Did you know that today, March 31st, is Transgender Day of Visibility? It is a day dedicated to celebrating trans people and raising awareness of the discrimination and violence that the trans community faces every day. To celebrate, I’m sharing a trans book rec list that I posted on my bookstagram a few days ago! You can find the specific post here on Instagram (and it is on Twitter/X here). These are books that feature trans characters or are written by trans authors (and here I am including nonbinary identities under the term trans). I’ve included a good mix of books I’ve read and books on my TBR, and have a few upcoming releases as well! So let’s get to the list!!

Hi friends! Tuesday has come around again, and I hadn’t done a Top Ten Tuesday in a while, so it’s time to fix that! Today’s topic is about quick reads – aka novellas and other short fiction. I don’t read a ton of novellettes and other short fiction, so my list will be only novellas. However, a good friend of mine is an author and write short fiction, so I’m learning more about that scene from her! So maybe I’ll share more of that in the future. BUT ANYWAY. Back to today’s list!

Once again I have failed at doing regular Monday Minis posts haha. It seems I managed to do one in 2021, and one in 2022. So I guess this is my one for 2023!! Though I’m going to try to be better…BUT NO PROMISES. Seeing as how well it worked out last year when I said “maybe I can get myself to do this again.”

Beginning last month, I got a free trial of Kindle Unlimited, so for the past few weeks I’ve mostly been reading books from there! I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to write some reviews for what I’ve read. Today I’m just going to talk about 5 of my reads. I’ll try to do another Monday Mini next week with a few more of my favs!

Gideon the Ninth meets the Game of Thrones White Walkers in this dark young adult fantasy about a disgraced ghost-fighting warrior who must journey into a haunted wasteland to rescue a kidnapped prince.

Ready your blade. Defeat the undead.
In the Dominions, the dead linger, violent and unpredictable, unless a bonesmith severs the ghost from its earthly remains. For bonesmith Wren, becoming a valkyr—a ghost-fighting warrior—is a chance to solidify her place in the noble House of Bone and impress her frequently absent father. But when sabotage causes Wren to fail her qualifying trial, she is banished to the Border Wall, the last line of defense against a wasteland called the Breach where the vicious dead roam unchecked.
Determined to reclaim her family’s respect, Wren gets her chance when a House of Gold prince is kidnapped and taken beyond the Wall. To prove she has what it takes to be a valkyr, Wren vows to cross the Breach and rescue the prince. But to do so, she’s forced into an uneasy alliance with one of the kidnappers—a fierce ironsmith called Julian from the exiled House of Iron, the very people who caused the Breach in the first place…and the House of Bone’s sworn enemy.
As they travel, Wren and Julian spend as much time fighting each other as they do the undead, but when they discover there’s more behind the kidnapping than either of them knew, they’ll need to work together to combat the real a dark alliance that is brewing between the living and the undead.

As soon as I heard the announcement for this book, I knew I needed it more than anything. Necromancy!! Fighting to prove yourself after betrayal!! Hints of enemies/rivals to lovers!! By an author I love!! I mean come on, it sounds incredible just from that right? AND THEN!! The cover reveal happened and omggg it’s epic and beautiful, and by my favorite cover artist (Tommy Arnold). And the fact that he also did the covers for the Locked Tomb series? Yes. I’m 10000% in.

A friend was kind enough to send me an ARC of it, and the publisher actually sent me one as well! So thank you friend, and thank you Simon & Schuster! Now let’s get into the actual review part haha. Just so you know, this will be a lot of me gushing about all the different things I loved. This book really hit the spot for me, and it is definitely a new favorite.

Recently I featured Nicole’s post about her auto-buy authors in this blogger appreciation post. After reading her post, I felt inspired to write my own! But also Nicole convinced me to do it hahahah. I think you all will be able to guess a few of the authors on my list. As Nicole said in her post, auto-buy for me doesn’t necessarily mean I will purchase all of their books, since that’s dependent on my personal finances. However I will always read any book from these authors!! And If I have the money, then I’ll buy their books.

I’m also going to list a handful of authors that I think could become auto-buy authors, but at this point I’ve only read one of their books. So they’re on my “potential” list! I’ll definitely be picking up their future books since I loved the one of theirs I read so much.