#exploits of elaine serial

[craig-k3nn3dy]

this is also a gripe i have with craig kennedy, criminologist (though i can’t tell if they’re joking in that show or not) - i mostly don’t like kennedy’s actor in the exploits of elaine serial because i think he looks too old. i don’t think kennedy is any older than jameson. they were in college together.

yes i know people can go to college when they’re older and i know according to the show kennedy has three degrees (which, i don’t believe his ass has a law degree either), but i don’t know how common that was in the, let’s be honest here, late 1800s early 1900s.

and let’s be more honest here, kennedy is so autistic about science shit, he wouldn’t wait any longer than he had to

[abuddyforeveryseason]

More manipulated images! With this one, I managed to do what I wanted last time, with Little Red and the B. B. Wolf. I used this french poster as base:

I've got a reproduction hanging in my apartment.

With Microsoft Photo Editor, I removed the blue background. I could've removed the green border too, but I was lazy, and it's pretty much a solid color, I could've changed it manually if I felt like it. (I'm only realizing that now, though).

On FireAlpaca, I separated the image into the blue part and the rest with two layers. I applied the Ben-Day process I figured out on the blue layer, and changed the rest of the image to a red tint. Then I converted the red tinted version to a two-color vector on Inkscape (the colors being pink and brown).

I repeated the process for the red tinted layer, separating it into two layers, then applying the Ben-Day process on both, one being black over a red background (dark red) and the other being red over a white background (light red).

I'm pretty pleased with the result, the other versions of the image I tried to modify, a long honking time ago, don't look nearly as good, see:

Lame!

As for the movie itself - or rather, the serial: It's an adaptation of three American serials (made by a French studio, however), starring Pearl White. You know, she was the inspiration for the Penelope Pitstop cartoons, always getting tied up and chained to a railway by bad guys. In the movies, however, she often got out of those traps without help.

The dude in the poster is the villain from one of those serials, Exploits of Elaine. His name is "The Clutching Hand", and he's one of the first movie supervillains - although Fantômas came first. He's also the first hidden villain, which is why he's got the bandana covering his face. Filmgoers had to go see every episode of the serial to narrow down his secret identity. It was kind of like a superhero franchise, you gotta watch them all.

See, he's got a mask under his mask.

Of course, one of Pearl White's movies, The Perils of Pauline, was produced by William Randolph Hearst, a real-life supervillain, so, let's not give the era that much credit.

[total-television-productions-act]

watching 50s shows rly gets a man in a certain vibe for his stupid underdog fanfic

so i got into this book series by accident, craig kennedy. i wanted to read it because one of the books, exploits of elaine, is based on a screenplay of a damsel-in-distress serial. the damsel is played by the same actress who starred in one of the more iconic damsel-in-distress film serials, perils of pauline, who i choose to believe polly was named after.

i'm stuck in my current polly fic, and thought it might help. it didn't. now i just like craig kennedy. anyway, the books take place in the 1910s, but since i got so obsessed, i found out they also made a show. the show was made in the 50s and is quite obviously set in the 50s, what with its rotary phones and kennedy not making a big deal out of fingerprints (he does this a lot in-book!)

anyway, i didn't know guns were kept on a shoulder holster.

also forgive me if it takes forever, i REALLY like craig kenendy

[weirdlookindog]

The Exploits of Elaine (1915)

[twittercomfrnklin2001-blog]

Angel

Director-cowriter Robert Vincent O’Neill lacks the vision or the budget (or maybe both) to give ANGEL (1984, Shudder and YouTube) the great set pieces that would make an Alfred Hitchcock or Brian Da Palma film stand out. The picture is clearly an exploitation film, combining violence and nudity in its tale of a teenaged streetwalker stalked by a serial killer. Yet there’s terrific energy to the street scenes shot on Hollywood Boulevard and a recurring visual motif of the leading lady (Donna Wilkes) walking away between two members of her chosen family that would give the film a special resonance with gay audiences. By day, Molly is an honor student at an exclusive prep school, By night, she’s Angel, working a street corner with her friends, who include Dick Shawn as a transvestite hooker. Someone’s stalking the girls, and the victims are pretty much telegraphed. Make a date with a nice street performer you just met, share your dream of moving someplace clean like Tahiti, and the audience knows you’re kibble. The ploys to keep Wilkes a sympathetic heroine are a little obvious. Though she talks a good game about how much business she’s done, you never actually see her complete a trick, and she’s one of the few women in the film who never does nudity. But her tough persona, which sounds alarmingly like Shirley Temple, is a lot of fun, particularly when she pulls a gun on the school bully (David Underwood) after he catches her working the streets and tries for a freebee. It’s inevitable she’ll be found out at school, and those scenes are a real downer. It feels like we’re being made to pay for the zippier night life scenes. But Shawn is very good, as are Susan Tyrell as Wilkes’ tough lesbian landlady, Rory Calhoun as a former Western stunt man and Elaine Giftos as Wilkes’ high school counselor.

[sneasler-appreciation-blog]

"Gaëtan Dugas loved to fly. Adopted by a large family in the Quebec City suburb of L’Ancienne-Lorette, he grew up next to the airport, watching planes take off and wishing he were on board. He trained as a hairdresser, but once airlines lifted the ban on men doing the work of “stewardesses,” he found his dream job. He became one of Air Canada’s new cohort of male flight attendants.

It was 1974. Dugas was a wildly handsome, flamboyant and utterly promiscuous 22-year-old surfing a jet stream of sexual liberation. It was an era when flying was still glamorous, people smoked on planes and the horizon of casual, carefree sex appeared limitless. With a bleached-blond coif and the pants and shirt of his uniform re-tailored to be skin-tight, Dugas wore his gay pride to work. He shared makeup tips with his female colleagues and competed with them to pick up the hottest male passengers. By the end of the decade, the Air Canada flight attendant with the cute French accent and men in every port was a minor legend, known from the airline crew lounge to the bathhouses of New York and Los Angeles.

In 1980, he was diagnosed with Kaposi’s sarcoma, a previously rare skin cancer that would become the mark of AIDS. In the LGBTQ community then, it was known as the mysterious “gay cancer,” with no indication it was contagious. Two years later, Dugas was living in New York and undergoing chemotherapy when Bill Darrow, an investigator for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), interviewed him about his sexual activity for a cluster study of men afflicted by AIDS. Dugas was extremely co-operative. Estimating he’d had some 750 sexual partners in the previous three years, he gave Darrow a list of 72 contacts from his address book and became Patient 57 in a CDC study of linked cases. Released in March 1984, the same month that Dugas died of AIDS, Darrow’s study planted the seed that would lead the media to falsely demonize Dugas as Patient Zero, arch-villain of an epidemic that would eventually kill more than 700,000 people in North America.

And it all began with a typo.

When Darrow published his report, Patient 57 was renamed Patient O, with the letter “O” standing for “Out-of-California.” Somewhere along the paper trail, the “O” got confused with a zero. Adding to the confusion was the fact that Dugas was the study’s “original” patient, placed at the centre of the cluster diagram, between patients from L.A. and New York. Darrow stressed that there was no evidence that Dugas had infected the others—never mind that he’d introduced AIDS to North America as Patient Zero. But that was the sensational claim made in 1987 by San Francisco journalist Randy Shilts in his bestseller about the AIDS epidemic, And the Band Played On. Cementing Dugas’ legacy as a monstrous degenerate, the book provoked a spate of lurid headlines, and later a cheesy HBO mini-series. It was a textbook case of “fake news” that “went viral” before either term was even coined.

In 2016, scientists debunked the Patient Zero myth with a conclusive study of blood samples that showed Dugas’ virus was unrelated to others in his cluster. By then, it had been established that the HIV/AIDS virus, which likely originated with African primates, had been circulating in North America since at least 1970, and that its incubation period was three or four times longer than the one or two years between sexual contact and illness in the CDC cluster.

Now, Killing Patient Zero—a powerful documentary by Canadian filmmaker Laurie Lynd that premieres at Toronto’s Hot Docs festival this month—sets out to clear Dugas’ reputation once and for all, while challenging the urban legend that he was a sexual predator who deliberately infected his lovers.

Based on Richard A. McKay’s landmark book, Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic(2017), the film features 38 interviews with friends and colleagues of Dugas and Shilts, as well as doctors, scientists and gay men and women who lived through the epidemic, notably the sardonic Fran Lebowitz. They include Darrow, who laments how his study was skewed, and Michael Denneny, Shilts’ editor and publisher, who takes the blame for igniting the Patient Zero hysteria with a shameless publicity ploy to sell And the Band Played On.

