#anywhere you go

[lgbtqreads]

Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Romances: January-June 2025

So Not My Type by Dana Hawkins (January 5th) Sophie Black has clawed her way up from coffee runs to project manager at a top Seattle ad agency. She’s laser-focused on her career—until the CEO’s daughter, Ella Northwood, joins the team. Forced to work together on a high-stakes campaign, sparks fly as Sophie’s scrappy determination clashes with Ella’s polished privilege. But there’s more to both…

[a-skirmish-of-wit-and-lit]

Anywhere You Go by Bridget Morrissey

Anywhere You Go is a queer retelling of The Holiday whereby the main characters, Tatum and Eleanor, swap homes to escape the chaos in their personal lives.

Eleanor, a Broadway press agent, needs to get away from New York after a scandal comes to light that effects her high profile job. What better place to recharge than in a small Midwestern town? Tatum, a waitress, jettisons off with her longtime, kept-at-a-distance crush, June, after she learns that her father's planning to introduce her and her entire family to their half-brother from an affair he had long ago. While both of them live incredibly different lives, the thing that tethers them together is their fear, their avoidance, of commitment and emotional intimacy. However, with this house swap, Tatum and Eleanor will discover new sides to themselves, opening up to new people and places they never thought possible.

This was a sweet and charming sapphic romance. I enjoyed the development of both romances, had fun tagging along with Tatum and June in the city, and loved the banter between Eleanor and Carson. The found family trope was an added delight, too. Tatum and Eleanor navigated the hurtles blocking them from emotional intimacy realistically, and I liked that they each ultimately arrived at their own happy ending.

Thanks to NetGalley and Berkley for the ARC in exchange for my review.

**3.5/5 stars

**Follow me on Goodreads

[parrish-the-thot]

Finally cracking into my tbr pile, but I don’t know which to start with

[ash-and-books]

Rating: 2/5

Book Blurb:

A small-town waitress and a big-city Broadway press agent swap homes to escape the messiness of their personal lives, only to find new purpose—and new love.

Tatum Ward and Eleanor Chapman lead totally opposite lives. Tatum’s never left her Midwestern hometown. She resides in a quaint guest cottage on her parents’ property while working part-time as a waitress, where she spends most shifts ignoring her feelings for a beautiful regular named June. Eleanor dedicates every waking hour to her high-profile press career, sacrificing personal relationships for professional success, save for the occasional hookup to fight off her loneliness. When both women’s lives unexpectedly blow up at the exact same time, they each need an escape, and fast.

In Tatum’s hometown, Eleanor expects a quiet hideaway where she can recharge. Instead she gets wrapped up in the family drama that Tatum left town to avoid, pulled in by Tatum’s charismatic older sibling, Carson, who charms Eleanor at every turn. Tatum ends up in Eleanor’s New York high-rise apartment with June. One week together in the big city might make it impossible for Tatum to avoid not just her true feelings for June, but her real dreams for her life.

Amid a friendship with a reclusive Hollywood actress and a complicated family reunion, Tatum and Eleanor each discover much more than they bargained for away from home. Their house swap won’t last forever, but it might be just long enough for both women to surrender their defenses and finally fight for the life—and love—they deserve.

Review:

A waitress and a Broadway press agent swap homes to find new love and new purpose in this cozy romance! Tatum Ward and Eleanor Chapman are two people who are completely different but have one thing in common: they need a change. Tatum is a small town waitress who is haunted by the fact that her dad ruined their lives when he cheated on her mom and has been doing her best to ignore her feelings for the beautiful regular June, afraid she'd do what her dad did to her if she ever fell for someone. Then there is Eleanor, someone who finds out that she is the "other" woman and that the man she has been in a relationship with is a married man and never told her... so she blasts the info in a email and gets fired. Both women want a change so Eleanor comes to Tatum's town and hides away in Tatum's home finding herself falling for Tatum's charismatic sibling, Carson. All the while Tatum ends up in Eleanor's NY apartment with June for a week while June goes on the trip she had meant to go on with her gf before she was dumped. Throw in a unique friendship with a reclusive Hollywood actress and a complicated family reunion, both woman find themselves getting way more than they ever thought they would be getting when they swapped homes. This is as if you took the book The Holiday ( another queer home swapping romance set in Christmas) but made it during the summer, though I will say I adored The Holiday but this one was meh for me. I love Bridget's first book so so much but felt like this was just disappointing for me. I didn't care for either relationship or either protagonist. The romances just didn't feel well paced or that either couple had any real chemistry. I wish I could like this more but unfortunately it was a miss for me.

