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A Swoony Historical Sapphic Romance: An Island Princess Starts a Scandal by Adriana Herrera

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An Island Princess Starts a Scandal audiobook cover

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Manuela del Carmen Caceres Galvan wants to experience a final lesbian hurrah in Paris before she has to marry a rich man for her family’s security. Cora Kempf Bristol, Duchess of Sundridge, wants to secure her place in the business world by negotiating a land purchase so key to a development project that no man can question her prowess again. Both women are adept at playing a game of societal chess and will find each other to be an irresistible challenge.

As the story unfolds, the characters’ development makes you invested in more than just their potential romance. Manuela plays the role of fixer in her family, as she always takes on the responsibility of using her status to keep them financially secure. They use and gaslight her into paying for their mistakes. Now, she has to marry a rich man to fix their current debts, but her grandmother left her a parcel of land that she’s using as her bargaining chip to gain a modicum of independence. It’s this land that Cora seeks to buy for her business in building the first Pan-American railroad.

Meanwhile, Cora wrestles with her past mistakes, desperate to regain power and provide the status needed for her stepson to take his place in the House of Lords. Manuela’s proposal unlocks desires she long thought dead and forces her to open up in ways she believed she never could again. While Manuela is trapped by societal expectations to marry well for her parents, Cora is trapped in her desire to demand a place at the patriarchal table. Through their growing bond, they each come to find that they can choose their own happiness, everyone else be damned. But it’s a long road to get there.

Herrera develops Manuela’s and Cora’s characters adeptly by showing their relationships with friends and family outside of their romance. Manuela’s bond with her closest friends, whom she calls her pride, her Leonas, reveals that not even they know the full extent of her parents’ cruelty. Cora’s relationship with her aunt, stepson, and friends reveals the past that haunts her and why she believes she cannot trust in love again. It’s truly beautiful to see how each of them learns to open up and have faith in themselves and each other.

The historical setting makes for a delicious backdrop to this blooming romance and sensuous passion, especially when listening to it on audio. Rich, lush language always makes everything sound so appealing, from the feel of fabrics to the taste of food. As usually happens in historical romances, the euphemisms used for sex and sexual acts always delight.

Overall, An Island Princess Starts a Scandal is a swoony, historical sapphic romance that is perfect for fans of the genre.

Sophomore Sapphic Novel Doesn’t Disappoint: Interesting Facts About Space by Emily Austin

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Interesting Facts About Space by Emily Austin (she/her) is one of my new favorite books. Within the first few pages, Austin personified a tampon box, lamented the indignity of celebrating baby genitals (read: gender reveals), and made the astute, albeit morbid, observation that one of the perks of being a lesbian is that it’s less critical to vet whether your date will kill you. I was so intrigued and entertained, I couldn’t wait to keep reading.

If Austin’s name sounds familiar to you, you may have heard of her debut novel, Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead, which followed a twentysomething atheist lesbian who could not stop ruminating about death. The book was long listed for The Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour, shortlisted for the Amazon First Novel Award, and a finalist for the Ottawa Book Awards. 

Austin’s sophomore novel follows another endearing and unique protagonist: space-obsessed and true-crime-loving Enid, a twenty-six-year-old neurodivergent lesbian who is deaf in one ear. When she is not working at the Space Agency or listening to a seemingly endless loop of true crime podcasts, Enid is going out with a steady rotation of women/non-binary people from dating apps. She has it down to a science. She has never dated anyone exclusively and is quick to cut people off before things get too serious.

Enid’s most important relationship is the one she has with her mother.  When she was young, her father cheated on her mother and started a new family. At the start of the novel, he has recently passed away and Enid is trying to cultivate a relationship with her two half-sisters while maintaining loyalty to her mother, who she lovingly peppers with interesting facts about space to show she cares.

