2024 Wrap Up: The 5 Star Books

 

Reposting from IG: 

I have read a total of 133 books this year. 46 of those were given 3 stars or less, with 6 being DNFs.

This past year I caught myself being influenced by #bookstagram and a bad case of #FOMO... where I went out and bought books I otherwise might not have bothered with, and unsurprisingly, I matched up with those less often than the ones I sought out for myself.

But I read 19 books that I threw all the stars at! And that's not something to sniff at. 6 of those 19 really stood out and became insta-favorites. Books I was immediately sucked into, books that blew me away with their writing and storytelling.

Did any of these make it into your best of lists?!

and if you twisted my arm and made me narrow this list down to my 5 starriest of 5 stars, it might look a little something like this: 

I'm dying to know... how many books did we have in common last year? Let me know!!

2024 Wrap Up: Honorable Mentions

 

Reposting from IG: 

I wanted to share some books that, while they weren't exactly 5 star reads, I still think about them, even now, months and months after having put them down.

They are all uniquely different but also seem to share an otherworldly connection with each other. Strange, odd characters moving through unusual and distinctive lives and situations.

If you haven't read these, I urge you to add them to your TBR and give them a go. They belong in your hands and in your head.

Have you read any of these? Did any make the top of your list? 

2024 Wrap Up: What I DNFd

 

Reposting from IG:

Here are the 6 books I just couldn't finish in 2024... which is quite the feat for me. If you know me, you know it's gotta be really bad if i'm throwing the towel in on a book I'm reading.

I dumped The Water Knife only 7 pages in. The writing was ick.

I gave Jamestown 135 pages to keep my interest and it failed.

Motheater was just too all over the place and the character building was non existent, so I DNFd at the 11% mark.

I DNFd This World is Not Yours at the 42% mark then picked it up again later and eventually finished but wished I hadn't.

I love Keanu but I did NOT love The Book of Elsewhere. I listened to the first hour on audio and gave up.

I tried so hard to like Skull Slime Tentacle Witch War but chucked it at 110 pages. It was weird and turned my brain to mush.

How about you? Did you read any of these and feel differently? Which books did you give up on this year?

TNBBC's Month by Month Reading Challenge

 Good lord you guys, I must be awfully bored this weekend, or ruminating on how to get motivated to read some books, or both, because I spent a little time whipping up another reading challenge. 

I know, I know, I already created one for 2025 - The Afghan Whigs Reading Challenge. It's a monster of a challenge where I took their entire discography and turned every song into its own reading task. 97 tasks, all in all! 

But I kind of also wanted to make a smaller, monthly themed one that continues to challenge us to read differently and diversely but maybe didn't feel as daunting and massive as the other one. 

So here it is. Our mini, month by month reading challenge to kick off the year, hosted over at Instagram: 

No one's saying you can't join both : )

But if you join this one, use #tnbbcreadinghchallenge over at IG to help track your progress! 

What I Read in December

 Well the holidays are good for slowing a girl's reading down, LOL. In December I managed to read 8 books, but one of those was for publicity purposes so I won't count it here. I also DNFd one pretty early in, so I won't count that one either... but I'll include it in the wrap up below just in case you were curious what it was and why I chucked it. 

Also, I tried to read wintery books in December, to try to fully immerse myself in the colder, snowy weather and I did pretty OK with that, as you'll see below. I might try to build in some monthly theme reading in 2025. It might help me continue to work through my ever growing, never ending backlog! 

How did your December reading pan out? Did you meet or exceed any of the goals you set for yourself?!

These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham Grant

Another snowy book pick to match the colder weather settling in outside.

A perfectly paced novel set in a wintery landscape that only serves to enhance the tension in this slow burning story of self inflicted isolation and survivalism.

A father and his young daughter live in a cabin in the middle of the woods with no electricity and no contact with the outside world. Well, with the exception of Jake, a close friend who owns the cabin he's squatting at, and a nosey distant neighbor who appears to be watching his every move.

For his daughter Finch, this is the only life she's ever known. She's adapted well to life in the middle of nowhere. Cooper, on the other hand, lives every day in fear of the things he's done that brought him here eight years ago, hiding from his past, feeling like he's just one knock on the front door away from being separated from his little girl again.

