Lord of the White Hell -When your Roommate is Cute,, Cocky, Cocky, & Cursed

Ginn Hale is one of the more prolific authors of gay Fantasy out there. My experience with her work has generally been positive, but never gushing. I took a trip back to 2010 to read a book that would have come out when I was still in high school, and I think I’ve finally found the book that teenage me would have absolutely adored. As an adult, I see some issues with it, but this is the book that finally got me to understand why so many are riveted by Hale’s writing. This book had Tamora Pierce vibes if Pierce were more interested in the romance plotlines than the knight and mage elements.

Read If Looking For: teenage angst written well, slice of life military school stories, crow witches

Avoid If Looking For: classroom instruction, deep political maneuvering, completely healthy relationship dynamics

Comparable Media: Protector of the Small, Carry On, A Taste of Gold and Iron

Kyn – An Action Packed Cyberpunk Adventure

Cyberpunk is an interesting genre to me. It’s this weird mashup of insane ideas, tightly focused critiques of our world, and intense action scenes. My experiences with it are mostly with television and TTRPGs, and the books I’ve read have been a bit more theme heavy. Kyn swings hard in the opposite direction, and I had a ton of fun with it as a book that didn’t require too much dedicated focus as I crawl to the end of a school year.

Read If Looking For: extended combat sequences, capitalism at its worst, vibrant and bleak worldbuilding

Avoid If Looking For: tight editing and proofreading, deep character arcs, books likely to get a sequel written

Comparable Media: Assassins Creed, The Effaced, Ajin

r/Fantasy’s 2026 Pride Celebration

Happy nearly Pride Month!!!

I wanted to take a second to share something exciting happening over at r/fantasy next month. I’m one of the folks who runs the Beyond Binaries Book Club, which focuses on queer speculative fiction. We’re super jazzed to host the third annual pride festivities on r/fantasy, and I figured I’d hype it here for those who are interested.. There will be discussions, book recommendations, and a book club of Notes from a Regicide by Isaac Fellman.

Most excitingly (for me), is an author panel on June 19th where Victoria Goddard, Margaret Killjoy, Alexandra Rowland, Azalea Crowley, and Trung Le Nguyen will be answering questions about their books, their process, and their inspirations.

Pride Month Calendar

2nd of June (Tue): Non-Western Settings
4th of June (Thur): Queer Retellings
8th of June (Mon): Great Big Rec Thread
11th of June (Thur): Bookclub Midpoint Discussion: Notes from a Regicide by Isaac Fellman
16th of June (Tue): Finding Hidden Gems
19th of June (Fri): Panel AMA
22nd of June (Mon): Achillean/Sapphic Fiction
25th of June (Thur): Bookclub Final Discussion: Notes from a Regicide by Isaac Fellman
26th of June (Fri): Intersectionality
30th of June (Tue): Reflection & Wrap-Up

You can find our official announcement post here, which will also have links to the various discussions as they get posted.

Happy Reading and Happy Pride everyone!

May Reading Roundup

I’m not sure why, but May felt like walking through molasses. The school year is ending, yes, with all the joys and busywork that brings. However, I found myself having to hype myself up to read, even in books I was tremendously enjoying. Add some procrastination on house projects, and I had a spectacularly unproductive month. However, what May lacked in quantity, it more than made up for in quality of reads. I have almost no regrets in how I spent my reading time this month, other than wishing I’d have been able to squeeze another book or two in. The good news? The last week saw a lot more movement and motivation, so things are looking good heading into summer break.

Life is about to get extremely exciting. I’m helping run the Pride month festivities over on r/fantasy (more details to come, but I’m super excited for the author panel), students earned the ability to cut my hair (pray for me), my dad is celebrating his 70th birthday, I’m going to spend a week doing nothing in Kansas under a blanket of stars, and I’m going to learn how to replace dry rot on window trim! For now, however, here’s how my month in reading went before I dash off to grad parties for my homeroom students!

Let’s dive into some books!

Nine-Tenths – Exploring the Complexity of Draconic Love

This book was a pressure cooker, and I’m so happy I read it. I’m slowly realizing that the romances that I love are the ones that take things seriously, instead of going on autopilot. Whimsical and campy romance is great, but I don’t typically have very much interesting to say about them, whereas this might be my longest review of 2026. There was so much that delighted me here, that pushed me to rethink what romance books could accomplish. It also fell into some really basic pitfalls that annoy me, and the ending was sloppy. I think its absolutely worth a look for anyone interested in a serious take on interspecies romance, but if solving systemic issues with a single conversation annoys you, be on guard.

