Things I enjoyed in the month of March:
Kat Dunn, Bitterthorn:
I was a dead thing, in my heart. I knew it like a poison I drank each night and purged each morning. I knew that I was isolated, but I didn't understand my loneliness until I knew what I would give to escape it. What I would be willing to do.Until I knew what I was to love, and be loved.It was the Witch who taught me that.
Imagine a library, ancient and dusty, overflowing with wave upon wave of the written word; tomes stacked neatly, haphazardly, precariously, slumbering proud and humble in equal measure. And nestled amongst those books, secreted away like a shy treasure, lies a dark-spined tale, alluring in its modesty, and when found reads like an arcane tale only the chosen few are meant to discover.And it goes by the name of Bitterthorn.Where concealed between its precisely layered pages waits a tale that at once transports you to a German fiefdom familiar yet achingly other in time, where two women on the periphery, the unwanted daughter and the burdened witch, both forgotten and feared, through an ill-fated bargain struck, offer each other something no other had the grace to: patience, friendship, desire, love, time.
"By oak," I whispered. "By ash. By bitterthorn. I swear a bloody oath to you."The oldest words in Schwartzstein. Words of the woods and midnight fear.The words invoked to ward against the Witch, now bound me to her.
Bitterthorn holds you captive through the seasons inside a kingdom of rock inhabited by rooms of perpetual Tuesdays and eternal winters, bidding you watch silently from darkened corners as these two women edge closer and closer towards each other; as they breach their own walls, peer over the other's, form bonds and break them just as fast. As they find the kind of kinship that only the truly anomalous can comprehend. When all of your strange and out of place pieces, the parts of yourself you can't force into conformity, slide cautiously but effortlessly into place with someone else's, and for once that clanging bell of "other" is silenced. Forgotten. Unimportant. Because there they are, at long last, the person who matches you, whose every atom of flesh is as dear to you as your own.![]()
Through this strange, unmoving microcosm of time inside the castle, held fragilely still for Mina and her Witch, we place our own feet within their halting, unsure footprints, tiptoeing behind them as they inch towards this deserved kind of love. And it's a, not necessarily humble, but certainly guileless dance we found ourselves participating in, where unquestionably there are secrets and betrayals and mysteries to be uncovered, but at the very heart of it an innocent story of two ordinary women, encumbered by circumstance, finding their own way, devoid of societal rules of sex, gender, class, to a life that fits them, and only them. Where they dress as they want, go unwashed for days if they wish, exclusively read and revel in nature, the rest of the world be damned. It's almost the most beautiful part of this sapphic take on the Sleeping Beauty legend, that the Witch is of no great power and the beauty none such at all. They are ordinary; extraordinary in their singularity, but possess no earth-shattering qualities, and yet hold the world in their hands, on the tip of two entwined fingers.To hold that kind of power, to carry that duty, to love like that, is an experience often written in a bombastic tone, elevated to hyperbolic, showy heights, where great action holds the spotlight and intimacy is overlooked. Bitterthorn is an intimate book, a story that refuses to rush or run its plot ragged, choosing instead to set a pace of gentle-eyed discovery, overturning its chapters like the running of fingers over well-loved shelfbacks. Bitterthorn is a story that resolutely refuses to let you run ahead of it, denies you the right to fall in love faster than Mina and the Witch, outright rebuffs your need for answers before its ready to unveil them, and its a story all the better for it. These women have been denied, push into corners of the world they never asked for, asked far too much of them and rewarded far too little, and so we suffer with them, give over as much as them, sacrifice the ultimate, and are rewarded in the end with a better... something. Not an ending, not a beginning, but perhaps a "Good morning", an "I love you", a "What shall we so today?". This story may have started with a period, but it ended with an ellipses of infinite tomorrows.
"You came back," [the Witch] said, half question, half thanks."I came back."The distance between us closed on step more. Just as my father had, she reached out a hand for mine and this time I let it be taken, and drew her to sit by me, hip against hip, shoulder against shoulder, head against head.I was home.
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March Minstrels:
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Watching:
Bridgerton season four★★★★½
I waited three seasons for my guy, the historical soft sweater boy artist slutty bi-king of my dreams to get his time in the Bridgerton sun, and my man did not disappoint.
