The Pursued and the Pursuing by AJ Odasso The Great Gatsby ends after Jay is shot and killed for a hit and run that he did not committ. However, while the bullet’s aim is still true, The Pursued and the Pursuing explores what might have been had it left Gatsby with another chance at happiness, although not in the arms of Daisy Buchanan. View the full summary and rep info on wordpress!

The Power of the Dog by Thomas Savage Phil and George are brothers, joint owners of the biggest ranch in their Montana valley. Phil is the bright one, George the plodder. Phil is tall and angular; George is stocky and silent. Phil is a brilliant chess player, a voracious reader, an eloquent storyteller; George learns slowly, and devotes himself to the business. View the full summary and rep info on wordpress!

Once upon a time . . . there was a wicked queen. A hungry wolf. A thing in the dark. A dragon thief. A falling star, crooked in the sky. The lines between heroine and Other, fair and wicked, are illuminated in five transformative stories.

Five fairy tales, five perilous journeys, five star-crossed romances. A Snow White retelling that focuses on the wicked-queen-to-be and her mirror. A take on the classic parable of a deer pursued by wolves. A powerless maid making a deal with Shadows. A wishing star pursued to the ends of the earth and the knight sworn to return her to the sky. A princess trapped by a dragon with her only visitor a burglar.

The Crooked Stars is a collection of sapphic stories that shows there are many ways to read the stars and many ways for love to find a way into places it never was before. If you enjoy enchanting tales of adventure and magic, you'll fall in love with this mesmerizing collection that contends with the cruelty and beauty in fairy tales.

Official release date April 16th, 2024.

eBooks ✨ Paperback ✨ Goodreads

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It's here, IT'S HERE!!! My next new collection is on it's way and features two of my all-time favorite stories I've written. I am so excited. Please be sure to boost and leave reviews if you can. I am a small-time author and don't spend any money on advertising so word of mouth is how I get my stories to the world.

Gorgeous cover art by Megan O'Donell.

Website 🌸 Previous Work

Icarus by K. Ancrum Icarus Gallagher is a thief. He steals priceless art and replaces it with his father’s impeccable forgeries. For years, one man—the wealthy Mr. Black—has been their target, revenge for his role in the death of Icarus’s mother. To keep their secret, Icarus adheres to strict rules to keep people, and feelings, at bay. View the full summary and rep info on wordpress!

Yerba Buena by Nina LaCour

When Sara Foster runs away from home at sixteen, she leaves behind not only the losses that have shattered her world but the girl she once was, capable of trust and intimacy. Years later, in Los Angeles, she is a sought-after bartender, renowned as much for her brilliant cocktails as for the mystery that clings to her. Across the city, Emilie Dubois is in a holding pattern. In her seventh year and fifth major as an undergraduate, she yearns for the beauty and community her Creole grandparents cultivated but is unable to commit. On a whim, she takes a job arranging flowers at the glamorous restaurant Yerba Buena and embarks on an affair with the married owner.

When Sara catches sight of Emilie one morning at Yerba Buena, their connection is immediate. But the damage both women carry, and the choices they have made, pulls them apart again and again. When Sara's old life catches up to her, upending everything she thought she wanted just as Emilie has finally gained her own sense of purpose, they must decide if their love is more powerful than their pasts.

Genres: contemporary, romance

Order from Blackwell's and get free worldwide shipping!

What do you do when you hear your best friend's hand in marriage is the grand prize in a tournament? You steal your brother's armour, cut off all your hair, and enter in disguise to rescue her. Obviously.

All The Painted Stars is a sapphic, medieval romance novel with...

⭐ Knight's Tale Vibes ⭐ Women in armour ⭐ Skinny dipping ⭐ Ruining arranged marriages ⭐ The pain of being in love with your best friend

It's OUT NOW wherever books are sold in paperback, ebook and audiobook!

Bookshop.org / Waterstones / Blackwells / Amazon / Kobo

Full blurb & content warnings under the cut.

Oxfordshire 1362

When Lily Barden discovers her best friend Johanna’s hand in marriage is being awarded as the main prize at a tournament, she is determined to stop it. Disguised as a knight, she infiltrates the contest, preparing to fight for Jo’s hand. But her conduct ruffles feathers, and when a dangerous incident escalates out of Lily’s control, Jo must help her escape.

Finding safety with a local brewster, Lily and Jo soon settle into their new freedom, and amongst blackberry bushes and lakeside walks an unexpected relationship blossoms. But when Jo’s past catches up with her and Lily’s reckless behaviour threatens their newfound happiness, both women realise that love must always come at a cost.

