The Narrow, by Kate Alice Marshall (audio)

Posted on February 27, 2026 by Thistle

No one survives the Narrow. If you fall in, the water will destroy you, often in a way that means your body will never be found. And yet, Eden knows that at least one person survived. She saw Delphine fall in, and she found Delphine back in the dorms, wet and confused and with no memory of what happened. Now, Delphine is deathly allergic to water, a phantom water-ghost is trying to get to her, and Eden is tasked with keeping her safe.

That’s a terrible description but whatever. This is a YA boarding school ghost story mystery/thriller. It also absolutely started as GO fanfiction. I know I’ve said this before, but it isn’t just potential coincidences this time. If this didn’t start as GO fanfic, the author deliberately inserted GO references into it. Not only is the narrator called Eden, with a volatile older brother Luke (aka the name everyone in fanfic gives Lucifer in AUs) and a lot of family-based trauma, but Delphine 1) has long red hair with a tiny braid on one side, –> 2) FELL in the narrow and transformed into a new version of herself with new physical peculiarities, and 3) spends time on the school network under the pseudonym of  Jane Crowley (Anthony J Crowley, anyone?). There’s more, but I won’t harp on what this was prior to being switcheroo-ed into a tradpub novel.

The story was interesting enough. A bit predictable in places, though I wasn’t expecting a few of the developments. I struggled with Eden’s extremely immediate emotions/obsessions, and I always get annoyed with plotlines predicated on “teens do stupid things like jump four-foot gaps over rivers that will kill them if they don’t make the leap properly.” I was too reserved (or neurospicy) as a kid for that kind of thing, heh. I also didn’t feel like we really got a sense of Eden’s true relationship with her friends prior to all this starting. But the story was interesting, and I really liked the ghost parts. I liked the the parallels between Luke and the Drowning Girl (the water ghost), and how Eden is too blind to see them. Once her friends got involved in everything, the story became far more interesting.

This was just one of those middle-of-the-road books for me. I don’t regret listening to it. It definitely hooked me and I listened to it quite quickly, but I also doubt I’ll remember much from it later on. The audiobook was narrated by Jeremy Carlisle Parker, who did a good job reading this without the angst/whining that often goes into YA audiobooks.

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Europe, summer 2025 [part 4 – London part 1]

Posted on February 25, 2026 by Thistle

We have reached the UK portion of my summer abroad! Fair warning that this is long, because we packed a LOT into this trip. Also, despite my intention to get all these summer trip posts into five parts, London is being split in two because I got halfway through the first and realized I couldn’t do it all in one. So now this series will be six parts long.

About a week before The Ineffable Con (TIC), which I’ll talk about in a couple posts, Rainstorm and I took a train up to London. (It went through the Chunnel, which has been on my bucket list for a bazillion years, so hurrah! Between that and using a climbing wall earlier in the summer, that was two bucket list goals crossed off this summer. So far.) We made our way to the hotel via a wild bus ride where a woman smacked her head into a wall when the brakes went on too fast and we all had to get off and go to a different bus so medical help could come. That first night, the only thing we did besides grab some food was stop by the nearby queer bookshop, The Common Press, which we did I think like three more times over the week. We went to bed early because 1) travel day and 2) we had a scheduled brunch at Sky Garden the next morning.

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The Most Unusual Haunting of Edgar Lovejoy, by Roan Parrish (audio)

Posted on February 23, 2026 by Thistle

Edgar has been haunted by ghosts – literally – for most of his life. When he meets Jamie, a professional haunter (creating major haunted houses in New Orleans, specifically), he really likes them – but how can he tell anyone, much less someone who creates scares for a living – that he believes in ghosts?

AFAB transmasc nonbinary gay person who tops/doms and does queer burlesque in addition to creating haunted houses? Um, yes please. Cis gay man with severe anxiety, a sub dynamic and praise kink, a dysfunctional family where the siblings have banded together, and a cat cafe that he runs? YES. And that’s just the setup. Love doesn’t conquer all. Family isn’t perfect. Queer stories can be hard even when you’re confident in who you are and fully out. Sometimes things go better than you can imagine. Sometimes, they’re worse. Even if you lose fear of one thing, you gain fears of others. Anxiety is a disorder, even if the root of your anxiety is real. Sometimes, the people who are supposed to support you will come around, and sometimes they won’t. Cats make everything better. Find yourself a partner who will not only help/support you, but will look out for their own boundaries, require you to look out for yours, and who knows you well enough to understand the things you may not understand (or can’t yet verbalize) about yourself.

