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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Europe, summer 2025 [part 1]

Posted on February 4, 2026 by Thistle

Last summer, I was in Europe for two months. Because it was such a long time, I need to split up my travel posts about it into five parts. In this part, I’m going to talk about the six weeks I spent in Germany in a general way, leaving the more specific day-trips and such for other posts. Honestly, this post will likely be more of an infodump with a lot of photos, because how do you wrap up six weeks of time in a single post?

I’ve probably told the following story on the blog already, but frankly, I don’t feel like doing the work to go back and check, so ignore me if this is old news. The whole premise of this trip came from a few random ideas tossed back and forth between Rainstorm and me over the two years that we’ve known each other. When they went to Pride in Cologne in 2024, we chatted about how I should come join them for Pride 2025, especially as I’d never been to Germany. Then later, we snagged tickets for The Ineffable Con, which would be held just outside of London in late August 2025. What with Barcelona in April and TIC in August, I couldn’t also come to Europe for Cologne Pride in early July 2025. That’s way too much overseas flying!

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Fanfic Minis – January 2026

Posted on February 2, 2026 by Thistle

This month was a mixed bag for stories. I tried to read too much. I tried to read a ton from my TBR, regardless of whether or not the stories were working out for me. I read some out of obligation, and I read too fast. It took me almost until the end of January to realize I was only hurting myself. It was similar to my early years of blogging, when I had to break out of the cycle of reading for obligation and because something had once been put on my list. After that, I spent a lot of time culling my TBR, and that was immediately followed by beginning stories I enjoy again. I’m still working to get the balance right, but I think I’m further along than I was a month ago.

First: Petrichor & Parchment by Mrs Noggin. This story is an Aziracrow classic, with an insane stat count. Thus, while I’ve been told over and over that this is a great story, I’ve been intimidated to try it. I decided to take the plunge as my first fanfic in 2026, and yeeeeah all those recs were right. This was amazing. It’s S1-era, so the personalities are different from what comes in AUs these days, and that was refreshing in a lot of ways. There’s one moment that stood out to me for its simplicity: a semi-nonverbal version of Crowley, curled under a blanket and leaning against Az on a couch, and Az is trying to entice him to eat by naming out a dozen possibilities. At one point, Crowley’s arm shoots out of the blanket, hand up. Az stops, asked if he wants the item that was just named, and the response is grabby-hand motions. It was such a cute moment, and so grounded in something real that might happen. Domestic fluff at its finest.

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January 2026 in Review

Posted on February 1, 2026 by Thistle

I’m not 100% sure I’ll do monthly reviews all year, but so much has been going on that I thought it might be good to wrap it all up at least for now! Not in so much detail as I used to do, though.

  • Tarot of the month (full year, month by month, drawn Dec 2025): Temperance – Moderation, balance, doing things but not doing too much – in context of January, this card is telling me to ease into things, as I tend to go overboard in January // This version of Temperance comes from the Divine Feminine Tarot Deck. (not an affiliate link)
  • Song(s) of the month: Atlantic (Sleep Token); Black Hole Sun (Soundgarden)

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The Man in Black, by Elly Griffiths (audio)

Posted on January 30, 2026 by Thistle

This is a collection short stories relating to Griffiths’ various series, and some that I think are standalone (or at least are unrelated to books that I’ve read). I listened to this on audio, read by many different narrators, who all did a good job. Obviously, as the Ruth Galloway series is my favorite, I was most interested in the stories that centered on that one. But almost all of them were interesting, and unlike most short story collections, I was able to listen to these back-to-back without ever feeling the need to stop and decompress between stories. That made it a really effective collection for me.

There was only one story that I originally skipped: The Stranger by RM Holland. I thought it was a real ghost story included in the collection, but on second pass, I realized it was actually a fictional short story from The Stranger Diaries, which is where my journey with Elly Griffiths began! So I went back and read this one after all the others.

My favorite story in the series by far was “The Valley of the Queens.” It was near the end of the collection and while it wasn’t necessarily the most interesting story, plot-wise, it was the only one that came after the Ruth Galloway series ended, so it provided a glimpse into the lives of these characters several years on. Since I miss that series immensely, it was lovely to see how everyone is doing. But I also really loved “The Man in Black,” “Articulation,” and “Flint’s Fireside Tale” to round out my top picks.

I know this isn’t much of a review, but how does one really review a short story collection related to other books anyway? I enjoyed it. A comfort read.

