#amberlough

is there a stitch in your heart as there is in mine?

questionably competent blonde spy and his fabulous paramour who is definitely not madly in love with him (I am normal about them)

I went book thrifting yesterday and picked up all these books! Can't wait to read them!!

YA contemporary

Let's Talk About Love - Claire Kann

Black ace FMC, Japanese-American LI, MF romance

Stay Gold - Tobly McSmith

Trans MMC, cis FMC, MF romance

We Are Okay - Nina LaCour

Sapphic MC

Exploration of grief

Fantasy

The Brilliant Death - Amy Rose Capetta (YA)

Nonbinary MC, genderfluid LI, all latine cast

Book one of a duology

Teo is a mafia don's daughter, who uses her magic to turn her family's enemies into decorative objects. When her father is poisoned, she must travel to the capital disguised as a boy in order to save his life.

Infinity Son - Adam Silvera (YA)

Gay rep

Book one of the Infinity Cycle trilogy

Urban fantasy

Two brothers live in a world filled with specters who violently steal the essence of magical creatures.

The Sunbearer Trials - Aiden Thomas (YA)

Trans boy MC, all latine cast, MM rivals to lovers romance

Book one of The Sunbearer Duology

Every decade, ten semidioses are selected to compete in the Sunbearer Trials, where the loser will be sacrificed to Sol. When Teo is unexpectedly chosen, he will have to compete against more powerful opponents in order to survive.

Amberlough - Lara Elena Donnelly (Adult)

MLM

Book one of The Amberlough Dossier trilogy

Le Carré meets Cabaret in this debut spy thriller as a gay double-agent schemes to protect his smuggler lover during the rise of a fascist government coup

YA Horror

These Fleeting Shadows - Kate Alice Marshall

Sapphic MC

Haunted house story

In order to receive her inheritance, including her ancestral home Harrowstone Hall, Helen must live on the grounds of Harrowstone for one full year or be left with nothing.

Blood Countess - Lana Popović

Sapphic MC

First book of the Lady Slayers series

Toxic lesbian vampires???

Anna works as a scullery maid for the Countess Elizabeth Báthory but is elevated to the position of chambermaid when Elizabeth takes a liking to her. And then the murders

Historical romance

Something Fabulous - Alexis Hall

Demisexual MC, MM romance

Grumpy x sunshine

straight up going to get into spoilers because there is no other way to talk about this. it took me a while to get to Amristice after finishing Amberlough because id heard things get different after the first book. and yeah, it was a different setting, but the characters were still there. the stakes were still high. there was still glam and violence and pain and espionage. and Aristide. still kicking. somewhere under a layer of thick sadness and alcoholism.

Amnesty, however, was a shock? im still in shock. first of all, how slow and dull it had all become. the monotony of lillian's life as an imperfect wife and mother. i hadnt expected any kind of followup to her story after Armistice was frankly unsure of this... slow, beige crawl for the entire first half of the story. it was hard to care about her campaigning and meetings and the future of a city just beginning to thaw. after all the fighting has ended. after aristide and cyril's renunion happened in chapter fucking three. while their painful, stifled gravtitational orbit was tearing me to shreds with every scrap of interaction. the way i had to linger, and reread every single word they said to each other. it was hard to be peeled away from that just to be subjected to another scene about lillian and jinadh's cold marriage.