February might be the shortest month of the year, but that makes my determination to find, read, and fall in love with the most books possible my main goal. I would say having three 5⭐️ reads would accomplish that goal. I also have fallen in love with non-fiction and am craving non-fiction books. To me, that alone is peak goal reaching. I read a total of 17 books and 1 novella. I had an average rating of 4.12 ⭐️ with 6,680 pages read.

Here are my top 5 books from February:

1. The House of my Mother by Shari Franke

   *I do not rate memoirs*

I had never heard about 8 Passengers (even though I lived on Youtube in my teenage years) or the downfall of Ruby Franke. There is maybe a brief recollection if I think very hard about it, but otherwise, I went into Shari Franke's memoir blind and came out a different person. I personally think that children should not be on vlogging channels and their childhood put on the Internet. This here though showed that you never know what happens behind closed doors, even when someone lives in a glass house. The trauma that Shari endured, the abuse she was subjected to time and time again, and her frame of mind that there may be some good to come out of it in the end. I was horrified to hear of what Shari and her siblings experienced. Their lives documented, their actions, thoughts, and feelings manipulated to appease Ruby and Jodi's fantasies. I was appalled, broken, and hopeful for Shari. I wish to see her thrive and grow. To have a community, friends, and family that will support her rather than drag her down. I want this to be an example for so many that vlogging a child's life might not be all sunshine and roses the cameras make it out to be.

1. Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs

4.5⭐️

Imagine a book where the magic is spell books. Anyone can use the spell book, but they must give some of their blood to activate the spell. The spell does not last forever and the spell book fades over time with each use. There are some people who have the ability to feel the spell books, differentiate between regular and magic. Now, imagine where to create the spell book, you have to be a scribe and what you need to give is your blood... and lots of it. This is the foundation of Ink Blood Sister Scribe. The very very very basic foundation, but this is the foundation you want to know. No, need to know, because the rest of the book will suck you in. Not only is this a unique magic system I have never read about before, but it is also a standalone. Now if those two things don't convince you to read it, maybe knowing that I got 20% into this book and then all of a sudden I was finished and my mind was altered. I craved a book that would sink its teeth into me. I have never read a book quite like this and unless I read another book by Emma Törzs, I don't think I ever will.

1. A Time of Blood by John Gwynne

5⭐️

Since this is a sequel, I don't want to be someone that spoils a book for you. I'll just put it this way- I finished 'A Time of Dread' and then immediately picked up 'A Time of Blood.' I finished both of these books in about 72 hours. I would have finished them sooner if I didn't have to be an adult and go to work.

1. A Time of Dread by John Gwynne

5⭐️

Going back to the Banished Lands was the equivalent of drinking a large glass of water after being parched for days. Nothing has or will ever taste as good. You have the same writing style that you fall in love with during 'The Faithful and the Fallen,' a smattering of references from 'TFATF,' and the joy of the character work John Gwynne is known for. If you loved 'TFATF' and have been sitting on this series, get off your butt, pick this up, and fall in love all over again.

1. Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

5⭐️

This book made me fall in love with non-fiction, crave it, buy it, and read it. This is the first non-fiction book I have read since college and the first I have read without it being part of the syllabus. 'Just Mercy' follows Bryan Stevenson and his journey into helping the wrongly convicted on death row. It takes a deep dive into the United States justice system, the corruption littered throughout, how race, poverty, and mental health can all impact the outcome of a trial and the bias seen throughout the legal system. It was raw and heartbreaking. Each of the trials are based on true stories. The determination Bryan Stevenson has to save those on death row is hindered often by the same justice system that put them in there. I shed many tears while reading and was impacted by this book in more ways than one. I truly think this is a book that everyone should read. I am not just saying this because it's a good book, which it is, but because of the topics it covers, the important issues that take place on these pages, and the reality this book gives you.

Here are some March 10th new book releases on my radar (and should be on yours!). First, the ones I've had a chance to read:

Strange Girls by Sarvat Hasin 4.75/5 stars

Put this on your TBR if you enjoy messy lesbian lit fic with complex characters. This one is high in yearning.

The Complex by Karan Mahajan 4.5/5 stars

Put this on your TBR if you enjoy family drama and political intrigue (in this one, they're one and the same). We know from the start that a tragedy happens...but then go back to the beginning to explain why.

Whidbey by T Kira Madden 4.5/5 stars

Put this on your TBR if you appreciate discussions around who gets to tell a victim's story and the tendency of white women to speak over women of color. This has dark subject matter, but handles it thoughtfully.

