jaelynx's reviews
255 reviews

Nettleblack by Nat Reeve

adventurous emotional funny lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

1893 in the rural English town of Dallyangle, the youngest of the Nettleblack sisters (heirs to the Nettleblack fortune) Henry Nettleblack decides to flee her eldest sister’s plans to marry her off to elevate the family to aristocracy. However, Henry is cornered by thieves and loses everything. Thankfully saved by the Dallyangle Division (detective agency come neighbourhood watch composed nearly entirely of women), Henry decides to enlist before promptly fainting.

Hiding as a new recruit in Division, she deals with a the spate of robberies, a missing head and her eldest sister’s instructions to track her down. And then there are strange and distracting feelings Henry seems to be developing for her superior Septimus. Thankfully, there are plenty of other locals who, through experience, find it easier at putting such queer things into words. Perhaps in the Division, Henry can find her true self in a way she never could under her sister’s tutelage. 

I absolutely adored this charming farcical comedy of scandal and sapphic love. I love the characters and their chafing against the little Victorian world the book creates. Pretty much everyone has a secret and is finding their own path to freedom or respect in a society that doesn’t wish to take them seriously; particularly split-skirt ladies fighting crime on bicycles. The style of the book is through journals and extracts with a very Dickensian vibe in parts (notably the old-style chapter headings) which I find quite charming.

Henry is an adorable cinnamon roll, stammering and swearing in fruits - pomegranates! - as she desperately tries to prove her worth to the world. Septimus (noted by someone else as "prone to poor judgement with short-haired androgynous types") is the hot-head tomboy fighting guilt over her past failures. Cassandra, the daughter of the Director of the division, feels underpressure from her mother’s perfectionism (and not helped by being women in charge of a “police” and the only black family in the area). Pip, the dandy genderless cravat designer, is intimidating in both style and speech (such goals!). Rosamond, the scandalous middle sister who refuses to give up her Welsh tongue, is the rebellious sibling who is easy to look up to. I could go on but I do love this cast of characters. 

Bad Girls: A Novel by Camila Sosa Villada

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

In a park in Córdoba, Argentina, a group of travesti sex workers under the leadership of 178-year-old Auntie Encara, discovers an abandoned child left amongst the bushes. The group of travesti begin to care for the child together, offering a reprieve from their lives of violent customers, transphobic cops, poverty and AIDS. Woven into their tales of friendship, romance and squabbles are fantastical elements such as a mute girl’s transformation into a bird, a girl who is a werewolf, and the headless men fleeing the wars in the east.

This is a very moving and painful portrait of trans community for better and worse. It’s quite bleak in many ways with how much trans sex workers are dehumanised; but there is a thread of togetherness and solidarity between the characters even when they are at odds. 

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Linus Baker is a caseworker for the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth where he has progressed little over his quiet life. Each time inspecting orphanages of magical youth, he rigorously applies the RULES AND REGULATIONS that guides how magical people should be handled in this world of quiet but persistent discrimination. What becomes of the children in the orphanages he issues a negative report on, he has never quite considered. 

His life of quiet compliance is interrupted when he is given a confidential case from Extremely Upper Management, who’s taken note of his rigorous application of the rules. A remote island orphanage that is home to six children classified as extremely dangerous including “a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist” under the tutelage of a headmaster who has little regard for rules and regulations.

During Linus’ stay, he starts to see beyond the classifications ascribed by the department to see the beautiful dreams and gentle souls the children have. Little risk comes from the playful antichrist, the nearby villagers on the other hand pose a far more menacing threat thanks to the department’s ever-present fearmongering. And as he comes to care for the children, Linus begins to fall for their tender-hearted headmaster.

I found this incredibly sweet and hopeful in how it wove together this found family creating safety for each other to heal in the face of a world that doesn’t accept them. It might come across to sweet or YA for some people, but it gave me a lot of comfort and smiles given how stressful the world is at the moment. 

Cuckoo by Gretchen Felker-Martin

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

This is a heavy horror focused around a group of queer teens in the 1990s sent by their parents (kidnapped) to a conversion camp in the desert. The religious zealots (and also creepy literal monsters) torture the kids through hard labour and abuse but they soon come to realise that they are being replaced; they are never intended to leave the camp alive.

It’s intense and a difficult read for the topics it covers. That’s intended of course given how horrific conversion camps are to us; the trauma is visceral, as is the gore and sex. It’s a combination of real child abuse and queerphobia with concepts from The Thing and Invasion of the Body Snatchers; then it draws a line between them. 

But I also found it a challenge as the way it jumps around, coupled with psychedelic moments and a lot of different characters to follow means it demands a fair bit more focus than I had on hand on this occasion. It got a little easier towards the end (as the cast is *ehem* whittled down slightly) and a time jump to their future selves trying to save the next generation from going through the same shit. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Gore, Homophobia, Transphobia, Forced institutionalization, Murder

Dead Collections by Isaac Fellman

emotional hopeful sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Sol is a vampire trans guy working (and secretly living) in a basement archive with a colleague who hates him. Sol’s vampirism is very much presented as a disability and how it hampers his life, his work and his transition permeates the story (the average life expectancy of a vampire here is 3 years). In particular the total lack of consideration or accommodation from his employer which puts his life in danger. Can he find any community or human connection to help?

Enter Elsie, the widow of a famed writer who is donating her dead wife’s records to the archive. They immediately strike up a bond (partly over internet fandoms & fanfic) and begin a romance that neither thought was possible as Elsie tries to help Sol survive as his work colleague tries to get him fired for strange things happening in the collection.

