Category: LGBQTIA

‘My Policeman’ – Bethan Roberts

Started again in November having read none of it last month, and this is a definite case of rounding up my review though there’s many elements of it that frustrated me.

The Policeman is a book that I only heard about when looking for a book to fulfil a PopSugar2022 category, and it tells the story of Marion and her husband, Tom, and the third wheel to their relationship, Patrick.

Our setting is 1950s Brighton. This period was evoked well, and the claustrophobic nature of the setting was necessary to highlight the key focus of the story. Marion becomes best friends with Tom’s sister and has a crush on him, she waits for him to return from National Service and engineers ways to spend time with him. Though this might seem rather forward for the time, it’s clear from the outset that Tom isn’t going to get her into the expected trouble as he is gay.

Given the time, this can’t be named. The secrecy surrounding people trying to express their feelings is something I find hard to accept, though I do think the writer presents this well. The knowing looks and euphemisms highlight just how brave someone who lived their life as they wanted to really was, but the situations that are referenced throughout emphasise just what a risk was being taken.

The book begins with Marion’s view and takes us through the beginnings of her relationship with Tom. We see them enter marriage, and when the narrative shifts to Patrick’s diary it is evident that this is not going to end well.

Through Patrick’s eyes we see his pursuit of Tom and their subsequent relationship. I felt desperately sad that these men could not be honest about their feelings for one another and that the selfishness of each of the characters led to this very messy situation.

As the book draws to its end we learn that Patrick has had a stroke and is being cared for by Marion. This is no selfless act, rather a need to atone for something she thinks she set in motion by writing a letter to Patrick’s employer. This act – though we are never sure – leads to Patrick being imprisoned for indecency, and though his charm gets him a long way we know he is beaten for being gay.

In spite of the setting and general story being presented so well, I found it difficult to understand the motivation of any of the characters. For seemingly progressive people, they were quite restricted in their thinking. I was frustrated by the fact that we never hear Tom’s view and he is only seen through the eyes of others. The hero-worship was never justified for me. The structuring of the book began well, but things moved so quickly at the end and it seems a shame that for what was clearly such a major event in Patrick’s life, so little focus was paid to what followed. Perhaps there was a reason for this – others have commented that Tom’s silence and his absence from Patrick’s life may be intentional – but it niggled. I also found myself increasingly frustrated by the fact that each of the characters was so determined to pursue their course of action in spite of it making them so bloody miserable! Was it worth it?

 

‘Never Ever Getting Back Together’ – Sophie Gonzales

Never Ever Getting Back Together was a story that I really didn’t know what to expect from…but it was so much more fun than I could have hoped for.

We are given the premise of a reality TV show (think Love Island meets The Selection) all about second chances. Even though it was two years ago, Maya still remembers how upset she was when her boyfriend of the time cheated on her. He maintains he did nothing wrong, and now he is in the public eye he is firmly in control of the narrative of their break-up. When he rings Maya and asks her to take part in this show – where he spends time in a remote location with a number of exes as he tries to work out which one he would like a second chance with – Maya, quite rightly in my view, is stunned at his audacity. However, then she takes it upon herself to see this as an opportunity to set the record straight and get her revenge.

What Maya didn’t bank on was the involvement of the other girl involved in her particular triangle, Skye. The two girls do not get off on the right foot, and while it is clear that drama between the two girls was being banked on for ratings what comes next is even more entertaining.

Over the course of their attempts to sabotage Jordy’s show, Skye and Maya end up realising they have a lot more in common than they first thought. Their relationship was far more engaging than the fake ones put in place for the show, and I could not wait to see exactly how things panned out. This was a relationship that it was hard not to root for.

Thanks to NetGalley for giving me the chance to read and review this before its expected publication in November 2022.

 

‘The Sunbearer Trials’ – Aiden Thomas

I’m hugely grateful to NetGalley for giving me the chance to read this in advance of publication, and am now excited to read the next instalment.

In what is being touted as a mix of Percy Jackson and The Hunger Games, Thomas creates an action-packed magical competition. We are in a well-established world, where the Gods need to be kept happy. Every decade a competition is held in order to find the winner of the Sunbearer Trials. Their win means that the Obsidian gods can be kept at bay, and the power of the Sol stone can be replenished in order to protect the people of Reino del Sol.

Our focus is the year that proves to be something of an anomaly. For the first time in a century not only Golds – who train for this event – are chosen. Two of the Jades – the lowest in the semidios rankings – are selected, and we see Xia, Teo and his best friend, Niya, collaborate to keep alive and try to be in with a chance of avoiding their intended role as the sacrifice.

Teo is a trans boy, son of Quetzal, the Goddess of Birds, and a large part of the story is about Teo learning to accept his identity and to consider the role he might play in his country’s future. The relationships between the characters were interesting, and I was rather taken aback by the unexpected shift in allegiances towards the end – however, it sets things nicely in place for a most entertaining story in book two.

 

‘Her Majesty’s Royal Coven’ – Juno Dawson

A solid 3.5 stars, with a story that sweeps you up in its embrace and spits you out at the end…desperately waiting to see what comes next.

