#rec lists

Oh pml! yeah they should bring all their smut together and do one big rec list cause, do we need a bunch of lists with the same stuff. No originality, they’re all sheep, and it’s always the moots. They don’t give a shit about anyone outside of their little group.

Hello! Hope you find something you like! This is an updated list of MCs as supernatural hunters!

Completed Works

Hunter: The Reckoning - A Time of Monsters by Paul Wang

Hunter: The Reckoning - The Beast of Glenkildove by William Brown

Works-in-Progress

Bad Ritual by @heart-forge

The Northern Passage by @northern-passage

When Twilight Strikes by @evertidings

Wolfsbane by @wolfsbane-if

Demonology: Incubus by @sonnet009games

Bitter Silver by @lookout-drive-games (kickstarter active)

The Corruptant by @cyn-if

Fellow Traveler by @robotvampire

Possible Hiatus/Abandoned Works

Snakeroot by @cerberus-writes (on hiatus as per itch.io status)

The Spirited: Origins by @yuveim (demo is password-protected on itch.io)

Underbelly by @/underbelly-if (blog seems to be deactivated)

Virtue's End by @virtues-end (last updated october 2024, blog last active in february 2025 -> possible hiatus)

Larkin by @larkin-if (last found demo is from dashingdon, blog was last active in 2024)

Sea of Graves by @/housemiroe (work deleted off of itch.io and tumblr blog deactivated)

Something about this month felt very long, and I don’t know whether that was because my at-home read stayed the same, because American politics is what it is, or whether time just has little meaning anymore. Could very easily just be the last one.

Depending on how you look at it, I either had a good book month or a bad one. I enjoyed most of my reads and got to attend a delightful event with an author and I finished a read-through of my WIP with my editing hat on. Did an accidental bookstore crawl too, with a very patient parent, and my work’s started receiving ARCs for fall/winter releases.

On the downside, while the top books on my list this month rank as “very good”, none of them reached as high as “knock my socks off”, and I did an accidental bookstore crawl and had a big ARC haul and now I’m back to panicking about when I’m going to have the time to read everything. 

I also totally disregarded my statement from last month, that I would be reading a more modern travel memoir next. I finished The Blue Castle while out and about with the very patient parent and the only thing on my phone that hit for me was The Turkish Embassy Letters, which came out in 1763. Good news is, it’s less blatantly racist! But it is still a work of early Orientalism so there’s a whole bunch of stuff about how great and awesome and beautiful Turks are, and conflating of “Turk” and “Muslim”. I was also not expecting homoeroticism? That was a pleasant surprise.

Speaking of Muslims, my top read of the month is The Republic of Memory by Mahmud el Sayed, which is an Arabfuturist generation ship novel that hit my “fracturing city-state” button. Very smart, very well done, and I wish there was a date for the sequel so I’d know when to look forward to. Definitely recommended, as is my next top read, The Blue Castle. That one’s about a woman finally taking charge of her life and changing it for the better, and it’s cozy without being cozy. Lots of people being good to each other (or being told off for being bad), lots of descriptions of nature, a romance that doesn’t hit the modern romance beats, all that kind of thing. I found it very charming and I’m glad I rescued it in May.

My middle-ranked books are largely romance novels, and The Geomagician, which went harder on history and politics and character growth than I’d expected from “Mary Anning hatches a pterodactyl”. I’m looking forward to The Paleomagician, whenever that one’s out. 

First Mage on the Moon probably deserves to be in the middle category too, though it’s lower down for me because I only have limited patience for the sort of hard SF that’s just about building a thing. What saves it is, of course, that the people doing the building are magic users, so they tend to solve problems with things like “more runes” and “elementals” rather than rigorous prototype testing and computers.

This of course brings us to Valet, which is an SF novel written by someone outside of the SF conversation, so it didn’t quite hit for me. (Those rarely do.) I loved a lot of the satire of tech culture, but the plot and characters were a little bland.

