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So humans fucked up Earth, and then fucked up Mars with piss-poor terraforming, then fucked up with genetics. Sensing a pattern? Well so did their genetic offspring. Their augmented descendants, the Alloys, alter themselves to an environment, not the environment to them, and largely life in space flying around the galaxy? The humans? At best, troublesome children. At worst, a danger to everything else in the cosmos that deserves existence. At least that’s the narrative for the past centuries as humans remain Earth-bound while the Alloys clean up their mess.

But Jayanthi dreams of more, not being stuck on Earth but being able to travel the galaxy and have the rights to contribute to the collected knowledge of their society. Born with sickle cell, Jayanthi figures she and others with the condition would be uniquely suited to surviving on a newly discovered planet, Meru, with elevated oxygen which would be a problem for anyone else. If she can prove she can thrive there, then humans can leave Earth without needing to damage another world through terraforming. It would be an opportunity to show humans have moved beyond their destructive past. But there are plenty of Alloys out to sabotage the experiment.

It had a very sweet forbidden romance and I loved this book’s original take on genetics, both as the huge extent of possible human directed evolution in space and the use of sickle cell as a method of adapting to a different biome. Also, the changes in human culture from having centuries of guilt and infantilisation was interesting, though I’d like to have seen more exploration of it from a human perspective. And the large nonbinary rep throughout was awesome. 

Chloë Parker Stanton leaves her love, Leigh Andrea Hunter, behind to fight in the US Civil War by posing as a man in the Union Army. At the Battle of Gettysburg, she is lost.

Appearing in 2020, Chloë finds herself at the Joint Temporal Integrity Commission which helps reintegrate temporally displaced people into 21st-century society. The person assigned to her is a former sergeant and trans woman by the name of Leigh Andrea Hunter.

Leigh's life in the past echoes to her future self without her fully understanding what is happening, while Chloë grows closer to what feels like the reincarnation of her lover who promised she’d wait for her. But casting a shadow over it is the secret behind the Temporal Integrity Commission's work.

It's a fairly short and light romance focusing on the time-displaced bond of the lovers rather than anything focused on the sci-fi element itself, which I appreciate. It carries a lot of commentary on the horrors of history and present, notably those related to government fuckups, through their shared bond of PTSD and sense of justice.

It's an enjoyable, casual read though not something that really hides any twists or turns. It is forward about everything and largely focuses on the emotional journey. While I am tempted to say there could have been more explored it actually feels quite nice as an easy romantic tale across time.

Also, I never thought I'd read so much dirty talk using army puns.

A religious cult unleashed a pandemic known as The Flood on the world, killing nearly the entire population of the world. The cult continues to hunt down the few survivors in the name of god with flood-infected creatures called Graces.

Two years later: Benji, a 16-year-old trans boy, flees the cult after they murder his father and finds refuge in a group that is the remains of the local LGBTQ+ centre and begins to fall for Nick who leads the group. But Benji harbours a secret, he has been infected with a form of the flood that will slowly destroy him but give him the ability to control the Graces and turn them against the cult, or wipe out the few remnants of humanity.

This has been on my list for soooooo long! It is a dystopian YA novel with a lot of body horror, religious abuse, transphobia and violence but it still manages to feel hopeful and sweet in its romance. While triggering in parts its path of revenge against the cult feels cathartic (especially in the context of growing Christian nationalism). I enjoyed it a great deal but it is not an easy read.

HMRC, a secret government coven of witches established by Elizabeth I, is an ageing bureaucracy healing scars after a civil war and the breakaway of a coven, Diaspora, tired of their less-than-intersectional attitude to witchcraft & sisterhood (derisively called by HMRC’s leadership as the “woke coven”. As a prophecy comes of The Sullied Child awakening Leviathan, the real threats come from corruption within.

Most of the characters are based at Hebden Bridge (Yorkshire’s Brighton or Portland?) mixing their life with mundanes (non-magic folk and a word I love now to apply to non-Queers – because they are very mundane) with their commitment to the sisterhood and Gaia. HMRC is in Manchester, Diaspora in London.

It gives voice to different waves of feminism as they grapple with intersectionality, race and transphobia. The first book having a strong thread of transphobes and feminism and the second focusing on the all-pervasiveness of misogyny throughout human history, as well as a slice of cults of hatred. It also makes a few good jabs at the Tories’ current chaos which I a nice treat after the implicit jabs at JKR in the first book.

They have strong Queer, Trans and BIPOC representation, some lovely moral grey areas.