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Queer Palestinian Books for Pride Month 🍉

Just a reminder: we do exist. ♥️

Please consider sharing this post, whether to show your support for Palestine, to boost awareness of these books (remember, reading is revolutionary), or to show your audience that you offer a safe space. I know it may seem small, but it makes a difference. Trust me. ♥️

Have you read any of these queer Palestinian books? If not, which would you consider reading first? ❓

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I got real petty over on the Facebook page and IT WAS GLORIOUS.

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Classics Reimagined: Fiction Picks

Reimagine some of your favorite classic novels with these retellings!

This Motherless Land by Nikki May

A decolonial retelling of Mansfield Park, this story 

follows quiet Funke, who is happy in Nigeria with her family. But when tragedy strikes, she’s sent to England, a place she knows only from her mother’s stories. To her dismay, she finds the much-lauded estate dilapidated, the food tasteless, the weather grey. Worse still, her mother’s family is cold and distant. With one exception: her cousin Liv.

Genre(s): Adaptations, retellings, and spin-offs; Literary fiction; Book club best bets

The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo

In this retelling of The Great Gatsby, 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. 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.

Genre(s): Historical fantasy; Adaptations, retellings, and spin-offs

The Other March Sisters by Linda Epstein

Four sisters, each as different as can be. Through the eyes and words of Jo, their characters and destinies became known to millions. Meg, pretty and conventional. Jo, stubborn, tomboyish, and ambitious. Beth, shy and good-natured. And Amy, elegant, frivolous, and shallow. But Jo, for all her insight, could not always know what was in her sisters' thoughts or hearts. With Jo away in New York to pursue her literary ambitions, Meg, Beth, and Amy follow their own paths.

Genre(s): Historical fiction; LGBTQIA+ fiction; Adaptations, retellings, and spin-offs; Small press standouts

A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand

Return to the world of Shirley Jackson with Holly Sherwin, a struggling playwright who has finally received a grant to develop her play, The Witch of Edmonton. All she needs is time and space to bring her vision to life. When she stumbles across Hill House on a weekend getaway upstate, she is immediately taken in by the ornate, if crumbling, gothic mansion, nearly hidden outside a remote village. It’s enormous, old, and ever-so eerie - the perfect place to develop and rehearse her play.

Genre(s): Adaptations, retellings, and spin-offs; Horror; Gothic fiction

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mmmmmmm lead and roses was lovely i really gotta get my hands on the last girl scout

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Hi all! I'm Mihai! I'm the author of the book series called "The Master's Quest"

The first book in the series is "The Master's Quest: Meet Annabella"

It's about an immortal superheroine desperate for a break from running the world. She gets caught and called out by a service station attendant who she ends up roping into her life after he follows her to a meeting with a dragon. It's super gay just like me and if you like found family vibes and relaxed fun silliness with superpowered beings, then this might be worth checking out 🥰

Here's where you can pick it up if you like!

Now...

I hope yall enjoy my original posts.

I'll tell you a story.

When I was a kid, and through my teenage years, me and my dad would talk about some of anything in the car.

Girls, band, music, philosophy, religion, jokes, funny or ridiculous stories, science...I like my dad. Actually, I did the same thing with my brother too

I must say I got spoiled by that because now (I'm 42 now) any time I'm in the car with someone, especially someone who I think will understand me, that's exactly what I wanna start doing.

This blog, I guess, is kinda me sitting in the car with you.

We're all cruising through life together, and I might occasionally just pipe up with whatever I happen to be thinking about. If you think of it that way, my blog might make more sense.

❤️

In any case, please enjoy my blog. I truly do try to write everything with love.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for being here

🏳️‍⚧️♥️💜💙🏳️‍⚧️

"Following the law should be practically effortless. If not, the law itself is what needs to be changed"

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me: i just want something chill to read

also me: picks up queer historical fiction filled with repressed feelings, stolen glances, public scandal, and emotional destruction

Queer historical fiction just hits different. I love when authors give queer characters room to exist and fall in love in eras that were never kind to them—and do it with drama, longing, and a few plot twists I never saw coming.

Here’s what’s in this spread:

🎥 The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

🖋️ Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend by Emma R. Alban

💍 A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall

🎩 The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee

🕯️ You’re the Problem, It’s You by Emma R. Alban

🗡️ The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

📚 Most Ardently by Gabe Cole Novoa

10/10 would recommend reading these and emotionally spiraling (in a good way)

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Book Rec! The Last Girl Scout by Natalie Ironside

Natalie is @natalieironside here on Tumblr, so go give her a follow! She's got some pretty cool stuff coming up soon.