I really enjoyed this one. It's not a pulse pounding thriller, though there are definitely thrillerish elements to it. It's a deceptively quiet, beautifully written story of the lengths a father will go to in order to protect his daughter, the struggle of accepting the horrible things you've done, and of not losing sight of the person you are despite the steps you had to take to get where you are.

If you liked Elmet by Fiona Mozley and What Mother Won't Tell Me by Ivar Leon Menger, you'll find elements of those here.

Extinction by Bradley Somer

I forget who I saw reading and recommending this but I thought it sounded decent and picked up on PangoBooks. Loving the cover but didn't care too much for the story.

Set in a near future, humans have finally damaged the Earth to the point that they have begun settling elsewhere in outer space. Flights off the planet are expensive and not everyone is prepared to leave just yet. Our protag Ben, a ranger and conservationist, has dedicated his time to protecting the last living grizzly bear from poachers. One night, Ben hears voices the valley and things suddenly turn all cat and mouse with guns ablazin' as they each attempt to get to the bear first...

Eh. I wish it would have spent a little more time on the whole 'end of the earth' piece of the storyline. I mean, why bring in science fiction elements if you don't intend to draw on them? But it appears Somer's was interested in writing a gazillion bad shoot-out scenes, poorly placed and confusing flashbacks that just appeared in the middle of a scene without warning, and horribly underdeveloped characters.

I should have DNFd it, but the ever hopeful reader in me was hanging on in the hopes that it would get better. It didn't.

An eco-thriller that comes up short on both the eco and the thriller.

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones

This was one of my most anticipated reads for 2024 (even though it doesn't come out till March 2025). I tried so hard to land an advanced copy. And maybe that should have been a sign? Because holy hell, once I had it my hands, it took me forEVer to finish it! I think it's partially because I was reading it on my kindle app and not in actual print format, but also because the damn thing is just so frick'n meaty and chewy.

The writing is much heavier than I'm used to from SGJ and the story seemed to take ages to fully unfold. Even after you got the gist of where it was headed, it felt like it just kept rehashing the same things over and over again. It's like ok, honestly, I get it, I promise. Let's move on already. And then when you get to the last section, all of a sudden the damned thing just moved at warp speed. So the pacing felt all thrown off. Like, it literally took me two weeks to read the first 80% and then the final 20% of the book was over in the blink of an eye.

In true SGJ fashion, there is so much death. Gory, horrific, necessary death. There are monsters, in every sense of the word. It's a book within a book within a book and its pages drip with bloody, generational, Indigenous history. It's a revenge story with an empathetic bad guy. And when it finally ends, you don't feel as though that's the end of things, you know?

So don't get me wrong. I one hundred percent appreciate the book for what it is and how he's breathing new life into this genre. SGJ is a masterclass in revamping classic horror tropes. But good loooord my legs are tired from slogging through it all!!

You Can't Take it With You by Marcus Hawke

I bought this on kindle for cheap after letting #bookstagram influence me once again. Yes, I know. The last time I let bookstagram convince me to buy a book, it was baaaad, and I said I wasn't going to fall for it again. And yet... here we are.

Book #FOMO is such a thing you guys.

Ok, so here we have a ninety year old millionaire named Monty who is just done with laying around waiting to die, and so he injects himself with a mysterious, liquid filled needle he bought at auction for a ridiculous amount of money. He rises out of his grave shortly afterwards to discover it's Christmas Eve and he's a hungry vampire, and so he goes on an all night blood slurping binge in NYC.

A Christmas Carol this ain't.

This one was strange for me. The writing was ... missing something. Even though the first half of the book dove into Monty's past as he reflected on his life before taking the plunge, it felt like we never really got beneath the surface of things which stunted my ability to connect with him. Likewise, when he turned, his desires and the animalistic urge to feed felt flat, more hollow and functional than anything. So if you're looking for something deeper... this isn't it.

But it was fun if you're reading it for what it is and are just looking for some lightweight seasonal horror to pass the time. And it'll scratch your gore itch for sure.

It explores the fear of death, asking the age old question - if you could, would you make the choice to live forever? But then again, life after death is still a form of death, isn't it?

