“Let the sea take it.” The Gloaming begins with jellyfish washing up near a cliff by the sea, on an island where the residents die slow deaths by turning to stone. It’s a sad, strange and beautiful scene, just one of many sprinkled throughout this novel. Our protagonist is Mara, who falls in love with Pearl,Read More
Danika reviews “The Freedom of the Shifting Sea” by Jaymee Goh
New Suns is an anthology of speculative fiction by people of colour, and it does include a few queer women short stories, but one really stood out to me: “The Freedom of the Shifting Sea” by Jaymee Goh. The author describes it as “A pornographic triptych of three different individuals encountering a creature part human,Read More
Danika reviews Moonstruck, Vol. 1: Magic to Brew
I adored this book when I started it. The pastel colours, the adorable art style, the world packed full of magical people of all varieties (living plants! ghosts! centaurs!), and the coffee shop setting. Then you get a f/f romance between two fat poc werewolves (Selena is Black and Julie is Latina)! It also hasRead More
Danika reviews Aquicorn Cove by Kay O’Neill
I can’t get enough of Kay O’Neill’s artwork and stories. The illustrations are beautiful, captivating, and comforting. The pastel tones and softness of shapes matches the soothing tone of her narratives. In her author bio, she says that she writes “gentle fantasy stories,” and I think that’s the perfect description. This one definitely has aRead More
Babusha reviews the Kate Kane series by Alexis Hall
Look, the books I’m talking about here were released at a time when – I thought I was straight I thought Twilight was the epitome of vampire romance. So after four years of going through some intense self-reflection and some brief boycotting of vampires altogether, I realised that I still loved vampires–I just like themRead More
Mary Springer reviews Five Moons Rising by Lise MacTague
Malice, known as Mary Alice to her family, is a trained hunter for paranormal creatures. Ruri is the beta werewolf of her pack, has been around for a couple of centuries, and is not a werewolf to be trifled with. Both their lives are shaken when Ruri’s pack is taken over by a violent, lonerRead More
Danika reviews Stone Mad by Elizabeth Bear
This was an odd read for me. I finished the first book and enjoyed the characters and the world, but (partly because I was listening to the audiobook), I had trouble following the plot. This is the reason I don’t typically watch action movies or read action-adventures. Still, I liked it enough that I immediatelyRead More
Megan G reviews Surface Tension by Valentine Wheeler
Sarai thinks she’s found the adventure she longs for when she finds a job as a crew member of a ship. Before her adventure can end, however, a storm throws her overboard and separates her from the ship. When she awakes on the shore of her homeland, there is a week-long gap in her memory,Read More
Danika reviews Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant
I found Into the Drowning Deep because I was looking for deep sea fiction. I’ve had an interest in the deep ocean since I was a kid, and I was craving a book to satisfy that itch. Throw in some killer mermaids, and how I could resist giving this one a go? It wasn’t until after IRead More
Danika reviews The Little Homo Sapiens Scientist by S.L. Huang
This is a fascinating novella. It’s a dark, reversed retelling of “The Little Mermaid,” from the point of view of a human scientist who acts in an anthropological capacity studying the atargati (definitely not “mermaids”). If “dark queer retelling of ‘The Little Mermaid’” didn’t already hook you, I don’t really know what else to say.Read More