3 stars – six of queens reads

REVIEW: Flawless Girls

Anna-Marie McLemore
Published: 28th May 2024
Genre: horror, lgbt, romance, young adult
Spoilers?: no

The Soler sisters are infamous in polite society—brazen, rebellious, and raised by their fashionable grandmother who couldn’t care less about which fork goes where. But their grandmother also knows the standards that two Latina young ladies will be held to, so she secures them two coveted places at the Alarie House, a prominent finishing school that turns out first ladies, princesses, and socialites.

Younger sister Isla is back home within a day. She refuses to become one of the eerily sweet Alarie girls in their prim white dresses. Older sister Renata stays. When she returns months later, she’s unfailingly pleasant, unnervingly polite, and, Isla discovers, possibly murderous. And the same night she returns home, she vanishes.

As their grandmother uses every connection she has to find Renata, Isla re-enrolls, intent on finding out what happened to her sister. But the Alarie House is as exacting as it is opulent. It won’t give up its secrets easily, and neither will a mysterious, conniving girl who’s either controlling the house, or carrying out its deadly orders.

Tautly written, tense, and evocative, this is a stunning YA novel by award-winning and critically acclaimed author Anna-Marie McLemore.

REVIEW: Spitting Gold

Carmella Lowkis
Published: 14th May 2024
Genre: historical, lgbt
Spoilers?: alluded to

Storygraph | Goodreads

An atmospheric, irresistible gothic historical debut set in 19th century Paris, following two con-artist sisters who pose as gifted mediums to pull off one last job . . .

Paris, 1866. When Baroness Sylvie Devereux receives a house-call from Charlotte Mothe, the sister she disowned, she fears her shady past as a spirit medium has caught up with her. But with their father ill and Charlotte unable to pay his bills, Sylvie is persuaded into one last con.

Their marks are the de Jacquinots: dysfunctional aristocrats who believe they are haunted by their great aunt, brutally murdered during the French Revolution. Sylvie and Charlotte will need to deploy every trick to terrify the family out of their gold – until they experience inexplicable horrors themselves.

The sisters start to question if they really are at the mercy of a vengeful spirit. And what other deep, dark secrets threaten to come to light…?

REVIEW: The Sins on Their Bones

Laura R. Samotin
Published: 7th May 2024
Genre: fantasy, lgbt
Spoilers?: no

Storygraph | Goodreads

nspired by Jewish mysticism and folklore, this queer dark fantasy debut is perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo, C.S. Pacat, Ava Reid, and Katherine Arden, set in a fantastical reimagining of 19th century Eastern Europe.

Dimitri Alexeyev used to be the Tzar of Novo-Svitsevo. Now, he is merely a broken man, languishing in exile after losing a devastating civil war instigated by his estranged husband, Alexey Balakin. In hiding with what remains of his court, Dimitri and his spymaster, Vasily Sokolov, engineer a dangerous ruse. Vasily will sneak into Alexey’s court under a false identity to gather information, paving the way for the usurper’s downfall, while Dimitri finds a way to kill him for good.

But stopping Alexey is not so easy as plotting to kill an ordinary man. Through a perversion of the Ludayzim religion that he terms the Holy Science, Alexey has died and resurrected himself in an immortal, indestructible body—and now claims he is guided by the voice of God Himself. Able to summon forth creatures from the realm of demons, he seeks to build an army, turning Novo-Svitsevo into the greatest empire that history has ever seen.

Dimitri is determined not to let Alexey corrupt his country, but saving Novo-Svitsevo and its people will mean forfeiting the soul of the husband he can’t bring himself to forsake—or the spymaster he’s come to love.

REVIEW: Henry Henry

Allen Bratton
Published: 16th April 2024
Genre: contemporary, literary, lgbt
Spoilers?: no

Storygraph | Goodreads

Henry Henry is a queer reimagining of Shakespeare’s Henriad, transposing the legend of Henry V’s wayward youth into 21st-century Britain in the years leading up to the Brexit referendum.

Henry Henry follows Hal Lancaster- 22, gay, Catholic- as he spends his first years out of Oxford floating between internships, drinking with his actor friends, struggling through awkward hook-ups, and occasionally going to confession to be absolved of his sins.

When a grouse shooting accident- funny in retrospect- makes a romance out of Hal’s rivalry with fumblingly leftist family friend Harry Percy, Hal finds that he wants, for the first time, to be himself. But his father Henry is an Englishman: he will not let his son escape tradition.

REVIEW: Smile and Be a Villain

Yves Donlon
Published: 16th April 2024
Genre: historical, fantasy, lgbt
Spoilers?: no

Storygraph | Goodreads

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark… and that ‘something’ is magic.

HELSINGØR, 1536.

Ophelia is a disgraced handmaid to the queen, the cast-off lover of Prince Hamlet.

She is also a witch, and a good one at that. And she can see that Denmark is rotting from the inside out, afflicted by dark magic.

WITTENBERG, 1536.

Hamlet is a useless son, a failed heir. He is the prince of a nation about to fight a war they won’t win.

He doesn’t know about magic, but if he did he would use it to destroy their enemies—no matter the consequences.

As Hamlet and Ophelia find themselves increasingly torn apart, they must decide: how much are they willing to sacrifice in order to save Denmark?

And, by the end of it all, will they be beyond saving?