Happy New Year! Happy 2026!

Posted on January 1, 2026 by Thistle

To each and every one of you: May this year bring lovely thing and great happiness and escaping the things that no longer serve us. As our ineffable duo say: To the world! 💕

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2025 in Books

Posted on December 31, 2025 by Thistle

It’s generally been a good year in books for me! I read 80 total (31 tradpubbed, 49 fanfiction (over 10K)), with two rereads (one of each) plus a third that is technically a graphic novel adaptation of a book I’ve read. Here are a few stats:

Book Type: 79 fiction – 1 nonfiction
Fiction Type: 34 speculative – 45 realistic
Media: 52 text – 25 audio – 2 visual
Audience: 76 adult – 4 YA

New to me authors: 43
Most read author(s): Create_Serenity – This was actually a hard one to determine this year because I read a lot of shorter works that didn’t get included in this list, and I have a couple authors that I love and read many times with these shorter fics. But of the ones officially listed, Create_Serenity had three.

Shortest / Longest books: Evocation (301 pgs) / Dark Inspiration (415 pgs)
Shortest / Longest fanfics: Stray Souls (11k) / Married at First Sight (147k)
Shortest / Longest audios: A Thief in the Night (2:45) / Wind and Truth (62:48)

Total pages read: 2,011
Total fanfic words read: 2,765k
Total audio listened to: 339:56

Best bookish experience: The Ineffable Con! TIC was brilliant and I can’t wait to write about it in more detail. In the meantime, three days of 100+ folks all in the neurospicy, queer-ish, gender-whatever category, running around in cosplay? It was heaven!

Best book-related discovery: This year’s discovery is a specific artist, Ruby Gold, who I met in the days leading up to TIC. Rainstorm, Ruby, Ruby’s friend Jo, and I hung out at a lot of the pre-events together, and Ruby’s art is incredible. They also loved the idea of the novel I was then working on, and we decided to collaborate. They’ve drawn the most amazing work for it already and some of the first chapters are online. Not only is Ruby a great artist, but it turns out we seem to be the same person in a lot of ways, and they are fast becoming a really great friend!

Best Reads of 2025

In years past, I’ve highlighted not only my favorites, but best in several categories like “most fun to read” and “best setting” etc. This year, I’m just going to talk about my favorite overall. These are in the order that I read them, because I can’t really stratify them any better than that.

1) in the house we remain by commodorecliche: I’ve rarely seen the “opposite sides” theme adapted into an AU as well as this one. It was heart-wrenching and beautiful.

2) You’re the Bad Guys by Nebz_AlphaCentauri: I read most of this in 2024 but the last few chapters posted this year. Cold war era spy AU with scenes that just blew me away. I was really excited to visit a few places the author talked about from Berlin this year!

3) I’ll Have What He’s Having by Adib Khorram (audio): This is the only tradpubbed book to make it into my faves. It’s such a good read! The follow-up was also good, and I’m looking forward to more by this author.

4) Social organization and adaptability in Xenoerpeton anthropoides: transference of social bonding habits and mate selection by Liquid_Lyrium: This is not a story I ever thought I’d read, or a genre I ever thought I’d enjoy, but it is so, so, so well-written and I can see why fandom folks became obsessed with it to the point of cosplaying merlotls…

5) You’ve Got Kudos! by ClassicHazel & Rhaegal: This book about Ineffable Con was written by the founders of Ineffable Con and is meta in so many ways. Absolutely adored this!

6) Sweeter Than Fiction by IneffableRainstorm: It feels weird to put a book by my partner, that I beta-ed, and was heavily involved in the brainstorming process for, on my favorites, but STF is still one of my favorite stories to exist. Romcom perfection!

Honorable Mention: Give a Man a Mask by Ventriloki: This isn’t on my official book list of the year, which is why it gets an honorable mention. It’s too short to go on the official list, but is one of the best short stories I’ve ever read in the fandom. The author’s prose is magnificent and the tension and setup are brilliant.

Honorable Mention: The Last Snow on Vörösmarty Tér by Bohoteacher: Again, not on the official list so it can’t be an official favorite, purely because this is under 10k. But it deserves to be here. I’ve never seen anything like this in fanfic. It’s an atmospheric fairytale told from the pov of the Christmas market, in first person. I so rarely come across books where the atmosphere itself is a primary element, and they are my very favorite. I went absolutely feral on Boho on Discord after I began reading this (thankfully, they were grateful for my feralness, and not put off, hahaha…)

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Dec 2025 TradPub Mini Reviews

Posted on December 31, 2025 by Thistle

I was hoping to finish a sixth book before the end of the day, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen, so without further ado, here are my tradpubbed books of December this year!

