#finn longman

[finnlongman]

Introducing: Moth to a Flame, the final book in my trilogy about a traumatised teenage assassin trying (and mostly failing) to live a normal life in a fictional closed city in Yorkshire. And also in Leeds, as this graphic suggests 😆 Sorry, that's sort of a spoiler for THK...

I figured I'd give you all three of these graphics so you can get a sense of the overall vibes of the trilogy. And so you know why I'm still using this overly cutesy font, because 2022!me made this decision and I guess I'm sticking with it. I know most people use these graphics to label tropes you'll find in the book, but aside from "found family", I'm not sure any of these really count as tropes. (New trope: Yorkshire?) You can also tell I've been getting steadily worse at marketing since 2022. Or maybe better. Who's to say, really.

(Yes, it does annoy me that the arrows for book one go in the opposite direction. No, not enough to re-make the whole thing.)

And if you're wondering what constitutes "considerably less murder"... I tried to track the body count of THK, and lost count at around 50. MTAF, by contrast, has, like ... 3 murders? Very different vibe. THK was when I broke everything and MTAF is where I slowly start putting it back together. This is the Bucky Barnes Recovery Fic of the series. We're talking grief, grappling with trauma, learning to be a person again, finding solidarity with others who've been messed up by the military and the arms industry, possibly joining a support group full of gay communists, and ultimately, realising that sometimes it's not enough to escape, because the whole system needs to be dismantled to stop it from hurting anyone else. I'm terrified no one will like it because they're here for the violence, but it was important to me to write it this way.

It's coming in May! You can preorder it now! And if you haven't read the first two books, you've got a perfect amount of time to buy and read those ahead of book 3's release to minimise cliffhanger agony.

Also: it still contains Esperanto, street art, no romance, an aroace protagonist, and bad life choices. I just figured those were a given at this point and didn't put them on the graphic.

[lgbtqreads]

Happy Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week 2023!

Happy Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week! Running from February 19-25, 2023, this week we’re celebrating aromantic rep, so check out these titles! (Representation is included/highlighted with each title, where I know it.) As usual, all links are affiliate and earn a percentage of income for the site, so please use them if you can! Please note this roundup only features titles that were not…

[innocentlymacabre]

big up to @finnlongman for portraying the universal love we all share for librarians Grace is an icon

[noveltyreads]

The Butterfly Assassin (The Butterfly Assassin #1) by Finn Longman Book Review

ARC kindly provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

To be honest, I enjoyed this book way more than I thought I would. I'm not a huge thriller fan. I don't usually seek the genre out but for some reason, I was drawn to this book and decided to give it a go. I'm so glad I did because this book was just the dark and gritty YA book I was looking for. 

The book follows Isabel Ryans, a minor who wants nothing more than to escape the secret assassin program she was born into and live a normal life. Traumatised by her parents, one a high-ranking chemical weapons specialist and the other a renowned assassin, Isabel flees and adopts a new name. However, Comma is far from letting her go and we see Isabel's struggle with accepting and letting go of her dark past. She questions if she can exist outside of her previous life and be normal or if assassin was all that she could be.

This book is very much underrated. I really enjoyed myself even though it took me a while to get used to the writing style. Isabel was quite reserved and introverted however you could tell that she dreamed of living the typical teenage existence of making friends, going to school and planning out a future. I felt like the author portrayed this yearning for more really well and also showcased trauma and mental health in a way that felt realistic and authentic. I enjoyed Isabel's character a lot and think she deserves all the hugs in the world. 

It wasn't just Isabel's character I loved, it was all the side characters too. Emma was absolutely gorgeous and I wanted her and Isabel to explore their connection a little more. Is it bad for me to say I was absolutely shipping the two together? When that ending came it honestly shattered me. No spoilers but Emma 100% deserved better. I also felt like Nick deserved better. He just wanted to be there for Isabel and then... well... I won't spoil that one. 

I am so excited to read the second book. While I was reading the first, I actually requested book two from the library. I hope Isabel can escape her parents and live the life she always dreamed of. This is a book and a series I would strongly recommend for those looking for asexual rep and a really solid YA thriller. 