After the travesty of Polin's season (it wasn't that bad, but it still felt messy and cheap, and Nicola Coughlan deserved better!), I really thought this was the beginning of the end for the show. That they'd slashed the budget, tried to do too many storylines at once, and lost the ridiculous, sweeping charm the show brought when it first aired. I was ready to be disappointed.But somehow, through the power of a cute, human Labrador man - who knows the importance of sharing bath time - not being able to recognise the woman he's in love with due to a sparkly mask and clearly having some severe auditory issues (this trope is ultimately stupid, but I'll let it pass), Shondaland managed to crawl its way victoriously back to the show I know and love.
Consider my faith restored, and eager to see love fuck up my longtime pessimist beloved, miss Eloise Bridgerton.I can't wait to see my angry girl melt. She's gonna be so mad about it!
Ps. WHO ALLOWED THEM TO LOOK LIKE THIS?!
Jfc.This is some illegal genetics shit, right here.
Game of Thrones★★★★½
Twelve years and two months of sporadic watching, but I finally managed to finish this behemoth (I stopped watching after season four aired back in 2014 for reason I can't remember), and y'know what? You were all right, that ending did suck.Doing all that work on Jamie's character throughout the seasons and then sending him back to his fuck-ternal twin, abandoning Brienne in the process (not cool, Jamie), only to get squished? Sucked.Turning Bran into an expressionless killjoy who does fuck all to help the plot along except sporadically spout monotone crypticisms, and then crowning him Bran the Broken (come on Tyrion, from one minority to another, that was so not cool)? Sucked.Character assassinating Danny's entire fucking character and making her a mass murderer of innocents, completely deviating from her entire life's purpose? SUCKED.And then to end it with Jon, the Auntie-fucker (no problem with whatsoever, shipped it quite hard actually), murdering her because, y'know, men know best?OH THE SUCKAGE.I am not happy, but actually less not happy than I was expecting? Maybe it's because I waited over a decade to finally finish the show which provided some much needed distance from the hate crime it turned out to be, or I'm just less invested now, but I actually had a really, really, really good time watching this back, and have somehow come out the other side as a Jon Snow stan? You could've told decades-back me this and I've laughed in your "knows nothing" face. But apparently I'm more appreciative of good and pure poor little miaow miaows in my decrepitude, because I kinda love Jon Snow. He's still a little bitch, and he could do with thinking less with his dick at times, but overall I simply like that's he's one of those characters who'd been dealt a shit hand but no matter what happens, they keep on doing the right thing, even at the cost themselves.I like that.I like that a lot.Still mad he stuck Danny with the pointy end, though - insert jokes at your leisure. It felt narratively lazy, rushed, and counterintuitive to the plot progression we spent eight seasons wading through. What exactly was the point? Did the writers simply run out of ideas and decided the best course of action was the tried and true: "A strong women in power? Pah! Let's kill them in stupid, insufferable ways instead and give all the power back to the menfolk!"
SIGH.My poor Danaerys, she deserved so much better.But as far as the show goes as a whole? Honestly, it's inarguably quality High Fantasy, which is a rarity in the industry. It's incredibly hard to find HF shows that manage to bridge the gap between the possible and the possible, ones that don't rely to heavily on CGI or make their characters too cartoonish to take seriously or veer the other way and become so serious its intolerable. As a die hard Fantasy fan, I genuinely struggle to think of any shows other than GoT and its spinoffs that have achieved believable High Fantasy world-building and inhabited it with actors who not only embody their roles but elicit true reactive emotion for the audience, be it affection or hatred. And that's really nothing to sniff at, and I wish there was infinitely more of it. Which is why, no matter GoT's failing, of which there are many and varied, I honestly think it's going to continue to hold up as one of the greats for very long time.If we could hold back on the misogyny on any future endeavours, though, that'd be fantastic, it'd give my vocal cords a rest from yelling at the screen. I won't get chronic laryngitis again because of George R.R. Martin! I refuse!
Ps. Arya, Sansa, and Brienne? I'll bend the knee to these badasses any day of the week. My gods, they're awesome.
