It took a bit longer than I expected to get back to Part 2 of this list but at least I managed it in the same month. Barely.

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Prophet by Sin Blaché and Helen MacDonald
Potential Library Options: Libby Audiobook | Libby eBook | Hoopla eBook
Genre: Science Fiction, Thriller, Romance, Horror

I picked this book up by chance. My workplace is doing a summer reading challenge and this week’s challenge was to read a book written by multiple authors. I was vaguely familiar with Helen MacDonald’s name but haven’t read anything they’ve written before. When reading the description I latched on the the science fiction and mystery elements of the book and missed that it’s also, perhaps even primarily, a romance. Though, it’s not written like most romances I read. Rubenstein and Rao work together to solve a very odd mystery. Every so often the book goes back in time to give us a peak of their past experiences and why they react differently to the situation than everyone else around them. It was kind of a weird book but good.

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The Incandescent by Emily Tesh
Potential Library Options: Libby eBook
Genre: Fantasy

Doctor Walden, the protagonist in this story, is the middle-aged Director of Magic at a boarding school. She’s dedicated to her job and is highly competent, all things that appeal to me. I love that the book opens by her filling out a risk assessment form. In an interview with Nerds of a Feather¹, Tesh says

But I have noticed that in a lot of magic school stories, the adults are not doing their jobs. They do the visible-to-students bit—they show up, provide educational exposition, scold the protagonists for misbehaviour (this is usually unjust, protagonists generally being right about everything), and perhaps provide some support to our hero if they’re the nice kind of teacher—but despite this, nearly all of them should be fired for catastrophic failures in safeguarding. In a school where the adult staff are fulfilling their moral, professional, and legal responsibilities, it should be totally impossible for any child to have any kind of fantasy adventure.

As an adult and a parent, I agree with this and I love a fantasy boarding school novel taking this perspective.

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Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date by Ashley Herring Blake
Potential Library Options: Libby Audiobook | Libby eBook
Genre: Romance

This was a delightful contemporary romance that I read on my Reading Holiday back in 2024. It’s set in Portland, OR and I loved having a romance author as one of the protagonists. It’s technically the third in the series but works fine as a standalone read.

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A Mirror Mended by Alix E. Harrow
Potential Library Options: Libby Audiobook | Libby eBook | Hoopla Audiobook
Genre: Fantasy

This is a fractured fairy tale novella. A former sleeping beauty who rescues people from fairy tales and this time it’s an evil queen who needs help. This is technically the second in the series, and perhaps it would be better to read A Spindle Splintered, but I like it better than the first one.

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The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher by E. M. Anderson
Potential Library Options: Libby Audiobook | Libby eBook | Hoopla Audiobook | Hoopla eBook
Genre: Fantasy

In this fantasy book an 83-year-old woman is the person chosen to save the world. One reviewer says that this books is a strange mixture of cozy and serious, heavy issues, and I agree with that assessment. It is very interesting to see how the author works to subvert well-known tropes.

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Even Though I Knew the End by C.L. Polk
Potential Library Options: Libby Audiobook | Libby eBook | Hoopla Audiobook
Genre: Fantasy

C.L. Polk is a great writer and this novella is no exception. A woman sold her soul to save her brother’s life and now her time has almost come. Except there’s one more job she has to do first.

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The Genesis of Misery by Neon Yang
Potential Library Options: Libby Audiobook | Libby eBook | Hoopla Audiobook
Genre: Science Fiction (specifically Space Opera)

This is Joan of Arc told as a space opera story. I was really surprised this didn’t win more awards because I loved it. Of course, as a child I was fascinated with the story of Joan of Arc so that might explain it.

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Ocean’s Echo by Everina Maxwell
Potential Library Options: Libby Audiobook | Libby eBook | Hoopla Audiobook
Genre: Romance, Science Fiction

Tennal is conscripted into the military and is suppose to be watched/controlled by Lieutenant Surit Yeni. They pretend to be bonded while trying to find a way to escape. Except, that things naturally get complicated.

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Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
Potential Library Options: Libby Audiobook | Libby eBook | Hoopla Audiobook
Genre: Science Fiction (space opera)

I think it’s fair to say that this is an iconic disaster lesbian space opera book. It’s the first in a series, which isn’t finished yet, but each book is very different. This is the start of everything and is also my favorite book so far. There’s a lot of really strange stuff that goes on.

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I’ve run out of time so I have to stop. However, there’s a lot of really great LGBTQ+ books and this is just a very small sample of some good reads.

In honor of Pride Month I’ve put together a list of LGBTQ+ books I’ve enjoyed. I’m a cishet white woman so you may wonder why I’ve read a good number of LGBTQ+ books. Most of the time it’s just coincidental, I enjoy a good story. However, much of my life I’ve felt stifled by society’s expectations for me as a woman. It’s nice to read stories where people get to be their true selves.

