Book Review: My Real Children

Title: My Real Children

Author: Jo Walton

Genre: Speculative fiction (aka fancy sci-fi)

Page #s: 317

Publication Date: 2014

Location in Series: 1/1

Summary: Patricia Cowan is spending the last days of her life in a nursing home. She sees her children, sometimes, but which children are they? Does she see Pat’s children or Tricia’s children? Because Patricia Cowan has lived two very different lives, a split in her timeline caused by her decision whether to marry Mark. This split seems to have effected more than just her as along with remembering different events that happened to her she remembers two very different worlds.

At the end of the day, which world will she chose?

Good Points:

•  Seriously well written.
• Set after WWII in Britain, it’s a slightly different look at post-war life than I’m used to reading.
• Brilliant descriptions of the places Patricia is living.
• Fantastic, realistic characters and character development.
• Interesting alternate history Earths.
• The end of the book really leaves you thinking. Which life is Patricia going to chose? Which would you chose? The nicer world or the nicer life?
• The chapters are headed with Patricia’s chosen nickname, Tricia for one life and Pat for another so you don’t get confused.
• Lesbians! (Always a plus.)
• Poly-relationships.
• Character with a disability! (She loses her legs partway through the book.) 

Bad Points:

•  Very white.
• Pat is a lesbian but has sex with a man (just one, but a few times) and Tricia only ever has romantic and sexual relationships with men which leaves me feeling complicated. They are two seperate lives, I am not the identity police etc... (But it feels like bisexual erasure to me and IDK, I feel like the author could have addressed that somewhere.)
• Extremely depressing (to me, there were a lot of points where I was reminded of my own grandmother who lived in the same time period, was a teacher like Pat, and died in a retirement home while suffering from dementia).

 Triggers:

• Rape
• Mentions of past rape by Bee
• Repeated spousal rape by Mark
• Spousal abuse
• Forced impregnation
• Miscarriages/stillbirths
• Limb loss
• Cancer

 Rating: 4/5

Book Review: Take Me There

Title: Take Me There; Trans and Genderqueer Erotica
Editor: Tristan Taormino
Genre: Erotica
Page #s:  256
Publication Date: 2011

Summary: 28 sizzling hot short stories with a diverse spread of genders, sexualities, and relationships. Everything from one night stands to long term relationships, from cheating to time-traveling self-cest. This anthology covers it all.

Good Points:

• LOTS of different sexualities and genders!
• Loooooots of different sexual acts
• Explores sex with both pre-op and post-op transsexuals as well as genderqueer individuals who augment their own bodies in order to feel right.
• Surprising amount of plot/characterization for an erotica anthology
• That being said, a number of short stories which despite their length were fully-fleshed out and I would love to have read more of.

Bad Points:

• No ace representation (some of you may be saying ‘duh’ but I feel like if I state there is a mix of sexualities and genders BUT there are no asexuals it’s important to point this out, I also don’t think there were any stories featuring someone who was agender)
• There are a LOT of stories with BDSM tones which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but I didn’t pick up this book intending to read a lot of D/s.
• Some of the stories feature humiliation kink + slurs.
• It is an erotica anthology, so your mileage may vary and some stories won’t be your kink.
• Pretty sure I’ve read 3 of the stories in the anthology before, whether in another anthology or bought off Amazon on their own IDK.

Triggers:

• LOTS of slurs.
• Like lots, seriously, if it’s a queer slur? It gets used at least once.
• Humiliation (consensual)
• Prostitution
• Body dysphoria (some characters are only just coming into their own or are having flashbacks)

Rating: 4/5

Book Review: The Killer Wore Leather

Title: The Killer Wore Leather
Author: Laura Antoniou
Genre: Mystery
Page #s: 400
Publication Date: 2013
Location in Series: 1/1

Summary:  In the Grand Sterling Hotel of Midtown Manhattan, home of the huge annual leather/BDSM/fetish ball and contest, Mr. & Ms. Global Leather (and bootblack), last year’s male winner lies dead on the floor of his suite, wearing only very frilly, bright yellow panties. Cormac “Mack” Steel made a lot of enemies in his year wearing the studded leather sash, not the least being his co-winner Mistress Ravenfyre. But she is not alone – there are over three thousand attendees at this year’s fetish-festooned event from all over the world, some of whom might have had some very personal issues with the corpse