Content warnings:

ATPS contains mention of past emotional and physical abuse, and some mild violence.

It also contains explicit on-page sex scenes.

The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older On a remote, gas-wreathed outpost of a human colony on Jupiter, a man goes missing. The enigmatic Investigator Mossa follows his trail to Valdegeld, home to the colony’s erudite university—and Mossa’s former girlfriend, a scholar of Earth’s pre-collapse ecosystems. View the full summary and rep info on wordpress!

🌈 Queer Books Coming Out in March 2024 🌈

🌈 Good afternoon, my bookish bats! Struggling to keep up with all the amazing queer books coming out this month? Here are a FEW of the stunning, diverse queer books you can add to your TBR before the year is over. Remember to #readqueerallyear! Happy reading!

[ Release dates may have changed. ]

❤️ Shift: A Memoir of Identity and Other Illusions - Penny Guisinger 🧡 Tempting Olivia - Clare Ashton 💛 Monilinia - Free Mints 💚 Guillaume - Aurora Dimitre 💙 The Marble Queen - Anna Kopp & Gabrielle Kari 💜 The Baker & the Bard - Fern Haught ❤️ Rainbow! - Sunny & Gloom 🧡 The Safe Zone - Amy Marsden 💛 The Weavers of Alamaxa - Hadeer Elsbai 💙 The No-Girlfriend Rule - Christen Randall 💜 A Different Kind of Brave by Lee Wind 🌈 Cirque du Slay - Rob Osler ❤️ Wizard’s Debt - Niranjan 🧡 One Last Breath - Ginny Myers Sain 💛 Nothing Special - Katie Cook 💚 I Feel Awful, Thanks - Lara Pickle 💙 The Tower - Flora Carr 💜 Be the Sea - Clara Ward ❤️ What Grows in the Dark - Jaq Evans 🧡 Heirs of Bone and Sea - Kay Adams 💛 The Haunting of Velkwood - Gwendolyn Kiste 💙 Thunder Song - Sasha taqwšəblu LaPointe 💜 Mona of the Manor - Armistead Maupin 🌈 Like Happiness - Ursula Villarreal-Moura

❤️ Ellipses - Vanessa Lawrence 🧡 Saint, Sorrow, Sinner - Freydís Moon 💛 Blood & Brujas - Mikayla D. Hornedo 💚 Infinity Kings - Adam Silvera 💙 Really Cute People - Markus Harwood-Jones 💜 How You Were Born - Kate Cayley ❤️ These Bodies Between Us - Sarah Van Name 🧡 Icarus - K. Ancrum 💛 The Emperor and the Endless Palace - Justinian Huang 💙 How Not to Date an Angel - Lana Kole 💜 Enemy Colours - R.M. Olson 🌈 Broken Parts Included - Alyson Root

❤️ Who's Afraid of Gender? - Judith Butler 🧡 The Duke’s Cowboy - Andrew Grey 💛 The Secret Something - Emily Wright 💚 Colstead & Andie - Olivia Janae 💙 Play It Again, Ma’am - Sienna Waters 💜 Love Is…? - K.J. Wrights ❤️ Welcome to Forever - Nathan Tavares 🧡 Just Another Epic Love Poem - Parisa Akhbari 💛 The Phoenix Bride - Natasha Siegel 💙 These Letters End in Tears - Musih Tedji Xaviere 💜 Truly Home - J.J. Hale 🌈 Monster Mixer - Robin Jo Margaret

❤️ The House of Hidden Meanings - RuPaul 🧡 Promised to the Queen - Barbara Winkes 💛 A Conclave of Crimson - Nicole Eigener & Beverley Lee 💚 A Hunt of Blood and Iron - Cara Nox 💙 The Fealty of Monsters - Ladz 💜 Ariel Crashes a Train - Olivia A. Cole ❤️ Those Beyond the Wall - Micaiah Johnson 🧡 Dancing Toward Stardust - Julia Underwood 💛 Heir to Dreams & Darkness - Ben Alderson 💙 Comet Cruise - Niska Morrow 💜 Dead Girls Walking - Sami Ellis 🌈 Blackout - Carlos E. Rivera

❤️ Monster Crush - Erin Ellie Franey 🧡 Blessed Water - Margot Douaihy 💛 These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart - Izzy Wasserstein 💚 Kiss of Seduction - Rawnie Sabor 💙 Sunbringer - Hannah Kaner 💜 Evacuation to Love - C.A. Popovich ❤️ Sin - Brooke Matthews 🧡 Falls from Grace - Ruby Landers 💛 Lean in to Love - Catherine Lane 💙 A Small Apocalypse - Laura Chow Reeve 💜 Cascade Failure - L.M. Sagas 🌈 The Mars House - Natasha Pulley

