Wednesday, December 25, 2019
The Books of 2019: LGBTQ Fantasy
Fantasy, LGBT (Boinking)
Now, onto LGBTQ fantasy, much of which I found utterly delightful and charming.
I discovered Angel Martinez mostly by accident. I picked up her Offbeat Crimes series because I love supernatural police procedural mysteries. I’ll he honest, the title of the first one, Lime Gelatin and Other Monsters, made me hesitant because it was so ridiculous and the covers were really not my thing. But the story was a delight, and I eagerly read the rest of the series—even the book with time travel (which I despise).
My favorite books in the series were Feral Dust Bunnies (8/10), Jackalopes and Woofen-Poofs (8/10), and All the World’s an Undead Stage (8/10), because my favorite character of the whole series is Officer Alex Wolf, who was changed into a human and then adopted by human parents.
He. Is. So. ADORABLE.
And his mom is WONDERFUL.
“Are you all right, sweetheart?” Mom stopped on her way past his room with a new book in hand.
“I can’t remember how to human,” Wolf said with a frustrated snarl.
“Oh? You’re still using your words. That’s good. What part of humaning is causing the problem?”
I really recommend you read the entire series.
Family Matters (8/10) is the second book in the Brandywine Investigations series, and although both are good, I liked Family Matters just a tiny bit better. Open for Business is the first book, and it opens with Hades being served divorce papers by Persephone and coming down to earth to give her the space she has requested.
In case you never read any mythology or folktales, gods are randy creatures and that is quite clear in this series. After all, the first story in Family Matters is the story of Dionysus falling in love. (If you don’t know Dionysus, there is no help for you. You must immediately go read Edith Hamilton’s Mythology.)
Uncommonly Tidy Poltergeists (8/10) is a fun novella about a secret lottery winner and ghosts that seemingly follow him from home to home around the world.
Also, he’s described like this:
Power-save introvert, that’s what Luka called him. He was “on” when he had to be, turned “off” the moment people left him in peace, and occasionally suffered shorts and power outages during which he couldn’t interact successfully with people at all.
Pick any one of these and you should be in for a fun read.
Charlie Adhara’s Big Bad Wolf series is not your typical werewolf story. Werewolves are still hidden from society at large, but the government helps to keep them hidden.
The public could never know about werewolves, though. That was one of the few things the BSI and the Trust agreed on. The panic, the prejudice, the senseless violence that would surely come if the truth was revealed.
That’s a sadly true thing.
The first story is The Wolf at the Door (8/10) and shares how Cooper Dayton, who had been attacked and injured by the joined the BSI to help police the supernatural world.
The Wolf at Bay (8/10), Thrown to the Wolves (8/10). In addition to policing and trying to work out if they can have a relationship, the two also have to deal with their families and the expectations that come from their families.
Last year I read a lot of K.J. Charles M/M supernatural fantasies and loved them all, but only finally this year got around to reading The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal (8/10), which is an anthology of stories about a mage and the journalist who becomes his lover. And the stories are set in England between 1894 and 1914 and is somewhat the prequel to the Spectred Isle. These are truly short stories, and might give you an idea as to whether you might enjoy her other stories.
I came across Nicole Kimberling reading Charmed and Dangerous: Ten Tales of Gay Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy and decided I wanted to read more of her writing. Grilled Cheese and Goblins (8/10) is the story of Keith Curry, who is a supernatural food inspector.
Actually, that’s pretty much all I had to tell Tania and she wanted to read the book. What I love about these stories is that upon further thought, you know that if there were supernatural creatures secretly living in the world, there would totally have to be health inspectors who policed their businesses and looked into food poisonings and other issues.
I will warn you that despite how light the series title is, the details of how Keith discovered the existence of the supernatural is more than a little gruesome.
Marriage, Love and a Baby Carriage by C.S. Poe (8.5/10) is a M/M, fated mates, penguin shifter romance, with a surprise baby.
And it lives up to that description.
Just read it.
