A Literary Apothecary

Happy Pride Month to all my blog readers!

I believe that so many aspects of the horror genre are inherently tied to queer identity. Whether it’s through a sympathetic portrayal of a monstrous “other,” like in many works by Clive Barker, or the homoerotic tension between killers, like in Scream, queerness and horror feel like a perfect pair.

I’ve read quite a few horror books with queer characters or protagonists, and I thought I could celebrate this Pride Month by giving you a few recommendations, so that you too can celebrate this month in a spooky style. I’ve categorized them into four broad sections represented by the LGBT acronym, but know that the characters in these books range far beyond those labels. Minor spoilers ahead for each of these books! I’ve got to tell you who ends up in a relationship to talk about the relationships!

Lesbians

This is by far the biggest category I have for queer romances in horror novels. I tried to restrict myself to just four books per category, but it was difficult! There are a lot of lesbians in horror fiction, and so many of those relationships are extremely toxic. I think there’s something that people find unconsciously frightening about women wanting to openly express sexual feelings and desires, and that contributes to the disparity. That’s a whole research topic on its own, but regardless, I’ve got some sapphic recommendations for you.

The Luminous Dead

Synopsis

Gyre Price is a cave diver, or at least she wants to be. The job is extremely dangerous, but dangerous jobs mean large paychecks, and Gyre needs the money. She’s on a mission to get off-planet and track down her mother, whom she lost many years prior. When the opportunity to do a dive comes around, Gyre takes it, assuming that she’ll be mapping mineral deposits with a large, skilled surface team monitoring the readings on her suit and of her environment.

Once she’s deep underground with no way to leave, Gyre discovers she’s been lied to. There is no surface team, just Em. Em knows that Gyre doesn’t have the credentials for this level of dive and faked her way onto the mission, but she doesn’t mind. Gyre’s desperation means she won’t leave, even when Em starts to remotely control the suit to issue drugs, change Gyre’s planned route, or lie about her true motives for the mission.

As Gyre descends deeper, she has to contend with the dangers of the cave, but also the potential danger from the one person who knows where she is.

Gyre and Em have an extremely toxic relationship for most of this novel, but I think it evolves into something that has some compelling layers. Em doesn’t see Gyre as a human being, instead viewing her as a means to get what she wants. So, of course, she’s going to violate Gyre’s autonomy by drugging her for her own good! It obviously doesn’t mean that it’s an acceptable action to take, but as more of Em’s character is revealed, her actions make much more sense. Gyre also isn’t just innocently accepting this part of Em. She’s not afraid to call Em out for some of her more monstrous actions.

It’s a bit of a unique romantic relationship because for the vast majority of the story and through all the building of the relationship, these two characters have no physical contact. Em can control the diving suit that Gyre is wearing and does so a few times to massage her muscles or deliver support like pain medication, but the romantic aspects of the relationship are all mental. It removes some of the sexual tension or physical attraction that is typically present in romance and allows the author to almost fast-track the growth of their romance. Both characters assist each other through their arcs and help each other process their trauma, so they end up in an extremely caring place with one another.

My Darling Dreadful Thing

Synopsis

Roos Beckman’s life has not been easy. She lives with a woman she calls Mama, but who is definitely not her mother. She forces Roos to participate in séances and scam unsuspecting victims by pretending to be possessed by the spirits of their loved ones. Roos has a secret, though. She can become possessed, but only by a single spirit: her loving, lifelong friend and companion, Ruth. Ruth is an ancient spirit drawn to Roos’ blood and willing to do anything to make her happy.

One day, the client at their séances is the wealthy young widow Agnes Knoop, who is seeking connection with her late husband. Agnes knows that Roos is lying about being possessed by Mr. Knoop, but she recognizes a real spirit within her and decides to take her away from her current, abusive life and into Agnes’ crumbling Gothic estate. It turns out Agnes might know more than she is letting on about the spirit world, and she’s thrilled to make a connection with Roos.

Then, someone is murdered.

This is a historical fiction book, but I can’t remember exactly when it’s supposed to take place. I believe it’s around the 1950s or 1960s in the Netherlands, which is a time and place I don’t often see paired together. The book itself is fantastically atmospheric. I would say that it’s a true modern Gothic novel.

The relationship between Agnes and Roos could potentially be problematic due to the power imbalance they have. Roos is quite young, and I believe Agnes is in her mid-to-late thirties; and additionally, Roos is destitute with no other options if Agnes tires of her. I think the book avoids this pitfall by making the relationship between Agnes and Roos more of a mentoring relationship initially. By the time mutual romantic feelings develop, Agnes has been encouraging Roos’ independence and building her confidence, so it doesn’t feel at all like she’s trying to take advantage.