A Gargoyle’s Guide to Murder by Gigi Pandian (audio, read by Julia Motyka)
As this is the ninth book in this series, I don’t have much more to say that I haven’t already said in previous reviews. I adore this cozy little fantasy mystery series. This particular book takes place in the UK, and it was nice to visit a few spots that I’ve been to IRL!

A Thief in the Night by KJ Charles (audio, read by James Joseph and Ryan Laughton)
This was a free-on-sale novella, a historical gay romance between a man who just became an earl (with an inheritance that amounts to a rundown mansion full of a hoarder’s rubbish, obviously no money) and the man who seduced and robbed him as he was heading to said rundown home. It was cute and sweet and delicious, and the narration was enjoyable.

Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid (audio, read by Tor Thom)
I don’t have access to the show, so I decided to read the book. And, um… well, let’s just say, this isn’t a gay romance despite what it claims. Oh, sure, the two MCs are two men with all the appropriate bits and acts (which make up roughly 60% of the story, notably, so if you don’t like spice, don’t pick this up), but this isn’t a gay story. It relies heavily on heteronormative tropes, gender roles, stereotypes, timelines, plot lines, and resolutions. It’s not a bad book. It’s just not gay. It’s straight-people romance involving two men. Performance was okay. I didn’t particularly like the Russian accent as if felt a bit too put on, but I’m generally picky about accents so this may just be me.

They Hate Each Other by AM Woody
Oh hey, I actually read a physical book! This is a cute enemies-to-lovers meets fake dating story, toned down for YA. On the one hand, a lot of the backstories of the two narrators, Dylan and Jonah, are carefully crafted to be extremely traumatic, but in a way that would keep the two from understanding that they’re both hiding trauma. Honestly, that part felt a bit contrived. Most of the setup felt contrived, actually. But once we got into the story and the characters had to deal with their issues (and each other), things not a lot better. I actually ended up really enjoying the book, and I appreciated that the author didn’t take the easy way out in any of these spaces.

Every Step She Takes by Alison Cochrun (audio, read by Jeremy Carlisle Parker and Cindy Kay)
Honestly, I’m not sure a book could be more designed for me. A late-in-life lesbian who decides to hike the Camino de Santiago with a group of queer folks, including the woman she accidentally came out to on the plane on the way there. Said woman is running from her bigoted family after they rejected her in her teens when she came out. I mean really, this is perfect, and it remained perfect all the way through. If I hadn’t read it over Christmas while I was in a major depression slump, it might have edged its way last minute into my favorites of 2025. As it stands, I might go back and revisit one day.

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Fanfic Minis – Dec 2025

Posted on December 30, 2025 by Thistle

Haven’t been reading a whole lot in FF this month (despite what the count implies – several of these are ones I forgot from previous months!). But I’ve read a few that were nice. And it’s good to remember the ones I stupidly forgot to write down before.

First: My Longing is Always One by Create_Serenity. Whoops! I actually finished this one in October, but it was on the day I flew to Barcelona, so I missed recording it on the blog. Honestly, I imagine I miss quite a few, especially when they are WIPs and the “finish” is just when the last chapter posts and I’ve been reading the fic for months or even years. This one is lovely to see finished because I was originally the beta for it. I beta-ed the first chapter early on, but by the time the author was ready for later beta-ing, it was very shortly after my divorce stuff started and I didn’t have time to do the work. She understood (she’s lovely, and I got to meet her in person at TIC6!) and I’ve been so happy to see someone else take up the beta and help her get it in shape and online! The author is one of my faves, and this little fic – a canon-adjacent through-the-years segment of a longer series – def has a special place in my heart. I’m sad that I forgot to review it two months ago!

Second: Stress Relief for Angels by Create_Serenity and EybeFioro. Gah! I just discovered another one I missed, this one from early August when I was heading to London. Oops! This is actually a mostly side-character story set in the GO world. It’s very NSFW with NSFW art, and I mostly loved this one for the main character, an OC angel character called Gregory who I later stole to use one of my own fics.