Most of these books are science fiction or fantasy, because that’s primarily what I read, but there are a couple of exceptions. The list is ordered based on when I read the book with the newer books listed first. Though, for series, I’ve listed the first book in the series instead of my most recent read. I’m going to split this list into multiple parts because it’s time for me to go to bed but I have so many more to mention.

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Six Angry Girls by Adrienne Kisner
Potential library options: Libby Audiobook | Libby eBook
Genre: YA Fiction

This is a delightful book about an all-girl mock trial team which forms due to one girl being dumped by her boyfriend and the other being dumped by her long-time mock-trial team. In addition to mock-trial, there’s a fair amount of anatomical knitting.

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Direct Descendant by Tanya Huff
Potential library options: Hoopla Audiobook | Libby Audiobook | Libby eBook
Genre: Romance, Cozy Horror

Tanya Huff has been writing great SFF for decades. This is her newest book and it’s charming. A teacher takes a side job as a private investigator and goes to the little town of Lake Argen to figure out what happened to a woman’s grandson. The town is full of mysteries, such as why one can get 5 bars of cell coverage in the middle of nowhere.

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The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo
Potential library options: Hoopla Audiobook | Libby Audiobook | Libby eBook
Genre: Fantasy

This is the first novella in the Singing Hills Cycle. This is fantasy inspired by East Asian and Southeast Asian history and mythology. It follows the adventures of cleric Chih who wanders around collecting stories. All the books are novellas so they’re pretty fast reads.

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Rules for Ghosting by Shelly Jay Shore
Potential library options: Libby Audiobook | Libby eBook
Genre: Contemporary Fantasy, Romance

Ezra’s family owns a funeral home which is really inconvenient because Ezra can see ghosts. This is a sweet journey of discovery and romance with a side of intense family drama.

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Voyage of the Damned by Frances White
Potential library options: Hoopla Audiobook | Hoopla eBook | Libby Audiobook | Libby eBook
Genre: Fantasy | Mystery

This is one of those books where I kept reading even though I knew I should go to bed. A bunch of young aristocrats are journeying together on a ship when they start being murdered. Ganymedes Piscero has a secret and was planning to get himself disgraced and kicked off the ship to avoid anyone finding out. However, he decides he needs to figure out what’s going on. It reads like a YA book to me, though apparently it isn’t.

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Navigational Entanglements by Aliette de Bodard
Potential library options: Libby eBook
Genre: Science Fiction, Romance

I find it very relaxing to read about characters who aren’t particularly comfortable around people. Việt Nhi is not great with people but has been sent, along with four other people, to deal with a deadly space creature. Depending on how you count, this is either a long novella or a short novel. Either way, it’s a fast read.

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Metal from Heaven by August Clarke
Potential library options: Hoopla eBook | Libby eBook
Genre: Officially fantasy but feels more like science fiction to me

I’m not sure I liked this book but it was definitely an experience. I was a little surprised it wasn’t a Hugo Award finalist as I had been hearing a lot of buzz about it. Regardless, this is not a cozy read. One blurb says it’s an “anti-capitalist howl of rage” which is pretty accurate.

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A Pale Light in the Black by K. B. Wagers
Potential library options: Hoopla Audiobook | Libby Audiobook | Libby eBook
Genre: Science Fiction (Space Opera)

This is the first book in the NeoG series. It’s basically the Coast Guard in space. I listened to this book in 2020 driving down from Washington to California, with wildfires on either side of me. The book is full of kind people which is what I really needed to listen to at that time in my life. Book four of the series came out last year.

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Lavender House
Potential library options: Hoopla Audiobook | Libby eBook
Genre: Mystery, Historical Fiction

This book was a bit different than my normal read. It’s a mystery set in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1950s. The detective has just been kicked out, literally, from the police force for being gay and has been asked to discretely figure out how a rich woman died. If you look at the books above, most of them have LGBTQ+ characters who are more or less accepted for who they are. This is certainly not the case for the characters in this book. This book really emphasized to me how dangerous it was, and unfortunately sometimes still is, to be gay.

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Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh
Potential library options: Hoopla Audiobook | Libby Audiobook | Libby eBook
Genre: Science Fiction (space opera)

This book won the 2024 Hugo Award for Novel. It was a hard book for me to start. Kyr buys in so completely to what is clearly, to the outside observer, a warped society. However, then it betrays her and she goes on the run, looking for redemption, and only gradually realizes that she may not be fighting on the right side. Once I got past the first quarter of the book I couldn’t put it down.