What's the craic, Fools?

In honor of St. Patrick's Day (my namesake, if you didn't happen to know), I've curated a list of some Hibernian reads. I hope however you choose to celebrate, you'll do so in good cheer with beloved kith and kin.

• Irish Fairy Tales and Folklore by W. B. Yeats — trade Zeus and Odin for banshees and leprechauns in these classic tellings of the Emerald Isle's mythology

• The Poems of Seamus Heaney by Seamus Heaney — poetry lovers are spoiled with choice when it comes to Irish bards, but Heaney stands among the very best, and a compilation like this is a great introduction to him

• Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe — one of the greatest pieces of non-fiction writing we've seen this side of the millennium; I've never had anyone bounce off this incredible, challenging book about the Troubles

• Prophet Song by Paul Lynch — this Booker Prize winner is set in a near-future Ireland where an authoritarian government has risen to power and begun to curtail civil rights (let's call it 2026 escapism?)

• The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde — perhaps the wittiest book I've ever read, Wilde's classic morality tale remains evergreen, and if you've never indulged yourself, you simply must

Hello Friends!

SUPER EXCITING NEWS!

I've partnered with bookshop . org to get you all a shopping discount!

Shop my curated list of MUST READ INDIGENOUS books!

Take 15% OFF* these select titles when you enter BSO15 at checkout, valid until April 1, 2026. *Discount off list prices, and excludes Ebooks.

Every purchase on Bookshop.org supports local, independent bookstores. Happy reading!

Shop These Must Read Indigenous Books

Greetings Fools,

March has been a great reading month for me and I wanted to pass on the books I've enjoyed so far.

• Alchemised by SenLinYu. One of the top selling books of 2025, this dark romance / dark fantasy is a bleak adaption of Manacled, a sprawling Harry Potter fan fiction the author wrote several years ago. This book is not for everyone, but I really enjoyed the worldbuilding and subversion of some standard fantasy tropes.

• Heart the Lover by Lily King. I inhaled this book and loved the experience. Two chapters of a woman's live, and the men in them, are examined decades apart. You can read it in an afternoon. It's a moving meditation on growing up, getting hurt, and loving people all the same.

• Role Model by Rachel Reid. Another Heated Rivalry book, and perhaps my favorite so far, as it deals extensively with toxic masculinity and the quest (internally) to overcome it. Relatable.

• Sold by Patricia McCormick. The latest in my banned books series. A difficult subject but accessible read about a young Nepali girl trafficked into India. Video coming soon.

Sapphic Speculative Fiction Expands the Imagination

Many people approach queer romance through familiar frameworks. Modern settings. Recognizable social rules. Families that resemble the structures most of us grew up around. I wrote about this a week or two ago, about looking beyond contemporary romance for great sapphic stories.

Those stories matter. They reflect lived experience and present-day struggles.

Yet some of the most thought-provoking sapphic stories appear in places where the rules look completely different.

Speculative fiction offers writers a simple but radical tool. The ability to ask what happens when the world operates under different assumptions?

What happens when gender does not function the way our societies expect?
What happens when colonial hierarchies collapse or never existed in the first place?
What happens when family and community follow different structures?

Sapphic speculative fiction thrives in these questions.

What counts as speculative fiction?

Speculative fiction serves as an umbrella term for stories that imagine worlds different from our own.

Fantasy explores magic, mythology, and alternate societies.
Science fiction looks at future technology, space exploration, and evolving social systems.
Alternate history reimagines historical timelines.
Dystopian and utopian fiction examine political systems taken to extreme outcomes.
Magical realism blends ordinary life with elements that challenge reality.

All of these genres share a common feature. They build worlds where the assumptions we treat as natural begin to shift.

When those foundations move, storytelling changes.

Reimagining gender systems

Many speculative worlds question the rigid gender frameworks common in contemporary culture.

Some settings include fluid understandings of gender. Others remove the strict gender hierarchy. Some societies organize identity through entirely different categories.

When gender works differently, relationships evolve as well.

Characters express attraction without the scripts that dominate many romance narratives. Partnerships develop around compatibility, trust, or shared goals rather than predetermined roles.

For readers, this shift opens new ways of thinking about identity and connection.

Challenging colonial power structures

Speculative fiction often explores empire, conquest, and resistance.

Many worlds center characters fighting against oppressive systems or rebuilding communities after political collapse. Some stories draw inspiration from Indigenous traditions or non-Western perspectives to imagine societies structured around different values.

Within these settings, sapphic characters frequently appear as leaders, rebels, scholars, or explorers. Their relationships unfold inside larger struggles over power, survival, and cultural memory.

Love does not exist in isolation. It grows alongside questions about justice, resistance, and the future of entire communities.

Rethinking family and community

Another striking feature of speculative fiction involves how stories approach family.