Good Points:

• Fun read.
• Lesbian detective!
• Black detective!
• PoV of three outsiders investigating the convention, learning about the community
• Really fun, lively, mostly likable characters.
• Plotline is tight and the mystery keeps you guessing. Was it the boyfriend, the rival, the religious jerk, the ex, the other rival, slave Bitsy, anyone who badmouthed Mack?
• Characters of all queer sexualities and genders.  (The author has written a story for a trans&genderqueer erotica compilation which I have on reserve.)
• Also bodyshapes.
• Respectful of the community and all that it entails. ( We do have one character pov who is actually pretty uncomfortable about the convention. DeCosta thinks the whole thing is weird and uses language like ‘freak’ BUT by the end of the book he is less of a jerk.)
• ‘The BDSM/Leather community is all about Safe, Sane, and Consensual’ should be the byline of the book. By the end of It Rebecca, Nancy, and Dominick are all repeating the phrase before the worried convention goers can.
• Lots of fun subplots to follow.

Bad Points:

• I don’t actually know anything about the leather/BDSM community so someone else will have to judge that.
• I feel like DeCosta’s character toes the line of being a stereotype. The writer flips that on its head but it takes awhile.
• Nancy’s PoV drops off after a while, I think she was originally intended to be a bigger part of the story but she spends 99% of it off on her own. It’s a fun PoV and interesting but I would have liked more integration.

Triggers:

• Murder.
• Occasional language such as freak, crazy, fag.
• Misogyny, some bigotry & homophobia.
• Mentions of rape play.

Rating: 5/5

Book Review: Maplecroft

Title: Maplecroft
Author: Cherie Priest
Genre: Fantasy/Horror
Page #s: 435
Publication Date: 2014
Location in Series: 1

Summary:

The people of Fall River, Massachusetts, fear me. Perhaps rightfully so. I remain a suspect in the brutal deaths of my father and his second wife despite the verdict of innocence at my trial. With our inheritance, my sister, Emma, and I have taken up residence in Maplecroft, a mansion near the sea and far from gossip and scrutiny.

But it is not far enough from the affliction that possessed my parents. Their characters, their very souls, were consumed from within by something that left malevolent entities in their place. It originates from the ocean’s depths, plaguing the populace with tides of nightmares and madness.
Good Points:

• Lesbian main character
• Character suffering from chronic illness
• Epistolary style (not as dry as classic epistolary, has a more modern tone)
• Lovecraftian plot
• Fun ties between science, magic and Lovecraftian creatures
• Focuses on what happens to a family post-tragedy
• Tight plot
• Didn’t lose steam near the end/reveal key points of the final showdown and ruin it all

Bad Points:

• Light on horror (I didn’t lose any sleep but then I handle Lovecraft better than anything else)
• Epistolary style (depends on if you enjoy that kind of thing or not)

Triggers:

• Straight up murder
• Creepy things trying to get into your house

Rating: 5/5

Book Review - The Gumshoe, the Witch and the Virtual Corpse

Titles: The Gumshoe, the Witch, and the Virtual Corpse & Gumshoe Gorilla

Author: Keith Hartman
Genre: Sci-Fi/Mystery
Page #s: 429 & 382
Publication Date: 1999 & 2001
Location in Series: 1 & 2 but series is unfinished

Summary: Drew Parker runs a detective agency (which advertises as three) with his partner, Jen Grey. Together they tackle cases both weird and downright bizarre. Drew, being gay, and Jen, being wiccan, steer clear of the overly religious cases, of which there are many. In a world where the witches truly have magic, there is a prenatal test for the ‘gay gene’, the Cherokee are suing the government for illegal land seizure, and you need five actors to play one part there is plenty of detective work to go around.