While Roos is subservient, she gains confidence as Agnes gives her room to grow. Roos’ newfound freedom transforms her more servile acts into loving acts as they get closer, and I think it loses some of the illusions of a power dynamic that it previously held. The relationship is definitely codependent on both sides, and a bit obsessive on Roos’, though. I would say that their entire situation reads as more tragic, in the classical sense of the word, than toxic.

Grey Dog

Synopsis

The year is 1901. Ada Byrd is running from a socially unacceptable indiscretion in her past, and there’s no better place to hide than the tiny village of Lowry Bridge. Ada is a spinster, an amateur naturalist, and the new schoolteacher in town. She begins to establish herself, helping her students gain an appreciation for the natural world, putting down roots, and exploring a burgeoning friendship with the wife of the town’s pastor, Agnes.

But then, Ada starts to see things— odd, unnatural things— and hear scratching at her schoolhouse door. A voice whispers to her, and she begins to see a massive grey dog in her dreams. She’s disgusted by these events, but also strangely drawn to the entity. It offers her escape from the social shackles that have always bound her, and Ada is tempted to follow its call into the dark and mysterious woods.

Firstly, I didn’t realize that this was the second book on my list with an Agnes as one of the main characters in a queer relationship. Is Agnes just considered a queer name? This is another historical fiction horror which I adore. It bypasses so many of the issues authors have with writing modern horror, like cell phones or video recordings.

Ada is obviously extremely repressed because of the time period the story takes place in, and because of that she can never quite express her feelings toward Agnes. The lines become very blurry between female friendship and romantic love, and I don’t believe it’s ever quite clear where Agnes lands. She wants to be a good wife, but it’s clear that she’s unhappy with the life she lives as the priest’s wife. Is her interest in Ada simply a genuine friendship, or are there deeper feelings beneath the surface? Ada, on the other hand, experiences a deeply obsessive love toward Ada that I would describe as all-consuming. It’s definitely a toxic dynamic, and that dynamic is stretched to its limit by the climax.

Unfortunately, as much as I liked the relationship in Grey Dog, I do wonder a little bit if the author is falling into the stereotype of “predatory” lesbians preying on good, pious straight women. It’s a prevalent stereotype, and I don’t think it was done intentionally at all! However, I do believe it’s important to be aware of these possibly damaging portrayals of lesbians. It’s a difficult topic because heterosexual people are allowed to be depicted as having toxic relationships, so it should be allowed for queer people as well. But when queer people are already being demonized in everyday life, it’s understandable to only want to lean into positive portrayals of sapphic relationships. I believe the climax of Grey Dog is deeply symbolic, and I would love to hear your opinions if you’ve read it.

The Lamb

Synopsis

Margot and her mother live in a dilapidated house on the edge of the forest, waiting for lost strangers to knock on their door. Mama calls these people strays. She can see and feel their lack of connection with the larger world, and she hungers for them. They’re invited inside, plied with food and tea with a hint of hemlock, then killed and butchered to feed Margot and Mama for a few weeks.

When a woman named Eden appears on their doorstep, Margot can tell she’s not a stray. She has an inner peace, a confidence, and the same want within her as Mama. As Eden worms her way further into the family, there seems to be little room left for Margot, and she begins questioning the way they’ve always lived. The winds change quickly, and Margot finds herself on the outside of a relationship that she never thought she’d lose. As Mama falls further under Eden’s spell, Margot might be the next one who ends up on the chopping block.

This is the first book that I’m suggesting in this article where the queer relationship does not involve the main protagonist. Margot is fairly young, only around eleven years old, so she’s just starting to develop her own ideas about love and romance. She’s observed the loves that her mother has had in the past and how they affected her mentally, and it’s changed the ways that Margot views love. Mama embodies this idea that I see fairly often in horror: cannibalism as a metaphor for love. She doesn’t want to be alone, and she claims she loves all the strays she takes in. So, to always have them with her, she consumes them.

Margot has internalized these ideas, so when she develops some feelings for the only close friend she has, she swallows one of her hairs. She wants to keep the friend with her forever. This might be an early indication of Margot’s same-sex attraction, or it could just be a girl who only knows one, very toxic way to love.

