• Reviews

    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).

  • Reviews

    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 & Noble

    Description: 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…

  • Reviews

    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, Demons

    Content 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.

  • Reviews

    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 Press

    Description: 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?

  • Reviews

    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 & Noble

    Description: 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.