Helen

Helen's review of All of Us Murderers 4/5: I know KJC can write the heck out of a second chance romance (Jackdaw is probably my favourite of hers) so I was excited to pick this book up. However, I was a bit disappointed. Four stars becau...

4 of 5 stars to All of Us Murderers by KJ Charles

Probably won't be re-reading this one, but it did make me want to re-read Jackdaw and Think of England

www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

First time Cat has made a wrong move all series #CelebrityTraitors

When, from the pov character's point of view, the LI's expression "goes blank" or they can't read their expression.

Ties into my love of repressed characters in romance

Register free now for next Sunday's virtual event with @charlottestein.bsky.social, celebrating her new novel DEALING WITH A DESPERATE DEMON! 🧡 Charlotte will appear in conversation with @oliviawaite.com.

We hope you'll join us, friends! Register free here: buff.ly/TAIar1B

BBC Four - Storyville, The Librarians Documentary about the US librarians who are risking their safety to defend free speech.

Recommended viewing: Storyville: The Librarians, BBC4, Tuesday, 7 October. Explores how librarians across the US are risking their safety to defend free speech as book bans and censorship threaten democracy from within. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Flyer for Gothic Romance Extravaganza with KJ Charles, Alexandra Vasti and Felicity Niven running the conversation. With images of Ladies in Hating by Alexandra and All Of Us Murderers by KJ.

This Sunday (October 5) at 12 noon EST/ 5pm UK time, I'm talking with @alexandravasti.bsky.social and @felicityniven.bsky.social about all things Gothic Romance!

Catch us at www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vfmk...

The book cover for Our Infinite Fates by Laura Steven. The cover features a male and female figure embracing against a star-filled night sky, with colours of red peach, orange and pink exploding above them. The book’s title is in cursive black font at the top of the cover, and the author’s name is in bold yellow font at the bottom.

The Romance Reading Group is back with our first session of the new academic year! Join us from 6-7pm (BST) on Monday 29th September to (finally!) discuss Laura Steven’s queer reincarnation romance, Our Infinite Fates. We can’t wait to see you! 💕📚

Helen's review of Leonard and Hungry Paul 3/5: Gently humourous book about kind, quiet people living ordinary lives. I wasn't particularly engaged (hence 3 stars) and the whimsy was a bit much for me at times, but I would recommend it to anyo...

3 of 5 stars to Leonard and Hungry Paul by Rónán Hession

There's a BBC TV series coming and I've no idea how they're going to adapt it - so much of the book is quiet routine with wry observations from an omniscient narrator.

www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

Helen's review of There There 4/5: Book club pick that I admired, but found tough to read. It's about Native people in an urban setting (Oakland, California), identity, family, generational trauma, and what it's like to live in a ...

I finished a book! Compelling but brutal read.

4 of 5 stars to There There by Tommy Orange www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender A History Today Book of the YearFinalist for the Lambda…

I'm in my biggest reading slump in ages, but I did finish a very good nonfiction book about the history of gender nonconformity.

4 of 5 stars to Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender by Kit Heyam

www.goodreads.com/book/show/61...

Ruck seeing Melanthe for the first time in For My Lady’s Heart is pretty memorable.

Also Zylar the alien meeting Beyrl in Strange Love by Ann Aguirre

Oh yay, they announced it!!

Book cover: text, YOU ARE HERE: NINE MORE STORIES, IONA DATT SHARMA, on illustration of grim South Asian woman with greying hair, orange hair scarf and shoulder tattoo of a violet, holding a floating Earth

Blurb text: It is not a sin, to love a wild thing… A witch falls out of the sky; a dragon joins the resistance; a smuggler of magical trifles loves a girl she can’t have. A spaceship lights up for Diwali; an arch in the woods leads to wonders; and in a small community in lunar orbit, for no reason understandable by normal people, romance has been abolished. Here are nine more stories, of hope and passion, grief and bureaucracy, and how you can’t go home again but it doesn’t mean you’ll never be found. (In a white room, full of ghosts, a woman cries and will never be found.) You Are Here is a follow-up to the author’s first collection of short fiction, Not For Use In Navigation (2019). This new volume collects eight more stories, plus an exclusive previously unpublished novella, Wish You Were Here. Published 1 January 2025.

