Welcome back to Get Rec’d!
A few quick recs this time around: a fantasy with some mystery, a sci-fi lesbian romance, and a non-fiction title that may pique some curiosity.
Have you received any great book recommendations lately? Are there any you’d like to pass along the community?
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Invisible Women
Honestly, I never thought I’d be interested in the history of a c-section but this book is making me rethink that!
An incisive yet personal look at the science and history of the most common surgery performed in America—the cesarean section—and an exposé on the disturbing state of maternal medical care
When Rachel Somerstein had an unplanned C-section with her first child, the experience was anything but the “routine” operation her doctor described. A series of errors by her clinicians led to a real-life nightmare: surgery without anesthesia. The ensuing mental and physical complications left her traumatized and desperate for answers about how things could have gone so wrong.
In the United States, one in three babies is born via C-section, a rate that has grown exponentially over the past fifty years. And while in most cases the procedure is “safe,” it is not without significant, sometimes life-changing consequences, with its burdens falling disproportionately on people of color. Mothers are often left to navigate these complications alone, with C-sections all but invisible in popular culture, pregnancy guides, and even standard medical advice.
In Invisible Labor, Somerstein weaves personal narrative and investigative journalism with medical, social, and cultural history to reveal the operation’s surprising evolution, from its days being practiced on enslaved women to the ways modern medical technology promotes its overuse. And she uncovers the current-day failures of the medical system, showing how pregnant people’s pain and agency is often disregarded by physicians who, motivated by fear of litigation or a hospital’s commitment to efficiency, make consequential and deeply personal decisions on behalf of their patients.
Candid, raw, and illuminating, Invisible Labor lifts the veil on C-sections so that mothers can navigate future pregnancies and births with more knowledge about surgical birth’s risks, benefits, and alternatives—a corrective to the ongoing curtailment of reproductive rights. Writing with deep feeling and authority, Somerstein offers support and camaraderie to others who have had difficult or traumatic birth experiences, as well as hope for new forms of reproductive justice.
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The Lost Story
This was recommended to me and I saw it pitched as “CSI: Narnia,” which is very clever and sounds very cool.
Inspired by C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, this wild and wondrous novel is a fairy tale for grown-ups who still knock on the back of wardrobes—just in case—from the author of The Wishing Game.
As boys, best friends Jeremy Cox and Rafe Howell went missing in a vast West Virginia state forest, only to mysteriously reappear six months later with no explanation for where they’d gone or how they’d survived.
Fifteen years after their miraculous homecoming, Rafe is a reclusive artist who still bears scars inside and out but has no memory of what happened during those months. Meanwhile, Jeremy has become a famed missing persons’ investigator. With his uncanny abilities, he is the one person who can help vet tech Emilie Wendell find her sister, who vanished in the very same forest as Rafe and Jeremy.
Jeremy alone knows the fantastical truth about the disappearances, for while the rest of the world was searching for them, the two missing boys were in a magical realm filled with impossible beauty and terrible danger. He believes it is there that they will find Emilie’s sister. However, Jeremy has kept Rafe in the dark since their return for his own inscrutable reasons. But the time for burying secrets comes to an end as the quest for Emilie’s sister begins. The former lost boys must confront their shared past, no matter how traumatic the memories.
Alongside the headstrong Emilie, Rafe and Jeremy must return to the enchanted world they called home for six months—for only then can they get back everything and everyone they’ve lost.
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This book is available from:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer
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The Stars Too Fondly
If you’re a fan of Star Trek and sapphic romances!
In her breathtaking debut—part space odyssey, part sapphic rom-com—Emily Hamilton tells a tale of galaxy-spanning friendship, improbable love, and found family.
So, here’s the thing: Cleo and her friends really, truly didn’t mean to steal this spaceship. They just wanted to know why, twenty years ago, the entire Providence crew vanished without a trace, but then the stupid dark-matter engine started on its own. Now these four twenty-somethings are en route to Proxima Centauri and unable to turn around while being harangued by a hologram that has the face and snide attitude of the ship’s missing captain, Billie.
Cleo has dreamt of being an astronaut all her life, and Earth is a lost cause at this point, so this should be one of those blessings in disguise that people talk about. But as the ship travels deeper into space, the laws of physics start twisting; old mysteries come crawling back to life; and Cleo’s initially combative relationship with Billie turns into something deeper and more desperate than either woman was prepared for.
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This book is available from:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!The Stars Too Fondly by Emily Hamilton
I think there are some Lady Astronauts fans around here, there is a free short story in that world on Reactor.com (what used be tor.com)
Vivian Shaw recently released a new novella in her Dr Greta Helsing series, called Bitter Waters. Apologies if the release was already mentioned but I don’t think I saw it posted recently.
I absolutely adore this series and first found out about it from SBTB and highly recommend it. It’s a cozy paranormal mystery series, with a very sweet slow-burn romance and uplifting found family vibe.
While I would love another full length novel, I’m happy for any additional stories of Greta, Varney, Ruthven and friends. The novella could be standalone, but you will definitely appreciate it more having read the series in order.