joconklin Book Reviews, fantasy, Indie Books, LGBTQ+, Mystery

I’m Reading: Kill Your Darlings by L.E. Harper

Sorry, but I need to gush about this one. Kill Your Darlings by L.E. Harper is an astounding piece of writing craft, as a self-aware story inside a subtly unfolding story, where all is not as we perceive. I received a free digital ARC copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

But first of all, make sure you read the forward of the book for trigger warnings. The triggers are there in a big way, so take them seriously if you are vulnerable to trauma.

Our MC is a fantasy author. We learn that she is on book 5 of her wildly successful YA fantasy series, and spiraling. Her editor hates her ending. Her revision deadline is days away. She hasn’t even started them. Depression and burnout have her in a chokehold. Her one escape is in her dreams, where she drops into her main character, Kyla, and spends time in the beautiful world of Solera that she’s created. But this time it feels different. This time, as she wakes up in her fictional lover’s arms, it might not be a dream.

When I first started Kill Your Darlings, I was a little meh on the standard fantasy world and creatures, and a few slightly shaky line edits. But I really loved the meta story. I loved how the MC lampshades the fantasy genre and tropes, playing with the meta narrative and fourth wall, and breaking all the rules. It felt like a Rian Johnson film, where the subtext, background, symbolism, and inside jokes took center stage over the actual plot. Then, as the book progressed and we learned all was not as it seemed, we discover the author was pulling off a master class in unreliable narrator. Just breathtakingly well-executed. And when dreams turned reality turned back into metaphor and the darkness falls, that last twist left me completely destroyed, and unable to put the book down.

I can see why Kill Your Darlings struggled in the query trenches. The real story, the thing that makes it unique and phenomenal, is a slow, subtle burn that takes time to develop. Querying, with the pitch plus ten pages approach, is going to bury a gem like this. It’s like trying to pitch a souffle to people looking for a candy bar. But if a slow-burn meta-narrative is your thing and you’re comfortable with darker themes, this is your dessert.

I picked this up excited for queer and Ace rep. I kept reading because it was a fun escapist fantasy. I loved the lampshading and the cleverness of an MC who knows what genre they’re in. But that last dark twist lets this book live rent-free in my head for the foreseeable future. Even now, days after reading, I look back and see how small pieces fit together into that final whole, and how perfectly unexpected yet inevitable the ending turned out to be.

*chef’s kiss*

Kill Your Darlings comes out on May 24, 2023 and is available for pre-order. Connect with this author on their TikTok at
https://www.tiktok.com/@selfpubdragon and make sure you request indie titles at your local library!

joconklin Book Reviews, LGBTQ+, Romance, Romcom

I’m Reading: Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake

Delilah Green doesn’t care. She’s built a whole life around it. Casual hookups, a soulless New York Apartment, and no contact with the small town of Bright Falls and the stepfamily that never cared about her. The only thing that matters is her photography career. When Delilah is critically behind on her rent and on the verge of stardom, her stepsister makes an offer she can’t refuse: come back to Bright Falls and photograph her society wedding. It would mean the kind of money Delilah hasn’t seen in years. Enough to get her through to her big break. But it also means returning to place where she grew up in painful isolation as a strange, forgotten ghost after her father died.

Delilah decides that while they can strongarm her into coming back to the town she loathes, she can do it on her own terms. That means wearing what she likes. It means moving through the pre-wedding events like a wrecking ball. It means seducing her stepsister’s best friend and bridesmaid, just to prove she can.

But the more time Delilah spends in Bright Falls, the more confusing things become. Her sister may need rescue more than torment, and the bridesmaid fling grows into a deeper connection. Delilah finds it harder and harder to not care. And ghosts from her past make her question for the first time, between her and her stepsister, just who stopped caring first.

Delilah Green Doesn’t Care is one of those books that starts off simple, then starts peeling back layers of complexity as we go. It tackles hard topics like blended families, grief, expectations, and whether people are capable of change. But there is enough lightness to carry the weighty topics. I love the symmetry of each character fighting to throw off a different maladaptive coping mechanism. Despite coming from similar wounds, each character has a different journey toward healing. Some must learn to trust those that let them down. Others must trust themselves enough to set boundaries and say no.

The steam is delicious, and Delilah’s connection with Claire is unmistakably hot and powerful from the first moment they meet. The pacing of their emotional connection balances well with their sexual attraction. Claire’s kid and ex both serve as additional complexities in her relationship with Delilah. She must trust Delilah with her child’s heart, as well as her own. Delilah must trust Claire in return to not fall back into her ex’s arms. After all, Claire is one of her sister’s friends, and Delilah already knows what it’s like to be cast aside and forgotten by these women.

For this and other books, visit the author’s website at http://www.ashleyherringblake.com/. And don’t forget to request at your local public library!

