Samantha 🌈📚

books mentioned: 👑 The Faithless by C.L. Clark ✏️ Learning Curves by Rachel Lacey 🌓 The Sun and the Moon by Rebekah Faubion 🔮 Human Rites by Juno Dawson 🍂 A Hexcellent Chance to Fall in Love by Ann Rose 💫 With Stars in Her Eyes by Andie Burke 🐺 The Last Soul Among Wolves by Melissa Caruso 🦋 When They Burned the Butterfly by Wen-Yi Lee 🌲 Fate’s Bane by C.L. Clark

my august reading wrap up (all sapphic books) 💗

#booksky

Front cover of House of Monstrous Women by Daphne Fama

Text reads: Rating: 4.75 stars To set the scene: It's 1986, the Philippines is in the midst of political upheaval. Desperate to escape her oppressive life, to make amends with her distant brother, and to reconnect with her first love, Josephine is lured to a maze-like mansion on a remote island to play a dangerous game of tagu-tagu (a game similar to hide and seek). This is Filipino gothic folk horror and the setting is deliciously atmospheric. Beware of creepy bugs, a haunted mansion that feels like it's alive, and silent and ever-present house servants that are always watching you. It's a story of desperation and I found myself surprisingly sympathetic to every character, which is a tell-tale sign of good writing because each character at some point falls victim to their worst instincts. And at the heart of all the horror is a tender sapphic love story. I was hooked from the first page. At first by the informative history, then by the unraveling of the complex relationship dynamics, and finally by the chaos and suspense of the hunt. Thank you to Berkley for providing me with an advance copy of this book!

I just finished House of Monstrous Women by Daphne Fama and I'm obsessed. It's Filipino gothic folk horror in all it's creepy glory (and it's sapphic!!) Out August 12th! #booksky

front cover of Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab

finished Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab (my first 5 ⭐️ read in two months)

the tagline has been toxic lesbian vampire and whew 😮‍💨 is that accurate

anddd for better or worse i would for sure be exactly like Lottie so…much to think about

Two signs: One says, “Going to a protest? Need to make a sign? We’ve got you!” with details of the event; the second is a picture of Mean Girls the movie and says, “Get in losers, we’re going protesting!”

my local indie romance store hosted protest sign making with all the materials you could want, i love the SD book community 💗 #booksky #nokings

front cover of Cosmic Love at the Multiverse Hair Salon

oh oh i loved this so much if you’re looking for an existential read that may leave you slightly confused about the nature of time but so confident in the power of love (sapphic of course) #booksky

i’m so obsessed with everything Emily Austin writes

hand holding rainbow stack of books books mentioned: ❤️ Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth 🧡 The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon 💛 Her Majesty’s Royal Coven by Juno Dawson 💚 Not For the Faint of Heart by Lex Croucher 💙 The End Crowns All by Bea Fitzgerald 💜 Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs 🩷 We Could Be Rats by Emily Austin

sapphic pride stack 🫶🏽

happy pride month y’all #booksky

i hate when a book is just shy of 500 pages,,, you couldn’t have written 9 more pages so that storygraph would log it in the 500+ category 😭

A hand holding three books: Learning Curves by Rachel Lacey (out September 2nd) House of Dusk by Deva Fagan (out August 26th) The Woman from the Waves by Roslyn Sinclair (out June 5th)

a stack of sapphic book mail was waiting for me when i got home today 🥰

✏️ Learning Curves by Rachel Lacey (contemporary romance - out September 2nd)
🔥 House of Dusk by Deva Fagan (fantasy - out August 26th)
🌊 The Woman from the Waves by Roslyn Sinclair (fantasy - out June 5th)

A hand holding The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling with promo letter and character art (tw: blood and gore)

current read: The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling

a sapphic medieval horror fever dream of a book and i’m totally hooked so far #booksky

Hand holding A Treachery of Swans by A.B. Poranek in front of a book shelf.