House of The Dragon★★★★★
I'll admit, I'm pretty biased because I'm deeply in love with Emma D'Arcy and Olivia Cooke, but this was kind of great?I've always been a sucker for feudalistic autocracies in fantasy and the slithering politics surrounding them, so to go from Game of Thrones' multi-threaded narratives in multiple locations to two duelling monarchic households and the petty, violent, often murderous crimes they commit against each other in their bid for power - with dragons - was a surprising and welcome change of pace. I like the stationary feel to this series; I like the power draw between two distinct kingdoms and being able to sit central within in it; I like that before the Starks, Tullys, and Lannisters were major players and the whole mess of the Seven Kingdoms went to hell in a hand basket, there were solely the Targaeryans, the Valyrians, and the Greens. I like the compactness of that storytelling and the way we slink between the walls of each castle, discovering bodies, plots, and secrets. I like the way the story jumped a decade instead of miring us in years of story progression and got straight to work. I like the mannerisms of the characters: the explosiveness that erupts from Alicent's persistent calm, and the tiny but devastating facial expressions Emma D'Arcy makes within each scene (this is why actors need to stop fucking with their faces; being expressive is your entire job!).I just like this.Not in the same way as Game of Thrones, not even in the same way as any other High Fantasy offering, but in this specific, oddly calming, but still riveting way. I can't really explain it, but it's what I look for in a lot of speculative fiction and rarely come across because stories are often too interested in propelling the story consistently forward instead of wading around in the muck for a bit, splashing around and seeing what gets unearthed. More often that not, it's something well worth getting messy for.
Euphoria season two Zendaya: ★★★★★Maude Apatow: ★★★★Show: ★★★★
Fucking hell, Zendaya. Just fucking fucking hell.If you want to watch a teenage drug addict break your fucking heart for eight episodes straight, then this hellion's your girl.Fuck me.Just.FUCK. ME.I love her so much, and this season was so much better than the first - controversial opinion, apparently. Those last three episodes? Power. Fucking. House.Season three's going to be such a shit show.
Vladimir★★★★
My god, I love an unhinged, horny woman, the crazier the better.
But what do I love more? An unreliable narrator.![VLADIMIR Ep6 “MANIPULATIVE MOTHERFUCKER!”]()
Rachel Weisz archly and flirtatiously breaking the fourth wall as she pants her way through a mid-life hormonal breakdown is not something I knew I needed, but holy shit, I apparently needed it bad.![VLADIMIR Ep3 FASCINATING.]()
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Carissa Broadbent, The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King:
"I hate this place." [Raihn] exhaled the words, ragged, like he'd torn them from deep in his chest. "I hate these people. I hate this castle. I hate this fucking crown. But I don't hate you, Oraya. Not even a little. [...] I'd spend a lifetime at the tip of your blade, and it would have been worth it."
I'm going to have to rename this book The Multiple Concussions and the Brain-Fucked King (and his Dicknatised Wife) because of the sheer number of chapters that ended with "... and it all went black" or "... the last thing I saw was black." It actually borders on ridiculous the traumatic head injuries that occur within this almost eight hundred page book, at least one every three chapters. It's lucky the characters are are all supernatural because otherwise they'd be wandering around the palace with zero fucking clue what the fuck is going on, where they are, or why everyone's covered in so much blood. And it's not like I'm saying it's believable that characters existing in a world of vampires, magic, and monarchical Machiavellianism wouldn't sustain blows to the cranium on a regular basis - that's just how it goes in the royal vampire sandpit - but you can shift from one scene to the next without smacking your protagonists upside the head. It is possible to execute a dramatic shift between chapters without violently pummelling your darlings into diffuse axonal injuries. Which is apparently something Carissa Broadbent has no knowledge of because Oraya and Raihn? Not a single neuron firing in their contusion-patinated, lust-addled brains. These two spent the entire book, when not being