The nuclear family model rarely stands as the only option. Characters often live within chosen families, cooperative communities, traveling crews, or political alliances.

Romantic relationships exist inside these broader networks of care.

Two people falling in love may also share responsibilities to their crew, their village, or their resistance movement. Partnership becomes part of a wider web of loyalty and support.

For many readers, this structure feels both imaginative and deeply familiar.

Common tropes in sapphic speculative fiction

Speculative fiction combines romance with adventure and conflict. Certain narrative patterns recur.

A princess guarded by a loyal warrior or knight who begins to question her duty.
Rival soldiers from opposing factions are forced to work together.
A scholar and a fighter navigating a dangerous quest.
Political enemies are forming uneasy alliances during a rebellion.
Explorers encounter unfamiliar worlds and build trust through survival.

These tropes create tension, intimacy, and emotional growth while the larger story unfolds.

Why these stories expand the imagination

Speculative fiction does more than entertain. It shifts perspective.

When readers step into worlds built on different assumptions, the systems shaping their own lives become visible. Gender roles, political hierarchies, and family structures reveal themselves as historical constructs rather than permanent truths.

Sapphic speculative fiction takes this imaginative shift even further.

Queer women appear not as side characters but as central figures in the story of the world itself. They lead revolutions. Build communities. Explore unknown territories. Fall in love while reshaping the societies around them.

These stories ask readers to imagine something larger than representation.

They ask us to imagine entirely different ways people live together.

An invitation to explore

If you have not spent time with sapphic speculative fiction, consider this an invitation.

Explore fantasy worlds where magic reshapes power.
Read science fiction that questions identity in future societies.
Look for stories where love grows alongside resistance, exploration, and discovery.

These books stretch the imagination in ways that linger long after the final page.

I am especially interested in reading more sapphic speculative fiction this year.

Which books expanded your worldview?
Which stories stayed with you long after you finished them?

Here is a list of books I've read and books on my TBR!

Summary

In Original Sins, Ewing demonstrates that our schools were designed to propagate the idea of white intellectual superiority, to “civilize” Native students and to prepare Black students for menial labor. Education was not an afterthought for the Founding Fathers; it was envisioned by Thomas Jefferson as an institution that would fortify the country’s racial hierarchy. Ewing argues that these dynamics persist in a curriculum that continues to minimize the horrors of American history. The most insidious aspects of this system fall below the radar in the forms of standardized testing, academic tracking, disciplinary policies, and uneven access to resources.

By demonstrating that it’s in the DNA of American schools to serve as an effective and underacknowledged mechanism maintaining inequality in this country today, Ewing makes the case that we need a profound reevaluation of what schools are supposed to do, and for whom. This book will change the way people understand the place we send our children for eight hours a day.

Review
I'm going to keep this review short and sweet and let the learnings talk for themselves. This is necessary reading for all educators. So if you're one, please pick it up ASAP.


What I learned

• Noah Webster, who created The Webster Dictionary wrote it in order to promote uniformity and "purity" in language in the United States as immigration from countries other than England became to increase.

• The beginning of public schooling in America was built upon the idea of encouraging assimilliation and to teach the principles of "Americanism", which is why the Pledge of Allegiance was introduced into the classroom. The hope was that children would then be figures of assimillation in their household and influence the rest of their family.

• Home Economics stemmed from evangelists hoping to "save our social fabric".

"The sin lies not only in the act of violence, but in the creation of the idea that makes the violence morally permissable. I argue that the way Black and Native children have been treated in schools, from the earliest days of this country to the present, is an integral part of the way racial hierarchy is constructed and maintained; that school is a place where thse ideas leave a lifelong mark on our sense of who we are, how we fit into the world, what is normal, and what is just."

• White women educators were often used by the state in order to "tame" and control Black students. This can be especially seen through Lydia Marie Child who taught and wrote how Black people should recieve violence with grace and that retribution should never be an option. She said that the most important thing for a Black child to learn was patience.

• The Carlisle Indian Industrial School opened in 1879 and wasn't closed until 1918. Over 10,000 students were enrolled in this school and were taught by literal military discipline. It's estimated that almost 200 children died here.

  • By 1900, 75% of Native children were enrolled in boarding schools.

    On residential schools:
    " 'Education for exctinction.' Civilization was a code word for the total erasure of Indigenous peoples from the face of the land. Civilization meant genocide."

    

    Photo: from Carlisle Indian Industrial School, 1880
    

• In 1972, Native women were still reporting that they had recieved hysterectomies under duress or without consent. It was discovered that at least a quarter of Native women between the ages 15-45 may have undergone sterilizations. This was also a widespread problem during this time for Black women.

  • In fact, a 2022 report found that 31 states have laws that still permit sterilization without an individual's consent. This largely targets people who are disabled.

