Dive into Episode Five of Turn the Page: The Indie Book Podcast with your host, Kay! This week, we're celebrating #IndiePride with a roundup of cosy, queer fantasy books. Plus, have your say on the future of the podcast, and discover even more must-read LGBTQ+ indie gems, thanks to recommendations from the Book Lounge Facebook group.
Love queer books by indie authors? Tune in and grow your TBR! Listen Here:Show Notes:
Here are the links included in this episode.
Read the transcript:
Kay M. Weston: Hello, and welcome to episode five of Turn the Page: The Indie Book Podcast.
Before we dig into today's episode, I just wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who tuned into our last episode, where I chatted with Josie Jaffrey about bisexual love triangles, why vampires never go out of style, and shared some of my favourite LGBTQ+ indie books. It was our most listened to episode to date, actually, with five times more lessons than any other episode. So, thank you, thank you so much. That was really a highlight in my otherwise not so great month. A quick reminder also that Turn the Page is available wherever you listen to your podcasts and also YouTube. Just hit subscribe to never miss an episode. As I record this podcast, there's just one week left of June. A month that has had some more downs than ups for me, but the sun is finally shining here in my corner of the UK. It's been absolutely lovely today, I even took a walk through a river, which was a new one. So, I'm determined to think positive and devour a few more books before the month is out. Today's episode is going to run a little differently in that I don't have a guest joining me. So, it will be a shorter episode. I'll be chatting about the books I've read this month, and also, thanks to your help, sharing some more indie LGBTQ+ books I'm looking forward to reading. I also really want to get your feedback on the podcast and find out what you do and don't like, to help me improve the show going forward. So, all of that and more coming up. So, before we jump into the main bit of the episode, and as we're now almost halfway through our first season, I've no idea how that happened, I just wanted to ask for your feedback on the podcast so far and also how you'd like them to go moving forwards. So, when I started the podcast, I was thinking of one episode per month, almost always featuring an indie author guest. But I'm actually wondering if you might prefer me to split the podcast into two episodes per month. So, one shorter episode where I bring you a reading and TBR update and then a separate guest episode. The themes of the two monthly episodes would probably be linked, but it means that instead of one very long episode, there will be two smaller, more digestible episodes. So, let me know what you think about that. I'm also wondering if we should scrap the book highlight of the month segment. I was enjoying it, but now I'm not sure whether it kind of fits the vibe, or whether we should change it so that the highlighted book should be a featured book by the author guest. So, do let me know your thoughts. Basically, I'd really just love your feedback on all aspects of the podcast. Things like the background music and whether it works for you, and also if there are any specific themes, topics or guests that you'd like to hear in future episodes. We do actually have a growing number of indie authors interested in coming along to chat about their books, so that's really great, and I'm really excited. In particular, there's an author that I'm really hoping to chat with soon, and I have my fingers crossed for that one because I'm really excited to read more of their stuff. So, if you have any feedback for me at all, please do let me know. You can write to me via [email protected] or you can reach me on Instagram and X @myendlessshelf. Okay, let's get to the books. If you listened last month, you'll know that my aim through June was to try and fill my indie pride bingo card, and I failed spectacularly. So, basically this is turning into a podcast where I repeatedly tell you how bad I'm doing at the one job I really have as the host of a book recommendation podcast. So, that's that, and we shall persevere regardless. So, this month, I've read a couple of things. I picked up Drop A Line by Tess Carletta, which was a free story for people signed up to her newsletter. It was a fun, sort of, fan fiction take on Kit & Basie, where the author switched up some details and events to create a cute, fun story using the existing characters. I did enjoy this revisit to the world of Kit & Basie, so if you're a fan of the original story, you might like this one, too. After that, I decided to download all of the past issues of the Indie Bites anthology. I was really excited to check them out after speaking to Josie Jaffrey last month, who's one of the co-editors, and I'm happy to say that I'm thoroughly enjoying them. I started with the most recent edition, which is Wishes & Wizards, and have loved it. In particular, the first story, Wizards Unwelcome by Adie Hart really stood out to me. It was a super sweet, funny, cozy fantasy story about a magical jeweller who reluctantly teams up with a very charming wizard to track down a rare magical item, all to spite her wizard ex-boyfriend, who was a complete asshat. So, if you like to read indie, sorry, read e-books, these collections are completely free to download, though I would highly recommend that you drop a donation via the Indie Bites Ko-Fi page, which is then distributed to the authors. It's a really nice way of paying what you can while supporting the indie authors at the same time. You can also get physical copies if you prefer those at cost from Amazon. So, they're literally a few quid per issue. I think they're normally like £3/£4, the new one is about £6, because it's really big, there's a lot of stories in there. So, the Indie Bites anthologies are really fun collections full of some amazing stories. They're perfect if you're a short story fan, but also great for introducing you to some new indie authors you might not have heard of yet. I know there's certainly a few names that are now on my radar that I didn't know about before. So, definitely do go and check those out. I'm going to continue delving through them myself, I'm looking forward to discovering some new favourites. I also took another of Josie Jaffrey's recommendations this month and picked up A Rival Most Vial by R.K. Ashwick. I bloody loved this book! I think I can safely say that I'm in my cosy fantasy era and I'm just eating up books like this, especially when they have really great Dungeons and Dragons vibes. So, A Rival Most Vial follows the story of Ambrose, who is a