Music, Reading, Writing, Photograohy
I used to write fanfiction, I used to read fanfiction, I used to love fanfiction. Sophie Gonzales‘ novel The Perfect Guy Doesn’t Exist does not only scream fanfiction – writing fanfiction is an integral part of the plot. So when I found this book at the bookstore and read the blurb, I had to buy it immediately. I didn’t regret it.
If I haven’t done so before, I hereby declare F.T. Lukens my favourite author of all times. I mean it. They deserve it. I’ve read three out of their four books (and the fourth one is resting in my bookshelf, waiting for its time to shine) and all of them were absolutely stunning and exactly the type of fiction I looooove. If you’re looking for some cozy queer fantasy, F.T. Lukens is your author. And Spell Bound is worth a consideration.
Sometimes I aimlessly scroll through Amazon’s section of queer romance books to see if there’s anything noteworthy that I haven’t discovered in the book shop yet and that doesn’t scream „SPICE“ loudly and clearly. During one such scrolling sessions, I stumbled across Travis Baldree’s Legends and Lattes and I was intrigued immediately. When I found it in the local bookshop, I bought it – and then it rested for a while in my bookshelf before I finally made a move to read it.
I can’t put into words how much I was waiting for this book to come out after reading the second part of the Rosenholm trilogy. You can find my review here. The series built up a lot of tension and the ending of part two was so damn promising that I was burning to read part 3. Yet, I had to wait for a bit before I could finally dive into the book, because my bookstore got two (!) faulty copies for my order and I was seriously bummed. Every day I had to wait for the book was a day too much. As soon as I finally got an unharmed copy, I started reading. Here’s what I thought of the book. And so much can be said: I cried my eyes out.
Thomas Herzsprung is an author I came across on TikTok. I started following him without having read any of his books mostly because of his personality, but I kept looking for his books in the bookstores. I knew he wrote psycho thrillers and since I’m a huge fan of Sebastian Fitzek and the like, I wanted to give him a chance. Yet, I never found a single book of his in the bookstore and since I usually found something else to take home with me instead, I never thought of ordering a book. Now I recently discovered that as an Amazon Prime member I have access to a selection of free e-books and luckily, his book „Der Behandler“ was available for free, so I decided to give it a try.
My first book choice in 2024 was taken following an entirely practical approach: the first part of the Brynmor University trilogy by Dominic Gaida had been waiting and smiling at me from my shelf for several weeks and I always postponed it. Until I read that part 2 will come out in February 2024 and so I decided to give it a read to see if it would be worth to wait for the second part – or to even pre-order it. Spoiler: For me personally, it is.
F.T. Lukens has my heart in a tight grip. And it all started with So This Is Ever After, a book I randomly discovered as an Amazon recommendation. When I found a copy in the local bookstore I couldn’t get my hands on it fast enough because the summary had sounded so tempting. And I was hooked. I discovered that there were even more books by F.T. Lukens and started running after an English copy – until there was a sale on English books online and I used the opportunity to order both a copy of In Deeper Waters and Spell Bound. Since then, I had been waiting for the right time to finally read one of those two – and now the time has come and I finally dived into yet another fantastic queer adventure. It took me less than 24 hours to finish the entire book and here’s
Ohaaaa, the excitement. I’m not so much of a comic reader. I read manga, I read graphic novels, but for some reason I’ve never felt really close to most western comics (despite spending my childhood reading Micky Mouse comics). I can’t say why. But I made an exception when I found out that Noah Sebastian of Bad Omens was involved in creating a comic (at this point I must say that I’d also make this exception for Gerard Way’s comics. Yes, I am a victim to nerdy musicians that turn into comic authors / artists). And not just any comic, it’s actually a Bad Omens themed comic featuring Bad Omens as characters. Why would I not want that? To get these comics in Germany, you either have to do a bit more research or order them from the US. Or you have a very nice Santa Clause (aka my soulmate,
Continue readingComic review: Bad Omens „Concrete Jungle“ Issues 1-3
It feels a little weird to start reviewing a book series with part 2, but it’s been a bit too long ago that I read part 1 to be able to write a review. If you haven’t read part 1, you should not read the review of part 2, because the summary includes spoilers for part 1. Maybe if I ever find the time and motivation to re-read part 1, I’ll add a review of that one as well. But for now I’ll just do part 2 because I finished reading this one very recently.
Felix, a young man from rural Austria, moves to Cork for his studies. A big step, as he’s generally a rather shy, insecure young man who is highly influenced by a) his belief in Astrology and the fact that his identity is determined by him being Pisces and b) his childhood in an Austrian village, where people weren’t exactly accepting towards his sexuality. In Cork, he tries to start a new life. He moves in with a girl, Cara, he met online who is just as much (if not even more) into Astrology as he is, and takes up Cultural Studies at the UCC. Right at the beginning, he meets Owen – a guy who seems cold on the outside, but turns out to have a very soft core. In contrast to Felix, Owen deoesn’t believe in Astrology at all. So they start a bet: Felix and Cara will pick dates for Owen and, based on their natal chart, will determine how these dates will end. Owen agrees – and chaos enfolds. … Continue readingBook review: Andreas Dutter – Starlight in our Dreams