Denneny recalls a PR woman coming into his office in tears on a Friday afternoon, saying no one wanted to cover the book. “I panicked and called up an ex-boyfriend who happened to be a publicist,” he says. “He suggested the following, which I thought was extraordinarily clever. The story of Patient Zero is only mentioned in 11 pages. He said, ‘You pull this material out and present it to the New York Post, a miserably homophobic newspaper. This story has everything you want. It has beauty, it has depth, he’s an airline steward and, best of all, a foreigner. They’re going to eat it up.’ ”

Shilts hated the idea, calling it yellow journalism. But Denneny eventually talked him into it, arguing it was the key to getting his groundbreaking work about AIDS onto the national agenda in a Reagan era of deep denial. The Post broke the story with the headline, “The man who gave us AIDS.” And the New York Times, which had refused to review the book, would publish 11 articles on it over several weeks. Dugas’ family, horrified to see Gaëtan so cruelly exploited, refused to co-operate when 60 Minutes came looking for interviews. They’ve stayed out of the media ever since.

What’s remarkable is that the prime movers of the Patient Zero myth were all gay and progressive—the publisher, the publicist and Shilts, who died of AIDS in 1994. It wasn’t just the straight world that craved a scapegoat. And two decades before he made Killing Patient Zero, Lynd admits that Shilts’ book had a huge impact on him as a young gay man. “It woke me up,” he told Maclean’s. “I was living in New York and had blinders on—I was so lucky I didn’t get AIDS—and I bought into the whole Patient Zero thing.”

His filmmaker friend John Greyson was more circumspect, however—he had the prescience to puncture the myth with his surreal musical satire, Zero Patience, a small Canadian film that premiered the same week in 1993 as Philadelphia, the AIDS drama starring Tom Hanks.

Greyson, among other subjects in Lynd’s film, points out that Dugas’ promiscuity wasn’t as freakish as it sounds in the context of the times. Between rising up against persecution in the Stonewall riots at the end of the ’60s and being decimated by AIDS in the ’80s, the 1970s represented a brief window of delirious freedom for the gay community. “We thought that sex was good for you,” says Lebowitz, marvelling at the male capacity for racking up anonymous encounters. “New York was an orgy. To me, it seemed you couldn’t possibly have sex with so many people.” Putting things in perspective, Denneny says, “If you scored two nights a week, that meant you didn’t score five nights a week, so you felt frustrated.”

No one disputes that Dugas was an overachiever and may have played an unwitting role in spreading the AIDS virus. But the most sinister accusation was that he did so with psychopathic intent, as a kind of “Typhoid Mary.” In interviews, Shilts went so far as to compare him to Jack the Ripper and serial killer Richard Speck. Lynd, who suspects Shilts was tortured by “internalized homophobia,” tries to undo the damage through testimony from those who knew Dugas as a kind, generous soul who was singled out only because he was such a co-operative patient. Like many early AIDS victims, Dugas persisted in having sex during his illness because there was no proof that it was sexually transmitted. But because his co-operation helped prove that it was, Greyson sees him as a hero, and as a gay man boldly immune from guilt and shame who “epitomized a politic of deep pleasure.”

A fellow flight attendant, Elaine Watson, remembers Dugas as someone who was “ahead of his time—he was who he was; he didn’t pretend to be straight, he didn’t pretend to be anything.” Another close colleague, Gaetane Urevig, has fond memories of a joyful soulmate who used to tell her, “One day, I’ll be a star.” Gaëtan Dugas didn’t live long enough to find out the sad consequences of his idle prophecy. But, as his legacy finds a warmer spotlight, he may have finally scored some long-overdue redemption.

[chiseler]

SEE REPTILICUS AND DIE

If there are no monster movies on TV, you need to surround yourself with monster movie books, don’t you?

I grew up in an age when there were just three television channels in the UK. Aeon-long days would creak by with nothing on, or at any rate, no deformed freaks of nature menacing the nation, unless you counted Jimmy Savile. Unseen people called schedulers (I have yet to see one), moving in ways more mysterious than God’s, would then put two Ray Harryhausen movies on opposite channels at the same time. And the stronger stuff, the Universal and Hammer films, were always past bedtime, but if I was very lucky, I might be allowed to stay up to see Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff, my Dad assigned to watch over me and intervene at the first sign of trauma.

It just wasn’t enough, these intermittent doses of monsterdom (Saturday late night double features in the summer were waited for all year round). So monster books scratched the itch, as well as providing glimpses of peculiar pleasures no scheduler seemed even aware of: Philippino vampire movies, Japanese knock-offs of Edgar Allan Poe, Godzilla and all his assorted tag-team cryptids. Thumbing the pages of big library books (not till later did I own any of these) I feasted my eyes, glutted my soul on their accursed (but blessed!) ugliness.

The king of all these books was a putrid green tome called A Pictorial History of Horror Movies, by Denis Gifford. Gifford was an expert in two subjects, it seems, horror movies and British comic books. The latter subject interested me only in so far as a publication called Shiver ‘n’ Shake depicted comedic versions of horror movie characters: thin gruel, but still monstrous and therefore OK (the real glamour was in US comics, particularly Marvel). As for the movies, Gifford had undoubtedly seen a lot, including perhaps movies like The Terror (1928) and The Cat Creeps (1930), now lost to time, but his books jumbled images willy-nilly, including stuff probably even the author hadn’t viewed. Part of the book’s incredible exoticism lay in the thought that these movies existed, that they might, somehow, be seen – and with that desperate hope, the suspicion that perhaps they couldn’t, that perhaps schedulers, even more solicitous and powerful than parents, would always contrive to protect me from Horrors of Malformed Men (1969) and Saint George and the Seven Curses (1961), goddamn it.

So a couple of years ago, reveling in the new age of availability, when any movie not altogether destroyed can probably be viewed, through one avenue or another, I decided to see every film Gifford had chosen to include a picture from. The lost films can only be seen in dreams, or by channeling their essence into new movies, like Guy Maddin is doing, but most of the rest have fallen into my hands and been eagerly consumed, from House of Horrors (1946), with the genuinely disfigured Rondo Hatton, to The Monster Maker (1944), with disturbingly lumpy mock-acromegaly by Citizen Kane makeup artist Maurice Seiderman. Some of my discoveries have been putrid: Pharoah’s Curse (1956) sucks so hard my plasma screen turned concave, and The Man in Half Moon Street (1944) is even duller than the Hammer remake: I’ve yet to make it through a sitting, and the fact that I’ve sworn I will adds a wearisome sense of duty. But many of my discoveries have been pleasant: The Monster and the Girl (1940) surpasses its generic title and its hokey gorilla costume and got me fired up about director Stuart Heisler; Raoul Walsh’s The Monkey Talks (1927) is a stunning oddity full of melodrama and pathos, and Dr. Renault’s Secret (1942) was just one of a range of mad scientist films from the era that really delivered. Most of the others starred Karloff, felt interchangeable even while they were on, but delighted my nine-year-old soul.

Here are a few that have so far escaped my clutches:

Balaoo, the Demon Baboon (France, 1913). Apparently a fragment of this survives in an archive in Canada.

The Exploits of Elaine (1915), an adventure serial which qualified for inclusion due to a cameo by Jekyll and Hyde.

Castle Sinister (Britain, 1948) from the annus mirabilis of British movie-making, a film that is never, ever mentioned.

Are they lurking in your collection?

Another unviewed film is the Danish dinosaur epic Reptilicus. Since I named my strange quest See Reptilicus and Die, I feel I have to save that one to last.

by David Cairns

[queerbenji]

Below is a lovingly compiled list of books about girls who love girls that have happy or hopeful endings! The list currently has 106 entries and spans multiple genres. It’s alphabetized by author, and links go to the books’ Goodreads pages. Recommendations are welcome! 

Sparks: The Epic, Completely True Blue, (Almost) Holy Quest of Debbie by S.J. Adams

A wonderfully refreshing, quirky, and genuinely funny tale of coming-out to your best friend–and long-time secret love.  Three chases, three declarations of love, two heartbreaks, a break-in, and one unforgettable quest.

Taijiku by Elizabeth Andre

Angela’s juvenile detention sentence on an alien underwater ship doesn’t seem very exciting until she encounters the fearsome Taijiku or meeting her crew mate Stella, leaving Angela unable to say which is the greater challenge: giant sea monsters or falling in love.

Poppy Jenkins by Clare Ashton

Poppy is the heart of Wells, a beautiful village in mid-Wales.  She has a doting family, an errant dog and a little sister with a nose for mischief, but as the only gay girl in the village, the chance of romance is rarer than a barking sheep. That is, until her ex-BFF roars back into her life…

The Music Box by Elaine Atwell

Berlin, 1942. Caroline Reed is a newly minted American spy, eager to prove herself on her first mission: to recover vital information from behind enemy lines. But she’s not the only one. Iris and Caroline come to trust each other, or perhaps it’s something more. But what does love matter when the fate of the world is at stake?

