Hi everyone! I'm Erika, and I am starting a series where.... well, I want to read the series I own or am in the middle of, and I want to see if I actually finish the series or will it finish me?

The first book in this series is "The Stars are Dying" by Chloe Penaranda.

Well… let’s get into it. I really can’t talk about this in depth without spoilery-ness. I will try to keep super specifics out. You’ve been warned lol  

Review:

Astrea is not a typical main character that I connect with or get excited about reading. Under Hektor’s control for 5 years, she was manipulated. Combine that with having no memory of who she is or who to trust before meeting Hektor — this makes it an interesting read. Astrea is compliant with uncertainty of her true power and identity. 

I was able to see glimpses of who she truly is in the first 25% and throughout the book but we don’t get to stay in those moments long enough. I get frustrated bc despite the ultimate need to figure out who she is and what that means, as a reader I still don’t think we really understand the full gravity of who and what she is. 

I think one of the reasons for this is bc while she may get a flashback (I think its just one… or two?) they weren’t revolutionary. It was clouded bc Astrea is in another position where she has to trust someone else who is also manipulative in their own way. 

It’s frustrating bc it seems as if “everyone” around her knows who she is but they do not tell her until wayyyyyyy later. I am still not fully understanding on what benefit it was to delay telling her about herself. What did the story gain from the delay? When we find out much later (or even some chapter transitions) makes the story feel disjointed and some moments lack significance. 

I was hoping she would continually progress to uncover who she is, continue to tap into her power, and come out on the other side being a badass while still having things to overcome and heal from — instead I feel like we get slightly disjointed scenarios with melodramatic interactions w/Nyte. 

Sometimes something will happen, but instead of addressing it then, it’s put off until later but whats the point of that? I don’t think anything is gained from that. 

I enjoyed Nyte’s character more than most. However after so many times of him asking “do you trust me” / “do you believe that (me)?” — it just feels like another annoyance and manipulation. 

I was conflicted bc here and there interesting things happen in this book but how it is woven together and how we get there …. Something is definitely missing. The characters sometimes talk in a vague manner but the problem is…. It isn’t just Astrea who doesn’t know what’s going on… the reader doesn’t either. Some things are explained but not clear enough for me (imo), to make it matter in the magnitude I think the author is wanting to get it across.. 

All in all. It’s decent. Annoying (sorry not sorry its my review…. I gotta be honest). Frustrating. Interesting. 

I am hopeful and will read the second book bc I am thinking maybe this was a interesting way to set up the story but I hope for more in the second book. 

Have you read the series?

The Night is Defying (Book 2 - Readalong)

I am starting to read the second book: "The Night is Defying" and I have created a public readalong for all to join in on the fun discussion along the way! Feel free to join anytime between now and through 02/28/26 (even if you have already read the book, I'd love to see you there!)

Readalong (on Storygraph): https://app.thestorygraph.com/readalongs/b703213c-8535-40cb-b2da-525350162332?redirect=true

So you want to dive into some horror graphic novels but you don't know where to start? Or you've read some graphic novels and are looking for some more to sink your teeth into? Well here are some that I've personally read and love. And I've thrown in a few that are on my tbr as well.

1. Bad Dreams in the Night--this one takes urban legends and turns them into fun, fresh, beautifully drawn stories.

2. Uzumaki--I started with this Junji Ito manga and it completely sucked me in. This was my first every graphic novel and I will never not recommended it!

3. Beneath The Trees Where Nobody Sees--Think Dexter meets animal crossing. This one is so much fun!

4. The Me You Love In The Dark--A struggling artist rents a haunted house for inspiration...

5. Wytches--A family starts fresh in a new town to get away from the tragedy haunting their daughter. But the wytches are coming...

TBR

Beautiful Darkness--dark fairytale

Saint Catherine--religious horror/possession

Wait Til Helen Comes--sisterhood and creepy ghosts

The Pit--Fresh start, folklore, rural setting

The Autumnal-Small town, fall focused, folk

Fruiting Bodies--Trip gone wrong, nature

Double Walker-- Trip gone wrong, Murder

Nocturnos--a collection of stories set at night

What are some of your favorite graphic novels?

Here is the link for tonight's discussion of The Names!

https://meet.google.com/roa-vsjv-vwp

Hi folks!

The year is almost up, here’s my last bookish roundup! All books by BIPOC authors with BIPOC MCs.

A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna

Cosy, cute, found family, zombie rooster. My top BIPOC read of the year, and I blurbed the proof!

Red City by Marie Lu

Rival alchemists, one Chinese, one Indian. An incredible fantasy world with high stakes and a heart wrenching romance.

(S)kin by Ibi Zoboi

A verse novel about Caribbean fire witches, family secrets, and two teenage girls trying to survive their inner nature.

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones

An incredible indigenous historical vampire book, the writing is dense but impeccable.

Wicked Flavors by Azalea Crowley

An autistic doll collector strikes a  supernatural deal a mysterious antique dealer with a cane (both are also mixed heritage). Absolute carnage ensues.

Dulhaniyaa by Talia Bhatt.

A Desi lesbian romance with a transfemme love interest. Dancing, romance and bonkers Bollywood vibes.

Songs for Ghosts by Clara Kumagai.

A queer Japanese boy finds a century old diary of a woman who sings for ghosts. Beautiful Madam Butterfly retelling.

Katabasis by R.F. Kuang

Two PHD students, one Chinese, travel to academic hell to find their supervisor. It’s basically one long in-joke/nod to academia, which I enjoyed, but definitely not for everyone!

Here to Slay by Radhika Sanghani

Buffy but with sapphic British-Indian demon slayers. SO fun.

Marigold Mind Laundry by Junguen Yun

A bittersweet, melancholy Korean fantasy about a lonely immortal woman opening a laundry to wash away people’s bad memories, finding a new family along the way.

