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Review: Young Avengers by Kieron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie (2014)
Rating: ★★★★★
Genre: Graphic Novel, Contemporary, Superheroes
Categories: M/M, Queer characters
Content Warnings: N/A
Buy it at: Amazon (Vol 1, Vol 2, Vol 3) | Barnes & Noble (Vol 1, Vol 2, Vol 3)Description: After the previous team of Young Avengers fell apart, some of them have stayed away, and others are still out living that superhero life. But a new threat against the universe appears — an eldritch terror known as Mother, who has the ability to brainwash adults and is a parasite who is drawn to Billy’s reality-warping powers in the hopes of eating his soul, and maybe destroying the world in the process (all under the oblivious noses of adult superheroes). It’s Kid Loki who decides to get a new team together, bringing in the new members: America Chavez (a dimension-hopping lesbian Latina) and Noh-Varr (a disaffected Kree ex-soldier with a love for earth music), as well as pulling back some previous ones, such as Kate Bishop (rich girl with a bow and Hawkeye #2), Billy Kaplan (chaos-mage and son of the Scarlet Witch, Wiccan), and Teddy (a shape-shifting skrull-kree hybrid prince and Billy’s boyfriend, Hulkling). Joining them is David Alleyne aka Prodigy, an ex-mutant whose ability had been to learn everything.
I’m rereading a bunch of the Young Avengers content, which has won several GLAAD awards for the queer content it introduced. If you want to follow along, I made a Young Avengers reading guide over here to make it easier to understand the order, where to get the comics, and links to my other Young Avengers reviews (including reviews for marvel events & crossovers that I only posted on Goodreads).
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Review: An Offering of Plums by J. Emery (2018)
Rating: ★★★★★
Genre: Paranormal, Fantasy, Romance
Categories: M/NB, demons
Content Warnings: N/A
Buy it at: Amazon | Barnes & NobleDescription: When Tristan follows his boyfriend Mathias to Guardian Hill, he doesn’t expect to be made a sacrifice to the demon that dwells there. He certainly doesn’t expect to survive the experience with the demon’s help, but the fact that he does keeps drawing him back to that hill…
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Review: Darkling by Brooklyn Ray (2018)
“I don’t know what to do. One day I’m doing a reading with Liam, the next he’s going down on me on the hood of a car and I’m sucking his soul out of his body. What the fuck, Jordan? What do I do?”
– Darkling, Brooklyn Ray
Rating: ★★★½
Genre: Paranormal, Romance
Categories: M/M, Trans, Witches, DemonsContent Warnings (highlight to read): Scenes of bloodletting and death (and resurrection) of an MC.
Description: A paranormal romance set in a small town where most of the characters are queer, witches, or (more often) both. In this world, there are clearly-delineated “types” of magic and the witches who practice them; the main character, Ryder, learns that he’s a necromancer, and has to tackle what that means for him and his circle-mate and best friend who is also all caught up in this strange magic with him.
Ryder is a witch with two secrets—one about his blood and the other about his heart. Keeping the secrets hasn’t been a problem, until a tarot reading with his best friend, Liam Montgomery, who happens to be one of his secrets, starts a chain of events that can’t be undone.
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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: To Summon Nightmares by J.K. Pendragon (2014)
“With the last sound, his mouth became unstopped like a bottle, and it was as if all sound hissed from the room. The candles blew out, the darkness expanded to envelop all. And then the darkness receded. The candles flickered back to light, and the sound came back into the room.
In the middle of the circle stood a man.”
– To Summon Nightmares, J.K. Pendragon
Rating: ★★★½
Genre: Paranormal, contemporary, romance
Categories: M/M, trans, demonsContent Warnings (highlight to read): Transphobia. Graphic descriptions of dysphoria, self-harm attempts. References to torture, child abuse.
Description: A gothic-horror contemporary story set in rural Ireland. Cohen, a Jewish trans writer, finds himself unexpectedly involved in the life of Niall—a gorgeous man suspected of murder, on the run from a haunting past involving demon summoning, and possessing incredible magic powers. There’s a secret organization and a very unpleasant ex-boyfriend involved. And all Cohen wanted was a quiet place to write…
“When he inherits an old house in the country, Cohen sees it as a perfect opportunity to escape the press and work on his new book. What he doesn’t count on is becoming embroiled in a small town murder mystery and falling for the primary suspect, a man whose reality makes Cohen’s fantasy books seem like child’s play…”