Slow to get started (at least it was for me) but our focus is Her Majesty’s Royal Coven, a group of witches, and four key women who have been friends since childhood. There’s a lot of backstory to these witches, and we get glimpses into their past, but key elements of the story focus on a battle between witches and warlocks that is never really explained clearly. Moments are alluded to, and perhaps there is a plan to further expand on these in book two.

A central focus of the story is the prophecy that the Sullied Child will rise and destroy the world. Now that they think they’ve found them, Helena is determined to try and work out how to prevent this prophecy coming true. She enlists the help of her old friend Niamh, an incredibly strong witch, to talk with Theo and establish how much of a threat this will be.

It was clear from quite early on that Theo was more powerful than anyone could predict. This is what prompts the need to investigate. However, we soon learn that Theo identifies as a girl…and so we move into a more political exploration of gender and attitudes to trans children.

Anyone reading this is likely to draw parallels between Helena, our trans-hating coven leader, and a certain female writer whose views on trans-rights are widely criticised. Dawson tries to allow Helena’s views to be aired, but the vitriol she spews and the reactions of those who fight against her establish clearly where our sympathies are meant to lie. In the portrayal of Theo we have a character who is simply fighting to be, and the happiness she radiates as people express their acceptance of her makes it hard not to want to champion her cause.

The background of the coven allows some context to the events taking place. Certainly, as we draw to the close and see Niamh’s sister setting something in motion I found myself very keen to get my hands on the next instalment. Unfortunately, the constant Spice Girls references grated on me and the pacing at the start was too slow to warrant a higher rating.

 

‘The Book Eaters’ – Sunyi Dean

The Book Eaters takes a fascinating premise – people who can survive by eating books, each with their own distinctive taste – and evolves it into a dark urban fantasy. We see the depths people will go to in order to protect those they love, and there’s no escaping the dangers inherent in people’s obsessive need for power over others.

Devon is a member of one of the old Book Eater families. Raised on a diet of fairy tales her life is, as she recognises, one of constraint. A princess, but one who cannot escape. Destined to be wed twice, for the sole purpose of creating and raising an heir, Devon hates how the expectations of others challenges her own primal bond.

The story opens by plunging us into a world that makes little sense. Devon is in Newcastle with her son, Cai, who needs to feed regularly to survive. No ordinary child, he needs to eat minds to live. She spends her days hunting for good people to let her son feed, and the talk of knights and dragons following them is confusing.

As the story unfolds we switch back to the past and so get the details that explain the current situation. Forced into a dangerous predicament, there’s no disguising Devon’s determination to get the best for those she loves. Necessity dictates that only one child is focused on during this time, but I like the fact that her daughter was still very much in her thoughts.

The mind-eating element of this story really was quite unpleasant. However, it was interesting to see how those who were regarded as different were treated by those in control. Challenges were made, and it clearly doesn’t offer much hope for change overnight, but I wonder whether this concept was meant to get us thinking about events/attitudes in our present.

Thanks to NetGalley for giving me the chance to read this before publication in exchange for my honest thoughts. I haven’t made mention of it yet, but that cover is a beauty!

 

‘Husband Material’ – Alexis Hall

When you reach the age Luc and Oliver are in the book I appreciate that you are often caught up in the kind of situations they experience. Having got married at 21 I really don’t get the focus on weddings, but I appreciate that it can force you to feel certain responses.

Luc hasn’t moved on much – he would be exhausting to live with, and yet he brings a certain charm to his reactions. This time round we get to see them go through a number of weddings, some of which are more entertaining than others, and how it impacts their relationship.

Luc and Oliver continue to feel they have to behave a certain way, and I was pleased that they were given the opportunity to really have the chance to think about who they were/what was important to them. The scene following Oliver’s speech really did hurt – sometimes family are the ones who find it easiest to hurt you.

Thanks to NetGalley for giving me the chance to read this before publication.

 

‘The Society for Soulless Girls’ – Laura Steven

Jekyll and Hyde inspired story…school setting…supernatural…I was curious about this the moment I saw it on NetGalley, and I wasn’t disappointed.
The elite Carvell College of Arts has a fantastic academic reputation, but it’s association with student deaths has haunted it. Ever since her family friend Janie died there, having jumped from the infamous North Tower, Lottie is determined to find out what happened. Much against her family’s wishes, Lottie enrols at the college.

From the outset she feels a darkness to the place. Her roommate, Alice, appears unnaturally angry. Lottie finds herself waking in the middle of the night, covered in dirt, with no memory of having left her room. One morning she finds herself with a ruby – which seems to come from the statue of Saint Maria – embedded in her neck. Whenever she talks about leaving the place, the ruby grips her throat and causes intense physical pain. Soon after their arrival at college a student is found dead outside the North Tower. On the night in question Alice (having experimented in a ritual she finds written down in a mysterious book in the library) has several unaccounted hours and wakes drenched in blood.

