june 2025
hello from the far side of the hill! i turned 40 on saturday, and celebrated by asking my loved ones to travel to my home city and dress up as murder mystery characters, which i am pleased to report everyone did with aplomb. it was a wonderful night, and i will be skating on the joy of it for weeks, i suspect. here is the invite i designed with my local stationery shop:
and here is the list of works i sent to serve as costume inspiration, but which were most frequently referred to as my “syllabus”:
and now back to your regularly scheduled newsletter.
read: The Lilbury Murder by James Quentin (2025). The subtitle for this book is “a not-so-cosy murder mystery” and while i understand the desire to prepare your readers (for example, while it is queer, it is not a romance), this read so much like an episode of Midsomer Murders to me that I felt right at home. A successful author decides to move to a small village in the English countryside and finds himself embroiled in local drama when a murder occurs.
read: The Animals at Lockwood Manor by Jane Healey (2021). I found this on a list of recs for Pride. It was interesting! It follows the curator of a natural history museum in London who evacuates with the mammal collection (primarily of taxidermy objects) to a country house during World War II. It’s aiming for a very gothic vibe, and there it doesn’t quite succeed, but I loved the descriptions of the house, and the staff, and the myriad of issues that can befall taxidermy. It doesn’t quite earn its ending, but I enjoyed the big swing nevertheless.
read: Strange Fortune by Josh Lanyon (2017). Still working my way slowly through Josh’s backlist, I came to this somewhat unusual (for her) entry. It’s a sort of British Colonial historical fantasy, one wherein the fictional British destroyed their home country and instead moved entirely to the fictional India. The story follows a soldier of fortune (white, from a different colony) and a witch (white, from a family which sided with the indigenous population during a previous failed uprising and now finds himself extremely out of favor) as they hunt for a relic which the colonial government plans to use to solidify power. It was an interesting ride, and I enjoyed it.
read: The Crack at the Heart of Everything by Fiona Fenn (2024). Queer fantasy romance that does a thing I quite like when I come across it: begins just after The Big Thing has happened. This follows a magician who was instrumental in assisting a ruler in taking power, and in doing finds himself cursed and subsequently exiled. I found it a lovely story of self-discovery and romance, in a very fun world setting (though I did have to force myself not to think about a few details too hard).
sound: assorted recent listening: reconnected with my fave album when i was 13, Veruca Salt’s “Eight Arms to Hold You,” which majorly holds up. big fan of Laura Jane Grace’s new single, “Wearing Black,” which, as both queer and goth, feels deeply personal to me. really enjoying Durry’s new album, “This Movie Sucks” and have been dipping in and out of Sleigh Bells’ “Bunky Becky Birthday Boy” and Telethon’s “Suburban Electric.” Finally, having unpacked my records I permitted myself to pick up the vinyl of Ducks Ltd.’s “Harms Way,” which is very good.
read: The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer (2024). Another fantasy romance, this one riffing on the old narnia idea—what if, when children are missing, they are actually in a different world? This picks up years after two boys went missing and then returned when one of them (who has made his name in tracking down other missing people), is approached for help in locating a girl who vanished in the same forest he had. Shaffer leans into the fairy-tale-ness of it all in a way which I can see as being overly twee for some readers, but it just towed the line for me and I really loved it. Bonus points for being set in West Virginia.
read: Fall into You by Dylan Morrison (2025). Full disclosure: Dylan is a friend. This is still a GREAT book. A queer romance set on a farm in Ohio, this follows Will, who ran from his apple grower destiny as soon as he could, and what happens when his father dies and he finally returns. The plan is to sell the place, but instead of the struggling farm he remembers, he finds it flourishing under the guidance of a man named Casey, who is none too happy to see Will. I love this book, which is funny and sincere, very much about growing up queer in Ohio, and will make you want to eat an apple really bad.
read: Pack of Lies by Charlie Adhara (2022). I read a previous werewolf romance of Adhara’s and seem to recall enjoying it, but not quite enough to continue with the series. This was a whole other story—I finished it and immediately went to find the next one (only to discover upsettingly that it’s due out next summer). This is both a great romance and a great thriller. It’s very much the beginning of a larger story, but was still immensely enjoyable.
read: Sanctuary by Nora Roberts (1997). I borrowed a compendium of Nora Roberts thrillers from the library in the lead-up to my party because I figured they were reliably engrossing and I needed the distraction. I assumed I’d already read all of them, but somehow I must have missed this one, because SURELY I would remember a book in which Nora crammed three romances (plus the hint of a 4th) AND a serial killer. AND a hurricane. Truly nobody was doing it like her. This is extremely heterosexual but I had a great time.
read: Kill Your Darlings by Josh Lanyon (2025). Ending on a brand new Lanyon, this follows a book editor at a publishing conference who is approached by a stranger and handed a manuscript which hints at knowledge of a murder which he was involved in decades before. This book scratched a specific itch for me which is: person is extremely overwhelmed and has a breakdown about it, which is something I bizarrely enjoy in fiction (possibly because if it’s happening to a guy in a book it’s probably not happening to me) and man does Kieran go through it in this book. On the whole I really enjoyed it, but I will caution you that Lanyon incorporates several of her other writer characters, which is maybe less fun if you’re not familiar with them.
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