A series of giveaways on my books for June, my least fave month of the year! firstly, You Are Here: Ten More Stories, my second short story collection, full of spaceships, ghosts, and also romcoms and queers. If you'd like to win one, repost this and I'll pick a winner at the weekend.

My “you’re over 30” advice is hold onto the bannister. Stairs will kill you and not even look back

Might be time to issue my yearly reminder of a possibly more useful test than the Bechel test:

1. Is your book/TV show etc. set in space?
2. Does it have pirates?
3. Are a goodly percentage of them queer?

Realizing Andor kinda got …3 out of 3?? not bad!? (Rebels = pirates, I’ll allow it)

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

sometimes cinema is all about letting us know who is the most beautiful woman in the world. and this month it's hayley atwell.

Shout out to the ALT text

Tunnelled footpath portal.

Seventeenth century river bridge portal.

Derelict pumphouse portal.

Lime kiln portal.

A thread of interdimensional portals I've found on walks in the British countryside.

It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover. Two stars This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. Three stars Death in Spring by Mercè Rodoreda. Three stars. Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre. Three stars.

My April reads. In a bit of a slump. Although I didn't record my re-reads of the first 4 Murderbot novellas because I read via audio while doing other things so I felt like it didn't count (I know!)

Helen's review of Death in Spring 3/5: A dark, twisted fairytale (and perhaps an allegory about the death of empathy under facism??). Took me a while to get into because it's so weird, and there's a distinct lack of emotion from the n...

This was so weird, but once I accepted it was a dark fairytale, I had a much better time.

3 of 5 stars to Death in Spring by Mercè Rodoreda

www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

HELLO 👋 i am ENORMOUSLY excited to say: i've written a book! and i'm writing two more! and they're all queer romcoms! and the first one, FALL INTO YOU, will be out in JUNE. there is a LOT of my heart in this novel, and i absolutely can't wait to share it with you 💜

‘Murderbot’ Would Hate You—But That’s Why You’ll Love It A first look at Alexander Skarsgård’s sci-fi comedy series from ‘About a Boy’ filmmakers Chris and Paul Weitz.

"The show-within-a-show stars John Cho, Jack McBrayer, Clark Gregg, and DeWanda Wise, sporting outrageous hairstyles and costumes that make the stylings of A Flock of Seagulls look like business casual." oh my God they're doing Sanctuary Moon, say thank you Apple TV+

This was my chair on the set.

This is me with Christ Weitz, who with his brother Paul Weitz, are the executive producers, directors, and writers of Murderbot. Their production company Depth of Field optioned All Systems Red in 2021 and they've been working hard to bring it to TV ever since.

This is me with the ball and chart, taken through the monitor while I'm standing in front of the big camera in the hopper set. This has to be done periodically for the special effects team.

If you need a distraction, I'm going to be posting a few non-spoilery set photos over the weeks as a lead-up to the Murderbot premiere on May 16. (It's fun for me! I hope it's fun for you.) @troyce.bsky.social took these photos. #murderbot

Five years ago today.

I know Willow is not the cool Val Kilmer film to love, but he's so sexy and so funny in it, such a great mix of action hero and hapless idiot.

Orbital by Samantha Harvey 4 stars Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder 3 stars Alone with you in the Ether by Olivie Blake 3 stars Eight Months on Ghazzah Street by Hilary Mantel 2 stars Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun by Jonny Garza Villa 4 stars Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr 4 stars The Maid by Nita Prose 2 stars

My March reads. Mainly bookclub picks (I'm in 4 😬) and one buddy read for Trans Rights Readathon

It's time for another Romance Reading Group session - this time we're discussing Colleen Hoover's 'It Ends with Us'. Love the book? Not a fan? Passionately insist it is a romance? Passionately insist it isn't? Whatever your thoughts, we want to hear them!

Join us next Monday 7/4/25 at 6.30pm BST!

Foster! Adore that book

A hot pink book cover with a sexy moustachioed man on the end of bed being kisses by a curvy gal with pink tipped hair and checked green dress on and a cool font in white saying my big fat fake marriage

My new book is out now, in case you didn’t know! It has a burly cinnamon roll hero and a curvy sassy heroine, she’s cynical, he’s here to prove kindness and love are real. There’s fake dating, a writing retreat, only one bed. And you can buy it now from almost everywhere!