Early on, it is clear that Enid has some unresolved trauma. She is inexplicably terrified of bald men. She has trouble accessing and trusting her memories. She is convinced that she is being followed. She believes she may have a parasite, that she is a shell for something bad. In the midst of all this, Enid meets Polly, who bypasses Enid’s carefully constructed emotional safeguards and makes her start wondering if she wants more.

Austin does a masterful job of working through Enid’s issues with humor and empathy. While Interesting Facts About Space has several engaging sub-plots, the most engrossing aspect of the novel is Enid’s journey of self-discovery. Part of what endeared me to Enid was that I felt like I bore witness to her reckoning. I watched her grapple with questions like “Am I a good person?” and “Do I deserve love?” – questions I have asked myself. The ability to explore such emotional depth in a book without sounding contrived is a skill. Austin made me feel so connected to Enid that I wished I could continue following her journey.

If you read and love this book like me, check out Austin’s backlist, which includes Oh Honey (a novella) and Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead (her debut novel). Austin’s third novel, We Could Be Rats, is expected in January 2025.

Trigger warnings for discussions of mental health issues, including hypervigilance, PTSD, dissociation, hyperarousal, depression, anxiety, and self-harm; and graphic descriptions of true crime scenarios.

Raquel R. Rivera (she/her/ella) is a Latina lawyer and lady lover from New Jersey.  She is in a lifelong love affair with books and earned countless free personal pan pizzas from the Pizza Hut BOOK IT! program as a kid to prove it.

A Lavender Haze Love Story: Late Bloomer by Mazey Eddings

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Late Bloomer cover

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“I wish I could say it gets better, but it only gets worse.”

“Nothing says love like Taylor Swift.”

There is a lot to like about Late Bloomer by Mazey Eddings, but these two lines are what made the book stand out for me. In context, the first line is spoken by one main character, who is 26, to the other, who is 24. Later on, when Opal, the 24-year-old, says the line about Taylor Swift, Pepper replies, “Aren’t a lot of her songs about heartbreak?”

“Absolutely do not get me started,” is both Opal’s retort and what I would say in response to someone bringing up either of these topics. I have a lot of thoughts on these topics, and that is certainly part of what made me enjoy Late Bloomer so much.

Late Bloomer is set outside of Asheville, North Carolina, on a flower farm named Thistle and Bloom. Opal wins the lottery, buys the farm, moves from Charlotte to Asheville, and discovers that her new home is very much still occupied by Pepper. As it turns out, Pepper has had the farm sold out from under her by her ne’er do well mother because of something something probate. Hijinks ensue. There are two ways to approach the setting and exposition of Late Bloomer: 1) If you love flowers and/or Asheville, then you’re going to love the entire backdrop of this book. 2) If those things do not matter to you as much, throwing Opal and Pepper together in a house without “adult supervision” is more than enough to drive the story forward. 

So about that 26-year-old giving sage advice to a 24-year-old… truthfully, it was not my favorite. Have I once upon a time said something similar in a similar situation? Probably more than once. It’s the kind of thing that isn’t meant to be overheard by someone who wasn’t entirely sure if their back was going to cooperate this morning. That’s okay, though. More importantly, this interaction made me realize something: I think Late Bloomer is the first romance I’ve read where both characters are Gen Z. I’ve read plenty of books with Millennial/Millennial pairings as well as Gen X/Millennial and Millennial/Gen Z pairings, but I think this is the first Gen Z/Gen Z romance. 

To be clear, this is a good thing. No one in this book owns a coffee shop (not that there’s anything wrong with that!), and neither main character is remotely close to having children—or having their life together, for that matter. Pepper is autistic, and Opal has ADHD. (Unless she’s also autistic. Opal tells Pepper that, because medical tests are expensive and there’s a lot of overlap between the two, that she didn’t bother getting a diagnosis. Again, no one owns a coffee shop.) These two characters allow Eddings to talk about ADHD and autism in ways that I don’t often see from Gen Xers or Millennials. Eddings’s characters felt more real to me than many of the characters I’ve read in other romances lately. If someone told me that people like these characters existed in real life, I would definitely believe it. And while I know that romance is not the best place to go for realism, it works in Late Bloomer. 

