Your mission, should you choose to accept it:
Break an evil curse without getting cursed in the process
Find murderer, find boyfriend (cannot be the same)
Find nice, wholesome minds for your son to eat. Garbage in garbage out, y'know
Stop barfing up flies. Things are getting awkward.
Keep the last remnants of humanity alive (without their help. ingrates)
See ResultsRead about these and other favorites over here and give a follow to our friends over at @torbooks
As you might expect from a couple of queer indie authors, Fell & I are going hard on the sales and promotions for Pride Month! I'll try to summarize as succinctly as possible, and remember that you can always click the links for a full synopsis ;)
Are you in the mood for...
✨ An emotional, reflective gay fantasy romance following a werewolf cowboy whose family takes in an amnesiac vampire? Fell's debut novel, Both Sides of the Moon, is on sale! You can buy a paperback for $11.99 & the ebook is on Countdown Sale June 3-7, starting at $0.99!
✨ A short and sweet sapphic contemporary fantasy read? My novella Worm in a Jar is pay what you want on Gumroad all month, so you can download it free if you'd like!
✨ A not-romantic fantasy novel with queer trans protagonists, about a demon and a demon hunter who must team up to prevent an imprending wave of violence? Our upcoming collab, Hierarchy of the Unseen, comes out June 21! It's up for preorder now, and available as an ARC on Netgalley :)
✨ The above, and also deals and/or supporting queer trans authors? This month, we're running a special offer on Patreon: all new & current patrons starting at the $4 tier will receive a free paperback of HotU (in addition to the ebook downloads, early access to our work, behind-the-scenes exclusives, and more already offered to patrons)!
✨ Finding more queer indies to support? Check out Pride SFF Reads & Read LGBTQ Authors on Bookfunnel!
I'll post about these individually in the coming weeks, but just wanted to throw it all out there at once 🖤 Reblogs appreciated! Thank you all for your support!
We’re organizing a heist! Who would you want as your guy (gender neutral) in the chair?
a circus ringmaster and her trapeze artist wife (they come as a package deal)
an up-and-coming hollywood starlet who’s equally likely to stab or smile
a sad, immortal, and infinitely self-destructive ex-priest
a monk turned warlord who would murder for you and might murder you too
a precocious violinist who can provide epic background music
See ResultsSee all of our favorites here and of course follow along at @torbooks
[Image ID: A white progress bar with rounded corners on top of a bright purple background. The bar is 25% full, and the filled segment has a pink to orange gradient. Underneath there is white, glitchy text with a pink glow saying “CHALLENGE IN PROGRESS”. Above it, there is a “25%” in the same font. /End ID]
Hey y’all! We’ve reached the end of the first week of June, which means we’re a quarter of the way through Pridewrite!
If you fancy joining in, there’s still time! Our prompt list is [here], our rules are [here], and we’ve got an Ao3 collection [here]! Any creative media or medium is accepted and entries can be posted on any day, regardless of prompt(s) used.
This is still going on for anyone who wants to join in!
Black Lives Matter protests have brought a shift in bestsellers: anti-racist books are selling out, and Black authors are getting a bit of the recognition the extremely white publishing industry usually robs them of. As crucial as those books are, though, it’s not enough. Many Black authors are asking readers to read and buy not only the difficult, dark stories centring racism, but also stories about Black joy.
Here are more than 20 F/F romances by Black authors to get you started.
As with my LGBT+ List, I’m seeing a lot of the same books on my dash, so I spent a few hours researching some lesser-known books. These books fall across a variety of genres and age group.
Happy Pride! Enjoy this book rec list of fiction books with LGBTQ+ and Black representation, written by Black authors! Goodreads and Bookshop.org links and text version of the list below the cut.
Some of these books involve some pretty heavy content, be careful to check content warnings!
ETA: I’ve also compiled a list of
✨
sci-fi/fantasy ✨
books with black & lgbt+ rep by Black authors! You can find it here
From Stonewall and Lambda Award-winning author Kacen Callender comes a revelatory YA novel about a transgender teen grappling with identity and self-discovery while falling in love for the first time.
