The Sunday Prescription

One reading topic, one week of plans, and plenty of books administered weekly for chronic readers.

Happy Sunday everyone, and welcome to the first installment of The Sunday Prescription, where each week I plan on discussing a bookish topic, my reading plans for the week, and call out some books you all should be checking out! And as always, none of my stuff is written with any kind of generative AI - it's just me rambling!

My Symptoms: DNFing

I've talked a bunch before both here and other platforms about DNFing books, and my general thoughts around that. And, truth be told, I think I have a pretty solid feel for how I handle individual books. But I've had a few experiences this week that have really got me thinking about my approach to a series and whether I DNF that or not.

First, I saw some really interesting reels from C.J.Dennyreads and Sarahdoesbookishstuff
where they discussed the price of admission for reading a series, or the idea that for some series, you need to make it through a book or two before the series "gets good." This is pretty common (Suneater, Dungeon Crawler Carl, Throne of Glass all come to mind). Now generally speaking, I usually give a series one book. One. That's it. My thought is that, if I get to the end of book one, and I absolutely hate the characters, the story, and am severely bored or angry, I should just DNF the series. Stop. Do not pass go. Do not collect any money because I don't get paid to read things I hate. And as I thought about my favorite series, I realized I loved all the book 1's.

Now of course, if I can find some redeeming qualities, or see some light at the end of the tunnel, I'll keep going. However, Both Sarah and CJ made some great points and really got me thinking about this. Then I started listening to The Dragon Republlic, book 2 in The Poppy War Trilogy, and that got me thinking even more. Mild spoilers ahead for The Poppy War in the next paragraph.

I've posted my review of The Poppy War on socials before, and I really struggled with Rin. I think throughout the book, she wreaked havoc on everyone around her, made frustrating decisions (even for someone her age), and showed a tendency to be a sociopath (remember in tactics when she suggested to ruin the ecology of an area of the country for decades and lose tons of civilians in the process just to win one battle? THAT'S A SOCIOPATH!). And by the end, I was like wow, this book is really just about a sociopath who gets too much power and how bad war is - I know how that works as an avid reader of history.

Over the last few months I have been strongly considering DNFing the whole series, because I just thought this was a one note, one theme series, and I didn't find any of the characters interesting or compelling. Just kind of different shades of miserable. However, CJ and Sarah got me thinking about if I'm being too harsh. So I got my Libro audiobook credits, and promptly picked up the Dragon Republic. And wishing the first few chapters, this book is already showing more humanity and nuance for our characters than the entire first book, and has even made Rin redeemable for me. I was floored by how good the first six or so chapters have been. And it's made me think: should I revisit a few series I put down after book one, or start a series I have said I never would?

Now this is not to say I expect every single reading experience going forward to be game changing, and I will still probably DNF some series and avoid others. But it got me thinking about how I might tweak this approach this year. It's even got me thinking about whether or not I should read book 2 of Dungeon Crawler Carl. Let me know what you think in the poll below!

The Rx: What I'm Reading and Doing

Now as you all know, I am a feral mood reader, so my plans always reserve the right to change. However, this is what I'm reading this week:

• Our Sister's Keeper by Jasmine Holmes - this is a Bindery book, and I got an ARC on NetGalley. I'm going to finish the sone up as soon as I hit send on this newsletter. I have LOVED this so far. It is a souther gothic horror that focuses on a black town in Mississippi in the 1920's where the women are forced to bear the men's burdens through a mystical act, leaving the town eerily patriarchal and off.

• You Weren't Meant to be Human by Andrew Joseph White - Buddy reading this with a few of you all (Aiko in particular!), and have loved it so far. Body horror about a trans man in a dystopian world where cults, body horror, and the horror of existence for marginalized communities are explored.

• The Dragon Republic by RF Kuang - Will it turn out I love The Poppy War Trilogy?

• Songs of the Dead by Brandon Sanderson and Peter Ourllian - I was offered this as an ARC last week, and thought it would be cool to check out!

I am also excited because I'm approaching 25k on Instagram, 10k on TikTok, 1500 on YouTube, and 250+ here on bindery. The support everyone has shown me in the last year has been tremendous, and I'm working on a cool giveaway to celebrate all of these milestones. So stay Tuned!