Valhalla by Ari Bach

In the year 2330 in Northern Scotland, war is obsolete and only brilliant minds are valued, Violet emerges into adulthood with more brawn than brains, branded from childhood as a useless barbarian. With the help of a group of outcasts just like her, Violet is about to learn the world needs her exactly as she is.  

Bluebell Hall by Kayla Bashe

Headstrong, impetuous Tansy Trilby can barely sit still, let alone read–but what she lacks in academic achievement, she makes up for in magical talent, and so she is accepted to be a boarder at Bluebell Hall. Tansy’s adventures lead her to discover: is love truly the greatest magic of all?

Screaming Down Splitsville by Kayla Bashe

In an alternate 1950s, two groups of people with magical powers fight for dominance. Flip thinks her healing powers are useless, while Emma has magic but is unable to speak. The two band together to escape a torturous lab.  As the women seek to evade their pursuers, their friendship rekindles, and they are forced to confront both enemies and insecurities.

Kaleidoscope Song by Fox Benwell

Fifteen year old Neo loves music. it punctuates her life in South Africa. A life in radio is all she’s ever wanted. When Umzi Radio broadcasts live in a nearby bar Neo can’t resist. She sneaks out to see them, and she falls in love, with music, and the night, but also with a girl: Tale has a voice like coffee poured into a bright steel mug, and she commands the stage.

Dissention by Stacey Berg

For 400 years, the remnants of humanity have struggled for survival in the last inhabited city. Echo Hunter 367 is exactly what the Church created her to be: loyal, obedient, lethal. But when Echo’s mission leads her to Lia, a rebel leader who has a secret of her own, Echo must choose between the woman she loves and the purpose she was born to fulfill.

Drum Roll, Please by Lisa Jenn Bigelow

Drum Roll, Please is a contemporary middle grade novel about a drummer named Melly, whose parents announce they’re getting a divorce the day before she leaves for rock camp. She has a life-changing summer at camp as she navigates confusing feelings, changing friendships, and her first crush on a girl, and learns to find her own beat.

Starting From Here by Lisa Jenn Bigelow

Colby’s heart has been broken too many times. Her mother has been dead for almost two years, her truck driver father is always away, her almost girlfriend just dumped her, and now she’s failing chemistry. But when a stray dog lands literally at her feet, bleeding and broken on a busy road, it knocks a chink in the walls she’s built around her heart.

How to Make a Wish by Ashley Herring Blake

All Grace wants is her own life.  Emotionally trapped by her unreliable mother, Maggie, and the tiny cape on which she lives, she focuses on her best friend, her upcoming audition for a top music school in New York, and surviving Maggie’s latest boyfriend. When Grace meets Eva, who has her own share of ghosts to outrun, both girls must figure out how to love and how to move on.

The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow

Greta is a duchess and crown princess—and a hostage to peace. This is how the game is played: if you want to rule, you must give one of your children as a hostage. Go to war and your hostage dies. As nations tip closer to war, Greta becomes a target in a new kind of game that will end up killing every hostage—unless she can find a way to break all the rules.

The Swan Riders by Erin Bow

Sequel to The Scorpion Rules.

The Diviners by Libba Bray

Evie has been exiled from her boring old hometown and shipped off to her Uncle Will on the bustling streets of 1926 New York City. Evie worries he’ll discover her darkest secret: a supernatural power that has only brought her trouble so far. But when the police find a murdered girl branded with a cryptic symbol, Evie realizes her gift could help catch a serial killer.

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

When a plane crash strands thirteen teen beauty contestants on a mysterious island, they struggle to survive, to get along with one another, to combat the island’s other diabolical occupants, and to learn their dance numbers in case they are rescued in time for the competition. Their story is told from many points of view, multiples of which are LGBT women.

First Position by Melissa Brayden

Anastasia Mikhelson is the rising star of the New York City Ballet. She’s sacrificed creature comforts, a social life, as well as her own physical well-being for perfection in dance. Even her reputation as The Ice Queen doesn’t faze her. Though Ana’s at the peak of her career, competition from a new and noteworthy dancer puts all she’s worked for in jeopardy.

How Sweet It Is by Melissa Brayden

After losing the love of her life four years prior in a plane crash, Molly thinks she’s ready to navigate the dicey dating waters once again. However, you can’t always pick who your heart latches on to. When Jordan, the beautiful younger sister of her lost love, returns to town, Molly finds her interest piqued in a manner she wasn’t prepared for.

Waiting in the Wings by Melissa Brayden

Jenna has spent her whole life training for the stage. At graduation, she’s stunned when a chance audition lands her a prime supporting role in the hottest Broadway touring production in the country. The one thing she didn’t prepare for, however, was her new costar Adrienne. Is Jenna ready to sacrifice what she’s worked so hard for in exchange for a shot at love?

 Georgia Peaches and Other Forbidden Fruit by Jaye Robin Brown

Joanna has been out and proud for years, but when her popular radio evangelist father remarries and decides to move all three of them to the more conservative Rome, Georgia, he asks Jo to do the impossible: to lie low for the rest of her senior year. Jo reluctantly agrees, but things get infinitely more complicated when she meets Mary.

Style by Chelsea M. Cameron

Kyle Blake likes plans. So far, they’re pretty simple: Finish her senior year of high school, head off to a good college, find a cute boyfriend, graduate, get a good job, get married, the whole heterosexual shebang. Nothing is going to stand in the way of that plan. Not even Stella Lewis.

Echo After Echo by Amy Rose Capetta

Debuting on the New York stage, Zara is unprepared—for Eli, the girl who makes the world glow; for Leopold, the director who wants perfection; and for death in the theater.  In heart-achingly beautiful prose, Capetta has spun a mystery and a love story into an impossible, inevitable whole —and cast light on two girls, finding each other on a stage set for tragedy. 

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Somewhere within our crowded sky, a crew of wormhole builders hops from planet to planet, on their way to the job of a lifetime. To the galaxy at large, humanity is a minor species, and one patched-up construction vessel is a mere speck on the starchart.  But all voyages leave their mark, and even the most ordinary of people have stories worth telling.

Fat Angie by E.E. Charlton-Trujillo

Angie is broken—by her can’t-be-bothered mother, by her high-school tormenters, and by being the only one who thinks her varsity-athlete-turned-war-hero sister is still alive. She’s just trying to make it through each day. That is, until the arrival of KC Romance This darkly comic anti-romantic romance is a work of entertaining and meaningful fiction.

Debris Dreams by David Colby

Drusilla lives in the Hub, a space station used by the Chinese-American Alliance as a base to exploit Luna’s resources. When a terrorist group destroys the space elevator, space’s highway to Earth, suddenly Dru’s parents are dead and she is cut off from her girlfriend Sarah on Earth. Can Dru survive lunar terrorist attacks and find her way home to Sarah?

Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst

Betrothed since childhood to the prince of Mynaria, Princess Dennaleia has always known what her future holds. But Denna has a secret. She possesses an Affinity for fire—a dangerous gift for the future queen of a kingdom where magic is forbidden. Now, Denna must learn the ways of her new home while trying to hide her growing magic.

Clancy of the Undertow by Christopher Currie

In a dead-end town like Barwen a girl has only got to be a little different to feel like a freak. And Clancy, a typical sixteen-year-old misfit with a moderately dysfunctional family, a genuine interest in Nature Club and a major crush on the local hot girl, is packing a capital F.

Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova

Alex is a bruja, the most powerful witch in a generation…and she hates magic. At her Deathday celebration, Alex performs a spell to rid herself of her power, but it backfires. Her whole family vanishes into thin air. The only way to get her family back is to travel to Los Lagos, a land in-between, as dark as Limbo and as strange as Wonderland.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth

When Cameron Post’s parents die suddenly in a car crash, her shocking first thought is relief. Relief they’ll never know that, hours earlier, she had been kissing a girl. This book is a stunning and unforgettable literary debut about discovering who you are and finding the courage to live life according to your own rules.

The Caphenon by Fletcher DeLancey

On a summer night like any other, an emergency call sounds in the quarters of Andira Tal: not only is there other intelligent life in the universe, but it’s landing on the planet right now. Tal leads the first responding team and ends up rescuing aliens who have a frightening story to tell. They protected Alsea from a terrible fate—but the reprieve is only temporary.

The Dark Wife by Sarah Diemer

Persephone has everything a daughter of Zeus could want–except for freedom. When Persephone meets the enigmatic Hades, goddess of the underworld, she experiences something new: choice. Hades offers Persephone sanctuary in her land of the dead. But Persephone finds more than freedom in the underworld. She finds love, and herself.    