❤️ All This Time - Sage Donnell 🧡 The Romance Lovers Book Club - MA Binfield 💛 View from the Top - Morgan Adams 💚 Number Call - Nagisa Furuya 💙 Crossing Bridges - Chelsey Lynford 💜 The Boyfriend Subscription - Steven Salvatore ❤️ Love the World or Get Killed Trying - Alvina Chamberland 🧡 Synthetic Sea - Franklyn S. Newton 💛 The Prince & His Stolen Groom - J.E. Ridge 💙 Chrysalis and Requiem - Quinton Li 💜 Where Sleeping Girls Lie - Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé 🌈 A Botanical Daughter - Noah Medlock

❤️ Wednesday Nights - by Donna Jay 🧡 The Woods All Black - Lee Mandelo 💛 Song of the Huntress - Lucy Holland 💚 Rainbow Black - Maggie Thrash 💙 Spirits & Sunflowers - A.D. Armistead & Austin Daniel 💜 Floating Hotel - Grace Curtis ❤️ Far From Camelot - Rylee Hale 🧡 This Way to Change - Jezz Chung 💛 Mexican Bird - Luis Lopez-Maldonado 💙 Android Affection: Unveiling - Beau Van Dalen 💜 Welcome to the Damned - Astraea Long 🌈 She Came for Blood - Darva Green

❤️ Cover Story - Rachel Lacey 🧡 The Poisons We Drink - Bethany Baptiste 💛 The Perfect Guy Doesn't Exist - Sophie Gonzales 💚 In Walked Trouble - Dana Hawkins 💙 Never Leave, Never Lie - Thea Verdone 💜 Guardian: Zhen Hun - Priest ❤️ All the World Beside - Garrard Conley 🧡 Rainbows, Unicorns, and Triangles - Jessica Kingsley Publishers 💛 The Feast Makers - H.A. Clarke 💙 Synthetic Sea - Franklyn S. Newton 💜 All the Painted Stars - Emma Denny 🌈 A Hard Sell - Jennifer Moffatt

Queer Pirate Books

In Deeper Waters; by F.T. Lukens

Running Close to the Wind; by Alexandra Rowland, coming out June 11th!

The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea; by Maggie Tokuda-Hall

A Clash of Steel; by C.B. Lee

Compass Rose; Anna Burke (sci-fi)

The Abyss Surrounds Us; by Emily Skrutskie (sci-fi)

The Forever Sea; by Joshua Phillip Johnson

The Black God's Drums; by P. Djèlí Clark (scif-fi)

Peter Darling; by Austin Chant

A Song of Silver and Gold; by Mel Karibian

The Wicked Bargain; Gabe Cole Novoa

Escape to Pirate Island; by Niamh Murphy

A Pirate's Life for Tea (Tomes and Tea, Book 2); by Rebecca Thorne

The Unbinding of Mary Reade; by Miriam McNamara

The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo Leslie Bruin is assigned to the backwoods township of Spar Creek by the Frontier Nursing Service, under its usual mandate: vaccinate the flock, birth babies, and weather the judgements of churchy locals who look at him and see a failed woman. View the full summary and rep info on wordpress!

A Heart This Big by Cheyenne Blue

Australian country girl Nina Pellegrini runs a program for city kids to experience a taste of rural life at Banksia Farm. But when a child is hurt and a lawsuit threatens, Nina is determined to find the best legal assistance to help her save the farm.

Enter high-flying lawyer Leigh Willoughby, whose city world is far from the farm’s chaotic mix of kids and animals. She certainly doesn’t have time for small cases that don’t pay or farm visits that wreck her cool—and her clothes.

Still, the warm-hearted Nina and her challenging, twelve-year-old daughter, Phoebe, are awfully hard to say no to. What on earth has she gotten herself into?

Genres: contemporary, romance

Order from Blackwell's and get free worldwide shipping!

Listen to the book on audiobooks.com here!

The Heretic Prince by Theo J. Malloy

The first Mychal Halwood died ten years ago, and no one can ever find out.

A transmasculine prince, running from his destiny.

A princess with forbidden magic, days away from being promised to the enemy.

