In The Jellyfish Problem, Tessa Yang explores grief, community, and human connection in a story about a small island in Maine being menaced by a giant glowing jellyfish the local schoolchildren have dubbed Clementine. Dr. Jo Ness is a jellyfish scientist trying to finish her book and raise jellyfish sprouts at the small aquarium she worksRead More
Down in the Depths: The Jellyfish Problem by Tessa Yang Review
One of the many niche things I enjoy is the deep sea. There has been something so fascinating to me about sea creatures and bioluminescence and the abyssal and hadal zones for over a decade now—so seeing that The Jellyfish Problem by Tessa Yang (June 2, 2026) featured a giant jellyfish, a strange and isolated island, andRead More
Love Among the Stars: Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid Review
I love a story about space. Despite the fact that there is no way I would ever leave this beautiful blue Earth because the thought of it terrifies me, a tale about the people who want to explore the vastness of the stars compels me. So when I found out that Taylor Jenkins Reid wasRead More
Regency Romances About Working Women: The Feminine Pursuits Series by Olivia Waite
Earlier this year, I read Olivia Waite’s Murder by Memory, a delightful sci-fi mystery novella. Having seen recommendations for her historical romance novel, The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics, I decided to read all three Feminine Pursuits books. The series can be read as standalone romances, though I enjoyed flying through them in order. Each of them shares aRead More
Horror that Lingers: We Came to Welcome You by Vincent Tirado Review
Mesmerizing, sickening, echoing-hole-in-your-stomach, roller coaster lurch of a creeping inferno: Vincent Tirado’s We Came to Welcome You: A Novel of Suburban Horror is all that and more. Released in the last quarter of 2024, to the tune of “The Other Black Girl meets Midsommar,” the book takes the banal normalcy of racism and colonialism and twists it until itsRead More
If Shirley Jackson Wrote Severance: Last to Leave the Room by Caitlin Starling
The first thing you’ll notice when reading the blurbs for Last to Leave the Room is that every reader seems to think it’s a different genre. Isaac Fellman says it “reads like Shirley Jackson writing an episode of Severance.” Apparently, this is a technothriller sci-fi speculative gothic horror novel, which I can’t say I’ve ever seenRead More
Kayla Bell reviews The Misadventures of an Amateur Naturalist by Ceinwen Langley
Amazon Affiliate Link | Bookshop.org Affiliate Link If you think about it, “Beauty and the Beast” is a fairy tale that can really apply to the queer experience. Being shunned by society, finding love that the people around you view as monstrous, and forming your own life outside of the norm is something that mostRead More
Susan reviews The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite
Olivia Waite’s The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics is a historical romance that revolves around two queer women creating a space for themselves in art and science. Lucy Muchelney’s lover has just married someone else, and her brother is trying to get her to give up on astronomy; her only recourse is to fling herselfRead More
Allysse reviewed “Song of Bullfrogs, Cry of Geese” by Nicola Griffith
“Song of Bullfrogs, Cry of Geese” is a science-fiction short story set in a world in which a disease – or symptoms as it is named – is weakening the human race, slowly making it die. The story particularly focus on one immunologist, Molly. She lives on her own, recluse, near Atlanta. She is givenRead More