthailand #transinchiangmai #lqbtq #pride #transjoy

#trump #MAGA #LQBTQ #epsteinlist

#trump #MAGA #LQBTQ #epsteinlist

#trump #MAGA #LQBTQ #epsteinlist

#trump #MAGA #LQBTQ #epsteinlist

#trump #MAGA #LQBTQ #epsteinlist

While I am still building the set, the guys are not helping at all...

Today, Barbie is behind the camera.
Batman & Ken are now doing "Trademen" Stories for their socialmedia accounts!
#lego #afol #afob #klemmbausteine #mattel #barbie #batman #LQBTQ #tradewives #trademen #dei

While I am still building the set, the guys are not helping at all...

Today, Barbie is behind the camera.
Batman & Ken are now doing "Trademen" Stories for their socialmedia accounts!
#lego #afol #afob #klemmbausteine #mattel #barbie #batman #LQBTQ #tradewives #trademen #dei

While I am still building the set, the guys are not helping at all...

Today, Barbie is behind the camera.
Batman & Ken are now doing "Trademen" Stories for their socialmedia accounts!
#lego #afol #afob #klemmbausteine #mattel #barbie #batman #LQBTQ #tradewives #trademen #dei

While I am still building the set, the guys are not helping at all...

Today, Barbie is behind the camera.
Batman & Ken are now doing "Trademen" Stories for their socialmedia accounts!
#lego #afol #afob #klemmbausteine #mattel #barbie #batman #LQBTQ #tradewives #trademen #dei

While I am still building the set, the guys are not helping at all...

Today, Barbie is behind the camera.
Batman & Ken are now doing "Trademen" Stories for their socialmedia accounts!
#lego #afol #afob #klemmbausteine #mattel #barbie #batman #LQBTQ #tradewives #trademen #dei

some trans art for my trans folks and supporters :heart_sp_trans:

https://ko-fi.com/tyiart/shop/forthequeers

#transgender #queer #queerart #transart #transrights #lqbtq #artshop #stickershop #stickers

some trans art for my trans folks and supporters :heart_sp_trans:

https://ko-fi.com/tyiart/shop/forthequeers

#transgender #queer #queerart #transart #transrights #lqbtq #artshop #stickershop #stickers

some trans art for my trans folks and supporters :heart_sp_trans:

https://ko-fi.com/tyiart/shop/forthequeers

#transgender #queer #queerart #transart #transrights #lqbtq #artshop #stickershop #stickers

some trans art for my trans folks and supporters :heart_sp_trans:

https://ko-fi.com/tyiart/shop/forthequeers

#transgender #queer #queerart #transart #transrights #lqbtq #artshop #stickershop #stickers

Zukünftige Bundesregierung - Sorge vor politischen Rückschritten für queere Menschen

Im Koalitionsvertrag kommt das Wort queer nur zwei Mal vor. Unklar ist bisher auch, ob es in der neuen Bundesregierung noch einen Queer-Beauftragten geben wird.#SvenLehmann #Queer #Grüne #LQBTQ #Familie #Koalitionsvertrag
Sorge vor politischen Rückschritten für queere Menschen