A book shop often fulfills similar functions, including author events (Iryna Varanovich / Pexels.com) A recent trend I’ve noticed is the sudden abundance of “author” or “reader retreats”—events designed to put authors and readers in close contact. Many of these are cropping up in the romance space, where readers might be fanatical about an author’s work. Authors, certainly, are always looking for...
Or, Why Respectability Won’t Save You I think we can all agree we’ve entered a rather conservative era. It’s been a while coming, the first rumblings of it emerging fifteen years ago now. It gained momentum after the 2016 US election and snowballed from there. The pandemic threw fuel on the fire, and, well, here we are. Neo-fascists and alt-right parties are gaining support across the globe. We...
Scary … or sexy? (Lisa from Pexels / Pexels.com) Monsters—or otherworldly beings—have almost always been popular subjects for fiction. We can trace vampire romances back at least to the nineteenth century, when we see Carmilla and Dracula both emerge. Neither is truly a romance, but both of them feature some relatively seductive monsters. Horror and romance have always walked a fine line...
(Caio / Pexels.com) It’s a truth, universally acknowledged, that an author with a new book coming out must be in want of some ARC readers. Except this author. Fuck that noise. Over the last year or so, I came to the conclusion that I’m not going to do ARCs anymore. Here’s why. What Are ARCs? First off, what is an ARC? It stands for “advance reading copy.” It’s a super traditional thing in...
I’m back on social media enough that I’m seeing bad takes, and whew, do y’all have some bad takes. I want to leave aside the general state of everything—lots of bad takes to be had there—and focus on more bookish things. Specifically, I want to take to task a bad take I saw the other day. Let’s start by saying people are allowed to enjoy what they enjoy and dislike what they dislike. That’s fine...
Romance novels get a lot of flak. Sometimes, there are good reasons—a lot of them are run-of-the-mill or even bad smut. I’ve seen books with cardboard characters and even flimsier plots. Does a rose by any other name truly smell as sweet? (Dario Fernandez Ruz / Pexels.com) Some of the criticisms levied against romance novels stem from other, less magnanimous areas. Romance novels as a whole are...
June has arrived, and with it, Pride Month 2024 has kicked off. Pride started in the 1970s to protest the treatment of queer people, both by law enforcement and society at large. The Stonewall Riots were the last straw for many queer people. They were frustrated by living in fear and denial, always under threat of violence from the state. Pride parades became a way of protesting this oppression...
The robots are coming! (Kindel Media / Pexels.com) The Verge released a pretty ugly article recently, detailing the rise of artificial intelligence and content generators. In it, they interviewed at least one author who was using a content generator, as they sought reasons people either supported or didn’t support these new “tools.” The article sparked a lot of debate, especially in light of the...
Omegaverse has taken off in the last five to ten years or so. With it, we’ve seen plenty of batshit crazy moments—like someone claiming to have “invented” it. We’ve also seen it cross over into the realm of M/F books, even if the trope was represented there early on. A lot of m/m and queer omegaverse is also mpreg, so I wanted to focus this post on books that were less firmly in that category...
There are a ton of people writing mpreg out there these days, and I’d say we’re somewhat spoiled with how many new titles appear from month to month now. What can be difficult, though, is keeping track of all the new releases. I know I often don’t know about a book until it’s been out for months and months. Often, I just happen to be scrolling social media and someone posts about the book. It...
Coming January 28! Get set for more intergalactic hijinks when a monk inherits a HOST CLUB ON THE PLEASURE PLANET!