I’ve been thinking about lesbians and the water lately, which is very fashionable of me. It’s a combination of topics enjoying a moment in film and in literature; queer women cast out upon the ocean, struggling up from the shallow ends of swimming pools. In doing the promotion rounds for my novel, Our Wives Under the Sea (which has been out in the UK since March), a not inconsiderable number of people have taken the time at events and in interviews to ask me essentially the same question, vis: what is it with these lesbians and why are they all so wet?

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield is available via Flatiron Books.

Bushra Rehman, author of Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion (Flatiron Books, 2022), in Ten Questions.

here is the link to enter for the surprise, i already entered ❤️

https://www.instagram.com/stories/stephanie_garber/3072904617675163271

The next book giveaway I see that only ships to the U.S. will be my villain origin story.

New Release Spotlight: Beating Heart Baby by Lio Min

New Release Spotlight: Beating Heart Baby by Lio Min

Allllways feels good to get to talk about how much I loved a book I feel is going way too far under the radar, so here I am to shout about Beating Heart Baby by Lio Min, which releases from Flatiron Books on the 26th! I personally bill this book as Radio Silence by Alice Oseman meets All Kinds of Other by James Sie, and it’s half narrated by cis pansexual Filipino-American Santi and half by trans…

View On WordPress

Review: Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo

Series: Alex Stern #2Author: Leigh BardugoPublisher: Flatiron BooksReleased: January 10, 2023Received: Own Book Summary: Galaxy Stern, better known as Alex, has always been able to see ghosts. They’ve haunted her in a very real sense. However, her time at Yale has given her power over these ghosts. It’s also thrown her into a whole new world of danger. Unlike most members of Lethe, Alex and…

View On WordPress

The Resemblance - Lauren Nossett

The Resemblance – Lauren Nossett

The Resemblance by Lauren Nossett is a campus thriller (or campus murder mystery) that explores the darkest parts of the greek life in university. Detective Marlitt Kaplan is the first on the scene of the crime, a hit and run where a student, Jay Kemp, is left dead, too many mysteries surrounding his death. Although this book is set in a campus, it is NOT a dark academia book. I’m stressing this…

View On WordPress

Oona Out of Order By Margarita Montimore

Book: Oona Out of Order By: Margarita Montimore Published: February 25, 2020 Publisher: Flatiron Books Pages: 339 Genre: Contemporary/Sci-Fi Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links. What this means is that if you purchase anything through the links I have provided for you then I will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Amazon Continue reading Untitled

View On WordPress

PoE - Alex Segura: Many Identities

First, a huge congratulations to Alex Segura for winning the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for the Mystery\Thriller category for Secret Identity.

As for this interview, it's a companion piece with my interview with Cliff Chiang, in which I get to talk with a former editor and see how their days as an editor influenced their creative process today as a writer. Also, of course we talk about SECRET IDENTITY and Alex provides hints at what his next novel will be all about. 

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Podomatic

Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson #AudiobookReview

I had never heard of the #TollundMan before picking up this audiobook, and now I want to visit #Denmark after listening to this charming book. #MeetMeAtTheMuseum by #AnneYoungson #Audiobook #2018Books #MacMillanAudio #FlatironBooks #AudiobookReview

In Denmark, Professor Anders Larsen, an urbane man of facts, has lost his wife and his hopes for the future. On an isolated English farm, Tina Hopgood is trapped in a life she doesn’t remember choosing. Both believe their love stories are over. Brought together by a shared fascination with the Tollund Man, subject of Seamus Heaney’s famous poem, they begin writing letters to one another. And…

View On WordPress

Hi! I’m going to post a writing update soon, but this happened today, so I wanted to share really quick:

I had a bit of a stressful morning at work, but came home at lunch to find a fun surprise on the doorstep— Hell Bent box from @flatiron_books!! I’ve never gotten a book box before, so I was excited 😁 Very fun stuff inside, including a beautiful salt box, black salt, an incense burner, and fancy matches. And, most importantly, a copy of Hell Bent!! Totally going old school to D.E.A.R. (drop everything and read 😜) to finish my re-read of Ninth House and jump into Hell Bent!

If you aren’t already reading this series, I highly recommend it 🖤 Her other series are obviously awesome, too, and in more good news, Season 2 of Shadow and Bone is coming out in March!! 🥳

Hell Bent officially comes out Tuesday, 1/10. Thanks to Macmillan Publishers, Flatiron Books, and especially to Leigh Bardugo!!