Good Points:

• Interesting, WEIRD storyline
• Like I can’t reiterate this enough
• Weird as fuck
• Good, solid mysteries that build the evidence slowly
• Transgender character! (In the first.) Ice in Summer is MAAB but refers to herself and is referred to by others with female pronouns.
• Interesting tech ideas, for being written at the millennial turn.
• Really loved the ideas about where T.V. could be headed. They have filters set up so if you wanted to watch, say, Sabrina The Teenage Witch with lesbian sex and lots of violence, you could, and if you wanted to watch Lost Girl or Spartacus with a religious message and absolutely no sex and violence you could also do that.
• Loved the idea of the Cherokee suing the government in world court, probably inspired by the U.S. vs. Sioux Nations case.
•  All of the characters are interesting and well-rounded, with faults and issues and feelings.
• Also, Peckers is a restaurant that exists. Yes. Peckers, aka, the reverse Hooters. They advertise with a wood pecker and I love it.

Bad Points:

• Racist depictions of Cherokee
  • I hate to say this, as I thought the Cherokee plotline was really interesting but when the characters are referred to as ‘Ice in Summer’, ‘Roaring Grizzly’ and ‘Laughing Bear’… (and it’s not just a translation, they introduce themselves this way)
  • Laughing Bear also belongs to a native American group (not tribe, just, group) who do things… backwards? It was weird sounding. Something along the lines of acting silly on purpose when the matter is serious and vice versa?
  • Ice in Summer is a… seer? Shaman? Has precognitive powers (again, this is a world where people actually have magical powers so it’s not just her).
  There are ‘returnees’ and 'purebloods’, creating tension within the Cherokee b/c the purebloods have learned to play the 'white man’s game’ and the returnees don’t want that
• Speaking of Ice in Summer, despite the fact that she refers to herself as female and everyone else does Drew has several points where he refers to her as a crossdresser.
• First book is a clusterfuck of PoVs. Imagine reading GRRM in 1st person with headings like ‘The Gumshoe’ and ‘The Witch’ instead of their names. On the first introduction. Second book is easier read, you know the characters and there are less random PoVs.
• GW&VC also reveals the villain about ¾ths of the way through which leads to frustration (on my part at least) as the characters continue to fumble.
• Anti-religious?
• Unfinished series, which might be a godsend as if Drew had become a seer for the Cherokee tribe or had to face down Roaring Grizzly I may have had to beat my face in with the book.

Triggers:

• Murder
• Violent murder?
• Desecration of corpses
• Televangelists
• Racist depictions of Cherokee tribe
• Slurs (gendered, sexual, and racial from the villains of our novels, light)
• Misgendering of transgender character
• Kidnapping of a child
• Abusive relationship
• Drugs

Rating: 8/10

Book Review - Night Shadows; Queer Horror

Title: Night Shadows: Queer Horror

Editors: Greg Herren and J.M. Redmann

Genre: Horror

Page #s: 295
Publication Date: 2012
Location in Series: Stand alone anthology

Summary: An anthology of horror stories all staring gay, lesbian or bisexual protagonists.

Good Points:

• Mix of horror genres from the slightly paranormal to stygian real life stories and one with a Lovecraftian bent.
• All very well written!
• Almost every story ends happily.

Bad Points:

• Struggles with the concept of ‘horror’. Some stories would fit more as paranormal.
• I feel like it has to pound in every story how queer it’s characters are and it detracts from the stories.
• Last story includes flashbacks that are told in a different font than the present timeline, such a style wasn’t utilized in the rest of the novel and is jarring.
• The opening makes mention of transgender issues but only minor characters feature.

Triggers:

• Murder
• Suicide
• Rape
• Threats of rape
• Cannibalism
• Abuse
• Pedophilia
• Stalking

The Hollow is Filled with Beautiful Monsters – Lee Thomas

• Least Horrific, in my opinion, featuring monsters that are difficult to imagine.
• Horror starts late and catharsis never happens

The Zealous Advocate­ Carsen Taite

• Good twists, good turns!
• Thought she was a werewolf at first, pleasantly surprised to find out otherwise.

Room Nine – Felice Picano

• Features threats of gang rape
• Liked the ending however, very creepy.
• Straight main character.

The Price – J.M. Redmann

• This story is a bit ‘eternal damnation for lesbians!!!’ but it’s also a story about betrayal and paying the price.
• Tragic ending.
• I am jaded about zombie sex but FYI this has zombie sex.

