By turns haunting, compelling, and illuminating, Avery Curran’s new novel, Spoiled Milk, is perfect for fans of queer Gothic horror and historical fiction. Set in England in 1928, Emily Locke is in her final year at the Briarley School for Girls, an isolated boarding school designed to provide middle- to upper-class girls with accomplished educations. WhatRead More
Shakespeare, Study Hall, and Secrets Worth Killing Over: This Place Kills Me by Mariko Tamaki and Nicole Goux
Wilberton Academy takes its theater seriously. Members of the elite Wilberton Theatrical Society are revered by the student body, and beautiful, talented Elizabeth Woodward is a shining star among them. The whole school is abuzz over the production of Romeo and Juliet that Elizabeth is starring in as the tragic leading lady—until she’s found dead the morningRead More
Life in a Walled Garden: Where Lost Girls Go by Kody Keplinger Review
Last month, I read a sapphic YA book involving a cult and reflected that I was disappointed it didn’t explore realistic matters, like why people are drawn to and stay in high-control situations. This month, I chanced upon a sapphic YA book that explored exactly those questions. Where Lost Girls Go by Kody Keplinger (out JulyRead More
A Queer Boarding School Gothic: Spoiled Milk by Avery Curran Review
Everything about the summary to Spoiled Milk by Avery Curran (out March 10, thank you to Doubleday for the ARC) made me so unbearably excited to read it. “The untimely death of a student at a girls’ boarding school turns out to be the first in a haunting series of escalating supernatural events. A thrilling debut novel aboutRead More
Vampires, Murder Mysteries, and Loneliness: The Midnight Shift by Seon-Ran Cheon, Translated by Gene Png
At its core, this is a book about the kind of loneliness that persists even in a life filled with relationships. I read it on honeymoon—almost a year late because of a cancer treatments—and understood immediately what Seon-Ran Cheon’s vampires were hunting. Cancer ghosting taught me: you can be most alone with a contact listRead More
Haunted in Every Sense: The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
Louise Erdrich’s The Sentence highlights the power of words. As it is set in a bookstore and the author herself owns Birchbark Books, I anticipated a richly detailed sense of place and community as well as a clear love of books. The Sentence delivers those things along with a complex look at what it means to be haunted. (ContentRead More
Grief, Obsession, and Isolation: One’s Company by Ashley Hutson Review
Content warning: this review includes discussion of suicide, violence, and rape. Ever since I heard the premise of One’s Company, it’s been on my TBR. So when I was choosing the first book to read in 2025, this seemed like the perfect kind of weird, thought-provoking literary fiction I was in the mood for—and itRead More
Finding Love in the Smog City: Kari by Amruta Patil
This review contains spoilers. Kari by Amruta Patil is considered the first lesbian graphic novel in India. The book opens with a double suicide pact, which turns out to be unsuccessful, and the narrator falls into a sewer. The story takes place in the big metropolitan city of Mumbai, which is referred to as theRead More
A Very Queer Gothic Ghost Story: The Narrow by Kate Alice Marshall
When I got a promotional email about this book, I asked the publisher if there was a queer main character, because I couldn’t tell from the description. It’s funny that I had to clarify, because this is a very queer book: the main character is bisexual, there’s an F/F romance, and there are several queerRead More
The Queer Graphic Novel That Had Me Sobbing at 3 A.M.: The Deep Dark by Molly Knox Ostertag
Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! You’re all fired for not tell me how good this is. I liked The Girl From the Sea, so I put a hold on Ostertag’s newest sapphic graphic novel, but I hadn’t heard anything about it, so I my expectations were pretty grounded. IRead More