I am so in love with The Next World Tarot. This deck is perfect for our current moment of national and planetary turmoil. In concept and execution, it is inspiring on a personal and political scale. The creator, Christy C. Road, describes the deck thus: Featuring body outlaws, endangered cultures, and anti-colonial belief systems, THE NEXT WORLD TAROT envisions a world where justice relies on respect and revolutionary love. The Fool’s Journey is about smashing … Continue reading The Next World Tarot by Cristy C. Road →
Content warning: racism, including the extra messy and painful kind that comes from people who love you and really ought to know better… The Duke Who Didn’t is a complete delight. It’s a low-tension friends-to-lovers story set in a small English village over the course of three very busy days. (All Chloe’s days are busy.) The village is notable for two things – first, it has a very high population of Chinese, half Chinese, and … Continue reading The Duke Who Didn’t by Courtney Milan →
Queens of Noise is like a great punk song – short, loud, chaotic, and unforgettable. This f/f shifter romance includes multiple kinds of shifters plus witches, most of whom are in bands, and many of whom are people of color and people who identify as queer in some way. It also includes a battle of the bands and evil chickens. The only problem with this book is that I want it to go on and … Continue reading Queens of Noise by Leigh Harlen →
If you love Ru Paul’s Drag Race like I do, then you might have fallen in love with Trixie Mattel and Katya Zamolodchikova. Trixie, with her deep love for Dolly Parton and Barbie, and Katya, who is ultra-flexible and deeply honest about recovering from addiction, have to be two of the most popular drag queens to have graduated from RPDR. If, like me, you’re a bit of a superfan, you might have also watched their … Continue reading Trixie and Katya’s Guide to Modern Womanhood →
Content warning: There is an emotionally abusive parent. There is a very realistic and rather grim depiction of an abusive marriage. And there is either a miscarriage or an abortion – we never really find out which. Every so often I read a book, and as I read I start making a list of all the people I know who will love this book and then I keep reading and writing down more names, and … Continue reading Or What You Will by Jo Walton →
So I loved Take a Hint, Dani Brown. How much? I joined the Bad Decisions Book Club on the reread. Which started right after I had finished it the first time. Yes. I knew exactly where the book was going to go and I could not put it down. Honestly, I’m reading it a third time. We here at the Pink Palace love Talia Hibbert. Kiki wrote a very beautiful review of the first book … Continue reading Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert →
This guest squee is from Heather M. Heather M lives in Florida. You can find her on Twitter @NotThatHeatherM. … (A note: there are what seems like one hundred characters in this show/book, and most of them have three names. While there are specific reasons people are called different names at different times, for the sake of clarity I’ve chosen to stick to what seems to me to be the most commonly used name for … Continue reading Guest Squee: The Untamed →
The first thing I heard about this book was that it wasn’t very good. But I’m a romance reader and so I care not a fig fancy for others’ opinions of my reading preferences. It didn’t hurt that my love for vampires was (and still is) so tremendously strong that any qualms I had were quickly squashed. When it became clear to me that the heroine would be gifted with a vampire hero, I launched … Continue reading Keeper Shelf: A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness →
CW: torture including water boarding, cutting off a finger, implied sexual assault My little ears perked up when I first heard about this one. It has mermaids, witches, pirates, magic, lesbians, double agents, and a woman disguised as a man. What more could I want? I was right to be excited, because damn did it deliver that, and more. The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea (TMtW&tS) was so good that I tore through the … Continue reading The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall →
CW: child harm, threatened rape, bloody violence How do I love thee, let me count the ways. Specifically, there are six ways in which I love you, Poison Study. Reason, the first: Yelena Yelena is a badass. She survives cruel General Brazell’s torturous “children’s home” by killing her torturer, the General’s son Reyad. Of course, Brazell is now all aboard the SS Vengeance, destination: Yelena. But Yelena has an unlikely hero in The Rules. More … Continue reading Keeper Shelf: Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder →
Before we get into Birds of Prey, my experience, and what this means for moviegoers like myself, I’ll just give you the TL;DR portion of the review now. Go see it. The movie is fun, cathartic, has some amazing cinematography, and a kickass soundtrack. But there was a sadness that accompanied this movie, which occurred when I emerged from the theaters and made the dumbest decision of my life, which was logging onto Twitter. The … Continue reading Movie Review: Birds of Prey (2020) →
