So here are a few bookish issues I’m having: I’m trying to finish 6 books in 2 days, one of which I have a six-hour work shift, so the odds aren’t looking good for me, but I will try. The next issue is that I haven’t logged the books for the gay readathon, so I have a lot of that to do. The last issue is that I haven’t looked at my emails for 2 days, aside from checking for wheelchair updates. Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Artsy Reader Girl, who has a new weekly topic.
Goodreads Blurb:
There are many reasons why six girls have ended up living with Sol in a cabin deep in the Kentucky woods. But the girls don’t talk about what has brought them each here or who they were before. The have become sisters and are grateful to have a place to call home.
Iris knows she owes everything to Sol. He has promised to keep them safe from their pasts. All he asks in return is for their loyalty, which Iris freely gives. With her sisters and Sol as her family, she feels happier than she has in a long time. Until a new girl arrives and everything changes. Sol dubs her Rose and the sisters are quick to welcome her.
Iris is drawn Rose, but as they grow closer, Rose has Iris questioning things about this life in the woods. When Sol notices, he challenges Iris to prove her commitment to their family. Her sisters tell her that she should be willing to do anything for the man who saved her. But with each new ask, Iris realizes there is more to Sol – and her sisters – than she knows, and some secret should stay buried deep.
Goodreads Blurb:
Hallie loves romance, but it doesn’t seem to love her back. Her six-time broken heart can attest to that.
So when Hallie has the chance to attend a prestigious academic summer camp, she sees an opportunity not just to better herself, but to reinvent herself. Into a new Hallie who will succeed where the old one failed—in school, friends, and especially love.
First, a fresh start—which means no romance, all summer. If Hallie’s fortitude is immediately tested by Julia, her gorgeous camp roommate with an uncrackable icy shell, then all the better! Reinvention is never easy!
Yet as Hallie and Julia get closer, Hallie’s heart is in more danger than ever. With the prospect of real love on the line, can Hallie trust that New Hallie won’t make the mistakes that she did? Or is Julia looking for someone else—the unfiltered, unaltered, real Hallie?
Goodreads Blurb:
Fresh out of a breakup and new to New York, Finn Hayes does something impulsive: when a guy at a bar mistakes him for an escort, he plays along. The stranger who takes the bait? Gorgeous, in control, and exactly the kind of distraction Finn needs. One unforgettable night, a hundred bucks on the nightstand, and they’ll never see each other again.
Except Jesse Maddox is a senior surgeon at Devon Memorial Hospital—and Finn’s new boss. Now they’re stuck navigating morning rounds, life-and-death surgery and a searing attraction that no amount of clinical detachment can cure. With careers on the line, the smart move is to walk away. But when it comes to each other, Finn and Jesse are finding that the heart doesn’t follow hospital protocol…
Goodreads Blurb:
New York City, 1905.
Investigative journalist (and fierce anti-capitalist) Laurie Tulley is no stranger to the sins rich men commit in the name of profit. He’s made a front-page career out of unearthing the injustices of industry.
But when his editor turns his sights onto wealthy glass industrialist Charles “Chary” Wright, Laurie sees neither injustice nor sensationalism. All the openly queer and once-disowned Fifth Avenue businessman seems to have is a dead brother, a bizarre inheritance of a blueberry farm, and a lotta trauma.
Chary has his secrets, however: the big, life-ending kind. When Laurie comes snooping, he’s determined the reporter won’t find them out, no matter how handsome he is.
Then a worker from the glass factory is murdered. Chary himself is brutally attacked. As Laurie uncovers murder after past murder, he realizes there’s a story to be written after all… so long as he can keep a professional distance.
And when Chary finds himself in the arms of the very man meant to be his ruin, he must confront exactly how far he’ll go for love—and just which ghosts he’s willing to bring forth from the past.
Goodreads Blurb:
Julian used to be a ghost and now he can’t stop seeing them.
Ever since being sacrificed as part of a forbidden ritual, Julian has been able to see and communicate with the spirits of passed brujx. And that would be okay, if it allowed him to be part of his new boyfriend’s community. But Julian’s also seeing other things: shadows in the corner of his eyes, glowing eyes in the dark, and “dark spots” on people – gaping, black gashes that are somehow wrong. He did ask his new magical boyfriend about it, but Yadriel has never heard of anything like it either, and he’s so busy with his new Brujx responsibilities, trying to figure out where all the new malingos are coming from, that Julian hates for his problems to ruin what little time together they have.
Then, a strange new brujx shows up. Ángel, as a nonbinary brujx, can heal the living and release the dead, but more than that, they can also see the same dark spots as Julian. Despite Yadriel’s reservations, Julian eagerly accepts their help. But, Ángel’s ruthless methods feel wrong to Julian, who wants to move away from hurting others.