When I see those events recorded in the way I have just presented them, this book sounds crazy. It requires you to suspend your disbelief and trust that the supernatural elements serve a purpose…and they do.

Once the parallels between Jekyll and Hyde were explicitly made, and we focused on the mystery surrounding the college, the book became more interesting. At its heart it is a story about friendship, love and trusting in others to help – while taking on those who would do their best to crush women simply for daring to have strong emotions!

 

‘I Kissed Shara Wheeler’ – Casey McQuiston

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me a glimpse of this before its release. While it didn’t have quite the emotional pull of the other McQuiston books I’d read, it drew together nicely.

Our focus is Chloe Green who’s in competition with Shara Wheeler, the Principal’s daughter, for valedictorian. Both girls are fiercely competitive and they have, for the past four years, danced a strange dance of one-upmanship. When the book opens, rumours abound as Shara has disappeared.

Determined that she will not be given the top spot by default, Chloe vows to find Shara and get her back to school in time for graduation.

The main thrust of the book focused on this rather odd scavenger hunt orchestrated by Shara who has left cryptic notes for three people, all of whom kissed Shara before she left. As we only learn about Shara through the veil of someone else’s view, I found it hard to work out quite what kind of character we were looking at. I also found the setting of the book – a strong Christian homophobic setting – really off-putting. People were pigeon-holed and made to feel wholly uncomfortable, nobody seemed to do anything about it, and it appeared to have been this way since Chloe’s mum endured coming out years earlier.

While the days before Shana appeared were instrumental in helping to develop the characters, it was once everyone was back in their rightful place that I felt things started to fall into place for me as a reader. Chloe opened her eyes a little and started to look beyond herself. It had a relatively happy ending, even though there was clearly a long way to go!

 

‘Felix Ever After’ – Kacen Callender

I admit to picking this up because I fell in love with the cover…sprayed edges made this a joy to look at. The content felt as if it might be an awkward read – I wondered if I could honestly sit through something where a character who is trying to be themselves gets such awful abuse. How would the author tackle some pretty hard-hitting issues?

I needn’t have worried. From start to finish, I was in safe hands.

Callender creates a very real character in Felix. Trans, black and gay…he worries he will never fit in anywhere and wants nothing more than to fall in love. He is a talented artist, but his feelings around his identity seem to be preventing him from really expressing himself. He gets angry, he messes up, on occasion he does some really hurtful things and yet there’s a searing honesty to him that I found touching.

The story focuses on Felix coming to terms with some questions about his identity, developing relationships and coming of age. There’s romance, though not quite in the way I expected it to go.

There’s no escaping the fact that the incident that is at the heart of much of the book – another student’s disgusting gallery show of old pictures and public deadnaming of Felix – was stomach-churning. The response from Felix and his friends was not, perhaps, the most sensible…but it was done with the right intentions. I loved the strength and support shown to Felix by those who he didn’t always recognise as allies.

While the love triangle was necessary to help Felix start to realise what/who mattered to him, I found myself most impacted by the scenes involving Declan’s grandfather and Felix’s dad. It was nice to see someone else’s view of things, and it was encouraging to see that people in such a situation will react differently.

There’s no guidebook to how to manage such a scenario, but this book will certainly offer support and encouragement. Highly recommended (and the cover is so beautiful that I’m tempted to put it on my bookshelf the wrong way round just so I can see the edges!)

 

 

‘A Lesson in Vengeance’ – Victoria Lee

A Lesson in Vengeance is a twisted story, which will probably warrant a reread to appreciate fully.

Set in the Dalloway School, a remote academic establishment mired in rumour and stories of witchcraft. None of the staff talk of these rumours, but the girls do. Secret societies devoted to spells and the study of the dark arts thought to be responsible for the death of five students of Godwin House abound, and they draw the attention of students such as Felicity Morrow, our narrator.

Felicity was present on the night her girlfriend, Alex, disappeared and has now returned to the school to complete her studies. Certainly emotionally vulnerable, Felicity has a record of erratic behaviour and her conduct gives cause for concern. She is convinced she is haunted by the spirit of her ex-girlfriend, and we watch as strange events occur.

This year sees the arrival of new girl Ellis Haley, a published writer, and a character very keen to learn more of the hidden past of the school. She befriends Felicity in an attempt, she says, to debunk the older girl’s belief in magic and witches. But it’s clear that Ellis has other ideas in mind.

Initially rather slow, I found myself intrigued by the school and its depiction while also feeling rather disassociated from events. As the story develops and we start to see more of Ellis in action I found myself quite gripped. The relationship between Ellis and Felicity felt like something from Donna Tartt herself, and as events built to their climax I could not quite get my head around exactly which character I disliked more. To make you like and hate a character in equal measure is quite something, and Lee certainly toys with our perception of the two leads. My main issue with this – and the only reason I didn’t award 5 stars – was the sense of remove I felt at the beginning and the sense of the secondary characters/school environment being rather underdeveloped.

Thanks to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this in advance of publication, and this is certainly one I’ll bookmark for a re-read at some point.