Centroeuropa by Sarvat Hasin 3.5/5 stars

Put this on your TBR if you enjoy queer translated fiction with magical realism elements.

And the three I'm still waiting to get my hands on:

All the World Can Hold by Jung Yun

Why it interests me: it brings together people from different backgrounds to explore intriguing themes of needs and wants, regrets, and personal drama.

The Fox and the Devil by Kiersten White

Why it interests me: these words from the blurb: sapphic, vampire hunter, gothic.

You Should Have Been Nicer to my Mom by Vincent Tirado

Why it interests me: a gothic horror book centering an inheritance and a creepy house.

The Inner Circle Tier has a perk called “early access and 10% off of PangoBooks listings” that, up to this point, has been pretty useless–but no more! We are locking in and actually doing an unhaul! And I decided that follower-tier Bindery members will also get early access–so all of this applies to y’all as well, with the exception of the 10% off. 

Every month, I pull probably close to a dozen books off of my shelf to get rid of–whether because I tried to read them and DNFed, I read them and maybe liked them but didn’t love them, I ended up with duplicate copies, or it’s been sitting unread on my shelves for who knows how long and I simply don’t think I’ll ever get rid of it. For the last…several months (years), I have just stacked these books into corners and proceeded to not actually list them on Pango, which has led to the number of books getting more and more overwhelming, and now we’re up to a pretty massive backlog…340 books (and 47 ARCs), to be exact.

My current plan is to list these in batches of 50ish books (about as many as I can do in an hour) each weekend over the next month and a half starting next weekend–which means that early access for y’all begins today!

I’m an over-explainer, so you can either read everything I have to say, or just read this quick TL;DR first and scroll down to the bottom to see the pictures.

How It Works (TL:DR)

1. You look at the pictures below (higher res pics are in #unahul)

2. You go to #unhaul on discord and send a list of any books you may be interested in

3. I respond with a price breakdown of the books (individually and cumulatively, as well as shipping cost, and discount amount if Inner Circle)

4. You confirm which (if any) books you will purchase by Friday, March 13, at noon PST

5. I post listings of those books on PangoBooks Friday evening and send you the link

6. You buy the listing called “for YOURNAME”

7. I ship the books on Saturday, March 14, at 2pm PST (if you don’t purchase it by then, your book may not ship until the following week!)

Info About the Books

• Books are in very good/excellent condition or better (minor shelf wear or remainder marks will be the extent of damage)

• Books come from a smoke free, pet-friendly home

• Books marked with a yellow star are signed

• Books marked with a blue heart have disability rep

• ARCs are free add-ons but will add to shipping weight/cost

I have more info about PangoBooks and price estimates in the longer explanation.

How It Works (full explanation)

Things are going to work a little differently for this unhaul compared to future ones simply by nature of how big it is–it would take me hours and hours to price out every book here right now, so instead I’ll post pictures of all of the books below and in the #unhaul channel over on discord, and you can send a message in that channel mentioning any of the books that you may or may not be interested in, and I will price out those books individually and you can say which (if any) you want and we can go from there.

In the future, I’m hoping to stay caught up by doing unhauls every other month or so, which would be more like 20-30 books at a time–in those cases I’ll have the prices ahead of time, but for now that’s not so doable (it takes a while, which is why I intend to do like 50 per week).

However, I wanted to give a ballpark of how the pricing tends to look.

I sell on PangoBooks, so I price out books based on other listings of the same edition. Generally I try to either match the lowest price of the same edition (in the same condition) or go ~50 cents less than that amount. As stated earlier, as Inner Circle members, you will get 10% off of whatever that price would be.

For backlist titles this usually amounts to about ¼ - ⅓ of cover price. 

So a YA hardcover tends to go for $4-6, an adult hardcover may be more like $7-10, a YA paperback would tend to be $3-4, and an adult paperback might be around $4-6.

Newer releases tend to be around ½ of cover price, give or take (depends on popularity and just how recent of a release it is).

Special Editions vary drastically. Some are going to be $10, others may be closer to $75 depending on the popularity of the title & edition. 

I also have a few signed editions–for the most part these are personalized and/or are not especially popular books, so this will either not affect the price at all (or maybe by like, a dollar), but a few of the more popular signed books (like Powerless & Reckless) can be worth more once priced out. Signed books are marked with a yellow star in the images.

Once you’ve sent a message in the discord requesting pricing info, those books are “on hold” for you. First come, first serve. I’ll send the pricing info as soon as I can, and you’ll have until noon (PST) Saturday to confirm that you want the book(s). If you haven’t confirmed by then, the books go back up for grabs.