Release Date: April 22, 2025

Publication/Blog: Ash and Books (ash-and-books.tumblr.com)

*Thanks Netgalley and Berkley Publishing Group | Berkley for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

[hermitlifemuicals]

take our own padlama goat

dance around the rules he wrote

drag him all across the town

make sure not to touch the ground

follow anywhere i go~

Goat heist

[nymphoutofwater]

Here's a remade masterpost of free and full shakespeare adaptations! Thanks @william-shakespeare-official for this excellent post. Unfortunately, a lot of the links in it are broken, so I thought I'd make an updated version (also I just wanted to organize things a bit more)

Antony and Cleopatra: ~ Josette Simon, Antony Byrne & Ben Allen - 2017

As You Like It: ~ At Wolfe Park - 2013 ~ Kenneth Brannagh's - 2006

Coriolanus: ~ NYET Alumni - 2016 ~ Tom Hiddleston - 2014 ~ Ralph Fiennes - 2011

Cymbelline: ~ Michael Almereyda's - 2014

Hamlet: ~ David Tennant - 2009 ~ Ethan Hawke & Diane Venora - 2000 ~ Kenneth Branagh's - 1989 ~ BCC's Part One & Two - 1990 ~ Broadway - 1964 ~ Christopher Plummer - 1964 ~ Laurence Olivier's - 1948

Henry IV: ~ BBC's Part One & Two - 1989 ~ The Brussel's Shakespeare Society's - 2017

Henry V: ~ The BBC's - 1990 ~ Laurence Olivier's - 1944

Julius Caesar: ~ Phyllida Lloyd's - 2019 ~ The BBC's - 1979 ~ John Gielgud - 1970

King Lear: ~ The RSC's - 2008 ~ Laurence Olivier - 1983 ~ The BBC's - 1975 ~ James Earl Jones - 1974 ~ Orson Wells - 1953

Love's Labour's Lost: ~ Calvin University - 2016

Macbeth: ~ Stockbridge Drama Society's - 2019 ~ The RSC's - 2019 ~ Antoni Cimolino & Shelagh O'Brien's - 2017 ~ Ian McKellen & Judi Dench - 1969 ~ Sean Connery - 1961

Measure for Measure: ~ Hugo Weaving - 2019 ~ The BBC's - 1990

The Merchant of Venice: ~ Al Pacino - 2004 ~ Trevor Nunn & Chris Hunt - 2001 ~ The BBC's - 1980 ~ Lawrence Olivier - 1973

The Merry Wives of Windsor: ~ The Royal Shakespeare Company's - 1982

A Midsummer Night's Dream: ~ Oliver Chris & Gwendoline Christie - 2019 ~ City of Columbus's - 2018 ~ Julie Taymor's - 2014 ~ The Globe's - 2013 ~ The BBC's - 1988 ~ Lindsay Duncan & Alex Jennings - 1986

Much Ado About Nothing: ~ Shakespeare in the Park - 2019 ~ Kenneth Branagh - 1993 ~ The BBC's - 1984

Othello: ~ The BBC's Part One & Two - 1990

Richard II: ~ David Tennant - 2013 ~ Deborah Warner's - 1997 ~ The BBC's - 1978

Richard III: ~ Ian McKellen - 1995 ~ Laurence Olivier - 1955

Romeo and Juliet: ~ Simon Godwin's - 2021 ~ The BBC's - 1988 ~ Laurence Harvey & Susan Shentall - 1954

The Taming of the Shrew: ~ Ontario production? ~ American Conservatory Theater - 1976 ~ Richard Burton & Elizabeth Taylor - 1967 ~ Mary Pickford & Samuel Taylor - 1929