The relationship between Eden and Mama has a lot of the same pitfalls as the others. Mama has this almost obsessive need to please Eden because she’s one of the few people Mama has ever met who is not a stray. Eden knows exactly who she is, and Mama is desperate to feel that, too. Eden, however, is manipulative and territorial. She can tell that Margot isn’t buying into their way of life anymore, and she also doesn’t want to compete with Margot for any of Mama’s time and attention. It’s a difficult dynamic for Margot to navigate! I do love all the metaphorical layers in this story, and the descriptions were fantastic.

(This is a last-minute edit to this section, but I thought further on this and I probably should’ve placed this entry in the bisexual category. While the primary romantic relationships in this book are Sapphic, from both Margot and Eden, Mama is attracted to men and does sleep with them over the course of the story. Apologies!)

Gays

It genuinely surprised me how much rarer gay relationships between two men were in the books I’ve read than lesbians. I’m not sure if it’s a lack of gay representation in the genre or a lack of male representation! I find that most of the thrillers and horror books I’ve read have a female protagonist, no matter the gender of the author, so it does seem more likely that a queer relationship would be sapphic. I had to dig pretty deep to find four books with gay male characters, so I’m recommending some books I didn’t personally love. I hope you enjoy them, even if I didn’t. If you have any recommendations for horror books with gay men as the protagonists, please let me know. Let’s expand this list next year!

A Botanical Daughter

Synopsis

Simon and Gregor are a pair of very unusual gentlemen. Simon prefers to spend his time in a dark, cool basement working on his detailed, story-rich taxidermy creations. Gregor’s interests are more botanical, taking place in the humid greenhouse above. He’s obsessed with cultivating rare, exotic plants and equally as obsessed with catching the attention of the Royal Horticultural Society. His latest acquisition is a brand new species of fungus that appears to show independent intellect, and it inspires Gregor’s desire to create intelligent life from plant matter.

However, Gregor needs a recently deceased corpse to use as substrate, and for that, he needs Simon’s help. Together, the two men complete their parts of the experiment and bring to life Chloe. She’s more than they ever expected, and she’s learning almost quicker than they can keep up. When Chloe’s desires turn darker, are either of them capable of reining in their creation, or will the fungus become the doom of them all?

This is a historical fiction that takes place around the turn of the 20th century, and as such Gregor and Simon have to keep their relationship under wraps. However, both of them are considered very odd men, so they aren’t under too much scrutiny when they move into a massive greenhouse, the botanical garden, together. The relationship between Gregor and Simon is very sweet. They are an established couple who know each other’s emotions and routines to the point where they basically function as an old married couple, bickering included. They care for each other and each other’s work, are tender to each other, and support each other when they know the rest of the world would not.

The main theme of the story revolves around Gregor’s discovery of this fungus, and at first, Simon is vehemently against the creation of Chloe, believing her to be an abomination against nature. He helps Gregor simply out of love and loyalty, not support for the project. As Chloe progresses, it’s revealed that Gregor is trying to create Chloe because he has no family outside of Simon, and his care and dedication towards her is the same care he wishes he could provide a real child. I think it’s a sweet way to progress their relationship, and it adds depth to their reasons for loving Chloe.

A Botanical Daughter also gets bonus representation points because Chloe, the titular daughter, forms a romantic Sapphic relationship with Gregor and Simon’s housekeeper, Jenny.

Mister Magic

Synopsis

Val has been living on a remote farm for nearly thirty years, hiding from something she doesn’t remember. She and her father keep cash and go-bags in their truck, hide their names and faces, and absolutely never watch television. Val enjoys her life as an educator on the farm, but feels that something more is waiting for her outside the farm. When her father dies, three mysterious men show up at his funeral and inform Val that they all used to be on a television show together. With an opening into her past, Val can’t resist going with these men to find out more.

She can’t recall exactly what happened in her past, but the others seem to know more than they’re letting on. They claim that they were part of a group of six children who formed the Circle of Friends on a television show called Mister Magic. The show was taken off the air after a mysterious incident left one of the children dead and the rest scattered. No one can find footage of the show, no one can agree on what Mister Magic looked like, and no one really knows what happened on that fateful night.

While there is a gay character and a gay relationship in Mister Magic, I would be remiss not to mention that it is not very developed. Marcus, I believe, is explicitly a gay man, and his character arc dives deeply into exploring that part of his life and history. Javi is bisexual, and he ends up in a romance with Marcus. The relationship between these two characters felt a bit rushed to me, and that’s likely because the story is told from the perspective of Val. We only get to see the relationship burgeoning here whenever it’s happening in front of Val, so there’s not very much time for the more introspective, emotional conversations that would happen here. All of the characters were childhood friends, though, so they have an established friendship dynamic that made the speed of the progression of the relationship feel a bit more natural.

