Julie Orringer's Luna, Phoenix, Queen I really like Julie Orringer and her new one was getting great reviews, but I had a hard time get...

Alexandra Rowland’s Yield Under Great Persuasion  I had started a book that I thought was going to be hopeful but was actually super upsetti...

  Jeannelle M. Ferreira’s Ochre, Quartz, Or Ivy I’m going to be honest, I did not understand what was happening in this book at all, but I e...

  AG Slatter’s Fitcher’s Bird SO I thought this was another book set in Slatter’s Sourdough world, full of magic and dark fairy tales, and I...

  Sarah Rees Brennan’s In Other Lands Look, sometimes someone on Bluesky goes into rhapsodies about a book and I’m like, oh yeah I fucking l...

  Tanya Huff’s Saved by the Spell Honestly, I’ll be psyched if novels about queer lady teachers at magic schools become the next big thing. ...

  Riley Bauer’s Worth the Trade After reading a series of slow historical fantasy novels, obviously I needed to read a smutty gay hockey nov...

 Jessica George's Love By the Book Despite its title, this is not a romance novel! It's a friendship novel! And mildly meta, as one ...

  Virginia Black’s No Shelter But the Stars I’m not really into enemies-to-lovers as a plot, but it kind of works here because these two wom...

  Marissa Lingen’s A Dubious Clamor What a GREAT book! Sometimes novellas feel rushed or incomplete but this is the perfect length for this ...

 Naomi Novik's The Golden Enclaves What a great conclusion to this series! I think I've liked it more on each reread--not that I eve...

  Becky Chambers’ As You Wake, Break the Shell Chambers’ latest took me a minute to get into— it’s a sci-fi story about two women—one, a bot...

  T. Kingfisher’s Daggerbound Look, sometimes you just need to reread a hilarious fantasy romance full of action and great characters, old f...

  Riley Bauer’s Shut Out When I saw this romance involved the two goalies, and not the rookie who adopted the fifth kitten, I was more than ...

  Riley Bauer’s Breakaway This has one of those SEO subtitles that’s like “an age gap romance” which I was like ugh about, but it’s not gros...

  Riley Bauer’s Face Off The second book in this gay hockey series involves two teammates who hate each other (or DO they) but have to co-pa...

 Riley Bauer's Fresh Ice I really MEANT to read the latest Catherine Newman novel next, but then Claire Willett on Bluesky was recommend...

  Catherine Newman’s Sandwich   I’ve been meaning to read this forever, and somehow this late summer season felt like a good time, as it’s a...

  SM Hallow’s How to Survive This Fairytale What a great book!! If you like fairytale mashups that take things like the trauma these poor ch...

  Sarah Wallace’s The Viscount Says Yes I was really hoping we’d get some POV from the Viscount in this one, bc he has never felt like a re...