Sylvia here! I am so excited to be revealing the cover of K.S. Villoso’s upcoming Upper YA Fantasy, BLOOD MAGE (The Dageian Puppetmaster, Book 2). The cover features art by Merilliza Chan, with typography by Liam’s Vigil. The book comes out on July 30th!
If you're looking for something more unusual in #mmromance, be sure to check out Wild Wood by Nick Christie.
It's a fresh take on a new love with shades of the British gay leather scene, motorcycles, and kink incorporated into the relationship. Two young men meet each other which working at a gay naturist camp for the summer. Despite some initial misunderstandings, they become great friends. Highly attracted to each other, they eventually give in to their desires. As time goes by, passion becomes love.
This is more of a romance than other books by this author. It's very much an #ownvoices novel, as the author is active himself in the scene. There's lots of #kink, some challenges to overcome, lots of passion, and a beautiful, hard-won love.
The wait is nearly over! Join us tomorrow for the release of ONE WORLD (Iamos Trilogy, Book 3) by Lyssa Chiavari, and get ready to binge read this epic #YASciFi series!
Huge personal recommendation for #FreeTheSquee -- nerd/geek culture through a queer/femme/therapy/friendship lens. It's SO GOOD, y'all! Ep 2 has thoughtful discussions on #OwnVoices vs outing, plus communication styles and culture. I am in fan-love! https://www.theincomparable.com/fts/2/
In this sprawling fantasy inspired by Filipino folklore, to protect herself and her family, Rosha must impersonate the most powerful man in the empire.
@meshell@bookstodon I don't know if you caught my followup toots but I did a bit more research and saw that the author is autistic with Synesthesia. I breathed a sigh of relief that the person was writing #ownvoices and just not guessing or putting Cassie into a cookie-cutter mold.
Ghosts, Monsters, and Demons of India has just gone for its third printing in #India and a US/UK edition is due out soon from Watkins.
It's an illustrated encyclopaedia of 300+ folkloric fiends from every corner of the country and all eras of history, from Vedic necromancers to the Devchars of Portuguese Goa to Saamri from the Ramsay Brothers films.
@juergen_hubert Thanks so much for your order! Mizo Myths is definitely an #ownvoices work. The Ghosts encyclopaedia includes a lot of folklore from tribal traditions that aren't the authors' own; it draws on some of that old colonial public domain stuff, too, but also on the work of many Indian folklorists. We had lots of sensitivity readers too.
FOURTH WORLD (The Iamos Trilogy, Book 1): YA time travel scifi, Atlantis on Mars, features #OwnVoices asexual rep (main/POV character) and demisexual rep (main/POV character). Secondary characters throughout the series also include lesbian, aromantic, and non-binary rep. Last book in series releases this October, during Ace Week!
Really impressed by Julie Duffy's response to - and rebuke to - an unfortunately popular kneejerk misreading of #ownvoices, sensitivity readers, and increasing diversity in writing/publishing.
She does a nuanced, compassionate, and extremely no-nonsense job of explaining these things on a 101 level as a white writer speaking to other white writers, which of course may be all that gets through to SOME PEOPLE I COULD THINK OF (and maybe some you could think of too).