This book is already an early contender for favorites of 2026. It was so good. I don’t think there’s a single thing I would change. It does come with a few TWs though, so check a site like StoryGraph before diving in.

Performance: Audio is read by André Santana and Dani Martineck, who both did a good job.

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The Breakup Lists, by Adib Khorram

Posted on February 20, 2026 by Thistle

Jackson really likes Liam, but Liam is straight, right? Besides, Jackson’s sister really likes Liam, too. So even though it hurts him to do it, Jackson nudges the two of them together. The fallout is not at all what he expects.

The good: So I enjoyed most of the first 75% of this book. One of my kiddos was always in theatre spaces, so a lot of this was familiar ground. I appreciated Khorram’s treatment of Jackson’s hearing disability and the way it was addressed in the book. I loved that there were nonbinary main/supporting characters. The premise was interesting, and the relationship that builds between Jackson and Liam is really cute.

The meh: There was a lot of gimmick. The breakup lists themselves felt very forced, but I could live with them. There were a lot of little things, though, that would crop up over and over – like how many times in one book can a person’s shirt tag get tucked in? This type of stylistic motif has never been my favorite thing, but it’s not bad, just not for me.

The part I really didn’t like: The last 25% really crashed apart for me. Bits of it felt highly unrealistic and way too easily resolved. But honestly, my dislike came down to the thing I struggle with the most in Little Women – easy forgiveness for family members when they don’t even TRY to redeem themselves for their horrific behavior. I’m not a fan of the myth of “blood is thicker than water” and I don’t think family ought to be forgiven for any transgression. When you blow up someone’s life and break everything they love, you shouldn’t get off with a “well I’m sorry it affected you and I’m sorry I behaved badly but you kinda deserved it because I was mad.” That’s just abuse, and fuck that. Rant over.

I have loved the other two books I’ve read by the author, but both of them were adult books. I think I’ll stick to his adult ones after this.

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Europe, summer 2025 [part 3 – Berlin]

Posted on February 18, 2026 by Thistle

During my summer trip, I got to attend two major Pride events. The first was Cologne Pride, as previously written about. The second was Berlin Pride. I’m gonna try to keep this short and let the photos do most of the talking!

Rainstorm and I traveled to Berlin by train for a long weekend. We had a couple goals in mind for the trip in addition to attending Pride. There were a few of the regular-type things – the Wall, Museum Island, etc – but I also wanted to visit the Tiergarten for personal (gay fanfic) reasons, and I had an online friend from the US who moved to Berlin in 2020 that I wanted to finally meet in person for the first time.

The day we arrived, we made our way to the hotel, which was a couple blocks from the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. This church was bombed in the war, and a bizarre-but-interesting-looking modern version was built next to it. We did some exploring there, then walked all the way down to the Savignyplatz area to enjoy the mini-park and get some (really incredible) dinner.

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It’s a Date!!!

Posted on February 16, 2026 by Thistle

Okay, I had set to post a review today, but Friday was a Big Day and I couldn’t NOT post about it. The gist:

The Good Omens finale has a release date! And a teaser trailer!

It was a great day for good omens (pun intended), too. First, there was the tattoo. Rainstorm had an upper arm sleeve tattoo started back in November, and the week they got the first outlines done, Michael Sheen spoke about GOS3 with glowing praise and the phrase, “There will be nightingales.” This has particular significance to the fandom as “a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square” is used as a motif in the show, and at the end of S2, there’s a moment where one of the characters says, “You hear that? No nightingales.” Rainstorm’s tattoo involved forest branches with a nightingale on them. Now, back to Friday – Rainstorm’s tattoo shading was meant to be done a few weeks back, but their artist had to reschedule due to illness for Feb 13th. Rainstorm was just home from getting their nightingale tattoo finished when the teaser trailer and date dropped. YAAAAS! Ineffable. Second, there was my tarot card for May, the two of cups, drawn back in December. The two of cups is a card of extremely close friendship and/or romantic love, a pair, or – as they say in GO – a group of the two of us. The art on my deck involves a white bird and a black bird snuggling. Angel/demon wings, anyone? Aaaaaaah! Yeah. The fandom is going crazy. I’m going crazy. It’s perfect, just perfect!

