Author: Patricia Elzie

This is an epic young adult best friends space adventure. If you liked the She-Ra and the Princesses of Power reboot, then Victories Greater Than Death might be for you.

Our teen protagonist, Tina, is actually a reincarnation of a phenomenal, brave, beloved alien. Tina is on Earth disguised as an earthling. When the story begins, she is waiting for the rescue beacon inside of her to light up. She knows that she is not an earthling and she knows that there are great plans for her but first, her beacon needs to light up. Once the beacon lights up, there are two things she is expecting to happen. First, the intergalactic space military crew that she belonged to will come searching for her; the plan is that they will bring her back to the spaceship and unlock her memories as the starship captain that she is supposed to be a reincarnation of. The other thing that happens when she lights up, though, is that the murderous terrifying aliens, the ones who killed her in the first place, will also see her beacon light up and immediately try to find her to murder her all over again.

Tina has shared all this information with her best friend, Rachel, and they’ve been waiting for this moment together for years. Rachel is with Tina when Tina’s beacon lights up, and as you can expect, all hell breaks loose.

One of the things I often find myself disappointed in with sci-fi is that some authors still seem stuck within earthling constructs, like binary gender or ways of relating to other beings. Anders does what I have hoped for forever and the non-earthlings are incredibly diverse and wonderful. Everyone introduces themselves with their pronouns including ones beyond the typical pronouns we use here on Earth. There is a wide range of characters who I frequently found myself rooting for. It’s queer and exciting and so much fun. I legitimately had a great time reading this book but remember, it’s the first in a trilogy so buckle in for a ride!

The second book, Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak, is out now, and the conclusion, Promises Stronger Than Darkness, is slated for an April release.

April French is a regular at Frankie’s, a BDSM club in Austin. Everyone knows April: she is the welcome wagon and the person who makes sure things get done and that everyone feels safe.

April is also a trans woman dealing with a lot of self-doubt. She doesn’t really think she deserves a happily-ever-after so she’ll have a string of short sexual relationships, but she is always very protective of her heart. She is very much the type to think that “no expectations, no disappointments” is an acceptable way to live in the world. In the meantime, she’ll be sweet and friendly and likable and never ask for anything, only give.

Dennis Martin is new to Austin. He just moved there from Seattle to take a job as a Chief Technology Officer. He doesn’t really need to work because he made millions and millions of dollars at a start-up. He doesn’t really tell anyone, though. His best friend, Jason, is also an undercover millionaire. Jason lives in Austin and Dennis is staying with him while the contractor he hired finishes his house. Jason is the one who let Dennis know about Frankie’s, a local kink club he frequents.

Yes, this is a BDSM romance but it is unexpectedly tooth-meltingly sweet. BDSM is so often portrayed in books or film as this very serious, intense, painful, activity that people do with each other but in reality, more often than not, it’s full of laughter and jokes and sarcasm. There’s a reason we refer to it as “playing” and the author really gets that.

I was really rooting for these characters the whole way through this book even though there were definite times when they were both being absolute chuckleheads. It’s definitely on my list of must-read romances.

Finch Kelly is a transgender teen in Olympia, Washington and he is obsessed with getting into Georgetown University so that he could be in Washington, D.C. and become the first transgender congressman. Finch’s parents are trying to convince him to stay in Washington state because there is no way they can afford to send him to Georgetown. Finch’s dad doesn’t work and his mom makes very little money as a journalist for a local paper that always seems on the brink of going under.

Finch is shoving the money part out of his mind and is focusing on getting into Georgetown in the first place. He and his friend Jonah are the stars of their high school debate team and Finch sees this as his ticket into the school. He figures if they win the state championship and then the nationals, there’s no way that Georgetown can turn him down.

Finch is also going through a bit of a crisis interpersonally. He isn’t really out as trans to most people. His family knows, his best friend/ex-girlfriend knows, and Jonah, his debate partner, knows. Jonah is cisgender and gay and in the “perfect” relationship with Bailey. Bailey is the star of the school’s theatre department and desperately wants to go to Juilliard. In fact, Bailey got to pick this year’s musical that he is starring in, Perfectly Modern Millie which he’s gender-flipped to be Perfectly Modern Billie.

As I mentioned, Finch is in a bit of a crisis because he’s starting to have squishy feelings for Jonah but at the same time he is very adamant about not being gay himself. So he figures that these feelings must be anxiety and he shoves them down repeatedly. Anyway, he has the national debate championship to worry about. The topic for the national debate championship is: “This House would allow transgender students in public schools to use the bathroom facilities of their choice.”

Just in case you don’t know how high school debate works, in competition, you have to take turns arguing each side. For and against. So, in order to have his best shot at getting into his dream school and dream life, Finch is going to have to argue against his own humanity.

This book was really anxiety-inducing but also cute, funny, and lovely and I highly recommend it.

This is the first book in N. K. Jemisin’s Great Cities Duology and it picks up right at the end of the author’s short story titled “The City Born Great,” which is in Jemisin’s short story collection titled How Long ‘Til Black Future Month? In “The City Born Great,” the city of New York is born. Not settled, colonized, or created but born in that it becomes alive as a living, breathing thing. There is an avatar for the city who themself is New York.

