I’ve had The Coldest Touch by Isabel Sterling on my bookshelf for a couple of years—a victim of the neverending TBR list. I would say that any vampire love story is perfect for me, but the sparkly baseball family forced me to have to qualify that statement long ago. The Coldest Touch has none of the problems of thatRead More
Credit Card Debt, Climate Change, and Magical Girls: A Magical Girl Retires by Park Seolyeon
Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! I am sure you are all familiar with magical girl stories like Sailor Moon, but have you ever heard of a magical girl with credit card debt? In Park Seolyeon’s A Magical Girl Retires (translated by Anton Hur), our unnamed protagonist is 29, has lost herRead More
Teen Witches Cover Up a Murder: When We Were Magic by Sarah Gailey
Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! Alexis and her five friends share a secret—they all have magic powers. On prom night, Alexis’s magic goes wrong and a boy ends up dead. Now, the six teens have to keep this a secret as they try to make things right. Bonds areRead More
Gory, Queer Cosmic Horror: The Dead Take the A Train by Cassandra Khaw and Richard Kadrey
Bookshop.org Affiliate Link This plunge into cosmic horror follows Julie, an almost-thirty-year-old woman with a diet mainly consisting of alcohol and whatever brand of drug she has lying around, through the streets of New York as she tries to keep herself afloat doing odd monster-hunting jobs. What really kicks the story off, though, is herRead More
Join the Henchfolk Union: Strictly No Heroics by B.L. Radley
Bookshop.org Affiliate Link Strictly No Heroics is a YA urban fantasy novel that treats “super” as an adverb as much as a noun. It introduces a world of supers—superheroes, supervillains—who are super dangerous to normies (non-powered humans) and super helpful to the forces of gentrification. Main character Riley has simple desires: earn enough money for therapy,Read More
LA as a Not-So-Urban Jungle: Undergrowth by Chel Hylott and Chelsea Lim
Bookshop.org Affiliate Link Seventeen-year-old Mariam finds herself surviving a Los Angeles that has been overrun by a magic jungle of horror. Along the way, she meets a group of other survivors, and together they become a family. But Mariam has her secrets. She magically heals and cannot die thanks to a deal with the devilRead More
A Dark, Magical Story of Gender Versus Tradition: Her Majesty’s Royal Coven by Juno Dawson
Bookshop.org Affiliate Link Her Majesty’s Royal Coven, written by Juno Dawson, is an enthralling urban fantasy that explores gender in a magical world that, similar to our own, finds itself strictly divided along the binary. It questions concepts of power, friendship, love, and feminism in a world in which traditional power structures are challenged and,Read More
Meagan Kimberly reviews Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova
Amazon Affiliate Link | Bookshop.org Affiliate Link Alejandra Mortiz wants nothing to do with her magic, so she tries to get rid of it, resulting in catastrophe. Putting her trust in a brujo named Nova sends her on the path to nearly losing her family. She must travel to the magical realm of Los LagosRead More
Nat reviews Black Water Sister by Zen Cho
Amazon Affiliate Link | Bookshop.org Affiliate Link A suspenseful tale of vengeful ghosts, family secrets, and self discovery – it’s funny, it’s creepy, there are twists and turns, gods and spirits, and a queer main character who’s just trying to get her shit together. What more can you ask for? Jessamyn Teoh is the daughterRead More
Carolina reads The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo
Amazon Affiliate Link | Bookshop.org Affiliate Link Buckle up, old sport! The Great Gatsby has entered the public domain, leaving the door open for any author to submit their take on Fitzgerald’s classic. A myriad of sequels, prequels and retellings of the novel have already been published in 2021, or are slated to be releasedRead More