Also, there’s a flower sculpture contest, so it’s not like I’m saying the book is bereft of whimsy.

Speaking of which, what’s up with the number of romances out there that invoke Taylor Swift’s name? Not just the first and last name—it’s important that Alison makes it onto the page as well. Swift’s middle name has somehow become the vehicle by which someone can emphasize just how powerful Swift truly is. (I’m certainly not denying that; shortly after the release of folklore in 2020, I began referring to her as “the bard.”) And the Swift references as book titles! In just the past two months, I’ve read Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend by Emma Alban and How You Get the Girl by Anita Kelly. Eddings gets in on the fun as well, which readers discover as part of the author’s note in Late Bloomer. I’ll admit that my favorite part of the book is probably “Anatomy of a Title,” in which Eddings reveals that one of the possible titles for Late Bloomer was—you guessed it… 

“Lavender Haze.”

I really needed to get that whole Taylor Swift thing off my chest. More importantly, the insight that Eddings provided into that part of the writing process was a treat.

What I’m trying to say is that Late Bloomer has a lot of depth to it. I like the stories that follow tropes in a way that is predictable and comforting, yes, but it is also fun when an author adds something that I don’t come across that often. Or, in the case of the bard, something I see a lot of but approached in a way that’s different and makes me laugh. Late Bloomer is an easy recommend, and—if it matters to you one way or the other—it’s also one of spicier romances that I’ve read this year. 

Liv (she/her) is a trans woman, a professor of English, and a reluctant Southerner. Described (charitably) as passionate and strong-willed, she loves to talk (and talk) about popular culture, queer theory, utopias, time travel, and any other topic that she has magpied over the years. You can find her on storygraph and letterboxd @livvalentine.

Love and Rebellion: We Set the Dark on Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia

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We Set the Dark on Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia is a young adult novel that follows teenager Daniela as she navigates becoming one of the wives to a vicious up-and-coming young man while simultaneously becoming a secret member of the rebel group La Voz that undermines him and those like him on his way to the top. The girls at the Medio School for Girls are trained for five years to either be perfect Primeras or Segundas. Every rich, distinguished young man gets assigned two wives at the Medio School’s graduation ceremony: one Primera, to be his equal and his defender, and one Segunda, to bear his children and support him emotionally. In Medio, this is considered the norm. Though the privileged claim that this is a decree by the Sun God who himself chose two wives to stand opposite each other, Dani, the best Primera the Medio School for Girls has ever produced, soon finds out the truth: that the rich and powerful will use whatever they can to get and keep what they want, no matter the cost to those less privileged who live on the other side of the wall.

The world Mejia builds is so detailed and expansive. The book opens with a prologue detailing the story of how the Sun God attained his two wives through a fight with his brother the Salt God, and at the end of it, you find out that this is the introduction to the rulebook that the girls at the school have to follow. After that, each chapter opens with a different rule for Primeras from the Medio School for Girls Handbook, 14th edition. Each rule applies to the chapter in which it appears, and the reader gets to watch as Dani starts to bend them or use them in ways the Medio School never would have approved of the more she gets involved with La Voz. As it turns out, a lot of her Primera training makes her a good spy. She is quiet, determined, able to hide her emotions, and knows how to look someone over for weaknesses. As Sota, the leader of La Voz, says at one point, Dani is “a hundred shades of a girl.” She knows how to hide her true emotions and layer another emotion or façade on top of it that she wants other people to see. She’s been able to keep her real pedigree a secret for years by becoming the best Primera she can be. She has to be the best; her parents risked everything to get her onto this side of the wall that separates the powerful from the weak. Her identification papers are fake, and she has been able to get by until the night of her graduation when Sota comes into the Medio School for Girls and starts Dani on the path to becoming more than a Primera or a girl trying to live a life only her parents wanted for her.