reclusive half-elf potion maker who's looking forward to the anniversary of his potion shop, when without warning a rival potions shop opens directly opposite across the street and begins to draw big crowds thanks to the charismatic shop owner. Let's just say that things between Ambrose and the new owner, Eli, don't get off to the best start. It includes fisticuffs, and results in a lot of fun goings on, especially with their caring, interfering fellow shopkeepers and friends, when they get involved. I really loved this. It was a queer, cozy fantasy and I would honestly highly recommend it to anyone looking for a feel-good read filled with magic and lovely characters who don't always know what's best for them. I'm really looking forward to reading more from this author. They do have, I think, another series that I'm going to hopefully dig into and a prequel novella or short story to this one. So, I'm hoping to check those out soon. So, yeah, like I said, that's it for this month, but I do have another few days to add maybe another book or two to my indie pride book bingo card, but we shall see. Either way, while I haven't read a lot this month, I have loved everything I've read, which actually means a lot more to me than just numbers anyway. And if you want to fill out an indie pride bingo card, you can grab one from my story highlights on Instagram, you'll find me @myendlessshelf. And do, let me know what indie books you've been reading this month. You can write to me at [email protected]. I'd really love to hear your recommendations. Okay. So, today I also wanted to highlight a few of the indie LGBTQ+ books that I'm looking forward to reading. So, as well as giving you my suggestions, I also sought the help of the lovely readers and authors in one of my favourite Facebook groups, The Book Lounge. So, if you're looking for a really lovely, friendly community of readers and authors do go and check that out. They came back with a bunch of recommendations that I've added to my own TBR and that you can hopefully add to yours. I'm going to run through these fairly quickly, but I will also try to include each one in the podcast show notes if I can. There are a few, so just bear with me on those. One of the top recommendations was The Blood-Born Dragon by J.C. Rycroft. This sounds so cool. It's a sapphic epic fantasy with a badass female MC and found family vibes. So, this was an instant TBR ad for me. It went straight on there, and it sounds really, really fun. I haven't read an epic fantasy for ages, actually. I can't even remember the last one that I read. Gosh, I don't know. It's been a really long time, so it would be nice to read something like that again. The Flying Kite by Jasmine Joachims. I'm really sorry, I can't say that. I'm butchering that surname. It's a contemporary romance. It features art, a celebrity slow-burn romance, and mental health themes. So, big thank you to Mardie for both of those recommendations. A Game of Romance and Ruin by Ruby Roe is already high on my TBR. It's the second book in the Girl Games sapphic fantasy romance series. I read the first one, I mentioned it a few podcasts ago. So, I'm really looking forward to finding out what happens to these characters next. I'm hoping there are more heists and stuff. I'm sure it will be just as steamy as the first one, but that's never a bad thing. I also really want to read Patchwork by Tess Carletta, which is, I think, a sequel to Kit & Basie. So, that'll be nice as well. I am really enjoying those characters and just revisiting them. Another Facebook recommendation was Pulling Strings by Quinn Cameron. This sounds like a dark m/m, urban fantasy romance. The person who recommended it says that it has a snarky, bisexual MC. I don't know about you, but I love that we're seeing more and more bi MCs in fantasy and romance. So that one went on my TBR as well. Again, I haven't read just like a normal contemporary, well, no, this is an urban fantasy romance. Yeah, I've mostly read cosy romantasy lately or cosy fantasy, cosy romance. Oh my gosh, I can't speak. Yeah, so that will be another fun one, I think. Another author that I'm really looking forward to reading is Sebastian Nothwell. I keep hearing their name everywhere. This author has a bunch of fantasy romance novels, but the one that I think I'm going to start with is Fiorenzo. I think I'm saying that right, Fiorenzo, which is an Indieverse Book Awards nominee. It's a historical fantasy, a fantasy of manners romance, which I'm not too sure actually what that means. So, I need to find out by reading this book, and it says that it has hidden secrets, and it sounds like a lot of fun. So, I'm sort of imagining like masquerade balls and, I don't know, things like that. I also want to read some of Rebecca Thorn's books. I know that one of her books, Can't Spell Treason Without Tea, has recently been traditionally published, but I'm actually more interested in a couple of her other indie published books. The Day Death Stopped is the one that I really want to read. It's an urban fantasy about a stage magician in Las Vegas, and what happens when someone casts the powerful spell to stop all death on earth. It has morally gray characters, an asexual MC, and a cool sounding storyline that I really want to dig into and, sort of see where the author takes that. So, I'm looking forward to that one. Back to Facebook, though, and Annie recommended two books that I've not heard of before, by Mariah Stillbrook. In the Pines, which is a dark magic fantasy with Practical Magic vibes, and The Lost Erwain, which is a YA fairytale, both of which feature pansexual MCs. In the Pines, in particular, sounds really dark and gritty so that's the one that's going on my TBR. Let me know which you've chosen for yours, if any. A huge thank you again to everyone from the Book Lounge Facebook group who offered recommendations. I really hope you'll add some of these indie LGBTQ+ books to your TBRs and that you discover some new favourites. If you have any recommendations for me, I'd love to hear them. So, that's it for me this month for this month's episode of Turn the Page: The Indie Book Podcast. Like I said, a bit of a shorter one than usual, but I hope you've enjoyed it. A huge thank you for listening. If you're on Spotify, I've left the links to the Right Here, Write Queer podcast and The Librorians podcast, because I'm still really enjoying those at the moment. I'll be back next month with either one or two episodes, depending on your feedback. So, do let me know your thoughts. Otherwise, stay tuned and hit subscribe to never miss an episode. Until then, happy reading and keep turning the page.
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