• ARCs,  Book Reviews,  Fiction

    IN THE WATCHFUL CITY by S. Qiouyi Lu | ARC Review

    31st August 2021
    Cover of In the Watchful City (S. Qiouyi Lu)

    IN THE WATCHFUL CITY by S. Qiouyi Lu

    Click on the cover for my review on Goodreads.

    In the Watchful City is an Asian-centric adult queer fantasy novella about living (and death) with a heart-racing ending.

    The main character Anima (æ/ær/ær) is part of the city’s surveillance system the Gleaming (think The Matrix), one of the eight nodes in the inner sanctum. When æ meets Vessel (se/ser/ser), who carries a qíjìtáng full of knickknacks and memories from different people, ær curiosity brings ær to realize that there is more to life than guarding the city of Ora.

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  • ARCs,  Book Reviews,  Fiction

    Cheer Up! by Crystal Frasier & Val Wise | ARC Review

    10th August 2021
    Cover of Cheer Up! (Crystal Frasier & Val Wise)

    Cheer Up! Love and Pompoms by Crystal Frasier, illustrated by Val Wise

    Click on the cover for my review on Goodreads.

    Content warnings: transphobia, outing, sexual harassment

    This was so cute and wholesome!

    Annie Ginter has excellent grades and doesn’t care about having no friends, but she needs extracurricular activities for college application. Her mom suggests cheerleading and Annie is not happy. But when Beatrice Diaz (trans) decides to take Annie in on the team, the pair start spending more time together. Beatrice helps Annie make friends on the team and Annie speaks up when people mistreats Beatrice. They grow together, and so does everyone else around them.

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  • ARCs,  Book Reviews,  Fiction

    Once Stolen by D.N. Bryn | ARC Review

    27th July 2021
    Cover of Once Stolen (D.N. Bryn)

    Once Stolen (These Treacherous Tides) by D.N. Bryn

    Click on the cover for my review on Goodreads.

    This is the first novel I’ve read by Bryn, and I most definitely will be reading more of their future works.

    Bittersweet Earth (he/him, autistic, m-spec, boiuna) only cares about ignits, powerful magical stones that contains energy (think batteries, but cooler). When he saves Thais (she/her, nonbinary, human) from a boat, he only has eyes for Thais’ enormous ignit stash from her mother. But as the pair go through an adventure of reaching the ignits, Bittersweet Earth—or Cacao, as Thais calls him—realizes there is more to the world than precious stone, namely, friendship, trust, home, and maybe even love.

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  • ARCs,  Book Reviews,  Fiction

    There’s Magic Between Us by Jillian Maria | ARC Review

    6th July 2021
    Cover of There’s Magic Between Us (Jillian Maria)

    There’s Magic Between Us by Jillian Maria

    Click on the cover for my review on Goodreads.

    God forbid anyone assumes I’m heterosexual.

    Fiery pansexual disaster with too much energy! Magical woods! Faeries!

    Lydia Barnes (16, pansexual) spends a week with her grandmother at Fairbrooke. Her mother hates the town and the townspeople hate her. But Lydia’s grandmother is nice and there is a forest nearby that everyone tells her to avoid. So what will Lydia find if she set foot in the woods when her grandmother naps? Eden Yu (16, Chinese American) and lots of secrets.

    It’s been a while since I had so much fun with a new read, but I did up my rating a bit just because I would have loved it even more had I been ten years younger, which is in the range of the targeted audience. I love Lydia, this prickly teen who would probably bite all her enemies. She has unbounded energy and will be quick to scale a wall when she can. The love interest Eden is more of a mysterious character. Who is this girl in the woods? Why is she trying to find those wood pieces?

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  • ARCs,  Book Reviews,  Fiction

    The Tangleroot Palace by Marjorie Liu | ARC Review

    15th June 2021
    Cover of The Tangleroot Palace (Marjorie Liu)

    The Tangleroot Palace by Marjorie Liu

    Click on the cover for my review on Goodreads.

    The Tangleroot Palace contains six short stories (“Sympathy for the Bones,” “The Briar and the Rose,” “Call Her Savage,” “The Last Dignity of Man,” “Where the Heart Lives,” “After the Blood”) and one novella (“Tangleroot Palace”), all of which are fantasy with hints of horror and gorgeously written. At the end of each story, there is also brief commentary by Liu, providing some background and thematic connections between the stories.

    I adore the writing, which flowed beautifully, and I love how effortlessly detailed each sentence is. Fantasy short stories are extremely difficult to pull off, given the need to provide enough world building and plot within the limited word count, and Liu delivered not one but six satisfying stories.

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