this elegantly bound edition of amanda lovelace’s you are your own fairy tale trilogy includes all of the poems from break your glass slippers, shine your icy crown, & unlock your storybook heart that you fell in love with, as well as a new & never-before-seen introduction written by the author. you are your own fairy tale is a must have for every lover of beautiful things & magical words.
Continue reading “[Review] you are your own fairy tale by amanda lovelace”
Immigrant. Socialite. Magician.
Jordan Baker grows up in the most rarefied circles of 1920s American society — she has money, education, a killer golf handicap, and invitations to some of the most exclusive parties of the Jazz Age. She’s also queer, Asian, adopted, and treated as an exotic attraction by her peers, while the most important doors remain closed to her.
But the world is full of wonders: infernal pacts and dazzling illusions, lost ghosts and elemental mysteries. In all paper is fire, and Jordan can burn the cut paper heart out of a man. She just has to learn how.
Continue reading “[Review] The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo”
With so many books with awesome LGBTQIA+ representation, I know my indecisiveness would make it impossible to make recommendation posts if I didn’t further narrow down the criteria. (Last year for Pride I shared some of my favorite books with Bisexual/ Pansexual Protagonists and with Demisexual/ Grayace Protagonists.)
Today I bring you six retellings with queer central characters, because I love a good retelling; in the hands of a talented author, it’s a brilliant opportunity to explore how different facets of the characters’ identity — i.e., sexual and/or romantic orientation, gender identity, race/ethnicity — affect their beliefs, behavior, and the story they lead.
The year is 1926, and Shanghai hums to the tune of debauchery.
A blood feud between two gangs runs the streets red, leaving the city helpless in the grip of chaos. At the heart of it all is eighteen-year-old Juliette Cai, a former flapper who has returned to assume her role as the proud heir of the Scarlet Gang — a network of criminals far above the law. Their only rivals in power are the White Flowers, who have fought the Scarlets for generations. And behind every move is their heir, Roma Montagov, Juliette’s first love … and first betrayal.
But when gangsters on both sides show signs of instability culminating in clawing their own throats out, the people start to whisper. Of a contagion, a madness. Of a monster in the shadows. As the deaths stack up, Juliette and Roma must set their guns — and grudges — aside and work together, for if they can’t stop this mayhem, then there will be no city left for either to rule.
Summary: Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders … but her father isn’t a very good one. Free to lend and reluctant to collect, he has loaned out most of his wife’s dowry and left the family on the edge of poverty — until Miryem steps in. Hardening her heart against her fellow villagers’ pleas, she sets out to collect what is owed — and finds herself more than up to the task. When her grandfather loans her a pouch of silver pennies, she brings it back full of gold.
But having the reputation of being able to change silver to gold can be more trouble than it’s worth — especially when her fate becomes tangled with the cold creatures that haunt the wood, and whose king has learned of her reputation and wants to exploit it for reasons Miryem cannot understand.
Nine Tale Vixen 