There’s more, but I’ll go back into my fandom corner and squeal away there rather than spilling it all out here, heh.

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Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating, by Adiba Jaigirdar (audio)

Posted on February 13, 2026 by Thistle

When Hani tells her best friends that she’s bisexual, they don’t believe her. She’s never kissed a girl, so how could she know? Irritated, Hani claims to have a girlfriend, a fellow Bengali student named Ishu. Ishu isn’t her friend, much less her girlfriend, but it turns out Ishu needs Hani as well. Or rather, she needs Hani’s popularity to help her win the position of Head Girl to make her parents proud. Cue: fake dating that slowly becomes a lot more real over time.

While the romance in this one was cute, it was the deeper elements of the story that really stood out for me. Both Hani and Ishu struggle with their identities within their community and/or family. Hani’s friends treat her quite poorly for many things – her sexuality, her religion, her heritage – and yet she puts up with it because she doesn’t want to rock the boat. Ishu is more outspoken, but also more abrasive, so she’s alienated people, especially in her bid to please parents who will be happy with nothing except perfection on a path of their choice. The story is filled with racism, xenophobia, islamophobia, biphobia, homophobia, and borderline abuse by parents. So yeah, it has a really cute and lovely romance at its heart, but the book is so, so much more. Lovely reading.

Performance: The audiobook was narrated by Rena Dutt and Shubhangi Karmakar. I’m not sure which narrator performed which character, but both did an excellent job. Hani’s character, who was born and raised in Ireland, has an Irish accent. Ishu’s character, who came to Ireland as a young child, has both Irish and South Asian elements to her accent. The parts read in other languages – of which there were several – seemed to my untrained ear to be well-done. There was none of the whiny angst often heard in YA audio narrations. As you can probably tell, I’m not usually a fan of YA on audio, but this one was great!

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Europe, summer 2025 [part 2]

Posted on February 11, 2026 by Thistle

My trip to Germany this summer included two really awesome hiking trips. The first was to a spot known as Dreilaendereck (three-country point). There are several of these spots in Europe, and this one is specifically the spot where Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium all meet. This trip was significant for two reasons: First, because it was my first time stepping into the Netherlands; second, because Rainstorm and I got to meet a mutual friend in person for the first time. The Changeling Sea (CS for short) is from the Netherlands and drove to a small town called Vaals right across from the German border. Rainstorm and I took the train/bus to the outskirts of Aachen, at which point we walked across the border into the Netherlands and Vaals. We were a bit early, so we did a bit of exploring and got an early lunch before CS arrived.

Once all three of us were together, we drove up to Dreilaendereck. It’s a very touristy place, at least right where the countries meet, complete with silly backdrops for photos, playgrounds for kids (apparently both my companions had been there on field trips in the past), overpriced cafes, etc. We waited our turn to get photos at the center, each of us standing in a different country (I apparently represented Belgium, hahaha). Then we broke off from the crowds and went for a long hike through the hills. Periodically, my phone would buzz at me to welcome me into a new country, but there were no “borders.” It was just three of us hiking around three countries without ever really knowing which country we were technically in. Absolutely lovely!

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Go Luck Yourself, by Sara Raasch (audio)

Posted on February 9, 2026 by Thistle

This second book in the Royals & Romance series involves the second heir of Christmas stuck in an enemies-t0-lovers type situation with the would-be king of St Patrick’s Day. Someone from St Patrick’s Day is stealing magic from Christmas, but there are more mysteries afoot than anyone realizes.

