When I started delving into the Gothic genre, Gaywyck shone out like a beacon as the first gay Gothic novel. After library and local bookstore searches came up with bupkis, I gave up finding Gaywyck myself and started searching eBay and Amazon. However, the good gay God was looking out for me. The next day, I visited friends at Meet Cute, a queer romance bookstore, and guess what was on the shelf!

Robert Whyte is ready for romance to sweep him off his feet. When the dark, brooding Donough Gaylord offers him a job cataloging the vast library on his Long Island estate, Whyte sees the adventure as an answer to his ecstatic prayers. His world opens up to include art, gay friends, and queer epiphanies–but also blood-soaked family histories, fraught relationships, and someone in the walls.

This is so???? Good???? Holy shit. Gaywyck is everything I’d dreamed it would be. It’s sentimental and sensational and sensory. Whyte is a joy-sparking protagonist. His idealism and purity are strengths, never weaknesses. Virga had such fun writing this book, and it shows in the delight and revelry of the characters, setting, and plot. I was able to predict one big twist, but that didn’t annoy, only enhanced the enjoyment. In the afterward, Virga explained his process and the initial fan reactions to the novel. I totally understand why fans wrote and asked if the Gaywyck was real, if it was a home they could roost in. Gaywyck is worth any search and gifts the reader every happiness. I want more!!! More!!!! 

After enjoying Seven of Infinities, I was eager to pick up The Tea Master and the Detective. Doyle’s Holmes holds a special place in my heart, and I’m always open to fun new remixes. Under de Bodard’s pen, Holmes and Watson–here Long Chau and The Shadow’s Child–shine again.

After a debilitating stint in a galactic war, The Shadow’s Child mindship brews space-sickness teas for travelers who really want to get out there. It’s not much, but it’s honest work. The eccentric Long Chau wants something a little different: the teas and transport to a very dangerous bit of space, to retrieve a body amongst hulking wreckage of mindships past. The job only becomes more complicated when the body is a lot fresher than Long anticipated, and soon the duo are on the trail of a vast conspiracy. 

I’m writing this review three months after reading the books (oops), and the scenes of Long Chau in space remain incredibly vivid in my memory. There’s something so visceral, cold, and cosmic about de Bodard’s writing in that scene. Despite the difference in setting and to their characters, Watson and Holmes are recognizable and fantastic. The mystery’s logical unraveling was great fun. In my Seven of Infinities review, I noted my lingering questions about mindship mechanics. The Tea Master and Detective is more generous in its explanations, and probably a better starting point for the series. If you like Holmes and sci-fi, definitely check out The Tea Master and the Detective!

My review of Seven of Infinities: https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/9d57c954-a2cc-4bb3-97a7-065f7d133db0

After enjoying her Dominion of the Fallen series, Fireheart Tiger, and In the Vanishers’ Palace, I was eager to dive into de Bodard’s science fiction novellas. Luckily, my wife has a bunch on her Kindle!

Vân is a poor scholar barely making end’s meet. Her work ethic and good reputation hide her from questions about her illegal homemade mem-implant. Her careful life is interrupted by a very rude someone dumping a corpse in her tutoring room. Seeking help, she finds her way to mindship Sunless Woods, a thief who may just come out of retirement for a beautiful girl.

While hard sci-fi is very different from fantastical historical fiction, Seven of Infinities had some classic de Bodard elements. The Việt characters, culture and setting are essential weaves and wefts. Sapphic themes and kisses delight. Non-Euclidian geometry flips the reader topsy-turvy, though thankfully not as violently as In the Vanishers’ Palace. Sunless Woods’ character is based on the great French thief, Arsène Lupin, and the literary reference added extra spice to my read. Sunless Woods is a more realistic take on Lupin. She feels her age and expresses actual doubt, hahah. If you’ve read the Lupin stories around WWI, you might find Sunless Woods more familiar. Some minor world-building niggles distracted me during my read: the exact mechanics of the ship’s avatars, how solid a mindship’s touch was, and how the mindships had human sense memories. Contrary to annoying me, these niggles left me wanting more. 

I want to read more of this universe! The Tea Master and Detective is on the Kindle….

My review of The Tea Master and the Detective: https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/9020cccd-a9e0-4fdc-9e9b-053ad0397837

When my sapphic book club heard about Olivia Waite’s surprise Christmas novella, we squealed with delight and hit purchase. We enjoyed every entry in the Feminine Pursuits series, and we weren’t wrong that Hen Fever reads very similarly. 

Bickerton is a sleepy little English village where everyone is very proper, very polite, and very insistent on repressing every wound. Lydia Wraxhall is no stranger to this practice, and, like everyone else, transforms interior pain to veneered nastiness during the annual Christmas poultry show. When she stumbles upon an extremely rare and pretty chicken breed on a daily walk, she’s determined to capture the chickens and the poultry prize. The problem is her new neighbor Harriet Boyne found the chickens first.

The summary is slightly more spicy than the actual novella. The romance is quite sweet! Both Lydia and Harriet are reasonable adults, and they dance with gentle respect around each other’s sore spots. Grief and grievance haunt the page. That being said, through the power of love (and chickens), they all heal, and the novella ends with a cozy feeling. The silly-yet-intelligent chicken behavior was accurate to my experience and made me laugh. Especially for such a short page count, Waite balances wonderfully fleshing out the characters, painting vivid descriptions, and justly treating topics like mental health and silver-haired love. I agree with other reviewers that Hen Fever could have been a full fourth Feminine Pursuits novel, but the novella as it is works beautifully.

If you enjoy Olivia Waite’s other romances, you’ll love Hen Fever. 

As you may imagine from the title, Marvel’s Voices: Heritage – Marvel Celebrates Indigenous Voices and Characters is a compilation of short comics featuring indigenous characters, all written by indigenous authors. Some are new to the comic format; some aren’t. I snagged a copy from the library on a whim and oh no, I do like Marvel Comics, don’t I?

From the stories themselves to the author essays, this comic was surprisingly hopeful, looking with bright eyes towards the future. It was fantastic to learn about the history of indigenous representation in Marvel, and to catch up on the latest greatest. I knew beforehand about the Cheyenne tribe’s Maya Lopez aka Echo and William Talltrees aka Red Wolf, but the majority of faces were new to me and good to meet. I’ll list them here so I remember: Amka Aliyak aka Snowguard (Inuk), Jason Strongbow aka American Eagle (Navajo), Jake Gomez aka Werewolf by Night (Hopi), Joe Gomez aka Captain America of the Kickapoo Tribe, the Proudstar Brothers aka Thunderbird and Warpath (Apache), Dani Moonstar aka Mirage (Cheyenne), and Forge (Cheyenne). Moonstar, Lopez, and Aliyak seemed special favorites and appeared in multiple stories.

I definitely recommend this collection! My heart is full.