Read If Looking For: protagonists to have tough conversations and return to them, a peek into draconic psychology, defeating the brain weasels, badass Lesbian aunts

Avoid If you Dislike: miscommunication, unscientific evolutionary biology, easy endings, coffeeshop romances, stuffy British formalities

Comparable Media: Dawn, Looking for Group, Heart of Stone

Call And Response – An Anthology of Duets

Call and Response is a fairly new anthology of short stories by Christopher Caldwell built around a delightful premise: what if each story comes in a pair? In Call, Caldwell introduces characters and worlds, only to return to them in Response. Sometimes these appearances are small cameos, other times they are directs sequels. Call and Response is unapologetically black and queer, with several stories sneaking semi-autobiographical details into the fantastic. This collection won’t satisfy those seeking the tight research of Ted Chiang or the experimental forms of Isabel Kim. However, Caldwell’s stories are candid, intense, and thoughtful. I’d love to see what he can do with a full novel.

Read If Looking For: stories of black resilience and rebellion, diverse representations of queerness, aquatic motifs

Avoid If Looking For: experiments in form or structure, answers to broken systems, unambiguous endings

Comparable Media: Convergence Problems, The Fox Roads, Ivy Angelica Bay

This Kingdom will Not Kill Me – Romantasy done Right

Earlier this year I read The Inheritance by Ilona Andrews and quickly swore to read more of her work. Her other new release is This Kingdom WIll Not Kill Me, which has been getting more mainstream buzz, likely because it is Andrews first book put out by one of the major publishers (I think it’s their first … this duo has written a lot of books). I had some reservations about this book at first, but I really like how Andrews straddles classic fantasy storytelling conventions with a heavier romance focus. This novel felt a lot like Romantasy written for fantasy fans, whereas much of the Romantasy market seems targeted at Romance fans. As someone who loves both styles of writing (and also Romance and Fantasy when isolated from each other), this felt fresh compared to a lot of what’s coming out right now.

Read If Looking For: a balance of romance and political intrigue, quick pacing, competent protagonists, indulgent use of tropes

Avoid If Looking For: instalove, protagonists who gain massive power, books that primarily live in ‘show’ instead of ‘tell’

Comparable Media: Inkheart, Rook and Rose

The Many Deaths of Laila Starr – Vignettes on Death

This book has been sitting on my desk as a potential whole-class read for high school level comics classes. It’s award-nominated and generally has a phenomenal reputation. At 128 pages, this story is absolutely worth a look if you’re in the mood for something contemplative with some light humor elements. It feels very much like an Autumn book, in that it asks readers to think about their own relationship with death, but it remains pretty accessible throughout. Plus, it’s popular enough that you can likely nab a copy from your local library!

Read If Looking For: a god experiencing mortality, episodic story structures, casual cigarettes, quiet storytelling with vibrant colors

Avoid If Looking For: the political machinations of gods, experimental art, novel and original endings

Comparable Media: Cloud Atlas, Sandman. I’ve also heard that it pairs delightfully with Daytripper and Karmen, both of which I’m intent on reading soon.

The Daily Grind – When Corporate America becomes the Dungeon

After Works of Vermin, I wanted something light and simple. The Daily Grind has been on my Progression Fantasy radar for a while, and it felt like a great book to read while mildly burnt out and stressed about dry rot on windows. It absolutely scratched that itch, and I’m definitely going to keep reading more of this series as a palette cleanser between heavier reads. Is this book going to satisfy anyone’s desire for carefully wrought stories brimming with meaning and subtext? Absolutely not. But for a casual fun trip into an eldritch dimension watching normal people fight animated post it notes, this is a great pick. It has big beach read vibes despite most of the book happening in an unending void of cubicles.

Read If Looking For: something simple, repetitive, and chill, casual bisexual representation, uncanny valley office supplies

Avoid If Looking For: dramatic power-ups, careful prose, epic fight scenes

Comparable Media: Several People are Typing, Mana Mirror, Triangle Agency

A Parade of Horribles – Dungeon Crawler Carl #8

Like so many people, I am an ardent Dungeon Crawler Carl fan. I hopped on the bandwagon just as it was taking off, and I’ve been overjoyed that it has prompted publishers to take a hard look at supporting more self-published authors. This is Book 8 in the series, which means you should probably skip this if you’re trying to figure out if the series is good for you (a shortish review of book 1 can be found here).

Read If Looking For: More Dungeon Crawler Carl, increasingly unstable Artificial Intelligence, crawlers getting whittled down to near nothing

Avoid If Looking For: new achievements, leaderboard updates, lootbox openings

Comparable Media: Mad Max, Fast and Furious