Like More In-Depth Access?

If you enjoy getting into the details with me about reading, then consider upgrading to The Dark Travelers tier. My Dark Travelers get an exclusive Discord role and channels, a weekly deep dive reading update video, early access to YouTube videos, and each month they get to pick a book for me to read. This can be a book they want to read with me, or something they want me to try for them. I'm running over to my bookstore today to grab this month's pick, Stoner by John Williams, and we're doing Headlights by CJ Leede in July! It's super fun and a great tight knit group that I really enjoy talking books with, and I'd love to have you part of it!

Thank you as always for being here, and I hope you all have a great week of reading!

Friends,

So happy to share that Kristy Park Kulski is now a STOKER AWARD WINNER for Best Anthology: Silk & Sinew: A Collection of Folk Tales from the Asian Diaspora.

Kristy’s next novel CRACKS is a haunting historical horror and the second book being published by our imprint! Coming April 27!

Cover reveal coming soon!

Congrats, Kristy!!!

I finished up the cover wrap and formatting for Small Town Slasher. I know some people read it and may never give this one a chance if they didn't like the first one but I'm glad it's now a novella AND part of a new series, Woods Bay. I didn't plan on the title being similar to a new show I hadn't heard about but oh well that might help! I'll be sending away for one copy to line edit the whole book one more time. I just announced the next anthology theme SLASHERS and it's great to see so many people excited about it!

I've been attending StokerCon virtually since Thursday and have learned a lot and I'm grateful to have the opportunity to attend online. It still has a long way to go to be better for the virtual attendees but I'm grateful I can attend. It's my third year and I put time aside to attend virtually. I'm exhausted and will definitely have a whole separate post sharing what I've learned, a review and reflection of it if you will.

BOOKS
Moss'd in Space by Rebecca Thorne
Platform Decay by Martha Wells
Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep by Paul Tremblay

Currently reading: The Secret Lives of Zombie Wives by Barbara Truelove (It's a novella and I'm super slow reading print but I do love it so far) and I'm almost done with the audiobook for Dead and Breakfast by Kat Hillis & Rosiee Thor.

SHOWS
NEW
24 in 24
Next Level Chef
Pop Culture Jeopardy
Euphoria

FILMS - I'm on LetterBoxd - horrormaven13
Erupja
Hokum
16 Wishes

Rewatches that I'm enjoying as I pretend to live in the late 90s/early 00s.

TV
Buffy the Vampire Slayer RIP Giles :(
The X-Files
Law and Order: SVU
Owl House

FILMS
The Parent Trap

That's all for this week! I hope you get some time to read and watch and relax.

xoxo

Spooky Girl

"You can space a revolutionary, but you can never space the revolution."

GENRE: Arabfuturism (Sci-Fi)
RATING: 4.25/5
FORMAT: eBook & physical ARC

Review:

The Republic of Memory is an Arab-futurism Sci-fi inspired by Arab Spring and is Mahmud El Sayed's debut novel and what a novel. This book took me some time to read as I had to digest the information and it's definitely a heavy read (in the best of ways), making you think about all the impact of colonisation and the way language plays a role in it all.

As an Arab and someone who lived through Arab Spring in another country, I could recognise the influence of Egypt's Arab Spring on Mahmud's work and how we see the way it impacted the crew in the Safina. The Author takes the time to build the world, giving this book a very epic Sci-Fi vibe. We are introduced to different areas in the Safina, it's people and languages plus the way they work and function.

We are also introduced to the different factions that are demanding changes in the Safina. We see people with different beliefs, morals and values, reading their POV and understanding how each of them have been shaped by the Safina and the way the world has been built.

Oh and a whole new language that is a mixture of different languages? Reading and trying to understand/decode Nupol was so fun throughout the book. I ended up with a bit of a glossary that was ever-changing as words seem to carry multiple meanings. Eventually, my glossary was ditched as I came to understand most of what was said between the crew.

I would love to attend a talk with Mahmud one day and hear what inspired every part of this book, understand how he pieced it all together. This is something you have to experience and get ready to read. It's both slow and fast paced in the way that books with a lot of world building and political aspects to them are and what an adventure it takes you on.