Nobody is Ever Missing by Catherine Lacey

This book found me while I was browsing the shelves at a bookstore. I had read her previous novel Pew and enjoyed it but wasn't necessarily looking for more from her. From the first few pages, I knew Lacey had sunk her claws into me. I fell in love with the writing. If I was a different kind of reader I would have marked up so much of this book - all of it hits in such a powerful way. I mean look...

"Occasionally being destroyed is, I think, a necessary part of the human experience."

"Some people make us feel more human and some people make us feel less human."

"What matter is that sometimes sense is made between two people and I don't know if it's random or there's any kind of order to it, what combinations of people work the best and why and how do we find these people and how do we keep these people around and I don't know if it's chaos or not chaos but it feels like chaos to me so I suppose it is."

"To love someone is to know that one day you'll have to watch them break unless you do first and to love someone means that you will certainly lose that love to something slow like boredom or festering hate or something fast like a car wreck or freak accident or flesh eating bacteria."

It's a story about depression and directionless, about feeling stuck in time, about not being honest with yourself, and about trying to escape the one thing you simply can't get away from... yourself.

5 stars all the way. Geesh, this thing!

The Unmothers by Leslie J Anderson

I've seen mixed reviews on this one and I can see why. Though it's a bit slow, I found it to be completely engaging, and couldn't fault it for riding the whole small town with strange secrets angle right up until the very end.

Here we meet Marshall, a journalist who's stuck in a funky state of grief over the recent loss of both her husband and their unborn baby. She's sent to a small town out in the middle of nowhere to report on a horse who allegedly gave birth to a human boy. She knows her boss is handing her this joke of an assignment so she can get her head back in the game, but once she arrives, she begins to realize there is a whole lot more to things that they initially thought.

Part investigative mystery, part folk horror, The Unmothers packs a solid punch. Horse lovers, men haters, and fans of sacrifices, weird rituals, and freaky things that follow you in the woods, will find lots to sink their teeth into here.

Children of Paradise by Camilla Grudova

A girl gets a job at one of the city's oldest cinema houses. It's a gross job - sweeping up the screen room, unclogging toilets, wiping down seats covered in all manner of fluids (of the soda, beer, and bodily kinds). It also takes her a while to break through the staff's cold shoulders and make her way into their inner circle, but when she does, she happily finds herself mixed up in all sorts of movie theater mayhem. And then, just as she's really starting to settle in, the cinema owner dies, new owners move in, and the staff death toll just keeps on climbing.

Please do not mistake this for horror. While there is some blood, this is just a story about a bored twenty-something year old plain jane working a crap job with other unmotivated aimless co-workers who are all trying to pass the time and make a buck without busting their humps too much in a place that doesn't seem to give two shits about them or their physical or mental wellbeing.

Drugs, sex, suicide, and exploding popcorn machines propel the otherwise slower paced storyline forward. Same sad girl fiction, just in a different setting. One that tugs at your nostalgic senses, depending on how much time you spent low key hanging out in movie theaters, or hell, at each others houses watching movie after movie, perhaps maybe even washing down some suspicious pills with a warm expired beer, in your younger years (wink wink).

And the book I DNF'd, which was a review copy I requested because it sounded pretty interesting but alas... it wasn't... I called it quits 11% of the way through. 

Afghan Whigs (2025) Reading Challenge

 

I really love reading challenges because of the way it stretches your reading comfort zone, but I've always sucked at actually completing them.

In 2015, over at Goodreads, we kicked off our most outrageous challenge ever, borrowing The Beatles Reading Challenge from another group I was a part of, which had turned their songs into reading tasks. And in 2016, we whipped up The REM Reading Challenge. (I really sucked at this one. I couldn't even complete one album, but man was it fun trying!). And then to honor David Bowie's passing, in 2017 we pulled together the Bowie Reading Challenge! In 2018 I decided to take a break from our music theme and challenged everyone to read whatever the fuck they wanted in our RWTFYW challenge. The only rule was that there were no rules : ) In 2019 I spread my love of Guster around, 2020 was all about Ani DiFranco, 2021 had us fan girling over PJ Harvey, and 2022 continued the female artist love with our Liz Phair challenge (I sucked at this one too, didn't complete one album but came soooo close for so many!). 2023 had me returning to my 80s roots and we concocted The Cure challenge, which was my most successful up to that point. And 2024 brought us the Depeche Mode challenge, where I completed a whopping record breaking 8 albums!

