Rejoice, lesbian Blade fans! Annie Summerlee’s latest novel is a vampire-killer thriller that richly evokes the dank shadows, steel blades, simmering tensions and artfully moody gloom of the iconic film, amongst others. But with the singular improvement of lesbian leads! Operating out of a deliciously gothic ruined convent, vampire hunter Rebecca spends her days nerfingRead More
Finding Yourself On a Cross-Country Train Journey: Leaving the Station by Jake Maia Arlow Review
I have been eagerly awaiting this book since the moment Jake announced it on Instagram as a YA (arguably, New Adult) novel about a cross-country train journey (shoutout to the Amtrak Empire Builder, which I’ve never ridden anywhere near the distance the route actually spans, but have caught a leg of), an ex-Mormon (samesies), and aRead More
Southern Gothic Horror Meets Dark Academia: I’ll Make a Spectacle of You by Beatrice Winifred Iker Review
In I’ll Make a Spectacle of You, we meet Zora Robinson, an ambitious graduate student and Hoodoo practitioner, as she enters her first year at the most respected HBCU in the country. Bricksbury University has a long and storied history, with more than a few secrets, the biggest of all involving a beast that roams theRead More
A Slow Burn Work of Art: Learning Curves by Rachel Lacey
For Audrey Lind, working with clay still evokes memories of her favorite professor. The woman’s zeal for art history ignited Audrey’s own academic career—and her tweed blazers and British accent kindled her first female crush. After fate brings Audrey back to Northshire University to teach, she’s thrilled to be working alongside her former mentor, butRead More
A Sapphic Sherlock Series in Space: The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles by Malka Older
Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles is Malka Older’s second novella in the Mossa and Pleiti series, set in the far future, when the last of humanity is in a thriving colony on Jupiter amidst an expanding series of platforms and rails. Like the theRead More
A Belated Bi Awakening: Imogen, Obviously by Becky Albertalli
Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! Imogen Scott has endless experience as a straight queer ally. Her friends are pan and bi, her sister is out, and she never misses a Pride Alliance meeting. While visiting her best friend Lili at college, who has her own little queer community, ImogenRead More
A Slam Dunk Sapphic Romance: Coasting and Crashing by Ana Hartnett
Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! With March Madness continuing into April, I decided to start my month with Ana Hartnett’s Coasting and Crashing, the third book in her sapphic contemporary romance series set at the fictional Alder University. This time, the story revolved around players on the university’s basketball team. Read More
An Obsessive, Erotic, Vampire Gothic: An Education in Malice by S.T. Gibson
Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! I feel as though all my adult life I have been wishing for a Carmilla retelling that really illuminates the heart of the original novella—the obsession, intensity, eroticism, and power struggle between Carmilla and Laura that makes the text one of the most lasting examples ofRead More
A Literal Dead Poets’ Society: All That Consumes Us by Erica Waters
Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! The days have started getting shorter as darkness takes up more and more space every day. The evening air isn’t quite cold enough to keep you inside, but every gust of wind chills to the bone, and the woods behind my apartment are filledRead More
Healing in Queer Community: Old Enough by Haley Jakobson
Thank you to PENGUIN GROUP Dutton and Netgalley for this E-ARC in exchange for an honest review. (Published June 20, 2023) I’ve followed Haley Jakobson’s social media for a while, so I was thrilled to hear news of her debut novel. And let me say, it did not disappoint! Old Enough follows our main characterRead More