You are, of course, welcome to request more pictures of any books you’re interested in! Unfortunately these books are at my parents’ and I head back to my apartment for the week in a little over an hour, but if I’m already gone by the time you request the books, I’ll send the pictures as soon as I’m back, either Thursday evening or Friday afternoon.

I will list your books on PangoBooks on Friday evening. I’ll send you a link to the listing, or it can be found here on my Pango profile. It will be titled “for YOURNAME”. Any books purchased by 2pm on Saturday will be guaranteed to be shipped the day of. I hope to also get to the post office on my way back to campus on Sunday night (my local post office accepts packages on Sundays, they just don’t process them until Monday) or Monday morning, but I can’t guarantee that, and you may have to wait until the following weekend. 

I am exclusively using PangoBooks for these transactions for a couple reasons:

1. It simplifies things on my end to not have to balance multiple payment methods.

2. Pango creates shipping labels for me, which also simplifies the process for me.

3. They have pretty great protections in place for both the buyer and seller both transactionally and in terms of shipping damage.

4. They provide shipment tracking info for you guys.

5. It allows y’all to use any discounts or PangoBucks that you may have!

The only downside to this is that it is US-only, I believe. But with everything going on here with tariffs and such, shipping outside of the country wasn’t a viable option anyway. Sorry, international friends!

All books are in very good/excellent or better condition. 

Books come from a smoke-free, pet friendly (dog and cats) home.

Books marked with a blue heart have disability rep–some others likely do as well, these were just the ones I remembered off the top of my head. 

ALSO! There are ARCs in here which, of course, are not actually “for sale”! If you buy any other book(s), you can add on as many ARCs as you’re interested in for just the cost of shipping (approximately $1 per book).

I do have a code CHRONICALLYBOOKISH at checkout for an additional $5.00 off your first ever PangoBooks order!

If the timing of this “early access” doesn’t work for you and you’re an inner circle member, you still get 10% off any active listings on my Pango as well–just shoot me a message before purchase and I’ll throw together a discounted bundle for you.

I’m aware that was all… a lot of information--I warned you I’m an over-explainer!--but hopefully it makes sense! Here are the books (if the quality is fuzzy, I apologize--there are higher quality pics on Discord. Unfortunately, Bindery's interface isn't the best with photos):

Hello Everyone,

I've attached the weekly community calendar of when you can expect posts from me! our Discord reading sprints and community actions.

A few things to note:

• There is one set day for Discord reading sprints (Friday the 13th, oooooh) I might add a Saturday or Sunday, just not sure what my weekend looks like yet

• On Wednesday, I'm asking everyone to share a post about What Feeds Below. This could look like, a review, a photo of the cover, or just reposting something that I or Tatianna post! The goal is to make sure people are seeing What Feeds Below in their feeds!

• Saturday is support our Bookstore day! This month, Boozhoo Books is supporting Black Walnut Books, an indie Indigenous, queer woman owned bookstore. The idea is that we all buy at lease one book from her this Saturday (I tried to make it after pay day!) You can buy directly from her site or you can click any of the books on one of Bindery posts and you can support us both at the same time. This would also be a GREAT TIME :) to preorder a copy of What Feeds Below! Your early preorders could help guarantee we get to publish a book in Fall 2027! There are over 2,000 of us here. Imagine the difference we can make in one day for an indie bookstore and an author.

  

Bookclub Weekly (join the Discord)

Good Day To Read Indigenous: The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich: The Wake up Shave-The Star POWOW, pg 116-228

Women in Horror: The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson: Chapter 10-19 (read until Part 2, pg 91-176

Reading Indigenous voices on identity is a great way to understand history that has been suppressed, to correct false narratives and to counter erasure. Here are some books by Indigenous authors, both fiction and non-fiction, that center on Indigenous identity to add to your TBR.

Non Fiction

1. The Indian Card: Who Gets To Be Native In America by Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz,

A groundbreaking and deeply personal exploration of Tribal enrollment, and what it means to be Native American in the United States.

1. Truth Telling: Seven Conversations About Indigenous Life in Canada by Michelle Good

A provocative collection of essays exploring the historical and contemporary Indigenous experience in Canada.

1. Thunder Song: Essays by Sasha LaPointe

Drawing on a rich family archive as well as the anthropological work of her late great-grandmother, Sasha LaPointe explores themes ranging from indigenous identity and stereotypes to cultural displacement and environmental degradation to understand what our experiences teach us about the power of community, commitment, and conscientious honesty.

