As Pride Month approaches, I wanted to share one of my all-time favorite YA romances that’s perfect for Pride Month: And They Were Roommates by Page Powars. I finished ATWR in 2025, and it remains one of the funniest, most delightful, and most welcoming stories I’ve read. 🥰

The paperback of ATWR just released on May 26, and Page’s next YA romcom, But I Hate Him, releases in August. It’s the perfect time to pick up ATWR for your Pride Month TBR (and preorder But I Hate Him!). 🥳

Thank you to Fierce Reads and Ro Romanello PR for sending me free copies of And They Were Roommates and But I Hate Him!

Let’s take a look at what we’ve accomplished and where the world can take us!

What Feeds Below by Tatiana Schlote Bonne, a horror fantasy releasing this October!

Cracks by Kristy Park Kulski, a literary horror releasing next April! (name change soft launch)

I’ve been thinking a lot about what might come next and I’m adding a couple of more categories! Here is what I’m interested in:

Indigenous Authors- horror, thriller, romance, coming of age or cozy mystery

Horror written by women of color

Horrormance! (Friends, I read Lethal Kiss by Taylor Grothe and I need more of this!)

Thrillers! written by women of color

Let me know down below what would excite you!

(Sitting on a manuscript? Email me)

🖤 Anathema is dark, gothic romantasy by Keri Lake, the first book in The Eating Woods series.

🖤 Maevyth is a human, but strange occurrences are happening with her. She knows not to venture into the misty trees, but one day situation forces her to. Life has been cruel to Zevander since birth. He is now the most calculated assassin. What happens when he captures Maevyth and things suddenly become very different.

🖤 The book has some good dark, gothic, eerie writings. The prologue itself made me shiver a little. The book is divided in 3 parts - their introduction, them meeting and the end. I liked part 1 and all the elements it introduced/described. Second and third could have had a faster pace. Also, I would have instead enjoyed part 2 about them getting to know each other, than it being due to mate bond.

🖤 3/5

🖤 Book is available on KU and all book sellers. I actually found it easier to read it on KU/digital format as it is a 600 page + hardcover. Sturdy shelf copy, but you may prefer your reading device if you read while sleeping like me :P

🖤 Author - @kerilake

🖤 Publisher - @read_bloom . Thank you so much @sourcebooks for this wonderful copy.

🖤 Dark gothic book recommendations • dark romantasy • Keri Lake • booktok • bookstagram •

Hi nerds,

One of my "fun facts" about myself is that I am red/green colorblind. According to AI-pilled Google, only 0.5% of the colorblind population are women. This is because it is an X-linked recessive trait, which women are highly unlikely to inherit it as they must inherit a mutated gene from both parents, rather than just one. Yeahhhhh not brag but I'm mutated!

I actually can see shades of red and green (what I see as red and green at least lol), but have trouble with pinks usually or muted sage-y greens. Fun! All of that to say Harrison Gerard and I have schemed on a new shirt (inspired by our mural) and we need YOU to pick the color way for us.

I love all of our children equally and color as much as the next guy but know from looking at our sales records that white/cream shirts sell the best so if you vote for the green ones you better buy one okkkkayyyyy!

#1, Match with rusty red type

#2, Cream with taupe type

#3, Pine with slate type

Happy voting and sorry for spoiling the new merch surprise :-).

Love,

CJ

Another week is upon us and I have a new set of books ready to go.

Last week I was able to finish out Accumulation, Trad Wife, Nowhere, and As Told Under The Moon.

This week I'm diving into...

Home Sick by Rhiannon Grist

Tamsin starts over in a remote cottage far away from her old life. But the cottage of her dreams is actually a split house with a very thin wall separating her from her neighbor. Her very odd neighbor...

Going To The Six by A.C. Hessenauer

A found footage horror book following a documentary crew investigating the wreck of a ship in Lake Superior.

What Hunger by Catherine Dang

A coming of age story about the daughter of a Vietnamese immigrant as she faces loss, generational trauma, and feminine rage.

What are you reading this week?

Hiya friends and Happy Tuesday!

I have some very exciting news! I have been plotting behind the scenes on a few particular things, and one of the things, has come to fruition! On my very first post, I posted a poll (Still live, if you're reading this and didn't vote) what are some things you would like to see from Not A Phase Books... and the top was a Quarterly Book Club, which has been implemented, and the runner up was Author Interviews/Chats! Which, as of today, begins JUNE 16th!!!

During my last newsletter, I spoke about two books I had read this month and could not shut up about. I also mentioned I was still stewing on some things about The Rainbow Ain't Never Been Enuf by Dr. Kaila Story and I needed a physical copy to really delve into the information I was receiving via audiobook. The reasoning, you ask? (Besides the fact that I'm a nerd and love to annotated?):

I present to you all lovely people, my first Not A Phase Books interview is with the incomparable Dr. Kaila Story, author of The Rainbow Ain't Never Been Enuf. This interview will take place Tuesday, June 16th from 12-1pm CST/1-2pm EST. I will do my best to record it for those of you unable to attend.

I told y'all I could not shut up about this book, and I meant it! It's such a necessary, much needed book, especially for white people in the LGBTQIA+ community. If you haven't heard of it, now is your time to get it! It's available on libro.fm here. If you need to annotate a physical copy like me, or just like an immersive read with both formats, you can also find it on my Bookshop affiliate page here.

I am truly, so excited to be speaking with her about not only this book, but the white washing of Pride, the commercialization of Pride, and honestly, all things queer related.

If you have any questions you'd like to ask, pop on over to my discord (for free) and leave them for me to ask in our discussion.

I will be posting the Zoom information within the coming week. (Please do not share it with anyone.)

I cannot wait to talk about this book, Pride, and all the things with you. Chat soon!

With all my trans joy,

Sawyer Cole

I’m currently reading The Knight and the Moth and this might be the perfect book to deep read.

It's a gothic romantasy set in a more historical world (no phones, horse riding, all that) and HIGHLY detailed.

Earlier this year, I tried the audiobook first and had to DNF because I genuinely couldn’t follow 😭 the language is so dense that you HAVE to slow down and actually sit with it.

I honestly never 'deep read' fantasy books, but if I was, I’d be tabbing:
– foreshadowing ( I feel like she's dropping so many hints)
– little details that feel important
– imagery
– character growth

this is one of those books where everything feels very intentional. No detail is just haphazardly thrown in.

I lowkey wanna go back and tab the prologue because I just know there was a ton of important info there… it didn’t really make sense at first, but now that I’m deeper in the story, I can tell it’s one of those “it all comes together later” situations.

This book is very mysterious, you kinda just have to keep reading and let the details build until you get the full picture.

I’m reading it casually right now, but I already know I’m probably missing things that would’ve been so good to annotate 😭and I don’t think every book needs to be annotated or tabbed, but this one?? this would be SUCH a good series to do that with… especially since it’s a shorter duology.

I’m not even done yet and it’s already a 5⭐️ for me… I might even like it more than One Dark Window