While the relationship itself isn’t given a ton of focus, it is extremely important to the narrative. Mister Magic is a metaphor for the Mormon church, and the book was written by an ex-Mormon who was deconstructing her relationship with the church. Mister Magic, the figure in the book, is meant to be an omniscient, omnipotent figure who is literally referred to in the text as an angel. This “angel” teaches lessons that fall in line with conservative values, and with that, Marcus’s sexuality is considered something “unclean” that needs to be removed from him. So, his connection with Javi is a direct defiance of the idea that his love is wrong, to colorful, to loud, and is instead a declaration of a need to live as his true, authentic self. As such, I think this is a great representation of a story of queer liberation.

Val is also described as bisexual! So I could’ve included this book in that section as well! I also think I remember everybody kissing everybody near the end? Hell yeah.

Echo

Synopsis

Nick is an avid climber who has recently been in a terrible accident that left his climbing partner, Augustin, dead and Nick permanently disfigured. He claims he doesn’t remember anything that happened up on the mountain, but he remembers more than he says. Nick’s boyfriend Sam’s past makes it difficult for him to accept the idea of Nick being mutilated, but there are bigger problems on the horizon. Nick is acting very strange, telling dark tales of the mountain that nearly killed him, the Maudit. Unexplainable occurences are following him, like a terrorist attack at the hospital that left dozens dead… of hypothermia.

After his release from the hospital, Nick begins losing time, coming back to himself after blackouts he can’t remember. Sam feels strange around Nick, too: a dizzying sensation that makes him feel like he’s staring into the void. Nick believes he brought the mountain down with him, and he may be right. Nick and Sam must return to the Maudit and find a way to help Nick before the mountain swallows him whole.

I’m really scraping the bottom of the barrel here… Just because I really didn’t like this book doesn’t mean you as a reader might not like it. I don’t ever want my reviews stopping anyone from reading something they think they might enjoy. I just feel the need to put the disclaimer out that I did not like this book at all.

Sam and Nick are in an established relationship, which is a dynamic I like, and of course, it’s important to tell this kind of story. If the audience needs to see how a character is changed by a situation, then we need someone who knows who that character was before the incident. The problems started with Sam. I could not stand Sam for the majority of the book because, even though he loves Nick, the first thoughts he has about Nick on page are about how he wants to break up now that an accident has left Nick disfigured. He’s disgusted by the idea of the scars Nick might have, and he only doesn’t end the relationship because he knows it would make him look bad to leave after such a traumatizing incident. It makes their relationship seem very shallow, despite the years that Sam and Nick have been together, and it doesn’t help that Sam is constantly thinking about how hot Nick used to be.

I would also warn that this relationship is toxic, but it’s because of the supernatural influence on their lives. The actual execution of this was a bit confusing, but Nick has no idea what he’s doing when he’s possessed by the Maudit. He has no control over his actions, and he doesn’t remember what he’s done when he “wakes up.” This leads to instances like Nick tying Sam up against his will and one instance where Nick sexually assaults Sam while he’s sleeping. It’s not Nick’s fault, exactly, but it does contribute to the toxicity of the pair. They are also just extremely poor communicators which is a personal pet peeve of mine.

If the premise still sounds interesting to you, maybe give this book a shot. Maybe you have a higher tolerance for the parts of the story that annoy me.

Vervain Hollow

Synopsis

Vervain Hollow, a rambling Gothic mansion hidden in the rural woods, burned to the ground a year ago with Vervain himself still inside. The survivors of the fire told stories of a powerful leader who could grant them unimaginable abilities, but they were labeled cultish fanatics. The members all went their separate ways, except Laura hasn’t been able to move on.

Laura was Vervain’s most loyal and ardent follower, and she’s held onto a guilt from that day that’s made it impossible to move on. Laura is drawn back to Vervain Hollow by rumors that Vervain is still alive, and she would do anything to restore him to his former glory. So, when the opportunity arises to serve him once again, Laura feels like she’s right at home.

Admittedly, this is another entry where the gay characters are side characters, though I would argue that, like Mister Magic, the queer character here has an important role to play in the theme of the story. One of Vervain’s followers is a very handsome young man named Daniel, and I find his part in the cult to be very interesting. Both Laura and Aliyah have small crushes on Daniel, and both only really enter Vervain Hollow at first because of Daniel. Essentially, he is being used as a honeypot to recruit young women, which I like for a character.