• In 1984, a survey of over 1,000 researchers of education and psychology found that 45% of them believed that the differences in Black and White IQ tests were at least partially due to genetic reasons. In 1984!

"We tend to selectively call the beliefs of the past pseudoscience when they make us uncomfortable, rather than confronting the reality that they were once considered orthodox science and relfecting on what that should mean for us now."

• The convict laborer program that started in the 1800s was a death sentence. In Mississippi, not one person involved in the system lived long enough to serve out their ten-year sentence. 1/4 of these prisoners were children.

Hello! I'm so late, I know, I am STRESSED. It's been a struggle lately but I yearn for our book club and want to hear from you! Here's a brief description of the 3 options, vote for which you'd most like to read and/or discuss :) One is a newer release, and two are in honor of the NWSL season!!

Rooting Interest by Cat Disabato

Women's basketball player and a sports journalist caught in a "will they/won't they" that has had people infatuated.

Cleat Cute by Meryl Wilsner

NOT sapphic Heated Rivalry. A young player gets called up to national camp, where she meets one of her idol's. She later gets signed to the same team as her idol, who plays the same position as her, and isntead of feeling the pressure and competition of both wanting to start in that position, she... falls head over heels. AMAZING adhd and autism rep, and a rare miscommunication trope that made me giggle instead of scream.

Hotshot by Clare Lydon

Sport psychologist and the new start player, straight from the NWSL and new to the UK. A really fun at UK women's soccer, with NWSL as an entry point.

click here to access the stream

I'll be live from 10:30am EST to 12:30 pm EST

Here are some March 17th new book releases on my radar (and should be on yours!). First, the ones I've had a chance to read:

I Love you Don't Die by Jade Song 5.0/5 stars

Put this on your TBR if you enjoy books with mental health rep. This book made my best books read in 2025 list. The throuple will likely gain the most attention, but the discussion of depression is what most interested me.

The Plans I Have for You by Lai Sanders 4.25/5 stars

Put this on your TBR if you enjoy thrillers with some depth. We're exploring cancel culture, feminine rage, and anti-Asian hate with unlikable FMCs.

And the four I'm still waiting to get my hands on:

Innamorata by Ava Reid

Why it interests me: Ava Reid is a must-read author for me. This is described as dark and gothic: yes, please.

Sisters in Yellow by Mieko Kawakami

Why it interests me: by the author of Breasts and Eggs, translated from Japanese.

Under Water by Tara Menon

Why it interests me: climate fiction and grief.

A Mask the Color of the Sky by Bassem Khandaqji

Why it interests me: a Palestinian passes for Jewish in order to gain greater access in Israel. This book was written while the author was imprisoned for his political activities.

For the lovers of “Unhinged” books except I’m tired of seeing that word used so much recently on bookstagram so I’m just gonna go with WTF instead

Some of my recent reads. These are not Indigenous, but explore other areas of marginalized identities such as disability, trauma, mental illness, gender, sexuality, class, etc.

Also sorry I’ve been so absent, I’m really struggling with my health!!!! :(

but I will try to commit to more regular posts!

It's time to switch over from You Can't Scare Me to One Day At Horrorland.

One Day At Horrorland is probably my all time favorite from when I was a kid. I was a big amusement park fan and the fact that this park was deadly absolutely terrified me!

WRAP UP

You Can't Scare Me was full of pranks and urban legends. I personally wish the mud monsters were featured more! the build up was great but I needed more time with the creatures!

What was your favorite part?

Your least favorite?

The episode can be found here! I meant to watch it last night but didn't get a chance to! If you watch it, let's talk about it on discord!

KICK OFF

Now it's time to kick off One Day At Horrorland. As stated above, I loved this one as a kid and CANNOT wait to return to this creepy amusement park.

Synopsis: The next ride might be their last. . . . The Morris family got lost trying to find Zoo Gardens Theme Park. But that's okay. They found another amusement park instead. It's called HorrorLand. In HorrorLand there are no crowds. No lines. And the admission is free. It seems like a pretty cool place. But that was before that heart-stopping ride on the deadly Doom Slide. And that terrifying experience in the House of Mirrors. Because there's something weird about the rides in HorrorLand. Something a little too creepy. A little too real . . .

The Episode can be watched here . It is a two parter!

Book recs for this one will drop Sunday March 22nd. We will finish reading by March 29th!

Happy Sunday, mis internet amigxs,

Today I invite you to pour your cafecito, have a seat and buckle in for a LONG introduction before we get to today's releases.

If you've been following me on Threads this week, first of all, sorry. I've been feeling a bit discouraged by many publishing headlines/how BIPOC authors are cast aside by an industry that seemingly doesn't value us and our stories, unless it's convenient for them or creates positive press. It's been wearing me down and robbing me of my creativity and desire to create. This has been a constant in my almost 11 years on social media and it's hard not to let myself grow jaded. However, I am old enough to understand that my happiness on social media is guided by MY hand and not by publishing. I want to take some happiness back not only for myself, but so that I can bring you more joy with my content as well.

