“Mrs Martin’s Incomparable Adventure” by Courtney Milan

17 Jun
Cover for "Mrs Martin's Incomparable Adventure"; the background shows the skyline of Westminster with Big Ben to the right, and the river at the front. Superimposes on this, there's a photograph of a slender white-woman with silver, shoulder length hair, wearing a light blue dress. She's sitting, her chin on her hand, her elbow on her knee. The woman is clearly past fifty, and is probably quite a bit older.

It’s been more than a minute since I’ve read anything by Courtney Milan; it’s not that I don’t have several of her books in ye old TBR, but that I save her stuff for cases of emergency, and then they get buried. But here’s Miz Wendy’s TBR Challenge for June, and then there’s ::gestures at the world:: so here goes Pride, and fuck the fuckers. (I mean, just look at the author’s note in the blurb)

Beware: grief over the loss of loved ones; depression; references to rape; probable domestic abuse as backstory; PTSD-triggered panic attack, on page; non-explicit sex on page. Oh, and I curse freely in the review itself.

Continue reading

“Hen Fever” by Olivia Waite

15 Jun
Cover for "Hen Fever", shows a photograph of a white woman with long brown hair worn into an elaborate, if messy, updo, standing in front of a dark grey background, also with blue and purple tones.. She's wearing a dark blue, almost dark purple, jacket over a dark grey skirt, and there's a fluffy hen on her arms (it looks almost like the bird has been photoshopped over the woman); the bird is a pale grey, almost silver, with darker feathers around the face and the back of the top of the neck; the lower legs are covered in delicate, downy feathers, and the tail feathers are positively lace-like. There are a couple of Christmassy poinsettia and holly arrangements on the tope left and lower right corner, and the tagline, "A Sapphic Victorian Romance" in a white fond.

So, it being Pride, here’s another queer story. Fuck the bigots.

Beware: death; loss; grief; the horrors of war; death of an infant; PTSD; explicit sex between consenting adults.

Continue reading

Faux Ho Ho, by ‘Nathan Burgoine

10 Jun
Illustrated cover for "Faux Ho Ho", showing two men standing in front of a number of banquet tables, set outside; One of them is very pale, slender and shorter than the other; he has short light brown hair and glasses, and he's wearing a long coat, pants and snow boots. The taller man has slightly darker skin and dark brown short hair and beard; he's wearing a dark short sleeve shirt, brown pants and regular boots. There are Christmas lights strung over the tables, and we see white trees in the distance; the sky is dark and it's snowing. Flanking the men, there's a decorative metal fence, with two lit old-fashioned lamps.
The title of the novella is written in red letters at the top, and it's designed to look as if the first word was "Ho" (as in, 'ho ho ho') and a sign has been affixed to it, that reads 'faux'

When I reviewed “Village Fool” earlier this year, I had planned on saving this novella for a reading mojo emergency, but you know what? It’s June, and June is Pride–fuck the fucking bigots.

Beware: asshole parents; homophobia; PTSD from bullying; child with apraxia; bisexual protagonist. Oh, and Canadian slang (remember kids: don’t whine about it, search)

Continue reading

Lady Darling Inquires After a Killer, by Colleen Gleason

8 Jun
Cover for _Lady Darling Inquires After a Killer_, where the bottom half is Victorian London's skyline at dusk, with a few lighted gaslamps on the foreground, and the last of the sunlight visible over the buildings  in the distance. On the top half, where the nightsky should be, there are some art deco style lines in a very light blue, with the title overlaid in a bold sans serif font.

The cover caught my eye, then the blurb–for all that it’s concise almost to the point of being off-putting–clinched the deal when it mentioned our lady sleuth’s age, so of course I requested an ARC. Which promptly got buried in the TBR cordillera of doom for about nine months. Oops.

Alas, despite being mostly readable, I grew annoyed.

Beware: sex pest making moves; repeated mentions of drinking; unsubtle references to domestic violence; vigilantism; DNF review.

Continue reading
Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started