Reviews
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Review: The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion (Danielle Cain #1) by Margaret Killjoy (2017)
Rating: ★★★★
Genre: Urban Fantasy, Horror, Eldritch, Paranormal
Categories: F/F, Queer, Ghosts/Spirits, Demons
Content Warnings: (Highlight to read) References to a character’s previous suicide (off-screen).
Buy it at: Amazon | Barnes & NobleDescription: Itinerant traveler Danielle Cain arrives at the “ghost town” of Freedom, Iowa, a haven for squatters and anarchists living off the grid. She’s looking for an explanation for why an old friend of hers died after living here; what she finds is a guardian god who was summoned a year ago, and a town split in two between whether or not they should overthrow their oppressors via this summoned god which has begun to turn on them, or whether they should try to get rid of it entirely and live on their own.
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Review: Threshold (Whyborne & Griffin #2) by Jordan L. Hawk (2013)
Rating: ★★★★½
Genre: Paranormal, Horror, Romance
Categories: M/M, mystery, eldritch
Content Warnings: N/A
Buy it at: Amazon | Barnes & NobleDescription: Having survived one eldritch horror already, philologist Percival Endicott Whyborne and his lover and partner, private detective Griffin Flaherty, are two of the few people able to answer his father’s request to investigate paranormal happenings in a mine in Threshold, West Virginia. But what they find in the mine is much older, and much more horrific, than simple tommyknockers or other such mine superstitions.
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Review: The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison (2014)
Rating: ★★★★★
Genre: Fantasy
Categories: Fairies (elves/goblins), Political Intrigue, Royalty and Nobility
Content Warnings (Highlight to read): References to past (offscreen) child abuse
Buy it at: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Description: Maia, the youngest son of the elven emperor, was somebody nobody thought would inherit the throne. Half-goblin and the result of a loveless political marriage, he has lived his entire life in exile. Yet, when every family member closer to the throne dies in an airship crash, along with the ruling emperor, he finds himself at age 18 taken to the capital and thrust into a role he has barely been prepared for. He has no friends, and barely knows which of his supporters he dare trust. Even so, Maia must negotiate the bewildering tangle of court political intrigue, arranged marriages, parliamentary disagreements, and, of course, investigating the deaths of his family.
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Review: Widdershins (Whyborne & Griffin #1) by Jordan L. Hawk (2012)
Rating: ★★★¾
Genre: Paranormal, Horror, Romance
Categories: M/M, ghosts/spirits, mystery, eldritch
Content Warnings: N/A
Buy It At: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Description: Repressed scholar Percival Endicott Whyborne prefers to hide away in his museum office with books in dead languages to avoid any and all attention—and so, when attractive ex-Pinkerton private detective Griffin Flaherty asks for the help of the museum’s ciphers’ specialist to translate a book that his employer thinks might be a clue to a case he’s working on, Whyborne would rather not have anything to do with the gorgeous man—especially since the time is such that his own attraction is illegal, which is rather dangerous when the man he’s attracted to is a detective! But despite his misgivings, the two are drawn very close together on the case, which goes deeper than a mere murder and into realms of necromancy and Lovecraftian horror.
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Review: Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli (2015)
Rating: ★★★★½
Genre: Contemporary, Young Adult, Romance, Drama
Categories: M/M, hidden identity
Content Warnings (highlight to read): Deals with homophobia & includes homophobic slurs.
Buy it at: Amazon | Barnes & NobleDescription: Simon, a high schooler in a small town, is gay, and nobody should know except for the mysterious boy with whom he exchanges anonymous emails. Except someone else does know—and that person has decided to blackmail him for his help in hooking up with one of Simon’s friends. How can Simon keep his grades up, decide how to come out to his friends and family, act in the school play, deal with high school friend drama, try to track down the boy he’s pretty sure he’s falling in love with, and negotiate the shady territory of being blackmailed into manipulating his own besties, all at the same time?