The Funeral Flower
By Michelle Jester
Christian, Romance
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[I received a copy of this novel from Netgalley in return for my honest review.]
When she’s a young girl, Kelly Rodgers loses her grandfather. Unable to cope, her life begins to spin out of control until she meets a young boy through the fence at her grandparent’s house who becomes her new foundation. Kelly learns to smile and hope again, but tragedy isn’t done with her yet.
The Vanishing Year
By Kate Moretti
Mystery, Thriller, Suspense
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We start The Vanishing Year with Zoe Whittaker, the woman who has it all. She’s the wife of one of the richest men in the country, and she never wants for anything. The world is at Zoe’s beck and call, but she’s lucky in another way. Some people find themselves in cold, static marriages. But you couldn’t find someone more loving than Henry Whittaker and he is the solid foundation that Zoe has been searching for all her life.
Zoe has a secret she keeps from everyone, even Henry, and it’s bubbling back up to the surface. Her life is in danger and money alone won’t be enough to save her. When her past catches up to her, will Zoe be able to maintain the life she’s loved for the past year? Or will she vanish without a trace, just like they said she would?
The Vanishing Year is one heck of a ride.
Homo Deus
By Yuval Noah Harari
Nonfiction, Science, History
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Did you realize that the future was now?
It sounds like a cheesy catchphrase, but it’s true. We’re at the point where the world has changed to the point of being unrecognizable. Or, as Yuval Noah Harari puts it in Homo Deus: “War is obsolete.”
Rat Queens, Vol. 1: Sass & Sorcery
By Kurtis J. Wiebe (Author), Roc Upchurch (Artist)
Graphic Novels, Fantasy, Humour
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So just a heads up that from the very beginning, this is going to be a crass review and not my normal write-up, but then this is a crass/unusual book so… fair game?
Meet the Rat Queens. Four women who make up a gang of mercenaries, who work hard and play harder. To quote the back of the book: “They’re a pack of booze-guzzling, death-dealing battle maidens-for-hir and they’re in the business of killing all the god’s creatures for profit.”
Lock & Mori
By Heather W. Petty
Young Adult, Mystery, Romance
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Knock, knock. It’s a modern day adaptation of Sherlock Holmes, kind of like the brilliant one done by the BBC except this time they’re teenagers and we’ve lost nearly all the emotional depth of the show.
The novel focuses in on Sherlock (Lock) and Moriarty (Mori) and their burgeoning relationship with each other. The father of one of their classmates is murdered and since the police are content to leave the murder unsolved, Sherlock challenges Moriarty to solve the case with him. Moriarty is unsure of her feelings. She has her brothers to think of and what would her cop father think if he knew she was mucking up crime scenes?
All of these questions and more are vaguely brought up in Lock & Mori without any real resolution.
One of the great joys of my life has been finding queer fiction that I wasn’t expecting. Whether I was expecting or not, queer inclusion in a fantasy novel always makes me way more invested than I might have been otherwise. We all need a little escapism and fantasy, the place where everything can happen, it always tends to be straight people flouncing around the world and getting to do all the cool stuff.
My first true love in the fiction world was fantasy, so here are seven of the books that I’ve fallen in love with that feature queer fantasy narratives.
There are few things that would creep me out more than being on an island where there were only three people, but the island was big enough for people to hide on. Can you imagine it? You’re on an island, settling in for the night and all of a sudden you hear someone scream or even just the rustle of leaves. Was there a person in that bush? Am I about to be attacked by an animal? If I fall and break my leg, will I starve and die like that?
Just thinking about it gives me the heebie-jeebies, but I honestly wish that was the direction that Miranda and Caliban had taken. Instead, we were taken on a strange journey of abuse and isolation that meandered before sprinting toward its end.
I have a book subscription box addiction and I think I need help. Send help, they are draining me dry! I had already sworn off buying any more book boxes for awhile when I found out about PageHabit. I had already subscribed to three different book boxes within a month and I was starting to reach the end of my disposable income in a big bad way, but PageHabit… ugh, how could you say no?
Getting a handwritten letter from an author is special enough, but some genius decided to add in sticky notes that the author has written so you get little annotations. It’s like that show from way back when where they would play music videos and have facts/trivia pop up during them.
Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a junkie for nonfiction that has us travelling around the world, so when I heard about The Wordy Traveler crate, I knew that I had to have it.
The crate focuses in on helping out armchair explorers while also giving back to the communities through donations. So not only did I get some awesome books to read, but I’d get ethically sourced tea, and be able to send money toward a child.
I want to get one thing straight right off the bat. I did end up enjoying The Truth About Goodbye in the end, but it might have been a case of too little, too late, for me. So I’m going to do what they say you should do in presentations and make a sandwich of my feelings about this novel.
We’re going to talk about some good, some bad, and then some good again.
