An accountability post – books I haven’t yet gotten to this year!
It’s so easy to focus on arcs to the exclusion of all else, meaning plenty of other books slip through the cracks! So here are the ones I really need to get to…
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
Goodreads
Book one in the Blue Unicorn series
JT is an orc on the way up. He’s got his own boutique robotics shop, high-end clientele, and deep-pocketed investors. He’s even mentoring an orc teen who reminds him a bit too much of himself back in the day.
Then Austin shows up, and the elf’s got the same hard body and silver tongue as he did two years ago when they used to be friends and might have been more. He’s also got a stolen car to bribe JT to saying yes to one last stealing the virtual intelligence called Blue Unicorn.
Soon JT’s up to his tusks in trouble, and it ain’t just zombies and Chinese triads threatening to tear his new life apart. Austin wants a second chance with JT — this time as more than just a friend—and even the Blue Unicorn is trying to play matchmaker.
I don’t read a lot of books with orcs in them, so I had no idea what book to use for the orc prompt in the r/Fantasy book bingo this year. And from somewhere, I found Glamour Thieves! I have far too much fun completing the bingo every year – even if I never do seem to write them up here! – to not read this one.
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Autistic and queer autistic cast, NB/M, M/M
Goodreads
Stronghold Fair Haven by the Sea is a beacon in a sometimes harsh world, open to all and deliberately, stubbornly kind. It also holds the honour and responsibility of hosting an atelier, a workshop for the rare and highly-prized magical engineers known as Mancers.
Hazel lives a comfortable, contented life in Stronghold Haven as a member of the team of elite bodyguards protecting the resident Mancer. But when another Mancer comes knocking on Haven's door to plead for refuge from the stronghold zhey've just escaped from, zhey bring a growing threat of invasion in zheir wake.
Ash is disruptive to Hazel's peaceful routine in more ways than just to his own astonishment, he's hopelessly attracted to the prickly, secretive Mancer.
This might be the start of something precious...or the end of everything he holds dear.
Explicit m/nb and m/m (different couple!) sex scenes
This is the book I’ve most wanted to read from this author… ut I refuse to let myself read it until I review the two other books from her I’ve read this year! Which means I, you know, need to go do that, jeez!
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Goodreads
October is very happy with her life as the second daughter of her pureblood parents, Amandine and Simon Torquill. Born to be the changeling handmaid to her beloved sister August, she spends her days working in her family’s tower, serving as August’s companion, and waiting for the day when her sister sets up a household of her own. Everything is right in October’s Faerie. Everything is perfect.
Everything is a lie.
October has been pulled from her own reality and thrown into a twisted reinterpretation of Faerie where nothing is as it should be and everything has been distorted to support Titania’s ideals. Bound by the Summer Queen’s magic and thrust into a world turned upside down, October has no way of knowing who she can trust, where she can turn, or even who she really is. As strangers who claim to know her begin to appear and the edges of Titania’s paradise begin to unravel, Toby will have to decide whether she can risk everything she knows based on only their stories of another world.
But first she’ll have to survive this one, as Titania demonstrates why she needed to be banished in the first place—and this time, much more than Toby’s own life is at stake.
The previous book in the Toby Daye series had an ending that made me SCREAM, and it is well past time I get to Sleep No More and find out what happens next!!!
Genres: Adult, Sci Fi
Goodreads
The merchant ship Mukudori encompasses the whole of eight-year-old Jos's world, until a notorious pirate destroys the ship, slaughters the adults, and enslaves the children. Thus begins a desperate odyssey of terror and escape that takes Jos beyond known space to the homeworld of the strits, Earth's alien enemies. To survive, the boy must become a living weapon and a master spy. But no training will protect Jos in a war where every hope might be a deadly lie, and every friendship might hide a lethal betrayal. And all the while he will face the most grueling trial of his lifebecoming his own man.
I got to read an arc of Lowachee’s newests novella, Mountain Crown, and utterly adored it – so now I want to read everything she’s ever written! Starting with her most well-known novel seems like a good plan.