Twixt by Sarah Diemer

The people of Abeo City have forgotten their pasts, and they can trade locks of their hair to sinister women for an addictive drug. Nox will give you back a single memory–for a price. But when Lottie takes Nox, her memories remain a mystery, and the monsters who fill the sky at night refuse to snatch her. Soon, a dark truth begins to surface…

Big Big Sky by Kristyn Dunnion

Rustle is a young scout in a tight-knit female warrior group of five. They’re trained to be aggressive, quick thinking, and obedient.  But somehow the group is falling apart now. So when their StarPod is transported to the Living Lab, they all know that it’s time to make a run for it, or else they’ll be deplugged - finished, dead. 

Otherbound by Corinne Duyvis

Amara is never alone. Not when she’s protecting the cursed princess she unwillingly serves. Not when she’s punished, ordered around, or neglected. She can’t be alone, because a boy from another world experiences all that alongside her, looking through her eyes. They’ll have to work together to survive–and discover the truth about their connection.

Wildthorn by Jane Eagland

Louisa longs to break free from her respectable life as a Victorian doctor’s daughter. But then Louisa is sent to Wildthorn Hall, labeled a lunatic and even deprived of her real name. As she unravels the betrayals behind her incarceration, she realizes there are many kinds of prison. She must be honest with herself and others in order to be free. And love may be the key.

The Seafarer’s Kiss by Julia Ember

Having long-wondered what lives beyond the ice shelf, nineteen-year-old mermaid Ersel learns of the life she wants when she rescues and befriends Ragna, a shield-maiden stranded on the mermen’s glacier. But when Ersel’s childhood friend and suitor catches them together, he gives Ersel a choice: say goodbye to Ragna or face justice at the hands of the glacier’s brutal king.

Unicorn Tracks by Julia Ember

Mnemba has found a place in her cousins successful safari business, where she quickly excels as a guide. When she’s employed to guide Mr. Harving and his daughter, Kara, as they study unicorns, the young women are drawn to each other. During their research, they discover a conspiracy by a group of poachers to capture the Unicorns and use their supernatural strength to build a railway. Together, they must find a way to save the creatures Kara adores.

Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel by Sarah Farizan

Leila’s Persian heritage already makes her different from her classmates; if word got out that she liked girls, life would be twice as hard. But when a sophisticated, beautiful new girl, Saskia, shows up, Leila starts to take risks she never thought she would.  Gradually, Leila begins to see that almost all her classmates are more complicated than they first appear to be.

The Cursed Queen by Sarah Fine

Sequel to The Impostor Queen, which stars a bi woman. Cursed by an enemy queen, Ansa must fight against an invisible foe—the dark magic that has embedded itself deep in her bones. The more she seeks to hide it, the more dangerous it becomes. Ansa is torn between her loyalty to her people, her love for the cheiftain’s daughter, and her own survival instincts.

Honey Girl by Lisa Freeman

The year is 1972. Fifteen-year-old Haunani “Nani” Grace Nuuhiwa is transplanted from her home to California after her father’s fatal heart attack. Now the proverbial fish-out-of-water, Nani struggles to adjust to her new life with her alcoholic white (haole) mother and the lineup of mean girls who rule State Beach. But Nani is keeping several secrets that could ruin everything.

Noble Falling by Sara Gaines

When her convoy is attacked, Duchess Aleana Melora of Eniva, future queen of Halvaria is saved by her guard, only to discover her people have turned against her and joined forces with the kingdom of Dakmor, Halvaria’s greatest enemy. After a rescue by a woman marked as a criminal, Aleana struggles to survive long enough to crowned, though her heart has other priorities.

Annie On My Mind By Nancy Garden

This groundbreaking book, published in 1992, is the story of two teenage girls whose friendship blossoms into love and who, despite pressures from family and school that threaten their relationship, promise to be true to each other and their feelings. The book has been banned from many school libraries and publicly burned in Kansas City.

Good Moon Rising by Nancy Garden

Lambda Literary Award winner “Good Moon Rising” is about two young women who fall in love while rehearsing a school play, realize they’re gay, and resist a homophobic campaign against them. 

Nora and Liz by Nancy Garden

When her rental car has a flat tire, Liz Hardy stops at the Tillot farm for a car jack. Nora Tillot walks Liz out to the barn and, as they search for the jack, the two women begin a journey neither anticipated. As their friendship turns passionate, will their happiness be shattered by rumors?

Girl Mans Up by M-E Girard

All Pen wants is to be the kind of girl she’s always been. So why does everyone have a problem with it? They think the way she looks and acts shows disrespect. But respect and loyalty, Pen discovers, are empty words. Old-world parents, disintegrating friendships, and strong feelings for other girls drive Pen to see that to be who she truly wants to be, she’ll have to man up.

The Second Mango by Shira Glassman

Queen Shulamit never expected to inherit the throne of tropical Perach so young. At twenty, grief-stricken and fatherless, she’s also coping with being the only lesbian she knows after her sweetheart ran off for an unknown reason. Her search for a royal girlfriend quickly becomes a rescue mission after finding a temple full of women turned to stone by an evil sorcerer.

The Flywheel by Erin Gough

Seventeen-year-old Del drops out of high school when her romance with another girl goes horribly wrong. Preferring chaos to bullying, Del makes it her mission to save her dad’s crumbling café, the Flywheel, while he ‘finds himself’ overseas. This book is a heart-warming debut novel about queer romance, crap parents & finding your feet when life gets messy.

A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend by Emily Horner

When Cass’s best friend Julia is killed in a sudden car accident, and while Cass is still reeling from her death, Julia’s boyfriend and her other drama friends make it their mission to bring to fruition Julia’s nearly-completed secret project: a musical about an orphaned ninja princess entitled Totally Sweet Ninja Death Squad.

Eat Your Heart Out by Dayna Ingram

A breakneck tale of kick-ass, wise-ass, sexy-ass lesbians — and zombies.  The strip-mall calm of Nowhere, Ohio, is shattered by the sudden, simultaneous appearance of Renni Ramirez, hyper-competent star of the beloved Rising Evil B-movie franchise, and actual zombies, leaving Ashbee’s hapless staff and Renni trapped behind an automatic door they can’t lock.

That Inevitable Victorian Thing by E.K. Johnston

Set in a near-future world where the British Empire never fell and the United States never rose, That Inevitable Victorian Thing is a novel of love, duty, and the small moments that can change people and the world.

The Gallery of Unfinished Girls by Lauren Karcz

Mercedes is an artist. At least, she thinks she could be, but she hasn’t been able to paint anything worthwhile since her award-winning piece Food Poisoning #1 last year. Her lack of inspiration might be because her abuela is comatose in faraway Puerto Rico after a stroke. Or the fact that Mercedes is in love with her best friend, but is too afraid to admit her true feelings.

The Cybernetic Tea Shop by Meredith Katz

Clara is a highly-skilled technician specializing in the popular ‘Raise’ AI companions. She sticks around just long enough to replenish her funds before she moves on Sal is a fully autonomous robot, at best out of place in society and at worst hated. When Clara stops by Sal’s shop for lunch, she doesn’t expect to find a real robot there, let alone one who might need her help.

Ask the Passengers by A.S. King

Astrid desperately wants to confide in someone, but her feel like the last people she can trust. Instead, Astrid spends hours watching airplanes fly overhead. She doesn’t know the passengers inside, but they’re the only ones who won’t judge her when she asks them her most personal questions–like what it means that she’s falling in love with a girl.

Radical by E.M. Kokie

Preppers. Survivalists. Bex prefers to think of herself as a realist who plans to survive, but regardless of labels, they’re all sure of the same thing: a crisis is coming. And when it does, Bex will be ready. But Bex isn’t prepared for Lucy, who is soft and beautiful and hates guns. This gripping new novel questions our assumptions about family, trust, and what it really takes to survive.

Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour

Emi is a film buff and a true romantic, but her real-life relationships are a mess. She has desperately gone back to the same girl too many times to mention. But then a mysterious letter from a silver screen legend leads Emi to Ava. Ava is unlike anyone Emi has ever met, and she is about to expand Emi’s understanding of family, acceptance, and true romance.

You Know Me Well by Nina Lacour and David Levithan

Mark and Kate have sat next to each other for an entire year, but their paths have never crossed. That is, until Kate spots Mark miles away from home, out in the city for a wild, unexpected night. Kate is lost, having just run away from finally meeting the girl she’s been in love with from afar. Mark, meanwhile, is in love with his best friend Ryan, who may or may not feel the same way.

And Playing the Role of Herself by K.E. Lane

Actress Caidence Harris is living her dreams after landing a leading role in a hot new police drama shot on location in glitzy LA. Her sometimes-costar Robyn Ward is magnetic, glamorous, and devastatingly beautiful, the quintessential A-List celebrity. Soon Caid sees that all is not as it appears, but can she take a chance and risk her heart when the outcome is so uncertain?