ACTUAL RATING: 4.1 STARS

[songedunenuitdete]

The Butterfly Assassin de Finn Longman

☃️ J'ai lu The Butterfly Assassin de @FinnLongman / @BragelonneFR 🍂La plume de l’auteur.ice est géniale, prenante ! Très imagée aussi. L’action est présente et plus on avance et plus la tension devient insoutenable, et ce, jusqu’à la toute fin.

Mon avis : Waouh ! J’ai vraiment kiffé ce roman ! Pour dire, c’est presque un coup de cœur ! Alors peut-être que j’ai trouvé le début un peu longuet, le temps que l’intrigue se mette en place et que nous comprenions mieux les ambitions de l’héroïne, Isabel, mais la suite… Waouh ! C’est bien simple, j’ai eu du mal à lâcher le roman avant sa toute fin ! C’est super prenant et bien ficelé et…

[rosieethor]

Aromantic Books Let's Go!

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

The Reckless Kind by Carly Heath

Black Wings Beating by Alex London

This Dark Descent by Kalyn Josephson

The Siren, the Song, and the Spy by Maggie Tokuda-Hall

Fire Becomes Her by Rosiee Thor

Not Even Bones by Rebecca Schaeffer

This Golden Flame by Emily Victoria

Immoral Code by Lillian Clark

Tarnished are the Stars by Rosiee Thor

The Last 8 by Laura Pohl

Hullmetal Girls by Emily Skrutskie

Summer Bird Blue by Akemi Dawn Bowman

Loveless by Alice Oseman

Take Me To Your Nerdy Leader by Hailey Gonzales

Being Ace edited by Madeline Dyer

Queerly Loving edited by G Benson and Astrid Ohletz

Common Bonds edited by Claudie Arseneault, C T Callahan, and RoAnna Sylver

Beneath the Citadel by Destiny Soria

Godly Heathens by H. E. Edgmon

The Grimrose Girls by Laura Pohl

The Butterfly Assassin by Finn Longman

At the End of Everything by Marieke Nijkamp

Switchback by Danika Stone

Tell Me How It Ends by Quinton Li

Awakenings by Claudie Arsenault

Stake Sauce by RoAnna Sylver

The Ice Princess's Fair Illusion by Dove Cooper

The Threads That Bind by Cedar McCloud

Not Your backup by C. B. lee

Fallen Thorns by Harvey Oliver Baxter

Natural Outlaws and Fractured Sovereignty by S. M. Pearce

Wander the Night by Sydney Cobb

Stones Stay Silent by Danny Ride

The Story of the Hundred Promises by Neil Cochrane

Two Dark Moons by Avi Silver

The Bruising of Qilwa by Naseem Jamnia

An Accident of Stars by Foz Meadows

Firebreak by Nicole Kornher-Stace

Archivist Wasp by Nicole Kornher-Stace

Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel

Syncopation by Anna Zabo

Dear Wendy by Ann Zhao

The Loudest Silence by Sydney Langford

Lord of the Empty Isles by Jules Arbeaux

Our Deadly Designs by Kalyn Josephson

The Final Curse of Ophelia Cray by Christine Calella

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

Books for Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week

🦇 It's Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week (February 18th-24th)! In an effort to #ReadQueerAllYear, here are a few books featuring aromantic characters you can add to your TBR!