Unapologetically punk, the essays in Thunder Song segue from the miraculous to the mundane, from the spiritual to the physical, as they examine the role of art—in particular music—and community in helping a new generation of indigenous people claim the strength of their heritage while defining their own path in the contemporary world.

4: Making Love With The Land: Essays by Joshua Whitehead

A moving and deeply personal excavation of Indigenous beauty and passion in a suffering world

In prose that is evocative and sensual, unabashedly queer and visceral, raw and autobiographical, Joshua Whitehead writes of an Indigenous body in pain, coping with trauma.

Deeply rooted within, he reaches across the anguish to create a new form of storytelling he calls "biostory"—beyond genre, and entirely sovereign. Through this narrative perspective, Making Love with the Land recasts mental health struggles and our complex emotional landscapes from a nefarious parasite on his (and our) well-being to kin, even a relation, no matter what difficulties they present to us. Whitehead ruminates on loss and pain without shame or ridicule but rather highlights waypoints for personal transformation.

Written in the aftermath of heartbreak, before and during the pandemic, Making Love with the Land illuminates this present moment in which both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people are rediscovering old ways and creating new ones about connection with and responsibility toward each other and the land.

1. Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future by Patty Krawec

   The invented history of the Western world is crumbling fast, Anishinaabe writer Patty Krawec says, but we can still honor the bonds between us. Settlers dominated and divided, but Indigenous peoples won't just send them all "home."

   Weaving her own story with the story of her ancestors and with the broader themes of creation, replacement, and disappearance, Krawec helps listeners see settler colonialism through the eyes of an Indigenous writer.

   Settler colonialism tried to force us into one particular way of living, but the old ways of kinship can help us imagine a different future. Krawec asks, What would it look like to remember that we are all related? How might we become better relatives to the land, to one another, and to Indigenous movements for solidarity? Braiding together historical, scientific, and cultural analysis, Indigenous ways of knowing, and the vivid threads of communal memory, Krawec crafts a stunning, forceful call to "unforget" our history.

   This remarkable sojourn through Native and settler history, myth, identity, and spirituality helps us retrace our steps and pick up what was lost along the way: chances to honor rather than violate treaties, to see the land as a relative rather than a resource, and to unravel the history we have been taught

Fiction

1. There There by Tommy Orange

   A wondrous and shattering award-winning novel that follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize.

2. A Girl Called Echo by Katerina Vermette

   Echo Desjardins, a 13-year-old Métis girl adjusting to a new home and school, is struggling with loneliness while separated from her mother. Then an ordinary day in Mr. Bee’s history class turns extraordinary, and Echo’s life will never be the same. During Mr. Bee’s lecture, Echo finds herself transported to another time and place―a bison hunt on the Saskatchewan prairie―and back again to the present. In the following weeks, Echo slips back and forth in time. She visits a Métis camp, travels the old fur-trade routes, and experiences the perilous and bygone era of the Pemmican Wars.

3. The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich (our bookclub read this month!)

Based on the extraordinary life of National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich’s grandfather who worked as a night watchman and carried the fight against Native dispossession from rural North Dakota all the way to Washington, D.C., this powerful novel explores themes of love and death with lightness and gravity and unfolds with the elegant prose, sly humor, and depth of feeling of a master craftsman.

1. Buffalo is the New Buffalo by Chelsea Vowell

   Powerful stories of “Métis futurism” that envision a world without violence, capitalism, and colonization.

   “Education is the new buffalo” is a metaphor widely used among Indigenous peoples in Canada to signify the importance of education to their survival and ability to support themselves, as once Plains nations supported themselves as buffalo peoples. The assumption is that many of the pre-Contact ways of living are forever gone, so adaptation is necessary. But Chelsea Vowel asks, “Instead of accepting that the buffalo, and our ancestral ways, will never come back, what if we simply ensure that they do?”
   
   Inspired by classic and contemporary speculative fiction, Buffalo Is the New Buffalo explores science fiction tropes through a Métis lens: a Two-Spirit rougarou (shapeshifter) in the nineteenth century tries to solve a murder in her community and joins the nêhiyaw-pwat (Iron Confederacy) in order to successfully stop Canadian colonial expansion into the West. A Métis man is gored by a radioactive bison, gaining super strength, but losing the ability to be remembered by anyone not related to him by blood. Nanites babble to babies in Cree, virtual reality teaches transformation, foxes take human form and wreak havoc on hearts, buffalo roam free, and beings grapple with the thorny problem of healing from colonialism.
   
