The Salvage by Anbara Salam is a gothic literary thriller set on a small Scottish island in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The protagonist is Marta, a trailblazing marine archaeologist sent to investigate a Victorian shipwreck on behalf of a local wealthy family descended from the ship’s captain. On her first dive, she seesRead More
An Instant Classic of Sapphic Historical Fiction: The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
Admittedly, I am extremely late to the game when it comes to Yael van der Wouden’s 2024 debut novel The Safekeep (Simon & Schuster); however, I now regret not picking this one up sooner. The Safekeep has the lasting impact of an instant classic alongside the gripping and propulsive plot of any good story. Set in 1961 inRead More
Daphne Fama on the House of Monstrous Women and the Genius of Filipino Horror Lore
House of Monstrous Women is Daphne Fama’s stunning debut novel out August 12, where, “a young woman is drawn into a dangerous game after being invited to the mazelike home of her childhood friend, a rumored witch, in this gothic horror set in 1986 Philippines.” I found it as deeply unsettling as it was tender, andRead More
Remember to Remember the Yellowjackets: Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth Review
Emily M. Danforth’s Plain Bad Heroines is a dual-timeline horror that follows the mysterious happenings of Brookhants School for Girls. In 1902, two teenage girls fell in love, both with each other and with the scandalous writing of Mary MacLane, only to die tragically with the book by their side. More mysterious deaths follow, until the schoolRead More
Curses, Forgeries, and Family Secrets: The Original by Nell Stevens Review
When Grace’s parents are institutionalized, she’s sent to live with her uncle’s family, where she’s looked at with suspicion. The family considers her an inconvenience at best: they think she’s strange and destined to go “mad,” like her parents. She mostly tries to stay out of the way. It doesn’t help that she has faceRead More
Toxic Lesbian Vampires: Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab Review
This was my first V.E. Schwab book, and I picked it up solely because she described it as “toxic lesbian vampires.” Luckily, it lived up to that promise, and it’s a welcome addition to my collection of favourite sapphic vampire novels. I appreciate a vampire novel that really digs into what it would feel likeRead More
Sapphic Love in Defiance of Dictatorship: Cantoras by Caro de Robertis
The Atlantic—salt-bitten and memory-laden—beats beneath every clause of Cantoras, and Caro De Robertis (they/them) times their prose to that tidal metronome, letting sentences drift eastward onto Uruguay’s raw ocean edge. Some clauses stretch out like the low-tide flats while others are cast out to sea, where they leave periods bobbing like bottle-caps. Reading it, I heardRead More
Sugar, Spice, and Suffragettes: When We Lost Our Heads by Heather O’Neill
I admit, I am tired of feminist retellings. Or rather, books marketed as powerful treatises on female rage, when in reality, they are often little more than palatable, watered-down morsels of women’s empowerment, lacking any nuance. Unfortunately, even fictional empowerment remains a privilege usually afforded to classically beautiful, relatively upper-class white women, who enjoy maximumRead More
The Fight Isn’t Over: Ten Incarnations of Rebellion by Vaishnavi Patel Review
Ten Incarnations of Rebellion takes place in an alternate version of 1960s India, where British colonists’ brutal crackdown successfully quashed earlier attempts at independence. We meet Kalki as a teenager. Her father’s fight for freedom forced him to flee their home, and Kalki hasn’t heard from him since. Despite his rebellion liking costing his life,Read More
Love in the Times of Seaside Horror: Providence Girls by Morgan Dante Review
In the past couple of years, I have discovered some real gems of independent and self-published sapphic literature. Last May, I read Morgan Dante’s stunning Providence Girls, which won Best Historical Fiction at the 2023 Indie Ink awards. The author pitches it as “a seaside sapphic cosmic horror romance” in the vein of The Handmaiden and The Shape ofRead More
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