With the shadows growing darker, and the discovery of a gaping dark spot on his friend Luca, Julian has to decide who he wants to put his trust in, and just how far he’s willing to go to save what is his.
Goodreads Blurb:
The summer before his sophomore year, Horatio Bithersea walks into the university library to find Carson Hamlett, resident golden boy and master magician, cradling his father’s dead body. Life at Elsinore, one of the most prestigious universities in the secretive magical world, simply goes on when the professor’s death is ruled an accident—despite the mysterious circumstances and the bloody scene.
A year later, Horatio is keeping his head down, attempting to graduate without his out-of-control magic harming his classmates. That changes when the ghost of Hamlett’s father appears and places a curse on Horatio and avenge his death by destroying Elsinore and its heart, lest the ghost robs them of their minds, memories, and their very souls.
Elsinore has given Horatio everything—knowledge of his magical ability, an escape from his abusive family, and freedom to pursue his life as a transgender man—and now he’s to be its doom. As the two uncover more of Elsinore’s secrets, Horatio finds himself becoming more and more ensnared in Hamlett’s dark but charismatic web.
The question is not if Horatio will manage to destroy Elsinore. The question is if Hamlett will destroy him first. This twisty, queer, dark academia is a brand-new take on the questions that haunt Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
Goodreads Blurb:
Max has never had time for a relationship – working in the high-stakes world of international diplomacy, the best he can manage is squeezing in one-night stands with “himbos” between his ongoing efforts to win a promotion. But when he tries to multitask by hooking up with a visiting dignitary at a black-tie dinner, it blows up spectacularly in his face and Max is discreetly advised that his personal life is not helping his career ambitions. In this line of work, appearances matter, and Max is losing ground to his long-term rival, happily married ‘family man’ Quentin.
Max decides to beat Quentin at his own game by recruiting a fake boyfriend, Leo, from an actors’ agency. But some visa complications force Max and Leo to make their relationship official by getting married, the stakes are raised higher than Max ever intended. There’s only one thing that could make all this even more complicated – if Max and Leo’s feelings for each other start becoming real . . .
Goodreads Blurb:
Find the receiver. Make it real.
At 5:35pm on September 3rd, 1988, Dallas weatherman Ray “Can You Say Sunshine” Davino makes passing reference to Public Access Afterworld during a rambling monologue, right before he puts a gun to his head on live television and pulls the trigger.
On June 12th, 2009, David Sawyer and Erin Morrison, two lonely, TV-obsessed suburban teens who might be falling in love, gather in Erin’s basement to watch TV’s analog-to-digital transition. But in the static that follows, Erin witnesses surreal broadcasts from a pirate TV network called Public Access Afterworld and their lives are changed forever.
Seventeen years later, Bethany Peters toils through the night shift at megacorp GlobalVill’s bleak Austin campus. A trans content moderator, she spends her evenings reviewing an endless stream of horrific videos. But then a young streamer begins to crop up in her feed calling out to Public Access Afterworld.
But what is Public Access Afterworld?
Goodreads Blurb:
Eighteen-year-old August is trying to navigate life after the sudden death of his boyfriend left him devastated, aimless, and feeling guilty. Years after the tragic accident, August mistakenly stumbles into a world beyond his own—the Underworld. Unlike his own gray existence, the underworld is a lavish extravagant place, full of mystery and a flurry of charismatic gods, all curious about August’s arrival in their world. Realizing right away the opportunity in front of him, August goes searching for his lost love, guided by Cary, the smoldering, broody ferrier of souls. But the more time August spends down below, the more his intentions begin to blur. Is he visiting this realm to reunite with his soulmate? Or is he desperately, inexplicably, intoxicatingly drawn to Cary? With his own world in pieces and a dangerously seductive realm promising him a new existence at a heavy cost, August must a life with grief or a love that might destroy him.
Goodreads Blurb:
Rory is academic royalty.
As the heir to the most successful tutoring company in the world, he can be nothing less than perfect if he wants to gain his parents’ approval. So it’s simple. Rory studies harder than anyone else. He does not make mistakes. And he never loses.
Except to Luca Melendez. The infuriatingly good-looking hockey player who wins every academic competition without even trying.
When Rory has a very public meltdown, throwing a smoothie at Luca and shattering his own public image in the process – it feels like one more thing Luca ruined.
To salvage his reputation, Rory has his sights set on winning the most cutthroat academic camp in the country, BRAIN. There is nothing standing between Rory and the final medal.
Until, Luca Melendez shows up.
This means war and Rory has the perfect Make Luca fall in love with him.
And then break Luca’s heart right before the final competition.