Daniel also has a boyfriend who exists off-page for most of the story. While the boyfriend doesn’t make very many on-page appearances, he exists as a tie for Daniel outside of the cult, which makes him dangerous for Vervain. Over time, Vervain becomes more and more demanding of the idea that the cult members should isolate themselves completely, and Daniel’s boyfriend becomes a possible route for him to escape. While Vervain tries to appeal to the cult members, he does still have a doctrine filled with biases and bigotry, and Vervain, in the end, is still a conservative god.

I liked the route Daniel’s character went down, even though his relationship was off-screen. His journey was more about his own identity than the actual romantic connection.

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Check out my advanced review of Vervain Hollow here!

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Bisexuals

I am absolutely sure that I missed some bisexuals when I was going back through my reads! Part of the nature of being bisexual is that some of those characters end up in heterosexual-passing relationships, so as I was looking through my reading history I might’ve only remembered the ultimate endgame couple and missed a character’s statement of their sexuality. I think I’ve rooted out a good number of them, though!

Lucky Day

Synopsis

Vera had a life she loved. She worked as a statistics professor, had a free-spirited girlfriend she adored who complemented her structured worldview, and had been on the verge of publishing a book she had spent years working on about a fraud investigation into the improbably lucky Great Britannica casino. Then, everything falls apart during a global, absurd catastrophe dubbed the Low Probability Event. Events that should have been impossible rage around her, and Vera loses everything she held dear.

In the aftermath of an event that should’ve been impossible, Vera’s life loses all meaning. The idea of even trying to make a life worth living when the universe can rip it all away seems far too risky, but Vera is dragged back into society by Layne, a government agent who is part of a problematic agency called the Low Probability Event Commission. He believes the LPE might be related to happenings at the Great Britannica casino, and he needs her knowledge of the company and statistical insight to figure out what happened and prevent anything like it from ever happening again.

Vera is a bisexual woman, and her sexuality is extremely important to the themes of the story. As stated, Vera is dating a woman named Annie, and it’s a very serious relationship. They live together, and it’s revealed that they’ve even recently gotten engaged. However, Vera is afraid of telling her judgemental mother about this relationship because she feels like she can never be good enough in her eyes. She’s completely right about that. Vera’s mother reacts horrendously to the news, and unfortunately, it leads to both of them being caught outside during the Low Probability event. So not only does Vera feel the shame of not being accepted for her sexuality, she now also feels guilt that revealing it, that demanding her mother acknowledge her reality, caused them to be unprotected during the tragedy.

While the plot itself doesn’t revolve around Vera’s sexuality, it’s integrated so well into the climax and thematic conclusion to the story. She has to make a very difficult choice about whether she’s willing to fight for her existence in a world that tells her she isn’t real. Everyone from her mother, who is a straight woman, to her investigation partner, a gay man, is telling her that bisexuality isn’t real, so she’s fighting so many perspectives for a chance to be heard. It’s such a wonderful portrayal of how it feels to be bisexual. No matter who she ends up with, Vera will always be a bisexual woman and she’ll always have a right to exist as who she really is.

Silver Nitrate

Synopsis

Montserrat is a sound editor for horror movies in 1990s Mexico, though her work has been drying up recently as a young man rises through the ranks of her company and takes her place. Tristán is a middle-aged actor who gave up his role in a very popular soap opera after a car accident which also killed his girlfriend. They’ve been friends since childhood, and both are huge film buffs. Montserrat in particular absolutely loves horror movies, so when Tristán discovers his new neighbor is a director of some cult classics, he makes an introduction. The director, however, has a request. He believes his final movie was cursed, and he needs three people to break that curse and give him his life back.

Tristán and Montserrat are skeptical, but after beginning the ritual they’re being followed by multiple presences, in this world and beyond. Some people would do anything to get their hands on the silver nitrate film reel, including murder.

We’ve got a bit of a rare dynamic where both characters in this relationship are bisexual! Tristán and Montserrat are both complete characters that the reader gets to follow throughout the story. Tristán is a bit flighty, but very charismatic and great at gleaning information from people. Montserrat is bold and unafraid of conflict, but she can be reckless with herself and her relationships. They complement each other well, and I liked that Montserrat was more of the driving force out of the two of them. She is absolutely the boss, no doubt about that.

