Today I’ve got gay space romance, a dystopian trilogy with extremely good trans representation of secondary characters and an alt-nineteenth century straight magical romance!
By Imperial Decree by Angel Martinez
Cheerful gay space romance.
So, I don’t usually get completely sucked in by Cinnamon Roll characters! But this time, I have, utterly. Marsh is a space-station mechanic who finds a runaway prince in the ship he’s been told to bring in for salvage. The prince is hiding from various things…his mother, over-enthusiastic, dangerous suitors, his life generally. Shenanigans ensue. It’s a lovely, cheerful read and Marsh is so nice it would usually make my teeth itch, but for some reason he doesn’t. There’s, a minor appearance by his parents, space-orchard-managing non-nonsense ladies who made me grin constantly. Recommend!
The Rampart Trilogy by M. R. Carey
Eventually hopeful dystopia with great trans representation.
This a hard sci-fi trilogy, I guess? Set in a future dystopian UK where genetic engineering has made the trees and animals so inimical to human life that the diminishing population is isolated in little villages that are held together by the remains of technology they don’t really understand. The main character is a young person just reaching adulthood at the beginning of the first book, who begins to question everything he’s told about how both the tech and his society works.
One of the things I found fascinating was that it’s initially set in West Yorkshire, which I hung around in quite a bit in my college years due to a boyfriend from Halifax (or Half Ax as it’s called in the story). I spent quite a while translating the dystopian names back to the towns and villages they’d evolved from. However, even if you aren’t familiar with The People’s Republic of Yorkshire, this will suck you in.
The second thing I loved about it was that it has absolutely brilliant trans rep. It’s clear from the acknowledgements that M. R. Carey did their research and they perfectly capture some of the the different levels of dissonance and dysphoria trans people can experience. Thirdly, it’s a rip-roaring story. It’s just…perfect. And fourthly, the covers. The covers are beautiful.
So, that’s why you should read them!
Spellswept (The Harwood Spellbook, #0.5) by Stephanie Burgis
Alt-nineteenth century straight romance. With magic!
This is a lovely little romantic prequel to what I understand is a series featuring other characters. The world-building is fascinating, an alt-nineteenth century-ish world with women wielding political power and men wielding magic. But what happens if that isn’t a hard-and-fast rule and things can change?
I really enjoyed both the characters and the premise and I’m interested in reading the main series.