I can't wait for book two and I am planning on rereading book one as The Republic of Memory needs a second read to be fully appreciated. OH and I can't not mention all the amazing Egyptian food we got in the book! I really want some Macarona Bechamel now

I was provided a free advance reader copy and I’m sharing my honest thoughts.

Hey y'all,

We'll be having a reading sprint in the Discord this Monday, June 8th at 7 PM EST on the Discord. This month's book club reads are Devil of the Deep by Falencia Jean Francois and A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid.

Feel free to bring anything else you'd like to read for the sprint, can't wait to chat with y'all on Monday!

XoXo,

Rae

Friends,

We finally got in numbers from Kobo and our partner bookstores (did you know that if you order a paperback copy from certain bookstores, you get a cool poster?!)

Drum roll, please. We are at 472. 472/1000!

Do you know what this means? We are only 178 preorders away from

THE PEN!

I think the ebook will stay at the $3.99 range for awhile! We’ve got 4 months to hit 1000! I think we can hit 650 in 1!

I’ve also got a big What Feeds Below secret, but I have to wait to tell you! Stay tuned!

Happy Friday, friends! One of my most anticipated reads of the year, These Kindred Hearts, releases on June 30, and I wanted to put it on your radar, too.

These Kindred Hearts: 17 Tales of Love and Magic features stories by Alexene Farol Follmuth (Olivie Blake), Angela Montoya, Brent Lambert, Chelsea Padilla, Cheryl Isaacs, Jamar J. Perry, Jennifer Helen, Jill Tew, Kalynn Bayron, Kwame Mbalia, Maggie Tokuda-Hall, Nia Davenport, Nikki T. Grant, Shari B. Pennant, Sophie Li, Vanessa Montalban, and Zoraida Córdova.

I'm truly obsessed with the incredible lineup! I'm already a huge fan of some of the amazing authors' work, but I haven't read quite a few, so I'm very excited to discover new favorites. Anthologies are one of the best ways to find your new favorite author (and escape a reading slump!).

I cannot wait to dive into these swoony and spellbinding stories! 🫶

Thank you to Sweet July and Zando Books for the free review copy!

“For the girl who needed this book ages ago, and couldn't find it."

Hello my dears, and welcome back to Fantasy Friday (FF). Summer is on the horizon, it is Pride month and today, I want to talk about superheroes.

Now, whenever we think about superheroes, most tend to gravitate towards the MCU and its expansive universe, focusing on the stories that might, strength, and perseverance to do what is right. Other narratives detail that downfalls of absolute power, and how they can be seen as a cautionary tale for those that don't follow the popular mantra of "with great power , comes great responsibility". But one thing that can get lost within focusing on the pinnacle of power and prestige that superheroes present, is that they also represent not belonging or being "othered" in a society.

We meet Taylor, a young boy who, on paper, has an amazing life. Good grades, plays basketball, and everything is perfect.

Everything is perfect.

Except, it isn't. Taylor is not just a normal teenage boy, but is actually the Galaxy Crowned. An princess from the planet Cyandil who was sent to Earth for her protection and hidden in a body that feels foreign to her but acceptable to others. A normal teenage boy and this is when the allegory takes it's true shape, weaving queerness and transness into the narrative and deeping it, in my opinion.

If we peel back the layers of every superhero, we meet a character that is seen as an alien or on the outskirts of "normal" society. This takes the everyday pressures that come with adolescence/growing up, and pairing that with a body that does not perform in the ways that most would deem acceptable. Countless times, Superman is an example of the greatest superhero, a symbol of hope and justice and the all American ideals that we like to believe this nation uphold. But before all of the grandeur, Superman was and still is seen as an alien. He was an awkward teen who had to stumble his way through life, having to prove himself as both Clark and Superman, and also battling the biases.

Now, I compare the two because Taylor (or Taelyr in her home planet) makes the comparison, using Superman and his alieness as a soft launch of her own, position the question to her friend while she is still wearing the a "mask" of a teenage boy. Then only thing that makes this difficult is that Taylor, who does not see herself as a boy, used the poster-boy for masculine energy and wondered why it did not work for her. While their beginnings may be similar, escaping turmoil and making their way on Earth, they couldn't be more different in how the world perceives them. Superman is palatable because he is cisgendered, white, and aligns with what society deems appropriate behaviors for men. This similar to the experience that some trans and nonbinary youth go through, lacking in representations and sometimes allowing the world to dictate who they can be because they are afraid to push the mold.