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi, YA
Goodreads
The greatly anticipated final book in the Change series. In a world of mutant powers and deadly creatures, one small town faces its worst nightmare...
In a single shocking night, Las Anclas is conquered. Voske rules the town, remaking it in his image. He brings Opportunity Day to Las Anclas, with its terrifying lottery of "Change or die." He forces Paco into the role of his son and prince, always watching him for signs of rebellion. And for those who escaped his net, he sends elite Changed soldiers to drag them back to be executed.
Inside Las Anclas, Paco and Becky play a nerve-shattering game of cat and mouse, plotting a resistance under Voske's eye. Outside the walls, Ross, Mia, Jennie, and Kerry desperately evade pursuit and try to free their town. And at last, Felicité must face the choice she's given up everything to avoid.
In the darkness of defeat, can hope catch fire?
Don’t miss any of Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith’s The Change STRANGER • HOSTAGE • REBEL • TRAITOR
I’ve loved this series for years, and after a long delay due to author illness (and, you know, *waves at the last five years*) we have the final book! I have no idea how things are going to wrap up, BUT I AM VERY EMOTIONALLY INVESTED IN FINDING OUT!
Genres: Adult, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: MLM MC
Goodreads
The Ragpicker wanders the lush, deserted Earth, haunted by failing avatars and fragmented texts. He’ s searching for traces of his long-dead husband but his journey is interrupted by a girl, Ysmeny, fleeing her remote village. Together they cross the flourishing, treacherous landscape towards sanctuary. Yet the signals and static of the previous age echo in the Ragpicker’ s mind and whisper in the girl’ s dreams, drawing them toward the gap between map and territory— while offering precious hope.
Enough people who are interested in weird, under-the-radar SFF have been full of love for this that I really want to read it! It’s just been pushed down my tbr by various other things…as with everything else on this list, I need to make time for it!
Genres: Adult, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Bisexual trans MC, polyamory
Goodreads
Tony is one of a hundred security guards stationed at Green Endeavors, a cutting-edge scientific research facility on a lush jungle planet.
Like many of his co-workers, he’s a convict, working on an uncolonized alien world in exchange for years off his sentence. But while most of them are simple thieves, Tony, prior to his arrest, was heir to the infamously violent, staggeringly wealthy Red Vulture Cartel.
It would be easy for him to feel out of place among a bunch of dumb uniformed grunts and xenobotany nerds.Luckily, one dumb grunt in particular has become his best (and only) Thunder Skultz, disgraced veteran, fellow trans man, and cheerful idiot. (Possibly also the love of Tony’s life. Jury’s still out.)
So Tony’s less than thrilled when their bosses decide to expand the compound’s security and add a third member to his previously two-man team.
Her name’s Carol.
She’s unbearable.
Bubbly, chipper, naïve – everything Tony hates.
Everything that Thunder, apparently, can’t get enough of.
SCIFI ROMANCE + DRAMA, M/M/F, POLY, TRANS MAIN CHAR
I stalled out on this one – I’m about halfway through it, but I got distracted. (Story of my life lately!) Not for any good reason, I was enjoying myself plenty – and I want to get back to it sooner rather than later!
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, YA
Representation: F/M/M polyamory
Goodreads
Spirit away with a whimsical fantasy filled with dark magic and flirty, polyamorous romance.
Cursed to haunt the river running through the magical spa town where she drowned, Gisela is a water nymph who dreams of returning to the living world and the family she left behind. All it takes to regain her humanity is a kiss from a mortal...but everyone sees her as a monster.
And then there’s Kazik, the brooding, interfering, spirit-hunting grandson of a local witch. He's determined to rid the world of unholy creatures like Gisela. After Kazik botches Gisela’s exorcism, she strikes up a deal. She won’t tell the other spirits that he’s losing his magic, if he agrees to play matchmaker and helps her get a kiss. But Gisela’s plan goes awry when Kazik also falls for the devilishly handsome young man that she sets her heart on—someone who could be linked to Gisela’s troubled past.
Finely crafted with a magical setting, this delectable quest through the spirit world is an enchanting read for fans of queer romantasy.