Third: Made in Hell: Matchmaking Agency by Hermiola. My favorite thing about this story is the way the author took one of the canon conflicts (wanting to fix the system from within vs wanting to burn down the whole system and start over) and created a parallel in how the two characters approach relationship anxiety (one who only wants casual because he’s afraid of rejection, one who wants only commitment because he’s afraid of rejection). That doesn’t sound nearly as interesting as Hermiola actually made it, but never mind. It was good!

Fourth: Hereditary Enemies by Another_Freak1258. Look. Just don’t read this, don’t even think about it, unless you’ve been part of the fanfic community (ANY fanfic community) for enough time that nothing in fiction surprises you. And by “anything,” I mean you aren’t bothered by, say, multi-species coitus. Just… this isn’t for you. For me? Sure. This was quite a cute story, very fun, delightfully humorous in all the best ways. Two years ago? I would’ve been baffled.

Fifth: Ineffable Advent Calendar by whatkeepsusalive. This was a collection of 24 fluffy mini-stories about Christmas and our ineffable duo. I had a few favorites along the way, but these were, for the most part, consistently delightful and a big change of pace from what I’ve been reading generally. (In fanfic and otherwise.)

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2025 in Review

Posted on December 29, 2025 by Thistle

You know, when I started trying to blog again in January, I didn’t realize I would be going through an insanely pivotal year of many changes that would make it nearly impossible to keep up. Hm… Well, I guess here’s a recap?

Goals / Bucket List
I crossed out a few items from my never-ending, always shifting bucket list this year: trying a Viennetta (it was okay), climbing on a climbing wall (addictive and I want to do this again asap! It’s just expensive in the US), going through the Chunnel (actually kinda boring, but hey, it’s done!), karaoke (kinda, with some friends in a private room, not sure if it counts?). In my 2025 goals, I completed all of my big travel goals but no extras, all of my writing goals and extras, all the tattoos I had planned plus a small extra one, 50% of my art goals, and a big chunk of my misc goals. Not quite all, but goal-wise, it was a pretty good year. Which is insane, given the circumstances.

Travel
I had four trips planned for the year, which thankfully worked out despite circumstances. In February, I went to Germany to visit my partner Rainstorm. It was the first time we’d met in person since we started dating, and was a very lovely and memorable week. In April, the two of us met in Barcelona for a week. That was an insane trip. It only happened because I had airline credit to use up and it was their birthday week. Then I got food poisoning. On their birthday. You learn very quickly how close you are when you have food poisoning while sharing a hotel room… Not to mention that my soon-to-be ex-husband decided to announce – on the ride home from the airport, after I’d been flying for 24 hours and was super jet-lagged – that he was filing for divorce, had frozen our credit cards, and taken a big chunk of the money in our accounts. Fun? Anyway, that was Travel #2. Then I spent two months in Germany/London this summer, including some amazing side trips while there: Pride in both Cologne and Berlin, The IneffableCon, afternoon tea that Ritz… And lastly, I flew to Barcelona for a reunion transatlantic cruise with the folks I met in 2023. It was brilliant and exhausting and I loved every second of it. Throughout the year, I got to meet multiple friends in person for the first time, in Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK. Very little about travel fell into the negative category for 2025, so that’s good!

Romance / Divorce
Rainstorm and I have now been dating for almost 14 months. We lived together for two months this summer and I cannot wait until I see them again. It has been really freeing to realize and admit that I was never actually bi/pan, but a lesbian stuck in comphet. I feel safe with another person for the first time in decades.

Meanwhile, I’m in the middle of a contentious divorce. Divorce is shitty, especially when it involves unpacking a lot of baggage that you hid from for a long time, and when you discover a number of things that were being done to you behind the scenes. I can’t say much about it, what with legalities going on, but I want to address something that people probably wonder about (which is why I put these two subjects under the same heading). There was no cheating on my part in this divorce. I’m not going to address J’s side because I can only speak about my own actions for legal reasons. But long before I began dating anyone, J and I designated our marriage as a platonic life partnership. After that, we were both free to date. It took me quite some time before I was ready to do so, but once I did, it was never a secret. I have never hidden my actions from J, our kids, or anyone else. Rainstorm and I have been open and honest about our relationship from the start.