It’s a cosy romance despite some heavy topics around transphobia and ableism. My main note would be it felt like there could have been more going on. In particular, it didn’t feel truly concluded in the third act. Most areas could have done with more development and direction. Some threads didn’t seem to go somewhere satisfying. But as a short light romance around archives and fandoms, I think it does okay. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Ableism

A Botanical Daughter by Noah Medlock

dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This mycelial Frankenstein-esque cosy horror focuses on two Victorian gentlemen hiding away their relationship in a vast rural greenhouse. Gregor is a botanist specialising in exotic plants and is determined to prove the value of fungal life to the Royal Horticultural Society. His partner, Simon, works in the basement on his taxidermy. When Gregor obtains a rare fungus from Sumatra demonstrating a unique ability for symbiosis with his plants, and a hint at intelligence, the two men strike upon an idea to give the fungus a unique substrate; a recently deceased human.

Alongside the two gentlemen is Jennifer; a housekeeper they have to bring in to keep things in order due to their rather neglectful (or simply AuDHD) chaos. When she chances upon the plant-human hybrid, named Chloe, she begins to grow closer to her as Chloe’s ‘fathers’ begin to have doubts as to their ability to control their experiment’s more dangerous tendencies.

It’s surprisingly sweet around the relationships between Gregor and Simon, and Jennifer and Chloe, as the strains of their unconventional family rapidly overtake any one person’s perceptions. Certainly when it comes to the tension between a child becoming pot-bound and a parent’s desire to control to keep their child safe. Throw in various angles of revenge, violence and plant love and this is one of my favourites for this year I think.

Side note: does anyone else notice how mycelium is the go-to for a lot of horror these days? Certainly not complaining, of course, it's cool. 

Brainwyrms by Alison Rumfitt

dark sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

After Frankie survives a TERF terrorist attack on the GIC she works in, her life starts to deteriorate. Frequenting the kink scene a lot, she is desperate to fulfil an impregnation fetish which drives away her partner at the time. She eventually meets Vanya, an enby who is obsessed with hosting parasites and who is beholden to a rich dom landlord. As their relationship gets rough, Frankie slowly uncovers a conspiracy of brain-controlling worms including prominent TERFs (such as an unsubtle stand-in for JKR - not that unsubtle is bad). A lot of the plot shadows the mainstreaming of TERF ideology in the UK and its impact on queer people.

Between the constant body horror, transphobia, switching between third, second and first person and the non-linear storytelling it isn’t a particularly easy read and there are more content warnings needed here than I can remotely remember. I could certainly connect with Frankie’s spiralling helplessness and depression in the face of overwhelming problems. If you’re up for things you would gleefully call disgusting then this will likely tick a lot of boxes for you. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia

Moderate: Body horror

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

This is a novella based on Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. In the 1890s; Easton, a former soldier of the Gallacia, visits kan old friend Madeline Usher at her family’s ancestral seat on the news that she may be dying. The house is decaying and covered in fungus; only a few servants remain (Madeline’s maid jumped from the roof a few months prior) while her nervous wreck of a brother has only an American doctor to rely on who is baffled by Madeline’s ailment. As Easton attempts to help the family, ka uncovers a mystery around the glowing lake and unsettling wildlife that just won't die.

If you’re up for some gothic horror, mycelial zombie hares, a soldier whose gender/pronouns are simply “soldier”, and regular English jibes at Americans then this is worth picking up. I enjoyed the characters a lot, especially Easton and the English lady providing the mushroom nerdery, and I’m always here for fungal horror vibes. It gives it a blend of old and modern horror. 

Sistersong by Lucy Holland

adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Set in ancient Briton as the Saxons advanced across the island, the kingdom of Dumnonia has begun to abandon the old gods and their magic to favour a Christian missionary and the promise of alliances and trade deals which would follow. As the king’s ties to the land’s magic fade, so do the kingdom’s prospects and defences. 

The king’s three daughters possess some latent magic still, as forbidden as it is to acknowledge it. But enter Myrdhin, a magician/witch who works to restore the kingdom’s connection to it’s magic through the children before the Saxon’s overrun them. As well as reconnecting the children to the land, they help the eldest daughter, Keyne, be see as he truly is: as the king’s son and heir.

The story twists between the perspectives of the king’s three children as the kingdom teeters on the edge of invasion, and the rifts that emerge between them over a stranger and their pasts. I really enjoyed all their stories but obviously Keyne is who grabbed my attention in a really thoughtful portrayal of their struggles to be taken seriously by their family and the men in power. Their bonding with Myrdhin, who’s pretty genderbending themself, was a great conduit to explore our ancient ties to the earth vs a faith that demands we look away from it to the heavens. 

Unreal Sex by So Mayer, Adam Zmith

5.0

An anthology of erotic queer stories covering horror, sci-fi and fantasy with ghosts, slime aliens, vampires, time travel and overcoming body issues via talking to aliens on dating apps.

These were some really enjoyable short stories spanning loads of queer lives and sexual experiences. It’s especially interesting how often they serve to be both directly queer and also use their fantastical setting to explore deeper experiences. But perhaps my favourite was Jem Nash’s story of time travel selfcest because the character is meeting himself early in his transition and the whole thing seems to double up as that “if you could go back and give advice to your younger self” exercise that I think every trans person has thought about a lot.

On the more casual front, I sent a few extracts to some thirsty friends and there definitely seems to be a fetish for everyone; from goopy tentacles to vampire cruising to maids’ outfits to ghost fucking. And it’s very well-curated smut at that which is refreshing with how much trouble I have connecting with intense sexuality.

The authors: Gracie Beswick, Swithun Cooper, Rachel Dawson, Rien Gray, Vivien Holmes, Jem Nash, Diriye Osman, Alison Rumfitt, Nicks Walker and Anna Walsh.