But some evil is trying to kill the city before it fully comes to life and there is a battle where the avatar wins but is badly injured. When the avatar is injured, the city itself is injured. Buildings crumble and bridges collapse. The city of São Paolo — that is, the avatar and person São Paolo — was supposed to be helping New York be born and it goes wrong. That is the story of “The City Born Great.” This novel includes it as a prologue and the rest of the story begins there.

New York’s primary avatar (the injured one) is not the only avatar out there. Each of the five boroughs, Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island, also have avatars. Do they know what they are? Eventually. Do they know what they’re doing? Not really, but that’s some of the fun. Each of the avatars for the boroughs has a really strong personality and I love them all so much. Well, almost all of them.

The evil that is trying to kill New York is personified in a number of ways but it is a clear metaphor for gentrification. As a person who lives in a city that has many pockets of gentrification myself, some of the scenes were horrifying. This is not just because of everything awful about gentrification, but in the book there are tentacled creatures taking over bodies, paintings that drive onlookers insane, and really triggering racism from outright aggressive to microaggressions.

All of the boroughs are going to have to find each other and work together to save the city and there are so many times when it seems utterly impossible. This book is incredibly fun and the second book in the duology, The World We Make, just came out in November!

Tricia Hersey is the founder of The Nap Ministry and she wants us all to rest. She believes that liberation does not come from exhaustion; that burnout is not our path to freedom. Much of Tricia Hersey’s movement is rooted in capitalism’s tie to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Enslaved Africans and eventually enslaved Black people were not allowed to rest much less have leisure, to daydream, or to imagine a better future.

This ministry is the antithesis of productivity and the opposite of grind culture. Hersey doesn’t want us to hustle. She wants us to lie down and to divest completely from productivity culture, capitalism, and the addictive machine that is social media. Rest is Resistance is not only about avoiding the urge to fill every moment with productivity, but also having rest for rest’s sake. That is the part that utterly blew my mind: to rest without the goal of then having more energy to do more. Not resting to fill your empty cup to just pour yourself out again for other people. The author wants you to break the cup. Just naps and daydreams and not taking part in the attention economy.

Hersey makes it very clear that rest is not a privilege and it is not something to be earned. We all deserve rest by merely existing. She addresses the folks who are saying “If I rest then I can’t pay the bills and feed my family.” She’s been there. In fact, that is where she was when she began the Nap Ministry.

After the preface and introduction, the book is broken into four main parts and each is a call to action: Rest, Dream, Resist, and Imagine.

This is an absolutely phenomenal book and if you think it’s not for you because you’re not Black, I promise, it’s for you. If you are living under capitalism, if you are on social media, if you are tired not only physically but emotionally, psychologically, spiritually tired, this book is for you.

In the introduction, the author dissects white supremacy and details some of the ways in which it works according to design. White supremacy is not a broken system. The system is absolutely working as intended. In discussing the title and the thesis of the book, Oluo makes it incredibly clear (because there are always people who are going to play ignorant) that no, she is not arguing that every white man is mediocre or that any race or gender is predisposed to mediocrity; however, our society focuses on preserving white male power regardless of skill or talent. She calls us all in to examine the complacency throughout society that maintains this system.

This book explores and interrogates things that have been normalized in the U.S. like some men’s obsession with cowboys and westerns or the obsession with American football. I learned a staggering amount of history from this book. The chapter on cowboys and Buffalo Bill in particular left me speechless. I know I am not the only one who has a father, uncle, in-law, or grandfather who romanticizes cowboys and westerns. This chapter hit really close to home and has shed some light on many things that I thought I was familiar with.

Oluo writes about the centering of white men in social justice movements including but not limited to Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. She talks about the assault on higher education and how as soon as people of color were allowed to attend universities, suddenly sentiments around higher education took a dive.

This book is so extraordinarily good and necessary. It is a phenomenal read and it’s definitely one you will want to read as a book club pick or at least get a copy for a spouse or friend so that you can discuss it because believe me, there is a lot to talk about and contemplate after digesting this hard-to-swallow book.

If you are reading this newsletter I know I am preaching to the choir when talking about the importance of storytelling and the profound connections that can be born from a well-crafted tale. The folks at The Moth know this very, very well. The Moth is a storytelling experience that has live shows, The Moth radio hour, a podcast, and workshops. This book gathers the core of The Moth’s storytelling wisdom and knowledge and makes it available to all of us and as both a writer and a person who loves a good story, I cannot stress how invaluable this is.

This was a phenomenal read as it was not only theory and practical advice on craft but heavy doses of examples in the forms of stories that have been told at events put on by The Moth. The stories and snippets of stories shared in this book will make you laugh, cry, hope, cringe, break your heart wide open, and more. The lessons in this book are for everyone because we all, in some way, have to be storytellers at some point whether we are writers, work in marketing, have a job interview, have a speech to give, have a toast to make, have a presentation due, and myriad of other things we do that people may not think of as storytelling but they very much are.

