Books shelved under “Ebook”

Prophecies are tricksy, especially when the prophecies are being manipulated by the humans who run a church for their own temporal ends. The Third Daughter explores what happens when various parties try to shift prophecy in their favour. From a slighted onetime heir to the throne to a power-hungry church official to just a girl from Harborside, everyone wants to have a say in how (or even if) the New Maiden will rule over Velle.…

Revenge plots are always fun. Give me a woman scorned any day. Charmed combines a revenge plot with another one of my favourite tropes—a fairy-tale remix setting. Jade Linwood takes elements of some of the most familiar fairy tales of the Western canon, turning their protagonists into women who are out to avenge themselves, and in some cases their countries, against none other than Prince Charming. I received an eARC from NetGalley and publisher Rebellion.

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Was this a product placement for Malört? On Earth as It Is on Television is a quirky, borderline absurdist take on first contact with aliens from the perspective—at least so it seems at first—of ordinary, everyday people. Emily Jane asks us to consider what would happen if aliens show up one day and then leave as abruptly as they came. How would life go on, and how would we all be different? Unfortunately, I can’t…

I hadn’t read Firebreak, the novel that this novella is a loose prequel to, before I requested Flight & Anchor from Tachyon on NetGalley. Normally I wouldn’t leap into an established world headfirst like this. However, I had a good feeling about this one. It is a standalone story that doesn’t require knowledge of Firebreak. Nicole Kornher-Stace’s writing is very intimate, very in-your-face, and the result is a slow-burn novella that has me…

First off, shout-out to this book for no subtitle! That’s rare for a work of nonfiction—not that I have any great hatred of subtitles, but the absence of one here is notable. Anyway. Algorithmic Culture Before the Internet caught my eye because the history of computing, intertwined as it is with the history of mathematics and the history of feminism, interests me a lot. Ted Striphas discusses how we conceptualized both the word algorithm and…

Did I apply for this book on NetGalley solely because of the title and story’s surface similarities to Oona Out of Order? You bet I did. Cassandra in Reverse even has a blurb from Margaret Montimore. But don’t let this association colour your ideas about Holly Smale’s take on time-hopping through one’s own life, for this novel is very much its own story—and it’s a good one. Thank you to publisher MIRA for the…

Time and again, I keep saying it: give me the stories about stories, the metafiction, all of it. Kill Your Darlings by L.E. Harper is another spin on this idea. Along with a heavy (in many senses of the word) focus on mental health, this is a story about figuring out who you want to be when everyone is telling you who they think you are. This is a debut novel, and the rough edges…

As an aromantic asexual person, all three things in this book’s title have confused me at one point or another! Attraction, Love, Sex: The Inside Story examines our scientific understanding of makes humans interested in one another, romantic stylez (yes, with a Z). Simon LeVay, a neuroscientist, brings together research from psychology, biology, chemistry, and more in order to help the reader understand the physiological, psychological, and even evolutionary underpinnings of sexuality and romance. There’s…

As someone who is childfree by choice but who has many friends who are parents, I think a lot about how this event in someone’s life affects our evolution as individuals. The Mothers approaches this with additional layers of considering race and class. I say “layers” because that’s how it feels like Brit Bennett tells this story: like a croissant, hundreds of thin layers folded over on each other, waiting for you to read them.

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More dragons, please! All kinds of dragons—sapient ones, feral ones, ones that pillage and hoard and burninate, and ones that just want to stay home and read a cozy book. When I saw L.R. Lam was coming out with a dragon-centric novel, I jumped at the eARC from NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton. Dragonfall has a lot going for it, from an original and well-constructed world to a compelling premise. In the end I wasn’t…

If it is possible to get burnt out on reading nonfiction about asexual and aromantic identities, that might be happening to me thanks to all of the great books Jessica Kingsley Publishers has put out this year. Ace and Aro Journeys: A Guide to Embracing Your Asexual or Aromantic Identity is yet another, though the Ace and Aro Advocacy Project has done a good job of making sure it is providing a valuable and different…

This book was published when I was five years old, yet it remains timeless and in a way prescient. My second bell hooks book, I read this for the book club I’m a part of. Teaching to Transgress is quite a different vibe from All About Love. This one is more practical, more focused on work rather than personal life (though hooks, of course, blurs those lines). I value both books but in different…

When I requested the eARC of this book from NetGalley and publisher Saga Press, I was apprehensive. From the publicity pitch alone I was nervous this would be one of those white feminist books that purport to provide deeper commentary on social issues but lack an awareness of intersectionality. Then I learned a bit more about Chana Porter, particularly that they are a Lambda Award winner, and I was reassured. Indeed, The Thick and the…

Are we the baddies? is one of my favourite tropes in fiction. Emily Tesh plays this trope straight to great effect in Some Desperate Glory. This is a story of deradicalization, and it’s one that in this day and age needs to be told. If we as a society are going to continue making progress on issues of social justice in an age where misinformation online abounds and assists in radicalizing our friends and…

Adrian Tchaikovksy is probably someone I will confuse with Alastair Reynolds for a long time just because they are both science-fiction authors from the UK and like to write about wibbly wobbly, timey-wimey stuff. And Put Away Childish Things is a novella loosely based on the premise “What if Narnia were real and it were terrible?” Except, that’s kind of already been done? I received an eARC of this from NetGalley and publisher Rebellion.

Harry…

Another in the slate of ace-focused books released recently by Jessica Kingsley Publishers, who through NetGalley provided me with an eARC that I am finally getting around to reviewing! Ace Notes: Tips and Tricks on Existing in an Allo World by Michele Kirichanskaya is a kind of how-to guide for being asexual in a world that privileges sexual attraction and desire. It’s not prescriptive (as Kirichanskaya notes, there is no one right way to be…

One of my responsibilities as an English teacher is to help my students build their media literacy skills. In the past couple of years, I have become increasingly convinced, in fact, that media literacy is the most essential skill English classes can cover. The deluge of disinformation and morass of misinformation out there is staggering. Throw in the challenges of deepfakes, and, well, it’s starting to get depressing, how difficult it is to evaluate the…

Often people ask me what I would recommend if I am no longer recommending Invisible Women. Usually my response is the unhelpful, “Dunno, figure it out.” But really, the amount of books I read? There must be more books about technology and bias out there, especially in the four years since that one was published. So when I heard about More Than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech, I…

I’m not sure what got me interested in Missing Clarissa—whether it was the general description, the podcast element, or I just felt like taking a chance. Thrillers aren’t normally my genre of choice. Nevertheless, I was pleasantly surprised by Ripley Jones’s debut novel. It was darker than I expected yet also has plenty of light character moments. Thanks to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for the eARC.

Clarissa Campbell went missing in 1999. The cheerleading…

The idea of free speech sounds great on paper, and it’s one of those nebulous concepts that most people, if you asked them if it sounded like a good idea, would generally affirm. But that hasn’t always been the case until very recently—more recently, in fact, than one might think. Dennis Baron explores this in You Can't Always Say What You Want: The Paradox of Free Speech along with a robust look at free-speech debates,…