   Indigenous futurisms seek to discover the impact of colonization, remove its psychological baggage, and recover ancestral traditions. These eight short stories of “Métis futurism” explore Indigenous existence and resistance through the specific lens of being Métis. Expansive and eye-opening, Buffalo Is the New Buffalo rewrites our shared history in provocative and exciting ways.

2. Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley

   Perry Firekeeper-Birch has always known who she is - the laidback twin, the troublemaker, the best fisher on Sugar Island. Her aspirations won't ever take her far from home, and she wouldn't have it any other way. But as the rising number of missing Indigenous women starts circling closer to home, as her family becomes embroiled in a high-profile murder investigation, and as greedy grave robbers seek to profit off of what belongs to her Anishinaabe tribe, Perry begins to question everything.
   
   In order to reclaim this inheritance for her people, Perry has no choice but to take matters into her own hands. She can only count on her friends and allies, including her overachieving twin and a charming new boy in town with unwavering morals. Old rivalries, sister secrets, and botched heists cannot - will not - stop her from uncovering the mystery before the ancestors and missing women are lost forever.
   
   Sometimes, the truth shouldn't stay buried.

• Which ones have you read? Which ones are on your TBR? Which ones are you reading soon?

• To join the bookclub, join the Discord!

• As a reminder, any book purchased through my bookshop this month, benefits Black Walnut Books, an Indigenous, Woman and Queer owned bookstore. Check these books out below!

A busier sunday than usual, but I enjoy the reset of a new week! It's like a breath of fresh air!

My reading has been all over the place (when hasn't it been as a mood reader) but I picked up this adorable graphic that had me cheesing. I would say that between The Heir of Prophecy and this, I am having an incredible time!

Stay tuned for my review!

I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend 🍄

I thought it would be fun to showcase all the Arcs I've received both digitally and physically! This is always changing, with more constantly being added because I can't say no haha!

Starting with Digital. These book have either been recieved via netgalley or directly from the author/publisher.

Wolf Worm by T. Kingfisher--In 1899, a woman accepts the job of illustrating a scientists collection of insects. Something strange is happening in the small South Carolina town, and Sonia must figure out what before she's the one under the knife. Releasing March 24th.

Morsel by Carter Keane-- A property appraisal in the rural hills of Ohio gets Lou stuck in the throws of Appalachian Horror. Releases April 14th.

Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker--A house in Japan hold ghosts and deadly secrets. Told between two different timelines. Releases April 14th

Molka by Monika Kim--A woman seeks revenge as a hidden camera scandal destroys her life. Releases April 28th

The Blood Year Daughter by GG Silverman-- A collection of dark fairytales. Releases April 28th

Dark is When The Devil Comes by Daisy Pearce-- A missing sister and a secretive small town with deadly woods. Releases April 28th

Not Your Final Girl by Mikalya Randolph--Seven years after a prom night massacre, a group of friends/survivors host a reunion at a lakeside cabin. But when a masked murderer shows up and kills one of the group, they must fight to survive the night. Releases May 5th

I Know a Place by Nat Cassidy-- A collection of short horror stories (including Rest Stop) by the amazing Nat Cassidy. Releases May 5th

Dead Weight by Hildur Knutsdottir-- An unlikely friendship takes a dark turn. Releases May 26th

Dopefoot by Joshua Millican--A job on a cannibas farm isn't as chill as "Harmless" thought it would be. Tensions rise as both human and supernatural forces descend on the farm. Releases June 16th.

Corpse de Ballet by Megan Kearny-- A ballet boarding school turns deadly in this Graphic novel similar to Suspiria and Black Swan. Releases July 7th

Home Sick by Rhiannon Grist-- I have both the physcial and e-arc of this one. A woman's fresh start to a small remote cottage takes a sinister turn when her neighbor begins acting off. Releases July 14th.

Meat Bees by Dane Erbach--A trip to the Smoky Mountains to care for her dad turns deadly when Wasps begin eating people. Releases August 4th.

She's A Doll by Barbara Truelove-- A murdered woman possesses a antique porcelain doll to see revenge. Releases October 6th

What Feeds Below by Tatiana Schlote-Bonne--When her best friend goes missing, Petra must plunge deep into the chasm at the edge of the city. But she's unaware the true horrors beneath. Releases October 6th.

Physical Arcs

Bitter Bloom by Teagan Olivia King-- A woman must brave the dark wood in hopes to bring her mother back from the dead. Accompanying her is a Lord and ghost. Betrayal and love lurks within. Releases March 1oth

Monumental by Adam Nevill-- A kayak trip goes wrong for a group of friends who quickly find themselves having to survive nature and supernatural forces. Releases April 2nd.