Dani’s growing relationship with Carmen, the Segunda to the man Dani marries, is another strong point of the book. The novel’s first chapters paint a picture of Carmen and Dani’s tumultuous relationship as girls who were almost friends until Carmen chose to be her bully instead, and I read that and immediately thought, Yep, that’s the love interest. I couldn’t wait to see how things would change for them, and Mejia did not disappoint. There’s a sweet quote later in the book from Carmen to Dani that had me texting my friend because it hit so well. They are two girls in a bad situation finding comfort in each other. Even when Dani isn’t sure who she can trust or who knows the truth about her, she decides to trust Carmen. Anyone who reads sapphic literature would be able to see Dani’s repressed feelings miles before she figures them out herself. Carmen knows she likes girls and tells Dani a whole story about how she figured it out in her youth, but liking anybody is new for Dani, since Primeras aren’t supposed to care about things like love or lust. Those emotions are saved for the Segundas, so even kissing is new for Dani. She waxes poetic several times about Carmen’s kisses, and it’s so sweet every time.

My only real criticism of the book is with their husband, Mateo. He is very one-dimensional. There’s no such thing as a redeeming quality to be found in the guy. He’s controlling, he doesn’t believe in letting his Primera do what she spent her teen years perfecting for the day she would become a wife, and he plays a central role in getting Dani’s ex-roommate arrested as a sympathizer to the resistance. You’re not supposed to like him, not even for a second. From his first entrance in the book, Dani dislikes how he treats her, and it just gets worse from there. This fell flat for me a couple times, simply because he’s supposed to be this suave rich boy intent on becoming president someday. A man trying to reach that level and be elected by his people would probably have a few qualities worth voting for, but Mateo simply doesn’t. He’s a villain, and that’s all he is. I wish he’d been given the opportunity to grow a little bit as a character, even if that growth was backwards, but he’s the same at the start of the book as he is at the end of it. Carmen and Dani both change so much, but Mateo is static. I guess it makes the decision Dani comes to about officially joining the rebellion more black and white, but I would have loved to see Mateo slowly slip into the person Dani knows him to be instead of Mateo being insufferable and awful from the jump.

Despite that, I’m really glad I read this book again. I remembered liking it a lot the first time I read it years ago but had forgotten too much to jump into the sequel. Everything I did remember still hit, and everything I didn’t made me love the book more and more. Mejia captured me from the first page, and I read the entire novel in a day. Her world is so vivid, and I cared about Dani and Carmen almost immediately. I have the sequel, We Unleash the Merciless Storm, on my desk right now and am looking forward to diving headlong into it. I’m desperate to know how things turn out for Dani and Carmen after the heart wrenching reveal at the end of We Set the Dark on Fire, and I’m so excited to see where Mejia takes them.

Trigger warnings for: death, a graphic depiction of Dani getting burned, and violence.

Cult Leader, Zealot, or Savior?: The Genesis of Misery by Neon Yang

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the cover of The Genesis of Misery by Neon Yang

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Misery Nomaki (she/they) wields the power to manipulate holystone, an ability only saints or those void-touched have. She believes she is void mad, while the angel that guides her, Ruin, tells her she is the next Messiah. But regardless of what is the truth, Misery only knows they want to get out of their small town and search for freedom. The powers that be have other plans for them though. As she continues to use her wits to find a way out of her predicament, Misery is led down a path that may reveal the truth about her true identity as Messiah.

Yang’s world-building is overwhelming for the first few chapters. The story drops you right in the middle of the action with jargon that, while it stems from English, makes zero sense if you don’t already know this world. And presumably, you don’t know this world, because it’s the first in what may be meant to be a series. Once you pick up the lingo, though, things start to roll.

A theocratic government rules Misery’s world, but it is at war with the Heretics, those who believe in science over religion. Misery couldn’t care less about either school of thought. Having grown up poor in the forgotten outskirts of the empire trapped by the Faith, no matter what, she wants a place in the world for herself. But every move they make brings them closer to their destiny.