This is what Taylor represents and goes through. The same praise and accolades that Superman gets only created a further divide into who Taylor wants to be and what is expected of her, causing isolation even if the world see her as this accomplished and model "boy". It is only by happenstance, shifting accidentally into her true form while in the presence of her new friend Kathrine, where she gets to find the strength to be more like herself and allow the world to see Taylor as she truly is and carve out a space just for her.

I think that fact that Taylor is a girl and Clark Kent/Superman is a boy also plays in the factor as to how society treats them. Often what happens whenever the cisgendered individuals come commune with trans individuals, transmen/masc often face less discrimination than transwomen/femme do. Now intersectionality does play a factor as to how further the divide gets, but the inherent message that is ingrained systematically is that being a woman is seen as lesser and, by proxy, "choosing" to be a woman is crazy. Who would want to chose this life, represent themselves in their truth by becoming a woman? A creature that is often seen as weaker, more emotional, strange, and considerably dangerous. This is portrayed as to how Taylor's community rejects her as an alien and embraces Superman, because at the end of the day, he is still a white cisgendered man and that is palatable to the masses.

In today’s climate, it’s integral to have representation in media so that queer and trans people can feel seen, heard, accepted and celebrated. This story brings together beautiful artwork and a compelling narrative that mirrors the journey that some may face in finding where they belong and accepting who they truly are even if society deems them an “alien”.

We will be doing a giveaway of a signed & personalised copy of THE WOLF DEN by Elodie Harper. To enter:

• Comment down below what you would like personalised

Winner to be announced during the book club chat on Sunday 8pm BST (where a special guest will be joining)

A very happy Friday to my favorite detectives (unless you count fictional sheep, in which case, Mopple is my number one). I finished some fun books this week and started two more, including the sequel to one of my favorite reads of 2025 (eek!!).

I also got lots of book mail this week, so take a peek at the list to see if any of these new and upcoming books catch your eye.

This week’s reads:

• Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann (finished): I finished this the night before seeing the movie and was not surprised to find that the mysteries were completely different. The book was slower, with darker, adult themes, while the movie prioritized cuteness. I enjoyed both for different reasons. Watch my short review of both on your platform of choice: Instagram | TikTok | YouTube

• It Happened One Murder by Liz Lawson (finished): What a fun and breezy mystery-romance! Two amateur sleuths reluctantly team up to solve a murder in their New Jersey beach town. This is cute and cozy and, dare I say, a great beach read. See next Tuesday’s Cluesletter for an interview with Liz.

• The Heirs by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé (currently reading): A YA mystery in the vein of Knives Out! This has all the juicy inheritance drama you could ask for and I’m looking forward to the twists I know are coming. The audio is great so far but I also got a physical copy and it is gorgeous.

• Murder at the Spirit Lounge by Jess Kidd (currently reading): The second book featuring nun-turned-sleuth Nora Breen in a secretive seaside town. I’m loving the eerie death of a spirit medium and my god do I continue to adore Jess Kidd’s writing.

This week’s book mail:

• Self-Help for Serial Killers by Asia Mackay (out June 16): Work-life balance takes on a new meaning for Hazel and Fox, two killers who accidentally start a feud in suburbia, where they live with their two children.

• Scary Movie Night by Miranda Smith (out July 14): A horror-themed birthday party turns deadly. I’m not a huge horror fan (read: lifelong scaredy pants) but when have I refused a closed circle mystery? I feel like I’ll really vibe with this.

• The Oxford Guide to Scandal & Lies by Kate Westbury (out September 1): Sometimes I just have a good feeling about a book. This is one of those times. Post-WWII mystery with an enticing duo of spies . . . immediate yes.

• The Henchperson’s Guide to Unionizing by Marshall J. Moore (out September 22): A quirky and cute tale of saving the world while finding yourself.

• Lies Between Us by Jessica Goodman (out now): A summery YA murder mystery. My copy came with this adorable “Beach Reads” tote bag that will be coming with me to the beach this summer!