Tattoos / Hair
My hair went through quite the journey this year, from pink to purple to blue to campfire sunset to blond to the colors of a lesbian flag to the boring brown-red that it is now because I’m looking for a job. When I cut it in 2023, I didn’t expect it to stay short, but I love it this way. I’m finally embracing a more nonbinary, queer look, and this is part of it. In tattoos, I’ve acquired five this year. There was 1) the matching Good-Omens-coded ghosts with Rainstorm in February; 2) the linked tattoos with my friend Stephanie in later February (a raccoon (her) and possum (me) in the poses of The Creation of Adam); 3) the broken mirror Eight of Swords tarot tattoo on my thigh; 4) the portrait for my cat Gherkin, and 5) the portrait of my late cat Christabel. Eventually, I’ll write more on tattoos, but this made up tattoos 16-20.

Health
Not much to say on this for 2025. Turns out that when I no longer had to live with J, I started losing weight pretty slowly and steadily – less stress! Then during the two months in Europe, I lost like 15 lbs without trying because of better food quality. Then I gained some of it back after I came back to Texas and felt sick and in pain all the time again. Of course. Whatever. I’m looking forward to being in Europe full time.

Writing
When I went into 2025, I was midway through two novels. Since then, I’ve finished both of those novels, written another, plus I’ve written multiple short stories. Altogether, I wote somewhere between 170k and 175k, which to put in standard book terms is about 350-ish pages. Not bad for a year that had a lot of travel and upheaval! Recently, one of my longer short stories was turned into a podfic, which is amazing. And in the upcoming year, I hope to return to some original fiction.

Education / Career
There has been almost no movement on anything resembling a career. The job market is so, so, so saturated right now, and with twenty years of “homemaker/parent” on my resume and no degree, I’m basically fucked. In other words, I’ve applied for hundreds of jobs, heard back from less than a dozen of them, and haven’t made it far enough into the process even to get an interview. Sigh. In the meantime, I’ve been focusing a lot of my time on learning German. The more I can learn before I move and try to get a language-learning visa, the further I can get in the year-long language course. That will help prepare me better for school or an apprenticeship. Hopefully, after I move, I’ll never need to come back to the US again!

Things I’ve missed out on this year
There are a few things that I neglected this year. The first is art. I did some artwork, sure, but very little compared to previous years. I just didn’t have time. The same re: photography. Cameras are bulky and often on my travel, I found myself just using my phone. So I want to correct both things in the new year.

That is a very sloppy wrap-up, but it’s gonna have to do. I’m not even going to go back to reread for edits and typos. It’s just gonna have to be enough. Some of those things above, I might talk more about in later posts (especially travel and tattoos) but for now, that’s what I’ve got left in the tank after an entire week of multiple holiday celebrations. Happy holidays to you all! (You know, the five of you reading this, hahahaha)

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Abandoned Books of 2025

Posted on December 15, 2025 by Thistle

I cull a lot of books, and I don’t feel any need to include those anywhere in my reading counts/reviews. When it comes to abandoned books, however, I’ve read a good chunk – over 50% – and I feel the books deserve screen time even if they don’t work for me. So here is what I abandoned in 2025. Note that I am not including abandoned fanfics in this list – it doesn’t feel fair to critique unpaid labors of love in a review format.

Castle in the Air – Kelley Armstrong: I loved this time-traveling series when I first started it, but it’s been a few years and I found myself absolutely unable to care about the storyline. Each book reads independently, and this one in particular involved time-traveling even further back in time, rather than any modern-day story, and it played a bit too straight-romance-tropes for me.

You Had Me at Happy Hour – Timothy Janovsky: Gay romance, so this should have been right up my street, but sadly, I just didn’t like the characters. Part of it was the audio narrator, who grated on my nerves, but also I just didn’t feel the characterization was realistic. Julien in particular was very off-putting. I might not have minded had I not literally just finished a really great gay romance novel (I’ll Have What He’s Having), but as it was, I couldn’t continue.

One Last Stop – Casey McQuiston: I’d heard mixed reviews about this one and decided to try it out on audio. For quite some time, I enjoyed it: the intrigue of the not-ghost-girl on the subway, the way the main character August starts to build a home when she’s never felt rooted, the portrait of NYC. The sapphic romance was a slow build and lovely…until it basically stagnated and I found myself listening without really paying attention because I was just bored. And once I’d been bored long enough, I realized I no longer cared what happened in the story. I found a blog that gave me all the spoilers, and that felt like enough. This felt like the sort of book that could have been heavily edited to avoid repetition and stagnation.