This is a book I listened to on audiobook and I also own a hardcover copy so that I could highlight particular parts that I have returned to again and again. It is both a great read and a great gift and I cannot recommend it enough.

At the beginning, Shori wakes up in darkness and in terrible pain, both from injury it seems and from extreme hunger. She doesn’t know why she is injured and badly scarred, why she is in so much pain, nor why she is waking up just laying on the ground. She doesn’t even know who she is. She eventually regains some strength and is able to go out to hunt. She comes upon an area of burned down houses and buildings which she doesn’t recognize but she felt pulled there somehow.

She realizes right away that during the day, when the sun was out, the light is painful and she needs to hide in darkness and rest. She hunts and sleeps for a few days until she gets restless. There is a paved road nearby so she walks down it. She vaguely remembers the idea of vehicles. She still has no memories and she gets picked up by a driver named Wright. Now, what Wright sees is a Black adolescent girl covered in blood and dirt walking down the side of the road in the middle of nowhere in the rain. She is suffering from severe amnesia. Wright offers to take her home, or at least to the hospital since she looks like she was a badly injured child.

We learn, however, she is not a child. At least, not a human child. She is a 53 year old vampire. As we learn bits and pieces of Shori’s history, things get creepier and creepier. She bites Wright to get him under her control and makes him take her to his home. He is now loyal to her and joins her on her search to find out who she is and what happened to her family.

This book is both subtle and overt in its creep-factor. I was uneasy the entire time I was reading this book. Sometimes it was the sex. Sometimes it was the racism. Sometimes it was something else entirely. Content warnings for violence, adults having sex with a vampire in an adolescent body, and racism. Yep, racist vampires.

I feel like this book has been a long time coming. It is for former fans of Harry Potter who are tired of the author’s transphobia. Specifically, the sweet spot is fans who were maybe in middle school or junior high when the Harry Potter books came out and are now in their 30s. This book is definitely geared toward adults, as it contains violence, transphobia, and sex on the page.

The book opens 25 years earlier, at the ceremony where our main five childhood girlfriends become witches. They are Helena, Elle, Leonie, Ciara, and Niamh. Flash forward to the present. Helena Vance is the High Priestess of Her Majesty’s Royal Coven, the HMRC. It leans towards very white, especially in it’s “feminism.” At one point before this time, there was a schism and Leonie, who is Black and queer, forms a different, more inclusive coven outside of the HMRC. This coven is called Diaspora. Niamh lives out in the country a bit, trying to mind her own business and does some veterinary work. In the last 25 years there was a huge war and a lot of lives were lost, both witches and warlocks alike and all our adult characters are dealing with that trauma in their own ways.

Well, the action in this book doesn’t take long to start. Helena teleports into Niamh’s yard unannounced and asks for Niamh’s help. There’s been a prophecy and it is very, very bad. The awful thing that is supposed to come to pass is, apparently, started off with a child of immense power. Helena believes that they have apprehended the child, who is a teen that they have locked up until they figure out what to do. Note: this is all conjecture on their part. That being said, the teen has more unbridled power than any warlock they know. Niamh can read minds and Helena hopes she can help because the teen is not talking. Helena eventually allows Niamh to take the teen, Theo, home with her to help teach them and maybe keep the apocalypse from happening.

The magic battles in this book are amazing and so much more than just waggling wands at each other. Clearly it is a direct response to HP and specifically the author and sometimes this book is heavy-handed and quite on-the-nose but oh, it’s delicious and fun! A strong opener to this forthcoming trilogy.

The story is told primarily from two points of view. First is teenage Ivy who at the beginning of the book has just broken up with her boyfriend Nate. They are in his car, leaving a party, and he is driving recklessly. He swerves, crashes, and gets out of the car while telling Ivy he saw something. Specifically, a woman, or at least older teen girl, standing naked in the middle of the road. Nate says she ran into the woods (because of course there’s creepy woods right there) and both Ivy and Nate run in to find her because it was unclear if she was hurt and needs help.

The other point of view is told from Dana, Ivy’s mother. Dana and her best friend, who Ivy refers to as Aunt Fee, are local witchy-types and they run an herb shop that is well-known in town. Dana’s chapters are mostly flashbacks about when she and Fee were teens and getting into witchcraft in troubling ways and definitely deeper than they should have. Ivy knows nothing of this as she and her mother have a very strained, cold, distant relationship that is borderline antagonistic. Dana doesn’t let anyone in, especially her daughter. She has some big secrets and it’s very clear that she is deliberately keeping things from Ivy.

Of course, weird, creepy things start happening. Without spoiling anything, I will say that Ivy is spending the summer grounded. She shouldn’t have been out at that party with Nate so her summer’s gonna be a bummer. On top of that, her mom has gone incommunicado. She’s not home and Ivy’s sure she’s with her Aunt Fee doing stuff for the shop but she doesn’t come home and she’s not responding to texts. Is she missing? Is she just doing the distant and aloof thing she does? Before Dana left, Ivy witnessed her doing some super suspicious things in the garden and wild stuff keeps happening to and around Ivy while her mom is nowhere to be found.

Content warning for violence to animals, namely rabbits.