Carrion Crow by Heather Parry--Strange, intense, and darkly beautiful, this haunting gothic novel from award-winning author Heather Parry is a story of mothers and daughters, and the dual capacity for both great kindness and unfathomable cruelty. Releases July 3rd.

Partially Devoured by Daniel Kraus--Partially Devoured uses a frame-by-frame deep dive into Night of the Living Dead to produce a kaleidoscopic cultural investigation of the film's importance and to examine the author's early life of rural isolation and local violence. Releases March 13th

Do we have any Arcs in common?

Happy Sunday, mis internet amigxs!

It's time to select our May - June Latine nonfiction sidequest read for those interested in joining us. The subgenre we decided was memoir and we have 3 fantastic reads to chose from. I'll also post the same poll on Discord and will weight results of both on Tues Learn a little about each book below:

Accordion Eulogies: A Memoir of Music, Migration, and Mexico by Noe Alvarez (Audiobook) One of the books suggested for Latine memoir was Magical/Realism by Vanessa Angelica Villarreal and this is the one that I immediately thought of as it's replacement since we'd already read Villarreal's work in an earlier book club. This is not only the story of Alvarez's grandfather and his accordian, but the history of the instrument and discovery of indigenous Mexican history.

Mother Island: A Daughter Claims Puerto Rico by Jamie Figueroa (Audiobook) Jamie was raised in the Midwest, far from her culture and Puerto Rican heritage. This is her exploration of her identity as told through assimilation through the folklore and mythology of the island as well as it's great wealth of women writers that ultimately explores who we become when we're not trying to be someone else.

The Eternal Forest: A Memoir of the Cuban Diaspora by Elena Sheppard (Audiobook) Sheppard's parents escaped Cuba in 1960 shortly after the revolution and she was the first in her family born in the United States. This book tells not only the story of her family exile, but that of revolution through personal recollections, historical texts and myth.

Book recommendations shape reading culture. A short list of titles moves across social media again and again. The same names appear under every post asking for sapphic romance. You know the list before you open the comments.

For a reader who loves sapphic stories, the pattern feels exhausting.

When we ask for sapphic book recommendations, the responses flood in, but they are all the same popular trad-published books over and over again. A handful of authors dominate the conversation. Many write great books. Many deserve praise. The problem lies in the repetition. A small circle of names ends up standing in for an entire community.

Sapphic romance holds far more than a short list of recommendations.

Women and femmes write across genres, identities, and cultural experiences. Black lesbians write stories about joy, and culture. Disabled sapphic authors write romance where access and care sit at the center. Trans women write stories about desire, transformation, and belonging. Indigenous writers explore land, language, and kinship through queer love stories. Immigrant authors write about diaspora, family pressure, and found family.

Many readers never hear about those books.

Algorithms reward repetition. A recommendation culture built on repetition erases huge sections of the sapphic reading world. The cycle tightens and visibility shrinks.

Look at how requests often appear online.

Someone asks for a sapphic fantasy. The replies list two or three titles - The Priory of the Orange Tree and The Jasmine Throne. Not that those books aren’t epic, but there are so many more out there. The Curse of the Goddess by C.C. Gonzalez, The Balance of Fate by Raquel Raelynn, or The Fall that Saved Us by Tamara Jeree are three incredible fantasies I never see talked about.

Someone asks for a sapphic sports romance. The replies list the same two authors Meryl Wilsner’s Cleat Cute and maybe a YA author or two? What about The Baton Rougue Bayou Series by Aricka Alexander or Love and Sportsball by Meka James, Half Court Shot by Kimani Mae or Summer Breakdown by J.S. Jasper.

Someone asks for historical sapphic romance. And all we get are Olivie Waite and Sarah Water’s recommendations. What about That Could Be Enough by Alyssa Cole or A Million to One by Adiba Jaigirdar.

Each time you recycle a recommendation, hundreds of other stories remain invisible.

Those missing books carry different bodies, different cultures, different kinds of love.

Some focus on working class lesbians navigating economic pressure like Make Room for Love by Darcy Laio. Some center queer women of color building community like in the Peach Blossom Series by Karmen Lee. Some explore late in life love between older women like Margin of Error by Rachel Lacy. Some tell stories about trans lesbians finding joy in their bodies. Some focus on femmes who resist narrow beauty standards. Some step outside Western settings. Some challenge the structure of romance itself.

When recommendations are narrow, readers lose access to those stories.

A wider approach to recommending books shifts the entire reading experience.