For 2025 I'm going to keep the alternative resurgence theme going and am thrilled to announce that we're hosting The Afghan Whigs Reading Challenge!

I first caught a taste of them when dating my then-boyfriend, now-husband back in the mid-nineties. I remember playing their album Gentlemen ad nauseum because I just could not get enough of it. It was dark and sexy and that voice...! Every time I hear a song from that record, it immediately stirs up memories from that time. 

Whether you know and love Afghan Whigs or this is the first time you are hearing of them (I mean it's possible, right? They just dropped a new album after nearly 5 years), what I think is most cool about these kinds of reading challenges... is that you don't even have to be a fan of the musicians to participate. You just have to be a fan of READING!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Afghan Whigs (2025) Reading Challenge

(click through to create yours!)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So here's how this works:


*The goal is to cross off as many of Afghan Whigs' songs as you can throughout the course of 2025.

You can challenge yourself to complete one entire album, focus on completing one decades-worth of albums, or build your own challenge by hitting your favorite song titles... it's totally up to you!

*You cross off the songs by reading a book that meets the criteria listed after each song title.

If the book meets multiple reading tasks, cool! You can apply it to multiple song titles, OR you can make the reading challenge more challenging by limiting yourself to one song title per book.

*There may be built in redundancy with some of the tasks.

They are repetitive on purpose, to give you an opportunity to read more than one type of book and still get credit for completing a task. (Sneaky, I know!)

*Please copy and paste the entire list, or your customized challenge list, into your own thread in this goodreads folder and strike through the song titles as you complete them, OR, you can simply copy and paste each song title and its criteria from the master list here as you complete it. (obviously put your name in the thread title so we know whose challenge it is).

*Do not add your list directly to Rule and List thread.

*YOU MUST LIST THE BOOK TITLE AND AUTHOR that coincides with the song as you complete it for the challenge so we know what you read!


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

An example of a completed song title task in your Challenge thread would look like this:

““This Bouquet” – Read a book that features flowers on the cover - The Distance from Four Points by Margo Orlando Littell

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Aaaaannnnnnnddddddd here's the list:

A total of 9 studio albums and 97 total songs tasks! 

Big Top Halloween (1988)

“Here Comes Jesus” – Read a book that features religion

“In My Town” – Read a book that takes place in your hometown/state, or is written by an author from there

“Priscilla’s Wedding” – Read a book that features a female protagonist

“Push” – Read a book that you had to push yourself to finish (and probably should have DNFd but didn’t)

“Scream” – Read a book that scares the beejezus out of you

“But Listen” – Read a book that you know you’ll never stop talking about

“Big Top Halloween” – Read a Halloween themed books

“Life in a Day” – Read a book cover to cover in one day and take credit for it here

“Sammy” – Read a book that features someone’s name in the title

“Doughball” – Read a book that prominently features food

“Back o’ the Line” – Read the book that’s been sitting in your TBR the longest       

“Greek is Extra” – Read a book written by an author from a different nationality/culture than you

 

Up In It (1990)

“Retarded” – Read a book that is highly offensive and/or features very dated and inappropriate themes in today’s culture

“White Trash Party” – Read a trashy novel

“Hated” – Read a book and if you absolutely hated it, take credit for it here

“Southpaw” –  Read a book that’s a little off kilter or left of center

“Amphetamines and Coffee” – Read a book that features addiction

“Now We Can Begin” – Read the first book in a series and take credit for it here

“You My Flower” -  Read a book with flowers on the cover

“Son of the South” – Read a book that is set in southern state

“I Know Your Little Secret” – Read a book you’d consider a guilty pleasure

“I Am the Sticks” – Get cozy with a seasonal read

 

Congregation (1992)

“Her Against Me” – Read a thriller

“I’m Her Slave” – Read a book written by a female author or an author who identifies as female

“Turn on the Water” – Read a cli-fi book

“Conjure Me” – Read a book that features ghosts/spirits

“Kiss the Floor” – Read a book with romance elements

“Congregation” – Let yourself be influenced by the masses, read a book that’s heavily featured on Bookstagram or TikTok