Happy New Year everyone!

Disco x

my bookclub (diverSCIFI your reading) is making a comeback for 2026!! please vote on our first book of the year and i’m so excited to read with you all🧚

book options:

1. a song of legends lost by m. h. ayinde

2. jade city by fonda lee

3. the gilded abyss by rebecca thorne

4. to be taught, if fortunate by becky chambers

tbh i don’t even know which one to vote for!

Hi my friends!

I can't wait for book club tomorrow night at 8pm Eastern! Keep an eye on this space for the link sent tomorrow, and I'll also post it in the Discord.

Time to choose our January book! 'The Team' tier members are encouraged to vote on the month's pick, and the winner will be revealed January 2nd.

Maine Characters by Hannah Orenstein

Every summer, Vivian Levy and Lucy Webster spend a month with their father at his lake house — separately. Raised in New York City, Vivian is an ambitious sommelier with a secret that could derail her future. Lucy grew up in a tiny Maine town, where she now teaches high school English while watching her marriage unravel. They’ve never met. While Lucy envied her half-sister from afar, their father kept Vivian in the dark.

When Vivian arrives at the lake to spread his ashes and sell his cabin, she's shocked to find Lucy there, awaiting his return. In an ideal world, they’d help each other through their grief. Instead, forced to spend the summer together, they fight through a storm of suspicion and hostility to untangle the messy truth about their parents’ pasts. While Lucy is desperate to hold onto the house, Vivian is scrambling after a betrayal. After thirty years apart, is it too late for them to be a family?

Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall

Beth and her gentle, kind husband Frank are happily married, but their relationship relies on the past staying buried. But when Beth’s brother-in-law shoots a dog going after their sheep, Beth doesn’t realize that the gunshot will alter the course of their lives. For the dog belonged to none other than Gabriel Wolfe, the man Beth loved as a teenager—the man who broke her heart years ago. Gabriel has returned to the village with his young son Leo, a boy who reminds Beth very much of her own son, who died in a tragic accident.

As Beth is pulled back into Gabriel’s life, tensions around the village rise and dangerous secrets and jealousies from the past resurface, this time with deadly consequences. Beth is forced to make a choice between the woman she once was, and the woman she has become.

Before I Forget by Tory Henwood Hoen

Call it inertia. Call it a quarter-life crisis. Whatever you call it, Cricket Campbell is stuck. Despite working at a zeitgeist-y wellness company, the twenty-six-year-old feels anything but well. Still adrift after a tragedy that upended her world a decade ago, she has entered early adulthood under the weight of a new burden: her father’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis.

When Cricket’s older sister Nina announces it is time to move Arthur from his beloved Adirondack lake house into a memory-care facility, Cricket has a better idea. In returning home to become her father’s caretaker, she hopes to repair their strained relationship and shake herself out of her perma-funk. But even deeply familiar places can hold surprises.

As Cricket settles back into the family house at Catwood Pond―a place she once loved, but hasn’t visited since she was a teenager―she discovers that her father possesses a rare gift: as he loses his grasp of the past, he is increasingly able to predict the future. Before long, Arthur cements his reputation as an unlikely oracle, but for Cricket, believing in her father’s prophecies might also mean facing the most painful parts of her history. As she begins to remember who she once was, she uncovers a vital truth: the path forward often starts by going back.

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Joan Goodwin has been obsessed with the stars for as long as she can remember. Thoughtful and reserved, Joan is content with her life as a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University and as aunt to her precocious niece, Frances. That is, until she comes across an advertisement seeking the first women scientists to join NASA’s space shuttle program. Suddenly, Joan burns to be one of the few people to go to space.

Selected from a pool of thousands of applicants in the summer of 1980, Joan begins training at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates: Top Gun pilot Hank Redmond and scientist John Griffin, who are kind and easygoing even when the stakes are highest; mission specialist Lydia Danes, who has worked too hard to play nice; warmhearted Donna Fitzgerald, who is navigating her own secrets; and Vanessa Ford, the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer, who can fix any engine and fly any plane.

As the new astronauts become unlikely friends and prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined. In this new light, Joan begins to question everything she thinks she knows about her place in the observable universe.

Then, in December of 1984, on mission STS-LR9, it all changes in an instant.

Hi folks,

It’s finally time! Here’s my list of my favourite queer reads this year. I’ll be doing another post soon with my top BIPOC reads!

Seven Recipes for Revolution by Ryan Rose

Food magic, queer normative, angry revolution, eat the rich!!

This is my top pick from the whole year.

The Chromatic Fantasy by H.A.

Runaway nun becomes a transmasc highwayman, meets another transmasc highwayman, shenanigans

A Gentleman’s Gentleman by TJ Alexander

A transmasc Earl who doesn’t want a valet but gets a handsome valet and regrets everything (but not really)

Tradwife by TC Parker

Queer investigator looks into unsolved murders in a Tradwife community, everyone’s a suspect, fictional true crime

Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove

Monsters in space, kinda queer AI, more found family!

Coffin Moon by Keith Rosson

A brutal vampire revenge thriller. A man and his basics track down an evil queer vampire. I was shocked and horrified and hooked.

The Prospects by KT Hoffman

An MM baseball romance with a transmasc MC. Do I understand baseball? No. Did it make me happy cry? Yes!

The Saint of Heartbreak by Morgan Dante

Judas x Lucifer love story, very sad bois, slowest of slow burns, literally thousands of years

Self Made Boys by Anne-Marie McLemore

The Great Gatsby but they’re both transmasc, the romance, oh the romance

The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting by KJ Charles

A regency MM romance that will make you swoon. They were SO protective of each other!

Do share your favourites in the comments!

Much love,

Disco x