Start by asking a different question before recommending a title. Instead of asking which book is most popular (because chances are they have already read it), ask which voices rarely appear in the conversation. Search for small press releases. Look at anthologies. Follow reviewers who focus on marginalized sapphic voices.

Your recommendation list will change quickly.

You’ll go from a list of five repeating titles to a long list of hundreds of stories. Different cultures. Different genres. Different forms of desire. Different visions of queer life.

Both you and other readers will benefit from that shift.

Someone searching for a sapphic book deserves more than the same three answers. They deserve access to the full range of queer storytelling.

Recommending widely changes how communities read.

One new recommendation introduces a reader to a writer who rarely receives attention. That reader shares the book with friends. A book club picks it up. Another reader writes a review. The story moves further into the world.

Visibility grows through intentional choices.

If you love sapphic books, think about your next recommendation. Look past the familiar titles. Search for authors whose stories expand the picture of sapphic life.

Your next recommendation might introduce someone to a story they never knew existed.

That’s what I try to do here, push readers beyond the books that traditional publishing think are marketable to the stories that deeply shape our community.

📖⚔️ New Book Club Kit for Blood of Hercules

If your book club has been craving morally gray chaos, gladiator tension, Underworld heirs with attitude, and a heroine who refuses to stay down this is your moment. 🩸🔥🏛️

We’re stepping into the brutal, unhinged world of Blood of Hercules by Jasmine Mas, and this kit is built for the readers who like their mythology dark, their romance dangerous, and their heroines absolutely feral.

The Vibe: From Survival Mode to Immortality

Alexis isn’t trying to be a hero, she's trying to survive. But when a blood test lands her at the Spartan War Academy, survival isn’t enough anymore.

Immortality must be earned.
Mentors may be manipulating you.
The Underworld heirs are watching.
And everyone might be a villain.

If your group loves:

⚔️ Academy trials
🕯 Broody power players
🔥 “Touch her and die” energy
🩸 Fate vs free will debates

You’re about to have the most chaotic meeting of the year.

What’s Inside the Kit?

This isn’t just a discussion guide. It’s an initiation.

📖 Discussion Guide
Power, survival, morally gray mentors, immortality politics, and the question we all screamed at least once: Would you actually survive this academy?

🍷 Feast of the Immortals Menu
Pomegranate Blood Spritz, Spartan Power Skewers, Olympus mezze boards, and dark chocolate Immortality lava cakes.

🏟 Interactive Activities
• Claim Your Immortality blood test reveal
• Gladiators vs Underworld Heirs debate
• Academy Training Challenge planks + mythology trivia + dramatic monologues
• Fate or Choice? confession circle

🎁 Themed Door Prizes
Immortality token rings, mythology bookmarks, Underworld candles, and a printable Spartan War Academy Acceptance Letter.

Yes. It’s dramatic.
Yes. It’s extra.
Yes. Your group will love it.

Are You Ready to Enter the Academy?

Whether your club wants to dissect Alexis’s rise from survivor to threat, argue over which morally gray menace you’d align with, or stage the most dramatic monologue your living room has ever seen, this kit turns your meeting into a full Spartan War Academy initiation.

👉Access the Full Book Club Kit Tap the Link https://tinyurl.com/ms39cd3k

⚔️ Let’s Debate:
If you were admitted to the Academy, would you fight for immortality or burn Olympus down instead?

Drop your answer below, Gladiators. 🩸🔥📖

We came for Greek mythology, we stayed for the trauma bonding and morally gray gladiators. 🗡️🔥

👩🏻The Mythology Girlie: A Spartan War Academy where immortality is earned in literal blood? Inject it into my veins.

👩🏽The Slow-Burn Lover: The tension. The longing. The broody heirs to the underworld?? I was unwell.

👩🏼The Cynic: I thought I was over academy tropes. I was wrong. The classrooms being battlegrounds? Obsessed!

👩🏾The Chaos Reader: Augustus and Kharon stalking the edges of every scene? I need a moment. Or ten.

👱🏼‍♀️The Emotional One: Alexis isn’t a chosen one who wants glory she’s a survivor. Watching her fight for something she never asked for hit hard.

👩🏻‍🦱The Annotator: Heroes are villains. Gods are monsters. Everyone needs therapy. Five stars.

Alexis Hert starts this story just trying to survive, only to find out the Fates have much bigger and bloodier plans. The Spartan War Academy is brutal gladiators like Achilles and Patro don’t train you nicely; they break you down and rebuild you into something lethal. Immortality isn’t gifted. It’s carved out of you.