knocked unconscious, making horny eyes at each other until Oraya - very swiftly, may I add - got over her now husband brutally slaughtering her ten-shades-past morally grey daddy into blood pudding, and decided it was okay to bang Raihn into oblivion. So much so that the grumpy, surly, fearsome Little Serpent I grew exceptionally fond of from the first book lost her entire personality. The quips are gone, the rage is gone, the fierce little fucker who hunts rogue bloodsuckers at night hath disappeared in a puff of hormone induced sex funk. Raihn must have godhead-level dicking down skills to cause this level of poor little miaow miaow psychosis, because he turned the apparent love of his very long life into a submissive, timid shadow of her former self, and I hated it. I hated it so much. It ruined this story for me.I was so excited when I picked up The Serpent and the Wings of Night, just a buzzing catastrophe of giddiness to have finally found a new fantasy land to sink my teeth into, because I loved the world Broadbent had built. I loved its architectural over-the-top-ness, I loved the characters who moseyed around in it, I loved the story she was telling, and I loved how it made me feel. How it lit that spark I first felt when reading fantasy all those years ago, when everything was fresh and exhilarating and I wasn't jaded by my overconsumption. Here was the start of a brand spanking new adventure in a world of blood and emotion and kicking some serious ass. Or so I thought, until I picked up The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King and was met with the doormat version of my beloved Oraya - seriously, where did her teeth go?! - and a plot that meandered more than me in a bookshop, lovingly booping the spines of potential new reads whilst cursing my lack of funds to simply buy everything. Hours; I could spend hours doing this, and it would be more entertaining than whatever the hell happened here.This second book should've been a bloodbath; it should've explored the dynamic of Oraya in a captive position of power, what that did to her feelings for Raihn, and her slow forgiveness of him; it should've given us way more insight into the deadly politics of the House of Night and Raihn's manoeuvres throughout them while trying to deviate attention away from Oraya; it should've delved deeper into the gods and why vampires and humans let them hold such sway over them; it should've aided Oraya in some tasty fucking revenge instead of sulking like baby's first hormone surge; it should've felt like a headfirst swan dive into royal, sharp-toothed chaos with petty squabbling, outright betrayal, and ultimately finding a way through. Instead, we spend most of the book ousted from the kingdom and trying to find our way back, while I wanted to be inside those palace walls, watching Oraya fuck shit up like a blade-wielding boss - she had such epic Knife Wife energy in the first book, ffs!That would have been the better story, in my non-authorial opinion, not the staggeringly slow climb back to exactly where we were in the beginning that we got.
"Freedom, Oraya. You should've had it your whole life, but better late than never."
And, okay, this all seems incredibly negative, which, sure, it is, but it's not like I didn't have a nice time. It took me a couple of weeks to finish it, and for those minutes spent inside the story, I was entertained, I didn't feel like throwing the book against the wall, I didn't fall asleep mid-sentence, and I didn't nitpick as the story progressed. I simply let the story unfold and vibed the fuck out, because TAatS-CK is not a bad story, but it's also not the great follow up I was hoping it would be. And sometimes that's just the way it is. Sometimes sequels just kinda suck - ineloquently put but, I'm afraid, no less true.Does this mean I'm giving up on the series?Nope. I'm all set for Mische, my sunshine vamp's turn in the romantasy gloom, and I already have Vale and Lillith's novella in my possession just waiting to be cracked open and glommed down. Because what am I if not eternally hopeful and stubborn as fuck when it comes to reading, and especially reading Fantasy.Oraya may have lost her incisors, but I've been chewing on fantastical scenery since I grew teeth in my head, and I don't plan to stop any time soon....Unless it gets really bad, and then you'll find me in the Urban Fantasy section searching in vain for a heroine to live up to Kate Daniels' impossibly flawless standards. I've got a few contenders, but it's damn hard to match perfection.
