Hello and welcome to the April edition of the QLR! This month we have a woman inheriting a fortune, as well as a bodyguard, a lonely kitchen witch making new friends, and a gay man struggling to live through a zombie apocalypse.
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Title/Author: Daughter of Mystery by Heather Rose Jones
Reviewer: Puck M.
Summary: Margerit Sovitre did not expect to inherit her godfather Baron Saveze’s fortunes, nor his bodyguard, Barbara, whom he leaves to her just as if she were another possession. Her new fortune buys her the enmity of the new Baron Saveze, but it gives her the freedom to pursue her true passion: scholarship, especially thaumaturgy, the practice of calling upon the Saints via mysteries great and small. Barbara had been proud to be the old Baraon’s armin, but she had expected to be a free woman after his death. She is galled at first to be passed on to a new mistress, but Margerit swiftly wins first her loyalty and then her genuine affection. But there’s more than just wealth, learning, love, and a small barony at stake. The little kingdom of Alpennia is in the middle of a succession crisis and there are those who would call upon the Saints to harm their opponents. Margerit and Barbara end up in the middle of the crisis and must work together to save both the royal family and themselves.
Series/Standalone: First book in the Alpennia series, but a complete story in its own right.
Genre/Sub-Genre: Romance/Fantasy/Historical
Book Format: eBook
Length: 264 pages
LGBTQ+ Orientation: Sapphic
HEA/HFN: Yes
Content Warnings: Sword violence, societal homoantagonism and some personal homoantagonism from side characters, societal sexism
Ratio of Sex/Plot: Just a couple fade-to-black sex scenes
Well-Written/Editor Needed: Well-written
Would I Recommend it?: Yes
Personal Thoughts: I love a Ruritanian romance, I love a fantasy with a unique magic system, and I especially love queer fealty romance. Daughter of Mystery is all three! The book is set in Alpennia, a small fictional Alpine country, in the early 19th century, shortly after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, which Alpennians call the French Wars. Alpennia is a Catholic country, with a strong tradition of calling upon the Saints and expecting them to answer. Margerit has the power to see those answers as a glow and then learns that she also has the power to shape a ritual in order to more reliably receive a response. Barbara has a purely mundane skill with a sword but she also has an incisive mind, a good grounding in philosophy, and a strong sense of honor. After being thrust together by the old Baron Saveze’s will, Barbara and Margerit grow to respect (and then love) each other through studying together.
The romance is sweet, though someone who is primarily a romance fan may find it underdeveloped compared to the fantasy and mystery plots. For my part, I found the development of the magic system (the characters think of it as religion, not magic, but “magic system” is the shorthand I use for this kind of worldbuilding), the mystery of Barbara’s identity, and the political intrigue engrossing, and was satisfied by the growth of Barbara and Margerit’s relationship from forced proximity to earnest fealty to friendship to love.
The subsequent books expand the world introduced in this one, introducing both new WLW (women-loving-women) couples and new angles to thaumaturgy, but Daughter of Mystery functions very well as a stand-alone romance and I recommend it both as such and as the opening to a new series.
Title/Author/Artist: Unfamiliar by Haley Newsome
Reviewer: Lo
Summary: Meet Planchette. A lonely young kitchen witch, she has high hopes for her new home, a place where she can finally be herself and maybe even make friends. Unfortunately, she discovers that her perfect house is haunted . . . really haunted. To get out of her paranormal predicament, Planchette befriends a cursed girl, an introverted siren, and the worst witch in town. Together, they struggle to put these spirits to rest and find their own sense of belonging.
Series/Standalone: Series (this review will go over both volumes)
Genre/Sub-Genre: YA Fantasy Comic
Book Format: Print
Length: 300 pages (Vol. 1 is 156 pages and Vol. 2 is 144 pages)
LGBTQ+ Orientation: Sapphic <3
Content Warnings: None needed
Well-Written/Editor Needed: Well-written indeed!
Art/Illustrations: I love Newsome’s art (I’ve been following her on YouTube for years, check her out @LavenderTowne). I think her art style is the perfect blend of creepy and cutesy.
Would I Recommend?: Highly! I've actually already passed them off to fellow Queer Lit Reviewer Jordan.
Personal thoughts: I really enjoyed this duology and cannot wait for the day that there is a continuation of this series. My biggest complaint is that there isn’t MORE. In the brief time I got to know them I really came to love the characters and the just darling inclusion of Babs and Suns’ love story is so precious to me. I feel like this universe could be expanded so much. I want to see Pinyon develop her magic, Sun and Babs’ life together, more of Edgar, and of course Planchette and Winston’s adventures into clearing the house of its’ ghosts.
Title/Author: The Only Safe Place Left Is the Dark by Warren Wagner
Reviewer: Jordan
Summary: Quinton, an HIV positive gay man, must leave the relative safety of his cabin in the woods to brave the zombie apocalypse and find the medication he needs to stay alive.
Series/Standalone: Standalone
Genre/Sub-Genre: Horror
Book Format: Paperback
Length: 92 pages
LGBTQ+ Orientation: Gay
Content Warnings: A lot of death, from HIV/AIDS to zombies begging to die and getting killed. Both main characters do a lot of wound care on themselves and each other that can also be a little cringe if that’s not your thing.
Well-Written/Editor Needed: Editor needed.
Would I Recommend?: Yes, but don’t expect a masterpiece.
Personal thoughts: I really liked this concept and found the book hard to put down. The horror aspects were on point, gruesome, and horrific, though if you don't want to read about zombie babies left in a hospital maternity ward for 30 years, this might not be the book for you! The flashbacks were well-done, rounded out the story, and explained more about how Quinton became who he was. The zombie apocalypse ties in well with the AIDS epidemic which began shortly before the apocalypse, which is what leads us to Quintin raiding old pharmacies to get his medication for the last 30 years. (Does medication go bad after sitting in abandoned pharmacies for 30 years? Yeah, probably. So much of this is already unrealistic, what with there being zombies, that this is one aspect I can easily set aside and not worry about.)
While I enjoyed this, there were aspects that I thought needed an editor: 1. The author told too much of the story, rather than let the reader into Quinton's head. There were also times when it seemed as if he knew what others were thinking, because we weren’t firmly in his head, or because we had jumped temporarily into someone else’s for a brief sentence or two. 2. We don't get to know any of the other characters very well, even with a budding romance happening. All they did was move Quinton forward in his story, getting him to do things he wouldn't have done had he not met them. 3. Quinton gets injured a lot and heals too quickly to be realistic. 4. He and his new friend, Billy, are able to traverse hundreds of miles on foot in a seemingly short amount of time, while potentially injured. I wanted to experience Quintin’s agony and tears as he struggles with his injuries for 300 miles!
At one point on their journey through Upstate New York to Connecticut, they end up in the only town in this book to get a name, “Rhinebeck Village,” and it gets named both when they arrive and again when they leave. Though for all the time they spend there it could have been any nameless town. But the author does give it a name, though I must be a stickler and explain that the correct name for the town is just “Rhinebeck.” I mention this because it was a little disconcerting to see a place I’ve lived for half my life swarming with zombies and dead bodies. If this weren’t a work of fiction, could I potentially have known these people?!
Aside from that, I also paid much more attention to the details of this place, since I know it so well. Did he get it right? The places Quentin and Billy go in town (namely the grocery store and the pharmacy) have actually changed locations, but with an apocalypse happening in the late 80s/early 90s, they would not have moved, and he writes that they are down the street from each other, which was true back then!
Overall, this story has a ton of potential, and I did enjoy reading it very much, but I do think it could have been so much better if it had been longer and more...fleshed out, as it were.
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