“This is My Confession” – Read an autobiography or an auto-fiction title

“Dedicate it” – Read a chunkster, a book with 400+ pages

“The Temple” – Free space, read anything you want and take credit for it here

“Let Me Lie to You” – Read a book with a twist you did not see coming

“Tonight” – Read a book in one sitting

“Miles Iz Ded” – Read a book that features made up language or unique vernacular

 

Gentlemen (1993)

“If I Were Going” – Read a book while on a road trip/vacation

“Gentlemen” – If you read a book that you are absolutely obsessed over, take credit here

“Be Sweet” – Read a book that’s lighthearted and cutesy

“Debonair” – Read a book that made you feel fancy

“When We Two Parted” – Read a book that you never wanted to end

“Fountain and Fairfax” – Read a book that focuses on place and landscape

“What Jail is Like” – Read a book that kept you captive the entire time

“My Curse” – If you read a book that everyone else loved but you didn’t, take credit for it here

“Now You Know” – Read a new-to-you genre

“I Keep Coming Back” – If you re-read a book, take credit for it here

“Brother Woodrow/Closing Prayer” – Save this spot for the last book you read this year!

 

Black Love (1996)

“Crime Scene Part One” – Read a true crime book or crime novel

“My Enemy” – Give ‘em another chance, read a book by an author you read previously but didn’t like

“Double Day” – Free space, read anything you want and take credit for it here

“Blame, etc” – Finally read that book you keep meaning to read but have been putting off

“Step Into the Light” – Read a book that won an award

“Going to Town” – Go buy a book, read it immediately, and take credit for it here

“Honky’s Ladder” – Read a book with a wildly inappropriate or misleading title

“Night by Candlelight” – Read a historical fiction book

“Bulletproof” – Read a book with a lot of action

“Summer’s Kiss” – Read a book set in the summertime, or a book that could be considered a beach read

“Faded” – Read a used book (the more beat up the better)

 

1965 (1998)

“Somethin’ Hot” – Read a book that’s got sizzlin’ spicy romance in it

“Crazy” – Read a bizarro or weird fiction book

“Uptown Again” – Read a book that’s set in a big city

“Sweet Son of a Bitch” – If you read a book and gave it 5 stars, take credit for it here

“66” – Read a book that features an elderly protagonist

“Citi Soleil” – Read a book that’s translated from another language

“John the Baptist” – Read a book that features a character with a different or unique job/career

“The Slide Song” – Slide out of that book you’ve been struggling to read, go on, DNF it and take credit for it here

“Neglekted” – Read a book that’s been on your TBR for over a year

“Omerta” – Read a book set in a made-up place

“The Vampire Lanois” – Read a book that features vampires or other creatures of the night

 

 

 

 

Do to the Beast (2014)

“Parked Outside” – Read a book in which the main character is on the run from something

“Matamoros” – Read a book set in another country

“It Kills” – Read a book that features a slasher or a lot of gore

“Algiers” – Read a book written by an author of a different nationality than you

“Lost in the Woods” – Read a book that takes place in or around the woods

“The Lottery” – Read a book that was gifted to you

“Can Rova” – Free space, if there are no prompts that fit the book just you read, take credit for it here

“Royal Cream” – Read a book that features food

“I Am Fire” – Read a book with a red cover

“These Sticks” – Read Appalachian fiction or a book that takes place in the Fall

 

In Spades (2017)

“Birdland” – Read a book with a bird on the cover or that features birds

“Arabian Heights” – Read a book that’s considered a classic

“Demon in Profile” – Read a book that features demons or possession

“Toy Automatic” – Read a YA book

“Oriole” – Read a book with a red cover

“Copernicus” – Read a book that takes place in outer space

“The Spell” – Read a book that features witches or the occult

“Light as a Feather” – Read a book that is less than 100 pages long

“I Got Lost” – Read a book that confused the heck out of you

“Into the Floor” – Read a book that’s just totally trippy

 

How Do You Burn (2022)

“I’ll Make You See God” – Read a book that prominently features death or grief

“The Getaway” – Go hide from everyone and read a book, then take credit for it here

“Catch a Colt” – Read a western, or a book that features horses/cowboys

“Jyja” – Read a book with one word in the title

“Please, Baby, Please” – Read your most anticipated book of the year and take credit for it here

“A Line of Shots” – Read a book that’s set in a bar/features a lot of drinking

“Domino and Jimmy” – Read a book about BFFs

“Take Me There” – Read a book that features a place or thing that you’ve visited or experienced

“Concealer” – Read a book that turned out to be something different than you had expected

“In Flames” – Read a book that really pissed you off

the 40 But 10: Ben Arzate

 

I had decided to retire the literary Would You Rather series, but didn't want to stop interviews on the site all together. Instead, I've pulled together 40ish questions - some bookish, some silly - and have asked authors to limit themselves to answering only 10 of them. That way, it keeps the interviews fresh and connectable for all of us!