I adored Jasinska’s debut, The Dark Tide, and liked her second book, Midnight Girls, a lot. So I was so excited for a new book from her, especially one that featured polyamory! But I flinched hard from the…intense YA vibes? of the first chapter when I picked it up. It’s a YA book, I’m not telling it off for feeling like YA, but for some reason it took me aback? I don’t know. But I want to try it properly!
Genres: Adult, Sci Fi
Goodreads
First contact isn't all fun and games.
Ariel Blum is pushing thirty and doesn't have much to show for it. His computer programming skills are producing nothing but pony-themed video games for little girls. His love life is a slow-motion train wreck, and whenever he tries to make something of his life, he finds himself back on the couch, replaying the games of his youth.
Then the aliens show up.
Out of the sky comes the Constellation: a swarm of anarchist anthropologists, exploring our seas, cataloguing our plants, editing our wikis, and eating our Twinkies. No one knows how to respond--except for nerds like Ariel who've been reading, role-playing and wargaming first-contact scenarios their entire lives. Ariel sees the aliens' computers, and he knows that wherever there are computers, there are video games.
Ariel just wants to start a business translating alien games so they can be played on human computers. But a simple cultural exchange turns up ancient secrets, government conspiracies, and unconventional anthropology techniques that threaten humanity as we know it. If Ariel wants his species to have a future, he's going to have to take the step that nothing on Earth could make him take.
He'll have to grow up.
I spent the better part of 24 hours fixing this very stupidly-formatted ebook – after emailing the (tiny indie) publisher politely asking if there was a better-formatted version than the one up on the Big River site…and being told that actually, it’s standard for ebooks to have no paragraph indents and line breaks between every paragraphs :) :) :)
I just barely managed not to email them the fixed ebook file with a chirpy email.
Anyway. I love the premise of this so much, and I want to read it – especially since I put so much effort into making it readable!
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Gay fantasy-minority MC
Goodreads
Raised in a remote farming community, Tom Fletcher knows little of his Shifter heritage and less about the dangerous lives that others of his kind lead in the city of Riverside. For Tom the big city is a daydream of opening nights and bright theater lights.
But when Tom meets Cloud Coldmoon — infamous and handsome heir to a criminal syndicate — everything changes. Suddenly suspected of murder, Tom must flee to the only city where his kind are common.
Filled with shapeshifters, con men, mobsters and ruled by the vengeful Coldmoon Family, Riverside is as perilous as it is alluring. Tom seeks refuge in the Turnskin Theatre, where his shape-changing skills can be put to good use on and off the stage.
Here he has a chance to fulfill his dreams of stardom and romance, but only if he can stay one step ahead of police and criminals alike, otherwise the next shape he takes could be his last.
I had an adventure with this one earlier this year too! I noticed that the ebook didn’t have italics – checked the paper edition and found italics – emailed the (tiny, indie) publisher. And they explained that it (the ebook file) had been made in the very early days of ebooks, but thank you for mentioning it, they’d get it fixed asap. And they did! So. After all that, I really need to read it!
Goodreads
Vengeance awaits in the follow up to the epic, award-winning, New York Times bestselling Inkheart trilogy by internationally acclaimed author Cornelia Funke.
Five years have passed since the events of Inkdeath. At last, peace reigns in Ombra where Meggie, Mo, Dustfinger and all the other residents lead a happy, carefree life. But it has been a different story for Orpheus, who after fleeing to the north, has spent his days living a meager and deprived existence fueled only by his thirst for revenge against Dustfinger and all those who betrayed him.
Now Orpheus is willing to use any means necessary to take revenge. Even the darkest spell the ink world has to offer.
When Dustfinger’s deepest fears come true, he’ll have to figure out whether the words still obey him. Or is he the one who should be afraid of the pictures this time…
It’s been over a decade – maybe more like two??? – since I read the Inkheart books, and I don’t want to dive into our brand new book FOUR without rereading the earlier ones first! Gah. GAH! WHERE DOES THE TIME GO???
What do you still need to read this year?
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