This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone is a modern sapphic classic, but I somehow I ended up reading El-Mohtar’s new novella first. It did not disappoint—in fact, it was the final push I needed to finally pick up This is How You Lose the Time War, andRead More
An Utterly Strange and Utterly Beautiful Murder Ballad Retold: The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar
The River Has Roots, Amal El-Mohtar’s highly anticipated solo debut novella, was released in March 2025. Like a ravening beast, I fell upon my preorder package and tore through the novella in a single sitting. It’s 100 pages exactly, from the very first beautiful linocut print to the last, so it isn’t a Commitment. I’llRead More
Faeries, Dragons, and Space Monsters, Oh My: Three Sapphic SFF Novellas
I first want to give a shout-out to the Asian Readathon, which Cindy Pham (@WithCindy on Youtube) hosts during May. While we’re near the end of the month, the associated Directory of Asian Books is an incredible resource year-round, and both it and this year’s challenge contain an LGBT category. With that in mind, I’veRead More
Sapphic Books To Light Your Way This Winter
Where I live, we’re in one of the darkest days of winter, with plenty of reason for dread. So this holiday season, I’m bringing out a list of book recs that are the equivalent of me wrapping you in my most trusted blanket. Some are more or less cozy in terms of subject matter, butRead More
Marieke reviews This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
Time War reminded me a lot of Good Omens in the sense that two agents–on opposing sides of a high stakes global war that is being fought out across time (yes, time travel) and space and universes, while also only forming a backdrop to the lives of regular unwitting humans–are not as invested in theRead More
Carmella reviews This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
Trigger warning: mentions of suicide This novella was sold to me as “Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West’s love letters, but in an enemies-to-lovers time travel agents au”. I’m not normally a big fan of SFF, but I couldn’t help but be intrigued by a pitch like that! Red and Blue are operatives fighting on oppositeRead More