When I read The Nightmare Before Kissmas, the first book in the series, I wasn’t sure if I was going to continue. I wasn’t entirely enamored by the story, though a big part of that was the way the audio was narrated. Then a couple weeks back, I was bored, and none of the books on my TBR were currently available to listen to on Libby. My Spotify hours were out for the month, and I was all caught up on my podcasts. So I did what any sane person would do and dove into Libby’s “available now” list. After some filters to get to the type of book I wanted, Go Luck Yourself ended up on the first page of hits. I previewed it, loved the narrator, and decided to go all in. It helped that I’ve read another Sara Raasch book in a different series and loved it.

Long story short, this one was phenomenal! And frankly, an antidote to the bad taste that Heated Rivalry (the book – still haven’t seen the show) put in my mouth. You know how my review of HR said that it was straight-coded? This one is not. This is purely queer-coded. The difference? Even though this has extremely strong dom/sub dynamics, the sub is never seen as powerless, weak, or controlled. He’s given a full personality and agency and preferences. The dom is not an asshole that just likes to be mean, either. Furthermore, the question of sexuality never came up. Kris, the narrator, has always had crushes that were rooted in his idea of a happily ever after. We only know the gender of ONE of those crushes, and there’s no discussion of his sexuality at all. He meets Lachlan. He finds Lachlan attractive. The fact that Lachlan is male never comes into it. THIS is queer fiction on a different level.

(Note: I’m not saying there is no room for stories where closets and questioning and sexuality worries come into play! I’m only saying that they aren’t necessary simply because a book involves a gay relationship. Many straight-coded queer books seem to think that addressing the sexuality in the room is a necessary part of a queer romance, like the fact that it’s gay is more important than anything else, like the relationship itself…)

This book was phenomenal. Yeah, it’s spicy and the spiciness was good, but mostly, it was a story about the ways dysfunctional family can really fuck you up, and the things you do to protect yourself, which may end up hurting people you come to love. It’s about learning how to disconnect from toxic situations, and stand up for yourself, and believe in yourself. It’s about fighting for what you believe in, and shucking off the beliefs that were pressed on you unwillingly as a child to find what you actually believe in and who you actually are. It’s self-realization, and love, and family (found or otherwise), and the ways in which we express ourselves for the world.

Performance: This audiobook was read by Dylan Reilly Fitzpatrick, who did an absolutely amazing job. 10 of 10 stars, would recommend!!

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A Box Full of Darkness, by Simone St. James (audio)

Posted on February 6, 2026 by Thistle

When Violet, Dodie, and Vale were children, their younger brother Ben disappeared one day during a game of Hide and Seek. He was only six years old. Police never found him, and eventually, the family fell apart. Now, twenty years later, the ghost of Ben is calling his siblings home. All three return to face their past, the nightmares that they each lived with while living in that house in Fell, and the truth about their brother and his disappearance.

In 2020, I read my first St James novel, The Sun Down Motel. In the years since, I’ve read several others by the author, and have really enjoyed her blend of creepy speculative and historical settings. First thing I found out about this story is that it takes place in the same town as The Sun Down Motel – and the motel is mentioned on multiple occasions. Fun little tieback that definitely got me intrigued!

The story was interesting. None of the siblings have been well since childhood. Violet lost custody of her daughter after forced incarceration in a mental institution, and now cleans out the homes of people who have died. Vale is a UFO investigator. Dodie is a model, but only for hair and hands, and while she loves first dates, she’s never had a second. All three drift through life with as few attachments as possible, hiding the truth about their darker secrets – that they see, or have seen, paranormal phenomena. And worse: that all three feel personally at fault for Ben’s disappearance.

This book is a combination of psychological and supernatural warfare. You can’t escape what lives inside you, no matter how far away you run. Truth isn’t always simple.

I loved 95% of this book. The setting in 1989 was perfect. The slow unfolding of the truth was great. The creep-factor was divine. My issue? How frickin’ heteronormative and misogynistic this read in the end. You have three living siblings here, two women, one man. The rest of this is spoilers, so highlight to read: Of course the man ends up forging his own path alone, while the two women have their happy endings wrapped up in finding a man who understands and accepts them. End spoiler. That part was unsurprising, but also disappointing.

Performance: The audiobook is read by Anna Caputo, Ari Fliakos, and Saskia Maarleveld (one for each sibling), and all three sections were quite well read. No complaints.

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