• Backstabbers by Eliza Jabore (out now): A slasher thriller following three friends who get lost in the same woods once haunted by a serial killer.

• Death Times Seven by Anne Perry and Victoria Zackheim (out now): The final novel of the late Anne Perry’s beloved Daniel Pitt series.

• The Only One Who Knows by Lisa M. Matlin (out now): A gothic coastal noir following a disgraced TV news reporter who returns to her hometown to investigate a series of deadly shark attacks.

• The Fox and the Devil by Kiersten White (out now): The daughter of a vampire hunter vows to hunt down the violent killer who murdered him. A gothic fantasy-horror with a side of sapphic romance.

Thank you to: Minotaur Books, Bantam Books (Stories & Suspects box), Miranda Smith, and Penguin Teen/Out of Print for these gifted books. ♥️

Yours mysteriously,

Manon

OK listen, I can't keep up with this every week Tuesday releases shit, I missed all of May and I just realized it. I'm doing my best dahling, this is a hobby and nobody pays book influencers. And I don’t think you understand how long it takes to format these damn things with all the book pics, because I did it and copied it in here and lost it all, and that your attention span is already almost gone without a picture to distract your brain. I'm working on a really interesting article about the death of booktok, and I don’t want to suck more time away from that. You should watch out for it. (Hint hint)

So I'm going to do a big slog into every month instead, tell you what's coming, give you a chance to get those preorders in and SUPPORT THOSE AUTHORS! So what's coming out this month? Well NOT Alecto the Ninth, my lamentatious lyctoral league.

By genre:

SPACE OPERA

Recursion: Germinal Book 2 by Aric McBay (AK Press, indie) - June 9 – A pacifist society on a tiny green planet is invaded by Colonizers. I’ve had book 1 sitting on my shelf, because I cannot pass up fiction by AK Press, and I definitely need to pick up book 1 this week. It would be greeeeeeat if I could put down my phone and read a book. It’s summer and the kids need wifi free time too, so I guess I’ll be figuring out how to set up parental controls on the router this week, yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay

The Forgetting Navigations by Marlee Jane Ward (Interstellar Flight Press, indie) - June 9 – Our main character has eMoTiOnAl dAmAgE from being abandoned in a lifepod in space. A freight hauler rescues her and they bond over tea. Then the past comes a knocking, as it does in stories. This may be more of a litfic in space thing, but it’s honestly hard to tell without reading. I feel like Space Opera implies more action, but subgenres are not a science, so you will have to judge a book by it’s description.

The Sixth Nik by Daniel Kraus (Simon & Schuster/Saga Press) - June 2 – In a bioship capable of reacting to a crew’s every need, a nine year old cultist with a brain enhancement investigates a planet infected with a plague. The crew also includes an assassin, an engineer who has been jigsawwed together with surgeries, an addict medic, and a “nonmodded” captain who doesn’t like the nine year old, this has all the makings of a found family space opera.

POST-APOCALYPTIC

Earth 7 by Deb Olin Unferth (Graywolf, and Indie Press) - June 9 – Kind of a romance between a woman raised in a pod in the ocean and a woman who may or may not be a robot. But also earth is now a charcoal briquette and everyone has gone to Mars except a handful of holdouts trying to construct a molecular collection of Earth stuff for people to eventually repopulate. And what the hell is a soul globule? You’ll have to read Earth 7 to find out. 

The Withers by Lee Upton (Regal House Publishing) - June 23 – I mean kinda dystopian but also kind of a thriller, this is a post epidemic book where scars from the disease are called withers. A woman is living with the surgeon who saved her and his preggo wife, in a world where organ traffickers roam the streets. They have to fight to protect the woman and her fetus, and they’re calling this a “Grimm’s fairytale” like story.

SPECULATIVE / LITERARY SCI-FI

Sublimation by Isabel J. Kim (Macmillan/Tor) - June 2 – Imagine you immigrate to a new country. But the rule is, you get cloned, and only the clone gets to go and you have to stay. You’re cut in two, and you can keep in touch with your other self or not. The MC of this book does not, until she’s called back to Korea for a funeral. She doesn’t know that her original self plans to switch places with her. Obviously, this is a deep dive into the psychological effects of immigration. Do you love the Doppelgängers trope?