I also really liked the pre-established relationship Tristán and Montserrat had with each other. They grew up together as childhood friends, and before anything else they remain friends. These characters know each other very well and are able to read each other’s emotions and behaviors. I’m also quite happy to say that I don’t believe this relationship is very toxic at all. Tristán is a bit oblivious about his feelings toward Montserrat, and Montserrat has never told Tristán about her feelings for him because she doesn’t think he’s looking for anything serious, and she doesn’t want to ruin their friendship. So, they do have some poor communication going on, but outside of the “romantic,” they’re excellent communicators. They plan well, execute those plans, and balance each other’s strengths and weaknesses well during the plot. 

The River Has Teeth

Synopsis

Natasha’s sister has gone missing in the forest, and time is ticking on finding her alive. Everyone is a suspect, especially her sister’s boyfriend, a successful local musician. Natasha needs help getting him to confess, so she turns to a mysterious girl who lives at the edge of the woods and is rumored by the other people in town to be a witch.

Della is dealing with her own problems. Her mother has been turned into a monster by the river on their land, imbued with magic that makes her deadly. She’s doing her best to keep her mother contained and find a cure, but she’s becoming more wild by the day and may be finding a way out of her prison. Could she be connected to the missing girls? Della would do anything to protect her mother, even if it means throwing Natasha off the trail of her sister’s attacker.

I might be getting this wrong, but I believe both of these characters are also bisexual. Della may be a lesbian, actually, but Natasha I’m absolutely certain is bisexual. I’m going to confess that I don’t really remember this book very well. I didn’t really enjoy it or the characters, but I can appreciate any author attempting to add more representation into the Young Adult Horror genre. I think it’s done in a bit of a clumsy way with characters just outright stating their sexualities to each other. It does mean that there’s additional representation for lesbians and pansexual young adults, too; I just wish it didn’t feel so abrupt.

Della and Natasha end up in a sapphic relationship in a bit of an enemies-to-friends-to-lovers arc. They had enough chemistry to make their relationship feel real and believable in the first stages of teenage love, but I do think the story exists on a bit too short of a timeline to pull off the storyline they were attempting. There’s a moment where one of the characters is delving too deep into the magic, and the story tries to use their love as an anchor to bring that character back from the edge, but it feels a bit ridiculous to me. They’ve been dating for, like, three days. Still, if young adult horror is your thing, maybe give this one a try.

Play Nice

Synopsis

Clio has moved far, far away from her past, becoming a successful stylist and influencer in Manhattan, but when her mother dies, Clio is drawn back to her childhood home. She had a complicated relationship with her mother, Alex, who lost custody of Clio and her sisters after alleged abuse, but Alex tells a different story. Alex claims the house was possessed by a demon.

Clio’s family wants to sell the house right away, but she thinks she can use the house to create some stylish house-flipping content. More than that, though, Clio is very curious about this haunted house, which she doesn’t remember very well. All she has to supplement her memory is an annotated book her mother wrote about the haunting. As Clio gets started on her renovations, strange occurrences begin to happen around her, and her family shuts down any attempt to discuss the house’s past. Could her mother have been telling the truth this whole time?

Clio is bisexual, and she falls into a romance with a man who was a childhood friend of hers. They aren’t exclusive, though, and at one point in the story, when Clio is at her lowest, she has a sloppy make-out session with one of her influencer girlfriends. This doesn’t really have any consequence for her character, career, or relationship with the main love interest. It doesn’t necessarily have to, but it makes her identity feel a bit shallower. Clio also feels like she can’t tell her dad about her sexuality because he became a little more awkward around her older sister when she came out.

There are some minor queer themes in Play Nice, but they don’t factor into the story very much. I have a full review of this novel up on Goodreads, but I should mention here as well that I was a bit thrown off by the attempted portrayal of homophobia in this story. Minor spoilers here, but Play Nice was trying to do a twist where the father is actually the abusive parent all along, and a piece of evidence to support this is his homophobia. Clio’s sister is a lesbian, and the father is a bit uncomfortable with it. I think the audience is supposed to be shocked and horrified by this, but I don’t think the author put enough effort into making him evil. He never yells at her, berates her, calls her names, disowns her, cuts her off, says any slurs, or tells her that her girlfriends aren’t welcome at dinner, etc. It’s not ideal, but for a lot of queer people, slight awkwardness is a great reaction, so to use this as evidence that the father is an evil, abusive man feels wrong.

