-
Review: Possibilities (A King’s Council #1) by Nicole Field (2018)
Rating: ★★★½
Genre: Fantasy, Romance
Categories: Non-binary (genderfluid), Trans, Royalty & Nobility, Arranged Marriage
Content Warnings: N/A
Buy it at: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Less Than Three PressDescription: When Prince Ernest unexpectedly becomes King Ernest, he quickly finds that it’s lonely at the top — until the appointment of his new court jester, Drel, gives him some company. But he quickly finds himself deeply attracted to them. Would an affair with the Court Jester weaken his reign? Or can they find a way to make it strengthen it instead?
-
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.
-
Review: Timekeeper by Tara Sim (2016)
“Danny had most certainly fallen down the rabbit hole. He didn’t know if he ever wanted to return.”
– Timekeeper, Tara Sim
Rating: ★★★½
Genre: Fantasy, YA
Categories: M/M, alternate historyContent Warnings (highlight to read): N/A
Description: Danny is a clock mechanic, tasked with keeping the world’s clocktowers running in an alternate Victorian world. These clocktowers literally keep time: if a town’s tower is broken, time around it grows out of sync, or may even stop entirely, trapping those inside its influence in an infinite loop. When a series of bombings starts attacking clocktowers around England, Danny urgently works to solve the mystery, alongside a mysterious clock spirit that he becomes very invested in protecting.
-
Review: Junk Mage by Elliot Cooper (2016)
“It’s a gift, not a trade.” Or it wasn’t a sly trade anymore, anyway. I couldn’t handle his haunted look, as if I’d just given him everything and he wasn’t allowed to keep it.
– Junk Mage, Elliot Cooper
Rating: ★★★½
Genre: Science fiction, fantasy, romance
Categories: M/M, cyborgs, wizards, technomancy, personhood arcContent Warnings: N/A
Description: Quill, an emotionally immature but well-intentioned technomancer, crash-lands his spaceship on a remote planet and has to figure out how to repair his ship in order to leave. There he meets Hunter, an amnesiac cyborg, whose trust (or cooperation) he has to earn in order to get off the planet and to not lose his best shot at a new life.
-
Review: Peter Darling by Austin Chant (2017)
“That’s the trick of growing up. Nothing stays the same.” Hook sounded oddly sympathetic. “You see the faults in everything. Including yourself.”
– Peter Darling, Austin Chant
Rating: ★★★★★
Genre: Fantasy, fairy tale, romance
Categories: M/M, trans, enemies to lovers, fairy tale retellingContent Warnings (highlight to read): Deals with societal & familial transphobia. Some death & violence but not graphic.
Description: A sumptuously gorgeous re-imagining of Peter Pan where the fairies are all the more strange and where Neverland—and your identity—is what you decide to make of it. Enemies-to-lovers Peter & Hook: if this is automatically selling point, great, you won’t be disappointed. If it makes you raise your eyebrows: trust me, the storytelling, characterization & development is so deftly woven that you also won’t be disappointed.
“Ten years ago, Peter Pan left Neverland to grow up, leaving behind his adolescent dreams of boyhood and resigning himself to life as Wendy Darling. Growing up, however, has only made him realize how inescapable his identity as a man is.”