Green City Wars by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Macmillan/Tor) - June 2 – Genetically engineered animals do the work while humans relax in the sun. A racoon is hired to track down a very important mouse. Why is the mouse important? It has something everyone wants. A familiar story if told about humans, but I’m interested to see it told from animals perspective. I’ve never read an Adrian Tchaikovsky book, any of my scifi besties want to give me some opinions on whether I should?

Our Sister's Keeper by Jasmine Holmes (Bindery/Mareas Books, indie) - June 9 – In a fantasy retelling of a 1920’s era all-Black free town, women known as “carriers” pull traumatic memories from men so that the town is populated with men free of their pain, while the remnants of the past haunt the women. In a world where we expect Black Women to save us all, this book is an exploration of what it’s like to live with that expectation.

Voyagers by Meg Charlton (HarperCollins) - June 16 – a signal arrives from the edge of the solar system in a first contact story. While everyone on earth loses their collective shit, Alex’s old wounds are opened, because two decades ago, she and her friend Ana were abducted at age six. After which followed a media frenzy no child should endure, especially not after some trauma like that. Ana went on to be an advocate for the abducted while Alex tried to move on and forget. But now they are drawn back together in a story about friendship, family, and truth.

A City Dreaming by Maurice Broaddus, Book 3 in the Astra Black series (Macmillan/Tor) - June 30 – This series follows a young political leader, a woman in an elite military unit, and a captain of a starship, who are all part of the Muungano empire, a coalition of city states that stretches from Old Earth to Titan, in their quest to form an empire free of endless wars and oppression. This Afrofuturist spec fic series deserves a lot more press than it gets. Come on Tor, do better in your promotion!!!

The Moon Papers by Emmalea Russo (Arcade Publishing, Skyhorse) - June 30 – A controversial arts collective is going to launch a second moon from the Mojave Desert into Earth’s atmosphere in a project they are calling Moon 2. I am deeply concerned, but the book is coined as raucous, psychedelic, and humorous, which I am translating as publisher speak for, they think it’s funny as shit. But the description isn’t, so someone isn’t doing marketing properly. IDK, I need a preview to see if it’s any good.

The Young Die Old by Nguyễn Bình Phương with Khải Q. Nguyễn (translator) (Major Books, indie) - June 30 – This may be more of a fantasy, but in my searches for sci-fi it keeps popping up so the author must have filed it this way somewhere. Two feuding families fight for control of a buried treasure, but there reality blurs with hallucination, as spirits, doppelgängers, and collective guilt haunt the living. A society grapples with the aftershocks of war, repression, and silence, with a generation of children who age prematurely under the weight of unspoken histories. You won't find this one on Amazon, and hells yeah, fuck Bezos! You can find it here.

TIME TRAVEL

The Traveler by Joseph Eckert (Macmillan/Tor) - June 2 – at 7:51am, Scott Treder slips forward through time 24 hours. And every day, he slips again, losing double the amount of time each time slip. And while everyone ages normally, he doesn’t. His son ages beyond him. Years pass by in his marriage. It’s giving Click with Adam Sandler. I wonder how different it will be. Yall, this cover sucks. Nobody is going to buy this book based on this cover, what are you doing Tor???

Retro by Jessica M. Goldstein (Penguin Random House/Ballantine) - June 23 – An out of work actress takes a job as a time travel tour guide at a company called Retro, taking wealthy tourists on vacations to historical hot spots. She loves it, thrilling in the romance of an office crush and a 1937 private eye pursuing her. But slowly she notices some strange things happening to her memory and her relationships outside of Retro, and escaping into the past was never really an escape at all. I am wildly interested to see if this speaks to the escapism we justify with Netflix and doom scrolling and romance reading in the present.

ROMANCE

Moss'd in Space by Rebecca Thorne (Macmillan/Bramble) - June 30 – from the author of A Pirate’s Life for Tea comes this cozy sci-fi romance about a starship captain  who purchases a ship covered in Moss with an organic computer inside with a snarky attitude who loathes it’s builder because the immortal alien abandoned it. NGL, snarky AI’s in ships used to be my jam, but the way I’ve been feeling about real AI may change my enjoyment of them.