Clio is also a very sexual character, and while I don’t think Play Nice slipped into stereotypes, I was a bit cautious to see this portrayal of a bisexual woman as hypersexual. It’s already a stereotype that bisexual people are more likely to cheat on their partners, or that they’re greedy, or that they’re all down for threesomes. I don’t think the author meant anything by it, but it did ping on my radar.

Transgender

A surprising number of characters in this category fall under the umbrella of being nonbinary, which was an interesting statistic to discover. Doubly surprising, there’s a heavy emphasis on nonbinary characters who were assigned female at birth. I’m not necessarily making any grand commentary on trends and representation; I just find it fascinating to see which identities pop up the most during my reading journey.

Morsel

Synopsis

Lou has been distracted and performing terribly at her corporate job recently, and her mother being gravely ill won’t stop her higher-ups from firing her for poor performance. She’s put her entire life into finding stability at a corporate job like this one, and despite annoying, MLM-obsessed coworkers, she’d really like to hold onto that stability.

Lou is given one final chance by her good-guy boss Elias to spend a couple of weeks in the woods of rural Ohio on an easy survey job. It’s exactly the opportunity Lou needs to refocus, but when she and her golden retriever, Ripley, arrive at the site, something feels terribly wrong. There’s something in the Appalachian forest that’s starving, and Lou looks like the perfect prey.

Lou is a nonbinary character, though I’m having such a difficult time remembering what identity she specifically uses. I want to say that she falls somewhere on the agender spectrum, possibly a demigirl, but throughout the novella she is written with she/her pronouns, so that is what I will be using. Morsel is only a novella, not a full novel, so while the theme is explored and it is related to Lou’s gender identity, I believe that the exploration could’ve been a bit deeper. It is still important to the story because part of the reason Lou survives so long in the woods while being hunted is that she doesn’t conform to typical thought patterns. For example, when faced with the option of two homes while running from the monster, Lou chooses the more beaten down of the two because her instincts tell her that something is off with the neater home.

Now, I can’t really go much more into the themes of this novella without completely ruining the story’s twists, and I absolutely do not want to do that. Morsel is an excellent book that I highly recommend, so I’m not going to spoil it at all. However, I can say that part of the theme involves conformity, specifically conservative cisgender, heterosexual-coded conformity, and Lou’s sexuality can be used as shorthand to indicate that she is a nonconformist character. While she’s expected to have a stable job and life, she doesn’t really want that for herself. Lou wants more out of life.

What Moves the Dead (Sworn Soldier Series)

Synopsis

Alex Easton has been a retired soldier for years, but when they receive news that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying from an unknown illness, they race to the House of Usher as if they’re racing into battle. The mansion looms over the countryside and over the murky, thick lake. The townspeople won’t go near it, and they certainly won’t drink or bathe in the water. Even the animals act oddly in the area. The hares don’t spook as they should, instead just staring.

Alex finds Madeline in a worse state than they ever expected, extremely emaciated and pale with fine, white hairs growing from her body. The American doctor, Denton, lets them know it’s only a matter of time until Madeline’s body can no longer support her. Despite her weakness, Alex catches Madeline sleepwalking through the halls, whispering to herself in a dark, strange voice, trying to make her way to the lake that Alex swears they saw pulsing with a strange green glow in the night.

I’m recommending What Moves the Dead, but Alex Easton actually features in a few novellas by T. Kingfisher in the Sworn Soldier series. Currently, there are three novellas: What Moves the Dead, What Feasts at Night, and What Stalks the Deep. While they can be read independently, I would recommend starting at the beginning.

The author has built up quite an in-depth fantasy world for this series, and Alex is such a fascinating part of it. They are from a country called Gallacia where there are seven different sets of pronouns. Some are for children, some are for men or women, and one set is specifically for Sworn Soldiers. They are people who join the Gallacian military and are neither men nor women anymore. They are a soldier first, and they receive the pronouns ka/kan. Alex does also use they/them pronouns when they’re around people who don’t speak Gallacian.

It’s a fascinating bit of world-building to include in this series. Being a sworn soldier gives people that were assigned female at birth more privileges than they would otherwise have in Gallacian society, and I find the metatextual idea of that extremely interesting. Is this a commentary on the fact that those who move away from or disavow femininity are often given privilege under the patriarchy? Or is it a proximity to violence that allows these privileges? I’m not the one who would untangle that, but I think it’s an interesting thing to ponder.

Alex presents mostly masculine, though they no longer bind their breasts, so they’re presenting as androgynous. I liked that choice because often to make a character “androgynous” people just try to make the character look like a pretty boy. Alex is not that. They are also either bisexual or pansexual. They refer to sleeping with women more often than men, I believe, but there has been no clear statement on their sexuality.