💚 Little Thieves by Margaret Owen 🤍 The Bone Season - Samanta Shannon 🤍 Hullmetal Girls - Emily Skrutskie 🖤 Tarnished Are the Stars - Rosiee Thor 💚 Kaikeyi - Vaishnavi Patel 🤍 The Reckless Kind - Carly Heath 🤍 First Test - Tamora Pierce 🖤 No More Heroes - Loren Rhoads 💚 This Golden Flame - Emily Victoria 🤍 Baker Thief - Claudie Arseneault 🤍 Immoral Code - Lillian Clark 🖤 Loveless - Alice Oseman 💚 The Last 8 - Laura Pohl 🤍 The Midnight Bargain - C.L. Polk 🤍 The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy - Mackenzi Lee 🖤 Common Bonds - Claudie Arseneault, C.T. Callahan, B.R. Sanders, and RoAnna Sylver 💚 The Black Veins - Ashia Monet 🤍 Liar’s Guide to the Night Sky by Brianna Shrum 🤍 The Crow Rider - Kalyn Josephson 🖤 Summer Bird Blue - Akemi Dawn Bowman 💚 Hazel's Theory of Evolution - Lisa Jenn Bigelow 🤍 Summer of Salt - Katrina Leno 🤍 The Poppy War - R.F. Kuang 🖤 Not Even Bones - Rebecca Schaeffer 💚 Elatsoe - Darcie Little Badger 🤍 Rick - Alex Gino 🤍 Switchback by Danika Stone 🖤 Sal & Gabi Fix the Universe - Carlos Alberto Hernandez 💚 Gender Queer - Maia Kobabe 🤍 Their Troublesome Crush - Xan West 🤍 Every Bird a Prince - Jenn Reese 🖤 The Butterfly Assassin - Finn Longman 💚 Red Skies Falling - Alex London 🤍 When Villains Rise - Rebecca Schaeffer 🤍 The Bruising of Qilwa - Naseem Jamnia 🖤 Funeral Girl - Emma K. Ohland 💚 The Kindred - Alechia Dow 🤍 The Summer of Bitter and Sweet - Jen Ferguson 🤍 Dear Wendy - Ann Zhao 🖤 Tell Me How It Ends by Quinton Li 💚 This Dark Descent - Kalyn Josephson 🤍 Awakenings by Claudie Arseneault 🤍 Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White 🖤 Other People’s Butterflies by Cora Ruskin

Per @aroaessidhe: Little Thieves, The Kindred, The Summer of Bitter and Sweet, Gender Queer, (and I think The Bone Season?) have ace or demisexual MCs, not aromantic. also, a lot of the rest are side characters, not main characters.

Thank you, genuinely, so much, for this correction. I'm very sorry for the mistake. I create these guides between work assignments (I work from home, around the clock, trying to make ends meet in this mess of an economy) and didn't do my due diligence in double-checking every book. I think this started as an aro/ace list I was compiling and I tried to separate it into two guides. I apologize for the discrepancy vehemently and will strive to do better in the future. Thank you for catching my error.

[aro-who-reads]

Aro book review: The Hummingbird Killer by Finn Longman

Loved this! A very strong sequel to The Butterfly Assassin, and this time I was prepared for how full on it was.

In this follow-up, assassin Isabel tries to create some kind of 'normal' life for herself, finding a job and a civilian flatmate, while also getting mixed up with a group of rebels.

While in the first book she was only word of god aroace with some vague hints, here is it is spelled out clearly and discussed (although the words aro and ace aren't actually used). There is also another aroace character and an alloaro character, who both describe their experiences as well. There's also just not really any romance at all.

Strongly recommend!

[crow-caller]

hiya papaya! my partner and i love your youtube videos, and we recently started a book review podcast focusing on books with queer themes. i wanted to ask if you had any lesser known queer ya book reccs, cuz i'd love to hear about them of so! also, i would love to cover your book at some point and perhaps talk with you about it, but that's future things cuz i don't want to fully ask that when we're only one episode in ourselves. thanks for making such awesome videos!~

I'm a huge huge huge podcast nerd so I may check out yours and would totally love to be on it! I really do despite all appearences spend most of my time gaming while listening to podcasts. Most of those podcasts are old episodes of mbmbam but look, we don't choose our autism.

I so don't do enough reading of NOT bad books in truth. Reading is hard and I take my occasional bad book breaks to read... like random stuff rather than specifically lgbt ya. But digging through my review archives and memory:

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention The Butterfly Assassin series by Finn Longman, which is foremost a spy assassin story set in a closed city but also has (and goes into more later) an aro ace lead character! And a very keen specific focus on close platonic bonds!! Stuff like that always gets passed over talking queer lit because it's not that bombastic I think to go 'there's good friendship here' but honestly so important to me to see books on purpose intentionally highlight platonic bonds as just as important as romantic or sexual. Anyway, great books. Caveat I know the author a bit but like, I am too autistic to hype up a friend's book that I DIDN'T genuinely love.