Part of Yang’s world-building includes the normalization of sharing one’s pronouns. It’s part of everyone’s profile when a character downloads the information constantly coming in through a chip in their brains. If someone’s pronouns are not known, it simply states unknown. None of this is made a big deal and neopronouns are quite common. This gender fluidity leads to a standard of queer relationships.

When the throne wants to come after Misery, Lady Lee Alodia Lightning, the empire’s princess, takes it upon herself to capture them. Their relationship starts with contention, to say the least, as Lady Lee wants to kill Misery. But as the story unfolds, their paths come closer together, leading to a romantic relationship. However, there isn’t enough time spent on the page showing just how this comes to happen. Their dynamic never breaches the surface, so it’s hard to believe them coming together.

The story takes an interesting trajectory, as Misery’s character arc doesn’t follow a typical hero’s journey. At least, not the one readers may expect. As she dives further into her lie of being a Messiah, events and signs point to it being true. They become a zealot, making it hard as a reader to continue having compassion for them. I didn’t come to hate Misery, but she started to make me uncomfortable.

The end leaves readers with more questions than answers. It certainly made me intrigued and wanting another book to continue the story.

A Debut with Staying Power: Please Stop Trying to Leave Me by Alana Saab

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Please Stop Trying to Leave Me is a deeply engrossing, frenetic, and thought-provoking debut by Portuguese-Lebanese-American writer and screenwriter Alana Saab (she/her).

The story is narrated by Norma, a twenty-seven-year-old, privileged young woman living in present-day New York in the wake of a mental health breakdown. Described by Saab as “experimental”, the novel unfolds over eight months of Norma’s therapy sessions, which are interspersed with short stories from her manuscript. In therapy, Norma explores the “oblivion” that has plagued her since childhood. Though Norma previously only ebbed in and out of oblivion, she now finds herself stuck in it, unable to finish her manuscript and overwhelmed by the signs she believes God is sending her to break up with her girlfriend.

Early in the book, Norma’s therapist diagnoses her with major depressive disorder, depersonalization/derealization disorder, and immense anxiety. Norma’s therapist surmises that Norma is projecting meaning onto her external environment (i.e., signs from God that she should break up with her girlfriend) so that she does not have to do the internal work of reflection. Norma’s therapist believes that this is likely because Norma has experienced significant trauma.

Reading Please Stop Trying to Leave Me was an immersive experience. As someone who struggles with anxiety, Saab’s writing was so authentic that I had to put the book down several times to stop myself from getting swept up in Norma’s chaotic energy. Saab displayed such a high-level understanding of mental health issues and the ways in which they manifest that I was not at all surprised to learn she has a Masters in Psychology. It was also really refreshing that Saab wrote with such unflinching honesty about not only Norma’s traumas, but the reality of being in a healthy adult relationship, including the fact that ambivalence is a normal part of every relationship, romantic or otherwise.

My favorite short story from Norma’s manuscript was “Fertile Ashes”, wherein she charted her main character’s lifelong coming out journey and compared the art of fearlessly choosing for ourselves to the self-immolation and rebirth of a phoenix. I also really enjoyed how clever and incisive Norma was throughout the novel. No matter how heavy the subject matter, she managed to bring levity–whether she was criticizing the arrangement of the pillows on her therapist’s couch or cursing out Joe Biden for lying to the American people and upsetting her girlfriend.  

Saab is a masterful storyteller. Although I found Please Stop Trying to Leave Me difficult to get through at times, it was only because Saab had so expertly crafted Norma’s world that its chaos was palpable. I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone who’s ever wondered about how the mind works of someone who struggles with depression, anxiety, or dissociation, and to anyone who believes in the healing properties of writing.

Saab lives in New York with her partner.  She teaches writing workshops to survivors of domestic violence, human trafficking, and sexual assault through the non-profit Here There and Everywhere. She also mentors incarcerated writers with PEN America’s Prison Writing Program. You can find Saab on Instagram at @alana.saab.