You Weren’t Meant to Be Human

Synopsis

Crane is a young, autistic trans man who has chosen to give up his past and autonomy to join a collective of misfits that are hiding a big secret in the back-room of the gas station where they work. A huge swarm of flies and worms, known as the hive, has taken in these wayward souls and given them a makeshift family, in exchange for being fed.

When Crane becomes pregnant by his boyfriend and fellow hive member Levi, his first desire is to abort, but the hive wants this child to be born, no matter the cost. Crane is devastated. He desperately tries to hold onto his identity as pregnancy changes his body and warps his mind to a point where he may never recover.

This whole novel is very deeply intertwined with the transgender identity of the character, and the story only really functions through Crane being trans. While pregnancy horror is not uncommon with cisgender female protagonists, there’s an extra layer of disgust and panic that comes with the fact that the pregnancy is enhancing all of the parts of himself that make Crane the most dysphoric. His breasts grow, his stomach grows, and Crane throughout the pregnancy becomes so depressed that he stops taking his testosterone. By the time the baby is born, he has almost fully detransitioned, which makes him feel such a disconnect with himself and his body. I imagine it’s a unique horror to experience.

Crane is also a gay man, and he is in a long-term, but unhealthy relationship with Levi, another hive member. Their relationship is extremely toxic. Levi doesn’t really care how Crane feels about having sex or during sex, and at best the sex is dubiously consensual. At worst, it’s outright sexual assault. It’s a difficult read, so please be cautious if this is a book you’re interested in reading. I find this a bit thematically interesting, though, because while Levi doesn’t respect Crane’s consent or autonomy, he always respects his pronouns. It’s such an odd point that it almost becomes notable. I don’t really know what that says about Levi as a character.

The Staircase in the Woods

Synopsis

Four estranged childhood best friends, Owen, Lore, Hamish, and Nick, lost their friend Matty under mysterious circumstances twenty years ago. They had been partying in the woods, drinking and doing drugs, when Matty walked up a staircase that led to nowhere and vanished, never to be seen again.

Twenty years later, Nick has discovered another staircase in the woods, dropped into the middle of the forest seemingly leading to nothing. He implores the friends to come back together one more time, to walk up the staircase and find out where Matty has been for all these years. If they can understand what happened to Matty, they might finally be able to find closure. Maybe they can even bring him home.

The reason I put this book into the transgender category is Lore. Lore is genderfluid, though for the vast majority of the book, she uses she/her pronouns. There might be a couple instances of her using they/them, but I can’t remember them. Lore is also pansexual and polyamorous, having multiple partners that she hooks up with regularly.

While Lore is a queer character, it’s not primarily what her story and arc are about. I feel conflicted about this. On one hand, queer people are allowed to exist in stories without their queerness having to be the center of their universe, just like heterosexual characters. However, in a story that focuses deeply on the characters’ traumas, I’m surprised that Lore’s identity doesn’t play more of a role. When she’s faced with criticism during her career as a game developer, it seems like she gets more hate for being a “woman” than anything else. I think I remember a homophobic comment or two. Again, that’s fine. She doesn’t need to go on this whole arc, but I think what I’m trying to say is that Lore would’ve had the exact same thematic journey if she were a heterosexual, cisgender woman, especially because the story only ever really treats her like one.

While she is polyamorous and pansexual, she ends up in a heterosexual, monogamous relationship with another character. That happens for plenty of people, but it just feels like Lore is only representation on the surface without any deeper thought to what those identities might mean to her. Her trauma is about feeling alone, and that almost implies that her polyamory is a result of that trauma. Hence, when she moves through that trauma, she is able to feel satisfied with a single partner. It’s a bit questionable. I like that her identity is so diverse, obviously! I’d love to hear from poly people how you felt about her character.

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With the current political climate of the world, I think it’s more important than ever to celebrate representation and reach for more of it. All of these characters and all of these books are a good thing to have in the world and in the publishing industry as a whole. It would be heartbreaking to me if publishers capitulated to the loudest, meanest voices demanding that queer people go back into the closet, so I hope you don’t allow that to happen. I hope I was able to spark some interest in reading about queer characters or queer narratives.

I’ve critiqued some of these books for their story or their representation, but I believe in the positive force that these books are creating around normalizing queer characters and relationships in my favorite genre of literature.

Happy Pride Month!