The aro/ace database is a key friend and work of art.

I think Angels Before Man is very widely known but a very interesting queer angel book!

Valhalla trilogy by Ari Bach is a very fun far future sci fi action fest with norse mythology parallels and dangerous lesbian valkyries

Archangel Protocol series, Lyda Morehouse isn't YA I think. Maybe. The fourth book could be, that one has a teen lead. Anyway, look!!! My fav angel weird sci fi universal unitarian religious 90s cyberpunk series...

I don't think my reccs help much at all here but there you go! I KNOW a lot of indie lgbt books. I just haven't actually read them.... yet......

[librarycards]

Five books I loved in 2023:

- Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emrys

- The Girl with All the Gifts by M. R. Carey

- Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

- Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko

- The Butterfly Assassin by Finn Longman

holy fuck, how had i never heard of Winter Tide? it looks so fucking good and i'm adding it to my tbr asap. thank you!

recs:

Dread Nation, Justina Ireland

Light From Uncommon Stars, Ryka Aoki

The Grip of It, Jac Jemc

Bonus: The Other, Thomas Tryon

[dat-big-boiii]

once I stayed up till around 5:30, 6 to finish The Butterfly Assassin by Finn Longman because I needed to finish it and I needed to know how it ended but I didn't need sleep

MOOD. MOOD. MOOOD. MOOD.

me rn:

[finnlongman]

You gotta admit, they look pretty good together.

This is my YA trilogy about a traumatised teenage assassin trying and failing to live a normal life in a fictional closed city in Yorkshire. If you've been looking for YA with no romance, morally ambiguous (or outright terrible) characters, tons of murder, revolutionary librarians, poison, Esperanto, loving descriptions of street art, and varying degrees of critique of the military and the arms industry (from subtle to overt as the trilogy continues), then this might be the series for you. The Butterfly Assassin and The Hummingbird Killer are out now; Moth to a Flame will be released on 23rd May. Full details of all of them are on my website.

[lgbtqreads]

do you have queer books with assassins/spies? it could be any genre.

Sure! Here are some with assassins:

YA

Assassins: Discord by Erica Cameron

The Butterfly Assassin by Finn Longman – AA

Mask of Shadows by Linsey Miller – GF

Adult

The Perfect Assassin by K.A. Doore – A

Empire of Light by Alex Harrow

A Game of Hearts and Heists by Ruby Roe

And here are some spies:

YA:

Queen of Coin and Whispers by Helen Corcoran

The Spy With the Red Balloon by Katherine Locke

Adult

Amberlough by Lara Elena Donnelly

Who is Vera Kelly? by Rosalie Knecht

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

[innocentlymacabre]

Honestly can't decide whether I want Isabel to ditch the name and all its associations and the hurt and trauma and pain it brought and go only by Bella Nicholls or whether I want her to say no fuck that and reclaim her name because fuck you she decides who she is and what she's defined by thank you very much

[fianaigecht]

Hi! If you're reading this, it might be because I just followed you. You might be wondering why, especially if you're not a dancer. I am @finnlongman, but this is the top-level/primary account affiliated with that blog.

Technically, this is my dance blog. I regularly forget it exists, although since I'm planning to use it more for interaction to help make Finn Longman more part of the Tumblr community, that might change. You're welcome to follow me here if you're into ballet, Irish dance, or related topics, but if you're looking for medieval literature, fiction writing updates, and more general posts, you'll find them at @finnlongman and should probably follow that account instead.

I do calligraphy at @feralscribe, but again... very, very infrequently. Hoping to change that soon and get back to it.

[incorrect-ulster-cycle]

Conchobar: Hey Conall, if I sent you to get the sons of Uisliu and they just so happened to get super murdered on the way home, what would you do?

Conall: I would kill literally everybody involved, including you.

Conall: Why, is this something that's likely to happen?

Conchobar: ...

Conchobar: