soupçon/ˈsuːpsɒn,ˈsuːpsɒ̃/ noun
1. a very small quantity of something; a slight trace, as of a particular taste or flavorSunday Soupçons is where I scribble mini-reviews for books I don’t have the brainspace/eloquence/smarts to write about in depth – or if I just don’t have anything interesting to say beyond I LIKED IT AND YOU SHOULD READ IT TOO!
Giving up on writing proper reviews for these two. I did like them! But I don’t have anything smart to say about them.
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Bi/pansexual MC, F/F
Published on: 11th February 2025
Goodreads
The Shape of Water meets Mexican Gothic in this sapphic monster romance novella wrapped in gothic fantasy trappings
The old keeper of the keys is dead, and the creature who ate her is the volatile Lady of the Capricious House―Anatema, an enormous humanoid spider with a taste for laudanum and human brides.
Dália, the old keeper’s protégée, must take up her duties, locking and unlocking the little drawers in which Anatema keeps her memories. And if she can unravel the crime that led to her predecessor's death,
Dália might just be able to survive long enough to grow into her new role.But there’s a gaping hole in Dália’s plan that she refuses to see: Anatema cannot resist a beautiful woman, and she eventually devours every single bride that crosses her path.
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Your mileage is going to vary a bit with this one. If the deepest you’ve ever delved into the realm of monsterfucking is, I don’t know, Twilight, then you’re likely to be a little icked out by parts of this delightfully oddball novella about a poorly socialised young woman falling for her spider-monster boss. On the other hand, if you’re familiar with the kind of self-pubbed queer SFF that gave us the Machine Mandate series, you’re likely to look over the rim of your glasses at this one, unimpressed. ‘Not too bold’, indeed!
Which is to say: Pueyo coyly goes close enough to the line to make the pearl-clutchers pearl-clutch, but does not actually give us sapphic spider-monster sex, presumably because trad publishing space is full of cowards. Pfft!
That aside, But Not Too Bold is – I’m going to call it pastel goth with teeth: kind of sweet and adorable, if you can get past the fact that the spider-monster boss eats her brides and sometimes her staff. The tone is weirdly cute; the bright pink cover is very appropriate, for all that our main character is vaguely investigating a murder while eating deep-fried tarantulas.
Pueyo has crafted a mythology around the Archaic Ones, ancient monsters with strange, magical abilities. The Lady of Capricious House, Anatema, is one such, an enormous spider-like creature who regularly marries human women, but always ends up eating them in a very Bluebeard-esque setup. Dália, raised from childhood to be the Lady’s next Keeper of the Keys, is more fascinated than afraid or horrified by Anatema’s monstrousness. SOMEONE was dumb enough to steal from the Lady, and Dália’s investigation reminded me of a young kid with a new game – it’s not taken terribly seriously, and felt like it was there to give the novella a framework, not because the story is actually about that.
It’s fun. It’s cosy horror! It’s as boundary-pushing as trad-pub generally gets. But the only thing likely to stay with me is how apt the title is – this book simply isn’t bold enough.
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Indigenous-coded MLM MC
Published on: 11th February 2025
ISBN: 1837864039
Goodreads
The exciting sequel to the gunslinging, dragon-riding world of The Mountain Crown
Sephihalé ele Janan sits in a prison cell in the southern island of Mazemoor, dreaming of escape. After months in a provisional prison for fighting for the imperial Kattakans, Janan is sponsored by another refugee who was once a part of his scattered family. Yearning to build a life on his sister’s land with the dragons their people revere, the peace Janan seeks is threatened by a ruthless dragon baron who covets both Janan’s connection to the earth and the battle dragon to which he is covenanted.
The conflict may drive Janan to acts of violence he hoped to leave behind in the war, and bring more death to the land Janan now calls home.
THE DESERT TALON is a story of two groups of people who, despite a common ancestry, have diverged so far in their beliefs that there appears to be little mutual ground—and the conflict may well start to unravel the burgeoning hopes of a country, and a man, still recovering from the ravages of war.
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
I didn’t love this one as much as the previous instalment, The Mountain Crown, but I think that was a combination of me (intense brain fog) and the subject matter being not quite as much to my taste as Mountain was.
Lowachee remains great at making me feel INTENSE RAGE at fictional injustice – Janan’s treatment during and after prison made my blood boil. Janan himself…was much more constrained by his circumstances than Meka was in Mountain, with the result that I don’t think we really got to see his real self until near the end. Who he is for most of the book…is who he is under surveillance, when he’s trying to behave. Can’t take that as genuine.
Mostly, I did not feel smart enough for this book – I really didn’t understand Mazemoor’s magic (except that it was a metaphor for industrialisation, probably?), which a lot seemed to hinge on, and there seemed to be a lot of undercurrents I could barely perceive. Janan’s nephew, for example, is the first half-Ba’Suon we’ve seen, and I could tell that Lowachee was saying a lot with that, but I couldn’t figure out what. Meaningful stuff, I think, about belonging and family and who gets access to a culture, and how disconnected you can be from your heritage when raised outside of your homeland. (Of course, most Ba’Suon have had to leave their homeland now, but the nephew has never lived there at all.) And Meaningful Stuff about other topics, too. None of which I could properly parse – and I do think that was a me-problem.
There’s a big timeskip towards the end, where events are summarised for us, and that surprised me, because it involves…a pretty major change for Janan, and it still seems odd that we didn’t get to see that up close and personal. Where Mountain Crown felt like the perfect story for its length, I didn’t think the same of Desert Talon: with the timeskipped events especially, I think Janan’s story could have been a novel. And maybe should have been?
I’m not sure. I’m very ambivalent about this one…but also pretty sure that most of that is me, and my current headspace. I still recommend it to anyone who enjoyed the first book, and I still VERY MUCH want to read book three! But I will admit that I didn’t love it.
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