An Unstill Life by Kate Larkindale

Livvie feels like she’s losing everything: her two best friends have abandoned her for their boyfriends, her mother continues to ignore her, while her sister, Jules, is sick again and getting worse by the day. Her only escape is in the art room, where she discovers not only a refuge from her life, but also a kindred soul in Bianca, the school “freak”.

Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee

Welcome to Andover, where superpowers are common, but internships are complicated. Despite her heroic lineage, Jess is resigned to a life without superpowers when she stumbles upon the perfect internship—only it turns out to be for the town’s most heinous supervillain. On the upside, she gets to work with her secret crush, Abby, who Jess thinks may have a secret of her own.  

A&B by J.C. Lillis

Barrie dreams of a career in music. When her rival Ava ropes her into a secret collaboration, it sparks feelings neither girl expected.  Can love and ambition live side by side? Is happiness an art-killer? They’ll figure it out with the help of a blue guitar named Fernando, a keyboard named Rosalinda, and a few new friends who feel like home.

Ash by Malinda Lo

In this enchanting retelling of Cinderella, Ash must make a choice between fairy tale dreams and true love. Entrancing, empowering, and romantic, Ash is about the connection between life and love, and solitude and death, where transformation can come from even the deepest grief.

Huntress by Malinda Lo

Kaede and Taisin, two seventeen-year-old girls, are picked to go on a dangerous and unheard-of journey to Tanlili, the city of the Fairy Queen. The exciting adventure prequel to Malinda Lo’s highly acclaimed novel Ash is overflowing with lush Chinese influences and details inspired by the I Ching, and is filled with action and romance.

Complementary and Acute by Ella Lyons

Annabell is captain of the Number Ninjas, her senior year schedule is perfect, and her best friend Jacqueline is going to be right by her side for all of it. But on the first day back, Jac throws a wrench in Anabelle’s tidy plans. Not only has she rearranged her classes and dropped Number Ninjas, she’s joined the Girls who Like Girls Program, leaving Anabelle’s entire world in upheaval.

10 Things I Can See From Here by Carrie Mac

This is the poignant and uplifting story of Maeve, who is dealing with anxiety while falling in love with a girl who is not afraid of anything. Will she be able to navigate through all the chaos to be there for the people she loves?

Colorblind by Siera Maley

Harper has a secret, and it’s not that she likes girls. She has a gift: she can see how old other people will be when they pass away. Nothing she does changes this number, which becomes especially clear when her mother dies in a car crash. Then she falls for Chloe, whose number is 16, who’ll be dead by the end of summer. An uplifting book reminiscent of The Fault in Our Stars.

Dating Sarah Cooper by Siera Maley

When a misunderstanding leads to best friends Katie and Sarah being mistaken for a couple and Sarah uses the situation to her advantage, Katie finds herself on a roller coaster ride of ambiguous sexuality and confusing feelings. How far will Sarah go to keep up the charade, and why does kissing her make Katie feel more alive than kissing her ex-boyfriend ever did?

Taking Flight by Siera Maley

Lauren is a city girl at heart. When a judge deems her father unfit to be her guardian, she’s shipped to the rural mountains of northern Georgia, where David, a personal friend of the judge, lives. Lauren’s plan is simple: to have her best friend pick her up on the day she turns eighteen, and to be as difficult as possible until then.  But her plan doesn’t account for David’s daughter.

The Case of the Not-So-Nice Nurse by Mabel Maney

Follow Cherry, Jackie, and girl detective Nancy Clue on their gay adventures.  Mabel Maney’s camp classic The Case of the Not-So-Nice Nurse has been beloved by readers since it was first published in 1993. This sparkling parody of 1950s girl adventure stories will make you laugh out loud.

The Case of the Good-For-Nothing Girlfriend by Mabel Maney

Mabel Maney’s playful parody of 1950s girl adventure books continues in The Case of the Good-for-Nothing Girlfriend. This raucous sequel also stands on its own as a swell introduction to Cherry and her pals, and a food and fashion guide to the glamorous Eisenhower years.

Reign of the Fallen by Sarah Glenn Marsh

The first in an LGBT fantasy series that follows a talented necromancer who must face down a deadly nemesis who has learned how to turn her magic into a weapon. A lavish fantasy with a surprising and breathtaking romance at its core, Reign of the Fallen is a gutsy, unpredictable read that will grab readers by the throat and never let go.

Wherever the Dandelion Falls by Lily R. Mason

Riley Montgomery is a bartender, a lab assistant, and a sex worker – all in different lives. A seemingly innocuous conversation with a graduate school professor unravels Riley’s life into three separate strands. The three versions of Riley’s life are as separate as can be, yet have one common thread: falling in love with a beautiful and brave woman named Faye Nguyen. 

Parties in Congress by Colette Moody

Elated to secure her first paid political staff position, Bijal Rao is eager to focus her efforts on the election of her candidate to U.S. Congress. However, Bijal’s first unforeseen obstacle is her profound and unexpected attraction to their opponent—incumbent Congresswoman Colleen O'Bannon—who is outspoken, charismatic, and openly lesbian.

The Sublime and Spirited Voyage of Original Sin by Colette Moody

The Gulf of Mexico, 1702: When Gayle and the pirates of the square-rigger Original Sin steal ashore to abduct a doctor to tend to their wounded, they end up settling for the doctor’s attractive fiancée Celia, the town seamstress. The two forge a partnership born of necessity that Gayle soon hopes will veer away from insurmountable danger and instead detour directly to her bed.

Not Otherwise Specified by Hannah Moskowitz

Everywhere Etta turns, someone feels she’s too fringe for the fringe. Not gay enough for the Dykes, her ex-clique, thanks to a recent relationship with a boy; not tiny and white enough for ballet; and not sick enough to look anorexic (partially thanks to recovery). Etta doesn’t fit anywhere until she meets Bianca, the straight, white, Christian, and seriously sick girl in Etta’s therapy group.

Meg & Linus by Hanna Nowinski

Meg and Linus are best friends bound by a shared love of school, a coffee obsession, and being queer. It’s not always easy to be the nerdy lesbian or gay kid in a suburban town. But they have each other. And a few Star Trek boxed sets. They’re pretty happy. Meg & Linus is a fun story about two quirky teens who must learn to get out of their comfort zones and take risks.

A Story of Now by Emily O’Beirne

Claire knows she needs a life. And some new friends.  But brittle, beautiful, and just a little bit too sassy for her own good sometimes, she no longer makes friends easily. When Robbie and Mia walk into Claire’s work they seem the least likely people to help her find a life. But despite Claire’s initial attempts to alienate them, an unexpected new friendship develops.

Future Leaders of Nowhere by Emily O’Beirne

Finn and Willa have been picked as team leaders in the future leader camp game. Fierce, competitive Willa has shaken the usually confident Finn. Soon they both realize that the hardest thing of all is balancing their clashing ideals with their unexpected connection. And finding a way to win, of course.

Here’s the Thing by Emily O’Beirne

It’s only for a year. That’s what sixteen-year-old Zel keeps telling herself after moving to Sydney for her dad’s work. But Zel soon finds life in Sydney won’t let her hide. There’s her art teacher, who keeps forcing her to dig deeper. There’s the band of sweet, strange misfits her cousin has forced her to join for a Drama project. And then there’s the curiosity that is the always-late Stella.

Points of Departure by Emily O’Beirne

Best friends Kit and Liza have been looking forward to this trip forever. Five girls, five tickets overseas. It’s exactly what they all need after the final slog of high school. But when Kit’s suddenly forced to drop out, Liza’s left with three girls she barely knows, and they’re all learning that travel isn’t just about the places you go, but who you’re with at the time.

Because of Her by K.E. Payne

Forced to move to London thanks to her father’s new job, Seventeen-year-old Tabitha has to leave her friends, school, and, most importantly, her girlfriend Amy, far behind. To make matters worse, Tabby’s parents enroll her in the exclusive Queen Victoria Independent School for Girls, hoping that it will finally make a lady of her. But Tabby has other ideas.

Axiom by Rachel Marie Pearcy

The Assembly controls every citizen of Axiom. Everything is assigned, from their career and living quarters, to their spouse and reproduction. Ella never thought twice about it, until now. After meeting Carly, Ella realizes things aren’t as perfect as she thought. The two girls’ friendship slowly blossoms into something more, and as their love grows, so does the threat of punishment.

Keeping You a Secret by Julie Anne Peters

With a steady boyfriend, the position of Student Council President, and a chance to go to an Ivy League college, high school life is just fine for Holland. At least it seems to be. But when Cece Goddard comes to school, everything changes. Cece and Holland have undeniable feelings for each other, but how will others react to their developing relationship?