Today we are joined by Ben Arzate. Ben lives in Des Moines, IA. He is the author of several books, including the story collection The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Saying Goodbye from feel bad all the time, the short novel Saturday Morning Mind Control from D&T Publishing, and the play collection PLAYS/hauntologies from Madness Heart Press. His latest is the novel If today the sun should set on all my hopes and cares… from Unveiling Nightmares.

What made you start writing?

 Originally, I wrote lyrics for a music project in high school. I couldn't continue it when I started college, so I started writing poetry. When I got some published in the student journal, it encouraged me and I went on to writing short stories and, eventually, novels.

 

How do you celebrate when you finish writing a new book?

 I used to celebrate by going out for a drink. Nowadays, I don't really celebrate, I just sit dreading having to start editing.

 

Describe your book in three words.

 Bleak, tragic noir.

 

If you could cast your characters in a movie, which actors would play them and why?

 I would rather they be played by unknown actors who aren't conventionally attractive.

 

What are some of your favorite websites or social media platforms?

 The Internet Archive is probably my favorite and I would encourage all the people reading to donate to them. Other than that, most websites and social media platforms are terrible now. We all should have migrated to Vampire Freaks when we had the chance.

 

What is your favorite way to waste time?

 These days it's by playing Goddess of Victory: Nikke.

 

What is your favorite book from childhood?

 I picked up The Kryptonite Kid by Joseph Torchia when I was in middle-school. I didn't fully understand it at first, but it really showed me what language alone can do.

 

What are you currently reading?

 I'm currently going between Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon, Skinship by James Reich, and Tell Me I'm Worthless by Alison Rumfitt.

 

What’s the single best line you’ve ever read? 

 I think the best opening line of a book I've read is, “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel” from Neuromancer by William Gibson. The best closing line is, “She had the human look of a domesticated animal,” from Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica.

  

What’s on your literary bucket list?

 The complete works of Henry Darger.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Available now!

Rick is divorced, has a drinking problem, and works as a janitor at his local high school.

During one of his shifts, he makes a shocking and disturbing discovery in the girl's bathroom that sucks him into the lives of two of the students.

Despite his best efforts, he finds that he may be powerless to prevent the two from heading down a path of destruction for themselves and others, especially when he can barely keep himself and his disintegrating relationships together.

 

Buy it here    |    Substack   |   Blog

Project Malarkey

Blog Tour: Twice Spent Comet

 

We're happy to help Meerkat Press support the release of their latest title, Twice Spent Comet, by participating in their blog tour. 

Today we are joined by Ziggy Schutz. Ziggy is a young queer writer living on the west coast of Canada. She’s been a fan of superheroes almost as long as she’s been writing, so she’s very excited this is the form her first published work took.

When not writing, she can often be found stage managing local musicals and mouthing the words to all the songs. Ziggy can be found at @ziggytschutz, where she’s probably ranting about representation in fiction. 

To help celebrate the release of Twice Spent Comet, Ziggy is participating in our Indie Spotlight series:

Seeing Yourself

 

It's funny. I've been writing since I was a little kid and my grandmother let me play with her typewriter, and I've been talking about representation in books for what feels like almost as long. I used to do queer education in schools, and it was something we talked extensively about -- how important it was, to find your own identity staring back at you from the page of a good story.

 

And still, with all of this, it took me until 'twice-spent comet' to realize that I could do this with my own identity.

 

I write queer fairytales and space operas, and yet I hadn't ever written someone who had the same pronouns that I've been using for years. Was it fear, that made me hesitate? Having to explain my shifting mix of 'he' and 'she' to an editor, which felt like a much larger task than the quick rundown I give to folks I've just met? Or was I not practicing what I had preached for so long -- that every identity is worthy of a story and an adventure.