Come Together – Emily Nagoski: I loved the first book I read by Nagoski, and I got a lot out of the book she wrote with her sister even though I had issues with it, but this one had even more issues (especially with the audio version) and by the midway point, I just couldn’t listen any further. There was too much focus on the heteronormative, and too much of an attempt for joking language, talking down to the readers, and prescriptive metaphors. Oh well.

Isles of the Emberdark – Brandon Sanderson: I’m ashamed to admit it, but yes, I abandoned a Cosmere novel. One that had a fairly decent duo of audio narrators, and for which I had a beautiful special edition copy. I was around the halfway point of this novel when I realized that I just didn’t care about either storyline. Years ago, I read the short story where this novel began, and I didn’t particularly care about it, either. Didn’t remember anything about it except the title. I think these particular worlds and characters just don’t interest me. Maybe I’ll revisit someday, but for now, if I need Cosmere info about it, I’ll just dive into the coppermind.

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Fanfic Minis – Nov 2025

Posted on December 1, 2025 by Thistle

After reading very little the last few months, this roundup makes it look like I read tons, but really, it’s just that a lot of stories that I’d been reading for a long time all came to a close. That’s the glory of reading works-in-progress. Yeah, sometimes it means that you never get the end of the story, and that drives people crazy. But getting to follow along in installments? That’s priceless. Anyway, the reviews:

First: Cracking Kinks by FuzzyGoblin. Fuzzy wrote this silly story for Kinktober, coming up with a new tiny installment every day based on the daily prompt. Some of the interpretations were entirely non-kink, which was a rather clever way to play with the prompts, and there was a strand of humor and silliness all through the story despite some smutty chapters that did actually use the kink prompts the way they were intended.

Second: The Arrangement by depraveddame. This is a story told in nine parts (the author tends to use parts instead of chapters, but I’m counting this as a single story rather than individual installments). It starts with a simple sexual arrangement between two consenting folks, and eventually spirals out into feelings, trauma-induced denial, running away, fear, and good support networks that help the main characters see what they truly want. Not my favorite by the author tbh, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Third: Stuck On You by Zin_Lynn. This one has been on my TBR list for like a year, whoops. In a handfasting ceremony gone wrong, Aziraphale and Crowley have become literally stuck together and must find a witch to help them undo the spell before their respective bosses discover their fraternization. This was such a great story in so many ways! I loved the way the author worked in pieces of the book consistent with the time period and made it canon-compliant despite it not feeling very canon-compliant for most of the story.

Fourth: Sweeter Than Fiction by IneffableRainstorm. Honestly, I don’t know what I can say about this one. I’ve been part of the creation of this one as a brainstorming and beta partner for 18 months, first as it bloomed into existence, and then as it was slowly written and posted over a year. My partner, known on my blog as Rainstorm, wrote this, and it’s one of my favorite fanfics ever. Am I biased? Probably. But also it’s just a really, really good story that gained a huge following online. I loved being involved in the process and celebrating each milestone as they happened. And I got to provide artwork in a few places!

Fifth: The Ternary Passions of Anthony Crowley by GroovyNightStrawberry. This little short story/novelette was adorable. Two shop owners in the same strip center have a bit of an argument in letter form over access to a bike rack. The situation devolves…then evolves…and it’s lovely. The author is one of my faves for short fic, and normally their stories don’t cross the 10k line so I don’t record them here on the blog. I’m glad I finally got to showcase them!

Sixth: If you’ve got to goat, then goat with style by beerok23. This is a sequel to a fic I finished in September, written by one of my dear friends in the fandom and a lovely person that I had a chance to meet IRL back in April. She is incredible, and the number of novels she’s written in the last 18 months is testament to her passion for this fandom. This sequel is silly and surprising, full of inside jokes, and brought me to tears at one point. When R first started writing, she said she would only write mash-ups from her favorite romcoms, but has since branched out and created whole new worlds and stories that showcase the creativity and writing skills (in her second language, mind you!) that she claims she doesn’t have. So R, if you ever read this little mini-review, YES YOU ARE A WRITER. 💕 Love you, sweets!

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Oct/Nov 2025 Audiobook Mini Reviews

Posted on November 29, 2025 by Thistle

Y’all I am so behind at anything blog-related. Divorce stuff has kept me super busy and this fell completely by the wayside. Anyway, here are a few mini-reviews of audiobooks I’ve read over the last few months.

Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher (read by Jennifer Pickens)
This is a fascinating retelling of Snow White and probably my favorite Kingfisher so far. The imagery was astonishing, the characterization superb, and the twists unpredictable even in a retelling. Plus, talking cat. Can’t get much better than that. The narration is perfect, too.

It Had to Be Him by Adib Khorram (read by Corvin King and Vikas Adam)
I was so excited to see this follow-up to (not a sequel, but with the same characters as) I’ll Have What He’s Having, which is one of my top books of 2025. While I didn’t like this one quite as much, it was only a smidge less. Khorram is quickly becoming one of my favorite queer authors. His stories are nuanced and rich and so well-written!

The House of Quiet by Kiersten White (read by Katherine McEwan)
This was a fascinating book that was a pretty damning fantasy involving late-stage capitalism. Pretty apt, but honestly, that’s what I expect from White at this point! The story is about a group of kids either working for or patients in a remote sickhouse/prison where really weird stuff is happening and a huge war is going on around the world. Each character has their own motivations, and the POV swaps around to different heads so you see all these different pieces of the puzzle long before any of it starts to come together. Great book, and the audio narration was phenomenal!

The Entanglement of Rival Wizards by Sara Raasch (read by Sam Stark)
This is my second experience with Raasch, both these sorts of fantasy-set-in-the-real-world type settings where magic happens but the Regular People either don’t notice or let the Magic Folks handle it. This is a story of rivals, of PTSD, of abusive families, and of classism and hierarchy. It’s also a gorgeously-written and very hot gay enemies-to-lovers story. The book far outweighed my first experience with the author, and I ran to see if there was a sequel/series (there is! hurrah!).

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Fanfic Minis – Oct 2025

Posted on November 12, 2025 by Thistle

I know. It’s way past October but I was out of the country from 10/21 to 11/9 and I’m just getting caught up, so here’s my late post!

First: Blind Date by Joanofart. This cute story plays on the ideas of blind dates (obviously) and mistaken identity. Short, spicy, and sweet. Couldn’t ask for more. Well, I could ask for more, as in I’d be happy to see these two in further stories!

Second: an arm to be held at the wrist by ineffabildaddy. This is the story of a tattoo artist who frequents a nearby restaurant, always on the same night at the same time at the same table, and always waited on by the same person. The two are both drawn together, but their relationship is that of patron and employee, so neither speak up for almost a year. Then one day, they actually talk. It’s a lovely story. I met the author at IneffableCon in August (and volunteered to read a part for a podfic of one of their other stories!) and I’d wanted to check out some of their other works. Glad this was my first! There is one moment that literally made me gasp aloud, and I very, very rarely ever react aloud to something I’m reading!

Third: You’ve Got Kudos! by ClassicHazel and Rhaegal. Aziraphale discovers that there’s been a book and TV show made about his and Crowley’s lives. He gets sucked into the Good Omens fandom and attends IneffableCon in the best cosplay – only to discover that Crowley is also an attendee. This story is the most meta thing I’ve ever read. It’s written by the couple who run the IneffableCon, who met through GO and fell in love, who moved in together while this story was being written, and who later got married. They reference actual members of the fandom while including themselves in the story, often by skewering their own personalities. It’s silly, sexy, humorous, sweet, and absolutely brilliant. I binge-read it in the two days leading up to when IneffableCon 7 tickets would be on sale, which made the fic even better.

Fourth: Legacies by AppleSeeds. This was the perfect little ghost story involving alchemists, astral projection, immortality, and very violent ghosts. The author put together each little hint so well. Normally I don’t read fanfiction with a mind toward theories and figuring things out, but this one very much engaged that part of my brain and I was coming up with and confirming/discarding theories along the way. Quite lovely as a pre-Halloween read!

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Another Round of Audiobook Mini-Reviews

Posted on October 6, 2025 by Thistle

Sometimes in July, I ran out of time to blog. I had photos to edit, trips to go on, stories to write, cosplay to plan…etc. I had life with Rainstorm to enjoy. In August, we went on vacation to London, eventually ending up at IneffableCon, all of which I’ll talk about in future posts, one day. I got back to Texas in late August, and have spent the time since then basically busy with a million other things. Enough so that, as you’ve seen, I’ve hardly even had time for reading my normal fanfic stuff.