Plastic, Prism, Void by Violet Allen (LittlePuss Press, indie) – May 19 (shut your mouth, I missed this one and it deserves attention. It's pride month and this cover deserves praise alone, and that's before I've touched the book! Sue me. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.) Trans enemies to lovers in which a magical girl-gone-bad and a renegade mech pilot must find a way to stay on a date forever...even if it means destroying the world.

THRILLER

The Other by Annie Neugebauer (Shortwave Publishing, indie) - June 9 – this is a Book 2 Outsiders Sequence, which is a novella series. I’ve never read a novella series but I think I could get into that! Ten people head out on a backpacking trip, but the first night eleven set up camp. Everyone remembers everyone else. Who is the extra? That’s the premise of the first book. This one is about a couple on an outdoor retreat who meet their doppelgangers.

Obstetrix by Naomi Kritzer (Macmillan/Tordotcom) - June 2 – An out of work OBGYN who has gotten publicly crucified for offering abortion care is kidnapped by a cult to help birth their babies. And she gets kidnapped on page friggin 10. If you’ve been in a slump this one’s for you, I read it in a single sitting, and I have 3 kids at home for the summer while I’m trying to run a business. I generally don’t DO that. Crazy, seat of your pants, worth a read.

Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep by Paul Tremblay (HarperCollins/Morrow) - June 2 – So this semi professional gamer gets a nepotism job piloting a man in a vegetative state across the country, Weekend at Bernie’s style. He has an AI implant in his head and she can control his body using a cell phone. But he’s not dead. He’s living this grotesque hellscape where he doesn’t remember who he is or why there’s a rabbit tattoo on his arm. Their stories intertwine and they end up fugitives. Noooo, I didn’t give the plot twist away – it was right there in the book description!

ANTHOLOGY

Ring Shout on Saturn by Sheree Renée Thomas (Third Man Books, indie) - June 9 – Afrofuturist short stories that range from a prophet building a starship (very Noah’s Arc) to alien sisters navigating human complexities. And that cover? That’s an AMAZING cover and I’m here for it. This is actually book2 of the three book The Root and Sky series, but they're all short stories so there's no reason you can't go ahead and preorder this one, read it, then get the rest!

And an honorable mention to Lovecraft: Selected Stories, one of the Chiltern Classics being released on June 9. If you want to know more about my obsession with this set, read this. Or don't. Sometimes I'm convinced I'm living in a silo and nobody is reading any of this anyway. Either way, it's good practice writing, no?

See you next week. Because I'm still writing blogs, they just won't all be book lists of upcoming stuff. I need creative time as well as research time to feed my soul AND brain! (But not AI. Never that.)

— Zee

If you liked this and want more of whatever THIS is (unhinged book analysis, barely contained rage at the state of the world, and occasional Tamsyn Muir references and em dashes that I will never apologize for) consider subscribing for $5/month. Every cent goes to people who actually need it, because I have a day job and a cause, not a brand deal. This is my middle finger to Big 5 publishing, dressed up as a book blog. Come hold it up with me.

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​Updated June 5, 2026

Chiltern releases approximately 8 of these at a time once or twice per year - you can even buy journals to match. They are very sturdy and hold up well to reading and have gilted gold and silver edges. This is the perfect collection for someone who wants a readable set of classics. Here you go my doves:

​2026 July 21

Edgar Allan Poe: The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Stories

Villette by Charlotte Brontë

White Nights by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Ghost Stories by Charles Dickens