Trigger warnings for discussions of mental health issues, including depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and depersonalization/derealization disorder; recreational and prescription drug use; child sexual abuse; suicidal ideation; and graphic detail of a medical procedure.

Raquel R. Rivera (she/her/ella) is a Latina lawyer and lady lover from New Jersey.  She is in a lifelong love affair with books and earned countless free personal pan pizzas from the Pizza Hut BOOK IT! program as a kid to prove it.

A Sapphic Nova Scotia Gothic: A Sweet Sting of Salt by Rose Sutherland

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A Sweet Sting of Salt by Rose Sutherland cover

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I couldn’t tell you why, but I am obsessed with sapphic selkie stories. There are very few of them out there, but I leap on the chance to read any that I stumble upon. Don’t get me wrong: I like sapphic mermaids, too, but there’s something about a sapphic selkie story that hooks me like no other. So it’s not surprise that A Sweet Sting of Salt was one of my most anticipated releases of the year.

This is such an immersive story. It’s a Nova Scotia gothic, and I could feel the spray of waves crashing against rocks as I read it. Sutherland describes this seaside town in loving detail, even as the main character has a less rosy view of it. Jean has been an outsider since she was caught with another woman when she was younger. Her girlfriend was sent away to marry a French man—despite not being able to speak French—to Jean’s heartbreak. Luckily, Jean was taken in by the local midwife, and now she has earned the town’s begrudging respect as an extremely skilled midwife herself.

Helping someone give birth is an everyday occurrence for Jean, but not the way it happens this night. She wakes up to the sound of a woman screaming outside and finds a stranger in labour outdoors in the middle of a storm. She brings Muirin inside and helps her, though Muirin doesn’t speak any English. Jean finds out that Muirin is the wife of her neighbour Tobias, but it’s very strange that Tobias didn’t let her know about the pregnancy, and Muirin is reluctant to go home.

As you’d expect from a gothic, the tension and danger slowly ratchets up over the course of the story. First, we get to see Muirin and Jean become friends as Jean teaches her English and assists with the baby. Jean’s mother committed suicide shortly after she was born, so she’s attentive to new mothers’ mental states, determined to prevent that from happening to any of her charges. Soon, though, she finds herself falling for Muirin in spite of her best efforts not to.

Maybe it’s inevitable in this sort of story, but I was surprised that the main character doesn’t find out that Muirin is a selkie until well into the book. It’s in the marketing, so the reader knows right away. I don’t love having information the main character doesn’t for that long, but that’s a personal preference.

By the end of A Sweet Sting of Salt, I was reminded of Carmen Maria Machado’s “The Husband Stitch.” “The Girl With the Green Ribbon” and “The Selkie Wife” share a similar premise, a women’s horror story: the idea of sacrificing everything for your husband/children and it not being enough. Women are so often expected to be completely subsumed by the role of wife and mother until there’s nothing left that’s just theirs. These feminist retellings make that message shine through, and they show that a truly loving and equitable relationship means being able to keep something for yourself.

I liked the dynamic between the practical to a fault Jean and mysterious, passionate Muirin. Muirin picks up language at an unnatural rate, so they are able to communicate even when they don’t completely share a language. I also appreciated the side characters, including Jean’s mentor midwife and mother figure, who is Indigenous, and a character who is coded autistic. I always appreciate when historical fiction has a diverse cast. We also get to see how Jean’s former girlfriend’s life turned out, which was a pleasant subversion of my expectations.

While I didn’t like knowing the reveal hundreds of pages before the main character did, that was a pretty minor complaint. A Sweet Sting of Salt was an immersive read perfect for fans of queer retellings, folklore, gothics, and seaside settings.