Felix Love has never been in love—and, yes, he’s painfully aware of the irony. He desperately wants to know what it’s like and why it seems so easy for everyone but him to find someone. What’s worse is that, even though he is proud of his identity, Felix also secretly fears that he’s one marginalization too many—Black, queer, and transgender—to ever get his own happily-ever-after.
When an anonymous student begins sending him transphobic messages—after publicly posting Felix’s deadname alongside images of him before he transitioned—Felix comes up with a plan for revenge. What he didn’t count on: his catfish scenario landing him in a quasi–love triangle….
But as he navigates his complicated feelings, Felix begins a journey of questioning and self-discovery that helps redefine his most important relationship: how he feels about himself. Felix Ever After is an honest and layered story about identity, falling in love, and recognizing the love you deserve.
Review: It’s Pride Month! I’d say it’s the perfect time to pick up Felix Ever After, but any and every month is the perfect time to check this book out. Just look at that beautiful cover. And the story itself? Well, let’s get this review rolling!
First of all, if you’re like, “hey, I already read Felix Ever After” — then check out the group discussion between the four of us Rich in Color bloggers here. We’d love to hear your thoughts as well. Comment on our discussion post or Instagram or tweet us on Twitter.
Ok, back to this review. It’s going to be short and sweet, because I’d rather save you the time of reading this review and urge you to read the book! We’ve got an excerpt here: Click HERE to read the first two chapters of Felix Ever After!
Felix Ever After follows Felix Love as he applies to college, specifically Brown, navigates his friendships (and potential relationships), all while dealing with an anonymous classmate sending him transphobic messages. Felix comes up with a plot for revenge, but things don’t turn out the way he expects.
I am so, so glad that Felix Ever After exists, particularly for the QTPOC teens who will get to encounter this book on their library shelves. Felix Ever After center Felix’s struggles with believing that he is one marginalization too many to be worth of love. He’s Black, queer, and transgender. The dedication page of the book sets the tone for the book: “For trans and nonbinary youth: You’re beautiful. You’re important. You’re valid. You’re perfect.” Felix, spoiler alert, comes to embrace that he is worthy of love, and that is so powerful.
I highly recommend Felix Ever After. The story is just as beautiful as its cover, filled with hope and love and a nuanced discussion of identity. Get it ASAP, trust me.
Recommendation: Buy it now!
These past few weeks have been painful for all of us, more so for Black people than any other community. Celebrating anything right now, let alone Pride, might make you feel guilty or uncomfortable, but it’s more important than ever to have these discussions. Pride is more than a parade or a celebration. The spirit of Pride stems from protesting for equal rights.
The first Pride was a revolution ignited by the participants in the Stonewall uprising fighting back against police brutality. Black and brown trans women have always been at the forefront in the battle for LGBTQIA+ rights, with Marsha P. Johnson, Miss Major Griffin-Gracey, Storme DeLarverie, and Sylvia Rivera emerging as prominent activists. With that in mind, it’s important we use Pride month as an opportunity to amplify Black and brown voices and fight racism within the LGBTQIA+ community.
Not everyone is able to take to the streets in protest or has money to donate, but there are still ways the Tumblr community can unite and make a difference. That’s why we created #ActsofPride, an action list for this Pride month.
We hope these prompts offer you an opportunity to learn, reflect, speak out, spark conversations at home, to lift up our Black and brown peers, to experience Pride through an intersectional lens. Think of this as a nurturing space for self-expression. Or use it to reflect upon how Pride’s revolutionary history can drive a future where the LGBTQIA+ community and its allies commit to keeping this fight and conversation going on a daily basis and not just when it dominates the headlines.
Take care of yourself, look out for your friends, make your voice heard, and most importantly, have a happy Pride!
A new book from O/R Books, Counterpoint, and “the ultimate chronicler of New York’s downtown scene,” gay Village Voice photographer Fred W. McDarrah, Pride: Photographs After Stonewall.