Lies My Girlfriend Told Me by Julie Anne Peters

When Alix’s girlfriend, Swanee, dies from sudden cardiac arrest, Alix is overcome with despair. Then she finds Swanee’s phone, pinging with texts from Liana, Swanee’s secret girlfriend. Brought together by Swanee’s lies, Alix and Liana become closer than they’d thought possible. But Alix is still hiding the truth from Liana. Will coming clean to Liana mean losing her, too?

Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult

One miscarriage too many spelled the end of Max and Zoe Baxter’s marriage. Zoe, for her part, finds healing relief in music therapy and the friendship, then romantic love with Vanessa, her counselor. After Zoe and Vanessa, now married, decide to have a baby, they realize that they must join battle with Max, who objects on both religious and financial grounds.

Like Water by Rebecca Podos

In Savannah Espinoza’s small New Mexico hometown, kids either flee after graduation or they’re trapped there forever. Vanni never planned to get stuck—but that was before her father was diagnosed with Huntington’s disease. Then she meets Leigh, who’s utterly unique. But caring about another person threatens to bring to the surface the questions she’s held under for so long.

Her Name in the Sky by Kelly Quindlen

Hannah wants to spend her senior year of high school going to football games and Mardi Gras parties with her tight-knit group of friends. The last thing she wants is to fall in love with a girl–especially when that girl is her best friend, Baker. And Baker might want to be with Hannah, too–if both girls can embrace that world-shaking, yet wondrous, possibility.

Noteworthy by Riley Redgate

Jordan’s low voice gets her shut out of the school musical, but a spot has opened up in the elite a cappella octet. Worshipped…revered…all male. Jordan dresses as a guy and  wins the audition. With her secret growing heavier every day, Jordan confronts what it means to be a girl (and a guy) in a male-dominated society, and—most importantly—what it means to be herself.

The Nowhere Girls by Amy Reed

Three misfits come together to avenge the rape of a fellow classmate and in the process trigger a change in the misogynist culture at their high school, transforming the lives of everyone around them in this story that will work its way into a special place in your heart. Told in alternating perspectives, one of whom is gay and Latina, another is autistic, and all are remarkable.

Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera

Juliet just came out to her family and isn’t sure if her mom will ever speak to her again. But Juliet has a plan, sort of, one that’s going to help her figure out this whole “Puerto Rican lesbian” thing. She’s interning with the author of her favorite book: Harlowe Brisbane, the ultimate authority on feminism, women’s bodies, and other gay-sounding stuff. 

Cherry by Lindsey Rosin

In this honest, frank, and funny debut novel, four best friends make a pact during their senior year of high school to lose their virginities—and end up finding friendship, love, and self-discovery along the way. Will everything go according to plan? Probably not. But at least the girls have each other every hilarious, heart-warming, cringe-inducing step of the way.

Unspeakable by Abbie Rushton

Megan doesn’t speak. She hasn’t spoken in months. Pushing away the people she cares about is just a small price to pay. Because there are things locked inside Megan’s head - things that she cannot, must not, let out. Then Jasmine starts at school: bubbly, beautiful, talkative Jasmine. And for reasons Megan can’t quite understand, life starts to look a bit brighter.

Sword of the Guardian by Merry Shannon

The shocking assassination of her brother causes Princess Shasta’s father to appoint Shasta’s new savior as the Princess’s bodyguard. But what Shasta doesn’t know is that her new guardian has a very well-kept secret: he is actually a she. The two grow closer than anyone, especially her father, could have predicted. Will the truth change their relationship forever?

The Light of the World by Ellen Simpson

After her grandmother’s death, Eva finds diaries detailing the magical life of a girl in the Roaring Twenties. She cannot reconcile the young girl in these diaries with the miserable old woman she loved. Eva starts to investigate the puzzle  with the help of a local historian and his assistant Olivia, they find a forgotten labyrinth under the city. But they’re not the only ones down there…  

The Abyss Surrounds Us by Emily Skrustkie

For Cassandra Leung, bossing around sea monsters is just the family business. But when the pirate queen Santa Elena swoops in on Cas’s first solo mission and snatches her from the bloodstained decks, Cas’s dream of being a full-time trainer seems dead in the water. Cas has fought pirates her entire life. But can she survive living among them?

The Edge of the Abyss by Emily Skrutskie

Sequel to The Abyss Surrounds Us.

Starring Kitty by Keris Stainton

Kitty’s keeping secrets. Like how she’s struggling to cope with her mum’s illness. And how she’s falling for the girl with the purpley-red hair… A fun film competition with her friends Sunny and Hannah seems like the perfect distraction. But then Dylan wants to be more than Kitty’s secret. Is Kitty ready to let her two worlds meet, or will she risk losing Dylan forever?

Forgive Me If I’ve Told You This Before by Karelia Stetz-Waters

Shy, intellectual, and living in rural Oregon, Triinu just doesn’t fit in. She tries to hide behind her dyed hair and black wardrobe, but it’s hard to ignore the bullying, and it’s even harder to ignore the allure of other girls. As Triinu tumbles headlong into first love and teenage independence, she realizes that the differences that make her a target are also what can set her free.

Prom and Other Hazards by Jamie Sullivan

Frankly, prom is a ridiculous concept, and Sam wants nothing to do with it. Except for the tiny fact that she’s been in love with her best friend Tash since they were ten years old, and Tash dreams of a perfect, romantic prom. Sam had given up hope, until she spotted The Suit in a shop window. Surely the perfect suit is all she needs to finally admit to Tash how she feels.

Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley

In 1959 Virginia, the lives of two girls on opposite sides of the battle for civil rights will be changed forever. Forced to work together on a school project, Sarah and Linda must confront harsh truths about race, power and how they really feel about one another. This book is about finding truth amid the lies, and finding your voice even when others are determined to silence it.

Our Own Private Universe by Robin Talley

Fifteen-year-old Aki has a theory. And it’s mostly about sex. No, it isn’t that kind of theory. Aki already knows she’s bisexual. So far, Aki has dated only guys, and her best friend is the only person who knows she likes girls, too.  Actually, Aki’s theory is that she’s got only one shot at living an interesting life—and that means it’s time for her to actually do something. Or at least try.

The Summer I Wasn’t Me by Jessica Verdi

Lexi has a secret. She never meant for her mom to find out. And now she’s afraid that what’s left of her family is going to fall apart for good.  Lexi knows she can fix everything. She can change. She can learn to like boys. New Horizons summer camp has promised to transform her life, and all she wants is to start over. But sometimes love has its own path.

Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld

Darcy Patel is afraid to believe all the hype. But it’s really happening - her teen novel is getting published. Instead of heading to college, she’s living in New York City, where she’s welcomed into the dazzling world of YA publishing. Told in alternating chapters is Darcy’s novel, the thrilling story of Lizzie, who wills her way into the afterworld to survive a deadly terrorist attack.

Queens of Geek by Jen Wilde

When BFFs Charlie, Taylor and Jamie go to SupaCon, they know it’s going to be a blast. What they don’t expect is for it to change their lives forever.  When Alyssa Huntington arrives as a surprise guest, it seems Charlie has a chance to confront her long-time crush . And in the magic of SupaCon, Taylor starts to rethink playing it safe when it comes to her secret crush on Jamie.

27 Hours by Tristina Wright

Rumor fears two things: hellhounds too strong for him to kill, and failure. Jude has two dreams: for humans to stop killing monsters, and for his strange abilities to vanish. But in no reality should a boy raised to love monsters fall for a boy raised to kill them. Nyx keeps two secrets: the moon speaks to her, and she’s in love with Dahlia, her best friend. This is the story of one 27-hour night.

Dirty London by Kelley York

All London wanted out of her senior year of high school was anonymity.  Then she discovers that Wade, one of the most popular guys in school, is gay like her, and their new-found closeness has half the student body convinced they’re hooking up. Rumors start flying, and London is pretty sure she’s developing a crush on the one girl who sees through it all.

The Gravity Between Us by Kristen Zimmer

At just 19, Kendall is Hollywood’s hottest young starlet—but behind the glamour is a girl who longs for normal. Payton is Kendall’s best friend, and the one person who reminds her of who she really is. But Payton has a secret that could make everything ten times worse. Because to her, Kendall is more than a best friend—she is the only girl that she has ever loved. 

[cinefiles-ithaca]

Heroine of a Thousand Stunts

Pearl White (1889-1938), dubbed “Peerless Fearless Girl” and “Heroine of a Thousand Stunts” was the queen of serial films and notorious for doing her own stunts. She acted in several films prior to being hired by the American branch of Pathé Frères, a French film company, to star as the titular character in The Perils of Pauline (1914). After achieving breakthrough as Pauline, she continued to gain success doing serials. She was also best known for her role as Elaine Dodge in The Exploits of Elaine (1914), The New Exploits of Elaine (1915) and The Romance of Elaine (1915), which were directed by Louis J. Gasnier, George B. Seitz, and Leopold and Theodore Wharton and produced by Wharton Studios. Pathé distributed the films and brought international fame and recognition to Pearl White. Though White’s career didn’t transition well in the 1920s during the rise of feature films, she made enough money to retire and live a luxurious life in Paris until her death. 