A Lush Bisexual Vampire Gothic: Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk

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the cover of Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk

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Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk, originally published in 2020 and translated this year by Heather Cleary, is a dramatic and lushly gothic novel about two women who a string of circumstances going back over a century bring together in modern day Buenos Aires. Yuszczuk revels in sensual, physical details as she describes how a vampire from Europe emigrates to Buenos Aires when she realizes she can no longer remain undetected in Europe. Decades later, a modern woman struggling with the realities of her mother’s terminal illness and the ongoing effects of grief inherits a key and sets off a collision of destinies. Thirst is a fairly short read (or compact audiobook in my case), and I had a great time because Thirst is a vampire book that revels in being a vampire book. There’s blood and violence and obsession, and at one point a priest is defiled purely out of spite. It’s a sensuous romp, and perfect for heating up an already hot summer.

Thirst, as the title states, is concerned with thirst, both the physical and sexual.  The vampire narrator is constantly concerned with her physical thirst for blood and with avoiding vampire hunters that are trying to stop her from satisfying that thirst. It’s interesting to me that she both acknowledges that it’s natural for humans to want to stop her from feeding on them and also asserts that she did not ask to be made into a vampire and that it’s natural for her to want to sustain herself, acknowledging the eternal competition between the two. There’s also tension as she is first forced to flee vampire hunters in Europe and then contend with the developing world of forensic science linking her to her victims. Thirst asks, how do you satisfy your thirst in a world increasingly capable of stopping you? 

At the same time, the vampire narrator is also concerned with her more metaphorical thirst.  Living outside of society, and thus societal strictures, she revels in her sexuality, taking what she wants whenever she has the whim. While several of her early encounters are with men—who see her as a helpless lone woman they are taking advantage of even as she uses them—she does not shy away from her physical attraction towards women. Even before she meets the modern narrator, she enjoys an interlude with a washer woman who shows her where she can wash her clothes in private. As they undressed together, I enjoyed that the vampire’s physical appreciation of Justine was untainted with any internal hesitation or regrets—as someone who fed intimately on people’s final moments, the vampire felt free to enjoy any physical pleasure she wanted without bias.

The modern narrator she eventually meets up with, on the other hand, is wracked with grief, indecision, and the expectations of others. Her mother is in the final stages of a horrible, untreatable terminal illness that slowly leaves her more and more paralyzed. As her mother disappears bit by bit under medical paraphernalia and pain, she has to grapple with her day to day life and her young son on top of grief and emotionally-draining caregiving. And as she watches her mother’s choices disappear to be made for her by others, the intensity with which the vampire exists attracts her, even as she is startled and alarmed by the violence. Their immediate attraction to each other is electric and visceral—almost feral. Although most of the book was concerned with their individual journeys, I found the chemistry of their meeting compelling, and the ending satisfying. 

In conclusion, Thirst is a lush gothic vampire novel that takes lingers on the physical realities of being a vampire, the clash between the vitality of life as an individual and the grind of the realities of existence, and the sensuality that is there for the taking if one dares. Yuszczuk keys into a rich gothic and vampiric tradition without overly lingering on logistics or greater vampire lore. This is a book about the journey and the moment. If you love vampires, Latin American gothic, or just some hot summer defiling of norms, Thirst would be a perfect add to your to-read list. It’s a quick but hot read and a great time. 

Who is Worthy of Survival at the End of the World? On the Edge of Gone by Corinne Duyvis

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I want to preface this with that I read this for my Bi Book Club and it turns out the bisexual character is a supporting one, not the main one. So I will focus this review on that relationship.

This was a really good look into who gets to survive the apocalypse. It follows the story of a young autistic girl, Denise, doing everything she can to help her family live while still dealing with her sensory issues and working through her social behaviors. It makes you question the value put on humanity when the only thing valued is productivity and how much you can offer.

As Denise navigates the end of the world as they know it with a mother who struggles with substance abuse, she seeks to find her sister, Iris, lost amid the chaos. Iris is a bisexual transgender woman who, for the first half of the book, appears mostly in flashbacks as Denise remembers key points of her childhood.