Lady Chatterley's Lover by David Herbert Lawrence

The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper

Lovecraft: Selected Stories by HP Lovecraft

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

The Kybalion by William Walker Atkinson

2026 February 17

Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne 9781914602764

2025 October 28

The Trial by Franz Kafka 9781914602719

2025 October 7

The Odyssey by Homer 9781914602726

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli 9781914602757

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson 9781914602733

A collection of verse by Jalal al-Din Rumi 9781914602696

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu 9781914602749

2025 August 19

Heidi by Joanna Spyri 9781914602597

2025 June 17

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift 9781914602535

2024 December 24

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery 9781914602580

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky 978191462627

Alice Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll 9781914602559

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson 9781914602566

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Dafoe 9781914602542

Hans Christian Anderson's Fairy Tales 9781914602528

King Lear by William Shakespeare 9781914602603

Macbeth by William Shakespeare 9781914602610

The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain 9781914602573

2024 December 10

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie 9781914602634

2024 October 1

Grimm's Fairy Tales 9781914602443

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame 9781914602511

Black Beauty by Anna Sewell 9781914602504

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain 9781914602474

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum 9781914602467

The Arabian Nights 9781914602481

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling 9781914602450

Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne 9781914602498

2024 January 30 (Postponed from November 21, 2023)

Call Of The Wild by Jack London 9781914602252

Hard Times by Charles Dickens 9781914602245

Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain 9781914602214

The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux 9781914602221

The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne 9781914602238

The Time Machine by H.G Wells 9781914602276

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James 9781914602269

​

2023 July 11 (postponed from May 30)

Cranford by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell 9781914602115

Hamlet by William Shakespeare 9781914602146

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad 9781914602153

The Iliad by Homer 9781914602108

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius 9781914602139

The Moonstone by William Wilkie Collins 9781914602177

Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie 9781914602191

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie 9781914602184

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens 9781914602207

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran 9781914602122

​

2022 Aug 22

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton 9781914602054

Animal Farm by George Orwell 9781914602061

Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy 9781914602016

Good Wives by Louisa May Alcott 9781914602009

Peter Pan by James Matthew Barrie 9781914602078

The Romantic Poets by Various Keats etc. 9781914602047

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare 9781914602030

Silas Marner by George Eliot 9781914602023

​

2021

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell 978-1912714988 (this was part of the 2021 release but was not released until Dec 27, 2022)

The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy 978-1912714957

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf 978-1912714926

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce 978-1912714971

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett 978-1912714940

The Sonnets by William Shakespeare 978-1912714919

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens 978-1912714964

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë 978-1912714933

​

2020

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll 978-1912714735

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens 978-1912714704

Dracula by Bram Stoker 978-1912714674

The Hound of Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle 978-1912714681

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert 978-1912714728

Moby Dick by Herman Melvile 978-1912714698

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar WIlde 978-1912714742

Tess of D'Ubervilles by Thomas Hardy 978-1912714711

​

2019

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 978-1912714339

Emma by Jane Austen 978-1912714261

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley 978-1912714322

The Little Prince by Antoine Saint-Exupéry 978-1912714308

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott 978-1912714292

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen 978-1912714285

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen 978-1912714278

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson 978-1912714315

​

2018

The Art of War by Sun Tzu 978-1912714056

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens 978-1912714001

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald 978-1912714063

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë 978-1912714018

Persuasion by Jane Austen 978-1912714025

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen 978-1912714032

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen 978-1912714049

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë 978-1912714070

Let’s talk about the books we all read in May!

Our fantasy pick was The Bone Ships by RJ Barker. I just finished this a couple of days ago and I unfortunately gave this one 2⭐️. I had a really hard time getting through this book. The beginning was extremely slow and it didn’t have a clear direction and story line until like 150pages into the book. The rest of the book was very slow moving until the very last like 10%. I can see the potential in this series and can understand why a lot of people love it, but personally the writing style and the pacing is not working for me so I will be DNFing the series ☹️

And speaking of DNFing… I did have to DNF our thriller pick, The Maidens by Alex Michaelides. I listened to this on audio and for the first two hours I was so extremely bored and kept zoning out so I decided to start over and try again. I then listened all the way to 80% and just couldn’t do it anymore. I was so extremely bored it felt like a waste of time by that point. I was very disappointed because the silent patient by this author is one of my favorite thrillers of all time. So I am so sorry to those of you who read this for Mays bookclub!

Recently Read: Started and finished Of Mice and Men the other day. This was my second reading of the book and WOW 🤯 can Steinbeck ever craft characters and an unforgettable story in under 120 pages with unique characters and voices.

Trigger warning - Hated the creature scenes. That stuff is never easy to read, but it had to happen for the story to fully develop and play out.

Have you read Of Mice and Men? Did you know that it is a frequently banned or challenged book?

Also....Damn Looney Tunes for representing George & Lennie in the most unforgettable way. If you know you know!