Since July, I’ve listened to six audiobooks – one while I was editing photos in Europe, all the rest in the six weeks since I’ve gotten home. Audiobooks are great for errands and chores! But they’ve stacked up, and I’ll never get back to full reviews of some of these, so I might as well do another roundup post…

The Frozen People by Elly Griffiths (read by Julie Maisey)
Honestly? I barely remember this story. I liked it a lot. I remember that. I put the sequel, which releases next year, immediately onto my TBR. But I remember very little about it. It was a comfort-listen, great to not have to get so deep into while I edited all the photos taken in Berlin and at Berlin Pride. I wish I’d written something down about it at the time. Might have to revisit before the next one releases. In any case, this is Griffiths doing typically-lovely Griffiths. Love her work!

The Boyfriend Subscription by Steven Salvatore (read by Ellis Evans and Kirt Graves)
I swear, half of gay romance these days is Aziracrow fanfic. This one was soooooo GO-coded. One protagonist is a rich man who has distanced himself from his family and who is scared of love. The other protagonist is a redheaded poor man who just lost everything, including his gardening store. Enter a fake-dating arrangement, and you have the perfect strangers-to-lovers AU. It was great. Loved every second of it. Also, weirdly, I enjoyed the narration, even though one reader (Evans) narrated The Nightmare Before Kissmas and I detested his narration there. Huh.

The Sunlit Man by Brandon Sanderson (read by William DeMeritt)
Speaking of detested narration, this one was awful. Which was unfortunate, because this book is wonderful! Back when Sanderson released his four-secret-projects books, this was the one I most looked forward to. It was the last to release, in late 2023, and I was going to listen to the audiobook. It was the only audiobook that year that wasn’t read by Michael Kramer and/or Michael Kramer and Kate Reading. Given that the duo read most of the Cosmere novels, and they read the other secret projects (including a non-Cosmere novel), it would’ve made more sense for DeMeritt to read the non-Cosmere and for Kramer to read this one. But there you are. Anyway, I tried listening to this back in 2023, but couldn’t get past the narration. At the time, I was too busy writing and reading fanfic to read a physical book, so I put it off. And off. And off. Finally, late in Aug, I decided to just listen anyway. And I loved the book. Yet still hated the narration. Sigh.

Look Up, Handsome by Jack Strange (read by Laurie Kynaston)
Um, remember that whole thing about gay romance being Aziracrow fanfic? This one is even more so. One protagonist owns a bookshop. In Wales. Which he’s losing to a family member who cares more about “business” than kindness. The other is a famous writer who literally drives a Bentley and who rarely ventures back into town because of his family’s fall from grace. There’s a best friend who reads tarot and sees auras and makes predictions. There’s a TV presenter who is basically Jimbriel (no, I won’t explain further). There are lines in the book that are actual throwbacks to moments in Good Omens. If this book wasn’t originally a fanfic, or at least envisioned as one, I’ll eat my nonexistent hat. I devoured it. Not just for the fanfic aspects – the book was so cute and lovely and perfect.

Cleat Cute by Meryl Wilsner (read by Zim Avaltrades and Dana Varden)
Found this sapphic romance at random on a shelf at Half Price Books, and it was available on Libby from my library so I dove in. The good: This was a lovely story with interesting characters. The adhd and autism aspects were extraordinarily well-written. I was literally sending lines from the story to Rainstorm (who is audhd, while I’m autistic) that mirrored IRL conversations we’ve had. It was perfect. The bad: I don’t known if the smut was poorly written or if the two narrators were uncomfortable reading it, but one way or another, the smut parts read very wooden and cringey. Sigh. I’ve yet to experience sapphic smut that was actually hot, which is really fucking sad!

The Wasp Trap by Mark Edwards (read by John Hopkins and Anna Burnett)
This is my third read by Edwards, and I quite enjoyed 99% of it. A dinner party, secrets, murder, and throwbacks to the summer of ’99, when all the attendees of the dinner party worked on a dot-com project together at uni. It’s a story about psychopaths, full of a number of twists that I sometimes saw coming, sometimes not. Everything unravels slowly between present/past storytelling. Loved that. The 1% I didn’t like was the last bit of epilogue, done, as usual, for potential twist. It could have been left off without any impact to the story, and mostly just made me roll my eyes and make this face: 😒 As for the narration, I particularly enjoyed Hopkins’ reading. My only quibble was that the two narrators read at wildly different speeds, so I had to change my speed settings each time the audiobook swapped narrators.

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