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Quarterly Romance Faves | January - March:
💘 Kate Canterbary, Shucked
enemies to lovers
fighting is foreplay
storm cloud brat x suit daddy grump
disability / neurodiversity rep
dual POV
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️½
💘 Esme Brett, Winter is Coming
wlw snowy romance
bisexual / anxiety rep
only one bed & cabin trope
muscle mommy recluse x femme domme bombshell
dual POV
⭐️⭐️⭐️
💘 Tessa Bailey, Happenstance
mfmm
why choose? romance
forced proximity & malarkey
the sweetheart x the menace x the daddy
multiple POV
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
💘 Ali Hazelwood, Deep End
college sports romance
kinkmates
injury ptsd rep
good luck troll x golden porpoise
single POV
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
💘 Kate Goldbeck, Daddy Issues
quarter life crisis
age gap romance
single dad bod next door
competency kink
single POV
⭐️⭐️⭐️½
💘 Laura Wood, Let’s Make a Scene
animosity to ardour
second chance romance
sunshine menace x stern grump daddy
fake dating / forced proximity
dual POV
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
💘 Rachel Reid, The Long Game
mlm hockey romance
depression & autism rep
after the happy ever
marshmallow menace x sweater boy babygirl
dual POV
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
💘 Sally Thorne, Second First Impressions
tattooed golden retriever x human label maker
forced proximity
baby bear & tidy girl
tortoise parents
single POV
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
💘 Kristen Callihan, Only On Gameday
wallflower sweater girl x anxious brooder
sports romance
engagement of convenience
anxiety rep
dual POV
⭐️⭐️⭐️
💘 Alicia Thompson, Never Been Shipped
forced proximity
second chance romance
black cat x black cat
childhood rockstar besties
dual POV
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
💘 Julie Murphy & Sierra Simone, Fundamentals of Being a Good Girl
tenured moss daddy x professor nanny brat
forced proximity / age gap / bi rep
plus size fmc & introverted mmc
smart is sexy
dual POV
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
💘 Sarah T. Dubb, Snailed It
mm romance
STEM / addiction / anxiety rep
nerdy sunshine x broody storm cloud
big brother’s bff
dual POV
⭐️⭐️⭐️½
💘 Ava Wilder, Will They or Won’t They
celebrity romance
lovers to enemies to lovers
sweater boy x prickly softy
anxiety disorder rep
dual POV
⭐️⭐️⭐️
💘 Eve Dangerfield, So Hectic
c*nty anime dream girl x former nerd finance fuckboy
besties to enemies to lovers
he falls first & fucks it up
kink goblins
dual POV
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
💘 Tessa Bailey, Pitcher Perfect
sports romance
fake dating / carnal coaching
glarey anxious baller & cocky hookup champ
he falls first
dual POV
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
💘 Jodi McAlister, An Academic Affair
fighting is foreplay
academic rivals to lovers
marriage of convenience
tweed sweater boy x prickly black cat
dual POV
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
💘Britanée Nicole, Darling Daffodils Farm
small town romance
hate/lust at first sight
growly brooder farmer x sunshine menace baker
forced proximity
dual POV
⭐️⭐️⭐️
💘 Ali Hazelwood, Love on the Brain
STEM romance
he falls waaaaay first
two person love triangle
rainbow neuro gremlin x black cat engineer
making beautiful science
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
💘 Kate Clayborn, Beginner’s Luck
STEM romance
parental trauma-bonding
hurt / comfort
reserved materials nerd x sweater boy recruiter
dual POV
⭐️⭐️⭐️½
💘 Alexandria Bellefleur, The Devil She Knows
wlw romance
bubblegum demon menace x miaow miaow chef
capital “F” farce
supernatural romance
single POV
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
💘 Kate Canterbary, In a Rush
sports romance
childhood besties to lovers
marriage of convenience
citrus queen & daddy football
botticelli hellion brat x hulking sweater boy baller
dual POV
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
💘 Emily Henry, Happy Place
ex, lies & summer escapes
only one bed / forced proximity
second chance romance
rumpled brain surgeon & james dean woodworker
single POV
⭐️⭐️⭐️½
💘 Olivia Dade, Second Chance Romance
sweary softie baker x skittish narrator ball buster
plus size MCs
trust fall seduction
mutual decades long yearning
dual POV
⭐️⭐️⭐️½
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Artist spotlight:
Kenz Domalik
AJ Jeffries
thedoodles
Giulia Rosa
Erica Hodne
Amanda Shae
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Housekeeping:
I finally got around to updating the categories of my Reading Master List, which is probably more for me than anyone else, but if you're look for genre recs, I fully endorse all of these.
I'll update as I devour.
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