 

When I sat down to write Quarter Jones, a minor character that sits somewhere between memory and myth for most of this novella, writing her pronouns out felt scarier than the rest of the story put together. I wanted to do right by him, and by everyone else who was like me, using he and she interchangeably. I wanted to try to capture the joy that I feel every time I hear someone juggle my own pronouns. Here I am, writing a story about space mermaids and terraforming asteroids. Why was I so worried that it would be the rebellion leader's pronouns that made the story feel less real?

 

But I did it. And as 'twice-spent comet' is released into the world, I couldn't be prouder of Quarter Jones and her mix and match words. In a strange way, it makes it easier to feel proud of myself, too.

 

So go on. Write that story that hits a little close to home. Sure, readers will find it who need to read it. But also give yourself the grace of writing what you might need to read. You deserve it, just the same as anyone else does.

 

Happy reading, y'all. And happy writing, too.

 

- Ziggy Schutz

(she/him/he/her)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

RELEASE DATE: Dec 3, 2024

Science Fiction |  LGBTQ

The fall from hopeful revolutionary to prison laborer is a hard one. Fer’s world has shrunk from the whole damn universe to this anonymous asteroid and the four other convicts who share it with them. It’s a fitting end, for someone who used to wish on stars but now can only seem to collect endings.

But magic and falling stars have ways of finding those who need them, and when Fer takes a chance and looks up, there’s a mermaid staring back at them, silhouetted by stars.

twice-spent comet is a fairy tale for forgotten places and the people whose stories are stuck waiting for the next sentence. 

Bookshop.org  |  Amazon

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Excerpt

1

In the beginning, before Humans had claimed the stars as their own, they held hands as they watched lights streak across the sky and called it Magic.

Magic, as everyone knows, must be Spoken and Heard and Believed, and so it was so, that stars were Magic, and those that fell especially so.

Sometimes, the beginnings of stories are just as simple as that.

~~

Waking up is always the hardest part.

Fer’s been on this rock long enough that they’ve gotten used to the routine. Even grown to almost like it. Maybe it is just like an earthborn kid, to search for the positives of the place that’s going to kill you, but it’s hardly the worst of the habits Fer was born into. On the days that feel just that much longer, they even take to listing those positives, counting them off on fingers that no longer swell with just one day’s work.

They like how easy the work has gotten, when early on they’d barely been able to make it through the day. They like their new muscles, filling out fabric that had hung loose before. They’re fed better here than they were in the prison or the transfer ship, and the companionship is a huge upgrade.

The transfer ship’s captain wasn’t a fan of lights for the prisoners. Wasn’t a fan of much chatter, either. And in the dark, people lose things. Faceless, silent shapes. That’s what the prisoners became, on that ship. Fer paced their cell aimlessly, spilled ink on a blank page. Even now, months later, there are days where words sit heavy on their tongue. Like they’re a limited resource, waiting to be wasted.

Waking up has always been a slow process for Fer. On bad days, they wake up on that ship. On the worst days, there’s a moment where they forget they ever got caught at all. Where in the moment before they’re properly awake they really do expect to see the cluttered walls of their last hideout—dangerously close to being a home. Back before Adrastea happened, and everything went tits-up.

Then they open their eyes to the soft curves of their small cell, and they remember they’re here. Officially occupying the middle of nowhere, six months into a fifteen-year sentence they’re not expected to survive. And everything presses down on them, like artificial gravity.

But, hey. Could be worse.

Fer reaches over, taps the speaker set into the wall so that it’ll stop telling them to wake up. They step into their orange jumpsuit, garishly bright against the soft blues of the metal walls. With an underlayer that will glow even brighter in the event of a loss of light, the suit is “the height of prisoner-safety technology,” according to the worker who had issued it to Fer. As if Fer wouldn’t notice the fraying seams or dried blood staining the cuff of one of the five otherwise-identical suits.

They saved that one for days when they felt especially lucky. Or bitter.

Today, they’re mostly feeling hungry.

They duck through their empty doorway—no doors here, no barricading yourself away, just a thin audio divider that always feels slimy when stepped through—and into the common room, letting the noise of the only other occupants on this asteroid roll over them.

The best thing about prison is other people. Who knew?