Matinee – Vince A. Liaguno

• Abuse victim turns into abuser
• Lonely man who enjoys horror movies murders teenage male who snubs him.

Capturing Jove Lunge – Steve Berman

• Man sleeps with underage male (they’re set up to be a Batman/Robin style thing unsure of younger male’s actual age but most likely underage)
• Bit with the pitcher plant is neat.

A Letter to my Brother, relating Recent Events with Unintended Consequences – Carol Rosenfeld

• Comically done, not terribly horrific at all. Possibly meant to be tongue in cheek.

All the Pretty Boys – Michael Rowe

• No sex but skeevy dealings lead to death of young drifter.

The Roommate – Lisa Girolami

• I find ghosts communicating with people to be incredibly creepy.
• CREEPY.
• But turns out to be a good ghost.
• Little predictable but still enjoyable.

Filth – Nathan Burgoine

• Warning – BUGS LOTS OF BUGS
• Bugs inside of a person
• Was not expecting the end, liked it.

Saint Louis 1990 – Jewelle Gomez

• Felt like, and is I believe, part of a bigger work/world

Blackout – Jeffrey Ricker

• Creepy homophobic ghost attempts to kill two boyfriends who have moved into his old house, succeeds in killing one.
• Sad.

Crazy in the Night – Greg Herren

• Ghost or monster turns out the lights to drive new apartment inhabitant mad.

Ordinary Mayhem – Victoria A. Brownworth

• Suicidal ideation!
• Lots of gore.
• Cannibalistic serial killer, rapes, mutilates, and murders women, takes pictures of it that his granddaughter finds. She is haunted by him the entire story. She goes on to take pictures of extreme circumstances.
• Creepy things in jars.
• Jarring formatting but well written.

Rating: 3/5

Book Review - Nadya

Title: Nadya
Author: Pat Murphy
Genre: Fantasy/Western
Page #s:  382
Publication Date: 1996
Location in Series: Stand Alone

Summary: The majority of Nadya follows the story of Nadya Rybek’s travel from Missouri out to Oregon in the 1830s. There are five other points of view, her parents, her first love, her second love, and her third and final love.

Nadya is born to Dmitri and Marietta, one a Polish immigrant the other from France. She grows up tending farm in Missouri and has a happy enough life, to start. The fact that she and her parents are all werewolves doesn’t throw a kink in their plans until the arrival of the Jones family.

After her parents’ murder Nadya decides to try her luck out west. She cuts her hair and claims to be a man. That is where she meets Elizabeth, a young woman who had been heading to California with her father before illness took him and left her alone with nothing but the contents of her wagon and the team of oxen to her name. She, Nadya, and an orphan from another wagon party travel together. On the way (and this section is the bulk of the novel) they find love in each other’s arms.

Unfortunately that love doesn’t last once they reach California. Nadya heads North where she meets Jacob Lowell. She finds happiness with him and his community of outcasts but their happiness is, once again, threatened.

Good Points:

• No one gets raped!
• Nadya is bisexual, finding love with both men and women, but the bulk of the novel focuses on her relationship with Elizabeth.
• Reads a bit like lesbian fanfic of the Oregon trail NOT THAT I AM COMPLAINING!
• Not a new take on werewolves but there are no sparkly vampires present.
• Unsure of how true to life the encounter with the Cheyenne tribe is but they are treated respectfully by Nadya. Jacob Lowell’s tribe and status as half-white are also treated respectfully.
• The cast is very well rounded, each PoV used to perfection.
• Multi-racial community founded at the end.
• Fun sex scenes!

Bad Points:

• Unsure of how true to life the portrayal of the Cheyenne and Massuam are, as well as the Jacob’s experience with the Klukwalle.
• Just prior to them reaching California the story starts to drag, losing my interest for pages at a time.

Triggers:

• No one gets raped but a rape attempt is mentioned.
• Bestiality – although it depends on how you qualify it? As a wolf, Nadya retains some human thoughts and emotions but does not think like a human. One sex scene where she is mounted by a male wolf.
• Murrrrrrrrder
• Racial slurs, largely regarding Native American tribes but one or two applied to African Americans.

Rating: 4.5/5