Novel Nuggets - June 2022 Releases Part Two

Novel Nuggets – June 2022 Releases Part Two

As I reflect on June releases while writing these reviews, I realize just how outstanding the books released were that month. I have several five stars of the year from that month alone, and when I attempt to decide my favorite book for that month, it changes every time I ask myself that question. Among this last batch of reviews for books released in June 2022 are some of the best of the…

View On WordPress

Beating Heart Baby by Lio Min (Blog Tour: ARC Review)

Beating Heart Baby by Lio Min (Blog Tour: ARC Review)

Title: Beating Heart Baby Author: Lio Min Type: Fiction Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, LGBTQ Publisher: Flatiron Books Date published: July 26, 2022 A complimentary digital copy of this book was kindly provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. When artistic and sensitive Santi arrives at his new high school, everyone in the wildly talented marching band welcomes him with open…

View On WordPress

Review: Beating Heart Baby by Lio Min

Review: Beating Heart Baby by Lio Min

Beating Heart BabyLio MinFlatiron BooksPublished July 26, 2022 Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads About Beating Heart Baby Lio Min’s Beating Heart Baby is an “achingly romantic” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) love letter to internet friendships, anime, and indie rock.When artistic and sensitive Santi arrives at his new high school, everyone in the wildly talented marching band welcomes him…

View On WordPress

Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney

A mix of gothic horror and And Then There Were None, the backdrop of the novel takes place at Seaglass, an isolated cottage off the coast of England on a tiny island accessible once a day during low tide when pedestrians can cross by sandbar, or otherwise by boat for the skilled and brave. It’s the home of Beatrice Darker, reclusive children’s book author and matriarch of the Darker family by virtue of being the sole breadwinner. The novel opens with Daisy, her two older sisters, her parents, and her niece all gathering one Halloween to celebrate their Nana’s 80th birthday, which was famously foretold would be Nana’s last. And that’s when the trouble begins.

Overall, it was a fun, twisty mystery novel with perhaps not as much suspenseful buildup as ATTWN: a kind of beach-read version of ATTWN.

Spoilery thoughts under the cut:

The set up is very similar to ATTWN, but the book actually reminded me more closely of Knives Out. At the center of the book and the main driver of conflict is the dysfunction junction that is the Darker family. We’re told right off the bat that the entire family isn’t really well off and that they’re all dependent on Nana for financial support. And then we’re also told that the parents are more self absorbed with themselves and each other (even when divorced) than with their children. And the three daughters have all the rivalry that kids who are obviously favored with innate gifts (like talent or beauty) or parental favoritism have. So when Nana leaves her fortune to Daisy’s niece Trixie, everyone has a motive for murder. And when the next body turns up, everyone is likely a suspect.

I didn’t think there was as much tension as ATTWN because the main, present day narrative gets broken up by vignettes of the past as told through home movies that illustrate how dysfunctional the family was. Even the characters forget to be tense that there might be a killer on the loose because they want to watch these movies, and Rose inexplicably forgets her gun while trapped in the house with a killer. But what can you do?

By the time Daisy’s father is killed, I had a couple theories floating around as to who the killer would be, and I was partially right. As the story unfolds, we see that each member of the Darker family is capable of incredible viciousness, including Nana, who, with Daisy as the narrator, seemed to initially be a good person. But even in reading her will, she reveals herself to be cruel almost unnecessarily. And even Daisy, who by benefit of being the POV character, seemed to be the most capable of feeling, was shown to have instances of really vicious bursts of revenge against her sisters. And even Trixie, who all the characters constantly tell us is good and kind, which even she herself says, reveals herself to be the most monstrous of them all.

There was no way not to suspect Trixie and Nana. I hadn’t thought of them together, though the motive was what I thought it was. But it was almost chilling how much Trixie didn’t care that she murdered her entire family for the sake of a ghost of an aunt she never met. Also didn’t predict Daisy’s death until about halfway through the novel, when it was obvious no one had directly interacted with her, but the three threads coming together was pretty original.

Like ATTWN, I don’t know if Rose, the last one to die and directly by Trixie’s hand, was really the most “guilty” and thus the most deserving of the last death. Rose’s main crime is devoting herself too much to her vet practice at the cost of pushing away her own family, and for standing by and watching Lily and Connor kill Daisy. But even Nana admits that Rose might’ve had the right of the former considering how dysfunctional they were. And is failing to stop something really more guilty than actually plotting and carrying out the act of violence? Vera in ATTWN was also the most “guilty” of the bunch by ostensibly being guilty of not saving the child in her care from drowning in time (it’s a little ambiguous if she actually did it or if the guilt of it was warping her mind by the end of the novel), but it always rubbed me the wrong way because Judge Redgrave writes about how as a woman, she was extra guilty because this was childcare and thus a violation of her womanly instincts. The judgment against Rose felt similarly unnecessarily harsh. /rant.