[marthawelsh]

Casino Mogul Steve Wynn Slammed With Sexual Misconduct Allegations

It’s the story that’s rocked Las Vegas to its core. Dozens of women have accused visionary casino mogul Steve Wynn of sexual misconduct.

An explosive story in the Wall Street Journal has confirmed what Las Vegas insiders have known for decades, and now the fortunes of Steve Wynn and Wynn Resorts are uncertain.

According to the Wall Street Journal, 150 people were contacted and dozens have come forward to share experiences ranging from awkward to outrageous to downright shocking involving Steve Wynn. The article sheds light on an alleged pattern of predatory interactions with women, many of whom were Wynn’s subordinates.

Or as Las Vegas keno runners refer to it: Tuesday.

His day of reckoning has arrived, and Steve Wynn is in for a bumpy ride.

The Wall Street Journal story also answers a question many Vegas observers have wondered about: How much did Steve Wynn pay to settle an allegation by a manicurist who claimed he coerced into having sex? The answer: $7.5 million.

Steve Wynn has dismissed the allegations of sexual impropriety, deeming the dozens and dozens of stories by dozens and dozens of women as “preposterous.”

As if you needed further proof we are not an actual journalist.

We can’t really do justice when it comes to the quantity or creepiness of the allegations, so check them out if you haven’t already.

The Wall Street Journal revelations came as a surprise to precisely zero people familiar with Steve Wynn and the untold number of executives and members of the media who turned a blind eye to his behavior through the years.

The Wall Street Journal story, which has received international media coverage, has had some immediate fallout.

On the day the story was released, Wynn Resorts lost 10% of its market value, which translates into a mind-boggling $2 billion. In a day.

Steve Wynn has also resigned as the finance chairman of the Republican National Committee.

There have been calls for Wynn to be investigated or removed as Chairman and CEO of Wynn Resorts.

The Wynn Resorts board of directors has also formed a committee to investigate the allegations of sexual misconduct.

It’s been reported the Massachusetts Gaming Commission has opened a probe into Wynn Resorts.

Maybe they should’ve done this on a dry erase board.

So, what does all this mean for Steve Wynn, Wynn Resorts and Las Vegas?

Well, it most certainly means Steve Wynn’s impressive legacy has been tarnished for good. No matter what successes he’s had, there will always be an asterisk next to his name. Think Woody Allen, but with a better art collection.

It’s difficult to see a scenario where Steve Wynn doesn’t have to step down from running Wynn Resorts. The evidence of bad, and possibly illegal, behavior is overwhelming.

Wynn Resorts is in for some tough times. Steve Wynn is personally intertwined with the company. He is, in essence, the brand. His leadership and vision and sensibility have built the company into both the world’s most-admired casino company and the most profitable on The Strip.

While some investors in Wynn Resorts stock may see the dramatic drop in value as an opportunity to buy, we’re pretty sure this is just the beginning of the pain. We’ve seen previously unreported allegations by Wynn’s former wife, Elaine Wynn, and while the upcoming controversy is likely to be less sexy than the current firestorm, it’s going to be another huge blow to investors and Wynn’s company.

Whatever his transgressions, there’s no denying Steve Wynn has brought many beautiful things to Las Vegas.

As the days go by, it seems likely Steve Wynn’s new reality is going to sink in. At the moment, he’s fully committed to the victim narrative (Wynn is blaming his ex-wife for the accusations—talk about preposterous), but that will change as pressure mounts.

The sex scandal playbook requires that, at some point, Steve Wynn publicly apologize and “take full responsibility” for his actions.

Odds are he’ll step down, making it clear he’s only doing it to avoid hardships for the stockholders and his beloved employees, followed by some well-crafted blah, blah, blah.

There’s a chance Wynn’s gaming license could be revoked. (A license holder must someone of “good character, honesty and integrity,” among other things.)

We’d also place a small wager on Wynn saying he’s entering into treatment for a “sex addiction.” It’s not like the wheel’s being re-invented here.

Oh, and there has to be a class action lawsuit in the offing. Wynn’s pockets are just too deep (his estimated worth is $3.5 billion) for the bottom-feeders to resist.

We also suspect revelations about the misbehavior of high-placed casino executives has just begun. As with Harvey Weinstein, the floodgates have been opened, and it seems inevitable other women will now find the courage to speak out about a culture of exploitation that’s been pervasive in Las Vegas since the day it was conceived.

All bets are off on the hush money paid to victims through the years in Las Vegas, and it’s about time these serial perpetrators receive their comeuppance. (Rumor has it a number of casino executives fled town after the Wall Street Journal story broke, to “reconnect with family” and, presumably, pray.)

Who are the executives likely to be caught up in the Las Vegas edition of the #MeToo movement? Ask any dealer, bartender or cocktail waitress. They all know the names.

We’ve given up hope this is all just a bad “rêve.”

The good news is, of course, the day of reckoning for Steve Wynn is a rallying cry for women who have endured unwanted sexual advances and abhorrent behavior in casinos and elsewhere. They no longer have to feel intimidated or powerless. If Steve Wynn, the self-proclaimed “most powerful man in Nevada,” can be held accountable for his sexual misdeeds, anyone can.

That said, this blog counts itself among those who are rattled and dismayed by the Steve Wynn revelations because Steve Wynn, in large part, made Las Vegas what it is, and we really, really love Las Vegas.

We love that Wynn Resorts has planned so many new, beautiful things for us to enjoy, and we’d hate to see those plans derailed because Steve Wynn can’t keep his towel on or grasp that “no” means “no.”

We suspect some of the announced Wynn Resorts projects will be delayed, while others are likely to be halted, as this trainwreck works itself out.

Update (1/28/18): The precise moment you realize you’ve sold your soul. Thanks to Rebecca Ballhaus at the Wall Street Journal for the photo.

The Steve Wynn sexual misbehavior scandal has set in motion forces that will change Las Vegas forever, and ultimately for the better. As long as you’re not Steve Wynn.

The post Casino Mogul Steve Wynn Slammed With Sexual Misconduct Allegations appeared first on Vital Vegas Blog.

Casino Mogul Steve Wynn Slammed With Sexual Misconduct Allegations published first on http://marthawelsh.tumblr.com/

[craig-k3nn3dy]

i have watched the two surviving serials of exploits of elaine and i do not like them! i do not believe kennedy looks like that!

i do like how he greets elaine tho lol. things he should do to jameson

[abuddyforeveryseason]

Here comes the sun, doo-doop-doo-doo...

It's the Buddy for May 9th. the sun! You know, the incredibly old giant ball of fire around which everyone you know is rotating. Do not look directly into it.

The first drawing I posted, for May 12th, was the moon. So, it's pretty fitting that the sun will be one of the last.

You know, I'm not really an artist. My dad is. He's not like, a famous painter or anything, but, he can paint - he can have an idea for something, sketch out the perspective on a piece of canvas, mix the color in the palette and come up with a finished, professional-looking painting.

He's also way into cars and motorcycles, so it's hard to put him in a box like that. Parents are complicated creatures.

I have eight things in my house that could actually count as "works of art". Two of my dad's paintings - one he made in the seventies, the other, a few years ago. Three made by my aunt (his sister), I put in the living/dining area over the table. She really liked my comments on them so my cousin gave them to me. A reproduction of The Persistence of Memory over my bed - the same one every college kid who didn't like Fight Club had. A reproduction of an abstract Jack Kirby painting over my TV I got from The Jack Kirby Collector. And a reproduction of the French poster for silent film serial The Exploits of Elaine, which I've seen on the background of Friends for eleven years.

I think it's an okay-looking place. Not as well-cleaned as some people would like, but I'm comfortable.