Absolutely everything about The Last Girl Scout is appealing: post-apocalypse hope-punk writing with queer and trans characters, transbian poly romance, and vampires, jam-packed with antifascist, Nazi-shooting folks. Natalie has featured some great songs and poetry, integrating them beautifully into the narrative. The characters are complex and human, and often involved in very well-executed political intrigue plots.

Two hundred years after atomic disaster, humans have had time to rebuild. In southern Appalachia, political commissar Magnolia is sent on a mission into the irradiated zone that used to be DC. No one’s sure what she’ll find there, but they’re sure that a great evil is returning. She reunites with old acquaintances along the way, and meets a cast of interesting new folks, including a strange woman with a painful past. The two women grow close as they travel together, ultimately not only surviving but helping one another to grow.

As someone who was born and raised in Appalachia, the region is near and dear to my heart, and to see it represented in someone’s fiction, especially in hope-punk stuff, is so fulfilling. I could rave for ages about this, but the best way I have to describe it is that it felt like coming home, but to the better home-that-could-have-been.

For this and many other reasons, I wept. Like, cathartically wept in the best of ways. Natalie deals with a lot of very heavy topics here, in wonderful, compassionate ways.

I have no words to describe the feeling that something gives you when it seems like it was supposed to be part of you all along. This is going to be a long-time favourite. I don’t expect this experience to be universal in the least, but The Last Girl Scout has so much to offer, I’m sure you’ll find something you love as well. And if, somehow, TLGS isn't your cup of tea, Natalie has other great writing for you to check out!

How to Support the Author

Recommend The Last Girl Scout to your local library!

Leave reviews on Goodreads/Amazon etc.

For more writing, check out Natalie's Patreon!

https://www.patreon.com/natalieironside/

Where to Purchase The Last Girl Scout

For the ebook, check out her Gumroad!

https://natalieironside.gumroad.com/l/thelastgirlscout

Find the paperback on Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08KGZKQ68

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May Book Reviews: The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling

One of my anticipated new releases for this year. In The Starving Saints, three women--a knight, a thief, and an alchemist--are trapped inside a besieged castle, which is rapidly running out of food. When a woman claiming to be the Lady appears and fills the tables with a miraculous feast, all three suspect that something is amiss...

I thought Starling's The Death of Jane Lawrence was interesting, and I was curious to see what she'd do with a medieval cannibalism horror premise, not to mention the complexity of a triple POV novel. Knight Ser Voyne is shackled to serving a king she is beginning to lose faith in. Treila, a disgraced former noblewoman brought impossibly low, lurks in the depth of the castle and plots revenge on Ser Voyne, who destroyed her life. Ex-nun Phosyne in her tower drifts farther from reality as the king demands that she miracles food out of nothing. And into this pressure cooker of tensions appears a being claiming to be the Lady they all worship, but who seems curiously amiss.

Overall, The Starving Saints leans less into the horror of cannibalism than I'd expected, and more into the horror of faith. (Although people are being eaten even prior to the Lady's appearance, and two out of the three main characters have already done cannibalism in the past). It's about a being who promises miracles warping the already strained social fabric of castle of starving people six months into a siege until it rips entirely into a phantasmagoria of gore. It's about madness and honey and human beings jointed like a side of beef. It's also about messy sapphic relationships--primarily the ugly and complicated relationship between Treila and Voyne, which is properly fraught as befits a horror novel. We're talking gore and murder, not social squabbling.

Compelling, brutal, feverish. What an interesting novel. I liked this book much better than Starling's previous novel, and I'm excited to read The Graceview Patient in fall.

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The Mistress of Rosehorn Hall is live!

Happy 128th birthday to Dracula! Let's celebrate this momentous holiday by reading some T4T Victorian vampire romance!

If you like:

-Arranged marriage between different classes -T4T romance (transfemme x transmasc) -Vampiric seduction vs Victorian prudery -Mysterious Gothic manors -Gratuitous rose symbolism -Learning to love yourself by loving others -Delicious descriptions of delicacies

Then The Mistress of Rosehorn Hall may be for you!