I’m currently pausing The Shipwright and the Shroudweaver because, and only because, there’s a new Jo Walton novel and I want to have a review under it by the weekend. I’m very much liking TSatS even though I’m only getting through 20 or so pages a day. It’s epic fantasy with heroes who’ve been through a good two epic fantasy plots before the story even starts, and it’s very rich in its world. I’m looking forward to getting further.

Books hauled this month include three from the bookstore crawl, a discounted copy of The Mummy!, and a book I edited last year, that I received as a thank you gift. In case anyone was wondering.

And now, as always, without more ado, everything I read in June, in order of how glad I am to have read them…

Hello! Here are some IFs with a school/academic setting, various genres included. Also, some of these are not exactly school settings but instead set in university/college so I hope that's alright!

Completed

Raptor Boyfriend: A High School Romance by Rocket Adrift Games

Honor Bound by @hpowellsmith (you get to be a bodyguard for a student at an elite school)

Blackstone Academy for the Magical Arts by Alana Joli Abbot

Changeling by Steamberry Studio

Community College Hero by Eric Moser

Creme de la Creme by @hpowellsmith

Grand Academy for Future Villains by Katherine Nehring

Keeper of the Sun and Moon (and the rest of the Keeper series) by @keeperofthesunandmoon

Known Unknowns by @brendanpatrickhennessy

Monster Prom by Beautiful Glitch

Psy High by Rebecca Slitt

Way Walkers: University by J. Leigh with Mac J Rea

XOXO Droplets by @gb-patch

Royal Affairs by @hpowellsmith

Through The Panels by Yam Harvest Games

Help! I Can't Find My Glasses! by @lacewing-if

Pageant by @cyberpunklesbian

Hanna, We're Going to School by Kastel

Totem Force by @parrotwatcher

Professor of Magical Studies by Stephen Granade

Sixth Grade Detective by Logan Hughes

Works-in-Progress

Anti-Mutant Academy by @antimutantcog

On The Scene by @onthescene-if (no demo yet)

Romantic Comedy of the Damned by @artwoo1

When The Beast Sings by @abeastlysong (no demo yet)

High School Revenge by @high-school-revenge

College Tennis: Origin Story by @collegetennisoriginstory

Berry Thief by @missfruitbud

The Marked by @peonyb

False Grace by @raddixie (possible hiatus, last active in november 2025)

The Muse by @themuse-if

Burning Academia by @burning-academia-if

The Golden Thread by @goldynskies

Lovecraft Academy & The One Chosen by @parrotwatcher (confirmed hiatus)

Powered by @powered-if (confirmed hiatus)

Houkago by @houkago-if

In All My Dreams I Choke on Invisible Smoke by @kanderwund

Painted Devils by @painted-devils-if (possible hiatus)

What Awaits Us by @whatawaitsus (likely abandoned)

Triaina Academy by @leo-interactive-fiction (possible hiatus)

College Heist by @collegeheist (possible hiatus)

A Tale of Heroes by @juantheashura

Severance by @severance-if (no demo yet)

Pactbinder by @pactbinder-if

The In-Between by @dalekowrites

Text Your Life by @pizzawriters

The Ballad of the Young Gods by @childrenofcain-if

With Bruised Blood by @withbruisedblood-if

Our old rec lists are getting revamped! Over the next few weeks, we will be posting updated rec lists derived from the previous ones!

As a reminder - this post is continuously updated so feel free to post more recs in the notes! Additionally, we are a small team so please be kind while informing us in case you notice any mistakes!

Our old rec lists are getting revamped! Over the next few weeks, we will be posting updated rec lists derived from the previous ones!

As a reminder - this post is continuously updated so feel free to post more recs in the notes! Additionally, we are a small team so please be kind while informing us in case you notice any mistakes!

Our old rec lists are getting revamped! Over the next few weeks, we will be posting updated rec lists derived from the previous ones!

As a reminder - this post is continuously updated so feel free to post more recs in the notes! Additionally, we are a small team so please be kind while informing us in case you notice any mistakes!

Our old rec lists are getting revamped! Over the next few weeks, we will be posting updated rec lists derived from the previous ones!

As a reminder - this post is continuously updated so feel free to post more recs in the notes! Additionally, we are a small team so please be kind while informing us in case you notice any mistakes!