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Barcelona – Apr 2025

Posted on January 28, 2026 by Thistle

So back in the post about my 2024 travels, I mentioned a trip that didn’t happen re: medical emergency. The refunds that I managed to get for that trip involved a roundtrip ticket to Barcelona that needed to be used before June 2025 and had to be on a specific airline, despite booking/getting the refund through Expedia. (Y’all, I had so much trouble with Expedia that I will never, ever trust them again. I even bought insurance for my hotel rooms and such, and they still refused to give me any money back!) In the late fall, when Rainstorm and I were just starting to flirt and almost-date, we talked about possibly meeting up in Barcelona. Then our friend Roxy, who is from Italy, said that she and her family would be in Barcelona for one day in late April – literally the day after Rainstorm’s birthday.

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Strange New World, by Vivian Shaw (audio)

Posted on January 26, 2026 by Thistle

As this is the 4th (ish**) book in a series, I’m not going to go into plot details. Instead, I’m going to talk y’all through my experience of reading this book.

1) I began this book not really knowing if I would read on. I’d read most of the series many years ago, and my memories of book 3.5** were sketchy. I said in the review of that novella that I was more inclined to read on now than I had been before, but nine months later, I just didn’t know if I had the interest any longer. The only reason I even had the audiobook was because it was free on a deal in Oct/Nov. I figured I might start it, then cull it from my list.

2) The book opens with an angel getting hit by a poisoned dart. He’s an angel who has been on earth for a long time and enjoys his time there, though he feels a bit guilty for it. He has a counterpart, a demon from hell who is a surface operative, that he meets with periodically and is friends with. Sound familiar? Yeah, this was me immediately saying what the hell, is this suddenly Good Omens fanfic?? I don’t remember ANY of this from Bitter Waters!

3) I went back to check my reviews of the previous 3.5 books, specifically book 3 (Grave Importance). While Bitter Waters was about vampires and such, Grave Importance – and presumably the previous two volumes, though I didn’t look into them specifically – involved angels and demons and armageddon. The whole series was published prior to the GO TV series, and def wasn’t fanfiction. Well, I couldn’t say how the book may have acted as an influence. I’m not the author, obviously (heh). But in any case, angels and demons working together on earth was apparently a big part of the series prior to Bitter Waters.

4) Intrigued by both the opening premise and by the extremely stellar review that I gave Grave Importance in 2019, I kept listening. And this turned out to be a phenomenal book. It was well-crafted and intriguing, pulling together so many different threads before the climax. Additionally, it was so funny in places. I wasn’t expecting the humor in places, like the conversation between the devil and his admin/right-hand-man, where the devil says he wishes he could show up to the diplomatic meeting with the angels in his giant snake form, and the admin says that it wouldn’t be very nice. It would be especially not nice if he showed up in normal form, turned into a snake halfway through without a word, and all the other demons/monsters continued talking as if all was normal while the angels freaked out. Corporate/bible humor at its best, honestly.

5) At the end of the third book, I thought this series was complete, and given that it took ages for another book to release, perhaps maybe it was intended to be. I’m really glad that it came back and that I gave it a chance by whatever combination of circumstances. I’m tempted to go back and reread the first three books of the series.

6) The audio is read by Catrin Walker-Booth, who did a really good job, especially with all the different accents.

**Technically, it’s the 4th book of the series, however, there is a novella that is considered book 3.5, a kind of side plot called Bitter Waters that I read in March last year.

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Tattoo Tour: 16-20

Posted on January 23, 2026 by Thistle

Here’s the next roundup of tattoos, these being the five that I got in 2025. These were mostly tiny tattoos, because of finances.

— Ghosties 1/2 (16)
As mentioned in my recent post about the Feb 2025 Germany trip, Rainstorm and I got complementary tattoos. This was a silly little thing planned prior to when we began dating, and basically it came about like this: First, we became beta partners for Good Omens fanfic. Then, I wrote a silly ghost story AU fanfic in the summer of 2024. Then, I decided to put together the idea of Good Omens and silly ghosties and my love of all things spooky! Mix all that up, and you get one happy ghost with a bowtie and button-down shirt, and one grumpy ghost in sunglasses and a smirk. When I was in Germany, Rainstorm and I got these tattooed on our calves so that they could stand next to each other when we did. They’re kinda at the perfect height, too, because they peek over the top of socks!

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