[gioia]

Les Gâteaux de Daisy Day romanzo di Valentina Olivastri 2017

Ringrazio Valentina Olivastri per aver tradotto per il post la sinossi di “Les Gâteaux de Daisy Day”

A sedici anni, nulla funziona nella vita di Daisy Hamilton ma un pomeriggio, guardando la televisione, si innamora pazzamente di un filosofo parigino super figo, Marcel du Lac. In quel preciso istante ha inizio la missione di Daisy: tentare di sedurlo. Nonostante un monte di ostacoli, per riuscire nel suo intento, Daisy inventa mille stratagemmi fino a quando un bel giorno, nel mezzo di Parigi, incontra Marcel, ma l’uomo dei suoi sogni si rivela una totale delusione. Disperata, Daisy si consola con l’amore di sempre: i dolci; e con l’aiuto della sorella gemella Lizzy e di nonna Stella, decide di aprire una pasticceria come non se ne sono mai viste prima a Parigi. Creata come il più romantico dei giardini inglesi con tanto di prato e fiori selvatici al suo interno, Daisy servirà puddings, tazze di tè e Jane Austen in tutte le lingue: dal cinese al basco, dal pashto all’occitanico, e il vero Mr Darcy  non tarderà a venire…

Les Gâteaux de Daisy Day is a fresh romantic comedy which explores the ups and downs of being in love. When in 2004 British schoolgirl and cake-addict Daisy Hamilton falls for hip Parisian philosopher Marcel du Lac while watching TV, her life is turned upside down. She begins a single-minded mission which takes her from Cambridge to Oxford to the south of France and ends in Paris. When Daisy’s and Marcel’s paths finally cross, she recognizes that the man holding the key to her future happiness is sadly a jerk. She is heartbroken, and her love for all things French is compromised. Daisy suddenly yearns for lumpy custard and rain-beaten ice cream parlours. Her twin sister Lizzie and formidable grandmother Stella come to her rescue, and Lizzie urges her to embrace serial dating; however, Stella suggests a much more tempting plan: Daisy should open an English cake shop in the heart of Paris. Styled like a wildflower meadow giving the illusion of a picnic in the British countryside, ‘Les Gâteaux de Daisy Day’ is like no other patisserie in the French capital: English cakes and puddings, hot and dark cups of tea and jugs of full fat milk are dished up with generous helpings of Jane Austen in a myriad languages from Chinese and Basque to Pashto and Occitan. Romance is in the air and fashion-mad Lizzie falls desperately in love with a Canadian professor who is passionate about nineteenth-century English literature, while Daisy is swept off her feet by an urban beekeeper, Jean-Paul Busby, half French, half Brit, with a sensitive heart and a fascination for queen bees. Naturally, all ends well in this feel-good modern fairy tale.

Primo capitolo 

1. How it all began 2. O Lance, where art thou? 3. Switching the box on: a fabulous white-shirted smoothie appears from nowhere 4. ❤❤❤Marcel du Lac for ever: a thousand and one scenarios❤❤❤ 5. From rags to riches 6. We have a Grandma 7. All by myself, I have to be 8. ’S Wonderful 9. I’m officially a bluestocking 10. Unforgettable Paris 11. The Queen Bee 12. Bikinis, macaroons and broken dreams 13. C’est ça: trop yummy pour toi 14. The clandestine baking club: have your cake and eat it 15. What’s it all about? 16. Cakes at the edge of rationality 17. Trading places 18. Let’s get down to it 19. Kiss on my list 20. Que sera, sera. Whatever will be, will ‘bee’! 1. How it all began I’ll never forget the first time I fell in love. It was March 3rd, 2002. It was after dinner - bits of meat drowned in a brown liquid, a sea of floating peas and a couple of lifeless carrots. That night, Dad repeatedly subjected Lizzie and me to what vaguely smacked of bedtime reading. We were fourteen years old. Two weird characters going by the unlikely names of Cynewulf and Guthlac hardly proved to be a mood enhancer for two young girls, but Dad wasn’t the least bit discouraged. It was only when we were about to drop off that he changed his tune and marched ahead with another tale: ‘Once upon a time there was a young lad called Horn whose daddy was bumped off by a bunch of guys…’. Ropy enough, but at least this time there was a whiff of action. However, it was during Dad’s final attempt that things unexpectedly took a turn for the better, and one word that sounded as sweet and tempting as a Christmas trifle stuck with me. LOVE. These stories were all about love: falling in love, gutsy love, magical, riveting love. From irresistible passions, huge expectations and great opportunities, to regular girls rolling around with yummy princes and happily scampering off to sandy beaches. “Hang on in there,” I told myself, “this is great stuff.” The tales were incredibly addictive. They were mostly set in Rome and in France (stonking locations I thought) with the odd jaunt to exotic places and my super favourite of all started something like this: far away, in a magical land, there was a wizard called Merlin, a mysterious kingdom named Camelot, a round table and, above all, there was him, the amazing, extraordinary, wonderfully hip ❤ Lancelot of the Lake ❤. Oh my God… The guy was a legend verging on myth and with his cool swagger, he was making news just by showing up in his chainmail under the light of flaming torches. Every page Dad read conjured up a treasure trove full of wonders and filled with impossibly moist chocolate hearts, swan robes and plenty of tasty potions. In this spellbound realm, Lancelot was ready to flex his muscles to save my life and take me away with him. He was my saviour, the one who could do no wrong and as for his previous peccadillos, including mistaking a chick named Elaine for his regular squeeze and bonking her, I could hardly blame him. He had, after all, been under the influence of a particularly cruel spell. For me Lancelot would suffer long and treacherous journeys, crossing swords and defeating the enemy single-handedly just to croon: “Hi, babe, cup of tea or G&T? What do you fancy?” That’s my man, I thought, ever so proud, and pelted him with kisses and Bonne Maman mini jars, strawberry flavour. He was generous, adored my company, and was sensitive to my beauty - *very important* - despite my imprisonment by calories. Size 16, I’m afraid. Lance (we were already on very cordial terms) could brush away the smallest of my problems, infusing my mood with ambitious dreams and lashings of highly quaffable wine. With him I was adventurous, unblushing and goose bumps-prone. I had our life together planned to perfection. What he’d suggest and what I’d reply, what he’d pine for and what I’d offer him; and the procedure could be repeated as many times as I fancied. Of course, I expected nothing less than complete submission from him. No conflicting sets of desire were ever allowed in my fantasy world. All that I needed was the right party invitation, but I’d have no second thoughts about gatecrashing the social milieu, as Dad would say, inhabited by my dazzling knight. Love was my very own Holy Grail, and I was snacking hard on Lance’s stirring exploits. My passion for them was unquenchable, and I constantly asked for more, but Dad wouldn’t have it. “Let’s move on to King Arthur,” he would drone while readjusting the ancient creases of the suit perilously hanging on his rangy frame. “Not him. He’d be a bloody nobody without Lance,” I’d shout. “Without Lance his reputation would be zilch. He’s just a drag with shaggy hair. He has no glamour whatsoever and none of the zippy dialogue. I don’t even know how he got into the plot.” “Nonsense,” Dad would rattle off while casting a glance at his naff footwear. “Arthur was a great King, the one who saved Britain from enemies at home and abroad. It’s your ‘Lance’ who would be ‘zilch’ without him.” “Yeah. Blah, blah, blah.” Nothing was going to spoil my dream. Not that tedious interloper Arthur and certainly not the rubbish comments that Dad was booooooring me to death with. For me only one word counted: ROMANCE. Kiss, kiss, kiss. Yes, I was smitten! When I told Lizzie that I was madly in love with Lance, she wasn’t as thrilled as I was. “Come on, Daisy, get a grip. These stories are complete dross. Move on.” “No way. I’m sure this is what I’ve been dreaming of all these years.” “All these years? You’ve only just turned fourteen.” “So have you.” “Not really. I’m thirteen minutes and five seconds older, remember? I came out first.” “Oh, you and your head start. I’m so impressed.” “You can say it louder if you like. Anyway, point being, Dad is telling you a load of old tosh. Don’t let it mess with your head. I can smell big trouble. Fingers in your ears and do it now.” “I can’t and I won’t. I’ve got to find my twenty-first century Lance,” and beaming with enthusiasm I added, “I know that somewhere I’ll find him…” “Where exactly?” asked Lizzie, wishing she’d never had a sister. In her eyes, I was developing into something bigger than a huge embarrassment. I had already turned into a real pain. “Lance,” I replied, hands on hips, sounding like Mum and Dad, “was raised in an underwater palace by the Lady of the Lake.” “Have you gone completely bonkers?” “Oh, shut up. I know what I’m doing. I mean, I have to look for someone connected with the sea: a sailor, a lifeguard, a scuba-diver. It’s obvious, isn’t it? Even a lock keeper would do.” “Get real, Daisy. This isn’t one of your fairy tales.” “Who are you to say?” “You really are mental.” After some serious lip chewing, I shut myself in my room and sleuthed for ways to get to my Lance. I became ever so busy with my one-off mission and turned into a young Miss Marple minus the curtain twitching. If I were to succeed in my quest, I needed some sort of power just like any respectable pixie. All that I had at my disposal in and out of the house were books. My mind was, therefore, made up. Knowledge, that most mysterious and scary force - I tried not to think of what it had done to Mum and Dad - was going to be the secret weapon for my ultimate homework assignment. Finding love with the capital L! To be continued…