A moody sapphic Swan Lake reimagining. This is the story of Odile, a trickster, a sorcier, a self-proclaimed villain, as she sets in motion a plan to bring magic back to the kingdom. In order to do so, she must take the place of Marie d’Odette, the sweet ingénue, the light to Odile's darkness. The setting is atmospheric and theatric. I loved that the chapters were formatted as if the whole novel was a play script, each chapter beginning with its scene number and location heading. It added to the dramatics of it all. I also loved that within the intensity, the teenagers in the story were allowed to be teenagers, making mistakes, goofing around, discovering themselves. If I could change anything, it would be to have more moments between Odile and Marie in the first 50% of the book as their relationship as foils to each other is the heart of the book. Arc gifted by Simon Teen <3

Review of A Treachery of Swans by A.B. Poranek, a sapphic Swan Lake Reimagining out June 24th (4.5/5⭐️)

#SimonTeenInfluencer #ATreacheryOfSwans #booksky

it’s the worst!! the one i was reading was tracking to be a 4.5 but got downgraded to the 3s 😔

it really is!!

when a book is soo good for a majority of the story but they fumble the ending and ruin everything rip

Two girls embracing on the front cover of Nobody in Particular by Sophie Gonzales

needed a palette cleanser and picked up an arc of Nobody in Particular by Sophie Gonzalez (a ya sapphic royals romance) and i’m obsessed

alllll the sapphic yearning and angst of forbidden love you could want out on June 3rd! #booksky

i didn’t mind frontier but yeah idolfire just didn’t do it for me i feel like no one earned their ending and i felt always on the precipice of feeling something but it never went there 😭

Storygraph April stays with books and star ratings

Storygraph April stats

my april reading wrap-up (all sapphic books of course 😇)

some highs (Harrow was confusing and amazing) and lows (Idolfire had sooo much potential rip) #booksky

well it will have to because i am broke now 😂 there was a book crawl at 14 of my city’s local indie bookstores and i bought at least one thing from each place sooo

my book haul from today is so excessive i am officially on a book buying ban

Front cover of But Not Too Bold by Hache Pueyo. Trigger warning for spiders

sometimes you need a sapphic gothic horror monster romance novella you can read in under two hours #booksky

SO LET THEM BURN original hardcover

Signey and Elara sitting on Zephyra's back at nightfall, as drawn by joleanart

Happy Lesbian Visibility Week to my two visible lesbians, Signey Soto and Elara Vincent, from the Divine Traitors duology!

bookshop.org/contributors...

The front cover of Midnight Rain a Those Who Wait story by Haley Cass

i'm not going to lie, it's pretty bold to write and publish an AU of your own characters so i have no choice but to respect it

anyone nostalgic for more Sutton and Charlotte, Midnight Rain is a sweet second chance romance set in a universe where they did not reconcile at the end of Those Who Wait 🙊

Front cover of My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna van Veen

it's late but I just finished My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna van Veen and I'm just so smitten with it, if you're in the mood for sapphic romantic gothic horror #booksky

i've never been the same after watching The Haunting of Bly Manor in 2020 and this filled that void in my heart

my reading update is that i finished harrow the ninth last night and it was so very good i think my brain is still digesting everything

A hand holding Gay the Pray Away by Natalie Naudus and a sticker which says “Stay Gay”

#bookmail and it’s a heartwarming sapphic ya romance about working through religious trauma and discovering yourself featuring multiracial mcs AND it’s a debut from the queen of audio book narration Natalie Naudus

#booksky

oh wow high praise i’m interested to see how it all comes together!!

harrow is decidedly 10x more confusing than gideon 💀 but not in a bad way?? at least not yet hahaah

i somehow thought i would be immune to confusion reading Harrow the Ninth but alas… I have absolutely no idea what is going on

Monthly reading wrap-up books mentioned: 👑 How to Find a Princess by Alyssa Cole 🐀 We Could Be Rats by Emily Austin 🧝🏿‍♀️ Cursebound by Saara El-Arifi 🪐 These Burning Stars by Bethany Jacobs 🪽 Fable for the End of the World Ava Reid 🩰 Reverence by Milena McKay 💀 Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir 🧑🏼‍🍳 Love & Other Disasters by Anita Kelly 💫 On Vicious Worlds by Bethany Jacobs 💋 Mistakes Were Made by Meryl Wilsner

Storygraph monthly stats

My March reading wrap-up (all sapphic books) 😇

Such a good month and dare I say I found a new favorite sci-fi series (the Kindom trilogy by Bethany Jacobs) #booksky

i hadn’t had a five star read since december 2024 and all of the sudden this month i had four 🥰