The Tempest: ~ Gregory Doran's - 2017 ~ The BBC's - 1988

Timon of Athens: ~ Barry Avrich's - 2024

Troilus and Cressida: ~ Audio Production ~ This one I found on youtube? - 2016

Titus Andronicus: ~ Anthony Hopkins - 1999

Twelfth night: ~ Texas Shakespeare Festival's - 2015 ~ Alec Guinness, Joan Plowright & Ralph Richardson - 1970

Two Gentlemen of Verona: ~ Katherine Steweart's - 2018 ~ The BBC's

The Winter's Tale: ~ Antony Sher - 1999 (Warning: they don't have a bear...)

Bonuses:

Time Loop Hamlet! (A personal fav of mine)

Rock Opera Hamlet???

Shakespeare animated tales

The Complete Works Of Shakespeare Abridged comedy

Romeo and Julieta: A Día de los Muertos Love Story

There’s also many other Latine Shakespeare adaptations listed in this archive

MacChef, a retelling but well... in a kitchen!

From the original post:

A Midwinter's Tale, about a man trying to make Hamlet.

Russian Hamlet here

Here's Scotland, PA, the 2001 modern Macbeth retelling.

Rave Macbeth for anyone interested is here.

This one is the Taming of the Shrew modern retelling.

The french Romeo & Juliet musical with English subtitles is here!

Here's the 1948 one,

the Orson Wells Othello movie with Portuguese subtitles there

A Lego adaptation of Othello here.

Here's commentary on David Tennant's Richard II

[technically-human]

You've got so much to learn

[blueskittlesart]

maryland miku

[canisalbus]

Stress management Machete doodles.

[rooniearts]

on my hands and knees asking for more girl dad big the cat and blaze PLEASE THEYRE SO GOOD IM OBSESSED

youre in luck! for i, too, am obsessed with big the dad

[bigfatbreak]

I'm working on making an Ao3 and finding an image hosting domain. for now.... check it out. whadda the hell... its me!

[lgbtqreads]

New Releases: April 2025

Unboxing Libby by Steph Cherrywell (1st) AI meets American Girl Dolls in this quirky novel about a group of preteen androids who have been cast aside and have to make their own way in the world. Max isn’t always sweet and bubbly. That wouldn’t be an issue except for the fact that she’s programmed to be. “Max” isn’t even her real name. She’s a Libby– one of the most popular A.I.Cademy Girl social…

[larkinna]

He's the King of Antiva to me

Inspired by this post by @vigilskeep because they opened my third eye with it.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Stargazing, at the edge of the unknown.

[foldingfittedsheets]

So one thing I’ve noticed is that people’s DnD characters may vary but there is usually an underlying thread that they all have in common. This thread is typically related to what that person struggles with the most.

For instance, my betrotheds DnD characters: a bitchy warlock we had to bust out of two different pacts, a sassy barbarian, a reformed drow cultist, and a sunshine fighter cleric.

All these characters were wildly different but at their very core struggle was them grappling with their self worth. My betrothed struggles with their worth a great deal and even with different facets showing their characters all have that too.

Mine all tend to contend with different themes of loneliness and acceptance. Surprise, surprise, the little autistic gremlin yearns to have been met with more love and lasting friendships.

So we’re at breakfast. I am meeting a new friend of my betrotheds for the first time. It’s been twenty minutes since I’ve met this man. I say my theory. He laughs. He starts to describe a few of his characters but specifies that he often has healing aspects. He gives a very broad overview of their character arcs.

I ponder for a moment then said, “Would you like to have my assessment?”

He laughed, “Sure!”

“We’ve just met. It’s gonna get real.”

“Bring it on.”

“I think your struggle is that you feel you must offer something of value or service to people to be worthy of their love.”

His jaw dropped. His fork froze midway to his mouth. A potato fell. He stared into space as this sank in. Quietly he said, “Oh.”

[scrixels]

⋆ ｡ ° ✩ Starquilt ✩ ° ｡ ⋆

38"x39.5" English paper piecing - all handsewn & quilted