For a while now, I've been thinking about leaning into the Textiles part of my account name. I love fashion and I think featuring more of that side of myself would not only enable me to express myself more authentically and creatively on social media, but also allow me to explore Latinx fashion brands and to support them in addition to Latine authors. To that end, I've tentatively started a new series on Tik Tok highlighting my favorite Latine brands on TT shop. I'll also be sharing more of my outfits and make-up in stories and little wrap-ups like this on on Threads this morning.

Many of you found me because of my love of Latine books, so let me be clear, the goal of Bien Leidos hasn't changed, just the method in which I interact and show up on social media. Allowing myself the freedom to fully express who I am and everything I love should help me beat this social media slump I've been feeling for quite a while now. You'll still receive this weekly newsletter of upcoming Latine releases. Bien Leidos book club and Discord is literally part of my DNA, so don't expect any changes on those 2 fronts. I appreciate you being along for the ride and for your support. It means the world to be me; you have no idea.

Regarding this week's releases, there is only 1 Latine releases this week, so I'm going to share all the remaining March Latine releases on my radar with you so you can get ahead on pre-ordering. But before we do that, let's catch up where all the action and conversations happen...

BIEN LEIDOS BOOK CLUB & DISCORD UPDATES

WE HAVE MODS! After a short application process, I have added 5 moderators to help me continue to make our Discord safe and fun space to talk books, life, hobbies, and more. Be on the lookout to improvements and changes to your Discord experience!

Already mentioned on Discord, but I wanted to give you a quick heads up to expect The Intrigue by Silvia Moreno-Garcia as our August book club pick. She mentioned this week on Threads that when she writes outside of horror/fantasy genres, her numbers aren't as strong. I've fallen off my SMG train a bit with everything going on in the world, so I wanted to remind you that The Intrigue releases July 14th. You can pre-order on Bookshop or LibroFM.

We will be voting on upcoming June and July picks, but here are upcoming book club selections so you can get your TBR in order.

FICTION

March: Now I Surrender by Alvaro Enrigue and translated by Natasha Wimmer (we will be chatting with Alvaro on Monday, April 6th in lieu of sprints at 8:00 PM--invite to register will go out soon)

April: The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

May: Asiri and the Amaru by Natalia Hernandez

June: TBD -- will be voting on Discord soon

July: TBD -- will be voting on Discord soon

August: The Intrigue by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

NONFICTION

March - April: Everyone Who Is Gone is Here by Jonathan Blitzer

May - June: Accordien Eulogies by Noe Alvarez

I'll do a formal post updating all our upcoming reads, but wanted you to have the latest list of upcoming reads.

Finally, this is your evergreen reminder that we meet every Monday night on Discord and sprint--whether you're trying to get ahead with your current read or need to clean the house, we're chatting, working, chatting, working, all evening long if you ever want some virtual company.

March 17th Latine Releases

ROMANTASY

Daughter of the Hunt by K. Arsenault Rivera (Audiobook) Retelling of Iphigenia and Artemis myth from Puerto Rican Romantasy author, Rivera. Second book in the Oath of Fire series.

March 24th

MARVEL SERIALIZATION

Enemy of My Enemy: A Daredevil Marvel Crime Novel by Alex Segura: Streets-to-courtroom noir tale of the Punisher on trial for the murder of the Kingpin—with Matt Murdock as his defense attorney. Book two in the Marvel Crime series of thrillers for adult readers.

PICTURE BOOK

Ways Papi Says I Love You by Delia Ruiz : Picture book about the 5 love languages

ROMANCE

The Love Feud by Janine Amesta (Audiobook) second chance romance between 2 exes who pretend to have a feud between their 2 family businesses as a marketing ploy

ROMANCE - MARCH 26th

Home Runner by Millie Perez: Baseball romance featuring grumpy/sunshine and best friends to lovers trope? Yes, please.

CONTEMPORARY FANTASY - MARCH 27th

Bastard of the Alpha by Karina Espinosa: The Damned Return book 1 -- Urban fantasy from Colombia American author.

March 31st

TRANSLATED ECOLOGICAL FICTION

Only A Little While Here by Maria Ospina (Audiobook) Colombian author, Ospina, weaves interrelated animal stories in this truly unique work of ecological fiction from the POV of migratory songbird, orphaned porcupine, two dogs grieving their human companions, and a determined beetle.

POETRY

the light of your body by ire'ne lara silva: Indigenous spiritual poetry collection

xoxo,

Carmen

PS--There is a pretty big March 31st release by a Latina author missing from this list because if you don't want to claim your Latinidad, I'm not here to force an identity on your. Please keep that in mind before commenting on this missing release and any others moving forward.