Content notices for Delilah Green Doesn’t Care: Death of parent, childhood bullying and neglect, emotional abuse by parent and spouse, cheating exes.

joconklin Book Reviews, LGBTQ+, Romance, Romcom

I’m Reading: Love and Other Disasters by Anita Kelly

Dahlia Woodson has a plan to reinvent herself after a messy divorce left her world gray. If she can just win the reality cooking competition Chef’s Special, the prize money and fame will let her clear away the past and find the kind of future she’s been dreaming of. But when her feelings for her rival, non-binary London Parker, come to a boil, she must decide whether she’s ready to risk it all, including her heart, on another person again.

London Parker is intensely shy and reserved, which is why their coming-out as gender non-binary on a nationally televised cooking show is all the stress they can handle. They don’t have time for a bubbly, breathtakingly adorable rival creeping into their heart. They’re too busy proving the trolls (and their dad) wrong. But love doesn’t always care about your plans in life.

Love and Other Disasters has all the foodie TV feel-goods and sex-positivity you’re looking for in a romance, including a wedding crashing, a sweet grumpy-sunshine dynamic, and a dessert in bed scene that might not hit for all readers. But what really hit me was London’s character. I can see so much of myself in them and the development of their gender identity that the affirmation brought me to actual tears. The dysphoria struggle is real, raw, and honestly handled. It was a fiercely empowering read for me, as well as a gentle, sweet, spicy, sexy taking of SoCal by storm. I particularly loved Dahlia’s complicated, nuanced relationship with her mother, and the healing that rose from it.

At heart, this is a deliciously satisfying read, that also tackles some hard conversations and doesn’t shy away from showing the bad and the good in ways that leave the reader with hope for us all.

Content Notices for: On-page explicit homophobia and transphobia (including transphobic parent rejection and deadnaming), blood, and anxiety, use of AFAB language.

See Anita Kelly’s work at https://anitakellywrites.com/ and don’t forget to request it at your local library!

joconklin Book Reviews, Gothic

I’m Reading: Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo

Andrew’s bond with his best friend Eddie was deeper than blood or friendship, rooted in deep magic and deeper secrets. When Andrew gets word of Eddie’s apparent suicide, it tears Andrew’s whole world apart. He’s drawn back to Nashville to piece together Eddie’s last days, certain that there’s more to the death than he’s been told.

I’m picky about gothics. Not because I’m somehow an expert in the genre, but specifically because I’m not. So my favorite gothics tend to be contemporary genre crossovers with accessible writing style, vivid characters, and a strong sense of place.

Summer Sons just clicked for me. It is a slow, dark, languid dive into the Appalachians. We walk the line of social tension between the elite and the back woods, old South generational wealth and generational curses, ivory towers and street racers, queer masculinity and violence.

What I love best about Summer Sons, besides the sheer craftsmanship, is the handling of ghosts. Andrew’s powers and affinity for the dead are woven tightly into the story, heavy with dread and metaphor. There is no friendly Casper guiding the MC gently to a life lesson. The ghosts are visceral, angry, and dangerous, seducing Andrew into a spiral of his own self-destruction.

But the craftsmanship! I simultaneously disliked every single character, yet wanted to really dive into in their head and rooted for their redemption. The author pulled me into scenes and hobbies I had no interest in and made me care. The characters made terrible, toxic, self-loathing, and self-pitying decisions, but made me understand and sympathize. It is the kind of story that lingers for hours once you close the book, like the taste of coffee after you drink. It’s not the kind of book you take to the beach for a light summer read.

It’s the kind of book that haunts you.

To find a copy of Summer Sons visit the author’s website at https://leemandelo.com/

Content warnings for suicide, alcoholism, drug use, graphic violence, supernatural horror, and homophobia.

joconklin Book Reviews, LGBTQ+, Uncategorized

I’m Reading: Gravity and Lies by C.G. Volars

I’m breaking my contemporary romance reading streak for a very good reason. Gravity and Lies, the first book in the Static Over Space series by C. G. Volars, is worth jumping genres. It’s quirky, queer sci-fi adventure with a tough, trash-talking, bisexual Latino MC and a big cast of lovable and hateable aliens.

Izo Lopez has not had an easy life, cycling through the foster system and surviving homeless. But he has a big goal and a bigger secret. He is scrambling to save enough money to save his best friend from the foster system and create a stable family life for them both.

Oh yeah, and he can fly.

But when he’s snatched up and transported across several galaxies by alien traffickers, he finds himself on a new world where his powers of flight make him a hot commodity, and his kidnappers are the only ones who know how to get him back to the obscure little uncharted planet he calls home.

Volars pulls the rug out from under the classic damsel in distress tropes of adventure novels with a delightful, gender-bending twist in the form of the tough, stubborn, sarcastic Izo. Then the author goes on to flip and twist every other stereotype, resulting in an aerial circus of sharply unexpected, delightfully wicked, and dynamically complex characters.

Above all, the story is fun! There are dark moments, and heartbreaking moments, and stand-up-and-cheer moments. But Izo’s indomitable spirit and sharp wit always lift us right back up again. We’re right there rooting for him as he fights a whole galaxy in a relatable search for home, family, and identity (and a sandwich!)

Visit the Static Over Space website at https://www.staticoverspace.com/ to get a copy, or request it at your local library.