We loved how ruthless this world feels. The stakes are constant. The power dynamics? Deliciously messy. And the romantic tension simmering under all that violence? Top tier!

By the end we were emotionally attached to morally questionable men, and ready to enroll immediately!

❓️If immortality meant surviving a deadly academy run by gods and monsters are you signing up, or are you staying mortal and safe?👀🔥

❗️If your book club is interested in read this book and want a book club discussion guide with themed recipes, activities and more than come join The First Editions on Bindery! The link is in our bio!

We are officially a week into our Goosebumps Bookclub! If you haven’t already, come join the Discord to chat about the books!

Today’s post will focus on book recommendations that are similar to the book. If you haven’t already, read the book before continuing on to avoid potential spoilers.

You Can’t Scare Me focuses a lot on pranks to try and scare the fearless girl, Courtney. Near the end, we get to see an urban legend—The Mud Monsters—come to life.

The below books feature urban legends and even a few legend impersonations becoming real!

The Monsters We Made by Peyton June

To save her family’s struggling ranch, 18-year-old Claire fabricates a video of her hometown’s legendary alien cryptid, Old Lucky, that grabs the attention of paranormal vloggers Lenny and Evan. Lenny is plagued with doubts about their channel’s future, so catching Old Lucky might just be her chance at finding something real.

After Evan deserts Lenny, believing the investigation to be a hoax, Claire agrees to “help” Lenny uncover the history of Old Lucky—and preserve her deceit. But the more the girls are drawn together and the more clues they unearth, the more secrets rise to the surface. The cows are being mutilated, the ranch hand has disappeared, and the strange lights in the sky are back. Something inhuman lurks in Scarberry, where danger lives close to home.

Releasing in June, this book reminded me of this one just by the synopsis. A faked urban legend becoming real.

A Misfortune Of Lake Monsters by Nicole M. Wolverton

Lemon Ziegler wants to escape rural Devil’s Elbow, Pennsylvania to attend college—but that’s impossible now that she’s expected to impersonate the town’s lake monster for the rest of her life. Her family has been secretly keeping the tradition of Old Lucy, the famed (and very fake) monster of Lake Lokakoma, alive for generations, all to keep the tourists coming. Without Lemon, the town dies, and she can’t disappoint her grandparents . . . or tell her best friends about any of it. That includes Troy Ramirez, who has been covertly in love with Lemon for years, afraid to ruin their friendship by confessing his feelings. When a very real, and very hungry monster is discovered in the lake, secrets must fall by the wayside. Determined to stop the monster, Lemon and her best friends are the only thing standing between Devil’s Elbow and the monster out for blood.

Again, a hoax coming to life made me think of the book!

The October Film Haunt by Michael Wehunt

Ten years ago, Jorie Stroud was the rising star of the October Film Haunt – a trio of horror enthusiasts who camped out at the filming locations of their favorite scary movies, sharing their love through their popular blog. But after a night in the graveyard from Proof of Demons – perhaps the most chilling cult film ever made, directed by the enigmatic Hélène Enriquez – everything unraveled.

Now, Jorie has built an isolated life with her young son in Vermont. In the devastating wake of her viral, truth-stretching Proof of Demons blog entry ― hysteria, internet backlash, and the death of a young woman ― Jorie has put it all, along with her intense love for the horror genre, behind her.

Until a videotape arrives in the mail. Jorie fears someone might be filming her. And the “Rickies” – Enriquez obsessives who would do anything for the reclusive director – begin to cross lines in shocking ways. It seems Hélène Enriquez is making a new kind of sequel…and Jorie is her final girl.

As the dangers grow even more unexpected and strange, Jorie must search for answers before the Proof of the movie’s title finds her and takes everything she loves.

This one feels like a creepypasta come to life when the urban legend surrounding a cult film becomes real...

Maggie's Grave by David Sodergren

The small Scottish town of Auchenmullan is dead, and has been for years. It sits in the shadow of a mountain, forgotten and atrophying in the perpetual gloom.
Forty-seven residents are all that remain.
There's nothing to do there, nothing to see, except for a solitary grave near the top of the mountain.
MAGGIE WALL BURIED HERE AS A WITCH reads the faded inscription.
But sometimes the dead don't stay buried. Especially when they have unfinished business.

A town's urban legend comes to life and begins causing havok.

And lastly

Jack O Dander by Priya Sharma

The sister of an abducted child is haunted by a sinister figure who may or may not be real. . .

This one is a quick read that follows a family and the impact an urban legend had on the children.

What book do you think pairs well with You Can't Scare Me?