Even as the world unravels due to natural disasters, Denise always remembers her sister and her role in getting Denise to where she is now. Memories show that when Iris first began recognizing herself as a girl and wanted to transition, she trusted her sister Denise as her first confidante. As children, they played a game where she “pretended to be a girl.” Duyvis presents a nuanced dynamic, as Denise struggles at first to understand this because often with autism, she has difficulty grasping concepts that are not literal. But as Iris gets older and explains what it means to be a transgender person, Denise comes to accept her sibling as her sister.

Iris gravitated toward a queer community in their home city in Amsterdam that she invited Denise to join and take part in to help her make friends. It’s this very community Iris sought to help and protect when the meteor hit Earth, leaving her separated from her mother and sister. While many people got to leave on generation ships to populate another planet, most were left behind to live on a destroyed Earth. Iris knew her community would be among the majority left behind.

Iris’s efforts to help the queer community rebuild and prepare for survival through mutual aid are a reflection of Denise’s struggle to make herself “useful” so she can be accepted aboard a generation ship. Iris recognized early on as a transgender individual on hormones, she wouldn’t qualify as a priority to bring on board a generation ship. She knew that others like her would get left behind and so she chose to stay and help them.

On the surface, this novel is a slow-build apocalypse, but look a little deeper and you will find it’s more about who is deemed worthy of survival.

Love at First Selkie: The Girl from the Sea by Molly Knox Ostertag

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The Girl From the Sea cover

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On a recent trip to Portland, my partner and I picked up The Girl from the Sea by Molly Knox Ostertag (she/her) from Powell’s City of Books.  This gorgeous graphic novel follows Morgan Kwon, a 15-year-old young woman living with her mom and younger brother on Wilneff Island in southeastern Nova Scotia, Canada. Morgan and her family moved there from Toronto about seven years ago, when her parents were happier, her brother wasn’t angry, and she didn’t have to worry about her sexuality. Fast forward to present-day, where her dad has moved out to the city, her brother is increasingly insufferable, and she can’t wait to go to college in a city so she can finally be out.

Early in the novel, Morgan is seeking refuge from issues at home in her quiet place—the cliffs overlooking the sea—when she slips on a wet rock, hits her head, and falls into the water. As she drifts below the waves and begins to see her life flash before her eyes, she is rushed to the surface by the beautiful Keltie.  Back on solid ground and emboldened by her near-death-experience, Morgan kisses Keltie, who she is certain is a hallucination.

Only Keltie is real. She is a selkie: a creature from Celtic and Norse mythology that can change between human and seal form by removing or replacing their seal skin. A kiss from her true love (Morgan?!), has allowed her to transform from a seal into a human and walk on land. Morgan must now decide how Keltie fits into her life, if at all. 

Ostertag’s illustrations are gorgeous. She perfectly captures every character’s facial expressions and body language. Even without text, a reader would know that Keltie is carefree and earnest, that she loves Morgan plainly and without reservation. They would also know that Morgan is put together, neat, and precise, that her body is tense from keeping her family, friends, and personal life in separate boxes. 

The Girl from the Sea is a sweet and beautiful meditation on first queer love and how exhilarating and terrifying it is all at the same time. It is also a reckoning of the pressure queer people feel to compartmentalize our lives. How that pressure forces us to live double and triple lives, draining us of our precious energy and robbing us of our joy. Being our truest, most authentic selves is not always something that comes easy, but it is nowhere near the cost of hiding the best parts of ourselves.

I really enjoyed this book and wholeheartedly recommend reading it. I love how it weaves folklore together with queer coming of age and how it addresses challenges that many queer people experience without exposition. If you enjoy this book, Ostertag (@molly_ostertag on Instagram) has written several other graphic young adult novels with queer and other diverse characters, including The Deep Dark, which is coming out on June 4, 2024.

Raquel R. Rivera (she/her/ella) is a Latina lawyer and lady lover from New Jersey.  She is in a lifelong love affair with books and earned countless free personal pan pizzas from the Pizza Hut BOOK IT! program as a kid to prove it.