With the death of her brother Harold, Sarah Linwood is the last of the Linwood family left alive. Her widowed sister-in-law is less than sympathetic and gives Sarah one week after the funeral to move out. Unmarried and without family, Sarah pleads her case to the enigmatic Lord Rufus of Rosehorn Hall. The once-noble Linwoods have been connected with Rosehorn Hall for centuries. During the Wars of the Roses, Sir Linwood saved Lord Rufus on the battlefield and Lord Rufus promised that their families would be forever intertwined. Unfortunately, a strange illness befell Lord Rufus and his family shortly afterwards, and Sir Linwood heard nothing more from Rosehorn Hall. However, over the centuries, the Linwood family has found that Lord Rufus’ legacy lives on: outstanding debts have been paid by accounts with the name “Rufus,” flowers are sent to Linwood funerals with the return address of Rosehorn Hall, and somehow packages containing just what you need mysteriously arrive on the porch with a note reading OUR DEBT IS NOT YET PAID. Sarah hopes for a position at Rosehorn Hall to help her get by. Lord Rufus will give her something much, much more.

Please be advised that content in The Mistress of Rosehorn Hall is of an adult nature; this is meant for readers 18 and up.

Get it on Itch.io!

Get it through Kobo and Smashwords!

Want to read before you buy? A draft version is available to the public on Ream!

Buy me a pizza?

Buy me a Ko-Fi?

Join the fun by interacting with my taglist post!

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@beanus-bag @yanagikou @ryansemporium

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Happy pride, book sickos! I've got a ton of queer books for you to add to your TBRs! Here's a handy guide to all my books and stories with queer characters.

That's 12 books you can add to your TBR right now! Happy pride and happy reading!

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Is this only half the list? A third of the list? I mean ... yes. Have you seen indie authors lately?

Speaking of, what about a part two with just indies?

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[ID: the book cover for The Spirit's Curse, Lutesong Book Three, by R.K. Ashwick. The cover shows a pink and yellow lute with gold swirls coming out of the sound hole, surrounded by thorny green vines and purple leaves against a black background. end ID]

Happy release day to The Spirit's Curse!!

It's here! It's done! The whole trilogy is finally done!

Honestly, the Lutesong series wouldn't be here without Tumblr. I only got into self-publishing because I saw other folks on Tumblr doing it, and people were encouraging when I started posting my own writing for The Stray Spirit. It baffled me the first time someone recalled who Emry was, or remembered a snippet I had posted before. My writing stuck with someone?? They liked it enough to remember it??

So, if you've been with me since the beginning, I really hope you enjoy Emry, Cal, and Aspen's final adventure in The Spirit's Curse. 🌸🌿🎶

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I work at a movie theater and am pissed off about how many people are giving money to this monstrosity, so I made a book list about it. Ideally would have also included one about colorism in film, but I don't know any books about that, so I'm open to recs!

1. Project 562: Changing the Way We See Native America by Matika Wilbur

2. Hawai'i's Story by Hawai'i's Queen by Lili'uokalani

3. Kapaemahu by Dean Hamer, Joe Wilson, Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu, and Daniel Sousa

4. Indigenous Writes: A Guide to First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Issues in Canada by Chelsea Vowel

5. A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid

6. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown

On my TBR

1. Intimate Integration: A History of the Sixties Scoop and the Colonization of Indigenous Kinship by Allyson Stevenson

2. White Benevolence: Racism and Colonial Violence in the Helping Professions ed by Verna St Denis, Amanda Gebhard, and Sheelah Mclean

3. From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawai'i by Haunani-Kay Trask

My Favorite Native Fiction

1. A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger

2. The Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley

3. This Place: 150 Years Retold ed by Alicia Elliot

4. The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline

5. The Flicker by HE Edgmon

6. The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez

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Happy book birthday to this week’s new releases! 📚

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Literature recommendations for the coming days (Pt 134)

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Do you like books about guys and girls that spend the entire book as best friends and don’t get together at any point in the story?

Do you like books where “aaaaagggghhhhh [my telekinesis throws the furniture across the room]” is not just a hilarious Tumblr post, but also something that happens at regular intervals to the deuteragonist?

Do you like books where sixteen-year-olds get sacrificed by their parents to eldritch gods that live in their basement but the sacrifice doesn’t entirely take and they Come Back… Right? Sort Of????

WELL THEN HAVE I GOT THE BOOK FOR YOU.

(It’s my first book and also, like, it’s free on Kindle Unlimited and only $4.99 on Kindle, and if you really can’t afford it, you can send me a message with your email and I can send you a PDF of it, so like… why not, y’know.)

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Mini Vanja Schmidt/Ros from Little Thieves by Margaret Owen

@what-eats-owls