Disclaimer: I received an e-ARC from netgalley in exchange for a review.

As someone who enjoys folklore and who loves queer history I knew I really wanted to check this book out as soon as I saw it. If you, like me, already know some part of the overlap of queer history and folklore there will certainly be some stories here that are familiar to you. But even then, there were many that were new to me and even the ones that were familiar were told in an engaging and interesting way. The book is separated into multiple chapters and deals with a variety of folklorical beings, from the ones known from fairytales such as mermaids, unicorns and fairies to the ones known from horror such as werewolves, vampires, witches, demons and ghosts, and finally to more modern folklore featuring aliens, pirates, AI, robots and superheroes. The chapter on ghosts also includes an exploration of the queerly departed, some archeological queer discoveries and gothic ideas and spiritualism. The chapter on AI and robots also explores video games as a form of modern folklore. And as you can see in this short overview the aspects explored in this book are many. The chapters always explore the historical facets of these beings, important queer personalities connected to them as well as modern queer connections to them, which makes them feel very relateable to our modern day and age.
The author writes very accessible despite this being an academic book, allowing his own voice to shine through the book, while providing the reader with plenty of information, and often points out were something might just be queer imagining instead of queer factfinding, while still allowing for a queer imagining. I especially enjoyed the last chapter where the author connects five important qualities combining folklore and queerness and think it could have served a bit better as a introductory text to get the reader excited about what was to come than as a big finale, but I still enjoyed it either way.
At points the stories were somewhat skimmed over and a bit more exploration of modern queer folklore and the way queer people connect to it nowadays separated from outfits at pride and memes online could have made this story even more interesting to me. Particularly in regard to gender and the way many trans people connect to creatures from folklore, while present a little bit, seemed a bit understated to me. Finally the chapter on witches didn't really need to mention She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, as the only queer connection she has is through queer people engaging in fandom (and tbh if that is enough to make folklore queer then this book would need to double in size!) and there is a multitude of actually queer literature exploring witches out there instead, where queer people can find a real connection. While I appreciate the author making her transphobia explicit in the text and calling it out, as a trans reader it was a reminder I didn't need and one that I am not sure I needed from a cis author.
All in all however this was a quite interesting (and accessible) exploration of the connection of folklore and queerness and despite the parts I did not enjoy as much I still had a good time reading it.

TW: mentions of sexual assault, executions, murder, pedophilia and abuse, as well as historical homophobia, transphobia and sexism.

Witch King is a dense dark fantasy that quickly throws you into a whirlwind story of revolution and revenge.
Kai, a powerful demon with the ability to take over spiritless bodies and move through the world like that, wakes up in a watery cage. He's able to telepathically reach out to his sister, who was imprisoned beside him and after breaking out he embarks on revenge on whoever locked him up in the first place. Along the way he picks up allies and tries to figure out who betrayed him.
The story switches between the future and Kai's past, both to showcase how Kai ended up where he is now and how the world has changed.
As other reviews have already stated this is not a book that takes your hand to lead you through the worldbuilding. Instead you're expected to swim or sink under the deluge of information and character names and descriptions. For me this was a definitely problem as I had picked up the audio book, but even if I had gotten a print copy I think I would have struggled somewhat. Another issue I had was that the side characters felt a bit flat at times and unfortunately Kai's wry humor did not always land for me. I also would have liked more time in some scenes instead of immediately being whisked away to another time line and another stop in the journey. In general while you receive a lot of information that sometimes leaves you reeling, the story still feels like it moves very quickly and at points too quickly. I really enjoyed the end, but it was a struggle to get there.
I have to admit that I went into this with much higher expectations than I would another author, due to how much I adored murderbot, but I unfortunately did not enjoy this book as much as I had hoped.
TWs for death, captivity, slavery, genocide, child abuse/attempted child murder and war, as well as self harm. [Spoilers ahead to furter eloborate on the self harm] The self harm mostly takes the form of mental pain and trauma purposefully triggered, but there is also one physical self harm scene that includes cutting/stabbing. This is due to the way magic works and there is no danger of death or permanent injury for the character in question as he is immortal, but be prepared that you will have a character that purposefully triggers and hurts himself, even if it does not occur due to bad mental health.