And the heir to the evangelist northern kingdom, starting to doubt…

Seventeen-year-old Mychal is a squire in the Holy Army, serving the officers by day and giving their secrets to the Resistance by night. It's risky work, but he's used to that; the Army would kill him if they ever found his greatest secret, that he and the missing princess are one and the same. Mychal ran away to become his true self years ago, but his kingdom is still occupied by the Holy forces, ten years after they executed his mother and brother.

Meanwhile, Samira, his best friend from childhood, is harboring a secret of her own- she is a mage, with forbidden powers, only weeks away from being promised to the mysterious Godhead. Never mind that the only one she ever wanted to be with rode away in the night with a new name, leaving her behind. And Edris, the crown prince of the evangelist kingdom to the North, is still haunted by the night he helped Mychal escape. But when he meets a handsome knight from an enemy kingdom, he starts to doubt his commitment to the Faith.

Mychal never meant to overthrow an empire. But when Samira asks him for his help and his first battle ends in disaster, he finds that he has to go home- and take his brother's name and place as heir to the throne.

The Heretic Prince is the first book in the Heretic Prince series from new author Theo J. Malloy.

Park Cruising An intimate look at one of culture’s most enduring taboos: public sex. Park Cruising takes a long look at the men who cruise for sex in urban parks. Human rights lawyer Marcus McCann uses park cruising as a point of departure for discussions of consent, empathy, public health, municipal planning, and our relationship to strangers. View the full summary and rep info on wordpress!

Are we fighting or fucking? Trans version*

Book Review: Eternally Blessed (Rebel Kings MC #7) by Garrett Leigh

Read my reviews of the previous books in the Rebel Kings MC series: Devil’s Dance (#1) | Saint’s Song (#2) | Forgive Me Father (#3) | Love Thy Brother (#4) | Reluctant Renegade (#5) | Unholy Trinity (#6) This book is the direct follow-up to the previous installment in this series, continuing the love story between Nash, Orla, and Locke. Unlike most instances where a relationship arc is spread…

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Picture Book Parade - Many Names Welcome, names and nicknames! Special Saturday posts are back after the hiatus, with a brand-new Picture Book Parade that's all about the names we use for ourselves and the names others choose too 🪪📛🖊️ View the full summary and rep info on wordpress!

New Releases

It's a slow week as we head into Easter and for some of us, relaxing on Spring Break or pushing though that last week before Spring Break. Both of these books look interesting. Which one should I read during my break?

Icarus by K. Ancrum HarperTeen

Icarus Gallagher is a thief. He steals priceless art and replaces it with his father’s impeccable forgeries. For years, one man—the wealthy Mr. Black—has been their target, revenge for his role in the death of Icarus’s mother. To keep their secret, Icarus adheres to his own strict rules to keep people, and feelings, at bay: Don’t let anyone close. Don’t let anyone touch you. And, above all, don’t get caught. Until one night, he does. Not by Mr. Black, but by his mysterious son, Helios, now living under house arrest in the Black mansion. Instead of turning Icarus in, Helios bargains for something even more dangerous—a friendship that breaks every single one of Icarus’s rules. As reluctance and distrust become closeness and something more, they uncover the bars of the gilded cage that has trapped both of their families for years. One Icarus is determined to escape. But his father’s thirst for revenge shows no sign of fading, and soon it may force Icarus to choose: the escape he’s dreamed of, or the boy he’s come to love. Reaching for both could be his greatest triumph—or it could be his downfall.

Dead Girls Walking by Sami Ellis Amulet Books

Temple Baker knows that evil runs in her blood. Her father is the North Point Killer, an infamous serial killer known for how he marked each of his victims with a brand. He was convicted for murdering 20 people and was the talk of countless true crime blogs for years. Some say he was possessed by a demon. Some say that they never found all his victims. Some say that even though he’s now behind bars, people are still dying in the woods. Despite everything though, Temple never believed that her dad killed her mom. But when he confesses to that crime while on death row, she has no choice but to return to his old hunting grounds to try see if she can find a body and prove it. Turns out, the farm that was once her father’s hunting grounds and her home has been turned into an overnight camp for queer, horror-obsessed girls. So Temple poses as a camp counselor to go digging in the woods. While she’s not used to hanging out with girls her own age and feels ambivalent at best about these true crime enthusiasts, she tries her best to fit in and keep her true identity hidden. But when a girl turns up dead in the woods, she fears that one of her father’s “fans” might be mimicking his crimes. As Temple tries to uncover the truth and keep the campers safe, she comes to realize that there may be something stranger and more sinister at work—and that her father may not have been the only monster in these woods.